IN Cordova, a sudden stir in the street often betokens “The Return from the Chase”—not, however, the picturesque scattering of the “meet” after an English fox-hunt, but the arrival home of some solitary mule and rider, with a pack of harriers. The huntsman has been riding across country all by himself, his cigarette, and his dogs, to ferret out some luckless colony of hares in a distant olive orchard. The rabbits are very mischievous in the young olive plantations, and the huntsman and his pack are warmly welcomed by the olive-growers. These Spanish harriers are a keen-nosed race of dogs; quite as good hunters as the English fox-hounds. Nearly every breed of dog is found in Spain, except, perhaps, the Newfoundland. In most Spanish cities the dogs are one of the early morning sights as they gather in snarling, quarrelsome packs of from fifteen to twenty, before the doors of the hotels and restaurants, to devour the daily kitchen refuse—a very disagreeable spectacle; but there seems to be no other street-cleaning machinery.
The chief streets of a Spanish town are usually thronged with fruit-sellers, especially the Plaza, where the great portion of the population seems to congregate to lounge and sleep in the sun all day long, naturally waking now and then to crave an orange, a palmete, or a pomegranate—“regular meals” appearing to be a regulation of daily life quite unknown. These fruit sellers are girls, for the most part, though sometimes there may be seen some old man who has not been able to procure a beggar’s license. Oranges are always plenty. Palmetes, a tender, bulbous growth, half vegetable, half fruit, are brought into the city in January, and are consumed largely by the peasants and beggars, who strip them into sections, chewing them for their rather insipid sweetish juices.
The Spanish peasant cooks out-of-doors, like a gypsy. Often his kettle is his only “stove furniture;” in it he stews, boils, fries and bakes. Even in January, the cold month in Spain, he makes no change in his housekeeping. The peasants’ daily bread is hardly bread at all, but rather a pudding, a batter of coarse flour, water and garlic, stirred, and boiled, and half baked in his kettle, and then pressed into a jar. This “garlic pot” he always carries about with him in his shoulder bag. In the patio apartments of some of the ancient, Moorish-built houses there are quaint arches with stone ovens, which are sometimes utilized for cookery.
A DRUNKEN Spaniard is rarely seen, although the “wine-skin” keeps constant company with the “garlic pot” in the peasant’s bag. The heavy red wine of the country is used as freely as water, being sold for four cents a wine-skin; this wine-skin holds a quart or more. Not to drink with the skin held at arms-length, is to be not Spanish, but French—their generic name for a foreigner or stranger. Fine and delicate wines are made in the neighborhood of some of the great vineyards, but they are chiefly for exportation.
There is a popular saying, that Spanish ladies dress their hair but once a week. This is on Sunday, when they meet on one another’s balconies to chat and gossip while their maids arrange their coiffures, each maid taking care that she pat, and pull, and puff until her mistress be taller than her friends, for height is a Spanish requisite for beauty and style. Certain it is that the tourist sometimes looks up and beholds this leisurely out-of-doors toilet-making. The glossy black hair is universal, a fair-haired woman becoming an occasion for persistent stares, although Murillo, in his time, seems to have found plenty of red-haired Spanish blondes to paint. Happy is the gazing traveller if he also may listen; for the music of a high-bred Spanish woman’s voice is remarkable, holding in its flow, sometimes, the tones of a guitar, and the liquid sounds of dropping water.
Spanish urchins are as noted for never combing their hair as Italian boys are for never washing their faces. The change of the yellow handkerchief dotted with big white eyes, which they knot about their heads and wear day and night, seems to be the only attention they think needful ever to bestow upon their raven locks.
That Spanish peasant is very poor and unthrifty indeed, who does not contrive to own a foot or two of land upon which to grow a choice Malaga grapevine. Owning the vines, he erects an out-of-door cellar to preserve his crop—a simple arbor, upon the slats of which he suspends his clusters for winter use. Hanging all winter in the current of wind, the bunches of pale-green grapes may be taken down as late as February, and still be found as plump and delicious and as full of flavor as when hung. It is in this simple manner that they are preserved for the holiday markets.