The crown of this costume is the mantilla. It belongs to the class of vestures intended to screen, not to parade: it nevertheless enhances and sets off beyond every device and contrivance of mere display. The ancient form, the manta, was within the century known in sequestered places. It is in common use in the transatlantic possessions or offshoots of Spain: it lingers still on the verge of the Peninsula at Tarifa, where I have mentioned it.
The manta[80] is a stripe of black taffeta or serge, two yards long by one broad. Three cords are run through it lengthways at one edge; by these it is bound and puckered round the waist: it is then turned up like a petticoat over the head and shoulders, and is gathered in the hand upon the breast. In front there is a lappet of about six inches’ width, lined with crimson silk, which comes round the face. Encasing the person from the waist upwards, it is an admirable protection against wind, rain, and sun. One eye only—generally the left one—is exposed. Thus Solomon sings:
“With thy one eye thou hast bewitched me.”
Backed by such authority, I may venture to say that it is not without its ostensible beauties as well as its revelations of grace and attractions of concealment. The Turkish yashmac conceals the face; the farigee shrouds the person: the manta serves at once for both purposes. The faldett of the women of Malta is of the same description. The petticoat being also black, the dress appears all of one piece, as originally it was. The name of the costume is saya-manta.
The mantilla is the manta narrowed, loosened from the waist and fastened on the head. There are two kinds.[81] The mantilla de tiro is that worn by the peasantry: it is of black serge trimmed with velvet. It is worn high on the head, and round upon the face. The second, the costume of the city, is the mantilla de blonda: it is of silk, rich and stiff; plain or flowered, and differs from the other by having blonde to the depth of twelve inches all round. The blonde is deeper in front, so as to serve as a veil. The edge of the silk is fastened to the comb at the crown of the head; the silk falls behind, the lace before, unless gathered up. It is secured in windy weather against the cheek by the tip of the fan. The mantilla, when dropped on the shoulders, degenerates into a veil joined to an unmeaning scarf or a tippet; yet this is now become the fashion. The whole is sometimes of lace—when it is only a bagged hood.
The mantilla is not spoken of as a piece of dress that fits well or ill. Such a lady, they say, wears her mantilla well, just as if they were speaking of a ship carrying her colours. The port of a Spanish lady is, indeed, like the bearing of a ship. The mantillas, reversing the effect of our costume—which is to impress the wearer with the feelings of a block—gives at once freedom and dexterity. The mantilla, fan, castanet, guitar and dance—which last is not here the business of the legs alone—keep the arms always busy. The head is disencumbered of bonnet, cap, ribands and curls; hence that grace of the Spanish women, which all recognize and none can describe, for mere form or feature does not explain it.
I need not say that beneath a mantilla there are no curls; nor need I add, that where neither bonnets nor caps are worn, and the head is always exposed, the hair is well kept. A Spanish lady remarked to me, that what struck her principally when she travelled in other countries, was the want of cleanliness in the women’s hair. It is always exposed, as hair was intended to be, to the air and wind, and it is every day in water, for they wet it before using the comb.
The hair is dressed in two styles. One is called sarrano. The only explanation I could get for this name was, that sierra means mountain, and that the mountaineers dress in this way. But neither does it seem to be the style of the Sierra, nor does the word sarrano mean mountain: there is, indeed, no such word in Spanish.[82]
Sar and sarrano were Phœnician forms of Tyre[83] and Tyrian. The Tyrian, not the Greek or Roman, pronunciation would prevail in Spain and Africa. Columella, a Spaniard, says, “Sarranam violam;” Silvius Italicus has “Sarranum muricem;” Ennius, “Sarranum ostrum;” consequently, “Sarrano head-dress” means neither more nor less than “Tyrian head-dress.”[84] Such an etymology is in no ways far-fetched. It is quite natural to look for a Tyrian mode of dressing the hair, under a covering of the head, described by Solomon, in a city built by the Tyrians, and from which you can perceive another city, which to this day bears the name of Sidon.
Saint Augustine quotes it as an instance of the retentive memory of the people of his age, that the rustics in the neighbourhood of Carthage, when asked who and what they were, answered, “We are from Canaan;” whence they had come one thousand and ninety years before, and after the name of Canaan had long been obliterated. Here is a head-dress with the name of Tyre,[85] more than double that interval of years.