Wanderings in Spain

A party of Granadians came to spend the day at the Alhambra; there were seven or eight young and pretty women, and five or six cavaliers. They danced to the guitar, played at different games, and sung in chorus, to a delightful air, a song by Fray Luis de Leon, which has become very popular throughout Andalusia. As the water-jets had stopped through having begun to shoot forth their silver streams too early, and as the basins were dry, the giddy young girls seated themselves in a round on the edge of the alabaster basin of the Hall of the Two Sisters, so as to form a kind of flower-basket, and, throwing back their pretty heads, again took up simultaneously the burden of their song.

The Generalife is situated at a little distance from the Alhambra, on a pass of the same mountain. Access is gained to it by a kind of hollow road, that traverses the ravine of Los Molinos, which is bordered with fig-trees, having enormous shiny leaves, with palm oaks, pistachio-trees, laurels, and rock roses, of a remarkably exuberant nature. The ground is composed of yellow sand teeming with water, and of wonderful fecundity. Nothing is more delightful than to follow this road, which appears as if it ran through a virgin forest of America, to such an extent is it obstructed with foliage and flowers, and such is the overwhelming perfume of the aromatic plants you inhale there. Vines start through the cracks of the crumbling walls, and from all their branches hang fantastic runners, and leaves resembling Arabian ornaments in the beauty of their form; the aloe opens its fan of azured blades, and the orange-tree twists its knotty wood, and clings with its fang-like roots to the rents in the steep sides of the ravine. Everything here flourishes and blooms in luxuriant disorder, full of the most charming effects of chance. A wandering jasmine-branch introduces a white star among the scarlet flowers of the pomegranate-tree; and a laurel shoots from one side of the road to the other to embrace a cactus, in spite of its thorns. Nature, abandoned to herself, seems to pride herself on her coquetry, and to wish to show how far even the most exquisite and finished art always remains behind her.

After a quarter of an hour's walk, you come to the Generalife, which is, so to say, nothing but the casa de campo, the country-house of the Alhambra. The exterior of it, like that of all oriental buildings, is very simple: large walls without windows, and surmounted by a terrace with a gallery divided into arcades, the whole being crowned with a small modern belvedere, constitute its architecture. Of the Generalife nothing now remains but some arcades, and some large panels of arabesques, unfortunately clogged with layers of whitewash, which have been applied again and again with all the obstinacy and despair of cleanliness. Little by little have the delicate sculptures and the wonderful guilloches of these remains become filled up, until they have at last disappeared. What is at present nothing but a faintly-vermiculated wall, was formerly open lace-work, as fine as those ivory leaves which the patience of the Chinese carves for ladies' fans. The brush of the whitewasher has caused more chefs-d'œuvre to disappear than the scythe of Time, if we may be allowed to make use of this mythological expression. In a pretty well preserved hall is a suite of smoky portraits of the kings of Spain, but the only merit they possess is a chronological one.

The real charm of the Generalife consists in its gardens and its waters. A canal, paved with marble, runs through the whole length of the enclosure, and rolls its rapid and abundant waters beneath a series of arcades of foliage, formed by twisting and curiously-cut yews. Orange-trees and cypresses are planted on each side of it. It was at the foot of one of these cypresses, which is of a prodigious bulk, and which dates from the time of the Moors, that the favourite of Boabdil, if we are to believe the legend, often proved that bolts and bars are but slight guarantees for the virtue of sultanas. There is one thing, at least, very certain, and that is, that the yew is very thick, and very old.

The perspective is terminated by a porticoed gallery, ornamented with jets of water and marble columns, like the patio of myrtles of the Alhambra. The canal suddenly makes a turn, and you then enter some other places embellished with pieces of water, and the walls of which still preserve traces of the frescoes of the sixteenth century, representing rustic pieces of architecture, and distant views. In the midst of one of the basins, a gigantic rose-bay, of the most incomparable beauty and splendour, is seen to bloom, like an immense flower-basket. At the time when I saw it, it appeared like an explosion of flowers, or the bouquet of a display of vegetable fireworks; its aspect, too, is so blooming and luxuriant, so glaring, if we may be allowed the expression, that it makes the hue of the most vermilion rose appear insipid. Its lovely flowers, shot with all the ardour of desire high up into the pure blue space of the heavens; and its noble-looking leaves, shaped expressly by nature to form a crown for the glorious deeds of heroism, and sprinkled by the spray of the water-jets, sparkled like emeralds glittering in the sun. Never did anything inspire me with a higher sentiment of the beautiful than this rose-bay of the Generalife.

The water is brought to the gardens along a sort of steep acclivity, bordered with little walls, forming on each side a kind of parapet, that support trenches of large hollow tiles, through which the water runs beneath the open sky with the most gay and lively murmur in the world. On each footpace, well-supplied water-jets burst forth from the middle of little basins, and shoot their crystal aigrettes into the thick foliage of the wood of laurels, the branches of which cross and recross one another above them. The mountain streams with water on every side; at each step a spring starts forth, and you continually hear at your side the murmuring of some rivulet, turned out of its course, going to supply some fountain with water, or to carry bloom and verdure to the foot of a tree. The Arabs have carried the art of irrigation to the highest point; their hydraulic works attest the most advanced state of civilization; these works still exist; and it is to them that Granada owes the reputation it has of being the Paradise of Spain, and the fact of its enjoying eternal spring in an African temperature. An arm of the Darro has been turned out of its course by the Arabs, and carried for more than two leagues along the hill of the Alhambra.

From the Belvedere of the Generalife you can plainly perceive the configuration of the Alhambra, with its line of reddish, half-demolished towers, and its remaining pieces of wall, which rise and descend according to the undulations of the mountain. The palace of Charles the Fifth, which is not seen from the side of the city stamps its square and heavy mass, which the sun gilds with a white reflection, on the damask-like sides of the Sierra Neveda, whose white ridges stand out on the horizon in a singular manner. The steeple of Saint Mary's marks its Christian outline above the Moorish embattlements. A few cypresses thrust their mournful leaves through the cracks of the walls, surrounded by all this light and azure, like a melancholy thought in the midst of a joyful fête. The slopes of the hill running down towards the Darro, and the ravine of Los Molinos, disappear beneath an ocean of verdure. It is one of the finest views that can well be imagined.

