There was a cold, murderous, business-like aspect to all the arrangements, and everything, however repulsive to strangers, was taken by the audience at large quite as a matter of course. The immense crowd were not very noisy or demonstrative, contenting themselves with smoking and chatting together. It was curious and interesting, while waiting for the commencement of the performance, to study the features of the audience, and watch their earnest gesticulations; for the Spaniards, like the Italians, talk with their whole bodies,—hands, arms, head, trunk, and all. The ladies, as usual, were each supplied with that prime necessity, a fan; and it is astonishing what a weapon of coquetry it becomes in the delicate hands of a Spanish beauty. Its coy archness is beyond comparison, guided by the pliant wrist of the owner, concealing or revealing her eloquent glances and features. With her veil and her fan, a Spanish woman is armed cap-â-pie, and in Cupid's warfare becomes irresistible.
The author had seen the cruelty of the bull-ring exhibited years ago in the Spanish West Indies, yet to visit Madrid, the headquarters of all things Spanish, and not to witness the national sport, would have been a serious omission; and therefore, suppressing a strong sense of distaste, the exhibition was attended. The hateful cruelty of the bull-ring has been too often and too graphically described to require from us the unwelcome task. Suffice it to say we saw six powerful and courageous bulls killed, who, in their brave self-defense, disemboweled and killed thirteen horses. No man was seriously injured, though several were dismounted, and others run over by the enraged bulls in headlong career across the arena. The picadores were mounted on poor hacks, since the fate of the horse that entered the ring was as certain as that of the bull himself. The banderilleros and chulos, who took part in the combat on foot, were fine looking, active young fellows; and the matadores, who performed the final act of killing the bull single-handed, were as a rule older and more experienced men. It must be a practiced hand that gives the last thrust to the many-times wounded and nearly exhausted creature, who will always fight to the very last gasp.
The matadore is regarded as quite a hero by the masses of the people, receiving a princely remuneration for his services. He holds his head very high among his associates. One of these matadores was long the disgraceful favorite of Queen Isabella. We came away from this exhibition more than ever convinced of the cowardly character of the game. The requisite, on the part of the much lauded bull-fighter, is not courage but cunning. He knows full well when the bull is so nearly exhausted as to render his final attack upon him quite safe. A dozen against one, twelve armed men against one animal, who has the protection only of his horns and his stout courage. The death of the bull is sure from the moment he enters the ring, but the professional fighters are rarely hurt, though often very much frightened. Another most shameful part of the game is the introduction of poor, broken-down horses, who have yet strength and spirit enough to faithfully obey their rider, and so rush forward regardless of the horns of the bull, which will surely disembowel and lay them dead upon the field. The matadore who finally faces the bull single-handed, to give him the coup-de-grace with his Toledo blade, does not do so until the animal has struggled with his other tormentors nearly to the last gasp, is weak from the loss of blood, and his strength exhausted by a long and gallant fight, so that he already staggers and is nearly blind with accumulated torments. The poor creature is but a sorry victim for the fresh, well-armed, practiced butcher, who comes to give him the finishing stroke. We would emphasize the remark that the whole game of the bull-ring is, on the part of the chulos, picadores, and matadores, a shameful exhibition not only of the most disgraceful cruelty but also of consummate cowardice.
Black is the almost universal color worn by ladies and gentlemen in public. Parisian fashions as to cut and material are very generally adopted; and, as has been intimated, the French model is paramount in all things. A business resident remarked to us that the French language was becoming so universal that it absolutely threatened to supersede the native tongue. Bonnets are worn in walking and driving; but at the bull-fight, the concert-room, and the theatre the national lace head-dress is still tenaciously and becomingly adhered to. In manners the better class of Spaniards are extremely courteous, and always profuse in their offers of services, though it is hardly to be expected that their generosity will be put to the test. Gentlemen will smoke in the ladies' faces in the street, the corridors, cafés, cars, anywhere, apparently not being able to comprehend that it may be offensive. Even in the dining-rooms of the hotels, the cigar or cigarette is freely lighted, and smoked with the coffee while ladies are present. In short, tobacco seems to be a necessity to the average Spaniard, both sleeping and waking, for they smoke in bed also. Perhaps this apparent obtuseness on the part of gentlemen arises from the well-known fact that many of the ladies themselves indulge in the cigarette, though rarely in public. The writer has more than once seen the practice as exhibited in popular cafés whither both sexes resorted. At the bull-ring many of the common class of women had cigarettes between their lips.
