| [CHAPTER I.] | |
| Page | |
| A Tidy City—A Sacred Corpse—Remarkable Featuresof Puerto—A Calesa—Lady Blanche's Castle—ATypical English Engineer—British Enterprise—"Successto the Cadiz Waterworks!"—Visit to aBodega—Wine and Women—The Coming Man—AStrike | [1-18] |
| [CHAPTER II.] | |
| The Charms of Cadiz—Seville-by-the-Sea—Cervantes—Daughtersof Eve—The Ladies who Prayed andthe Women who Didn't—Fasting Monks—Notice toQuit on the Nuns—The Rival Processions—Guttinga Church—A Disorganized Garrison—Taking it Easy—TheMysterious "Mr. Crabapple"—The SteamerMurillo—An Unsentimental Navvy—BandagedJustice—Tricky Ship-Owning—Painting BlackWhite | [19-41] |
| [CHAPTER III.] | |
| Expansion of Carlism—A Pseudo-Democracy—HistoricLand and Water Marks—An Impudent Stowaway—SpanishRespect for Providence—A FatalSignal—Playing with Fire—Across the Bay—Farewellto Andalusia—British Spain | [42-50] |
| [CHAPTER IV.] | |
| Gabriel Tar—A Hard Nut to Crack—In the Cemetery—AnOld Tipperary Soldier—Marks of the BroadArrow—The "Scorpions"—The Jaunting-Cars—Amusementson the Rock—Mrs. Damages' Complaint—TheBay, the Alameda, and Tarifa—Howto Learn Spanish—Types of the British Officer—TheWily Ben Solomon—A Word for the Subaltern—SunsetGun—The Sameness of Sutlersville | [51-75] |
| [CHAPTER V.] | |
| From Pillar to Pillar—Historic Souvenirs—Off toAfrica—The Sweetly Pretty Albert—Gibraltar byMoonlight—The Chain-Gang—Across the Strait—ADifficult Landing—Albert is Hurt—"Fat Mahomet"—TheCalendar of the Centuries Put Back—Tangier:the People, the Streets, the Bazaar—Our Hotel—AColoured Gentleman—Seeing the Sights—LocalMemoranda—Jewish Disabilities—Peep at a PhotographicAlbum—The Writer's Notions on HaremLife | [76-102] |
| [CHAPTER VI.] | |
| A Pattern Despotism—Some Moorish Peculiarities—AHell upon Earth—Fighting for Bread—An Air-Bath—Surprisesof Tangier—On Slavery—TheWriter's Idea of a Moorish Squire—The Ladder ofKnowledge—Gulping Forbidden Liquor—Divisionof Time—Singular Customs—The Shereef of Wazan—TheChristian who Captivated the Moor—TheInterview—Moslem Patronage of Spain—A Slap forEngland—A Vision of Beauty—An English Desdemona:Her Plaint—One for the Newspaper Men—TheLadies' Battle—Farewell—The English Lady'sMaid—Albert is Indisposed—The Writer Sums upon Morocco | [103-135] |
| [CHAPTER VII.] | |
| Back to Gibraltar—The Parting with Albert—TheTongue of Scandal—Voyage to Malaga—"No Police,no Anything"—Federalism Triumphant—Madrid inStatu Quo—Orense—Progress of the Royalists—Onthe Road Home—In the Insurgent Country—Stoppedby the Carlists—An Angry Passenger isSilenced | [136-151] |
| [CHAPTER VIII.] | |
| On the Wing—Ordered to the Carlist Headquarters—AnotherPetit Paris—Carlists from Cork—HowLeader was Wounded—Beating-up for an Anglo-IrishLegion—Pontifical Zouaves—A Bad Lot—Odditiesof Carlism—Santa Cruz Again—Runninga Cargo—On Board a Carlist Privateer—A Descendantof Kings—"Oh, for an Armstrong Twenty-FourPounder!"—Crossing the Border—A RemarkableGuide—Mountain Scenery—In Navarre—Challengedat Vera—Our Billet with the Parish Priest—The SadStory of an Irish Volunteer—Dialogue with DonCarlos—The Happy Valley—Bugle-Blasts—TheWriter in a Quandary—The Fifth Battalion ofNavarre—The Distribution of Arms—The BleedingHeart—Enthusiasm of the Chicos | [152-187] |
| [CHAPTER IX.] | |
| The Cura of Vera—Fueros of the Basques—Carlist Discipline—Fateof the San Margarita—The Squadronof Vigilance—How a Capture was Effected—TheSea-Rovers in the Dungeon—Visit to the Prisoners—SanSebastian—A Dead Season—The Defences of aThreatened City—Souvenirs of War—The Miqueletes—Ina Fix—A German Doctor's Warning | [188-210] |
| [CHAPTER X.] | |
| Belcha's Brigands—Pale-Red Republicans—The Hyena—Moreabout the San Margarita—Arrival of a RepublicanColumn—The Jaunt to Los Pasages—ASweet Surprise—"The Prettiest Girl in Spain"—AMadrid Acquaintance—A Costly Pull—The Diligenceat Last—Renteria and its Defences—A Furious Ride—InFrance Again—Unearthing Santa Cruz—TheOutlaw in his Lair—Interviewed at Last—The Truthabout the Endarlasa Massacre—A Death-Warrant—TheBuried Gun—Fanaticism of the Partisan-Priest | [211-238] |
