Gatherings from Spain

by Richard Ford

FIRST-CLASS BANDITS.

Many circumstances combined to make this freebooting career popular among the lower classes. The delight of power, the exhibition of daring and valour, the temptation of sudden wealth, always so attractive to half-civilized nations, who prefer the rich spoil won by the bravery of an hour, to that of the drudgery of years; the gorgeous apparel, the lavish expenditure, the song, the wassail, the smiles of the fair, and all the joyous life of liberty, freemasonry, and good fellowship, operated with irresistible force on a warlike, energetic, and imaginative population.

This smuggling was the origin of Jose Maria’s career, who rose to the highest rank and honours of his profession, as did Napoleon le Grand and “Jonathan Wild the Great,” and principally, as Fielding says of his hero, by a power of doing mischief, and a principle of considering honesty to be a corruption of honosty, the qualities of an ass (ονος). But it is a great mistake to suppose that there always are men fitted to be captains of formidable gangs; nature is chary in the production of such specimens of dangerous grandeur, and as ages may elapse before the world is cursed with another Alaric, Buonaparte, or Wild, so years may pass before Spain witnesses again another Jose Maria.

FIRST-CLASS BANDITS.

The Ladron-en-grande, the robber on a great scale, is the grandee of the first class in his order; he is the captain of a regularly-organized band of followers, from eight to fourteen in number, well armed and mounted, and entirely under command and discipline. These are very formidable; and as they seldom attack any travellers except with overwhelming forces, and under circumstances of ambuscade and surprise, where every thing is in their favour, resistance is generally useless, and can only lead to fatal accidents. Never, for the sake of a sac de nuit, risk being sent to Erebus; submit, therefore, at once and with good grace to the summons, which will take no denial, of “abajo,” down, “boca á tierra,” mouth to the earth. Those who have a score or so of dollars, four or five pounds, the loss of which will ruin no man, are very rarely ill-used; a frank, confident, and good-humoured surrender not only prevents any bad treatment, but secures even civility during the disagreeable operation: pistols and sabres are, after all, a poor defence compared to civil words, as Mr. Cribb used to say. The Spaniard, by nature high-bred and a “caballero,” responds to any appeal to qualities of which he thinks his nation has reason to be proud; he respects coolness of manner, in which bold men, although robbers, sympathise. Why should a man, because he loses a few dollars, lose also his presence of mind or temper, or perhaps life? Nor are these grandees of the system without a certain magnanimity, as Cervantes knew right well. Witness his graphic account of Roque Guinart, whose conduct to his victims and behaviour to his comrades tallied, to our certain knowledge, with that observed by Jose Maria, and was perfectly analogous to the similar traits of character exhibited by the Italian bandit Ghino de Tacco, the immortalized by Dante; as well as by our Robin Hood and Diana’s foresters. Being strong, they could afford to be generous and merciful.

Notwithstanding these moral securities, if only by way of making assurance doubly sure, an Englishman will do well when travelling in exposed districts to be provided with a decent bag of dollars, which makes a handsome purse, feels heavy in the hand, and is that sort of amount which the Spanish brigand thinks a native of our proverbially rich country ought to have with him on his travels. He has a remarkable tact in estimating from the look of an individual, his equipage, &c., how much ready money it is befitting his condition for him to have about him; if the sum should not be enough, he resents severely his being robbed of the regular perquisite to which he considers himself entitled by the long-established usage of the high-road. The person unprovided altogether with cash is generally made a severe example of, pour encourager les autres, either by being well beaten or stripped to the skin, after the fashion of the thieves of old, near Jericho. The traveller should have a watch of some kind—one with a gaudy gilt chain and seals is the best suited; not to have one exposes him to more indignities than a scantily-filled purse. The money may have been spent, but the absence of a watch can only be accounted for by a premeditated intention of not being robbed of it, which the “ladron” considers as a most unjustifiable attempt to defraud him of his right.

THE RATERO.

The Spanish “ladrones” are generally armed with a blunderbuss, that hangs at their high-peaked saddles, which are covered with a white or blue fleece, emblematical enough of shearing propensities; therefore, perhaps, the order of the golden fleece has been given to certain foreigners, in reward for having eased Spain of her independence and Murillos. Their dress is for the most part very rich, and in the highest style of the fancy; hence they are the envy and models of the lower classes, being arrayed after the fashion of the smuggler, or the bull-fighter, or in a word, the “majo” or dandy of Andalucia, which is the home and head-quarters of all those who aspire to the elegant accomplishments and professions just alluded to. The next class of robbers—omitting some minor distinctions, such as the “salteadores,” or two or three persons who lie in ambuscade and jump out on the unprepared traveller—is the “ratero,” “the rat.” He is not brought regularly up to the profession and organized, but takes to it on a sudden, and for the special occasion which, according to the proverb, makes a thief, La ocasion hace al ladron; and having committed his petty larceny, returns to his pristine occupation or avocation.

MIGUELITES.

The “raterillo,” or small rat, is a skulking footpad, who seldom attacks any but single and unprotected passengers, who, if they get robbed, have no one to blame but themselves; for no man is justified in exposing Spaniards to the temptation of doing a little something in that line. The shepherd with his sheep, the ploughman at his plough, the vine-dresser amid his grapes, all have their gun, ostensibly for their individual protection, which furnishes means of assault and battery against those who have no other defence but their legs and virtue. These self-same extemporaneous thieves are, however, remarkably civil to armed and prepared travellers; to them they touch their hats, and exclaim, “Good day to you, my lord knight,” and “May your grace go with God,” with all that innocent simplicity which is observable in pastorals, opera-ballets, and other equally correct representations of rural life. These rats are held in as profound contempt by the higher classes of the profession, as political ones used to be, before parties were betrayed by turncoats, who, with tails and without, deserted to the enemies’ camp. The ladron en grande looks down on this sneaking competitor as a regular M.D. and member of the College of Physicians does on a quack, who presumes to take fees and kill without a licence. However despicable, these rats are very dangerous; lacking the generous feeling which the possession of power and united force bestows, they have the cowardice and cruelty of weakness: hence they frequently murder their victim, because dead men tell no tales.