But even apart from its churches, convents, and colleges, Salamanca would still remain notable by reason of its palaces alone. First among these is the Casa de las Conchas,—spangled all over with the great stone scallop shells from which it derives its name. It is even more striking and original than its larger and lordlier rival, the famous Palacio de Monterey; and I owe it a special acknowledgment for the liberty which I have taken with it in pirating its façade to serve as the cover of this volume.
The Castilian and Leonese casas have much in{168} common with the typical Florentine palaces; and even their cousins of Aragon only differ from them in so far as they are brick instead of stone. Towards the street they present a square and solemn façade, plain or heavily rusticated, and pierced with but few windows, which are always stoutly barred. The entrance is large and plain, and generally arched over with enormously deep voussoirs, which have a very imposing effect. Within is an open patio surrounded by a double arcade. A fine staircase in a recess gives access to the upper tier; and the rooms which are ranged around the gallery all open direct into the air. The centre of the patio is occupied by a well or fountain, and is often filled with flowers. The type seems exceptionally suitable to a semi-tropical country; yet modern builders will have none of it; and, though common in all provincial capitals, it is nowhere to be met with in Madrid.
In a second and smaller type of house the great entrance doorway occupies practically the whole of the ground-floor frontage. Obviously it was generally entered on horseback, and the hall within (like that of a village posada) served as antechamber both to the living rooms above and to the stables behind. The family lived on the first and{169} second floors, while the third was originally a belvedere. But nowadays the latter has been enclosed and the ground floor generally converted into a shop.
It is one of the penalties of sketching in a crowded city that everybody who has no immediate occupation of his own becomes consumingly interested in yours. There is but one spot in Salamanca where one is quite secure from surveillance, and that is opposite the porch of San Martin, perhaps the most frequented corner in the town. Here, balanced gingerly upon a narrow ledge, you overlook the heads of the bystanders, and even the most agile urchin can find no foothold in your rear.
Yet the immunity is hardly worth winning. At best it is very uncomfortable; and if you submit to your heckling, the entertainment is not all on one side. At the bridge head it even secured me the offer of a commission. The Boniface of the little wine-shop was urgent with me to reproduce my sketch enlarged upon the front of his bar. My recompense was to comprise full board and lodging during the operation,—and that would have been no trifle. But he must have had considerable faith in the covering capacity of water colours to pit a{170} little twenty-pan paint-box against fifty square feet of deal boards.