On the other side, as if to form a contrast with so much verdancy, rises an uncultivated, scorched up, tawny mountain, tinged with dashes of red and yellow ochre; this mountain is called La Silla del Moro, on account of a few remains of some buildings on its summit. It was there that king Boabdil used to view the Arabian horsemen jousting in the Vega with the Christian knights. The recollection of the Moors is still vivid at Granada. You would think that they had quitted the city but yesterday, and, if we may judge by what remains of them, it is really a pity that they ever quitted it at all. What southern Spain requires is African civilization, and not the civilization of Europe, which is not suited to the heat of the climate or to the passions it inspires. Constitutional mechanism can only agree with the temperate zones; above a heat of eighty degrees charters melt or blow up.

As we have now done with the Alhambra and the Generalife, we will traverse the ravine of the Darro, and take a look as we go along the road leading to Monte Sagrado, at the dens of the gitanos, who are pretty numerous at Granada. This road is made through the hill of the Albaycin, which overhangs on one side. Gigantic Indian fig-trees, and enormous nopals raise their prickly heads, of the colour of verdigris, along its impoverished and white-coloured slopes; under the roots of these large unctuous plants, which seem to supply the place of chevaux-de-frise and spiked fences, are dug in the living rock, the dwellings of the gipsies. The entrance to these caverns is whitewashed; a light cord on which hangs a piece of frayed-out tapestry, serves as a door. It is there that the wild race swarms and multiplies; there, children, whose skins are darker than Havannah cigars, play in a state of nudity before the door, without any distinction as to sex, and roll themselves in the dust while uttering sharp and guttural cries. The gitanos are generally blacksmiths, mule-shearers, veterinary doctors, and, above all, horse-dealers. They have a thousand receipts for putting mettle and strength into the most broken-winded and limping animals in the world: a gitano would have made Rozinante gallop, and Sancho's ass would have caracoled under their hands. Their real trade, however, is that of stealing.

The gitanas sell amulets, tell fortunes, and follow those suspicious callings inherent to the women of their race. I saw very few pretty ones, though their faces were remarkable both by their type and character. Their swarthy complexion contrasts strongly with the limpidness of their oriental eyes, the fire of which is tempered by an indescribable and mysterious melancholy, only to be compared to the look inspired by the recollection of a country that is lost to us for ever, or of former grandeur. Their mouth, which is rather thick and deeply coloured, reminds you of the blooming nature of African mouths; the smallness of their forehead, and the curved form of their nose, pronounce them to be of the same origin with the tzigones of Wallachia and Bohemia, and with all the children of that fantastic people which traversed, under the generic name of Egyptians, the whole of the society of the Middle Ages, and the enigmatical filiation of which century upon century has not been able to interrupt. Nearly all of them possess so much natural majesty and freedom in their deportment, and are so well and firmly set, that in spite of their rags, their dirt, and their misery, they seem to be conscious of the antiquity and purity of their race, and ever to remember that it is free from all alloy, for these gipsies never marry but among themselves, and those children which are the offsprings of temporary unions are unmercifully cast out of the tribe. One of the pretensions of the gitanos is that of being good Castilians and good Catholics, but I think that, at bottom, they are, to some extent, Arabs and Mahometans; they deny this fact to the best of their power, from a remnant of fear for the Inquisition which no longer exists. A few deserted and half-ruined streets of the Albaycin are also inhabited by richer or less wandering gipsies. In one of these streets, we perceived a little girl, about eight years old, and entirely naked, dancing the zorongo on a painted paving stone. Her sister, whose features were wan and emaciated, and in whose citron-looking face sparkled eyes of fire, was crouched beside her on the ground, with a guitar, from the strings of which she drew forth a monotonous tinkle by running her thumb over them, and producing music not unsimilar to the husky squeak of the grasshopper. The mother, who was richly dressed, and whose neck was loaded with glass beads, beat time with the end of a blue velvet slipper, which she gazed on with great complacency. The wild attitude, strange accoutrement, and extraordinary colour of this group, would have made a subject for the pencil of Collot, or of Salvator Rosa.

Monte Sagrado, which contains the grottoes of the martyrs who were so miraculously discovered, offers nothing very interesting. It is a convent with a rather ordinary-looking church, beneath which the crypts are dug. These crypts have nothing about them capable of producing any deep impression. They are composed of a complication of small, straight, whitewashed corridors, from seven to eight feet high. In recesses made for the purpose, altars, dressed with more devotion than taste, have been raised. It is there that the shrines and bones of the holy personages are locked up behind the wire-work. I expected to see a subterraneous church, dark and mysterious, nay, even dreadful-looking, with low pillars, and a surbased roof, lighted by the uncertain reflection of a distant lamp, – something, in fact, similar to the ancient catacombs, and great was my surprise at the clean and tidy appearance of this whitewashed crypt, lighted by ventholes like those of a cellar. We somewhat superficial Catholics require something picturesque, in order to get imbued with religious feeling. The devout man thinks little about the effect of light and shade, or about the more or less learned proportions of architecture; he knows, however, that, beneath that altar of so mediocre a form, lie hidden the bones of the saint who died for the sake of the faith which he professes, and that suffices for him.

The Carthusian Convent, at present bereft of monks, like all other convents in Spain, is an admirable edifice, and we cannot regret too much that it has ever ceased to be used for its original purpose. We have never been able to understand what harm could be done by cenobites voluntarily cloistered in a prison, and passing their lives in austerity and prayer, especially in a country like Spain, where there is certainly no lack of ground.

