“Though Spanish and Italian are very much alike, each of them seems to be at war with the other. Ford, in Murray’s Hand-book for Spain, says that a knowledge of Italian will prove a constant stumbling-block in learning Spanish. I found it so myself. Before I came to Spain the first time I could speak the language very well, and talked it whole evenings with my professor. Then I took lessons in Italian; but I soon found my Spanish so confused and confounded that I could not speak it at all.”
“Then I won’t try to learn Spanish,” added O’Hara.
“Here is the post-office on your right, and the Teatro Principal on the left; but it is not the principal theatre at the present time.”
“This street—I suppose they would call it a boulevard in Paris—is not unlike ‘Unter den Linden’ in Berlin,” said Murray. “It has the rows of trees in the middle.”
“But the time to visit the Rambla is just before night on a pleasant day, when it is crowded with people. Barcelona is not so thoroughly Spanish as some other cities of Spain—Madrid and Seville, for instance. The people are quite different from the traditional Spaniard, who is too dignified and proud to engage in commerce or to work at any honest business; while the Catalans are an industrious and thriving people, first-rate sailors, quick, impulsive, and revolutionary in their character. They are more like Frenchmen than Spaniards.”
“There is a square up that narrow street,” said Sheridan.
“That’s the Plaza Real,—Royal Square,—surrounded by houses with arcades, like the Palais Royal in Paris. In the centre of it is a fine monument, dedicated to the Catholic kings, as distinguished from the Moorish sovereigns, and dedicated to Ferdinand and Isabella; and you remember that Catalonia became a part of Aragon, and was annexed to Castile by the marriage of their respective sovereigns. This is the Rambla del Centro, for this broad avenue has six names in its length of three-quarters of a mile. Here is the Calle Fernando on our right, which is the next street in importance to the Rambla, and, like it, has several names for its different parts. Now we have the Teatro del Lico on our left, which is built on the plan of La Scala at Milan, and is said to be the largest theatre in Europe, seating comfortably four thousand people.”
Dr. Winstock continued to point out the various objects of interest on the way; but most of them were more worthy to be looked at than to be written about. The party walked the entire length of the Rambla to the Plaza de Cataluña, which is a small park, with a fountain in the centre. Taking another street, they reached a point near the centre of the city, where the cathedral is located. It is a Gothic structure, built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In 1519 Charles V. presided in the choir of this church over a general assembly of the Knights of the Golden Fleece. Under the high altar is the crypt or tomb of St. Eulalia, the patron saint of the city. She suffered martyrdom in the fourth century; and it is said that her remains were discovered five hundred years after her death, by the sweet odor they emitted. Her soul ascended to heaven in the visible form of a dove.
Near the cathedral, on the Plaza de la Constitucion, or Constitution Square, are the Town Hall and the Parliament House, in which the commons of Catalonia met before it became a part of the kingdom of Aragon. Between this square and the Rambla is the church of Santa Maria del Pino, Gothic, built a little later than the cathedral. Its name is derived from a tradition that the image of the Virgin was found in the trunk of a pine-tree, and because this tree is the emblem of the Catholic faith, ever green and ever pointing to heaven. On the altars of two of its chapels, Jews were allowed to take an oath in any suit with a Christian, or to establish the validity of a will, and for similar purposes. In another church Hebrews are permitted to take oath on the Ten Commandments, placed on an altar.
The party visited several other churches, and finally reached the great square near the head of the port, on which are located the Royal Palace, the Exchange, and the Custom House; but there is nothing remarkable about them. There are fifty fountains in the city, the principal of which is in the palace square. It is an allegorical representation of the four provinces of Catalonia.