Spanish Vistas

by George Parsons Lathrop

HINTS TO TRAVELLERS.

Patience.—The first requisite, it should be said, in one about to visit Spain, is a reasonable amount of good-humored patience, with which to meet discomforts and provoking delays. The customs of that country are not to be reversed by fuming at them; anger will not aid the digestion which finds itself annoyed by a peculiar cookery; and no amount of irritation will suffice to make Spanish officials and keepers of hostelries one whit more obliging than they are at present—their regard for the convenience of the public being just about equal to that of the average American hotel clerk or railroad employé.

Passports.—Next to patience may be placed a passport; though it differs from the former article in being of no particular use. I observe that guide-books lay stress upon the passport as something very important; and, no doubt, it is gratifying to possess one. There is a subtle flattery in the personal relation, approaching familiarity, which an instrument of this kind seems to set up on the part of government toward the individual; there is a charming unreality, moreover, in the description it gives of your personal appearance and the color of your eyes, making you feel, when you read it, as if you were a character in fiction. Following the rules, I procured a passport and put it into a stout envelope, ready for much use and constant wear; but all that it accomplished for me was to add a few ounces of weight to my impedimenta. No one ever asked for it, and I doubt whether the military police would have understood what it was, had they seen it. My experience on first crossing the frontier taught me never to volunteer useless information. Our trunks had been passed after a mere opening of the lids and lifting of the trays, and an officer was listlessly examining the contents of my shoulder-bag. Thinking that he was troubled by the enigmatic nature of a few harmless opened letters which it contained, I said, re-assuringly, as he was dropping them back into their place, "They are only letters."

"Letters!" he repeated, with rekindled vigilance. And, taking up the sheets again, of which he could not understand a word, he squandered several minutes in gazing at them in an absurd pretence of profundity.

If I had insisted on unfurling my country's passport, I should probably have been taken into custody at once, as a person innocent enough to deserve thorough investigation. Nevertheless, a passport may be a good thing to hold in reserve for possible contingencies. It is said also to be of use, now and then, in securing admission to galleries and museums on days or at hours when they are generally closed to the public; but of this I cannot speak from experience.

Custom-house.—We had no great difficulty with examinations by custom-house officers, except at Barcelona, where we arrived about one o'clock in the morning and had to undergo a scene excessively annoying at the time, but comical enough in the retrospect. Being desirous to embark on the hotel omnibus in search of quarters, we hastened to the baggage-room to claim our trunks by the registry receipt given us at Valencia; but the "carbineer" explained that we could not have them just then. After waiting a little, we took out keys and politely proposed to open them for examination. This, also, he declined. I then offered him a cigar, which he accepted in a very gracious way, giving it a slight flourish and shake in his hand (after the usual manner), to indicate his appreciation of the courtesy; but still he made no motion to accommodate us in the matter we had most at heart. Some agreeable young Scotchmen, who had joined our party, urged me to make farther demonstrations, and I conferred with the omnibus-driver, who explained that we must wait for some other parcels to be collected from the train before anything could be done; accordingly, we waited. The other parcels arrived; the policy of inaction continued. Meanwhile, several French commercial travellers, who had journeyed hither by the same train in all the splendor of a spurious parlor-car, chartered for their sole use, had proceeded around the station, and now attacked the bolted doors at the front of the baggage-room with furious poundings and loud bi-lingual ejaculations. But even this had no effect. I therefore concluded that the object of the "carbineer's" strategy was a bribe; and, for the first and only time in our journey, I administered one. Getting him aside, I told him confidentially, with all the animation proper to an entirely new idea, that we were anxious to get our belongings examined and passed promptly, so as to secure a resting-place some time before day, and that we should be greatly obliged if he would assist us. At the same time I slipped two or three pesetas into his hand, which he took with the same magnanimous tolerance he had shown on receiving the cigar. This done, he once more relapsed into apathy. All known resources had now been exhausted, and there was nothing to do but wait. With dismay I stood by and saw my silver follow the cigar, swallowed up in the abyss of official indifference that yawned before us; and to my companions, who had just been envying me my slight knowledge of Spanish, and admiring my tact, I became all at once a perfectly useless object, a specimen of misguided imbecility—all owing to the dense unresponsiveness of the inspector, whose incapacity to act assumed, by contrast with my own fruitless energy, a resemblance to genius. The oaths and poundings of the French battalion at the door went on gallantly all the time, but were quite as ineffectual as my movement on the rear.

Finally, just when we were reduced to despair, the guard roused himself from his meditations, rushed to the door, unbolted it to the impatient assailants, and passed everything in the room without the slightest examination.

The whole affair remains to this day an enigma; and, as such, one is forced to accept every trouble of this kind in the Peninsula. But, as I have said, matters went smoothly enough in other places. Every important town, I believe, collects its imposts even on articles brought into market from the surrounding country; and at Seville we paid the hotel interpreter twenty cents as the nominal duty on our personal belongings. I have not the slightest doubt that this sum went to swell his own private revenue; at all events, no such tariff was insisted upon, or even suggested, elsewhere. The only rule that can be given is to await the action of customs officials without heat, and, while avoiding undue eagerness to show that you carry nothing dutiable, hold yourself in readiness to unlock and exhibit whatever you have. In case a fine should be exacted, ask for a receipt for the amount; and, if it seems to be excessive, the American or British consul or commercial agent may afterward be appealed to.

Extra Baggage.—One point of importance in this connection is generally overlooked. Only about sixty pounds' weight of luggage is allowed to each traveller; all trunks are carefully weighed at every station of departure, and every pound over the above amount is charged for. Hence, unless a light trunk is selected, and the quantity of personal effects carefully reduced to the least that is practicable, the expense of a tour in Spain will be appreciably increased by the item of extra baggage alone. Baggage of all kinds is registered, and a receipt given by which it may be identified at the point of destination. It is important, however, to get to the station at least half an hour before the time for leaving, since this process of weighing and registering, like that of selling or stamping tickets, is conducted with extreme deliberation, and cannot be hastened in any way. On diligence routes the allowance for baggage is only forty-four pounds (twenty kilograms). A good precaution, in order to guard against unfair weighing, is to get one's trunk or trunks properly weighed before starting, and keep a memorandum of the result.