The boy seemed delighted at our appreciation of his work, and took us into his atelier. It reminded us of the prophet who said, “I went down into the potter’s house, and he wrought a work on the wheels,” the place was so primitive and Eastern. The young potter sat down at his work, and fashioned a dish for us; then he took up one already “tried in the fire,” and showed us his manner of colouring. It was quite beautiful to see the dexterity with which he worked, and the fondness with which he regarded his work. We tried our hand and found the matter not so easy as it had appeared.
When we had seen enough and made our purchases, noticing a guitar that lay near, we asked for some music. The request was granted smilingly. Our young potter sat down and played a fandango, his mother and one of the younger women dancing for us. They were all so kindly pleasant, and so amused at being able to amuse us.
We bade these nice people adieu with some regret, and hoped that all other travellers would be guided by some lucky star to their pretty Moorish “potter’s house.” It was pretty enough to make us forget all other diabolical spirits haunting the Albaycin, or old town of Granada.
In the modern town, there is little to be seen excepting a very beautiful old Moorish passage, with horse-shoe arches, sculptured friezes, and delicate marble columns. Of course, this will soon be a thing of tradition only, but whilst it lasts, it is perfectly Eastern and very picturesque. I went out shopping several times, though it requires an effort to quit the fairy-like region of the Alhambra, and descend into such dingy, ill-paved, smelling streets.
One morning, to our infinite consternation, we found that we had come to an end of our books. We looked into each other’s faces with dismay, and turned over our treasures again and again. Yes, it was but too true. We had read Ford from beginning to end, we had read Don Quixote, we had read our beloved Street, our Stirling, our Borrow, our one volume of Wordsworth, our guides and geographies, our Vie de Cervantes, again and again; and last, but not least, our Benjamin of books, viz., Owen Jones’ Handbook to the Alhambra. We had even devoured with avidity some odd chapters of French novels, given for translation into Spanish, in a little book recommended to me by my Spanish master in Madrid. And as to newspapers, a number of the Petit Journal would have been a mine of wealth to us, in this intellectual desert. We had purchased a stray copy of a Granada paper, grandiosely called, El Triumfo Granadino, and found it a very poor affair indeed, made up of gossip, poor jokes, advertisements, and feuilleton.
We were confidently assured that there were books in plenty to be obtained in the town, English, French, or in Spanish, so I set off in the search, Bensaken accompanying me.
“Mind,” said my friend, “and bring home something light, witty, and entertaining. A good French novel or two, or one of the last Tauchnitz editions.”
I promised to do my best, but experience proved that there was no judgment to be exercised in the matter. It was simply a case of Hobson’s choice. There was only one bookseller’s shop, and in that bookseller’s shop was only one book—that is to say, available book. The bookseller, a very nonchalant person indeed, smoked a cigarette, and chatted with a neighbour, whilst I investigated his stock in trade.
On the first shelf stood a row of school-books and penny parts of cheap illustrated editions of Cervantes, Paul de Koch, Eugene Sue, and Gil Blas; on the second, were a few novels of Alex. Dumas, fils, in the well-known green covers, at a franc each; on the third, were, firstly, Victor Hugo’s Travailleurs de Mer; secondly, an odd volume of Byron; thirdly, the American edition of Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra; fourthly, an English story, called Once and Again, published by Tauchnitz. The first-named books we had, of course, read; but oh! how greedily I seized upon that little English story, and carried it home with me! How we gloried in the possession of it, and glowed over the love-story of it! The book was by no means stirring as a story, or first-rate as a work of art, but we had been living without novels for months past, and it was like being made quite youthful again. If ever it be my fate to meet the author of that little story in the flesh, I mean to thank her for the pleasure she gave us in a bookless “city of Tarshish.”