Sunday is an acknowledged gala-day in Madrid, though the attendance upon early mass is very general, especially among the women. It is here, as at Paris and other European capitals, the chosen day for military parades, horse-races, and the bull-fight. Most of the shops are open and realize a profitable business, and especially is this the case with those devoted to the sale of cigars, liquors, fancy goods, and the cafés: with them it is the busiest day of the whole week. The lottery ticket vendor makes a double day's work on this occasion, and the itinerant gamblers, with portable stands, have crowds about their tables wherever they locate. The flower-girls, with dainty little baskets, rich in color and captivating in fragrance, press buttonhole bouquets on the pedestrians, and, shall we whisper it? make appointments with susceptible cavaliers; while men perambulate the streets with bon-bons displayed upon cases hung from their necks; in short, Sunday is made a fête day, when grandees and beggars complacently come forth like marching regiments into the Puerto del Sol. The Prado and public gardens are thronged with gayly-dressed people, children, and nurses,—the costume of the latter got up in the most theatrical style, with broad red or blue ribbons hanging down behind from their snow-white caps, and sweeping the very ground at their heels. No one stays within doors on Sunday in Madrid, and all Europe loves the out-door sunshine.
We have said that the Spanish capital was deficient in buildings of architectural pretension. This is quite true; but the country is rich in the character of her monuments, possessing one order of architecture elsewhere little known. Our guide called it very appropriately the Morisco style, which has grown out of the combination of Moorish and Christian art. The former attained, during the Middle Ages, as great importance in Spain as in the East. This is, perhaps, more clearly manifested in Andalusia than elsewhere; here its harmony is presented in many brilliant examples and combinations. The greatest wealth of the country is to be found in its historic monuments, its well-defined Roman period being especially rich in architectural remains; and, as to cathedrals, nowhere else are they to be found so richly and superbly endowed.
The cars took us to Toledo, a distance of about forty miles, in an hour and a half, landing us in a strange, old place, the very embodiment of antiquity, and the capital of Gothic Spain. Here let us drop a hint gained by experience. If the reader makes the excursion to Toledo from Madrid, he will most probably start early in the morning and get back late at night, as one day in the place will afford all the time absolutely necessary to visit and enjoy its most notable objects. A prepared luncheon basket should be taken from Madrid. This will obviate the necessity of encountering the dirt, unsavory food, and extortion of the fifth-rate hotels of Toledo. It has been said that banditti have been suppressed in Spain; perhaps so, on the public roads. It may be they have gone into the hotel business, as a safer and less conspicuous mode of robbing travelers. At Toledo the rule of the Moor is seen in foot-prints no time can obliterate, and to visit which is like the realization of a mediæval dream. The sombre streets are strangely winding, irregular, and steep; the reason for constructing them thus was, doubtless, that they might be the more easily defended when attacked by a foreign enemy. In the days of her prime, Toledo saw many battles, both inside and outside of her gates. One can touch the houses of these streets on both sides at the same time, by merely extending the arms.
There are scores of deserted buildings locked up, the heavy gates studded with great, protruding, iron-headed nails, while the lower windows are closely iron-grated. These houses have paved entrances, leading to open areas, or courts, with galleries around them, upon which the various rooms open. The galleries are of carved and latticed wood, generally in good preservation, but the main structure is of stone, most substantially built, everything testifying to their Moorish origin. Some of these houses, once palaces, are now used for storage purposes; some for business warehouses, manufactories, and carpenters' shops. One would suppose, in such a dull, sleepy, dormant place, that the streets would be grass-grown; but there is no grass. Yet between the loosely-fitting slabs of stone pavement, here and there, little fresh flowers, of some unknown species, struggled up into a pale, fragile existence, with stems white in place of green, showing the absence of sunlight, so necessary to both human and vegetable life. They had no fragrance, these stray children from Flora's kingdom, but looked very much like forget-me-nots, reminding one of the little flower which sprung up through the hard pavement of Picciola's prison. Dilapidation is written everywhere in this Oriental atmosphere. The Moors of Morocco still believe that they will yet be restored to the Spanish home of their ancestors, and the keys of these Toledo houses have been handed down from generation to generation as emblems of their rights, tokens which were pointed out to us at Tangier; but not, until we had visited Toledo, was the idea which they involved fully appreciated. One cannot but realize a certain respect for the Moors, while wandering among these scenes of the long-buried past. Whatever may have been their failings, they must have contrasted favorably with the present occupants, who seem strangely out of place. In those ancient days the city contained a quarter of a million of inhabitants; to-day it has barely fifteen thousand. The river Tagus almost surrounds Toledo, and is not, like the Manzanares, merely a dry ditch, but a full, rapid, rushing river.
