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Title: Spain, v. 2 (of 2)

Author: Edmondo de Amicis

Translator: Stanley Rhoads Varnall

Release Date: December 20, 2015 [EBook #50727]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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Transcriber's Notes

 Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected and
 inconsistencies of hyphenation have been removed. All other variations
 in spelling, punctuation and accents are unchanged from the original.

 The following corrections have been made to the Index.
 Rembrandt von changed to Rembrandt van Rijn
 Pousin, Nicola changed to Poussin, Nicolas
 Zorilla, Ruiz changed to Zorrilla, Ruiz

 Repetition of chapter titles on consecutive pages has been removed.

 Italics are indicated thus _italic_.


       *       *       *       *       *


                   SPAIN


[Illustration: _Alcazar, Seville_]


            _EDITION ARTISTIQUE_

             The World's Famous
             Places and Peoples


[Illustration: Flower]


                   SPAIN


                     BY

              EDMONDO DE AMICIS


                _Translated
        by Stanley Rhoads Yarnall, M.A._


               In Two Volumes

                  Volume II.


             MERRILL AND BAKER
           New York          London


THIS EDITION ARTISTIQUE OF THE WORLD'S FAMOUS PLACES AND PEOPLES IS
LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED AND REGISTERED COPIES, OF WHICH THIS
COPY IS NO. _______


    Copyright, Henry T. Coates & Co., 1895




CONTENTS.


                                  PAGE

 ARANJUEZ                            7

 TOLEDO                             15

 CORDOVA                            53

 SEVILLE                            97

 CADIZ                             147

 MALAGA                            165

 GRANADA                           175

 VALENCIA                          257




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME II


                                             PAGE

 ALCAZAR, SEVILLE                   _Frontispiece_

 GATE OF THE SUN, TOLEDO                       18

 ALCAZAR AND BRIDGE OF SAN MARTIN, TOLEDO      40

 COURT OF ORANGES, MOSQUE OF CORDOVA           68

 MOORISH ARCHES, ALCAZAR, SEVILLE             124

 CADIZ                                        158

 MALAGA                                       170

 COURT OF MYRTLES, ALHAMBRA                   194

 FOUNTAIN IN THE COURT OF LIONS, ALHAMBRA     200

 QUEEN'S BOUDOIR, ALHAMBRA                    212

 COURT OF GENERALIFE, GRANADA                 226

 THE ALHAMBRA AND THE VALLEY OF THE DARRO     250




ARANJUEZ.


As on arriving at Madrid by way of the north, so on leaving it by way
of the south, one must pass through a desolate country that resembles
the poorest provinces of Arragon and Old Castile. There are vast
plains, parched and yellow, which look as though they would echo like a
hollow passageway if one were to strike them, or crumble like the crust
of a crisp tart. And through the plains are scattered a few wretched
villages of the same color as the soil, which seem as though they would
take fire like a pile of dry leaves if one were to touch a torch to
the corner of one of the huts. After an hour of travel my shoulders
sought the cushions of the carriage, my elbow sought for a support,
my head sought my hand, and I fell into a deep sleep like a member of
Leopardi's "Assembly of Listeners." A few minutes after I had closed
my eyes I was rudely awakened by a desperate cry from the women and
children, and leaped to my feet, demanding of my neighbors what had
occurred.

But before I had ended my question a general burst of laughter
reassured me. A company of huntsmen, scattered over the plain, on
noticing the approach of the train, had planned to give the travellers
a little scare. At that time there was a rumor that a band of Carlists
had appeared in the vicinity of Aranjuez. The huntsmen, pretending to
be the vanguard of the band, had given a loud shout while the train
was passing, as if to call the great body of their comrades to their
assistance, and as they shouted they went through the motions of firing
at the railway-carriages; hence arose the fright and the cries of my
fellow-travellers. And then the huntsmen suddenly threw the butts of
their guns into the air to show that it was all a joke.

When the alarm, in which I too shared for a moment, had subsided, I
fell once more into my academic doze, but was again awakened in a few
moments in a manner much more pleasant than on the first occasion.

I looked around: the vast barren plain had been transformed as by magic
into a great garden full of the most charming groves, traversed in all
directions by wide avenues, dotted with country-houses and cottages
festooned with verdure; here and there the sparkling of fountains,
shady grottoes, flowering meadows, vineyards, and bridle-paths--a
verdure, a freshness, a vernal odor, an atmosphere of happiness and
peace, that enchanted the soul. We had arrived at Aranjuez. I left the
train, walked up a beautiful avenue shaded by two rows of noble trees,
and after a few steps found myself in front of the royal palace.

The minister Castelar had written in his memorandum a few days before
that the fall of the ancient Spanish monarchy was predoomed on that
day when a mob of the populace, with curses on their lips and hatred
in their hearts, had invaded the palace of Aranjuez to disturb the
majestic repose of their sovereigns. I had reached that square where
on the 17th of March, 1808, occurred those events which were the
prologue of the national war, and, as it were, the first word of the
death-sentence of the ancient monarchy. My eyes quickly sought the
windows of the apartments of the Prince of Peace; I imagined him,
as he fled from room to room, pale and distracted, searching for a
hiding-place as the echo of the cry followed him up the stairs; I saw
poor Charles IV., as with trembling hands he placed the crown of Spain
on the head of the prince of the Asturias; all the scenes of that
terrible drama were enacted in fancy before my eyes, and the profound
silence of the place and the sight of that palace, closed and desolate,
sent a chill to my heart.

The palace has the appearance of a castle: it is built of brick, with
trimmings of light stone, and covered with a tile roof. Every one knows
that it was built for Philip II. by the celebrated architect Herrera,
and that it was adorned by all the later kings, who made it their
summer residence. I enter: the interior is magnificent; there is the
stupendous reception-hall of the ambassadors, the beautiful Chinese
cabinet belonging to Charles V., the marvellous dressing-chamber of
Isabella II., and a profusion of the most precious ornaments. But all
the riches of the palace are as nothing to the beauty of the gardens.
The expectation is not disappointed.

The gardens of Aranjuez (Aranjuez is the name of a little town which
lies a short distance from the palace) seem to have been laid out for
a race of Titan kings, to whom the royal parks and gardens of our
country would have seemed like the flower-beds on their terraces or
the plots before their stables. Endless avenues, bordered by trees
of measureless height with arched branches interlacing as if bent
toward each other by contrary winds, extend in every direction like a
forest whose boundaries one cannot see, and through this forest the
Tagus, a wide, swift stream, flows in a majestic curve, forming here
and there cascades and lakes: an abundant and luxuriant vegetation
springs up amid a labyrinth of bypaths, crossways, and sylvan glades;
and in every part gleam statues, vases, columns, and fountains rising
to a great height and falling in spray, festoons, and drops of water,
placed in the midst of all manner of flowers from Europe and America;
and, mingling with the majestic roar of the cascades of the Tagus, a
flood of song from innumerable nightingales, which make the mysterious
gloom of the lonely paths ring with their mellow notes. In the depths
of the gardens rises a small marble palace of modest proportions
which contains all the wonders of the most magnificent royal abode;
and here one may still breathe, so to speak, the air of the inmost
life of the kings of Spain. Here are the small secret chambers whose
ceilings one may touch with the hand, the billiard-room of Charles
IV., his cue, the cushions embroidered by the hands of his queens, the
musical clocks which enlivened the playtime of his children, the narrow
staircases, the little windows about which cluster a hundred traditions
of princely caprices, and, finally, the richest retiring-room in
Europe, created at a whim of Charles V., containing in itself alone
sufficient riches to adorn a palace, without depriving it of the noble
primacy which it proudly holds among all other cabinets designed for
the same use. Beyond this palace and all around the groves extend
vineyards and olive-groves and orchards of fruit-bearing trees and
smiling meadows. It is a veritable oasis in the midst of the desert--an
oasis which Philip II. chose to create on a day when he was in good
humor, as if to enliven with one cheerful image the black melancholy
of the Escurial. On returning from the little marble palace toward
the great royal palace through those endless avenues, in the shade of
those noble trees, in that profound forest silence, I thought of the
splendid trains of ladies and cavaliers who once wandered about in the
footsteps of the gay young monarchs or the capricious and dissolute
queens to the sound of amorous music and songs which told of the
grandeur and glory of unconquered Spain; and I sadly repeated with the
poet, Ricanati,

    ... "All is peace and silence,
        And their names are no longer heard."

But as I looked at those marble seats, half hidden in the shrubbery,
and fixed my eyes on the shadow of certain distant paths, and thought
of those queens, those lovers, and those mad pranks, I could not
refrain from a sigh, which was not one of pity, and a secret sense of
bitterness stung me to the heart; and I said, like poor Adan in the
poem _Diablo Mundo_, "How are these grand ladies made? How do they
live? What do they do? Do they talk, make love, and enjoy like us?"
And I left for Toledo, imagining the love of a queen like a young
adventurer of the Arabian Nights.




TOLEDO.


When one approaches an unknown city one ought to have near by some one
who has already seen it and is able to indicate the opportune moment to
put one's head out of the window and get the first view. I had the good
fortune to be informed in time. Some one said to me, "There is Toledo!"
and I sprang to the window with an exclamation of wonder.

Toledo rises on a sheer rocky height, at whose foot the Tagus describes
a grand curve. From the plain one sees only the rocks and the walls
of the fortress, and beyond the wall the tips of the belfries and
the towers. The houses are hidden from view; the city seems to be
closed and inaccessible, and presents the appearance of an abandoned
stronghold rather than of a city. From the walls to the river-banks
there is not a single house nor tree; all is bare, parched, craggy,
precipitous; not a soul is in sight; you would say that to make the
ascent it would be necessary to climb, and it seems that at the first
appearance of a man on the face of those rocks a shower of arrows would
fall upon him from the top of the wall.

You leave the train, get into a carriage, and arrive at the entrance
of a bridge. It is the famous bridge Alcantara, which spans the Tagus,
surmounted by a beautiful Moorish gate in the form of a tower, which
gives it a bold, severe appearance. Crossing the bridge, you turn
into a wide roadway which winds up in large serpentine curves until
it reaches the top of the mountain. Here it really seems that you are
under a fortified city of the Middle Ages, and you imagine yourself in
the guise of a Moor or a Goth or a soldier of Alfonso VI. From every
part precipitous rocks hang over your head, crumbling walls, towers,
and the ruins of ancient bastions, and higher up the last wall which
encircles the city, black, crowned with enormous battlements, opened
here and there by great breaches, behind which the imprisoned houses
rear their heads; and as you climb higher and higher the city seems
to draw back and hide itself. Halfway up the ascent you come to the
_Puerto del Sol_, a jewel of Moorish architecture, consisting of two
embattled towers which are joined over a very graceful double-arched
colonnade, under which runs the ancient street; and from that point, if
you look back, you may see at a glance the Tagus, the valley, and the
hills. You go on and find other walls and other ruins, and finally the
first houses of the city.

What a city! At the first moment I caught my breath. The carriage had
turned down a little street, so narrow that the hubs of the wheels
almost touched the walls of the houses.

[Illustration: _Gate of the Sun, Toledo_]

"Why do you turn in here?" I asked the driver.

He laughed and answered, "Because there is no wider street."

"Is all Toledo like this?" I asked again.

"It is all like this," he replied

"Impossible!" I exclaimed.

"You will see," he added.

To tell the truth, I did not believe him. I entered a hotel, dropped my
valise in a room, and ran headlong down the stairs to take a look at
this very strange city. One of the hotel-porters stopped me at the door
and asked with a smile,

"Where are you going, _caballero_?"

"To see Toledo," I replied.

"Alone?"

"Yes; why not?"

"But have you ever been here before?"

"Never."

"Then you cannot go alone."

"And why not?"

"Because you will get lost."

"Where?"

"As soon as you go out."

"For what reason?"

"The reason is this," he answered, pointing to a wall on which hung a
map of Toledo. I approached and saw a network of white lines on a black
background that seemed like one of those flourishes which school-boys
make on their slates to waste the chalk and vex their teacher.

"No matter," said I; "I am going alone, and if I get lost, let them
come and find me."

"You will not go a hundred steps," observed the porter.

I went out and turned down the first street I saw, so narrow that on
extending my arms I touched both walls. After fifty paces I turned into
another street, narrower than the first, and from this passed into a
third, and so on.

