REVENUES are collected in most primitive ways by the Spanish City Fathers. As there are no important sources of public income, there are few transactions, however trifling, that do not pay tax and toll. Every man is suspected of smuggling and “false returns,” and it is a small bunch of garlic that escapes. Burly officials, often in shirt-sleeves and with club, lounge at all the entrances to the town, to levy duty upon any chance donkey-pannier or cart bringing in fruit and vegetables for sale. Frequently there are scenes of confusion, sometimes of violence. The government is determined that not a turnip, not a carrot, not a cabbage shall escape the yield of its due; and it is not to be denied that the poor farmer hopes fervently to smuggle in a wine-skin or two—a dozen of eggs, or some other article of price, among his cheaper commodities. As a rule, he fails; for, suspicious of over-much gesticulation and protestation, the official is quite likely to tumble out sacks, baskets, bundles and bales, and empty every one upon the ground, leaving the angry farmer to pick up and load again at his leisure.
Andalusia is a brown region stretching gravely between Cadiz and Granada. The effect of this landscape, all in low tones, upon natives of the green lands of America and England, is most depressing. The soil itself is red, and the grass grows so sparsely that the color of the ground crops up, giving impression of general sun-blight, broken here and there by the glimmering moonlight gray of an olive orchard, or the dark-green of an orange garden. The huts of the farmers are built of the red clay; the clothing of the population appears to be of the undyed wool of the brown sheep, while to add to the prevailing russet hue, the general occupation seems to be that of herding pigs on the plains—and the pigs are hideously brown also. It is said that they derive their color from feeding on the great brown bug, or beetle, which abounds in the soil. The traveller counts these feeding droves by the dozen, each with two lazy, smoking swineherds.
Travelling by rail over the Andalusian levels, one passes a succession of petty stations, villages of half a dozen houses each, where the only visible business appears to be in the hands of women, in the shape of one or two open-air tables, with pitchers and glasses, and a cow or goat tethered near in order to supply travellers, as the trains stop, with drinks of fresh milk.
MANY of the public buildings of Spanish cities stand as they were captured from the Moors. Sometimes, as in Cadiz, the town has received a coat of whitewash; but more frequently the only Spanish additions and improvements are a few crosses inlaid in the old cement, or a plaster Virgin niched, in rude contrast, beside some richly wrought Moorish door of horseshoe form. The town hall of Seville remains to-day as ten centuries ago.
The Spanish towns lie, for the most part, in the valley. The Moors usually chose the site for their cities with a view to the natural defences of mountain and river. The hills of course, remain, but the rivers, once full rushing tides, are now dried into stagnant shallow waters, a natural result in a country long uncultivated.
A favorite business with the young men among the mountain peasants is the breeding of poultry; not alone of fat pullets for the Christmas markets—that is a minor interest so far as enjoyment goes—but of choice young game cocks—cock-fighting being the staple, everyday national amusement, while the bullfight is to be regarded as fête and festival—“the taste of blood” is a welcome ingredient in any Spanish pleasure. All poultry is taken to market alive; the pullets, hanging head downwards, are slung in a bunch at the saddle bow, and the cocks are carried carefully in cages. Fowls are not a common article of food, as in France, but are, instead, a holiday luxury, and the costliest meat in the market.
Looking idly abroad as he crosses the Andalusian plains, the tourist on donkey-back notices the queer carts that take passengers from one station to another. These odd omnibuses are but rude carts, two-wheeled, and covered with coarse mats of pampas grass, and they are drawn by two, three, four or five donkeys harnessed tandem. On the rough, movable seats, gentlemen in broadcloth, and common folk with laced canvas shoes and peasant-bags, huddle together, all eating from the garlic-pots as they are passed, and drinking from the same wine-skin; this good fellowship of travellers is one of the unwritten laws of Spain. Meantime the sauntering boys of the roadside hop up on the cart behind with the identical vagrant joy experienced by the American urchin after a like achievement.