| [CHAPTER XI.] | |
| An Audible Battle—"Great Cry and Little Wool"—ACarlist Court Newsman—The Religious War—TheSiege of Oyarzun—Madrid Rebels—"The Money ofJudas"—A Manifesto from Don Carlos—An IdealMonarch—Necessity of Social and Political ReconstructionProclaimed—A Free Church—A BroadPolicy—The King for the People—The TheologicalQuestion—Austerity in Alava—Clerical and Non-ClericalCarlists—Disavowal of Bigotry—A RepublicanEditor on the Carlist Creed—Character ofthe Basques—Drill and Discipline—Guerilleros versusRegulars | [239-268] |
| [CHAPTER XII.] | |
| Barbarossa—Royalist-Republicans—Squaring a Girl—AtIrun—"Your Papers?"—The Barber's Shop—ACarlist Spy—An Old Chum—The Alarm—A Breachof Neutrality—Under Fire—Caught in the Toils—TheHeroic Thomas—We Slope—A Colleague AdvisesMe—"A Horse! a Horse!"—State of Bilbao—DonCarlos at Estella—Sanchez Bregua Recalled—TolosaInvites—Republican Ineptitude—Do not Spur a FreeHorse—Very Ancient Boys—Meditations in Bed—ABiscay Storm | [269-299] |
| [CHAPTER XIII.] | |
| Nearing the End—Firing on the Red Cross—Perpetuityof War—Artistic Hypocrites—The Jubilee Year—TheConflicts of a Peaceful Reign—Major Russell—QuickPromotion—The Foreign Legion—The AspiringAdventurer—A Leader's Career—A PiraticalProposal—The "Ojaladeros" of Biarritz—A Friendin Need—Buying a Horse—Gilpin Outdone—"FredBurnaby" | [300-317] |
| [Footnotes] | |
| [Notes of the transcriber] | |
ROMANTIC SPAIN.
CHAPTER I.
A Tidy City—A Sacred Corpse—Remarkable Features of Puerto—A Calesa—Lady Blanche's Castle—A Typical English Engineer—British Enterprise—"Success to the Cadiz Waterworks!"—Visit to a Bodega—Wine and Women—The Coming Man—A Strike.
Puerto de Santa Maria has the name of being the neatest and tidiest city in Spain, and neatness and tidiness are such dear homely virtues, I thought I could not do better than hie me thither to see if the tale were true. With a wrench I tore myself from the soft capital of Andalusia, delightful but demoralizing. I was growing lazier every day I spent there; I felt energy oozing out of every pore of my body; and in the end I began to get afraid that if I stopped much longer I should only be fit to sing the song of the sluggard:—"You have waked me too soon, let me slumber again." Seville is a dangerous place; it is worse than Capua; it would enervate Cromwell's Ironsides. Happily for me the mosquitoes found out my bedroom, and pricked me into activity, or I might not have summoned the courage to leave it for weeks, the more especially as I had a sort of excuse for staying. The Cardinal Archbishop had promised a friend of mine to let him inspect the body of St. Fernando, and my friend had promised to take me with him. Now, this was a great favour. St. Fernando is one of the patrons of Seville; he has been dead a long time, but his corpse refuses to putrefy, like those of ordinary mortals; it is a sacred corpse, and in a beatific state of preservation. Three times a year the remains of the holy man are uncovered, and the faithful are admitted to gaze on his incorruptible features. This was not one of the regular occasions; the Cardinal Archbishop had made an exception in compliment to my friend, who is a rising young diplomat, so that the favour was really a favour. I declined it with thanks—very much obliged, indeed—pressure of business called me elsewhere—the cut-and-dry form of excuse; but I never mentioned a word about the mosquitoes. I told my friend to thank the prelate for his graciousness; the prelate expressed his sorrow that my engagements did not permit me to wait, and begged that I would oblige him by letting the British public know the shameful way he and his priests were treated by the Government They had not drawn a penny of salary for three years. This was a fact; and very discreditable it was to the Government, and a good explanation of the disloyalty of their reverences. If a contract is made it should be kept; the State contracted to support the Church, but since Queen Isabella decamped the State had forgotten its engagement.
