WHAT THEY ALL FEAR—THE BEGGAR’S CURSE.
MORE! SEÑORITA. MORE!
SOUTHERN Spain is so mountainous that herding naturally becomes the occupation of the peasantry, rather than tillage. Great flocks of goats browse and frolic among the rocky heights and along the steep ravines where it seems hardly possible for the tiny hoofs to keep foothold; and the traveller often beholds far above him dozens of these bounding creatures, leaping down the cliffs to drink at the valley streams. They are generally followed, at the same fearless pace, by a short-frocked shepherdess as sure-footed as they. Her rough, hempen-soled shoe, however, yields her excellent support, being flexible and not slippery, like boot-leather.
Along the narrow mountain highways, the traveller frequently comes upon little booths built in among the cliffy recesses, like quaint pantries hewn in the rock. Melons, and grapes, and garlic, and oranges in nets, hang against the wall, and the heavy red wine of the country is for sale by the glass, also goat’s milk.
Farming processes go on at all times of year in Spain. Subsistence is a matter comparatively independent of care and calculation. Crops may be sown at any time. The whole year round the peasant lights no fire in his earthen, bowl-like hut of one room. He cooks outside his door, in gypsy fashion. His furniture consists of some rude wool mattresses, a table, and some stools with low backs. A few bowls, plates, and knives and forks suffice to set his table. A kettle and a garlic pot comprise his cooking utensils. Frequently he and his family are to be seen at meals, leaning their elbows on the table in company, and sipping like so many cats, from the huge platter of hot garlic soup, crumbling their slices of coarse black bread, as they need. In contrast with this crude bread of the common people, are the long, fine, sweet white loaves to be had at the Seville bakeries—a bread so cake-like, so delicious, as to require no butter, even with Americans accustomed to the use of butter with every meal. The salted butter of American creameries, made to keep for months, is wholly unknown in Spain, Spanish butter being a soft mass, and always eaten unsalted. But with his strong garlic and his fine fragrant tobacco, the Spaniard hardly demands or appreciates the refinements of food, and his tobacco is of the best, coming from the Spanish plantations in Cuba, and is very cheap, as it enters the country free of duties.
Sunny Spain: Sewing and Reaping in Winter
HOUSEWORK, among the sun-basking, siesta-loving Spaniards, seems to be not the formidable, systematic matter that it is made in America. Washing, as well as cookery, is of simplest form. “Blue Monday” does not follow Sunday in Spain. A necessary garment is washed when needed; superfluous ones are allowed to accumulate until it is worth while to give a day to the task. Then, among the peasants, “the washing” is carried to a mountain torrent, and the garments are rubbed and rinsed in the swift waters, while picnic fun makes the labor agreeable, as often several families wash in company. Among townspeople, the work is done in great stone tubs in the patio, or in the water-cellar. There the goods, repeatedly wetted, are laid upon a big stone table and beaten with flat wooden paddles. The snowy array of the American clothes-line is seldom seen. The washed garments are hung upon the table edges, and held fast by stones or other weights until dried.