I seemed to be wandering not through the streets of the city, but
through the corridors of a building, and I went forward, expecting
momentarily to come out into an open place. It is impossible, I
thought, that the whole city is built in this manner; no one could
live in it. But as I proceeded the streets seemed to grow narrower and
shorter; every moment I was obliged to turn; after a curving street
came a zigzag one, and after this another in the form of a hook, which
led me back into the first, and so I wandered on for a little while,
always in the midst of the same houses. Now and then I came out at a
crossway where several alleys ran off in opposite directions, one of
which would lose itself in the dark shadow of a portico, another would
end blindly in a few paces against the wall of a house, a third in
a short distance would descend, as it were, into the bowels of the
earth, while a fourth would clamber up a steep hill; some were hardly
wide enough to give a man passage; others were confined between two
walls without doors or windows; and all were flanked by buildings of
great height, between whose roofs one could see a narrow streak of sky.

One passed windows defended by heavy iron bars, great doors studded
with enormous nails, and dark courtyards. I walked for some time
without meeting anybody, until I came out into one of the principal
streets, lined with shops and full of peasants, women, and children,
but little larger than an ordinary corridor. Everything is in
proportion to the streets: the doors are like windows, the shops like
niches, and by glancing into them one sees all the secrets of the
house--the table already spread, the babies in the cradle, the mother
combing her hair, and the father changing his shirt; everything is
on the street, and it does not seem like a city, but like a house
containing a single great family.

I turned into a less-frequented street, where I heard only the buzzing
of a fly; my footsteps echoed to the fourth story of the houses and
brought some old women to the windows. A horse passes; it seems like a
squadron; everybody hurries to see what is going on. The least sound
re-echoes in every direction; a book falls in a second story, an old
man coughs in a courtyard, a woman blows her nose in some unknown
place; one hears everything.

Sometimes every sound will suddenly cease; you are alone, you see no
sign of life: you seem to be surrounded by the houses of witches,
crossways made for conspirators, blind alleys for traitors, narrow
doorways suitable for any crime, windows for the whispers of guilty
lovers, gloomy doorways suggestive of blood-stained steps. But yet in
all this labyrinth of streets there are no two alike; each one has
its individuality: here rises an arch, there a column, yonder a piece
of statuary. Toledo is a storehouse of art-treasures. Every little
while the walls crumble, and there are revealed in every part records
of all the centuries--bas-reliefs, arabesques, Moorish windows, and
statuettes. The palaces have doorways defended by plates of engraved
metal, historical knockers, nails with carved heads, 'scutcheons and
emblems; and they form a fine contrast to the modern houses painted
with festoons, medallions, cupids, urns, and fantastic animals.

But these embellishments detract in no way from the severe and gloomy
aspect of Toledo. Wherever you look you see something to remind you of
the city fortified by the Arabs; however little your imagination may
exert itself, it will succeed in rearranging from the relics scattered
here and there the whole fabric of that darkened image, and then the
illusion is complete: you see again the glorious Toledo of the Middle
Ages, and forget the solitude and silence of its streets. But it is a
fleeting illusion, and you soon relapse into sad meditation and see
only the skeleton of the ancient city, the necropolis of three empires,
the great sepulchre of the glory of three races. Toledo reminds you of
the dreams which come to young men after reading the romantic legends
of the Middle Ages. You have seen many a time in your dreams dark
cities encircled by deep moats, frowning walls, and inaccessible rocks;
and you have crossed those draw-bridges and entered those tortuous,
grass-grown streets, and have breathed that damp, sepulchral, prison
air. Well, then, you have dreamed of Toledo.

The first thing to see, after making a general survey of the city, is
the cathedral, which is justly considered one of the most beautiful
cathedrals in the world. The history of this cathedral, according to
popular tradition, dates from the times of the apostle Saint James,
first bishop of Toledo, who selected the place where it should be
erected; but the construction of the edifice as it appears to-day
was begun in 1227, during the reign of San Fernando, and was ended
after twenty-five years of almost continuous labor. The exterior of
this immense church is neither rich nor beautiful, as is that of
the cathedral of Burgos. A little square extends in front of the
façade, and is the only place from which one can get a view of any
considerable part of the building. It is entirely surrounded by a
narrow street, from which, however much you may twist your neck, you
can see only the high outer walls which enclose the church like a
fortress. The façade has three great doorways, the first of which is
named _Pardon_, the second _Inferno_, and the third _Justice_. Over it
rises a substantial tower which terminates in a beautiful octagonal
cupola. Although in walking around the building one may have remarked
its great size, on first entering one is struck by a profound sense of
wonder, which quickly gives place to another keen sense of pleasure,
the result of the freshness, the repose, the soft shadow, and the
mysterious light which steals through the stained glass of innumerable
windows and breaks in a thousand rays of blue, golden, and rosy light
which glides here and there along the arches and columns like the
bands of a rainbow. The church is formed of five great naves divided
by eighty-eight enormous pilasters, each of which is composed of
sixteen turned columns as close together as a bunch of spears. A sixth
nave cuts the other five at right angles, extending from the great
altar to the choir, and the vaulted roof of this principal nave rises
majestically above the others, which seem to be bowing to it as if in
homage. The many-colored light and the clear tone of the stone give
the church an air of quiet cheerfulness which tempers the melancholy
appearance of the Gothic architecture without depriving it of its
austere and serious character. To pass from the streets of the city to
the naves of this cathedral seems like coming out of a dungeon into an
open square: one looks around, draws a deep breath, and begins to live
again.

The high altar, if one wished to examine it minutely, would require
as much time as the interior of a church: it is itself a church--a
miracle of little columns, statuettes, traceries, and ornaments of
endless variety, creeping along the iron frames, rising above the
architraves, winding about the niches, supporting one another, climbing
and disappearing, presenting on every side a thousand outlines, groups,
combinations, effects in gilding and color, every sort of grace that
art can devise--giving to the whole an effect of magnificence, dignity,
and beauty. Opposite the high altar rises the choir, divided into
three orders of stalls, marvellously carved by Philip of Bourgogne
and Berruguete, with bas-reliefs representing historical events,
allegories, and sacred legends--one of the most famous monuments of art.

In the centre, in the form of a throne, stands the seat of the
archbishop surrounded by a circle of enormous jasper columns, with
colossal statues of alabaster resting on the architraves; on either
side rise enormous bronze pulpits provided with two great missals, and
two gigantic organs, one in front of the other, from which it seems
that at any moment a flood of melody may burst forth and make the vault
tremble.

The pleasure of one's admiration in these great cathedrals is almost
always disturbed by importunate guides, who wish at any cost to amuse
you after their fashion. And it was my misfortune to become convinced
that the Spanish guides are the most persistent of their kind. When
one of them has gotten it into his head that you are to spend the day
with him, it is all over. You may shrug your shoulders, refuse to
notice him, let him talk himself hoarse without so much as turning to
look at him, wander about on your own account as though you had not
seen him: it is all the same thing. In a moment of enthusiasm before
some painting or statue a word escapes you, a gesture, a smile: it
is enough. You are caught, you are his, you are the prey of this
implacable human cuttle-fish, who, like the cuttle-fish of Victor Hugo,
does not leave his victim until he has cut off his head. While I stood
contemplating the statuary of the choir I saw one of these cuttle-fish
out of the corner of my eye--a miserable old rake, who approached me
with slow steps sidewise, like a cutthroat with the air of one who was
saying, "Now I have got you!" I continued to look at the statues; the
old man came up to my side, and he too began to look; then he suddenly
asked me, "Do you wish my company?"

"No," I replied, "I don't need you."

And he continued, without any embarrassment,

"Do you know who Elpidius was?"

The question was so remarkable that I could not keep from asking in my
turn,

"Who was he?"

"Elpidius," he replied, "was the second bishop of Toledo."

"Well, what of him?

"'What of him?' It was the bishop Elpidius who conceived the idea of
consecrating the church to the Virgin, and that is the reason why the
Virgin came to visit the church."

"Ah! how do you know that?"

"How do you know it? You see it."

"Do you mean to say that it has been seen?"

"I mean to say that it is still to be seen: have the goodness to come
with me."

So saying, he started off, and I followed him, very curious to
learn what this visible form of the descent of the Virgin might be.
We stopped in front of a sort of chapel close to one of the great
pilasters of the central nave. The guide pointed out a white stone set
in the wall covered by an iron net, and with this inscription running
around it:

    "Quando la reina del cielo
    Puso los pies en el suelo,
    En esta piedra los puso."

    "When the Queen of heaven
    Descended to the earth,
    Her feet rested on this stone."

"Then the Holy Virgin has actually placed her feet on this stone?" I
asked.

"On this very stone," he replied; and, thrusting a finger between the
strands of the iron net, he touched the stone, kissed his finger, made
the sign of the cross, and turned toward me as if to say, "Now it is
your turn."

"My turn?" I replied. "Oh, really, my friend, I cannot do it."

"Why?"

"Because I do not feel myself worthy to touch that sacred stone."

The guide understood, and, looking hard at me with a serious aspect, he
asked, "You do not believe?"

I looked at a pilaster. Then the old man made a sign for me to follow,
and started toward a corner of the church, murmuring with an air of
sadness, "_Cadanno es dueño de su alma_" (Every man is master of his
soul).

A young priest who was standing near, and who had divined the cause of
his words, cast a piercing glance at me, and went off in an opposite
direction, muttering I know not what.

The chapels correspond in style with that of the church: almost all of
them contain some fine monuments. In the chapel of Santiago, behind
the high altar, are two magnificent tombs of alabaster which contain
the remains of the constable Alvaro de Luna and his wife; in the chapel
of San Ildefonso, the tomb of the cardinal Gil Carrillo de Albornoz;
in the chapel of the "New Kings," the tombs of Henry II., John II.,
and Henry III.; in the chapel of the sacristy, a stupendous group of
statues and busts of marble, silver, ivory, and gold, and a collection
of crosses and relics of inestimable value, the remains of Saint
Leucadia and Saint Eugenia preserved in two silver caskets exquisitely
chased.

The Chapel Mozarabe, which is under the tower of the church, and was
erected to perpetuate the tradition of the primitive Christian rite,
is probably the most worthy of attention. One of its walls is entirely
covered with a fresco, in the Gothic style, representing a conflict
between the Moors and the Toledans--marvellously preserved, even to
the most delicate lines. It is a painting worth a volume of history.
In it one sees the Toledo of those times with all its walls and its
houses; the habiliments of the two armies; the arms, faces, everything
portrayed with an admirable finish and an unspeakable harmony of color
which answers perfectly to the vague and fantastic idea which one may
have formed of those centuries and those races. Two other frescoes on
either side of the first represent the fleet which bore the Arabs into
Spain, and they offer a thousand minute details of the mediæval marine
and the very air of those times, if one may so speak, which makes one
think of and see a thousand things not represented in the painting, as
one hears distant music on looking at a landscape.

After the chapels one goes to see the sacristy, where are gathered
enough riches to restore the finances of Spain to a sound basis. There
is, among others, a vast room on the ceiling of which one sees a
fresco by Luca Giordano, which represents a vision of paradise, with
a myriad of angels, saints, and allegorical figures floating in the
air or standing out like statues from the cornices of the walls in a
thousand bold attitudes, with so much action and foreshortening that
one is bewildered. The guide, pointing out this miracle of imagination
and genius, which in the estimation of all artists, to use a very
curious Spanish expression, is a work of _merito atroz_ (of atrocious
merit),--the guide bids you to look attentively at the ray of light
which falls upon the walls from the centre of the vaulted ceiling. You
look at it and then make a circuit of the room, and wherever you find
yourself that ray of light is falling directly upon your head.

From this hall you pass into a room which is also beautifully painted
in fresco by the nephew of Berruguete, and from it into a third, where
a sacristan lays the treasures of the cathedral before your eyes--the
enormous silver candlesticks; the pyxes flashing with rubies; the
golden stands for the elevation of the Host, studded with diamonds;
the damask vestments, embroidered in gold; the robes of the Virgin,
covered with arabesques, garlands of flowers, and stars of pearl, which
at every motion of the cloth flash forth in a thousand rays and colors
and quite dazzle one's eyes. A hour is scarcely sufficient to see
hurriedly all that display of treasures, which would certainly satisfy
the ambition of ten queens and enrich the altars of ten cathedrals;
and when, after he has shown you everything, the sacristan looks in
your eyes for an expression of surprise, he finds only astonishment and
stupefaction, which give evidence of an imagination wandering in far
distant regions--in the realms of the Arabian legends where the kindly
genii gather all the riches dreamed of by the glowing fancy of enamored
sultans.

