These beggars are licensed by the government, which must reap a goodly revenue from the disgraceful crowd, as they are numerous, and therefore they pursue their avocation in the most open manner. They will frequently follow the traveller a half-mile, especially should they find him to be ignorant of that magic formula of dismissal which is known to all Spaniards:
Pardon, for God’s sake, Brother!
This appeal is constantly on the lip of every Spanish lady. She utters it swiftly, without so much as a glance, a dozen times of a morning on her way to church, as a dozen gaunt, dirty hands are thrust in her face as she passes; and hearing it, the most persistent fellow of them all is at once silenced, and falls back.
Coming in from their kennel-homes among the ruins and the holes in the hills outside, it is the custom to make an early morning tour of the city before they take up their stations for the day at the various church and hotel doors. Each seems to be provided with “green pudding,” in his garlic pot, and he eats as he goes along, and prays as he eats, stopping in front of the great oval patio or court gates of iron lattice, which guard the mansions of the rich.
At these patio doors he makes a prodigious racket, shaking the iron rods furiously, and all the while muttering his prayers, until some one of the family appears at a gallery window. Then instantly the mutter becomes a whine, a pitiful tale is wailed forth, and alms are dolefully implored “for the love of God.” But although such mottoes as “Poverty is no Crime” are very often painted on the walls of their fine houses, the probability is that the unmoved Señorita will murmur a swift “Pardon, for God’s sake, Brother!” and retire, to soon appear again to silence another of the fraternity with the same potent formula.
However, each of the countless horde is sure to gather in centimes sufficient for the day’s cigarettes and garlic, and, in the long run, to support life to a good old age.
THE Spaniards are a nation of dancers and singers. Every Spanish child seems born with the steps, gestures, snappings and clappings of the national fandango dance, at the ends of his fingers and toes. A guitar is the universal possession, and every owner is a fine player. The solitary horseman, the traveller by rail, takes along his guitar; and in car, or at cross-roads, he is sure of dancers at the first thrilling twang. There is always a merry youth and maiden aboard ready to make acquaintance in a dance, and anywhere the whole household will troop from the cottage, the plowman will leave his team in the furrow, and the laborer drop his hoe, for a half-hour’s joyous “footing o’t.”
One of the interesting sights of Toledo is the great city fountain on Street St. Isabel, near the cathedral. It is a good place to study donkeys and their drivers, and the lower classes of the populace. The water, deliciously sweet and cool, is brought from the mountains by the old Moorish-built water-ways, and flows by faucet. There is no public system of delivery, consequently a good business falls into the hands of private water-carriers. These supply families at a franc a month. The poorer households go to and fro with their own water-jars as need calls, carrying them on their heads. They often wear a cushioned ring, fitting the head, to render the carrying of the jar an easier matter.
A picturesque article of dress among Spanish men, is the national sash, a broad woollen some four yards in length, of gay colorings. This is wound three or four times around the waist, its fringed end tucked in to hang floating, and the inevitable broad knife thrust within its folds, which also hold the daily supply of tobacco. A common sight is the sudden stop on the street, a lighting of a fresh cigarette, a loosening of the loosened sash, a twitch of the short breeches, and then a tight, snug wind-up, when the lounger moves on again.