Puerto de Santa Maria deserves the name it has got. It is a clean and shapely collection of houses, regularly built. People in England are apt to associate the idea of filth with Spain; this, at least in Andalusia, is a mistake. The cleanliness is Flemish. Soap and the scrubbing-brush are not spared; linen is plentiful and spotless, and water is used for other purposes than correcting the strength of wine. Walking down the long main street with its paved causeways and pebbly roadway, with its straight lines of symmetric houses, coquettish in their marble balconies and brightly-painted shutters and railings, one might fancy himself in Brock or Delft but that the roofs are flat, that the gables are not turned to the street, and that the sky is a cloudless blue. I am speaking now of fine days; but there are days when the sky is cloudy and the wind blows, and the waters in the Bay of Cadiz below surge up sullen and yeasty, and there are days when the rain comes down quick, thick, and heavy as from a waterspout, and the streets are turned for the moment into rivulets. But the effects of the rain do not last long; Spain is what washerwomen would call a good drying country. Beyond its neatness and tidiness, Puerto has other features to recommend it to the traveller. It has a bookseller's shop, where the works of Eugène Sue and Paul de Kock can be had in choice Spanish, side by side with the Carlist Almanack, "by eminent monarchical writers," and the calendar of the Saragossan prophet (the Spanish Old Moore); but it is not to that I refer—half a hundred Andalusian towns can boast the same. It has its demolished convent, but since the revolution of '68 that is no more a novelty than the Alameda, or sand-strewn, poplar-planted promenade, which one meets in every Spanish hamlet. It has the Atlantic waves rolling in at its feet, and a pretty sight it is to mark the feluccas, with single mast crossed by single yard, like an unstrung bow, moored by the wharf or with outspread sail bellying before the breeze on their way to Cadiz beyond, where she sits throned on the other side of the bay, "like a silver cup" glistening in the sunshine, when sunshine there is. The silver cup to which the Gaditanos are fond of comparing their city looked more like dirty pewter as I approached it by water from Puerto; but I was in a tub of a steamer, there was a heavy sea on and a heavy mist out, and perhaps I was qualmish. Not for its booksellers' shops, for its demolished convent, or for its vulgar Atlantic did this Puerto, which the guide-books pass curtly by as "uninteresting," impress me as interesting, but for two features that no seasoned traveller could, would, or should overlook; its female population is the most attractive in Andalusia, and it is the seat of an agreeable English colony. I happened on the latter in a manner that is curious, so curious as to merit relation.
I had intended to proceed to Cadiz from Seville after I had taken a peep at Puerto, but that little American gentleman whom I met at Córdoba was with me, and persuaded me to stop by the story of a wonderful castle prison, a sort of Tour de Nesle, which was to be seen in the vicinity, where the bonne amie of a King of Spain had been built up in the good old times when monarchs raised favourites from the gutter one day, and sometimes ordered their weazands to be slit the next. This show-place is about a league from Puerto, in the valley of Sidonia, and is called El Castillo de Doña Blanca. We took a calesa to go there. My companion objected to travelling on horseback; he could not stomach the peculiar Moorish saddle with its high-peaked cantle and crupper, and its catch-and-carry stirrups. We took a calesa, as I have said. To my dying day I shall not forget that vehicle of torture. But it may be necessary to tell what is a calesa. Procure a broken-down hansom, knock off the driver's seat, paint the body and wheels the colour of a roulette-table at a racecourse, stud the hood with brass nails of the pattern of those employed to beautify genteel coffins, remove the cushions, and replace them with a wisp of straw, smash the springs, and put swing-leathers underneath instead, cover the whole article with a coating of liquid mud, leave it to dry in a mouldy place where the rats shall have free access to the leather for gnawing practice, return in seven years, and you will find a tolerably correct imitation of that decayed machine, the Andalusian calesa. It is more picturesque than the Neapolitan corricolo; it is all ribs and bones, and is much given to inward groaning as it jerks and jolts along. Such a trap we took; the driver lazily clambered on the shafts, and away hobbled our lean steed.
The road to Lady Blanche's Castle is like that to Jordan in the nigger songs; it is "a hard road to travel"—a road full of holes and quagmires and jutting rocks; and yet the driver told me it had once been a good road, but that was in the reign of Queen Isabella. Everything seems to have been allowed to go to dilapidation since. On the outskirts of Puerto we passed an English cemetery; I am glad to say it is almost uninhabited. If there is an English dead settlement there ought to be a live one, I reasoned, unless those who are buried here date from Peninsular battles. The first part of the road to Blanche's Castle is level, and bordered with thick growths of prickly pear; there is a view of the sea, and of the Guadalate, spanned by a metal bridge—a Menai on a small scale. Farther on, as we get to a district called La Piedad, the country is diversified by swampy flats at one side and sandy hills at the other. Blanche's Castle was a commonplace ruin, a complete "sell," and we turned our horse's head rather savagely. As we were coming back, the little American shortening the way by Sandford and Merton observations of this nature—"Prickly pear makes a capital hedge; no cattle will face it; the spikes of the plant are as tenacious as fish-hooks. The fibres of the aloe are unusually strong; they make better cordage than hemp, but will not bear the wet so well"—a sight caught my eyes which caused me to stare. A tall young fellow, with his trousers tucked up, was wading knee-deep in the bottoms beside the road. He wore a suit of Oxford mixture.
"Who or what is that gentleman?" I asked the driver.