Meanwhile we glide on through dreary regions, the far distance bounded by barren mountains. We pass over vast treeless plains strewn in all directions, as far as the horizon, with huge broken masses and boulders of granite. A scene more expressive of gloom and desolation cannot be imagined. The huge fragments, scattered about as far as the eye can reach, are piled up occasionally into enormous heaps, which look like the remains of ruined cities of an unknown age; or spread widely over the grey expanse, like the tombs of the races which once inhabited these regions. It is impossible, indeed, to conceive anything more austere than the effect produced by a scene at once so grand and so desolate.
The railroad now began to ascend by gradual inclines, making wide casts over the stony tracts. The amount of engineering skill, money, patience, and gunpowder it must have taken to cut through, in some places, miles of solid granite, must have been great. We were now commencing the ascent of the Guadarrama Mountains, which overlook from afar the capital of Spain. This fine ferrocarril, the construction of which is somewhat similar to that of the railroad over the Sömmering Pass near Trieste, surmounts altitudes by curves and gradual inclines.
The Guadarrama Mountains, with other sierras, of which the principal are the Somo Sierra, the Sierra Morena, the Alpuxarras, the Sierra Nevada, and the Sierra de Ronda, are remarkable features in the aspect of Spain. Surrounding the plains of Castile and La Mancha, the highest of such extent in Europe, with strong natural bulwarks, they are invaluable to the Spaniard in the defence of his native land. They even seem to constitute distinct moral divisions of the inhabitants. The whole country thus appears to be formed of several intrenched camps, and is admirably adapted for a war of posts—particularly for guerilla warfare, by their skill in which the Spanish mountaineers were enabled to offer such a successful resistance to their French invaders.
Higher and higher wound the road, until we suddenly burst into a region of pine forests, which darkened the sides of the mountains. The profound gorges, the aspect of which was so savage, were rapidly filling with purple mist as the sunset left them, to fall in various tints of farewell glory upon the loftier ranges of distant mountains, which seemed to melt away, wave on wave, against the clear, far heavens. The middle ground was filled with a broad expanse of warm, rose-lit plains, from the bosom of which, at unequal distances, towered enormous rocks, clothed to their summits with pine-trees. What a prospect it was! Such a scene of mingled gloom and glory the pencil of Salvator alone could render—the funereal plumage of the deep forests waving on the mountain's side, and the long rays of the sinking sun shooting through the darkness like celestial arrows, while high above a few feathery cloudlets sailed tranquil through the liquid ether, like troops of supernal messengers.
The shades of evening were falling upon the earth, when a vast, grey edifice of gloomy majesty loomed ghostly in the twilight, resting under the shadows of a darkening mountain, and all alone amidst a region of wild and desolate grandeur. This was the Escorial, the grand convent-palace of Philip II., and the burial-house of the Spanish kings. Such an edifice, almost the vastest in the world, in such a spot, and seen for the first time at such an hour, impressed one with a feeling of wonder and awe. We had little more than a glimpse of this historical building as we glided past. Our carriage moved on, now filled with dark women with brown babies, and soldiers with white kepis and red trousers; while, of course, a dash of garlic was not wanting, with the odour of five cigarettes going simultaneously, to render unbearable the atmosphere in the carriage, all the windows of which were hermetically closed, in order to exclude the terrible fresh air.
At last, however, to our joy, Madrid was reached. Nothing could exceed the extreme polish and urbanity of the aduaneros, of whose severity we had heard so much. Instead of ransacking the luggage, and making hay of one's shirts, a very handsome dark young man in uniform, having satisfied himself of the truth of our statement, that we were not professional smugglers, offered us a cigarette, gave us a light from his own, took off his hat, observed that he immensely admired the British Constitution, and then ordered us a brougham. The existence of such a class of officials at a terminus is really not an unmixed good. Imagine what might have occurred had we been susceptible daughters of Albion on their travels with an invalid or sleepy mamma! We tremble for the peace of mind of future English young ladies, travellers to Madrid.
Madrid, looked upon merely as the capital town of Spain, is extremely disappointing, [7] and simply a bad imitation of Paris, with little or nothing in it of original Spanish customs or life. The street architecture is modern, garish; it has a gingerbread appearance, and the use of whitewash has been too liberal. Although in the centre of Spain there are no remains of the Moorish or mediæval periods, nothing to represent the better class of art; and if you would find a bit of downright, dirty, picturesque Spanish street, you must penetrate to the back settlements, or the St. Giles's of Madrid—in fact, to the Calle de Toledo. There, beneath a blue sky, with squatting brown women suckling naked brown babies in the sun, gaudy churches, squalid houses, priests and beggars, not to speak of fish, vegetables, offal, and dogs, you may, after removing your handkerchief for one moment from your nose, imagine yourself amongst the slums of Naples.
With the exception of some few women of the middle and lower classes, who pin black silk aprons on to the backs of modern chignons, and on Sunday, or at the bull-fight, perhaps a bit of old lace, none are seen wearing the graceful mantilla, or those dark robes with ample skirts that sweep the streets. The traveller has rarely an opportunity of observing in the capital that delicate and piquant flirting with the fan which we always associate with our ideas of Spanish ladies; but he may occasionally remark very bright and meaning glances directed to the opposite sex by eyes of dazzling lustre. To see the romance of old Spain, however, one must go down south to warm Seville and historic Granada, where, by the way, we do not intend to go, as everybody has been there before; and it has now become a matter of legitimate pride to be able to say: "Behold before you a man who has not been to the Alhambra!"
The men in Madrid, although sometimes wrapped from heel to nose in the orthodox conspirator cloak, make themselves very eccentric in appearance by crowning their heads with that latest invention of the Evil One, the modern French chimney-hat; and that, too, in a very exaggerated form. The utter incongruity of these two articles of manly dress must be seen and felt to be thoroughly appreciated. To a tourist, indeed, who travels at a vast outlay of time and expense—to say nothing of cheerfully delivering up his body as a pasture-ground for innumerable fleas—in order to see Spain and the Spaniards as they ought to be, it really enters like iron into the soul (although, for the life of us, we could never understand that anatomical operation), to see Spain and Spaniards, in the matter of costume, at all events, as they are, and as they ought not to be.