You ascend by a double flight of steps to the doorway of the church: it is surmounted by a white marble statue of St. Bruno, of a rather handsome effect. The decorations of the church are singular, and consist of plaster arabesques, truly wonderful by the variety and richness of their subjects. It appears as if the architect had been desirous of vying, in quite a different style, with the lightness and complication of the lace-work of the Alhambra. There is not a place as large as your hand, in this immense structure, which is not filled with flowers, damask-work, leaves, and guilloches: it would be enough to turn the head of any one who wanted to take an exact sketch of it. The choir is lined with porphyry and costly marble. A few mediocre pictures are hung up here and there along the walls, and make you regret the space they hide. The cemetery is near the church: according to the custom of the Carthusian friars, no tomb, no cross, indicates the place where the departed brothers sleep; but the cells surround the cemetery, and each one is provided with a little garden. In a piece of ground planted with trees, which, no doubt, formerly served as a promenade for the friars, my attention was called to a kind of fish-pond, with a sloping stone edge, in which were awkwardly crawling three or four dozen tortoises, that basked in the sun and appeared quite happy at being henceforth in no danger of the cook's art. The laws of the Carthusian brethren forbade their ever eating meat, and the tortoise is looked on as a fish by casuists. These tortoises were destined to supply the friars' table. The revolution, however, saved them.

While we are about visiting the convents, we will enter, if you please, the Monastery of San Juan de Dios. The cloister is one of the most curious imaginable, and is constructed with frightfully bad taste; the walls, painted in fresco, represent various fine actions of the life of San Juan de Dios, framed with such grotesque and fantastic ornaments as throw into the shade the most extravagant and deformed productions of Japan and China. You behold sirens playing the violin, she-monkeys at their toilet, chimerical fish in still more chimerical waves, flowers which look like birds, birds which look like flowers, lozenges of looking-glass, squares of earthenware, love-knots – in a word, an endless pell-mell of all that is inextricable. The church, which is luckily of another epoch, is gilt nearly all over. The altar-screen, which is supported by pillars of the Solomonic order, produces a rich and majestic effect. The sacristan, who served as our guide, on seeing that we were French, questioned us about our country, and asked if it were true, as was said at Granada, that Nicholas, the Emperor of Russia, had invaded France and taken possession of Paris: such was the latest news. These gross absurdities were spread among the people by the partisans of Don Carlos, in order to obtain credence for an absolutist reaction on the part of the European powers, and to rally, by the hope of speedy assistance, the drooping courage of the disorganized bands.

I saw in this church a sight that made a deep impression on me; it was an old woman crawling on her knees from the door to the altar: her arms were stretched out as stiff as stakes, in the form of a cross, her head was thrown back, her upturned eyes allowed the whites only of them to be seen, her lips were firmly closed, and her face was shiny and of the colour of lead: this was ecstasy turned to catalepsy. Never did Zurbaban execute anything more ascetic or possessing more feverish ardour. She was accomplishing a penance ordered by her confessor, and had still four more days of it to undergo.

The Convent of San Geronimo, now transformed into barracks, contains a Gothic cloister with two arteries of arcades of rare character and beauty. The capitals of the columns are ornamented with foliage and fantastic animals of the most capricious nature and charming workmanship. The church, at present profaned and deserted, exhibits the peculiarity of having all its ornaments and architectural reliefs painted in imitation on grey grounds, like the roof of the Bourse, instead of being executed in reality: here lies interred Gonzalvo of Cordova, surnamed the great captain. His sword used to be preserved there, but it was lately taken away and sold for a few duras, the value of the silver which ornamented the handle. It is thus that many objects, valuable as works of art or from associations, have disappeared without any other profit to the thieves than the pleasure of doing wrong. It appears to us that our revolution might be imitated in something else but its stupid Vandalism. It is this sentiment we all experience on visiting a tenantless convent, on beholding so many ruins and such devastation, the utter loss of so many chefs d'œuvre of every kind, and the long work of centuries destroyed and swept away in an instant. No one has the power to prejudge the future: I, however, doubt if it will restore what the past had bequeathed us, and which we destroy as if we possessed wherewithal to replace it. In addition to this something might be put on one side, for the globe is not so covered with monuments that it is necessary for us to raise new buildings on the ruins of the old ones. With such reflections was my mind filled, as I wandered, in the Antequerula, through the old convent of San Domingo. The chapel was decorated with a profusion of all sorts of gewgaws, baubles, and gilding. It was one mass of wreathed columns, volutes, scroll-work, encrusted work of various coloured breccia, glass mosaics, checker-work of mother-of-pearl, and burgau, bevilled mirrors, suns surrounded by rays, transparencies, and all the most preposterous, misshapen, ugly, and strange embellishments that the depraved taste of the eighteenth century and the horror of straight lines could invent. The library, which has been preserved, is almost exclusively composed of folios and quartos bound in white vellum, with the titles written on them in black or red ink. They consist, for the most part, of theological treatises, casuistical dissertations, and other scholastic productions, possessing but little attraction for the mere literary man. A collection of pictures has been formed at the convent of San Domingo, composed of works from the various monasteries that were either abolished or suffered to go to ruin, but, with the exception of some few fine heads of ascetics, and a few representations of martyrs which seem to have been painted by the hangman himself, from the proficiency in the art of torturing which they exhibit, there is nothing remarkably good, which proves that the persons who were guilty of these acts of pillage are excellent judges of paintings, for they never fail to keep the best things for themselves. The courtyards and cloisters are admirable, and are adorned with fountains, orange-trees, and flowers.

How excellently are such places adapted for reverie, meditation, and study, and what a pity is it that convents were ever inhabited by monks, and not by poets! The gardens, left to themselves, have assumed a wild, savage aspect; luxuriant vegetation has invaded the walks, and Nature has regained possession of her own, planting a tuft of flowers or grass in the place of every stone that has fallen out. The most remarkable feature in these gardens is an alley of enormous laurels, forming a covered walk which is paved with white marble, and furnished, on each side, with a long seat of the same material, with a slanting back. At certain distances from each other, a number of small fountains maintain a refreshing coolness beneath this thick vault of verdure, at the end of which you have a splendid view of a portion of the Sierra Nevada, through a charming Moorish mirador, which forms part of an old Arabic palace, enclosed in the convent. This pavilion is said to have communicated, by means of long subterranean galleries, with the Alhambra, which is situated at some considerable distance. However, this is an idea deeply rooted in the minds of the inhabitants of Granada, where the least Moorish ruin is always presented with five or six leagues of subterranean passages as well as a treasure, guarded by some spell or other.

