This is a fine town, but not Spanish. The troops have shoes instead of sandals, and, I believe, stockings. They can roast at the inn, and have mustard and French wines. The women wear mantillas over caps, and commit divers other equally un-Spanish atrocities; people stupid and ill-mannered; a horrid language; all the discomforts and prohibitions of Spain, without being made up for by the curious and original people of the South; women ugly and coarse; men in large high trousers, looking like Cruickshank’s prints of “nobody, all legs.” Everything in perfect order and quiet. The name of the Conde de España does here what that of Quesada does in Andalucia. They are all frightened about the cholera, and the quarantine regulations most severe. The Captain-General has sent to England for four gallons of Cajeput oil, which for a population of more than 100,000 is a fair stock.
Zaragoça, Oct. 18.
Dear Addington,
We arrived here quite safely on Sunday in a tremendous storm of rain, having stuck in the mud divers times during our journey, and being extricated by the spades of peasants and many supplications to the Santissima Virgen del Pilar, whose effigy I have bought in consequence.
On our arrival here, to my utter dismay and discomfiture, I found no letter from V. E., and, worse, no letter of credit from that arch-circumcised dog, Ravisa, to whom I had written from Valencia at the same time as I wrote you, but which letters must, from some Spanish mismanagement, have never reached their destination. Well! here we are with about 800 reals in our pocket,—no means of getting any more, the bill to pay, and the places to Madrid some 600 or 700 more. I had, like a fool, refused a letter of credit from my Barcelona banker, trusting to that Philistine Ravisa. Henceforward I have vowed before the Pilar of Zaragoça never to trust to Jew or Christian again. In this quandary, the post to-day from Madrid having brought no letter, I have despatched my eloquent, mellifluous-tongued Pasqual, who has persuaded the diligence to take us to Madrid without our paying here, my wife, Pasqual, and the luggage to be detained in pledge at the office until the dollars are regularly booked up. It would be a rare opportunity for a husband who wanted to break up his establishment to leave these tender pledges unredeemed; but I do not propose doing so if your Excellency will interfere, and this is dignus vindice nodus. My plan is to start on Friday; we are to arrive at Madrid on Sunday, time uncertain, somewhere between 12 and 5. Will you therefore be so good as to put up 600 or 700 reals in a paper directed to me, and leave it with your porter? I shall get out at the P. de Alcalá, pass your door, take the cash, and hasten to liberate the pledges from the magazines of the diligence, and proceed from their prison to the sumptuous quarters you have prepared for us.
We made an interesting tour into the mountains on leaving Barcelona, first to Monserrat, where we slept in the convent, and spent the next day in wandering about the rocks and hermitages,—a most wonderful rock, and scenery well worth of itself the journey to Monserrat from Granada. Thence we proceeded to Manresa, and on to Cardona to the celebrated Salt Mountain, which stands out of the ground like a huge lump of confiture, peach, apricot, and lemon, all candied over with little pearly globules of salt—a true Spanish mine, as they have absolutely nothing to do but knock off lumps, put them into a bag, pound them and eat them—no salt-pans, refining, corporations, or any other tedious processes. Thence we rode over a wild mountain, sometimes up the bed of dry rivers, sometimes through torrents, generally over rock, and never over road, to Igualada, and so on in the diligence to Zaragoça, a gloomy, old, dirty, brick-built town, but truly Spanish; many things very well worth seeing—the Virgen del Pilar and the positions during the siege, the great lions. As to the siege, they seem neither to know nor care much about it, though, really, here the Spaniards might be proud of their truly Moorish exploits of fighting well behind a wall. I met two well-dressed men on the walk to Sᵗᵃ Engracia, and made Pasqual ask them (to prevent the possibility of being misunderstood) where Sᵗᵃ Engracia was, and, though it was close by, and the famous Quartel of the French, they shrugged their shoulders with the true Spanish shrug, and muttered out the usual true meaning of said shrug—No sé! Fine, honest, downright simplicity of ignorance! Viva la España, viva la Stˢᵃ Vⁿ del Pilar y S.E. mille años! But do not forget los 600 reales; for, if my wife is knocked down for a dollar at the diligence sale of unredeemed pledges, it will be entirely the fault of the want of these 600 reales. So farewell.
Ever most sincerely,
Richard Ford.
A letter dated Saturday, November 19th, 1831, announces the return of Ford and his wife to the Alhambra.
We arrived safely at the Alhambra this afternoon, after rather an uncomfortable ride from Andujar. As you predicted it would rain, it did, and we got into Jaen wet one evening to set out the next morning in a Scotch mist, which lasted all the way to Campillo, where we put up in the worst posada in Spain, which pray commend to Col. Oxholm, who has a list of them. At Jaen we saw Don Carlos [Downie], whose heart, body, and soul are at your service. I called on the Intendente to enquire after his precious health, and praise his cigars, both of which he felt, as he ought, highly flattered, and Jaen is at your disposicion, whenever you choose to have it.
Don Carlos very fat, talking bad English and worse Spanish, delighted with your visit and the dinner he gave you, which was, like his Tertulia, a contribution from all the houses in Jaen, as he sent round to everybody to say the great man was to dine with him, and begging them to send him their best wine and the best dish of their own dinner to his. I did not see “God’s Face,” which is only shewn to representatives of Kings and Bishops.[24]