It was the eve of _Corpus Domini_, and in the sacristy they were
preparing the robes for the processional. Nothing can be more
unpleasant or more at variance with the quiet and noble sadness of
the church than the theatrical hurry-scurry which one sees on such
occasions. It is like being behind the scenes on the evening of a
dress rehearsal. From one room of the sacristy to another half-dressed
boys were coming and going with a great clatter, carrying armfuls
of surplices, stoles, and capes; here a sour-tempered sacristan was
opening and banging the doors of a wardrobe; there a priest, all red
in the face, was calling angrily to a chorister who did not hear him;
yonder other priests were running through the room with their robes
partly on their backs and partly trailing behind them; some laughing,
some screaming, and some shouting from one room to another at the top
of their voices; everywhere one heard a swish of skirts, a breathless
panting, and an indescribable stamping and tramping.

I went to see the cloister, but, as the door was open through which one
reaches it from the church, I saw it before entering. From the middle
of the church one gets a glimpse of a part of the cloister-garden, a
group of fine leafy trees, a little grove, a mass of luxuriant plants
which seem to close the doorway and look as though they are framed
beneath a graceful arch and between the two slender columns of the
portico which extends all around. It is a beautiful sight, which makes
one think of Oriental gardens encircled by the columns of a mosque.
The cloister, which is very large, is surrounded by a colonnade,
graceful, though severe in form; the walls covered with great frescoes.
The guide advised me to rest here a little while before ascending to
the campanile. I leaned against a low wall in the shade of a tree,
and remained there until I felt able to make another expedition, as
the expression is. Meanwhile, my commander extolled in bombastic
language the glories of Toledo, carrying his impudence so far, in his
patriotism, as to call it "a great commercial city" which could buy
and sell Barcelona and Valencia, and a city strong enough, if need be,
to withstand ten German armies and a thousand batteries of Krupp guns.
After each of his exaggerations I kept spurring him on, and the good
man enjoyed himself to the full. What pleasure there is in knowing how
to make others talk! Finally, when the proud Toledan was so swollen
with glory that the cloister could no longer hold him, he said to me,
"We may go now," and led the way toward the door of the campanile.

When we were halfway up we stopped to take breath. The guide knocked at
a little door, and out came a swaggering little sacristan, who opened
another door, and made me enter a corridor where I saw a collection of
gigantic puppets in very strange attire. Four of them, the guide told
me, represented Europe, Asia, America, and Africa, and two others Faith
and Religion; and they were so made that a man could hide in them and
raise them from the ground.

"They take them out on the occasions of the royal fêtes," the sacristan
added, "and carry them around through the city;" and, to show me how
it was done, he crept in under the robes of Asia. Then he led me to
a corner where there was an enormous monster which when touched, I
know not where, stretched out a very long neck and a horrible head
and made a dreadful noise. But he could not tell me what this ugly
creature signified, and so invited me instead to admire the marvellous
imagination of the Spaniards, which creates so "many new things" to
sell in all the known world. I admired, paid, and continued the ascent
with my Toledan cuttle-fish. From the top of the tower one enjoys a
splendid view--the city, the hills, the river, a vast horizon, and,
below, the great mass of the cathedral, which seems like a mountain of
granite. But there is another elevation, a short distance away, from
which one sees everything to a better advantage, and consequently I
remained in the campanile only a few moments, especially as at that
hour the sun was shining very strongly, confusing all the colors of the
city and country in a flood of light.

From the cathedral my guide led me to see the famous church of _San
Juan de los Reyes_, situated on the banks of the Tagus. My mind is
still confused when I think of the windings and turnings which we were
obliged to make in order to reach it. It was mid-day, the streets were
deserted; gradually, as we went farther from the centre of the city,
the solitude became more depressing; not a door or window was open, not
the slightest sound was heard. For a moment I suspected that the guide
was in league with some assassin to entice me into an out-of-the-way
place and rob me; he had a suspicious face, and then he kept glancing
here and there with a suspicious air, like one meditating a crime.

"Is it much farther?" I would ask from time to time, and he would
always answer: "It is right here," and yet we never reached it.

At a certain point my uneasiness changed into fear: in a narrow,
tortuous street a door opened; two bearded men came out, made a sign
to the cuttle-fish, and fell in behind us. I thought it was all over
with me. There was only one way of escape--to strike the guide, knock
him down, jump over his body, and run. But which way? And on the other
side there came into my mind the high praises which Thiers bestows
on the "Spanish legs" in his _History of the War of Independence_;
and I thought that flight would only prove an opportunity to plant a
dagger in my back instead of my stomach, Alas! to die without seeing
Andalusia! To die after taking so many notes, after giving so many
tips--to die with pockets full of letters of introduction, with a purse
fat with doubloons--to die with a passport covered with seals--to die
by treachery! As God willed, the two bearded men disappeared at the
first corner and I was saved. Then, overwhelmed by compunction for
suspecting that the poor old man could be capable of a crime, I came
over to his left side, offered him a cigar, said that Toledo was worth
two Romes, and showed him a thousand courtesies. Finally we arrived at
_San Juan de los Reyes_.

It is a church which seems like a royal palace: the highest part is
covered by a balcony surrounded with a honeycombed and sculptured
breastwork, upon which rises a series of statues of kings, and in the
middle stands a graceful hexagonal cupola which completes the beautiful
harmony of the edifice. From the walls hang long iron chains which were
suspended there by the Christian prisoners released at the conquest of
Granada, and which, together with the dark color of the stone, give
the church a severe and picturesque appearance. We entered, passed
through two or three large, bare rooms, unpaved, cluttered with piles
of dirt and heaps of rubbish, climbed a staircase, and came out upon
a high gallery inside the church, which is one of the most beautiful
and noblest of the monuments of Gothic architecture. It has a single
great nave divided into four vaults, whose arches intersect under rich
rosettes. The pilasters are covered with festoons and arabesques;
the walls ornamented with a profusion of bas-reliefs, with enormous
shields bearing the arms of Castile and Arragon, eagles, dragons,
heraldic animals, trailing vines, and emblematic inscriptions; the
gallery running all around the room is perforated and carved with great
elegance; the choir is supported by a bold arch; the color of the stone
is light gray, and everything is admirably finished and preserved, as
if the church had been built but a few years ago, instead of at the
end of the fifteenth century.

From the church we descended to the cloister, which is, in truth,
a miracle of architecture and sculpture. Graceful slender columns
which could be broken in two by the stroke of a hammer, looking like
the trunks of saplings, support capitals richly adorned like curving
boughs; arches ornamented with flowers, birds, and grotesque animals
in every sort of carving. The walls are covered with inscriptions
in Gothic characters in a framework of leaves and very delicate
arabesques. Wherever one looks one finds grace mingled with riches in
enchanting harmony: it would not be possible to accumulate in an equal
space and with more exquisite art a larger number of the most delicate
and beautiful objects. It is a luxuriant garden of sculpture, a grand
saloon embroidered, quilted, and brocaded in marble, a great monument,
majestic as a temple, magnificent as a palace, delicate as a toy, and
graceful as a flower.

After the cloisters one goes to see a picture-gallery which contains
only some paintings of little value, and then to the convent with its
long corridors, its narrow stairs, and empty cells, almost on the point
of falling into ruins, and in some parts already in ruins; throughout
bare and squalid like a building gutted by fire.

A little way from _San Juan de los Reyes_ there is another monument
well worthy of attention, a curious record of the Judaic period--the
synagogue now known by the name of Santa Maria la Blanca. One enters
an untidy garden and knocks at the door of a wretched-looking house.
The door opens. There is a delightful sense of surprise, a vision of
the Orient, a sudden revelation of another religion and another world.
There are five narrow alleys divided by four long rows of little
octagonal pilasters, which support as many Moorish arches with stucco
capitals of various forms; the ceiling is of cedar-wood divided into
squares, and here and there on the walls are arabesques and Arabic
inscriptions. The light falls from above, and everything is white. The
synagogue was converted into a mosque by the Arabs, and the mosque into
a church by the Christians, so that, properly, it is none of the three,
although it still preserves the character of the mosque, and the eye
surveys it with delight, and the imagination follows from arch to arch
the fleeting images of a sensuous paradise.

When I had seen Santa Maria la Blanca, I had not the strength to see
anything else, and, refusing all the tempting propositions of the
guide, I told him to lead me back to the hotel. After a long walk
through a labyrinth of narrow, deserted streets we arrived there; I put
a _peseta_ and a half in the hand of my innocent assassin, who found
the fee too small, and asked (how I laughed at the word!) for a little
_gratificacion_.

I went into the dining-room to eat a chop or _chuleta_ (which is
pronounced _cuileta_), as the Spanish call it--a name at which they
would turn up their noses in some of the provinces of Italy.

Toward evening I went to see the Alcazar. The name raises expectations
of a Moorish palace, but there is nothing Moorish about it except the
name. The building which one admires to-day was built in the reign of
Charles V. on the ruins of a castle which was in existence as early
as the eighth century, although the notices of it in contemporary
chronicles are vague. This edifice rises upon a height overlooking the
city, so that one sees its walls and towers from every point above the
level of the streets, and the foreigner finds it a sure landmark amid
the confusion and labyrinths of the city. I climbed the height by a
broad winding street, like that one which runs from the plain up to
the city, and found myself in front of the Alcazar. It is an immense
square palace, at whose corners rise four great towers that give it the
formidable appearance of a fortress. A vast square extends in front
of the façade, and all around it runs a chain of embattled bulwarks
of Oriental design. The entire building is of a decided chalky color,
relieved by a thousand varied shades of that powerful painter of
monuments, the burning sun of the South, and it appears even lighter
against the very clear sky upon which the majestic form of the building
is outlined.

The façade is carved in arabesques in a manner at once dignified and
elegant. The interior of the palace corresponds with the exterior: it
is a vast court surrounded by two orders of graceful arches, one above
the other, supported by slender columns, with a monumental marble
staircase starting at the centre of the side opposite the door, and a
little way above the pavement divides into two parts that lead to the
interior of the palace, the one on the right, the other on the left.
To enjoy the beauty of the courtyard it is necessary to stand on the
landing where the staircase separates: from that point one comprehends
at a glance the complete harmony of the edifice, which inspires a sense
of cheerfulness and pleasure, like fine music performed by hidden
musicians.

Excepting the courtyard, the other parts of the building--the
stairways, the rooms, the corridors--everything is in ruins or falling
to ruins. They were at work turning the palace into a military school,
whitewashing the walls, breaking down the partitions to make great
dormitories, numbering the doors, and converting the palace into
a barracks. Nevertheless, they left intact the great subterranean
chambers which were used for stables at the time of Charles V., and
which are still able to hold several thousand horses. The guide made
me approach a window from which I looked down into an abyss that
gave me an idea of their vastness. Then we climbed a series of unsteady
steps into one of the four towers; the guide opened with pincers and a
hammer a window that had been nailed fast, and with the air of one who
was announcing a miracle said to me, "Look, sir!"

[Illustration: _Alcazar and Bridge of San Martin, Toledo_]

It was a wonderful panorama. One had a bird's-eye view of the city of
Toledo, street by street and house by house, as if one were looking at
a map spread upon a table: here the cathedral, rising above the city
like a measureless castle, and making all the buildings around it seem
as small as toy houses; there the balcony of _San Juan de las Reyes_,
crowned with statues; yonder the embattled towers of the New Gate, the
circus, the Tagus running at the foot of the city between its rocky
banks; and beyond the river, opposite the bridge of Alcantara, on a
precipitous crag, the ruins of the ancient castle of San Servando;
still farther off a verdant plain, and then rocks, hills, and mountains
as far as the eye can see; and over all a very clear sky and the
setting sun, which gilded the summits of the old buildings and flashed
on the river like a great silver scarf.

While I was contemplating this magic spectacle the guide, who had
read the _History of Toledo_ and wished me to know the fact, was
telling all sorts of stories with that manner, half poetical and half
facetious, which is distinctive of the Spaniards of the South. Above
all, he wished to explain the history of the work of fortification,
and although, where he said that he saw clear and unmistakable remains
which he pointed out to me, I saw nothing at all, I succeeded,
nevertheless, in learning something about it.

He told me that Toledo had been thrice surrounded by a wall, and that
the traces of all three walls were still clear. "Look!" he said;
"follow the line which my finger indicates: that is the Roman wall,
the innermost one, and its ruins are still visible. Now look a little
farther on: that other one beyond it is the Gothic wall. Now let your
glance describe a curve which embraces the first two: that is the
Moorish wall, the most recent. But the Moors also built an inner wall
on the ruins of the Roman wall: this you can easily see. Then observe
the direction of the streets, which converge toward the highest point
of the city; follow the line of the roofs--here, so; you will see that
all the streets go up zigzag, and they were built purposely in this
manner, so that the city could be defended even after the walls had
been destroyed; and the houses were built so close one against another
in order that it would be possible to jump from roof to roof, you
see; and then the Arabs have left it in their writings. This is the
reason that the Spanish gentlemen from Madrid make me laugh when they
come here and say, 'Pooh! what streets!' You see, they do not know a
particle of history: if they knew the least bit, if they read a little
instead of spending their days on the Prado and in the Recoleto, they
would understand that there is a reason for the narrow streets of
Toledo, and that Toledo is not a city for ignoramuses."