We often went to San Domingo to sit beneath the shade of the laurels and bathe in a pool, near which, if the satirical songs are to be believed, the monks used to lead no very reputable sort of life. It is a remarkable fact, that the most Catholic countries are always those in which the priests and monks are treated most cavalierly; the Spanish songs and stories about the clergy rival, in licence, the facetiæ of Rabelais and Beroalde de Verville, and to judge by the manner in which all the ceremonies of the church are parodied in the old pieces, one would hardly think that the Inquisition had ever existed.

Talking of baths, I will here relate a little incident which proves that the thermal art, carried to so high a degree of perfection by the Arabs, has lost much of its former splendour in Granada. Our guide took us to some baths that appeared very well managed, the rooms being situated round a patio shaded by a covering of vine-leaves, while a large reservoir of very limpid water occupied the greater part of the patio. So far all was well; but of what do you think the baths themselves were made? Of copper, zinc, stone, or wood? Not a bit of it, you are wrong; I will tell you at once, for you will never guess. They were enormous clay jars, like those made to hold oil. These novel baths were about two-thirds buried in the ground. Before potting ourselves in them we had the inside covered with a clean cloth, a piece of precaution which struck the attendant as something so extremely strange, and which astonished him so profoundly, that we were obliged to repeat the order several times before he would obey it. He explained this whim of ours to his own satisfaction by shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head in a commiserative manner as he pronounced in a low voice the one word: Ingleses! There we sat, squatted down in our oil jars, with our heads stuck out at the top, something like pheasants en terrine, cutting rather grotesque figures. It was on this occasion that I understood for the first time the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, which had always struck me as being rather difficult to believe, and had made me for an instant doubt the veracity of the "Thousand-and-One Nights."

There are, also, in the Albaycin, some old Moorish baths, and a pond covered over with a vaulted roof, pierced by a number of little holes in the shape of stars, but they are not in working order, and you can get nothing but cold water.

This is about all that is to be seen at Granada, during a stay of some weeks. Public amusements are scarce. The theatre is closed during the summer; the bull-fights do not take place at any fixed periods; there are no clubs or establishments of this description, and the Lyceum is the only place where it is possible to see the French and other foreign papers. On certain days, there is a meeting of the members, when they read papers on various subjects as well as poetry, besides singing and playing pieces, generally written by some young author of the company.

Every one employs his time, most conscientiously, in doing nothing. Gallantry, cigarettes, the manufacture of quatrains and octaves, and especially card-playing, are found sufficient to fill up a man's existence very agreeably. In Granada you see nothing of that furious restlessness, that necessity for action and change of place which torments the people of the north. The Spanish struck me as being very philosophical. They attach hardly any importance to material life, and are totally indifferent about comfort. The thousand factitious wants created by the civilization of northern countries, appear to them puerile and troublesome refinements. Not having to protect themselves continually against the climate, the advantages of the English home have no attractions in their eyes. What do people, who would cheerfully pay for a breeze or a draught of air, if they could obtain such a thing, care whether or not the windows close properly? Favoured by a beautiful sky, they have reduced human existence to its simplest expression: this sobriety and moderation in everything enables them to enjoy a large amount of liberty, a state of extreme independence; they have time enough to live, which we cannot say that we have. Spaniards cannot understand how a man can labour first in order to rest afterwards. They very much prefer pursuing an opposite course, and I think that by so doing, they show their superior sense. A workman who has gained a few reals leaves his work, throws his fine embroidered jacket over his shoulders, takes his guitar and goes and dances or makes love to the majas of his acquaintance, until he has not a single cuarto left; he then returns to his employment. An Andalusian can live splendidly for three or four sous a day; for this sum he can have the whitest bread, an enormous slice of water-melon, and a small glass of aniseed, while his lodging costs him nothing more than the trouble of spreading his cloak upon the ground under some portico or the arch of some bridge. As a general rule, Spaniards consider work as something humiliating and unworthy of a freeman, which, in my opinion, is a very natural and very reasonable idea, since Heaven wishing to punish man for his disobedience, found no greater infliction than the obliging him to gain his daily bread by the sweat of his brow. Pleasures procured, as ours are, by dint of labour, fatigue, and mental anxiety and perseverance strike Spaniards as being bought much too dearly. Like all people who lead a simple life approaching a state of nature, they possess a correctness of judgment which makes them despise the artificial enjoyments of society. Any one coming from Paris or London, those two whirlpools of devouring activity, of feverish and unnaturally excited energy, is greatly surprised by the mode of life of the people of Granada, – a mode of life that is all leisure, filled up with conversation, siestas, promenades, music, and dancing. The stranger is astonished at the happy calmness, the tranquil dignity of the faces he sees around him. No one has that busy look which is noticeable in the persons hurrying through the streets of Paris. Every one strolls leisurely along, choosing the shady side of the street, stopping to chat with his friends, and betraying no desire to arrive at his destination in the shortest possible time. The certitude of not being able to make money extinguishes all ambition: there is no chance of a young man making a brilliant career. The most adventurous among them go to Manilla or Havannah, or enter the army, but on account of the piteous state of the public finances, they sometimes wait for years without hearing anything about pay. Convinced of the inutility of exertion, Spaniards do not endeavour to make fortunes, for they know that such things are quite out of the question; and they therefore pass their time in a delightful state of idleness, favoured by the beauty of the country and the heat of the climate.

