ADVENTURES IN SPAIN
With Gibraltar for head-quarters they made excursions into the Spanish territory; the first through the Sierra Nevada, on a route arranged for them by the governor. Travelling was dangerous, and accommodation no better than at Don Quixote’s enchanted castle. The banditti were everywhere. Two Englishmen had just arrived from Cadiz whom José Maria had stopped and rifled on the way. The danger was exciting. They set out in the long hot days of July, taking a model valet with them. Brunet had been all over the world and spoke all languages except English. Their baggage was of the slightest, not to tempt José Maria, Disraeli confining himself to ‘the red bag’ which his mother had made for his pistols.
‘We were picturesque enough in our appearance,’ he wrote. ‘Imagine M. and myself on two little Andalusian mountain horses with long tails and jennet necks, followed by a large beast of burden, with Brunet in white hat and slippers, lively, shrivelled, and noisy as a pea dancing upon tin; our Spanish guide, tall and with a dress excessively brodé and covered with brilliant buttons, walking by the side. The air of the mountains, the rising sun, the rising appetite, the variety of picturesque persons and things we met, and the impending danger made a delightful life, and had it not been for the great enemy I should have given myself up entirely to the magic of the life. But that spoiled all. It is not worse. Sometimes I think it lighter about the head, but the palpitation about the heart greatly increases; otherwise my health is wonderful. Never have I been better. But what use is this when the end of all existence is debarred me? I say no more upon this melancholy subject, by which I am ever and infinitely depressed, and often most so when the world least imagines it. To complain is useless and to endure almost impossible.’
José Maria was in everyone’s mouth, but the travellers did not fall in with him. After a week they were again enjoying the hospitalities of Gibraltar. The climate, the exercise, the novelty were all delightful. Disraeli was a child of the sun, as he often said of himself. His health mended and his spirits rose. He wore his hair in long curls. The women, he said, mistook it for a wig, and ‘I was obliged to let them pull it to satisfy their curiosity.’ The Judge Advocate buttonholed him. ‘I found him a bore and vulgar. Consequently I gave him a lecture upon canes, which made him stare, and he has avoided me ever since.’ But everyone liked Disraeli. ‘Wherever I go,’ he said, ‘I find plenty of friends and plenty of attention.’ He had not come to Spain to linger in a garrison town. The two friends were soon off again for a ride through Andalusia. Cadiz was enchanting with its white houses and green jalousies sparkling in the sun; ‘Figaro in every street and Rosina in every balcony.’ He saw a bull-fight; he was introduced to the Spanish authorities, and conducted himself with Vivian Grey-like impudence. ‘Fleuriz, the governor of Cadiz,’ he wrote, ‘is a singular brute. The English complain that when they are presented to him he bows and says nothing. The consul announced me to him as the son of the greatest author in England; the usual reception, however, only greeted me. But I, being prepared for the savage, was by no means silent, and made him stare for half an hour in a most extraordinary manner. He was sitting over some prints just arrived from England—a view of Algiers and—the fashions for June. The question was whether the place was Algiers, for it had no title. I ventured to inform his Excellency that it was, and that a group of gentlemen displaying their extraordinary coats and countenances were personages no less eminent than the Dey and his principal councillors of State. The dull Fleuriz, after due examination, insinuated scepticism, whereupon I offered renewed arguments to prove the dress to be Moorish. Fleuriz calls a young lady to translate the inscription, which proves only that they are fashions for June. I add at Algiers. Fleuriz, unable to comprehend badinage, gives a Mashallah look of pious resignation, and has bowed to the ground every night since that he has met me.’
After Cadiz Seville, and then Malaga. Brigands everywhere, but not caring to meddle with travellers who had so little with them worth plundering. Once only there was alarm. ‘We saved ourselves by a moonlight scamper and a change of road.’ An adventure, however, they had at Malaga which recalls Washington Irving’s story of the inn at Terracina, with this difference, that Disraeli and his companion did not show the gallantry of Irving’s English hero.
‘I was invited,’ he says, ‘by a grand lady of Madrid to join her escort to Granada, twenty foot-soldiers armed, and tirailleurs in the shape of a dozen muleteers. We refused, for reasons too long to detail, and set off alone two hours before, expecting an assault. I should tell you we dined previously with her and her husband, having agreed to meet to discuss matters. It was a truly Gil Blas scene. My lord, in an undress uniform, slightly imposing in appearance, greeted us with dignity; the señora young and really very pretty, with infinite vivacity and grace. A French valet leant on his chair, and a dueña such as Staphenaff would draw, broad and supercilious, with jet eyes, mahogany complexion, and a cocked up nose, stood by my lady bearing a large fan. She was most complaisant, as she evidently had more confidence in two thick-headed Englishmen with their Purdeys and Mantons than in her specimens of the once famous Spanish infantry. She did not know that we were cowards upon principle. I could screw up my courage to a duel in a battle—but——’
In short, in spite of the lady’s charms and their united eloquence, Disraeli and Meredith determined to start alone. They had learnt that a strong band of brigands were lying in wait for the noble pair. They took a cross road, lost their way, and slept with pack-saddles for pillows, but reached Granada without an interview with José. A fine description of Granada and Saracenic architecture was sent home from the spot. In return Disraeli requires his sister to ‘tell him all about Bradenham—about dogs and horses, orchards, gardens; who calls, where you go, who my father sees in London, what is said.’ ‘This is what I want,’ he writes; ‘never mind public news. There is no place like Bradenham, and each moment I feel better I want to come back.’
Affectation, light-heartedness, and warm home feelings are strangely mixed in all this; and no one of his changing moods is what might be expected in a pilgrim to Jerusalem in search of spiritual light. But this was Disraeli—a character genuine and affectionate, whose fine gifts were veiled in foppery which itself was more than half assumed. His real serious feeling comes out prettily in a passage in which he sums up his Peninsular experiences. ‘Spain is the country for adventure. A weak government resolves society into its original elements, and robbery becomes more honourable than war, inasmuch as the robber is paid and the soldier is in arrears. A wonderful ecclesiastical establishment covers the land with a privileged class.... I say nothing of their costume. You are wakened from your slumbers by the rosario, the singing procession by which the peasantry congregate to their labours. It is most effective, full of noble chants and melodious responses, that break upon the still fresh air and your ever fresher feelings in a manner truly magical. Oh, wonderful Spain! I thought enthusiasm was dead within me and nothing could be new. I have hit, perhaps, upon the only country which could have upset my theory, a country of which I have read little and thought nothing.’
Health was really mending. ‘This last fortnight,’ he says, ‘I have made regular progress, or rather felt, perhaps, the progress which I had already made. It is all the sun—not society or change of scene. This, however agreeable, is too much for me and ever turns me back. It is when I am alone and still that I feel the difference of my system, that I miss the old aches and am conscious of the increased activity and vitality and expansion of the blood.’