The commencement of the last act of the Russian gentleman’s orange tragedy is the signal for everybody to jump up from the table and rush from the room.
There is another gentleman at table d’hôte—a Spaniard—who wouldn’t be a bad fellow if, after he had eaten a couple of olives between each course, he would put the stones anywhere except on the tablecloth. This gentleman is short-sighted, and has a pair of eye-glasses two sizes too large for the bridge of his nose. They drop into his soup, they come off into his wine, and they sometimes fall into the gravy of the dish the waiter is handing round. While the gentleman is fishing out his eye-glasses he drops his napkin. When the waiter picks up the napkin and presents it to him he drops his fork. By the time his fork has been restored to him his eye-glasses are in the dish again.
As the process is repeated with every course that comes to him, the gentlemen and ladies below him have several long waits during table d’hôte.
Many people will remember the case of the English doctor who shot a gipsy at Cordova. The gipsy was a well-known guide, who used to take foreigners to see the great mosque, from the tower of which an excellent view of Cordova can be obtained. Several tourists who had ascended the tower with him on previous occasions had either been seized with giddiness and fallen off, or committed suicide by throwing themselves over the parapet. The suicide theory was the one most generally adopted in the case of Englishmen, because the Spaniards still believe that all Englishmen suffer from a malady called El Spleen, and that El Spleen compels the sufferer to end his days and his sufferings in a violent manner. There are no coroners’ inquests in Spain, and so no one ever troubled much to inquire into the deaths, which, as far as public opinion was concerned, were easily accounted for by El Spleen.
It was while turning to descend from the tower that Dr. Middleton found himself suddenly grasped round the throat by the gipsy guide, Heredia, and in such a manner that nothing but a shot from a pistol, which luckily enough he carried in a back pocket, could free him from his assailant. The doctor was acquitted, and the verdict was received with applause by a crowded court. There can be no doubt of the impartiality of Spanish judges, and of the friendly feeling which exists among Spaniards for Englishmen. That this feeling should have been expressed in loud applause in an open court in Cordova is all the more remarkable when we bear in mind that the gipsies who swarm in the city were actually thirsting for the blood of the Englishman who had taken the life of one of their race, and were threatening revenge on all those who ventured to express sympathy for Dr. Middleton. The gipsies of the south of Spain have always been a power in the country, and there are instances on record which prove that the Government has on more than one occasion been compelled to conciliate them by granting them small privileges. In the days following the revolution which led to the flight of Queen Isabella the gipsies became for a time a terror to all law-abiding and inoffensive citizens, and it was only by executing summary justice upon gipsy culprits that their power was broken.
The gipsies both of Cordova and Granada still, however, maintain the privilege of acting as guides to those who are foolish enough to take them. Outside the Hotel Suizo in Cordova there are always dozens of them hanging about. The reason of this is that it is utterly impossible for a stranger to find his way about Cordova alone. The narrow streets cross and recross each other in a perfect maze, and they are all exactly alike, so that there is no landmark for the pedestrian to steer by, and, as the streets are too narrow to admit carriages, a guide is a sheer necessity.
CHAPTER VII.
COSAS DE ESPAÑA.
From Cordova I came on to San Sebastian, the Brighton of Spain. How people can go to Biarritz while there is a San Sebastian, I cannot imagine. I have never seen such a beautiful watering-place, or one surrounded by such magnificent scenery. And all around is hallowed English ground, for here and at Pasajes are hundreds of graves of English officers and soldiers who fell in the siege. The graves on the hill at San Sebastian are terribly neglected. Many of the stones are overgrown with weeds, and the inscriptions are effaced. A few pounds judiciously spent would put them in order again. Wild and picturesque is the rough mountain cemetery of British heroes who fell in a far-off land; but, unless something is done, a few more years will see many of the headstones down, and the graves overgrown with weed and briar, and then no man will know where our dead braves lie.
Pasajes, the quaintest place in the world, is within easy reach of San Sebastian. It is a land-locked harbour, and looks for all the world like a lake surrounded on all sides by hills, until you come upon a gully between high, overhanging cliffs, when, after a few minutes’ sail, you catch a glimpse of the open sea. One of the rocks is surmounted by a castle tower, and is called Castillo de Santa Isabel. Pasajes is a thriving town, and it is from this port that the Basques and Spanish emigrants sail for South America; but it is doubtful whether it has not missed its vocation. With a harbour the existence of which cannot be guessed from the sea, it is an ideal pirate’s nest.
After a Spanish tour is over, the traveller divides Spain into two portions—the portion that was conquered by the Moor, and the portion that was not. Of the first portion he brings away a wondrous remembrance of glorious architecture and graceful decoration; of the second portion, the things which linger longest in his memory are the dances and the bull-fights.