I began to laugh.

"Do you not believe?" continued the custodian: "it is a sacred fact.
Not a week ago, to cite a case, here comes a dandy from Madrid with
his wife. Well, even as they were climbing the stairs they began to
run down the city, the narrow streets, and the dark houses. When they
came to this window and saw those two old towers down yonder on the
plain on the left bank of the Tagus, they asked me what they were, and
I answered, '_Los palacios de Galiana_.' 'Oh! what beautiful palaces!'
they exclaimed, and began to laugh and looked in another direction.
Why? Because they did not know their history. Now, I imagine that
you do not know any better; but you are a stranger, and that makes a
difference. Know, then, that the great emperor Charlemagne came to
Toledo when he was a very young man. King Galafro was reigning then,
and dwelt in that palace. King Galafro had a daughter Galiana, as
beautiful as an angel; and, as Charlemagne was a guest of the king
and saw the princess every day, he fell in love with her with all
his heart, and so did the princess with him. But there was a rival
between them, and this rival was the king of Guadalajara, a Moorish
giant of herculean strength and the courage of a lion. This king, to
see the princess without being seen, had a subterranean passage made
all the way from the city of Guadalajara to the very foundation of the
palace. But what good did it do? The princess could not even bear to
see him, and as often as he came, so often did he return crestfallen;
but not for this did the enamored king stop paying his court. And so
much did he come hanging around that Charlemagne, who was not a man to
be imposed upon, as you can imagine, lost his patience, and to end the
matter challenged him. They fought: it was a terrible struggle, but the
Moor, for all he was a giant, got the worst of it. When he was dead
Charlemagne cut off his head and laid it at the feet of his love, who
approved the delicacy of his offering, became a Christian, gave her
hand to the prince, and went away with him to France, where she was
proclaimed empress."

"And the head of the Moor?"

"You may laugh, but these are sacred facts. Do you see that old
building down there at the highest point of the city? It is the church
of San Ginés. And do you know what is inside of it? Nothing less than
the door of an underground passage which extends three leagues beyond
Toledo. You do not believe it? Listen! At the place where the church
of San Ginés now stands there once was an enchanted palace before the
Moors invaded Spain. No king had ever had the courage to enter it,
and those who might possibly have been so bold did not do it because,
according to the tradition, the first man who crossed that threshold
would be the ruin of Spain. Finally King Roderic, before setting out
for the battle of Guadalete, hoping to find in it some treasures which
would furnish him means to resist the invasion of the Moors, had the
doors broken open and entered, preceded by his warriors, who lighted
the way. After a great deal of trouble to keep their torches lighted
for the furious wind which came through the underground passages,
they reached a mysterious room where they saw a chest which bore the
inscription, 'He who opens me will see miracles.' The king commanded
that it be opened: with incredible difficulty they succeeded in opening
it, but, instead of gold or diamonds, they found only a roll of
linen, on which were painted some armed Moors, with this inscription
underneath: '_Spain will soon be destroyed by these_.' That very night
a violent tempest arose, the enchanted palace fell, and a short time
afterward the Moors entered Spain. You don't seem to believe it?"

"What stuff you are talking! How can I believe it?"

"But this history is connected with another. You know, without doubt,
that Count Julian, the commandant of the fortress of Ceuta, betrayed
Spain and allowed the Moors to pass when he might have barred the way.
But you do not know why Count Julian turned traitor. He had a daughter
at Toledo, and this daughter went every day with a number of her young
friends to bathe in the Tagus. As misfortune willed it, the place
where they went to bathe, which was called _Los Baños de la Cava_, was
near a tower in which King Roderic was accustomed to pass the mid-day
hours. One day Count Julian's daughter, who was called Florinda, tired
of sporting in the water, sat down on the river-bank and said to her
companions, 'Companions, let us see who is the most beautiful.'--'Let
us see!' they cried, and as soon done as said. They seated themselves
around Florinda, and each one revealed her beauty. But Florinda
surpassed them all, and, unfortunately, just at the moment when she
said to the others, 'Look!' King Roderic put his head out of the window
and saw them. Young and dissolute, you may imagine he took fire like a
match, paid his court to the beautiful Florinda, ruined and abandoned
her; and from this followed the fury of the revenge of Count Julian,
the treason, and the invasion."

At this point it seemed that I had listened long enough: I gave the
custodian two _reales_, which he took and put in his pocket with a
dignified air, and, giving a last look at Toledo, I descended.

It was the hour for promenading. The principal street, hardly wide
enough for a carriage to pass through, was full of people; there may
have been a few hundred persons, but they seemed like a great crowd;
it was dusk, the shops were closing, and a few stray lights began to
flicker here and there. I went to get my dinner, but came out quickly,
so as not to lose sight of the promenade. It was night: there was
no other illumination save the moonlight, and one could not see the
faces of the people; I seemed to be in the midst of a procession
of spectres, and was overwhelmed with sadness. "To think that I am
alone!" I said--"that in all this city there is not a soul who knows
me; that if I fall dead at this moment, there would not be a dog to
say, 'Poor man! he was a good fellow!'" I saw joyous young men pass,
fathers of families with their children, husbands or those who had
the air of husbands with beautiful creatures on their arms; every one
had a companion; they laughed and talked, and passed without so much
as looking at me. How wretched I was! How happy I should have been if
a boy, a beggar, or a policeman had come up and said, "It seems to
me that I recognize you, sir"!--"It is impossible, I am a foreigner,
I have never been in Toledo before; but it makes no matter; don't go
away; stay here, and we will talk a while, for I am lonely."

In a happy moment I remembered that at Madrid I had received a letter
of introduction to a Toledan gentleman. I hurried to the hotel, took
out my letter, and was at once shown to his house. The gentleman was
at home and received me courteously. It was such a pleasure to hear my
own name again that I could have thrown my arms around his neck. He was
Antonio Gamero, the author of a highly esteemed _History of Toledo_. We
spent the evening together. I asked him a hundred things; he told me a
thousand, and read me some splendid passages from his book, which made
me better acquainted with Toledo than I should otherwise have been in a
month's residence there.

The city is poor, and worse than poor: it is dead; the rich have
abandoned it for Madrid; the men of genius have followed the rich; it
has no commerce; the manufacture of cutlery, the only industry which
flourishes, provides a livelihood for some hundreds of families, but
not for the city; popular education is neglected; the people are lazy
and miserable.

But they have not lost their ancient character of nobility. Like all
the peoples of great declining cities, they are proud and chivalrous;
they abhor baseness, deal justice with their own hands, when they
can, to assassins and thieves and murderers; and, although the poet
Zorilla, in one of his ballads, has bluntly called them a silly
people, they are not so; they are alert and bold. They combine the
seriousness of the Spaniards of the North with the vivacity of the
Spaniards of the South; they hold the middle ground between the
Castilian and the Andalusian; they speak the language with refinement,
with a greater variety of inflexion than the people of Madrid, and
with greater precision than the people of Cordova and Seville; they
love poetry and music; they are proud to number among their great men
the gentle Garcilaso de la Vega, the reformer of Spanish poetry, and
the illustrious Francisco de Rojas, the author of the _Garcia del
Castañar_; and they take pride in welcoming within their walls artists
and students from all the countries in the world who come to study the
history of three nations and the monuments of three civilizations.
But, whatever its people may be, Toledo is dead; the city of Wamba,
of Alfonso the Brave, and of Padilla is nothing but a tomb. Since
Philip II. took from it the crown of the capital, it has been steadily
declining, and is still declining, and it is consuming itself little by
little, solitary on the summit of its gloomy mountain, like a skeleton
abandoned on a rock in the midst of the waves of the sea.

I returned to the hotel shortly before midnight. Although the moon was
shining brightly--for on moonlight nights they do not illuminate the
streets, although the light of that silvery orb does not penetrate
those narrow ways--I was obliged to grope my way along like a thief.
With my head full, as it was, of fantastic ballads which describe the
streets of Toledo traversed at night by cavaliers muffled in their
cloaks, singing under the windows of their ladies, fighting and killing
one another, climbing into palaces and stealing the maidens away, I
imagined I should hear the tinkle of guitars, the clashing of swords,
and the cries of the dying. Nothing of the kind: the streets were
deserted and silent and the windows dark, and one heard faintly from
time to time at the corners and crossways the light step of some one
passing or a fugitive whisper, the source of which one could in no way
discover. I reached the hotel without harming any fair Toledan, which
might have caused me some annoyance, and also without having any holes
made in my stomach, which was undoubtedly a consolation.

The morning of the next day I visited the beautiful building of the
hospital of San Cruz, the church of _Nuestra Señora del Transito_, an
ancient synagogue, the ruins of an amphitheatre and of an arena where
naval battles were fought in Roman times, and the famous manufactory
of arms, where I bought a beautiful dagger with a silver handle and a
blade covered with arabesques, which at this moment lies on my table,
and when I shut my eyes and take it in my hand I seem to be still
there, in the courtyard of the factory, a mile out of Toledo, under
the mid-day sun, surrounded by a group of soldiers, and enveloped in a
cloud of smoke from their cigarettes. I remember that as I was walking
back to Toledo, as I was crossing a bit of country solitary as a
desert and silent as the Catacombs, a terrible voice cried out, "Away
with the foreigner!"

The voice came from the city. I stopped--I was the foreigner, that cry
was directed at me, and my blood curdled; the solitude and silence of
the place increased my fear. I started forward and the voice cried
again, "Away with the foreigner!"

"Is it a dream?" I exclaimed, stopping again, "or am I awake? Who is
shouting? Where is he? Why does he do it?"

I started on again, and the voice came the third time, "Away with the
foreigner!"

I stopped the third time, and when, all disturbed, I cast my eyes
around, I saw a boy sitting on the ground, who looked at me with a
laugh and said, "He is a crazy man, who thinks he is living in the time
of the War of Independence. Look, sir! that is the insane asylum."
And he pointed out the place on a hill among the outermost houses of
Toledo. I drew a long breath which would have blown out a torch.

In the evening I left Toledo, regretting that I had not time to see
once and again all that was ancient and wonderful in it: this regret
was tempered, however, by my ardent desire for Andalusia, which had
not allowed me a moment's peace. But how long I saw Toledo before my
eyes! How long I remembered and dreamed of those headlong rocks, those
enormous walls, those dark streets, that fantastic appearance of a
mediæval city! Even to-day I review the picture with a sort of sombre
pleasure and grave melancholy, and with this picture before me my mind
wanders back in a thousand strange thoughts among distant times and
marvellous events.




CORDOVA.


On arriving at Castillejo I was obliged to wait until midnight for
the Andalusia train. I dined on hard-boiled eggs and oranges, with
a little sprinkling of Val de Peñas, murmured a poem of Espronceda,
chatted a little with a custom-house officer who between parentheses
made me a confession of his political faith--Amadeus, liberty, an
increase of wages to the custom-house officers, etc; finally I heard
the long-desired whistle, entered a railway-carriage crowded full of
women, children, civil guards, boxes, cushions, and wraps, and away
with a speed unusual for the Spanish railways. It was a beautiful
night; my travelling-companions talked of bulls and Carlists; a
beautiful girl, whom more than one devoured with his eyes, pretended
to sleep that she might still further heighten their curiosity; some
were rolling cigarettes, some peeling oranges, others humming songs
from the _Zarzuela_. Nevertheless, I fell asleep in a few minutes. I
believe I had already dreamed of the mosque of Cordova and the Alcazar
of Seville, when I was aroused by a hoarse cry, "Daggers!"

"Daggers? Heavens! for whom?" Before I discovered who had shouted
there flashed before my eyes a long sharp blade, and the unknown voice
asked again,

"Do you like it?"

One must admit that there are pleasanter ways to be awakened. I
looked in the faces of my travelling-companions with an expression of
consternation, which made them all burst into a shout of laughter.
Then they explained that at every railway-station there are vendors of
knives and daggers who offer tourists their wares, just as the boys
offer newspapers and refreshments in our country. Assured that my life
was safe, I bought my scarecrow--five francs; a splendid dagger for a
villain in a tragedy, with an ornamented handle, inscriptions on the
blade, and a sheath of embroidered velvet; and I put it in my pocket,
thinking that I might find it useful in Italy to settle difficulties
with my publishers.