I saw nothing of Spanish pride; nothing is so deceptive as the reputation bestowed on individuals and nations. On the contrary, I found them exceedingly simple-minded and good-natured; Spain is the true country of equality, if not in words at least in deeds. The poorest beggar lights his papelito at the puro of a powerful nobleman, who allows him to do so, without the slightest affectation of condescension; a marchioness will step, with a smile, over the bodies of the ragged vagabonds who are slumbering across her threshold, and, when travelling, will not make a face if compelled to drink out of the same glass as the mayoral, the zagul, and the escopetero of the diligence. Foreigners find great difficulty in accustoming themselves to this familiarity, especially the English, who have their letters brought upon salvers, and take them with tongs. An Englishman travelling from Seville to Jeres, told his calesero to go and get his dinner in the kitchen. The calesero, who, in his own mind, thought he was honouring a heretic very highly by sitting down at the same table with him, did not make the slightest remark, and concealed his rage as carefully as the villain in a melodrama; but about three or four leagues from Jeres, in the midst of a frightful desert, full of quagmires and bushes, he threw the Englishman very neatly out of the vehicle, shouting to him as he whipped on his horse: "My lord, you did not think me worthy of sitting at your table, and I, Don Jose Balbino Bustamente y Orozco, do not think you good enough to sit on the seat in my calesin. Good evening!"

The servants, both male and female, are treated with a gentle familiarity very different from our affected civility, which seems, every moment, to remind them of the inferiority of their condition. A short example will prove the truth of this assertion. We had gone to a party given at the country-house of the Señora – ; in the evening, there was a general desire to have a little dancing, but there were a great many more ladies than gentlemen present. To obviate this difficulty, the Señora – sent for the gardener and another servant, who danced the whole evening without the least awkwardness, false bashfulness, or servile forwardness, but just as if they had been on a perfect equality with the rest of the company. They invited, in turn, the fairest and most noble ladies present, and the latter complied with their request in the most graceful manner possible. Our democrats are very far from having attained this practical equality, and our most determined Republicans would revolt at the idea of figuring in a quadrille, opposite a peasant or a footman.

Of course, there are a great many exceptions to these remarks, as there are to all other generalities. There are, doubtless, many Spaniards who are active, laborious, and sensible to all the refinements of life, but what I have said conveys the general impression felt by a traveller after a stay of some little time, – an impression which is often more correct than that of a native observer, who is less struck by the novelty of the various circumstances.

As our curiosity was satisfied with regard to Granada and its buildings, we resolved, from having had a view of the Sierra Nevada at every turn we took, to become more intimately acquainted with it, and endeavour to ascend the Mulhacen, which is the most elevated point of the whole range. Our friends at first attempted to dissuade us from this project, which was really attended with some little danger, but, on seeing that our resolution was fixed, they recommended us a huntsman named Alexandro Romero, as a person thoroughly acquainted with the mountains, and possessing every qualification to act as guide. He came and saw us at our casa de pupilos, and his manly, frank physiognomy, immediately pre-possessed us in his favour. He wore an old velvet waistcoat, a red woollen sash, and white linen gaiters, like those of the Valencians, which enabled you to see his clean-made, nervous legs, tanned like Cordovan leather. Alpargatas of twisted rope served him for shoes, while a little Andalusian hat, that had grown red from exposure to the sun, a carbine and a powder-flask, slung across his shoulder, completed his costume. He undertook to make all the necessary preparations for our expedition, and promised to bring, at three o'clock, the next morning, the four horses we required, one for my travelling companion, one for myself, a third for a young German who had joined our caravan, and a fourth for our servant, who was intrusted with the direction of the culinary department. As for Romero he was to walk. Our provisions consisted of a ham, some roast fowls, some chocolate, bread, lemons, sugar, and a large leathern sack, called a bota, filled with excellent Val-de-Peñas, which was the principal article in the list.

At the appointed hour, the horses were before our house, while Romero was hammering away at the door with the butt-end of his carbine. Still scarcely awake, we mounted our steeds, and the procession set forth, our guide running on beforehand to point out the road. Although it was already light, the sun had not risen, and the undulating outlines of the smaller hills, which we had passed, were spread out all around us, cool, limpid and blue, like the waves of an immovable ocean. In the distance, Granada had disappeared beneath the vapourized atmosphere. When the fiery globe at last appeared on the horizon, all the hill-tops were covered with a rosy tint, like so many young girls at the sight of their lovers, and appeared to experience a feeling of bashful confusion at the idea of having been seen in their morning déshabille. The ridges of the mountain are connected with the plain by gentle slopes, forming the first table-land which is easily accessible. When we reached this place, our guide decided that we should allow our horses a little breathing time, give them something to eat, and breakfast ourselves. We ensconced ourselves at the foot of a rock, near a little spring, the water of which was as bright as a diamond, and sparkled beneath the emerald-coloured grass. Romero, with all the dexterity of an American savage, improvised a fire with a handful of brush-wood, while Louis prepared some chocolate, which, with the addition of a slice of ham and a draught of wine, composed our first meal in the mountains. While our breakfast was cooking, a superb viper passed beside us, and appeared surprised and dissatisfied at our installing ourselves on his estate, a fact that he gave us to understand by unpolitely hissing at us, for which he was rewarded by a sturdy thrust with a sword-stick through the stomach. A little bird, that had watched the proceedings very attentively, no sooner saw the viper disabled, than it flew up with the feathers of its neck standing on end, its eye all fire, and flapping its wings, and piping in a strange state of exultation. Every time that any portion of the venomous beast writhed convulsively, the bird shrunk back, soon returning to the charge, however, and pecking the viper with its beak, after which it would rise in the air three or four feet. I do not know what the serpent could have done, during its lifetime, to the bird, or what was the feeling of hatred we had gratified by killing the viper, but it is certain that I never beheld such an amount of delight.

We once again set out. From time to time we met a string of little asses coming down from the higher parts of the mountains with their load of snow, which they were carrying to Granada for the day's consumption. The drivers saluted us, as they passed by, with the time honoured "Vayan Ustedes con Dios," and we replied by some joke about their merchandise, which would never accompany them as far as the city, and which they would be obliged to sell to the official who was entrusted with the duty of watering the public streets.

