Mendicity is one of the Curiosities—and not the least picturesque one—of this antique country. There should be a Mendicity Society for its preservation, together with other legacies of the middle ages. An entertaining book might be filled with its annals and anecdotes.
Nowhere, I should think, can beggary be a more lucrative calling. The convents having been the inexhaustible providence of these tribes, on their suppression the well-born and bred Spaniards consider the charge to have devolved upon them, in the absence of all possible legislation on the subject: and few, especially of the fair sex, turn a deaf ear to the mute eloquence of the open hand. Even a stranger, if possessed of an ear, resists with difficulty the graceful appeal of the well trained proficient: Noble caballero, un ochavito por Dios.—A blind girl made no request; but exclaimed—"Oh that the Virgin of Carmen may preserve your sight!"
The mendicants are classified, and assume every form of external humanity. Being in the coach-office near the Plaza del Duque, a tall well-dressed man, dangling a dark kid glove, entered, and, walking up to the book-keeper, after having carefully closed the door, made some communication to him in a low voice. The other replied in a similar tone, and they parted with mutual bows. I was puzzled on the man's turning to me and observing that the beggars were very annoying in Seville; but still certain my conjecture could not but be erroneous, I said "you don't mean to say that your acquaintance"—"Oh, no acquaintance; I never saw him before: he only came to beg."
This species of cavallero pauper should by no means be encouraged; he is not of the picturesque sort. Nowhere do the wretches look their character better than at Seville; as all admirers of Murillo can testify, without consulting any other nature than his canvass. But these consider they confer a sort of obligation on the individual they condescend to apply to. Nothing can exceed their astonishment and indignation when refused. Their great highway is the superb polished mosaic marble of the Cathedral; where they divide the authority with the embroidered dignitaries of the choir. It is useless to hope for an instant's leisure for the contemplation of this unique temple, until you have disposed of its entire population of ragged despots.
A sort of chivalrous etiquette is observed, in virtue of which a female chorus is the first to form your escort from pillar to pillar. These dismissed, you are delivered over to the barefooted Murillos. There are two modes of escape. The rich man should go in with his two hands filled with coin, and distribute to all, even to many who will return for a second contribution before he has done. But if economical, you may attain the same end, and more permanently, by sacrificing four or five days to walking up and down the nave, without looking at anything, but simply undergoing the persecution of the mob. After the fourth visit you will be left in peace.
These counsels I am competent to give you from dreadful experience; more dreadful from my having pursued a middle course. To one barefooted and rotten-scalped embryo brigand I only gave a two-quarto piece (halfpenny) about equal in real consequence to twopence in England. If you have ever seen, in the era of mail coaches, the look of quiet surprise on the countenance of the well-fed charioteer, who, having, after the sixth or seventh stage, opened the door, and muttered from behind his cache-nez the usual "coachman, gen'lemen" received a long-searched-for deprecatory sixpence from some careful knight with a false shirt-collar—you have noticed the self-same look, which was leisurely transferred by the urchin from the piece of copper in the open palm to my face, and back to the piece of copper.
Instead, however, of restoring it to me, his indignation seemed to inspire him with a sudden resolution. He rushed to a kneeling Señorita a few paces distant, and interrupting her devotions by a pull at the side of her mantilla, he showed the coin in the open hand, while with the other he pointed to the culprit. If he meditated revenge, he should have made another choice, instead of deranging a garment, from the folds of which a real Andalucian mouth and pair of eyes, turning full on me, aimed a smile which, I need not inform you, was not dear at two quartos.
Could such a smile have been natural, and the expression of mere curiosity, or was it intended for a death-wound, dealt for another's vengeance? and did the velvet language of those eyes signify a horrible "Pallas te hoc vulnere," in favour of the ragamuffin I had offended? At all events, the incident lost him a more munificent remuneration, by driving me from the spot, and expelling from my head, a project previously formed, of inviting him to my fonda to be sketched.
With regard to the oft and still recurring subject of Spanish beauty, you are hereby warned against giving ear to what may be said by tourists, who, by way of taking a new view of an old subject, simply give the lie to their predecessors. It is true, that in the central provinces, the genuine characteristic Moro-Iberian beauty is rare, and that there is little of any other sort to replace it; but this is not the case with Andalucia, where you may arrive fresh from the perusal of the warm effusions of the most smitten of poets, and find the Houris of real flesh and blood, by no means overrated.
One of their peculiar perfections extends to all parts of the Peninsula. This is the hair; everywhere your eye lights upon some passing specimen of these unrivalled masses of braided jet; at which not unfrequently natives of the same sex turn with an exclamation—Que pelo tan hermoso!