The vendor must have had fifty of those knives in a great red sash
tied around his waist. Other travellers bought them, the civil guards
complimented one of my neighbors on the good selection he had made; the
boys cried, "Buy me one too!" The mammas answered, "We will buy you a
bigger one some other time." "O happy Spain!" I exclaimed, and thought
with horror of our barbarous laws, which forbid the innocent amusement
of a little cold steel.

We crossed La Mancha, the celebrated La Mancha, the immortal
theatre of the adventures of Don Quixote. It is such a place as I
imagined--wide, bare plains, long tracts of sandy soil, here and there
a windmill, a few wretched villages, lonely lanes, and forsaken huts.
On seeing these places I felt that vague sense of melancholy which
steals over me as I read the book of Cervantes, and repeated to myself
what I always say on reading it: "This man cannot make one laugh
without also making one's tears flow as the laughter dies away."

Don Quixote is a sad and sombre figure: his madness is a lament;
his life is the history of the dreams, illusions, awakenings, and
aberrations of each of us; the struggle of reason with imagination, of
truth with falsehood, of the ideal with the real. We all have something
of Don Quixote in our nature; we all mistake windmills for giants; we
are all now and then spurred on by the impulse of enthusiasm, only
to be driven back by the laugh of scorn; we are each a mixture of
the sublime and the ridiculous; we all feel bitterly and profoundly
the eternal conflict between the grandeur of our aspirations and the
impotence of our powers. O beautiful dreams of childhood and youth!
Generous impulses to consecrate our life to the defence of virtue and
justice, fond imaginations of dangers faced, of adventurous struggles,
of magnanimous deeds, and sublime loves, fallen one by one, like the
petals of a flower, in the narrow and uneventful paths of life! To what
new life have they arisen in our soul, and what vague thoughts and
profound inspirations have we derived from thee, O generous and hapless
cavalier of the sad figure!

We arrived at Argamasilla de Alba, where Don Quixote was born and died,
and where poor Cervantes, the tax-gatherer of the great priory of San
Juan, was arrested by angry debtors and imprisoned in a house which is
said to be still in existence, and where he probably conceived the plan
of his romance. We passed near the village of Val de Peñas, which gives
its name to one of the most exquisite wines of Spain--dark, tingling,
exhilarating, the only one, forsooth, which permits the foreigner from
the North to indulge in copious libations at his meals; and finally we
arrived at Santa Cruz de Mudela, a village famous for its manufactories
of _navajas_ (knives and razors), near which the way begins to slope
gently upward toward the mountain.

The sun had risen, the women and children had left the carriage, and a
number of peasants, officers, and _toreros_ had entered on their way
to Seville. One saw in that small space a variety of costume which
would not be seen even in an Italian market-place--the pointed caps of
the peasants of the Sierra Morena, the red trousers of the soldiers,
the great sombreros of the _picadores_, the shawls of the gypsies, the
mantles of the Catalans, Toledo blades hanging from the walls, capes,
belts, and finery of all the colors of a harlequin.

The train entered the rocks of the Sierra Morena, which separate the
valley of the Guadiana from that of the Guadalquivir, famous for the
songs of poets and the deeds of brigands. The railway runs at times
between two walls of rock sheer from the very peaks, so high that to
see the top one must put one's head all the way out of the window
and turn one's face up, as if to look at the roof of the carriage.
Sometimes the rocks are farther away and rise one above the other, the
first like enormous broken stones, the last straight and sharp like
bold towers rising upon measureless bastions; between them a mass of
boulders cut into teeth, steps, crests, and humps, some almost hanging
in the air, others separated by deep caverns and frightful precipices,
presenting a confusion of curious forms, of fantastic suggestions
of houses, gigantic figures and ruins, and offering at every step a
thousand outlines and surprising appearances; and, together with this
infinite variety of form, an infinite variety of color, shadow, dancing
and changing light. For long distances, to the right, to the left, and
overhead, one sees nothing but stone, without a house, a path, or a
patch of ground where a man could set his foot, and, as one advances,
rocks, ravines, and precipices: everything grows larger, deeper, and
higher until one reaches the summit of the Sierra, where the solemn
majesty of the spectacle provokes a cry of wonder.

The train stopped a few minutes, and all the travellers put their heads
out of the window.

"Here," said one in a loud voice,--"here Cardenio jumped from rock to
rock to do penance for his sins" (Cardenio, one of the most remarkable
characters in _Don Quixote_, who jumped about among the rocks of the
Sierra in his shirt to do penance for his sins). "I wish," continued
the traveller, "that Sagasta might have to do the same."

They all laughed, and began to find, each one on his own account,
some political enemy upon whom in imagination he might inflict this
punishment: one proposed Serrano, another Topete, and a third another,
and so on, until in a few minutes, if their desires had been realized,
one might have seen the entire Sierra filled with ministers, generals,
and deputies in their shirts skipping from crag to crag like the famous
rock of Alessandro Manzoni.

The train started, the rocks disappeared, and the delightful valley
of the Guadalquivir, the garden of Spain, the Eden of the Arabs, the
paradise of painters and of poets, blessed Andalusia, revealed herself
to my eyes. I can still feel the thrill of childish joy with which I
hurried to the window, saying to myself, "Let me enjoy it."

For a long distance the country does not offer any new appearance to
the ardent curiosity of the traveller. At Vilches there is a vast
plain, and beyond it the level country of Tolosa, where Alfonso VIII.,
king of Castile, won the celebrated victory of _de las Navas_ over the
Mussulman army. The sky was as clear as air--in the distance rose the
mountains of the Sierra de Segura. Suddenly I made one of those quick
motions which seemed to correspond to an unuttered cry of astonishment:
the first aloes with their broad heavy leaves, the unexpected
harbingers of the tropical vegetation, rise beside the road. Beyond
them the fields sprinkled with flowers begin to appear. The first
fields sprinkled, those which follow almost covered, then vast tracts
of country wholly clothed, with wild poppies, daisies, iris, mushrooms,
cowslips, and buttercups, so that the country appears like a succession
of vast carpets of purple and gold and snowy white, and far away, among
the trees, innumerable streaks of blue, white, and yellow until the eye
is lost; and hard by, on the edge of the ditches, the mounds, and the
banks, even to the very track, flowers in beds, groups, and clusters,
one above the other, fashioned like great bouquets, trembling on their
stems, which one can almost touch with the hand. Then waving fields
of grain with great heavy bearded heads, bordered by long gardens of
roses; then orange-orchards and vast olive-groves; hillocks varied
by a hundred shades of green, surmounted by ancient Moorish towers,
dotted with many-colored cottages, with here and there white, graceful
bridges, which span rivulets hidden by the trees. On the horizon rise
the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada, and below this white line other
blue undulating lines of the nearer mountains. The country grows ever
more various and blooming: Arjonilla, embowered in an orange-grove
whose limits are lost in the distance; Pedro Abad, in the midst of a
plain covered with vineyards and orchards; Ventas de Alcolea, on the
hills of the Sierra Morena, crowned with villas and gardens. We are
drawing near to Cordova: the train flies; one sees little stations half
hidden among trees and flowers; the wind blows the rose-leaves into
the cars, great butterflies sail past the windows, a delicious perfume
fills the air, the travellers are singing, we pass through an enchanted
garden, the aloes, oranges, palms, and villas become more frequent; one
hears a cry: "Here is Cordova!"

How many beautiful images and how many memories are recalled by that
name!

Cordova, the ancient pearl of the Occident, as the Moorish poets called
her, the city of cities, Cordova of the thirty burgs and the three
thousand mosques, which contained within her walls the greatest temple
of Islam! Her fame spread through the Orient and obscured the glory
of ancient Damascus,--from the remotest regions of Asia the faithful
journeyed toward the banks of the Guadalquivir to prostrate themselves
in the marvellous mihrab of her mosque, in the blaze of a thousand
brazen lamps cast from the bells of the Spanish cathedrals. From every
part of the Mohammedan world artists, scholars, and poets crowded to
her flourishing schools, her vast libraries, and the magnificent courts
of her caliphs. Hither flowed wealth and beauty, drawn by the fame of
her splendor.

And from here they separated, eager for knowledge, along the coasts of
Africa, among the schools of Tunis, Cairo, Bagdad, and Cufa, as far as
India and China, in search of books, inspiration, and memories; and the
poems sung on the slopes of the Sierra Morena flew from harp to harp
even to the valleys of the Caucasus, to make the hearts of pilgrims
burn within them. The beautiful, the mighty, the wise Cordova, crowned
with three thousand villages, proudly reared her white minarets among
her orange-groves and spread through the divine valley a voluptuous air
of gladness and glory.

I descend from the train, cross a garden, and look around: I am
alone; the travellers who came with me have disappeared in different
directions; I still hear the rumble of the receding carriages; then all
is silent.

It is mid-day: the sky is very clear, the air burning. I see two white
cottages; it is the opening of a street; I enter and go forward. The
street is narrow, the houses small as the little villas built on the
hillocks of artificial gardens; nearly all of them are one story in
height, with windows a little way from the ground, roofs so low that
one can almost touch them with a cane, and very white walls. The street
makes a turn; I look down it; no one is in sight; I do not hear a
step nor a voice. "It must be an abandoned street," I say, and turn
in another direction: white cottages, closed windows, solitude, and
silence. "Where am I?" I ask myself.

I walk on: the street is so narrow and crooked that a carriage could
not pass through it; to the right and left one sees other deserted
streets, other white houses, and other closed windows; my step echoes
as in a corridor; the white of the walls is so bright that the
reflection almost blinds me, and I am obliged to walk with my eyes
closed; I seem to be passing through snow. I reach a little square:
everything is closed, there is no one about. Then a feeling of vague
melancholy begins to steal into my heart, such as I have never felt
before, a mingling of enjoyment and sorrow like that which children
experience when after a long run they find themselves in a beautiful
country-place and enjoy it, but with a tremor of fear at being so
far away from home. Above the many roofs rise the palms of the inner
gardens. O fantastic legends of odalisques and caliphs!

On from street to street and square to square; I meet a few persons,
but they all pass and disappear like phantoms. The streets are all
alike, the houses have only two or four windows; and there is not a
stain, not a scratch, not a crack in the walls, which are as smooth
and white as a sheet of paper. Now and then I hear a whisper behind a
venetian blind, and almost at the same moment see a dark head with a
flower in the hair peep out and disappear. I approach a door.

A _patio_! How shall I describe a _patio_? It is not a courtyard, it
is not a garden, it is not a room; it is the three in one. Between the
_patio_ and the street there is a vestibule. On the four sides of the
_patio_ rise graceful columns which support a sort of balcony enclosed
in glass at the height of the second story; over the balcony extends a
canvas which shades the court. The vestibule is flagged with marble,
the doorway supported by columns surmounted by bas-reliefs and closed
by a delicate iron lattice of very beautiful design. At the back of
the _patio_, opposite the doorway, stands a statue, in the centre a
fountain, and all around chairs, work-tables, paintings, and vases of
flowers. I run to another door. Another _patio_, its walls covered with
ivy, and a line of niches containing statuettes and urns. I hurry to
a third door. A _patio_ with its walls adorned with mosaic, a palm in
the centre, and all around a mass of flowers. A fourth door. Behind
the _patio_ another vestibule, and then a second _patio_, in which one
sees other statues, columns, and fountains. And all these rooms and
gardens are clean and tidy, so that you could pass your hands over the
walls and along the floor without leaving a mark; and they are fresh
and fragrant, lighted with a dim light which heightens their beauty and
mystery.

Still forward, from street to street, at random. Gradually, as I walk
on, my curiosity increases and I hasten my steps. It seems impossible
that the whole city can be like this: I am afraid of coming upon a
house or finding a street which will remind me of other cities and
rouse me from my pleasant dream.

But, no: the dream is unbroken. Everything is small, graceful,
mysterious. Every hundred paces a deserted little square, in which I
stop breathless; now and then a crossway, and not a living soul; and
everything always white--closed windows and silence. At every door
there is a new spectacle: arches, columns, flowers, fountains, palms;
a marvellous variety of design, color, light, perfume, here of roses,
there of oranges, yonder of violets; and with the perfume a breath of
fresh air, and borne on the air the subdued sound of women's voices,
the rustling of leaves, and the singing of birds--a sweet and various
harmony, which, without disturbing the silence of the street, soothes
the ear like the echo of distant music. Ah! it is not a dream! Madrid,
Italy, Europe, surely they are far, far away. Here one lives another
life, here one breathes the air of another world; I am in the Orient.

