CHAPTER VII.
MADRID.—GREAT ENGINEERING FEAT.—THE PICTURE-GALLERY.—PASTIMES AND OCCUPATIONS OF THE MADRILEÑOS.—THE BATH AND TOILET.—QUEEN ISABEL AND THE KING CONSORT.—THE VIRGIN'S WARDROBE.—THE ROYAL ARMERIA.—REMARKABLE PAINTINGS.—CHURCH IN THE CALLE DE TOLEDO.
MADRID is by far the most flourishing town of Spain; and if there is such a thing as progress, artistic, political, or social, it is of course to be found therein. It suffers, however, under an unfortunate agglomerate of disadvantages, such as a river without water; [8] a great elevation in the midst of barren sandy plains, over whose treeless surface the winds are ever blowing—in summer hot and blighting, in winter with keen and piercing breath, from the snows of the Guadarrama range; streets periodically liable to showers, not of rain, but of bullets; careless government; a distrustful population; and a total want of private enterprise, which has been all but stamped out.
One hears, however, a great deal about Progresista ministers, who have certainly instituted various companies of credit, to which is owing the web of railways which is rapidly spreading throughout the country, and connecting the capital with the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the North. Drought, which was once much dreaded, is now at least rendered impossible, as a river, the Lozoya, has been conducted from twelve leagues off, amongst the Guadarrama mountains, to the city; [9] an engineering feat that the Progresistasts are never tired of bringing before the notice of the intelligent foreigner, and which the priests look upon with great suspicion, as some of the first-fruits of the great Antichrist, Civilisation, the attendant fiends on which, in their opinion, are Industry and Progress. A fountain of real water(!) now plays in the centre of the Puerta del Sol, of which the inhabitants are extremely proud.
Some of the larger buildings of Madrid are ambitious in design, but somehow they appear as flimsy as if the material used in their construction were pasteboard. The general aspect of the streets, compared with those of the old Spanish cities, with their massive and venerable buildings, is modern and paltry. There is none of that imposing magnificence which in some of the old provincial capitals seems to accord so perfectly with our conception of Spanish dignity and grandeur. There are twelve theatres, a splendid bull-ring, an enormous palace, the finest gallery of pictures in the world—for which the Spaniards are indebted to a great extent to Cromwell, who blindly sold them the fine collection which he appropriated from his king's effects after he had brought his plot for the judicial murder of Charles I. to a successful issue. In a long promenade called the Prado, the winds are ever blowing, but the flowers never; and although there are two melancholy rows of little trees, which in some measure remind one of those in a Noah's-ark, their attempts to reach anything like a decent growth, from a soil of hardened sand and stones, are singularly disheartening. Among other places provided for the amusement of the Madrileños, there is a casino, where they may play at the lucrative game of trente-et-quarante. Though the metropolis of the kingdom, there is no cathedral in Madrid. Some of the shops are very splendid; and to finish this rapid survey, I need scarcely mention that there is hardly a single mouth without a cigar in it, or a solitary spot that is not perfumed with the odour of tobacco smoke.
Art is here at a standstill, and the moral and material resources which raise a nation in the respect of the world are but slowly and feebly developed. Literature, which the Inquisition in past times rendered a perilous occupation, has never been able to recover the ground it has lost, and is now almost abandoned. [10] Fierce political contests and party animosities occupy all the spare time of the Madrileños; and in these the angry Dons are always ready to engage, generally with more spirit than discretion. The lounge, if not the bath, is, however, a favourite way of passing the time in Madrid, as in London. In the Prado, as in Rotten Row, one meets with some very alarming dandies, who favour one with a cold stare, as if they intended to measure him from head to foot. Yet from the best authority, as well as from our own observation, we know perfectly well that in this country, which is a very poor one, these dazzling señors and señoras find that pride has a hard struggle to maintain against poverty, and that consequently all is not gold that glitters. Although the boot is bright, it frequently contains no stocking. Although the scarf be vivid, and the pin stuck into it be gorgeous, there may be no shirt beneath. And so these beautiful Apollos, whom we behold sucking the knobs of their canes with such dignified grace, while ogling "partial beauty" over railings, may often be compared not only to whitened, but to painted sepulchres. As an illustration of Spanish manners, we have learned on good authority that an illustrious minister of government, a man of high education and taste, remained a fortnight in an hotel, and would never during that period allow the garçon to change the water in his washhand basin. "The farther South, the farther the bath," might well be a Spanish proverb, if it is not; and, in fact, as all geographers know, the Wash is only to be found in the North.
Now if ablution is so little practised by the higher classes, we may well ask what must be the state of the lowest? When the unsavoury truth is told, one can only exclaim with a gasp, What do they do, then? Those beautiful girls, so well soignées, so gaily dressed, and so fair to behold—what substitute have they for this first necessary of the toilet? "Well," we are told, "they are instructed from early youth by their medical advisers that water is unwholesome, and, as it renders the skin coarse and rugose, must be avoided. Consequently, once a week they attempt to clean themselves, as Dejazet used to do, with cold cream, a dry towel, and some white sand."