Thursday, the 16th inst. The 2nd battalion of the Regimenᵗᵒ de Ynfanteria de Africa 6º de Linea left this for Madrid, consisting of nearly 900 men, including officers, having been completed with men taken from the 1st and 3rd battalions.
Observations. The Escuadron de Artilleria Volante, which consists of 12 pieces, for want of horses, could only send off the 4 pieces above-mentioned, although the orders were for the entire Escuadron to proceed to Valencia de Alcantara. Exertions are making to get it completed, that it may be able to proceed.
The Regimᵗᵒ de Caballeria del Principe, although it consists of above 300 men, could send only 115, also for want of horses.
The 1st and 3rd battalions of the Regimᵗᵒ de Ynfanteria de Africa, remaining here, have only from 300 to 400 men, and the battalion that has gone to Madrid, it is said, will be replaced by one battalion of Ynfanteria de la Regna, which is to come from Ceuta.
The Regimᵗᵒ Provincial de Sevilla is to be called together as soon as shoes and various articles of clothing, of which they are much in want, can be got ready.
At the end of February, 1832, Ford started alone on a riding expedition through the south-west corner of Spain, visiting Tarifa, Algeciras, Xeres, and Ronda. The story of Tarifa is the one great incident in the wretched reign of Sancho IV., called El Bravo, King of Castile and Leon (1284-1295). The castle had been taken in 1292 by Alonzo Perez de Guzman, who held it against the Moors. His only son, a child of nine, was brought under the walls of the castle by the Infante Juan, a traitor and renegade. Juan threatened to kill the boy if Guzman would not surrender to the Moors. Guzman drew his own dagger, threw it down to Juan, and replied, “Better is honour without a son than a son with dishonour.” The boy was murdered before the father’s eyes; but the castle remained in Christian hands. King Sancho rewarded the defender with the “canting” name of El Bueno, and with all the lands between the Guadalete and the Guadairo. From Guzman sprang the family of Medina Sidonia, who take their ducal title from the name of a hill fort some twenty miles from Cadiz.
Sevilla, March 31, 1832.
Since I wrote last, I have been scampering over the mountains of Ronda, not having the fear of José Maria in my eyes. I went first to Cadiz to see the consular pictures and drink the consular sherry, both very fine, cosas de gran gusto. Thence by Vejer to Tarifa to see the castle of Guzman el Bueno, and the eye of many a dark Tarifenia. They go about there, as they do at Tangiers, covering their faces with a black manta; one black eye shines out and goes clean through one like a bullet. Thence to Gibraltar, where your despatches have set the General and his staff on the alert, and the dogs of war are looking forward to be slipped. The first thing General Houston told me was how he regretted that General Monet[26] had left Algeciras for Seville, which was news to me who had come from Algeciras that morning, and was going back to dine with the said General Monet. General Monet, all pacific, and, as he has had some experience as to what took place in the last business, his opinion was a fair set-off against el ingles. However, they know as much about Spain in Gibraltar as people in Plymouth do about Algeciras, or those in Algeciras about Plymouth.
I was strongly advised by all my friends on the Rock not to venture back into Spain, but send forthwith for my family. I did, however, venture, and proceeded to Ronda, through a wild mountain country, full of smugglers and robbers (though one implies the other). The ride was very striking. The old Moorish towns with Moorish names perched like the nests of eagles on almost inaccessible pinnacles. Indeed, they are still Moors, talking Spanish. Ronda, with its tajo or cleft between the old town and the new one, is a thing worth being robbed in order to have seen.
Thence to Xeres through Grazalema, the hotbed of José Maria and contrabandistas. I there had a long interview with Frasquito de la Torre and his eleven robbers. They are now all hombres de bien, indultados y en persecucion de los malhechores; they have undertaken to clear Andalucia of Ladrones, a plant that all the armed agriculturists in Europe will never weed from so fertile a soil; a fine set of picturesque well-dressed Majos. I had, however, six soldiers given me by General Monet, and would have shown fight; but they showed me all sort of civility, giving me wine and presenting me to their wives, who are not worth our pretty Sevillañas. Thence to Xeres, full of sherry, which is better discussed out of a decanter than in an epistle. The Duke of San Lorenzo has a magnificent Alcazar there, and, were I him, I should cut Madrid, and take to drinking dry Amontillado in my Moorish palace.