Notwithstanding Don José's dark predictions, this was the only trial of the trip. To realize to the full the honesty, kindliness, and dignity of the everyday Spaniard, one needs to turn off from the sight-seer's route. On the beaten tourist track are exorbitant hotels, greedy guides, cheating merchants, troops of beggars—everywhere "the itching palm." But here in San Lúcar, for instance, where I had to spend twenty-four hours at a genuine Spanish fonda, the proprietor took no advantage of the facts that I was a foreigner, a woman, and practically a prisoner in the place until the Saturday afternoon train went out, but gave me excellent accommodations, most respectful and considerate treatment, and the lowest hotel bill that I had seen in Spain.
San Lúcar has, in early Spanish literature, a very ill name for roguery, but, so far as my brief experience went, Boston could not have been safer and would not have been so genial. I strayed, for instance, into a modest little shop to buy a cake of soap, which its owner declined to sell, insisting that I ought to have a choicer variety than his, and sending his son, a lad of sixteen, to point me out more fashionable counters. This youth showed me the sights of the pleasant seashore town, with its tiers of closely grated windows standing out from the white fronts of the houses, and its sturdy packhorses and orange-laden donkeys streaming along the rough stone streets, and when, at the inn door, I hesitatingly offered him a piece of silver, doffed his cap with smiling ease, and said he did not take pay for a pleasure.
Once off the regular lines of travel, however, speed is out of the question. I might have gone from Seville to Cadiz in three hours; thanks to historic enthusiasms, it took me nearer three days. After escaping from San Lúcar, I had to pass four hours in Jerez, another whitewashed, palm-planted town, whose famous sherry has made it the third city in Spain for wealth. The thing to do at Jerez is to visit the great bodegas and taste the rich white liquors treasured in those monster casks, which bear all manner of names, from Christ and His twelve disciples to Napoleon the Great; but mindful, in the light of Don José's admonitions, that the weak feminine estate is "as water unto wine," I contented myself with seeing the strange storage basin of the mountain aqueduct—an immense, immaculate cellar, where endless vistas of low stone arches stretch away in the silent dusk above the glimmer of a ghostly lake.
The train for Cadiz must needs be two hours late this particular evening, but my cabman drove me to approved shops for the purchase of bread and fruit, and then, of his own motion, drew up our modest equipage in a shady nook opposite the villa of the English consul, that I might enjoy my Arcadian repast with a secure mind. Jehu accepted, after due protestations, a share of the viands, and reciprocated the attention by buying me a glass of water at the nearest stand, much amused at my continued preference for Jerez water over Jerez wine.
One of the Jerez wine merchants, German by birth, shared the railway carriage with me for a while, and after the social wont of Continental travel fell to discussing the war. "The Spaniards deserved to be beaten," he declared, "but the Yankees didn't deserve to beat. They were conceited enough before, heaven knows, and now they expect all Europe to black their shoddy shoes. Your own country was a bit to blame in blocking every effort to keep them in their place."
I felt it time to explain that I was not English, but American. Much disconcerted, he did his best to make amends.
"I wouldn't have said that for the world if I had known you were an American—but it's every syllable true."
He thought over this remark in silence for a moment, his Teutonic spirit sorely strained between kindliness and honesty, and tried again.
"I would like to say something good about the United States, I would indeed,—if there was anything to say."
It seemed to occur to him, after a little, that even this apology left something to be desired, and he brightened up.