The Sunny South: An Autumn in Spain and Majorca

by John William Clayton

In the Plaza Mayor of this city, the great Alvarez de Luna, "Spain's haughty constable," was beheaded. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," and how uneasy must sit the head that trusts in princes, especially old princes who marry young queens, for all sense of honour, justice, and gratitude seems to walk out of the door when uxoriousness comes in at the window.

Here, in 1506, Columbus departed this life, and Philip II., the fortunate possessor of our sweet queen, Mary of England, came into it on May 21st, 1527. Here, in the sixteenth century, auto-da-fés and periodical bonfires of heretics were kept up with great spirit,—one being under the especial patronage of the above-mentioned blessed monarch, upon a scale of unprecedented magnificence. Here, Cervantes lived and wrote, and here, we regret to be obliged to add, the Duke of Wellington made his public entry, and took up his residence in the bishop's palace.

The Fonda del Siglo de Oro, although rather ambitious in its choice of a name, is a tolerable house enough, and the provision for the necessaries of life is not quite so primitive here as at Burgos. As regards that essential element of civilisation, the bath, the Spaniard seems still proudly wrapped in primeval darkness. On the morning after our arrival at the Hotel of the Golden Age,—where one would think all would be surrounded by pure delights,—the egregious desire for a bath took possession of us as usual; but, as in other places, we had some difficulty in obtaining that refreshing article. We pull the bell, the waiter appears; we utter the word "baños," in a low and rather humble tone, as if knowing it was vain to expect a favourable reply. The waiter inquires, "Caliente?" We answer, "No, frio." "Frio!" screams the waiter, with blanched visage, and instantly disappears like a harlequin through a trap. Presently, however, he reappears with another waiter, both looking as scared and uncomfortable as if they expected to be cross-examined at a coroner's inquest as two suspicious witnesses connected with our decease. Again we venture to ask timidly for "baños." Both waiters exclaim, in a tone of helpless amazement, "Frio?" to which query we reply in the affirmative by a nod, and they withdraw, muttering and gesticulating all down the stairs. The Spanish pathologist observes that the fit of hydromania generally attacks the Englishman between the hours of eight and ten.

In a few minutes, after a deal of scuffling outside the door, the two waiters appeared again, followed by the landlord, his wife, and a strange gentleman, carrying between them an object which had some resemblance to the state-chair of St. Peter in the basilica of that name at Rome. When this ponderous piece of furniture was settled in the middle of our room, we discovered that the seat had been removed, and a square tin pan fixed beneath, containing about two pints of brown water. Into this we madly plunged, and although perfectly sober at the time, imagined we were enjoying a refreshing sponge bath. However, this sort of thing is one of the cosas de España, so we suppose it was all right.

À propos of the general wonder expressed at any one wishing for cold water to wash in, there seems in Spain to be an equal terror of fresh air. Upon one occasion we had been in bed but a short time when a waiter entered the room to inquire if Señor had all he required. His eyes had no sooner rested upon the open window, which admitted the clear night air, than his whole countenance became locked and rigid, as if some dreadful personage—the travelling prophet of Khorassan, it might be—had suddenly presented himself at the window. The functionary in question, however, soon recovered his presence of mind, and having cast one anxious glance at our bed, to satisfy himself that all was right with us, he flew across the room with a bound and an oath, slammed the casements together, and the shutters after them, flinging the cross bar into its socket with such force as to show that he intended it to remain there.

The hotels in Spain, in the larger towns, are generally clean and well kept; though some persons, perhaps, might be able to dispense with a little of that universal odour of onions and ammonia which constantly prevails throughout the house; and the goods and chattels of travellers in the various rooms would not be absolutely endangered if common beggars from the streets were prevailed upon not to spend quite so much of their time on the stairs between the bed-chambers and the ground-floor.

