The distinction between these higher and lower classes of rogues will be better understood by comparing the Napoleon of war, with the Napoleon of peace. The Corsican was the ladron en grande; he warred against mankind, he led his armed followers to pillage and plunder, he made his den the receiving house of the stolen goods of the Continent: but he did it openly and manfully by his own right hand and good sword; and valour and audacity are qualities too high and rare not to command admiration—qualified, indeed, when so misapplied. Louis-Philippe is a ratero, who, skulking under disguise of amity and good faith, works out in the dark, and by cunning, his ends of avarice and ambition; who, acting on the artful dodger (no) principle, while kissing the Queen, picks her pocket of a crown.
MIGUELITES.
It must be stated for the purposes of history that at the time when Spain was, or was said to be, overrun with rats and robbers, there was, as Spaniards have it, a remedy for everything except death; and as the evils were notorious, it was natural that means of prevention should likewise exist. If the state of things had been so bad as exaggerated report would infer, it would have been impossible that any travelling or traffic could have been managed in the Peninsula. The mails and diligences, being protected by government, were seldom attacked, and those who travelled by other methods, and had proper recommendations, seldom failed in being provided by the authorities with a sufficient escort. A regular body of men was organized for that purpose; they were called “Miguelites,” from, it is said, one Miguel de Prats, an armed satellite of the famous or infamous Cæsar Borgia. In Catalonia they are called “Mozos de la Escuadra,” “Lads of the squadron, land marines;” they are the modern “Hermandad,” the brotherhood which formed the old Spanish rural armed police. Composed of picked and most active young men, they served on foot, under the orders of the military powers; they were dressed in a sort of half uniform and half majo costume. Their gaiters were black instead of yellow, and their jackets of blue trimmed with red. They were well armed with a short gun and a belt round the waist in which the ammunition was placed, a much more convenient contrivance than our cartouche-box; they had a sword, a cord for securing prisoners, and a single pistol, which was stuck in their sashes, at their backs. This corps was on a perfect par with the robbers, from whom some of them were chosen; indeed, the common condition of the “indulto,” or pardon to robbers, is to enlist, and extirpate their former associates—set a thief to catch a thief; both the honest and renegade Miguelites hunted “la mala gente,” as gamekeepers do poachers. The robbers feared and respected them; an escort of ten or twelve Miguelites might brave any number of banditti, who never or rarely attack where resistance is to be anticipated; and in travelling through suspected spots these escorts showed singular skill in taking every precaution, by throwing out skirmishers in front and at the sides. They covered in their progress a large space of ground, taking care never to keep above two together, nor more distant from each other than gun-shot; rules which all travellers will do well to remember, and to enforce on all occasions of suspicion. The rare instances in which Englishmen, especially officers of the garrison of Gibraltar, have been robbed, have arisen from a neglect of this precaution; when the whole party ride together they may be all caught at once, as in a casting-net.
TRAVELLING ESCORTS.
It may be remarked that Spanish robbers are very shy in attacking armed English travellers, and particularly if they appear on their guard. The robbers dislike fighting, and the more as they do so at a disadvantage, from having a halter round their necks, and they hate danger, from knowing what it is; they have no chivalrous courage, nor any more abstract notions of fair play than a Turk or a tiger, who are too uncivilized to throw away a chance; accordingly, they seldom join issue where the defendants seem pugnacious, which is likely to be the case with Englishmen. They also peculiarly dislike English guns and gunpowder, which, in fact, both as arms and ammunition, are infinitely superior to those of Spain. Though three or four Englishmen had nothing to fear, yet where there were ladies it was better to be provided with an escort of Miguelites. These men have a keen and accurate eye, and were always on the look-out for prints of horses and other signs, which, escaping the notice of superficial observers, indicated to their practised observations the presence of danger. They were indefatigable, keeping up with a carriage day and night, braving heat and cold, hunger and thirst. As they were maintained at the expense of the government, they were not, strictly speaking, entitled to any remuneration from those travellers whom they were directed to escort; it was, however, usual to give to each man a couple of pesetas a-day, and a dollar to their leader. The trifling addition of a few cigars, a “bota” or two of wine, some rice and dried cod-fish for their evening meal, was well bestowed; exercise sharpened their appetites; and they were always proud to drink to their master’s long life and purse, and protect both.