We were always preceded by Romero, who leaped from stone to stone with the agility of a chamois, and kept exclaiming, Bueno camino (a good road). I should certainly very much like to know what the worthy fellow would call a bad road, for, as far as I was concerned, I could not perceive the slightest sign of any road at all. To our right and left, as far as the eye could distinguish, yawned delightful abysses, very blue, very azure and very vapoury, varying in depth from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet, a difference, however, about which we troubled our heads very little, for a few dozen fathoms more or less made very little difference in the matter. I recollect with a shudder a certain pass, three or four pistol-shots long and two feet broad, – a sort of natural plank running between two gulfs. As my horse headed the procession, I had to pass first over this kind of tight-rope, which would have made the most determined acrobats pause and reflect. At certain points there was only just enough space for my horse's feet, and each of my legs was dangling over a separate abyss. I sat motionless in my saddle, as upright as if I had been balancing a chair on the end of my nose. This pass, which took us a few minutes to traverse, struck me as particularly long.

When I quietly reflect on this incredible ascent, I am lost in surprise, as at the remembrance of some incoherent dream. We passed over spots where a goat would have hesitated to set its foot, and scaled precipices so steep that the ears of our horses touched our chins. Our road lay between rocks and blocks of stone, which threatened to fall down upon us every moment, and ran in zigzags along the edge of the most frightful precipices. We took advantage of every favourable opportunity, and although advancing slowly we still advanced, gradually approaching the goal of our ambition, – namely, the summit, that we had lost sight of since we had been in the mountains, because each separate piece of table-land hides the one above it.

Every time our horses stopped to take breath, we turned round in our saddles to contemplate the immense panorama formed by the circular canvas of the horizon. The mountain tops which lay below us looked as if they had been marked out in a large map. The Vega of Granada and all Andalusia presented the appearance of an azure sea, in the midst of which a few white points that caught the rays of the sun, represented the sails of the different vessels. The neighbouring eminences that were completely bare, and cracked, and split from top to bottom, were tinged in the shade with a green-ash colour, Egyptian blue, lilac and pearl-grey, while in the sunshine they assumed a most admirable and warm hue similar to that of orange peel, tarnished gold or a lion's skin. Nothing gives you so good an idea of a chaos, of a world still in the course of creation, as a mountain range seen from its highest point. It seems as if a nation of Titans had been endeavouring to build some sacrilegious Babel, some prodigious Lylac or other; that they had heaped together all the materials and commenced the gigantic terraces, when suddenly the breath of some unknown being had, like a tempest, swept over the temples and palaces they had begun, shaking their foundations and levelling them with the ground. You might fancy yourself amidst the remains of an antediluvian Babylon, a pre-Adamite city. The enormous blocks, the Pharaoh-like masses, awake in your breast thoughts of a race of giants that has now disappeared, so visibly is the old age of the world written in deep wrinkles on the bald front and rugged face of these millennial mountains.

We had reached the region inhabited by the eagles. Several times, at a distance, we saw one of these noble birds perched upon a solitary rock, with its eye turned towards the sun, and immersed in that state of contemplative ecstasy which with animals replaces thought. There was one of them floating at an immense height above us, and seemingly motionless in the midst of a sea of light. Romero could not resist the pleasure of sending him a visiting card in the shape of a bullet. It carried away one of the large feathers of his wing, but the eagle, nothing moved, continued on his way with indescribable majesty, as if nothing had happened. The feather whirled round and round for a long time before reaching the earth; it was picked up by Romero, who stuck it in his hat.

Thin streaks of snow now began to show themselves, scattered here and there, in the shade; the air became more rarified and the rocks more steep and precipitous; soon afterwards, the snow appeared in immense sheets and enormous heaps which the sun was no longer strong enough to melt. We were above the sources of the Gruil, which we perceived like a blue ribband frosted with silver, streaming down with all possible speed in the direction of its beloved city. The table-land on which we stood is about nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, and is the highest spot in the range with the exception of the peak of Veleta and the Mulhacen, which towers another thousand feet towards the immeasurable height of heaven. On this spot Romero decided that we should pass the night. The horses, who were worn out with fatigue, were unsaddled; Louis and the guide tore up a quantity of brushwood, roots, and juniper plants to make a fire, for although in the plain the thermometer stood at thirty or thirty-five degrees, there was a freshness on the heights we then occupied, which we knew would settle down into intense cold as soon as the sun had set. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon; my companion and the young German determined to take advantage of the daylight that remained, to scale alone and on foot the last heights of the mountain. For my own part, I preferred stopping behind; my soul was moved by the grand and sublime spectacle before me, and I busied myself in scribbling in my pocket-book sundry verses, which, if not well turned, had, at least, the merit of being the only alexandrines composed at such an elevation. After my strophes were finished, I manufactured some sorbets with snow, sugar, lemon and brandy, for our dessert. Our encampment presented rather a picturesque appearance; our saddles served us for seats, and our cloaks for a carpet, while a large heap of snow protected us from the wind. A fire of broom blazed brightly in the centre, and we fed it by throwing in, from time to time, a fresh branch which shrivelled up and hissed, darting out its sap in little streams of all colours. Above us, the horses stretched forward their thin heads, with their sad, gentle eyes, and caught an occasional puff of warmth.

Night was rapidly approaching. The least elevated mountains were the first to sink into obscurity, and the light, like a fisherman flying before the rising tide, leapt from peak to peak, retiring towards the highest in order to escape from the shade which was advancing from the valleys beneath and burying everything in its bluish waves. The last ray which stopt on the summit of the Mulhacen hesitated for an instant; then, spreading out its golden wings, winged its way like some bird of flame into the depths of heaven and disappeared. The obscurity was now complete, and the increased brilliancy of our fire caused a number of grotesque shadows to dance about upon the sides of the rocks. Eugene and the German had not returned, and I began to grow anxious on their account; I feared that they might have fallen down some precipice or been buried beneath some mass of snow. Romero and Louis already requested me to sign a declaration to the effect that they had neither murdered nor robbed the two worthy gentlemen, and that, if the latter were dead, it was their own fault.