The cathedral at Toledo is its most prominent object of interest, and has a deservedly high fame; while clustering about it, in the very heart of the old place, are many churches, convents, and palaces,—though a large share of them are untenanted, and as silent as the tomb. But before entering the cathedral we visited the Alcazar, formerly a royal palace of Charles V., and now the West Point of Spain, where her sons are educated for the army. Under the Moors, ten centuries ago, it was a fortress, then a palace, now an academy, capable of accommodating six hundred pupils. The view from the Alcazar, which dominates the entire city, is vast and impressive, the building itself being also the first object seen from a distance when one is approaching Toledo. It is upon a bleak height. As you come out of the broad portals of the Alcazar (Al-casa-zar, the czar's house), you walk to the edge of the precipitous rock upon which it stands, and contemplate the view across the far-reaching plain, gloomy and desolate, while at the base of the rock rushes past the rapid Tagus. This whole valley, now so dead and silent, once teemed with a dense population, and sent forth armies, and fought great battles, in the days of the Goths. The cathedral is visited by architects from all parts of Europe and America, solely as a professional study. It is a remarkably fine sample of the Gothic order, which Coleridge called petrified religion, and exhibits in all its parts that great achievement of the art, entire harmony of design and execution; while the richness of its ornamentation and its artistic wealth, not to mention, in detail, its gold and silver plate, make it the rival of most other cathedrals in the world, with the possible exception of that at Burgos. Its size is vast, with a tower reaching three hundred feet heavenward, and the interior having five great naves, divided by over eighty lofty columns. It is said to contain more stained-glass windows than any other cathedral that was ever built. The effect of the clear morning light, as imparted to the interior through this great surface of delicately-tinted glass, is remarkably beautiful. The high altar, a marvel of splendid workmanship and minute detail, is yet a little confusing, from the myriads of statues, groups, emblems, columns, gilding, and ornaments generally; but it seems to be the purpose of most of these Roman Catholic churches to turn the altars into a species of museum. Guides are always plentifully supplied with marvelous legends for travelers; and ours, on this occasion, simply bristled all over with them as regarded this church. One of these, which he persisted in pouring into our unbelieving ears, was to the effect that, when the cathedral was completed and dedicated, so perfect was it found to be that the Virgin descended bodily to visit it, and to express, by her presence, her entire satisfaction!
Toledo stands there upon the boldest promontory of the Tagus,—a dead and virtually deserted city. Coveted by various conquerors, she has been besieged more than twenty times; so that the river beneath the walls has often flowed red with human gore, where it is spanned by the graceful bridge of Alcantara. Phœnicians, Romans, Goths, Moors, and Christians, all have fought for and have possessed, for a greater or less period, the castle-crowned city. Its story is written in letters scarlet with blood and dark with misery; illustrating Irving's idea that history is but a kind of Newgate calendar, a register of the crimes and miseries that man has inflicted on his fellow-man. Only the skeleton of a once great and thriving capital remains. It has no commerce and but one industry,—the manufacture of arms and sword-blades,—which gives occupation to a couple of hundred souls, hardly more. The coming and going of visitors from other lands gives it a little flutter of daily life, like a fitful candle blazing up for a moment and then dying down in the socket, making darkness only the more visible by contrast. The once celebrated sword factory was found to be of little interest, though we were told that better blades are manufactured here to-day than in olden time, when it won such repute in this special line. So well are these blades tempered, that it is possible to bend them like a watch spring without breaking them. In looking at the present condition of this once famous seat of industry and power, recalling her arts, manufactures, and commerce, it must be remembered that outside of the immediate walls, which form the citadel, as it were, of a large and extended population, were over forty thriving towns and villages, located in the valley of the Tagus, under the shadow of her wing. These communities and their homes have all disappeared,—pastures and fields of grain covering their dust from the eyes of the curious traveler. The narrow, silent, doleful streets of the old city, with its overhanging roofs and yawning arches, leave a sad memory on the brain, as we turn away from its crumbling walls and antique Moorish gates.