Another amusing sight is the picturesque beggar who seems at first glance to be hanging in effigy against the cathedral walls, so motionless will some of these fellows stand, hat slouched over the face, the brass government “license” labelling the breast, a hand extended, and, in many cases, a crest worn prominently on the ragged garments, to show that the wearer is a proud descendant of some old grandee family. To address this crested beggar by any other title than Caballero (gentleman) is a deadly insult.
AMONG the many small sights of the Plaza about Christmas time, are the sellers of zambombas, or Devil’s Fiddles. This toy, which the stranger sometime takes for a receptacle of sweet drinks to be imbibed through a hollow cane, is a favorite plaything with Spanish children. A skin is stretched over a bottomless jar; into this is fastened a stout length of sugar-cane, and lo! a zambomba. Its urchin-owner spits on his palms, rubs them smartly up and down the ridgy cane, when the skin-drum reverberates delightfully.
The fruit markets are of a primitive sort. The peasant fills his donkey-panniers with grapes, garlic, melons straw-cased and straw-handled, whatever he has ripe, and starts for town. Reaching the Plaza, in the shade of the cathedral, he spreads his cloak, rolling a rim. On this huge woollen plate he arranges his fruit, weighing it out as customers demand.
From the old Moorish casements, the traveller looks down on the most rudimentary sort of life. He sees no labor-saving machinery. Instead of huge vans loaded with compact hay bales, he beholds the donkey hay-train. The farmer binds a mountain of loose hay on each of his donkeys, lashes them together, and with a neighbor to help beat the train along, starts for market. These trains may be seen any day crooking about among the steep mountain-ways.
The student of folk-life notes the shoemakers on the Plaza at work in the open air. Formerly the sandal was universally worn, with its sole of knotted hemp, and its canvas brought up over the toe, at which point was fastened a pair of ribbons about four feet long, and these ribbons each province had its own fashion of lacing and tying. But now the conventional footgear of Paris is common, and one buys boots of the fine glossy Cordovan leather for a trifle.
The proprietors of the neighboring vineyards visit the wine shops weekly to bring full wine-skins, and take such as are emptied. These skins, often with their wool unsheared, are cured by remaining several weeks filled with wine-oil, and all seams are coated with pitch to prevent leakage. The wholesale skins hold about eight gallons, being usually those of well-grown animals. They are stoutly sewn, tied at each knee, and also at the neck, whence the wine is decanted into smaller skins by means of a tunnel.