Meanwhile, we tore our lungs to pieces by indulging in the most shrill and savage cries, to let them know the position of our wig-wam, in case they should not be able to perceive the fire. At last the report of firearms, which was hurled back by all the echoes of the mountains, told us that we had been heard, and that our companions were but a short distance off – in fact, at the expiration of a few minutes, they made their appearance, fatigued and worn out, asserting that they had distinctly seen Africa on the other side of the ocean; it is very possible they had done so, for the air of these parts is so pure, that the eye can perceive objects at the distance of thirty or forty leagues. We were all very merry at supper, and by dint of playing the bagpipes with our skin of wine, we made it almost as flat as the wallet of a Castilian beggar. It was agreed that each of us should sit up in turn to attend the fire, an arrangement which was faithfully carried out, but the circumference of our circle, which was at first pretty considerable, kept becoming smaller and smaller. Every hour the cold became more intense, and at last we literally laid ourselves in the fire itself, so as to burn our shoes and pantaloons. Louis gave vent to his feelings in loud exclamations; he bewailed his gaspacho (cold garlic soup), his house, his bed, and even his wife. He made himself a formal promise, by everything he reverenced, never to be caught a second time attempting an ascent; he asserted that mountains are far more interesting when seen from below, and that a man must be a maniac to expose himself to the chance of breaking every bone in his body a hundred thousand times, and having his nose frozen off in the middle of the month of August, in Andalusia, and in sight of Africa. All night long he did nothing but grumble and groan in the same manner, and we could not succeed in reducing him to silence. Romero said nothing, and yet his dress was made of thin linen, and all that he had to wrap round him was a narrow piece of cloth.

At last the dawn appeared; we were enveloped in a cloud, and Romero advised us to begin our descent, if we wished to reach Granada before night. When it was sufficiently light to enable us to distinguish the various objects, I observed that Eugene was as red as a lobster nicely boiled, and at the same moment he made an analogous observation with respect to me, and did not feel himself bound to conceal the fact. The young German and Louis were also equally red; Romero alone had reserved his peculiar tint, which resembled, by the way, that of a boot-top, and although his legs of bronze were naked, they had not undergone the slightest alteration. It was the biting cold and the rarefaction of the air that had turned us this colour. Going up a mountain is nothing, because you look at the objects above you, but coming down, with the awful depths before your eyes, is quite a different matter. At first the thing appeared impracticable, and Louis began screeching like a jay who is being picked alive. However, we could not remain for ever on the Mulhacen, which is as little adapted for the purpose of habitation as any place in the known world, and so, with Romero at our head, we began our descent. It would be impossible, without laying ourselves open to the charge of exaggeration, to convey any notion of the paths, or rather the absence of paths, by which our dare-devil of a guide conducted us; never more break-neck obstacles crowded together in the course marked out for any steeple-chase, and I entertain strong doubts as to whether the feats of any "gentlemen riders" ever outrivalled our exploits on the Mulhacen. The Montagnes Russes were mild declivities in comparison to the precipices with which we had to do. We were almost constantly standing up in our stirrups, and leaning back over the cruppers of our horses, in order to avoid performing an incessant succession of parabolas over their heads. All the lines of perspective seem jumbled up together; the streams appeared to be flowing up towards their source, the rocks vacillated and staggered on their bases, and the most distant objects appeared to be only two paces off; we had lost all feeling of proportion, an effect which is very common in the mountains, where the enormous size of the masses, and the vertical position of the different ranges, do not allow of your judging distances in the ordinary manner.

In spite of every difficulty we reached Granada without our horses having even made one false step, only they had got but one shoe left among them all. Andalusian horses – and ours were of the most authentic description – cannot be equalled for mountain travelling. They are so docile, so patient, and so intelligent, that the best thing the rider can do is to throw the reins on their necks and let them follow their own impulse.

We were impatiently expected, for our friends in the city had seen our fire burning like a beacon on the table-land of Mulhacen. I wanted to go and give an account of our perilous expedition to the charming Senoras B – , but I was so fatigued that I fell asleep on a chair, holding my stocking in my hand, and I did not wake before ten o'clock the following morning, when I was still in the same position. Some few days afterwards, we quitted Granada, sighing quite as deeply as ever King Boabdil did.

CHAPTER XI

FROM GRANADA TO MALAGA

The Robbers and Cosarios of Andalusia – Alhama – Malaga – Travelling Students – A Bull-fight – Montes – The Theatre.

A piece of news, well calculated to throw a whole Spanish town into a state of commotion, had suddenly been bruited about Granada, to the great delight of the aficionados. The new circus at Malaga was at last finished, after having cost the contractor five million reals. In order to inaugurate it solemnly, by exploits worthy of the palmy days of the art, the great Montes de Chielana – Montes, the first espada of Spain, the brilliant successor of Romero and Pepe Illo – had been engaged with his quadrille, and was to appear in the ring three days consecutively. We had already been present at several bull-fights, but we had not been fortunate enough to see Montes, who was prevented by his political opinions from making his appearance in the circus at Madrid; and to quit Spain without having seen Montes would be something as barbarous and savage as to leave Paris without having witnessed the performance of Mademoiselle Rachel. Although, had we taken the direct road, we ought to have proceeded at once to Cordova, we could not resist this temptation, and we resolved, in spite of the difficulties of the journey and the short time at our disposal, to make a little excursion to Malaga.

There is no diligence from Granada to Malaga, and the only means of transport are the galeras or mules: we chose the latter as being surer and quicker, for we were under the necessity of taking the cross-roads through the Alpurjas, in order to arrive even on the very day of the fight.

