We drove across the venerable viaduct afterward, and found that by an extraordinary dispensation some very fresh and shining silver coins of ancient Rome had lately been dug up from one of the shoals in the river (a peculiar place, by-the-way, to bury them in), and that our guide had some in his pocket. We forbore to deprive him of such treasures, however, even at the very trifling price which he put upon them, and contented ourselves with being swindled by him in a subsequent purchase of some other articles.
II.
FROM Cordova may be made, by those who are especially favored, one of the most interesting expeditions possible to the Hermitage, or, as the Church authorities name it, the Desierta (desert) of solitary monks, genuine anchorites, a few miles distant in the Sierra Morena. There are obstacles more formidable than the purely physical ones in the way of this excursion, the bishop of the diocese being averse to granting permission for the visit to any one who is not a good Catholic. Two Englishmen who came before us, relying on the potent gold piece, had made the toilsome ascent only to find that their sterling sovereigns were of no avail. I think the presence of the Novice helped our party; but it would be unwise to reveal the stratagem by which we all gained admittance. Let it be enough to say that we went to the bishop's palace after the usual hours of business, and by humble apologies obtained an audience with the secretary. While we were waiting we sat down under a frivolously gorgeous rococo ceiling, on a great double staircase of marble leading up from the patio, which was well planted with shrubs, and had walks paved with smooth round stones of various hue, set edgewise in extensive patterns. The vaulted ceiling resounded powerfully with every remark we made, which had the result of subduing our conversation to whispers, for an attendant soon came to warn us that the bishop was asleep, and that we must not speak loud on account of the echo. Profiting by the great man's siesta, we extracted the desired permission from his severe-faced but courteous secretary, who marked the document "Especial."
Our brief cavalcade of donkeys started the next morning at five, after we had taken a preternaturally early cup of chocolate. The donkeys appeared to know just where we were going, and would not obey the rein: the driver, walking behind, governed them by a system of negatives, informing them with a casual exclamation when they showed signs of turning where he didn't want them to. "Advance there, Baker!" he would cry. "Don't you know better than that? What a wretched little beast! Do as I tell you." The animal in question was named Bread-dealer, or Baker, and the one that I rode rejoiced in the eccentric though eminently literary appellation of "College."
"To the right, College!" our muleteer would shout, exercising a despotic power over my four-footed institution of learning. "Get up, little mule. Arré burr-r-rico!" Firing off a volley of r's with a tremendous rising and falling intonation, which invariably moved the brute to take one or two rapid steps before dropping back into his customary slow walk. As the heat increased, and the way grew steeper, he sighed out his "arré"—gee up—in a long, melancholy drawl, which seemed to express profound despair concerning the mulish race generally. Muleteers in Spain are termed generically, from this surviving Arabic word, arrieros, or, as we may translate it, "gee-uppers."
In this manner we made our way along the dusty road among olive orchards, and a sort of oak called japarros, until we began to mount by a rough, stony path which sometimes divided itself like the branches of a torrent, though we more than once succeeded in prodding the donkeys into a lively canter. The white façades of villas—quintas or carmens they are denominated hereabout—twinkled out from nooks of the hills; but at that early hour everything was very still. We could almost see the silence around us. Higher up, unknown birds began to sing in the sparse boscage that clothed the mountain flank or clustered in its narrow dells. Midway of the ascent, furthermore, Baker, on whom Velveteen was seated in solemn stride, with a blanket in place of saddle, paused ominously, and then began a nasal performance which shook our very souls. Why a donkey should bray in such a place it is hard to determine, but how he did it will forever remain impressed on our tympana. There was something peculiarly terrible and unnerving in the sound; and just as it ceased, our guide, Manuel, observed that this had once been a great place for robbers. "A few years ago," said he, "no one would have dared to come up along this road as we are doing." He added that the marauders used to conceal themselves in the numerous caves in the region, and pointed out one fissure in the rocks which his liberal imagination converted into the entrance of a subterranean retreat running for several miles into the heart of the mountains. At the same instant, looking down across a gorge below our track, I saw a man with a gun moving through a patch of steep olives, as if to head us off at a point farther along; and on a jutting rock-rib above us a memorial cross rose warningly. Crosses were formerly put up in the most impossible places among these hills, to mark the spot where anybody fell a victim to bandits or assassins; a fact of which the elder Dumas makes telling use in one of his short stories.[6] Brigands were themselves punctilious in setting up these reminders, which were held to exert an expiatory influence. If any one would understand how hopelessly the Spanish mind at one time perverted the relations of crime and religion, he may read Calderon's "Devotion of the Cross," wherein the hero, Eusebio, a terrible renegade who murders right and left, born at the foot of one of these way-side crosses, is saved by his reverence for the holy symbol. He is enabled, by virtue of this pious sentiment, to rise up after he is dead, walk about, and confess his sins to a friar; after which he is caught up into heaven!
The whole conjunction was somewhat alarming, but Manuel explained away our man with a gun by saying that he was merely one of the armed watchmen usually attached to country estates to protect crops and stock from depreciation. As for the bandits, they had now been quite dispersed, he declared, by the Civil Guard. That name, it is true, called up new fears for Velveteen and myself as we thought of the two relentless men who were on our trail: but we knew that for the moment, at least, we were beyond their reach.
At last we gained the very summit, and drew up under a porch at the walled gate of the Desert, while a shower began to fall in large scattered drops, like the lingering contents of some gigantic watering-pot, but soon spent itself. Our second pull at the mournful-sounding bell was answered by a sad young monk, who opened a square loop-hole in the wall, and asked our errand in a voice enfeebled by voluntary privations. After inspecting our pass, he told us, with a wan but friendly smile, that we must wait a little. It was Friday, and we had to wait rather long, for the hermits were just at that time undergoing the weekly flagellation to which they subject themselves. But finally we were let in—donkeys, guide, arriero, and the colored maid "Fan" sharing the hospitality. An avenue of tall, sombre, cypresses opened before us, leading to the main building and offices. The Desert, in fact, was green enough; well supplied with olives and pomegranates; and hedges of the prickly-pear, with its thick, stiff leaves shaped like a fire-shovel, and heavy as wax-work, cinctured the isolated huts in which the brothers dwell each by himself. Precisely as we came to a triangular plot in front of the entrance we were confronted by a skull set up prominently in a sort of pyramidal monument, giving force by its dusty grin to an inscription in Spanish, which read:
"AS THOU LOOKEST, SO ONCE LOOKED I:
AS I LOOK NOW, SO WILT THOU APPEAR HEREAFTER.
PONDER UPON THIS, AND SIN NOT."