I remember that at a certain point I stopped in the middle of the
street and suddenly discovered, I know not how, that I was sad
and restless, and that in my heart there was a void which neither
admiration nor enjoyment could fill. I felt an irrepressible necessity
of entering those houses and those gardens, of tearing asunder, so to
speak, the mysterious veil which concealed the life of the unknown
people within; of sharing in that life; of grasping some hand and
gazing into two pitying eyes, and saying, "I am a stranger, I am alone;
I too want to be happy; let me linger among your flowers, let me enjoy
all the secrets of your paradise, teach me who you are and how you
live; smile on me and calm me, for my head is burning!"

And this sadness grew upon me until I said to myself, "I cannot stay in
this city; I am suffering here; I will leave it!"

And I believe I should have left if at a happy moment I had not
remembered that I carried in my pocket a letter of introduction to
two young men of Cordova, brothers of a friend of mine in Florence. I
dismissed the idea of leaving, and started at once to find them.

How they laughed when I told them of the impression Cordova had made
upon me! They proposed that we go at once to see the cathedral; so we
turned down a narrow white street and were off.

The mosque of Cordova, which was converted into a cathedral after the
overthrow of the Moors, but which must always remain a mosque, was
built on the ruins of the original cathedral, a little way back from
the bank of the Guadalquivir. Abdurrahman commenced its construction
in the year 785 or 786 A. D. "Let us rear a mosque," said he, "which
shall surpass that of Bagdad, of Damascus, and of Jerusalem--a mosque
which shall be the greatest temple of Islam, one which shall become the
Mecca of the West." They undertook the work with great ardor. Christian
slaves carried the stone for its foundations from their ruined
churches; Abdurrahman himself worked an hour every day; in a few years
the mosque was built, the caliphs who succeeded Abdurrahman embellished
it, and after a century of almost continuous labor it was finished.

"Here we are!" said one of my friends, stopping suddenly in front of a
vast edifice.

I thought it was a fortress, but it was the wall which surrounds the
mosque--an old embattled wall in which there were at one time twenty
great bronze doors ornamented with the most beautiful arabesques, and
arched windows supported by graceful columns, now covered by a triple
coat of plaster. A turn around this wall is a nice little walk to
take after dinner: one may judge, therefore, of the vast size of the
building.

[Illustration: _Court of Oranges, Mosque of Cordova_]

The principal door of the enclosure is north of the point where rises
the minaret of Abdurrahman, from whose summit floated the Mohammedan
standard. We entered: I expected to see at once the interior of the
mosque, but found myself in a garden full of orange trees, cypresses,
and palms, surrounded on three sides by a very beautiful portico and
closed on the fourth side by the façade of the mosque. In the midst
of this garden there was, in the time of the Moors, the fountain for
their ablutions, and in the shade of these trees the faithful refreshed
themselves before entering the sanctuary.

I stood for some moments looking around and breathing in the fresh
odorous air with the liveliest sense of pleasure, and my heart leaped
at the thought of the famous mosque standing there before me, and I
felt myself impelled toward the door by a boundless curiosity, and
at the same time restrained by I know not what feeling of childish
hesitation.

"Let us enter," said my companions. "One moment more," I replied: "let
me thoroughly enjoy the delight of anticipation." Finally I moved
forward and entered, without so much as looking at the marvellous
doorway which my companions pointed out.

What I did or said on entering I do not know, but some strange
exclamation must surely have escaped me or I must have made an odd
gesture, for some persons who were just then coming toward me began to
laugh and turned again to look around, as if to discover the reason of
the profound emotion which I had manifested.

Imagine a forest and suppose yourself in the thickest part, where
you see only the trunks of trees. So in the mosque wherever you turn
your gaze is lost among the columns. It is a forest of marble whose
boundaries one cannot discover. One follows with the eye, one by one,
those lengthening rows of columns crossed at every step by innumerable
other rows, and perceives a dimly-lighted background in which one
seems to see the gleaming of still other columns. There are nineteen
naves which extend in the direction in which you enter, crossed by
thirty-three other naves, and supported, in all, by more than nine
hundred columns of porphyry, jasper, onyx, and marble of every color.
Each column is surmounted by a pilaster, and between one column and
the next bends an arch, and a second arch above the first extends from
pilaster to pilaster, both of them in the form of a horseshoe; and so,
imagining the columns to be the trunks of so many trees and the arches
to represent the branches, the resemblance of the mosque to a forest is
complete.

The central nave, much larger than the others, leads to the Maksura,
the most sacred part of the temple, where they worshipped the Koran.
Here from the vaulted windows steals a faint ray of light which glides
along a row of columns; there a dark place, and yonder another ray
pierces the gloom of another nave. It is impossible to express the
feeling of mystical wonder which fills one's mind at this spectacle.
It is like the sudden revelation of a religion, a nature, and a life
unknown, leading the fancy captive among the delights of that paradise
of love and pleasure where the blessed, sitting in the shade of leafy
plane trees and of thornless roses, drink from crystal beakers wine
gleaming like pearls, mixed by immortal children, and repose in the
embrace of lovely virgins with great dark eyes! All the images of
that external pleasure, eager, warm, and glowing, which the Koran
promises to the faithful, crowd upon the mind at the first sight of the
mosque, and give one a delicious moment of intoxication which leaves
in the heart an indescribable feeling of gentle melancholy. A brief
tumult in the mind and a rapid thrill which goes tingling through the
veins,--such is one's first sensation on entering the cathedral of
Cordova.

We began to wander from passage to passage, examining everything
minutely. What a variety in that edifice which at first sight appears
so uniform! The proportions of the columns, the design of the capitals,
the form of the arches change, one may say, at every step. The greater
part of the columns are old and were taken by the Moors from Northern
Spain, Gaul, and Roman Africa, and one is said to have belonged
to a temple of Janus, upon whose ruins stood the church which the
Arabians destroyed to build the mosque. On several of the capitals
one may still see the traces of the crosses carved upon them, which
the Arabians broke off with their hammers. In some of the columns
iron rings are fastened to which it is said the Arabians bound the
Christians, and among the others there is one pointed out to which the
popular tradition narrates a Christian was bound for many years, and
in that time, by continually scratching with his nails, he succeeded
in engraving a cross on the stone, which the guides show with profound
veneration.

We entered the Maksura, which is the most perfect and marvellous work
of Moorish art of the twelfth century. At the entrance there are three
continuous chapels, with vaulted roofs formed by indented arches, and
walls covered with magnificent mosaics which represent wreaths and
flowers and passages from the Koran. At the back of the middle chapel
is the principal _mihrab_, the holy place, where dwelt the Spirit of
God. It is a niche with an octagonal base enclosed above by a colossal
marble shell. In the _mihrab_ was kept the Koran written by the hands
of the caliph Othman, covered with gold, adorned with pearls, suspended
above a seat of aloe-wood; and here came thousands of the faithful to
make the circuit of it seven times on their knees. On approaching the
wall I felt the pavement slipping from under me: the marble had been
worn hollow!

On leaving the niche I stood a long time contemplating the vault and
the walls of the principal chapel, the only part of the mosque which
has been preserved almost intact. It is a dazzling flash of crystals
of a thousand colors, an interweaving of arabesques which confuse the
mind, a mingling of bas-reliefs, gilding, ornaments, and minute details
of design and coloring of a delicacy, grace, and perfection which would
prove the despair of the most patient artist. It is impossible to
retain in one's mind any part of that prodigious work: you might return
a hundred times to look at it, but in reality it would only remain
before your eyes as a tantalizing blur of blue, red, green, golden,
and luminous shades of colors, or a very intricate piece of embroidery
continually and rapidly changing in color and design. Only from the
ardent and tireless imagination of the Moors could such a miracle of
art have issued.

We began to wander through the mosque again, observing here and there
on the walls the arabesques of the ancient doorways which are now
and then discovered under the detestable plaster of the Christians.
My companions looked at me, laughed, and whispered something to each
other. "Have you not seen it yet?" one of them asked me.

"What do you mean?"

They looked at me again and smiled.

"You think you have seen all the mosque, do you?" continued my
companion.

"Yes, indeed," I replied, looking around.

"Well," said the first, "you have not seen it all, and what remains to
be seen is nothing less than a church."

"A church?" I exclaimed stupefied, "but where is it?"

"Look!" answered my other companion, pointing; "it is in the very
centre of the mosque."

"By the powers!" And I had not seen it!

From this one may judge of the vastness of the mosque.

We went to see the church. It is beautiful and very rich, with a
magnificent high altar and a choir worthy to stand beside those in the
cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo, but, like everything out of place,
it moves one to anger rather than admiration. Without this church
the appearance of the mosque would be much improved. Charles V., who
himself gave the chapter permission to build it, repented when he saw
the Mohammedan temple for the first time. Besides the church there is a
sort of Moorish chapel in a good state of preservation, rich in mosaics
not less varied and splendid than those of the Maksura, and where it is
said the ministers of the faith used to assemble to discuss the book of
the Prophet.

Such is the mosque to-day. But what must it have been in the time of
the Arabs! It was not entirely enclosed by a wall, but open, so that
one could see the garden from every side, and from the garden one
could look to the very end of the long naves, and the fragrance of
orange-blossoms and flowers was wafted even to the vaulted roofs of the
Maksura. The columns, which now number less than a thousand, were then
fourteen hundred in number; the ceiling was of cedar-wood and larch,
carved and enamelled with exquisite workmanship; the walls were lined
with marble; the light of eight hundred lamps filled with fragrant oil
made the crystals in the mosaic-work flash like pearls, and produced on
the pavement, the arches, and the walls a marvellous play of color and
reflection. "A sea of splendors," sang a poet, filled the mysterious
enclosure, and the warm air was laden with perfume and harmony, and the
thoughts of the faithful wandered and were lost in the labyrinth of
columns gleaming like lances in the sun.

Frederick Schrack, the author of a good work on the _Poetry and Art
of the Moors in Spain and Sicily_, gives a description of the mosque
on a day of solemn festival, which forms a very lively image of the
Mohammedan religion and completes the picture of the monument.

On both sides of the almimbar, or pulpit, wave two banners, to signify
that Islam has triumphed over Judaism and Christianity and that the
Koran has conquered both the Old and the New Testament. The _almnedani_
ascend to the gallery of the high minaret and intone the salam, or
salutation, to the Prophet. Then the aisles of the mosque are filled
with believers, who with white vestments and in festal attire come
together to worship. In a few moments, throughout the length and
breadth of the edifice, one sees only kneeling people. The caliph
enters by the secret way which leads from the Alcazar to the temple,
and seats himself in his elevated station. A reader of the Koran reads
a _sura_ from the low desk of the pulpit.

The voice of the muezzin sounds again, calling men to mid-day prayer.
All the faithful rise and murmur their prayers, bowing as they do so.
An attendant of the mosque opens the doors of the pulpit and seizes a
sword, and, holding it, he turns toward Mecca, admonishing the people
to worship Mohammed, while the _mubaliges_ are chanting his praises
from the gallery. Then the preacher mounts the pulpit, taking from
the hand of the servant the sword, which calls to mind and symbolizes
the subjection of Spain to the power of Islam. It is the day when
the _Djihad_, or the holy war, must be proclaimed, the call for all
able-bodied men to go to war and descend into the battlefield against
the Christians. The multitude listens with silent devotion to the
sermon, woven from texts of the Koran, which begins in this wise:

"Praise be to Allah, who has increased the glory of Islam, thanks to
the sword of the champion of the faith, who in his holy book has
promised succor and victory to the believer.

"Allah scatters his benefits over the world.

"If he did not put it in the hearts of men to take up arms against
their fellows, the world would be lost.

"Allah has ordained to fight against the people until they know that
there is but one God.

"The torch of war will not be extinguished until the end of the world.

"The blessing of God will fall upon the mane of the war-horse to the
day of judgment.

"Armed from head to foot or but lightly clad, it matters not--up and
away!

"O believers! what shall be done to you if, when called to the battle,
you remain with face turned to the earth?

"Do you prefer the life of this world to the life to come?

"Believe me, the gates of paradise stand in the shadow of the sword.

"He who dies in battle for the cause of God shall wash away with his
blood all the defilement of his sins.

"His body shall not be wasted like the other bodies of the dead, for on
the day of judgment his wounds shall yield a fragrance like musk.

"When the warriors present themselves at the gates of paradise, a voice
within shall ask, 'What have you done in your life?'

"And they shall answer, 'We have brandished the sword in the struggle
for the cause of God.'

"Then the eternal doors will swing open, and the warriors will enter
forty years before the rest.