Our friends in Granada recommended us a cosario (conductor of a convoy) named Lanza, a good-looking honest fellow, and very intimate with the brigands. This fact would certainly not tell much in his favour in France, but on the other side of the Pyrenees the case is different. The muleteers and conductors of the galeras know the robbers and make bargains with them; for so much a head, or so much for the whole convoy, according to the terms agreed upon, they obtain a free passage, and are never attacked. These arrangements are observed by both parties with the most scrupulous probity, if I may use the word, and if it is not too much out of place when talking of transactions of this description. When the chief of the gang infesting a peculiar track, takes advantage of the indulto,[10 - A brigand is said to receive the benefit of the indulto when he voluntarily gives himself up and is pardoned.] or, for some reason or other, cedes his business and customers to any one else, he never neglects presenting officially to his successor those cosarios who pay him "black mail," in order that they may not be molested by mistake. By this system, travellers are sure of not being pillaged, while the robbers avoid the risk of making an attack and meeting with a degree of resistance which is often accompanied with danger to them; so that the arrangement is advantageous to both parties.

One night, between Alhama and Velez, our cosario had dropped to sleep upon the neck of his mule, in the rear of the convoy, when suddenly he was awakened by shrill cries, and saw a number of trabucos glistening at the road-side. There was no doubt about the matter; the convoy was attacked. In the greatest state of surprise, he threw himself from his mule, and averting the muzzles of the blunderbusses with his hand, declared who he was. "Ah! we beg your pardon, Señor Lanza," said the brigands, quite confused at their mistake, "but we did not recognise you. We are honest men, totally incapable of so indelicate a proceeding as to molest you. We have too much honour to deprive you of even so much as a single cigar."

If you do not travel with a man who is known along the road, it is absolutely necessary to be accompanied by a numerous escort, armed to the teeth, and which cost a great deal, besides offering less security, for the escopeteros are generally retired robbers.

It is the custom in Andalusia, when a person travels on horseback, and goes to the bull-fights, to put on the national costume. Accordingly our little caravan was rather picturesque, and made a very good appearance as it left Granada. Seizing with delight this opportunity of disguising myself out of Carnival time, and quitting, for a short space, my horrible French attire, I donned my majo's costume, consisting of a peaked hat, embroidered jacket, velvet waistcoat, with filigree buttons, red silk sash, webbed breeches, and gaiters open at the calf. My travelling companion wore his dress of green velvet and Cordova leather. Some of the others wore monteras, black jackets, and breeches decorated with silk trimmings of the same colour, and yellow cravats and sashes. Lanza was remarkable for the magnificence of his silver buttons, made of pillared dollars, soldered to a shank, and the floss-silk embroideries of his second jacket, which he wore hanging from his shoulder like a hussar's pelisse.

The mule that had been assigned to me was close-shaved halfway up his body, so that I was enabled to study his muscular development with as much ease as if he had been flayed. The saddle was composed of two variegated horse-cloths, put on double, in order to soften as much as possible the projecting vertebræ, and the sloping shape of the animal's backbone. On each side hung down, in the guise of stirrups, two kinds of wooden troughs, rather resembling our rat-traps. The head-trappings were so loaded with rosettes, tufts, and other gewgaws, that it was almost impossible to distinguish the capricious brute's sour crabbed profile through the mass of ornament fluttering about it.

Whenever they travel, Spaniards resume their ancient originality, and eschew the imitation of anything foreign. The national characteristics reappear in all their pristine vigour, in these convoys through the mountains – convoys which cannot differ much from the caravans through the desert. The roughness of the roads, that are scarcely marked out, the grand savage aspects of the various places you pass through, the picturesque costume of the arrieros, and the strange trappings of the mules, horses, and asses, marching along in files, all transport you a thousand miles away from civilized life. Travelling becomes a reality, an action in which you take a part. In a diligence a man is no longer a man, he is but an inert object, a bale of goods, and does not much differ from his portmanteau. He is thrown from one place to the other, and might as well stop at home. The pleasure of travelling consists in the obstacles, the fatigue, and even the danger. What charm can any one find in an excursion, when he is always sure of reaching his destination, of having horses ready waiting for him, a soft bed, an excellent supper, and all the ease and comfort which he can enjoy in his own house? One of the great misfortunes of modern life is the want of any sudden surprise, and the absence of all adventures. Everything is so well arranged, so admirably combined, so plainly labelled, that chance is an utter impossibility; if we go on progressing, in this fashion, towards perfection for another century, every man will be able to foresee everything that will happen to him from the day of his birth to the day of his death. Human will will be completely annihilated. There will be no more crimes, no more virtues, no more characters, no more originality. It will be impossible to distinguish a Russian from a Spaniard, an Englishman from a Chinese, or a Frenchman from an American. People will not even be able to recognise one another, for every one will be alike. An intense feeling of ennui will then take possession of the universe, and suicide will decimate the population of the globe, for the principal spring of life, namely, curiosity, will have been destroyed for ever.

A journey in Spain is still a perilous and romantic affair. You must risk your life, and possess courage, patience, and strength. You are exposed to danger at every step you take. Privations of all kinds, the absence of the most indispensable articles, the wretched state of the roads, that would offer insurmountable difficulties to any but an Andalusian muleteer, the most horrible heat, with the sun darting its rays upon you as if it were about to split your skull, are the most trifling inconveniences. Besides all this, there are the factions, the robbers, and the innkeepers, all ready to plunder and ill-treat you, and who regulate their honesty by the number of carbines that accompany you. Peril encircles you, follows you, goes before you, is all around you. You hear nothing but terrible and mysterious stories discussed in a low, terrified tone. Yesterday the bandits supped in the very posada at which you alight. A caravan has been attacked and carried off into the mountains by the brigands, in the hope that their prisoners will be ransomed. Pallilos is lying in ambush at such and such a spot, which you will have to pass! Without doubt there is a good deal of exaggeration in all this, but however incredulous you may be, you cannot avoid believing something of it, when, at each turn of the road, you perceive wooden crosses with inscriptions of this kind —Aqui mataron à un hombre, Aqui murio de maupairada.