If you have consumption, or bronchitis, or any malady that is working mischief with your breathing apparatus, do not be governed, nor even guided, by the hasty generalizations of a man who writes from what he sees and hears in a tour for health and pleasure through half a dozen countries in the course of a season. The most that he can tell you is that such a climate as this is said to be excellent for those who have consumption already, and is likely to engender it where it is not; and if you cannot reconcile those two sayings of the books and the people, it is well enough to know that a sickly plant may be saved by being cared for in a hot-house, that might have been made to droop if taken in when it was in healthful vigor. Dr. Lee, whose opinion is of great weight, regards the climate of Madeira, Pau, or Pisa better than that of Malaga, for incipient tubercular disease, in persons of an excitable habit. And so much caution is to be used in deciding upon the means to be used for saving life by change of clime, that I would not write a line on this subject if I supposed that any one would be foolish enough to make a voyage on the strength of it.
When a miserly client attempted to get an opinion out of a lawyer by asking him at dinner, “What would you advise me to do in such and such a case?” the lawyer answered, “I should think the best thing you could do would be to take advice.” And this is what I advise.
No finer grapes than those of Malaga do we enjoy at home in the winter season, and the trade in raisins is enormous. We have been familiar with a raisin-box, but it was something quite novel to see extensive factories making nothing else but these rude little cases, all to be used for packing raisins. The raisin stores or depots where the boxes are waiting to be exported were so vast as to astonish me, but when one thinks of the extent to which they are distributed throughout the civilized world, it is only wonderful that the trade is not far greater.
The country around is flowing with wine and oil. It might easily be made to yield cotton and sugar enough to supply the market of Europe. But it is in Spain, and nothing thrives in Spain but Romanism and its sister.
Through a succession of streets so narrow that no wheel carriages can pass, and designed only for bipeds and quadrupeds to go on foot, reeking with smells that made fragrant the memory of Cologne, we wound our way, meeting Moors from Morocco, in their picturesque costume, caps, togas, or shawls, with bare legs and sandals; meeting gypsy women and gypsy men whose home is Spain, and whose story is part of life in Spain, we plied our devious walk on Sunday into the little square in front of the Malaga Cathedral. Built of white stone, on the site of a mosque, and still retaining part of the old Mahometan structure, it rises in a mass about three hundred feet square, to the height of 130 feet, and the tower rises 220 feet above the roof. High mass was celebrated when we entered, and few worshippers were present: most of these were women of some “religious” order, and some priests, not serving at the altar but on their knees before it, on the beautiful pavement of blue and white marble. Perhaps the interior is too light and florid: the various decorations have been added at periods so remote from each other that they lack harmony. But what is wanting in severity and solemn majesty is made up in the variety of ornament, portals, statues, and wood carvings.
The tribes of Jordan, in Palestine, once held this city and region, reigning and rejoicing in the climate, the soil, and the sea. They sent the luscious grapes away to China, and Ibu Bathula, who was here in 1630, was quite as delighted with what he had to eat and see as we are, who come 230 years after him, for he says: “I have seen eight pounds of grapes sold for twopence; its pomegranates are like rubies, and unequalled in the whole world; its courts have no rivals in beauty, and are shaded by wonderful groves of oranges.” He adds that he saw a preacher collecting money to ransom some Moors whom a Spanish fleet had captured. He rejoiced in the wine of Malaga, and all the more, it is probable, because its use was forbidden by the Koran: for we have the highest authority to say that stolen waters are sweet. And is it not Al-Makkari who tells the story of a dying Moor who prayed: “O Lord, of all things which thou hast in Paradise, I only ask for two; grant me to drink Malaga and Muscat wine!”
The old fortress once stood here, from which the beautiful Florinde threw herself into the sea, and by her death roused the rebellion that was headed by her father, and drove from the throne her betrayer, Roderick, the last of the Gothic kings. But all these stories, are they not written in the chronicles of Washington Irving, and is there any one so incredulous as to doubt the truthfulness of the thousand-and-one legends of that fascinating and most learned historian? For my part, since I have been dreaming here in the Alhambra, I have no more doubt of the Spanish tales that he told than I have of the verities of the Arabian Nights or the legend of Sleepy Hollow.
What travel was in Spain before the invention of diligences I know not, but probably the rich rode on horse or mule back, and the poor footed it; now that railroads have brought distant cities near each other, it is only occasionally that you are treated to an old-time ride in a coach, and perhaps you may be glad that once at least, in Spain, it was necessary for us to undergo this species of locomotion.
Between Malaga, a great seaport, and Granada, the ancient and glorious city of the Alhambra, there is no communication except by diligence. The time is fourteen hours. And the hour for starting is six in the evening! You have before you this luxury, of one long, jolting, execrable night ride, with no rest, no change from dewy eve till morn. You may be a delicate lady, or a feeble old man, or a middle-aged invalid, seeking rest and finding none; but you must go by the diligence, and go in the night and all night, or hire a carriage for yourself, and then there is no certainty that you will ever get to the other end of your journey.
The Spanish diligence is divided into two inside compartments, the berlina or coupe of three seats in front, and interior of six. By waiting over a day or two, we were able to get possession of the three seats in front, and though the fare was more than in the interior, we had the comfort of escaping suffocation by tobacco smoke, and of seeing the fun ahead.