"Up, then, ye faithful; leave your women, your children, your kindred,
and your goods, and go out to the holy war!

"And thou, God, Lord of this present world and of that which is to
come, fight for the armies of those who recognize thy unity! Cast down
the unbelievers, the idolaters, and the enemies of thy holy faith!
Overwhelm their standards, and give them, with whatever they possess,
as a prey to the Mussulman!"

The preacher as he ends his discourse turns toward the congregation and
exclaims, "Ask of God!" and begins to pray in silence.

All the faithful, with heads bowed to the ground, follow his example.
The _mubaliges_ chant, "Amen! Amen, O Lord of all being!" Burning like
the heat which precedes the oncoming tempest, the enthusiasm of the
multitude, restrained at first in awful silence, now breaks out into
deep murmurs, which rise like the waves and swell through all parts of
the temple, until finally the naves, the chapels, and the vaulted roofs
resound to the echo of a thousand voices united in a single cry: "There
is no God but Allah!"

The mosque of Cordova is even to-day, by universal consent, the most
beautiful temple of Islam and one of the most marvellous monuments in
the world.

When we left the mosque it was already long past the hour of the
siesta, which everybody takes in the cities of Southern Spain, and
which is a necessity by reason of the insupportable heat of the noon
hours. The streets began to fill with people. "Alas!" said I to my
companions, "how badly the silk hat looks in the streets of Cordova!
How have you the heart to introduce the fashion-plates in this
beautiful Oriental picture? Why do you not adopt the dress of the
Moors?" Coxcombs pass, workmen, and girls: I looked at them all with
great curiosity, hoping to find one of those fantastic figures which
Doré has represented as examples of the Andalusian type, with that
dark-brown complexion, those thick lips, and large eyes, but I saw
none. Walking toward the centre of the city, I saw the first Andalusian
women--ladies, girls and women of the middle classes--almost all small,
graceful, and well-formed, some of them beautiful, many attractive in
appearance, but the greater part neither one thing nor the other, as is
the case in all countries. In their dress, with the exception of the
so-called mantilla, they do not differ at all from the French women nor
from those of our country--great masses of false hair in plaits, knots,
and long curls, short petticoats, long plaited over-skirts, and boots
with heels as sharp as daggers. The ancient Andalusian costume has
disappeared from the city.

I thought that in the evening the streets would be crowded, but I saw
only a few people, and only in the streets of the principal quarters;
the others remain as empty as at the hour of the siesta. And one must
pass through those deserted streets at night to enjoy Cordova. One sees
the light streaming from the _patios_; one sees in the dark corners
fond lovers in close colloquy, the girls usually at the windows, with
a hand resting lightly on the iron grating, and the young men close to
the wall in poetic attitudes, with watchful eyes, but not so watchful,
however, as to make them take their lips from those hands before
they discover that some one is passing; and one hears the sound of
guitars, the murmur of fountains, sighs, the laughter of children, and
mysterious rustlings.

The following morning, still stirred by the Oriental dreams of the
night, I again began my wandering through the city. To describe all
that is remarkable there one would require a volume: it is a very
museum of Roman and Arabian antiquities, and one finds a profusion of
martial columns and inscriptions in honor of the emperors; the remains
of statues and bas-reliefs; six ancient gates; a great bridge over the
Guadalquivir dating from the time of Octavius Augustus and restored
by the Arabians; ruins of towers and walls; houses which belonged to
the caliphs, and which still contain the columns and the subterranean
arches of the bathing apartments; and everywhere there are doors,
vestibules, and stairways that would delight a legion of archæologists.

Toward noon, as I was passing through a lonely little street, I saw
a sign on the wall of a house beside a Roman inscription, _Casa de
huespedes. Almuerzos y comidas_, and as I read I felt the gnawing, as
Giusti says, of such a desperate hunger that I determined to give it a
quietus in this little shop upon which I had stumbled. I passed through
a little vestibule, and found myself in a _patio_. It was a poor little
_patio_, without marble floor and without fountains, but white as snow
and fresh as a garden. As I saw neither tables nor chairs, I feared I
had mistaken the door and started to go out. A little old woman bustled
out from I know not where and stopped me.

"Have you anything to eat?" I demanded.

"Yes, sir," she answered.

"What have you?"

"Eggs, sausages, chops, peaches, oranges, and wine of Malaga."

"Very good: you may bring everything you have."

She commenced by bringing me a table and a chair, and I sat down and
waited. Suddenly I heard a door open behind me and turned.... Angels
of heaven! what a sight I saw!--the most beautiful of all the most
beautiful Andalusians, not only of those whom I saw at Cordova, but
of all those whom I afterward saw at Seville, Cadiz, and Granada: if
I may be allowed to use the word, a superb girl, who would make one
flee or commit some deviltry; one of those faces which make you cry,
"O poor me!" like Giuseppe Baretti when he was travelling in Spain.
For some moments she stood motionless with her eyes fixed on mine as
if to say, "Admire me;" then she turned toward the kitchen and cried,
"_Tia, despachate!_" ("Hurry up, aunty!") This gave me an opportunity
of thanking her with a stammering tongue, and gave her a pretence for
approaching me and replying, "It is nothing," with a voice so gentle
that I was obliged to offer her a chair, whereupon she sat down. She
was a girl about twenty years old, tall, straight as a palm, and dark,
with two great eyes full of sweetness, lustrous and humid as though she
had just been in tears: she wore a mass of wavy jet-black hair with a
rose among her locks. She seemed like one of the Arabian virgins of the
tribe of the Usras for whom men died of love.

She herself opened the conversation:

"You are a foreigner, I should think, sir?"

"Yes."

"French?"

"Italian."

"Italian? A fellow-countryman of the king?"

"Yes."

"Do you know him, sir?"

"By sight!"

"They say he is a handsome young fellow."

I did not answer, and she began to laugh, and asked me, "What are you
looking at, sir?" and, still laughing, she hid her foot, which on
taking her seat she thrust well forward that I might see it. Ah! there
is not a woman in that country who does not know that the feet of the
Andalusians are famous throughout the world.

I seized the opportunity of turning the conversation upon the fame of
the Andalusian women, and expressed my admiration in the most fervent
words of my vocabulary. She allowed me to talk on, looking with great
attention at the crack in the table, then raising her face, she asked
me, "And in Italy, how are the women there?"

"Oh, there are beautiful women in Italy too."

"But ... they are cold?"

"Oh no, not at all," I hastened to respond; "but, you know, ... in
every country the women have an _I-know-not-what_ which distinguishes
them from the women of all other countries; and among them all the
_I-know-not-what_ of the Andalusians is probably the most dangerous for
a poor traveller whose hairs have not turned gray. There is a word to
express what I mean: if I could remember it, I would say it to you; I
would say, "_Señorita_, you are the most ..."

"_Salada_," exclaimed the girl, covering her face with her hands.

"_Salada!_ ... the most _salada_ Andalusian in Cordova."

_Salada_ is the word commonly used in Andalusia to describe a woman
beautiful, charming, affectionate, languid, ardent, what you will--a
woman with two lips which say, "Drink me," and two eyes which make one
close one's teeth.

The aunt brought me the eggs, chops, sausage, and oranges, and the girl
continued the conversation: "Sir, you are an Italian: have you seen the
Pope?"

"No, I am sorry to say."

"Is it possible? An Italian who has not seen the Pope! And tell me,
sir: why do the Italians make him suffer so much?"

"Suffer in what way?"

"Yes. They say that they have shut him up in his house and thrown
stones at the windows."

"Oh no! Don't believe it! There is not a particle of truth in it,"
etc., etc.

"Have you seen Venice, sir?"

"Venice? oh yes."

"Is it true that it is a city which floats on the sea?"

And here she made a thousand requests that I would describe Venice,
and that I would tell her what the people were like in that strange
city, and what they do all the day long, and how they dress. And while
I was talking besides the pains I took to express myself with a little
grace, and to eat meanwhile the badly-cooked eggs and stale sausage--I
was obliged to see her draw nearer and nearer to me, that she might
hear me better perhaps, without being conscious of the act. She came
so close that I could smell the fragrance of the rose in her hair and
feel her warm breath; I was obliged, I may say, to make three efforts
at once--one with my head, another with my stomach, and a third with
both--especially when, now and then, she would say, "How beautiful!"--a
compliment which applied to the Grand Canal, but which had upon me the
effect a bag full of napoleons might have upon a beggar if swung under
his nose by an insolent banker.

"Ah, señorita!" I said at last, beginning to lose patience, "what
matters it, after all, whether cities are beautiful or not? Those who
are born in them think nothing of it, and the traveller still less. I
arrived at Cordova yesterday: it is a beautiful city, without doubt.
Well--will you believe it?--I have already forgotten all that I have
seen; I no longer wish to see anything; I do not even know what city I
am in. Palaces, mosques, they make me laugh. When you have a consuming
fire in your heart, do you go to the mosque to quench it?--Excuse me,
will you move back a little?--When you feel such a madness that you
could grind up a plate with your teeth, do you go to look at palaces?
Believe me, the traveller's life is a sad one. It is a penance of the
hardest sort. It is torture. It is...." A prudent blow with her fan
closed my mouth, which was going too far both in words and action. I
attacked the chop.

"Poor fellow!" murmured the Andalusian with a laugh after she had given
a glance around. "Are all the Italians as ardent as you?"

"How should I know? Are all the Andalusians as beautiful as you?"

The girl laid her hand on the table.

"Take that hand away," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I want to eat in peace."

"Eat with one hand."

"Ah!"

I seemed to be pressing the little hand of a girl of six; my knife fell
to the ground; a dark veil settled upon the chop.

Suddenly my hand was empty: I opened my eyes, saw the girl all
disturbed, and looked behind me. Gracious Heavens! There was a handsome
young fellow, with a stylish little jacket, tight breeches, and a
velvet cap. Oh terrors! a _torero_! I gave a start as if I had felt two
_banderillas de fuego_ planted in my neck.

"I see it at a glance," said I to myself, like the man at the comedy;
and one could not fail to understand. The girl, slightly embarrassed,
made the introduction: "An Italian passing through Cordova," and she
hastened to add, "who wants to know when the train leaves for Seville."

The _torero_, who had frowned at first sight of me, was reassured,
told me the hour of departure, sat down, and entered into a friendly
conversation. I asked for the news of the last bull-fight at Cordova:
he was a _banderillero_, and he gave me a minute description of the
day's sport. The girl in the mean time was gathering flowers from the
vases in the _patio_. I finished my meal, offered a glass of Malaga to
the _torero_, drank to the fortunate planting of all his _banderillas_,
paid my bill (three _pesetas_, which included the beautiful eyes,
you understand), and then, putting on a bold front, so as to dispel
the least shadow of suspicion from the mind of my formidable rival,
I said to the girl, "_Señorita!_ one can refuse nothing to those who
are taking leave. To you I am like a dying man; you will never see
me again; you will never hear my name spoken: then let me take some
memento; give me that bunch of flowers."

"Take it," said the girl; "I picked it for you."

She glanced at the _torero_, who gave a nod of approval.

"I thank you with all my heart," I replied as I turned to leave. They
both accompanied me to the door.

"Have you bull-fights in Italy?" asked the young man.

"Oh heavens! no, not yet!"

"Too bad! Try to make them popular in Italy also, and I will come to
_banderillar_ at Rome."

"I will do all in my power.--_Señorita_, have the goodness to tell me
your name, so that I may bid you good-bye."

"Consuelo."

"God be with you, Consuelo!"

"God be with you, _Señor Italiano_!"

And I went out into the lonely little street.

There are no remarkable Arabian monuments to be seen in the
neighborhood of Cordova, although at one time the whole valley was
covered with magnificent buildings. Three miles to the south of the
city, on the side of the mountain, rose the Medina Az-Zahra, the
city of flowers, one of the most marvellous architectural works of
the caliph Abdurrahman, begun by the caliph himself in honor of his
favorite Az-Zahra. The foundations were laid in the year 936, and ten
thousand workmen labored on the edifice for twenty-five years. The
Arabian poets celebrated Medina Az-Zahra as the most splendid of royal
palaces and the most delightfullyl garden in the world. It was not an
edifice, but a vast chain of palaces, gardens, courts, colonnades,
and towers. There were rare plants from Syria--the fantastic playing
of lofty fountains, streams of water flowing in the shade of palm
trees, and great basins overflowing with quicksilver, which reflected
the rays of the sun like lakes of fire; doors of ebony and ivory
studded with gems; thousands of columns of the most precious marbles;
great airy balconies; and between the innumerable multitudes of
statues twelve images of animals of massy gold, gleaming with pearls,
sprinkling sweetened water from their mouths and noses. In this vast
palace swarmed thousands of servants, slaves, and women, and hither
from every part of the world came poets and musicians. And yet this
same Abdurrahman III., who lived among all these delights, who reigned
for fifty years, who was powerful, glorious, and fortunate in every
circumstance and enterprise, wrote before his death that during his
long reign he had been happy only fourteen days, and his fabulous city
of flowers seventy-four years after the laying of its first stone was
invaded, sacked, and burned by a barbarian horde, and to-day there
remain only a few stones which hardly recall its name.

