[77] “Thing incomprehensible! History shows us the Arabs as the least exacting, the least cruel of all conquerors. They have shown the example of those peaceful conquests, which we recommend to the governments of the nineteenth century. By the capitulations which the earliest Arab chiefs granted to the Christians of Spain, these last retained the free exercise of their religion. This toleration, scrupulously respected, facilitated and rendered more prompt the reconciliation of the two people. Ocba, Gehrarben-Muhamad, Youzef, have left, in the Spanish chronicles, written even by the Christians, the most touching instances of tolerance, justice, and magnanimity.”—La France en Afrique, p. 17.
[78] This diplomatist was subsequently removed, on the application of Ferdinand to the Emperor Alexander, through Capo D’Istrias. The king wrote these words: “I, who appear to be King of Spain, am only the servant (criado) of the Bailé de Tatischeff.” Capo D’Istrias, to whom the scrap of paper was brought, and who was then passing through Italy, promised that, fifteen days after his arrival at St. Petersburg, the obnoxious ambassador should be removed. He kept his word. Russia lost nothing. The work had been accomplished, and Ugarte was left behind. The Bailé having proved himself so successful with a king, was then sent to try his hand on an emperor.
This fact I have had from the agent employed by Ferdinand. It is curious that Spain should have got rid of a Russian ambassador, and kicked out an English one. It is curious that it should have been for the same cause. In the first case, however, the evil was already done. What service might not Spain render to Europe, if, moved by the tortures she has undergone, and by the happy consequences which she has experienced from having one intriguer the less at Madrid, she should withdraw her own from foreign courts, and thus be herself relieved from the others!
CHAPTER IX.
EXCURSION ROUND THE STRAITS.
Cadiz, Oct. 24th.
In the land of the Hindoos, far away from the ocean, there is a building called the Pearl Mosque. The Spaniards call their Cadiz, the City of Silver. But Cadiz is the daughter, not of the land but, of the sea, and is the pearl of cities.
The impression of brightness I have received in Cadiz does not, however, arise from the lustre of these silvery turrets, but from a swarm of women covering the floor of the cathedral with a mass of silk blonde tresses, and eyes, shining, fluttering, gleaming—and all is black. I had passed from the Ommiades to the Abassides. In that monumental uniformity there are a fascination and a grandeur, which scatter to the wind our freaks of fashion. How contemptible the devices of our continual change, when contrasted with the things discovered, used, and preserved by a whole people!
If I venture on this track so often beaten, and re-attempt the description of things so often described, yet never conveyed, my excuse is, that I have adjusted my eye and observation to a more distant point, and have looked to making what I saw, intelligible to a future time. To this I have been led by the fact that changes are in progress. The day may come when, having exhausted variety without finding contentment, this people may try to go back, and endeavour with pain to regain what now, in heedlessness, they are casting away: then will it be interesting to know what, while Spain still retained manners of her own, struck the passing stranger.
The milliners of Paris, it is a common saying, have accomplished[79] what the arms of Napoleon were unable to achieve,—as if female vanity had broken down national character and taste, which masculine sense struggled to uphold. Alas! for the dignity of manhood;—it is the tailors, not the milliners of Paris, who have triumphed where German insolence, Bourbon fraud, and imperial victories alike had failed.
Spain lives only in the peasantry, and in that sex which an Eastern sage has said is “the first to hope and the last to despair.” The men we see walking about the streets are the ordinary persons inhabiting European towns. You are reminded that you are in a country which is itself only when you see the women.