The Iberians were decided water-drinkers, and this trait of their manners, which are modified by climate that changes not, still exists as the sun that regulates: the vinous Greek Athenæus was amazed that even rich Spaniards should prefer water to wine; and to this day they are if possible curious about the latter’s quality; they will just drink the wine that grows the nearest, while they look about and enquire for the best water; thus even our cook Francisco, who certainly had one of the best places in Seville, and who although a good artiste was a better rascal—qualities not incompatible—preferred to sacrifice his interests rather than go to Granada, because this man of the fire had heard that the water there was bad.
INTENSE HEAT.
The mother of the Arabs was tormented with thirst, which her Hispano-Moro children have inherited; in fact in the dog-days, of which here there are packs, unless the mortal clay be frequently wetted it would crumble to bits like that of a figure modeller. Fire and water are the elements of Spain, whether at an auto de fé or in a church-stoop; with a cigar in his mouth a Spaniard smokes like Vesuvius, and is as dry, combustible, and inflammatory; and properly to understand the truth of Solomon’s remark, that cold water is to a thirsty soul as refreshing as good news, one must have experienced what thirst is in the exposed plains of the calcined Castiles, where coup de soleil is rife, and a gentleman on horseback’s brains seem to be melting like Don Quixote’s when Sancho put the curds into his helmet. It is just the country to send a patient to, who is troubled with hydrophobia. “Those rayes,” to use the words of old Howell, “that do but warm you in England, do roast you here; those beams that irradiate onely, and gild your honey-suckled fields, do here scorch and parch the chinky gaping soyle, and put too many wrinkles upon the face of your common mother.”
Then, when the heavens and earth are on fire, and the sun drinks up rivers at one draught, when one burnt sienna tone pervades the tawny ground, and the green herb is shrivelled up into black gunpowder, and the rare pale ashy olive-trees are blanched into the livery of the desert; then, when the heat and harshness make even the salamander muleteers swear doubly as they toil along like demons in an ignited salitrose dust—then, indeed, will an Englishman discover that he is made of the same material, only drier, and learn to estimate water; but a good thirst is too serious an evil, too bordering on suffering, to be made, like an appetite, a matter of congratulation; for when all fluids evaporate, and the blood thickens into currant jelly, and the nerves tighten up into the catgut of an overstrung fiddle, getting attuned to the porcupinal irritability of the tension of the mind, how the parched soul sighs for the comfort of a Scotch mist, and fondly turns back to the uvula-relaxing damps of Devon!—then, in the blackhole-like thirst of the wilderness, every mummy hag rushing from a reed hut, with a porous cup of brackish water, is changed by the mirage into a Hebe, bearing the nectar of the immortals; then how one longs for the most wretched Venta, which heat and thirst convert into the Clarendon, since in it at least will be found water and shade, and an escape from the god of fire! Well may Spanish historians boast, that his orb at the creation first shone over Toledo, and never since has set on the dominions of the great king, who, as we are assured by Señor Berni, “has the sun for his hat,”—tiene al sol por su sombrero; but humbler mortals who are not grandees of this solar system, and to whom a coup de soleil is neither a joke nor a metaphor, should stow away non-conductors of heat in the crown of their beavers. Thus Apollo himself preserved us. And oh! ye our fair readers, who chance to run such risks, and value complexion, take for heaven’s sake a parasol and an Alcarraza.
SPANISH WATER-SELLERS.
This clay utensil—as its Arabic name al Karaset implies—is a porous refrigeratory vessel, in which water when placed in a current of hot air becomes chilled by evaporation; it is to be seen hung up on poles dangling from branches, suspended to waggons—in short, is part and parcel of a Spanish scene in hot weather and localities; every posada has rows of them at the entrance, and the first thing every one does on entering, before wishing even the hostess Good morning, or asking permission, is to take a full draught: all classes are learned on the subject, and although on the whole they cannot be accused of teetotalism, they are loud in their praises of the pure fluid. The common form of praise is agua muy rica—very rich water. According to their proverbs, good water should have neither taste, smell, nor colour, “ni sabor, olor, ni color,” which neither makes men sick nor in debt, nor women widows, “que no enferma, no adeuda, no enviuda;” and besides being cheaper than wine, beer, or brandy, it does not brutalize the consumer, nor deprive him of his common sense or good manners.
WANT OF CLEANLINESS.
As Spaniards at all times are as dry as the desert or a sponge, selling water is a very active business; on every alameda and prado shrill voices of the sellers of drinks and mouth combustibles—vendedores de combustibles de boca—are heard crying, “Fire, fire, candela—Water; who wants water?”—agua; quien quiere agua? which, as these Orientals generally exaggerate, is described as mas fresca que la nieve, or colder than snow; and near them little Murillo-like urchins run about with lighted ropes like artillerymen for the convenience of smokers, that is, for every ninety and nine males out of a hundred; while water-carriers, or rather retail pedestrian aqueducts, follow thirst like fire-engines; the Aguador carries on his back, like his colleague in the East, a porous water-jar, with a little cock by which it is drawn out; he is usually provided with a small tin box strapped to his waist, and in which he stows away his glasses, brushes, and some light azucarillos—panales, which are made of sugar and white of egg, which Spaniards dip and dissolve in their drink. In the town, at particular stations water-mongers in wholesale have a shed, with ranges of jars, glasses, oranges, lemons, &c., and a bench or two on which the drinkers “untire themselves.” In winter these are provided with an añafe or portable stove, which keeps a supply of hot water, to take the chill off the cold, for Spaniards, from a sort of dropsical habit, drink like fishes all the year round. Ferdinand the Catholic, on seeing a peasant drowned in a river, observed, “that he had never before seen a Spaniard who had had enough water.”
At the same time it must be remembered that this fluid is applied with greater prodigality in washing their inside than their outside. Indeed, a classical author remarks that the Spaniards only learnt the use of hot water, as applicable to the toilette, from the Romans after the second Punic war. Their baths and thermæ were destroyed by the Goths, because they tended to encourage effeminacy; and those of the Moors were prohibited by the Gotho-Spaniards partly from similar reasons, but more from a religious hydrophobia. Ablutions and lustral purifications formed an article of faith with the Jew and Moslem, with whom “cleanliness is godliness.” The mendicant Spanish monks, according to their practice of setting up a directly antagonist principle, considered physical dirt as the test of moral purity and true faith; and by dining and sleeping from year’s end to year’s end in the same unchanged woollen frock, arrived at the height of their ambition, according to their view of the odour of sanctity, insomuch that Ximenez, who was himself a shirtless Franciscan, induced Ferdinand and Isabella, at the conquest of Granada, to close and abolish the Moorish baths. They forbade not only the Christians but the Moors from using anything but holy water. Fire, not water, became the grand element of inquisitorial purification.
CHOCOLATE.