Those, whether natives or foreigners, who could not obtain or afford the expense of an escort to themselves, availed themselves of the opportunity of joining company with some party who had one. It is wonderful how soon the fact of an escort being granted was known, and how the number of travellers increased, who were anxious to take advantage of the convoy. As all go armed, the united allied forces became more formidable as the number increased, and the danger became less. If no one happened to be travelling with an escort, then travellers waited for the passage of troops, for the government’s sending money, tobacco, or anything else which required protection. If none of these opportunities offered, all who were about to travel joined company. This habit of forming caravans is very Oriental, and has become quite national in Spain, insomuch that it is almost impossible to travel alone, as others will join; weaker and smaller parties will unite with all stronger and larger companies whom they meet going the same road, whether the latter like it or not. The muleteers are most social and gregarious amongst each other, and will often endeavour to derange their employer’s line of route, in order to fall in with that of their chance-met comrades. The caravan, like a snow-ball, increases in bulk as it rolls on; it is often pretty considerable at the very outset, for, even before starting, the muleteers and proprietors of carriages, being well known to each other, communicate mutually the number of travellers which each has got.
ESCOPETEROS.
Travelling in out-of-the-way districts in a “coche de colleras,” and especially if accompanied with a baggage-waggon, exposes the party to be robbed. When the caravan arrives in the small villages it attracts immediate notice, and if it gets wind that the travellers are foreigners, they are supposed to be laden with gold and booty. Such an arrival is a rare event; the news spreads like wildfire, and collects all the “mala gente,” the bad set of idlers and loiterers, who act as spies, and convey intelligence to their confederates; again, the bulk of the equipage, the noise and clatter of men and mules, is seen and heard from afar, by robbers if there be any, who lurk in hiding-places or eminences, and are well provided with telescopes, besides with longer and sharper noses, which, as Gil Blas says, smell coin in travellers’ pockets, while the slow pace and impossibility of flight renders such a party an easy prey to well-mounted horsemen.
PASSES AND PROTECTIONS.
This condition of affairs, these dangers real or imaginary, and these precautions, existed principally in journeys by cross roads, or through provinces rarely visited, and unprovided with public carriages; if, however, such districts were reputed the worst, they often had the advantage of being freer from regular bands, for where there are few passengers, why should there be robbers, who like spiders place their nets where the supply of flies is sure?—and little do the humbler masses of Spain care either for robbers or revolutionists; they have nothing to lose, and are beneath the notice of pickpockets or pseudo-patriots. Their rags are their safeguard, a fine climate clothes them, a fertile soil feeds them; they doze away in the happy want and poverty, ever the best protections in Spain, or strum their guitars and sing staves in praise of empty purses. The better provided have to look out for themselves; indeed, whenever the law is insufficient men take it into their own hands, either to protect themselves or their property, or to administer wild justice, and obtain satisfaction for wrongs, which in plain Spanish is called revenge. An Irish landlord arms his servants and raises walls round his “demesne”—an English squire employs watchers and keepers to preserve his pheasants—so in suspected localities a Spanish hidalgo protects his person by hiring armed peasants; they are called “escopeteros,” people with guns—a definition which is applicable to most Spaniards. When out of town this custom of going armed, and early acquaintance with the use of the gun, is the principal reason why, on the shortest notice, bodies of men, whom the Spaniards call soldiers, are got together; every field furnishes the raw material—a man with a musket. Baggage, commissariat, pay, rations, uniform, and discipline, which are European rather than Oriental, are more likely to be found in most other armies than in those of Spain. These things account for the facility with which the Spanish nation flies so magnanimously to arms, and after bush-fighting and buccaneering expeditions, disappears at once after a reverse; “every man to his own home,” as of old in the East, and that, with or without proclamation. These “escopeteros,” occasionally robbers themselves, live either by robbery or by the prevention of it; for there is some honour among thieves; “entre lobos no se come,” “wolves don’t eat each other” unless very hard up indeed. These fellows naturally endeavour to alarm travellers with over-exaggerated accounts of danger, ogres and antres vast, in order that their services may be engaged; their inventions are often believed by swallowers of camels, who note down as facts, these tricks upon travellers got up for the occasion, by people who are making long noses at them, behind their backs; but these longer lies are among the accidents of long journeys, “en luengas vias, luengas mentiras.”