Valladolid being a town of considerable importance in the history of Spain, we were eager to see it, and were soon threading our way through the sunny streets, underneath the broad band of blue overhead, until we found ourselves face to face with the Colegio Mayor de Santa Cruz, a grand old palace founded by Cardinal Mendoza in 1479, and now standing with all its beautiful fretwork clogged with wild weeds, and its light arcades, Saracenic columns, and Gothic porches mouldering away in sun and silence. On we wandered, through the long galleries, till we reached the library, apparently so called on account of the total absence of books, but which is filled with a mine of wealth in the shape of a profusion of specimens of the most exquisite carvings in walnut wood and dark oak. There are salas after salas filled with old musty pictures, carvings, and wooden sculptures, collected from the various convents at the period of their suppression. The pictures are mostly bad, though many of them are curious. Of course there are numbers of hoary old saints in rags, with gold quoits fixed on to the backs of their heads, glorifying in the lying label placed beneath them. A long room is filled with fearful painted figures carved in wood, representing troops of gigantic ruffians in the act of persecuting Christ, more grotesquely hideous than anything we could imagine in our worst dreams. Is it in order to inspire a due reverence and affection for Our Saviour that the figure of the Redeemer is represented in these productions as a meagre, wan, and emaciated skeleton of a man, covered all over with blood, dirt, the marks of stripes, and tangled masses of real red hair? or is it to render more intense the dislike with which we regard his persecutors? These individuals are represented belabouring their unfortunate victim with cudgels considerably larger than their own bodies, which have the most revolting appearance from deformity and disease, enormous tumours being generally appended to their throats.

In the midst of these delectable horrors, and placed on a large plate, is a painted wood-carving of the decapitated head of St. Paul, with which any amateur executioner may regale himself to his heart's content. So faithfully rendered is the last look of horror in the half-closed glass eyes, that one cannot help doubting, when he first glances at it, whether it is only a model. We were glad to escape from this religious Madame Tussaud's into the bright sun and open air, where we could dismiss the fancies inspired by such horrible sights.

We felt quite relieved when we found ourselves again in the great square, alive with dark-skinned men and women, with their gay dresses and sonorous voices. The jingling mules even were a pleasant sight to us, and we gazed with delight on the white walls, reflecting with such dazzling brilliance the rays of the sun, and on the universal dust, which almost half choked us, not to speak of the blue sky and the green acacia trees. In fact, the very odour of garlic was not so detestable to us as it used to be. Certainly those vast, prison-like convents standing on the outskirts of the town, are most fitting places in which to immure for life young men and women—fitting for their purpose, that is, inasmuch as there is nought to be seen from the grated windows to tempt them back to the world they have left. They may strain their dimming eyes as much as they please through the bars, they will see no stirring crowds in pursuit of business or pleasure, no happy pairs, no manly form or sweet face, to make the still warm heart thrill with joyful memories; they will see nought but wild tracts of desert, and yellow plains fading into the hot horizon, and spreading away like a burning ocean. We have by chance upon rare occasions caught sight of faces at convent gratings, and their glance fell like an icicle on the heart—faces which, though young in years, were aged in sadness, and perchance with the remorse—most probably with the regret—that comes too late. I saw, on one occasion, two young girls, pale from confinement within the yellow walls of a religious prison at Valladolid, and the bloodless cheek rendered the dark blaze of the gazelle-like eyes almost unnaturally bright with a false lustre, the lustre caught from the soul loosened by the partial decay of its prison-house, and struggling to be free. How strange that so much young, ardent life, so much beauty, so many loving hearts, and so much generous energy should choose to rot uselessly away in such prison-houses, like pale and lonely lamps flickering in a tomb! Strange that their mission as tender women, who might have soothed the griefs and tempered the hardness of many an honest man, who in return might have loved them as his life, his pride, his all, should be—as citizens of the world—tied to a destiny so awfully aimless, hopeless, and loveless: so dead in their life, and in only too many cases so utterly heart-weary and forlorn!

Well, to proceed with our stroll through the picturesque old Spanish streets. We say Spanish,—for it is not every town even in Spain that is Spanish in the character of its architecture. Madrid, for instance, with the exception of a few of the old quarters, has nothing nationally characteristic about it. The sun was now beginning to make itself felt with more than usual vigour; but that was to be expected here, for it is one of the cosas de España. From the yellow walls of churches and palaces, its rays were reflected, while overhead there hung one spotless lake of blue. Down a melancholy silent street, where lean dogs were quarrelling for offal, and fierce-eyed, ragged fowl were pecking savagely amongst the dust, was a plain square house, with a few small windows closed by shutters. In this house Columbus died, as the stranger is informed by the following inscription over the door: "Acqui murio Colon."