Spanish Vistas

by George Parsons Lathrop

There was a good deal of discussion among our group of pilgrims as to the propriety of a foundation like the Hermitage of the Sierra continuing to exist in an age like the present one. Whetstone, who had declined to visit it, was of opinion that men who led such idle lives should be suppressed by law, and even went so far as to talk about hanging them. So singular a theory, emanating from a citizen of a free republic, met with some opposition; but this was not pushed too far, because we understood that Whetstone kept a hotel at home, and dreaded lest some day we should be at his mercy. As for the rest of us, it was not easy to pronounce that we were of much more value than the hermits; and assuredly those earnest ascetics compared favorably with our mule-driver, who was remarkable only for an expression of incipient humor that was never able to attain the height of actual expression. I was sure that, as he sighed out his final "Arré" in this world, he would pass into the next with that vacant smile on his face, and the joke which he might have perpetrated under fortunate circumstances still unuttered. Nor did the average life of Cordova strike us as signally indispensable to the world's progress. It was doubtless a very pleasant, lazy life so far as it went, and we did not decide to hang the inhabitants! They have a charming fashion there of building houses with pleasant interior courts, in which the sclinda, a vine with pale lavender clusters of blossoms suggesting the wistaria, droops amid matted foliage, and lends its grace alike to crumbling architecture or modern masonry. In these courts, separated from the street by gates of iron grating beautifully designed, you will see pleasant little domestic groups, and possibly a whole dinner-party going on in the fresh air. It was likewise agreeable to repair to a certain restaurant—restored in the Moorish manner—and there, while clapping hands echoed through the light arcades, drink iced beer and lemon—a refreshing beverage, which might reasonably take the place of fiery punches (in America) for hot weather. "Neither will I deny," said Velveteen, "that it is a wonderful sensation to stray into the Plaza de Geron Paez and come up suddenly against that glorious old Roman gate—growing up as naturally as the trees in front of it, but so much more wonderful than they—with its fine crumbling yellow traceries. How nicely it would tell in a sketch, eh, with some of the royal grooms—the remontistas—walking through the foreground in their quaint costumes!"

The men to whom he referred wear, in the best sense, a thoroughly theatrical garb of scarlet and black, finished off by boots of Cordovan leather in the style of sixteenth-century Spain, turned down at the top, laced, tasselled, and slashed open by a curve that runs from the side down to the back of the heel. This shows the white stocking under short trousers, giving to the masculine calf and ankle a grace for which they are usually denied all credit.

For the rest, dwellers in modern Cordova attend mass and vespers, stroll around to the confectioners' of an afternoon to eat sweetmeats, especially sugared higochumbos (the unripe prickly-pear boiled in syrup), or the famed and fragrant preserve of budding orange-blossoms known as dulces de alzahar; and the remainder of the time they while away pleasantly in loitering on the Street of the Great Captain, or in peering from their windows at whatever passes beneath. Throughout the kingdom, it should be said, a most extraordinary persistence will be observed in dawdling, strolling, and general contemplation. The Spaniard appears to be born with his legs in a walking position, and with loaded eyes that compel him to look out of the window whether he wants to or not.

One of the more remarkable observations, finally, that I collected in Cordova came from Manuel. It was his reflection as he gazed down from the Desierta into the plain: "Ah, that was where John Dove (Juan Palom) did such splendid things!" he sighed. "You don't know about John Dove? Well, he was one of the very greatest men Spain ever had; he was a robber—and oh, what a beautiful robber!"

ANDALUSIA AND THE ALHAMBRA.

I.

To me it is memorable as the place where I saw the jars in which the Forty Thieves were smothered. Worried by a painfully profuse odor that filled the whole street, one day I sought the cause, and found it in an olive-oil merchant's tienda, where there were some terra-cotta jars of the exact form given in the story-books, and afflicted with elephantiasis to such a degree that one or two men could easily have hidden in each. I am sure they were the same into which Morgiana poured the boiling oil, though why it should have been heated is inexplicable: the smell alone ought to have been fatal.

A prouder distinction is that Sevilla is the capital of Andalusia, that gayest and most diversified province of Spain; the native ground of the bull-fight and breeder of the best bulls; a region abounding in racy customs and characteristics. The sea-going Phœnicians, who bear down on us from so many points of the historical compass, found in Andalusia an important trading field. Its mountains are still stored with silver, copper, gold, lead, which have yielded steady tribute for thousands of years. In its breadths of sun-bathed plain and orange-mantled slope the ancients placed their Elysian Fields. Goth and Roman, Moor and Spaniard, struggled for the mastery of so rich a possession; and meanwhile Sevilla, the favorite of Cæsar—his "little Rome"—lay at the core of the fruitful land, herself careless in the main as to everything except an easy life, with plenty of singing and love-making. From climate and history, nevertheless, from art and the mingling of antipodal races, Sevilla received those influences which have shaped her into the bizarre and eminently Spanish creation that she is—a visible memory of the past, and a sparkling embodiment of the present. Society, amusement, and religious awe are the controlling aims of the people, blended with revolutionary politics, and great liveliness in their increasing commerce. The songs of Andalusia pervade the whole kingdom; its dances—cidarillos, manchegas, boleros, the cachuca, and the wildly graceful Sevillanas—enjoy an equal renown.