July 27 [1831], Alhambra.
I am afraid, as you say nothing about your journey to Granada, that you have had bad news from home; all work and no play. How unlucky all this business about the free trade of Cadiz, and the voluminous speculations thereon by my friend the Proconsul; to say nothing of despatches from Hopner to plague your heart out. Well, well! no tiene remedio. I only mention all this, as it is considered unlucky here not to ascend the Pico de Valeta about this time, in some of these three or four “glorious days” of July, glorious Dog Days; son en canicula. However, we managed to keep our thermometer under 80, which is not more than the heat at Paris, as I see per Galignani—for which accept my greatest thanks—that true pabulum of an Englishman. The three received yesterday were very amusing: the debate on the reform, Macaulay’s essay oratorical, Porchester’s discourse peninsular and historical, Wetherell droll and coarsish, some lucid intervals, as was said of that part of his shirt which always appears between his breeches and waistcoat; Peel sentential and sonorous in the Joseph Surface school; and bravo! old Sir Francis Burdett, who gave him a sound drubbing. For all that, I would vote against the bill, professing myself a bit by bit reformer. The Tories may thank themselves, for the people could not but see, after that Bassetlaw job,[18] that they would do nothing for them.
Monʳ de Sᵗᵉ Barbe and A. Custine, Esq., have duly started for Madrid with his unfinished MSS. By speaking bad English, the one is forgetting his French—the other, the wholesome vernacular tongue as expressed in Hampshire. I don’t think they took kindly to the Alhambra; however, you will see and hear. I have begged the Marquis de Sᵗᵉ Barbe to give you some account of my Local and poor means of receiving so great a personage as your Excellency. I can only say that it will be con muchisimo agrado. Mrs. Ford has got a Pajes,[19] and there is a dark glancing Spaniard washing clothes in the Alhambra, to whom you may pour forth your amatory rondeñas.
I rather think that, about the middle of September, I shall come up to Madrid with my spouse for a very few days, show her Toledo and the Escurial, and return by a short cut (to diddle Castaños) through Zaragoça, Barcelona, and Valencia. This little trip will occupy very well a couple of the autumnal months; and then on to Malaga; and should any rows take place, and the consular protection of the apostolic Mark be insufficient, I shall place myself under the batteries of Gibraltar: so much for plans. If you have time, you may let me have a line as to yours, whether we have any chance of your visit. You really should come, for, depend on it, the old woman of the Alhambra, in whose house we are living, will never let the Governor turn her out again, and if you do not live in the Alhambra, you may as well remain in the Calle de Alcalá.
During Addington’s stay at the Alhambra, Ford, his wife, and their guest ascended the Picacho de la Veleta, “the watch-point,” the second highest peak (12,459 feet) of the Sierra Nevada. The greater part of the ascent to the top of the conical peak, about twenty miles, was ridden, the party sleeping for the night at the Cortijo del Puche.
After Addington had left, the Fords started (September 9th, 1831) on an expedition to eastern Spain, Mrs. Ford on a donkey, her husband on horseback, and their servant Pasqual in a one-horse, two-wheeled, covered cart. They made their way over the mountains by Elche, the “City of Palms,” to Alicante; thence by San Felipe de Xativa, the birthplace of Ribera (Spagnoletto) and Pope Alexander VI., and the prison of his son Cæsar Borgia, to Valencia.
At Valencia Ford stayed several days, delighting in the pictures of Vicente Joanes[20] and Francisco Ribalta.[21] Thence he made his way by Murviedro (Saguntum) to Tarragona and Barcelona. On the road from Barcelona to Tarragona they turned aside to see Montserrat, spent a night in the convent on the jagged saw-like hills, dropped down on Manresa and the famous cueva de san Ignacio, visited the salt mines at Cardona, rejoined the high road and the diligence, and so reached Zaragoza.
Zaragoza, the pilgrim city of Arragon, “the Ephesus of Mariolatry,” as Ford calls it in his Handbook, has two cathedrals, the Seu, and El Pilar. The latter marks the spot where the Virgin, standing on a jasper pillar, bade St. James build a chapel in her honour. At the time of Ford’s visit to the city its houses were still riddled and pitted with shot-marks. They were the honourable scars of two memorable sieges, of which Agustina, “La Artillera,” the maid of Zaragoza who snatched the match from a dying artilleryman and fired upon the French, and Tio Jorge, “Gaffer George,” who organised the peasants for the defence, were the real heroes. The first siege lasted from June 15th to August 15th, 1808. Led, as they believed, by the Virgin of the Pillar, the inhabitants fought with desperate courage. It was in the convent of Santa Engracia that the French effected a lodgment. On August 15th, those of the invaders who survived had retreated, after blowing up the monastery and leaving it in ruins. The attack was renewed on December 20th. Four marshals of France directed the operations of the siege. Shot and shell, plague and famine, did their work within the walls. On February 20th, 1809, after holding out for sixty-two days, Zaragoza surrendered to Marshal Lannes.
Saturday, 3rd Sept. [1831], Alhambra.
I hope you got quite safely to Andujar in that tremendous machine you started in. We are off on Thursday for Alicante: Pasqual in a Tartana, wife on the Burra, and your humble servant on Cavallo. With a troop of Miquelites we shall, I trust, get safely to Alicante, and publish in due time a rival account of Mr. Inglis,[22] another traveller ingles.