Of another splendid city, called Zahira, which rose to the east of
Cordova, built by the powerful Almansur, governor of the kingdom, not
even the ruins remain: a handful of rebels laid it in ashes a little
while after the death of its founder.

  "All returns to the great ancient mother."

Instead of taking a drive around Cordova, I simply wandered here and
there, weaving fancies from the names of the streets, which to me is
one of the greatest pleasures in which a traveller may indulge in a
foreign city. Cordova, _alma ingeniorum parens_, could write at every
street-corner the name of an artist or an illustrious author born
within her walls; to give her due honor, she has remembered them all
with maternal gratitude. You find the little square of Seneca and the
house where he may have been born; the street of Ambrosio Morales,
the historian of Charles V., who continued the _Chronicle General of
Spain_ commenced by Florian d'Ocampo; the street of Pablo de Cespedes,
painter, architect, sculptor, antiquary, and the author of a didactic
poem, "The Art of Painting," unfortunately not finished, though adorned
with splendid passages. He was an ardent enthusiast of Michelangelo,
whose works he had admired in Italy, and in his poem he addressed a
hymn of praise to him which is one of the most beautiful passages in
Spanish poetry, and, in spite of myself, the last verses have slipped
from my pen, which every Italian, even if he does not know the sister
language, can appreciate and understand. He believes, he tells the
reader, that one cannot find the perfection of painting anywhere except

    "Que en aquela escelente obra espantosa
    Mayor de cuantas se han jamas pintado,
    Que hizo el Buonarrota de su mano
    Divina, en el etrusco Vaticano!

    "Cual nuevo Prometeo en alto vuelo
    Alzándose, estendiò los alas tanto,
    Que puesto encima el estrellado cielo
    Una parte alcanzò del fuego santo;
    Con que tornando enriquecido al suelo
    Con nueva maravilla y nuevo espanto,
    Diò vida con eternos resplandores
    À marmoles, à bronces, à colores.
    ¡O mas que mortal hombre! ¿Angel divino
    O cual te nomaré? No humano cierto
    Es tu ser, que del cerco empireo vino
    Al estilo y pincel vida y concierto:
    Tu monstraste à los hombres el camino
    Por mil edades escondido, incierto
    De la reina virtud; a ti se debe
    Honra que en cierto dia el sol renueve."

"In that excellent marvellous work, greater than all that has ever been
painted, which Buonarroti made with his divine hand in the Etruscan
Vatican!

"Look how the new Prometheus, rising in lofty flight, extends his
wings so wide that above the starry sky he has obtained a part of
the celestial fire; with it, returning, he enriched the earth with
new marvels and new surprises, giving life, with eternal splendors,
to marble, bronze, and colors. More than mortal man! angel divine!
or what shall I call thee? Surely thou art not human, who from the
empyrean circle came, bringing life and harmony to chisel and brush!
Thou hast shown men the road hidden for a thousand ages, uncertain of
the sovereign virtue; to thee belongs honor which one day the sun will
bestow."

Murmuring these lines, I came out into the street of Juan de Mena,
the Ennius of Spain, as his compatriots call him, the author of a
phantasmagorial poem called "The Labyrinth," an imitation of _The
Divina Commedia_ very famous in its day, and in truth not without
some pages of inspired and noble poetry, but, on the whole, cold and
overloaded with pedantic mysticism. John II., king of Castile, went mad
over this "Labyrinth," kept it beside the missal in his cabinet, and
carried it with him to the hunt; but witness the caprice of a king! The
poem had only three hundred stanzas, and to John II. this number seemed
too small, and do you know the reason? It was this: the year contains
three hundred and sixty-five days, and it seemed to him that there
ought to be as many stanzas in the poem as there are days in the year,
and so he besought the poet to compose sixty-five other stanzas, and
the poet complied with his request--most cheerfully, the flatterer!--to
gain an occasion for flattering still more, although he had already
flattered his sovereign to the extent of asking him to correct the poem.

From the street of Juan de Mena I passed into the street of Gongora,
the Marini of Spain, and no less a genius than he, but perhaps one
who corrupted the literature of his country even more than Marini
corrupted that of Italy, for he spoiled, abused, and corrupted the
language in a thousand ways: for this reason Lope de Vega wittily
makes a poet of the Gongorist school ask one of his hearers, "Do you
understand me?"--"Yes," he replies; and the poet retorts, "You lie! for
I do not even understand myself." But Lope himself is not entirely free
from Gongorism, for he has the courage to write that Tasso was only the
rising of Marini's sun; nor is Calderon entirely free of it, nor some
other great men. But enough of poetry: I must not digress.

After the siesta I hunted up my two companions, who took me through
the suburbs of the city, and here, for the first time, I saw men and
women of the true Andalusian type as I had imagined them, with eyes,
coloring, and attitudes like the Arabians, and here too, for the first
time, I heard the real speech of the Andalusian people, softer and more
musical than in the Castiles, and also gayer and more imaginative,
and accompanied by livelier gestures. I asked my companions whether
that report about Andalusia is true, affirming that with their early
physical development vice is more common, manners more voluptuous, and
passion less restrained. "Too true," they replied, giving explanations,
descriptions, and citing cases which I forbear to repeat. On returning
to the city they took me to a splendid casino, with gardens and
magnificent rooms, in one of which, the largest and richest, adorned
with paintings of all the illustrious men of Cordova, rises a sort of
stage where the poets stand to read their works on evenings appointed
for public contests of genius; and the victors receive a laurel crown
from the hands of the most beautiful and cultured girls in the city,
who, crowned with roses, look on from a semi-circle of seats. That
evening I had the pleasure of meeting several young Cordovese ardently
attached, as they say in Spain, to the cultivation of the Muses--frank,
courteous, and vivacious, with a medley of verses in their heads,
and a smattering of Italian literature; and so imagine how from dusk
to midnight, through those mysterious streets, which from the first
evening had made my head whirl, there was a constant, noisy interchange
of sonnets, hymns, and ballads in the two languages, from Petrarch to
Prati, from Cervantes to Zorilla; and a delightful conversation closed
and sealed by many cordial hand-clasps and eager promises to write, to
send books, to come to Italy, to visit Spain again, etc. etc.--merely
words, as is always the case, but words not less dear on that account.

In the morning I left for Seville. At the station I saw Frascuelo,
Lagartijo, Cuco, and the whole band of _toreros_ from Madrid, who
saluted me with a benevolent look of protection. I hurried into a dusty
carriage, and as the train moved off and my eyes rested on Cordova
for the last time, I bade the city adieu in the lines of the Arabian
poet--a little too tropical, if you will, for the taste of a European,
but, after all, admirable for the occasion:

"Adieu, Cordova! Would that my life were as long as Noah's, that I
might live for ever within thy walls! Would that I had the treasures
of Pharaoh, to spend them upon wine and the beautiful women of Cordova
with the gentle eyes which invite kisses!"




SEVILLE.


The journey from Cordova to Seville does not awaken a sense of
astonishment, as does that from Toledo to Cordova, but it is even
more beautiful: there are continuous orange-orchards, boundless
olive-groves, hills clothed with vineyards, and meadows carpeted with
flowers. A few miles from Cordova one sees the ruined towers of the
frowning castle of Almodovar standing on a very high rock-platform,
which overlooks a vast extent of the surrounding country; at
Hornachuelos another old castle on the summit of a hill, in the midst
of a lonely, melancholy landscape; and then, beyond, the white city of
Palma, hidden in a dense orange-grove, which is surrounded in its turn
by a circle of truck-farms and flower-gardens. As the train runs on
one is carried through the midst of golden fields of grain, bordered
by long hedges of Indian fig trees and rows of dwarf palms, and dotted
with groves of pine and frequent orchards of fruit-bearing trees; and
at short intervals there are hills and castles, roaring streams, the
slender village belfries hidden among the trees, and the purple peaks
of distant mountains.

Most beautiful of all are the little country-houses scattered along the
road. I do not remember to have seen a single one of them that was not
as white as snow. The house was white, the neighboring well-curb was
white, the little wall around the kitchen-garden was white, as were
also the two posts of the garden-gate: everything seemed as if it had
been whitewashed the day before. Some of these houses have one or two
mullioned windows of Moorish design; others have arabesques over the
door; and still others roofs covered with variegated tiles like Arabian
houses. Here and there through the fields one sees the red-and-white
capes of the peasants, velvet hats against the green grass, and sashes
of all colors. The peasants whom one sees in the furrows and those who
run to see the train pass are dressed in the costumes of forty years
ago as they are represented in paintings: they wear velvet hats with
very broad brims which roll slightly back, with little crowns like
a sugar-loaf; short jackets, open waistcoats, breeches gathered in
at the knee like those of the priests, gaiters which almost meet the
breeches, and sashes around the waist. This style of dress, picturesque
but inconvenient, is exceedingly becoming to the slender figures of
these men, who prefer discomfort, if it be attended by beauty, to
comfort without it, and who spend half an hour every morning adorning
themselves, besides the time required to get into a pair of tight
breeches which will display a shapely thigh and a well-turned leg.
They have nothing in common with our Northern peasant of the hard face
and dull eye. Their great black eyes meet your own with a smile, as
if they would say, "Don't you remember me?" They cast daring glances
at the ladies who put their heads out of the windows, run to fetch a
match before you have so much as asked for it, sometimes answer your
questions in rhyme, and are even capable of laughing to show their
white teeth.

At Rinconado the campanile of the cathedral of Seville comes into view
in a line with the railroad, and to the right, beyond the Guadalquivir,
one sees the beautiful low hills, covered with olive-groves, at the
foot of which lie the ruins of Italica. The train rolled on, and I said
to myself, under my breath, speaking faster and faster as the houses
became thicker, with that suspense, full of longing and delight, which
one feels on approaching the doorway of one's love, "Seville! this is
Seville! The queen of Andalusia is at hand, the Athens of Spain, the
mother of Murillo, the city of poets and lovers, the storied Seville,
whose name I have pronounced from a child with a sentiment of loving
sympathy! What should I have given a few years since to have seen
it? No, it is not a dream! Those are really the houses of Seville;
those peasants yonder are Sevillians; that campanile which I see is
the Giralda! I am at Seville! How strange! It makes me laugh! What is
my mother doing at this moment? Would that she were here! Would that
this friend and that were here! It is a sin to be alone! See the white
houses, the gardens, the streets.... We are in the city.... It is time
to get out.... Ah! how beautiful is life!"

I went to a hotel, threw down my valise in the _patio_, and began
to stroll about the city. It seemed like seeing Cordova over again,
on a large scale, embellished and enriched; the streets are wider,
the houses higher, the _patios_ more spacious, but the general
appearance of the city is the same: there is the same spotless white,
the same intricate network of streets, everywhere the fragrance of
orange-blossoms, that subtile air of mystery, that Oriental atmosphere,
filling one's heart with a delicious sense of amorous melancholy, and
calling to mind a thousand fancies, desires, and visions of a distant
world, a new life, an unknown people, and an earthly paradise of
love, pleasure, and content. In those streets one reads the history
of the city: every balcony, every fragment of sculpture, every lonely
crossway, recalls some nocturnal adventure of a king, the inspiration
of a poet, the romance of a beauty, an amour, a duel, an abduction, a
story, or a festival. Here a memento of Maria de Padilla, there one of
Don Pedro; yonder of Cervantes, Columbus, Saint Theresa, Velasquez, or
Murillo. A column tells of the Roman dominion; a tower, the splendor of
Charles V.'s monarchy; and an alcazar, the magnificence of the Arabian
court. Beside the modest white cottages rise sumptuous marble palaces;
the little tortuous streets open into vast squares full of orange
trees; from silent, deserted corners one enters with a short turn a
street filled with a noisy crowd: and wherever one passes one sees
on the opposite side the graceful lattices of the _patios_, flowers,
statues, fountains, flights of stairs, walls covered with arabesques,
small Moorish windows, and slender columns of costly marble; and
at every window and in every garden little women clothed in white,
half hidden, like timid nymphs, among the leaves of grapevines and
rosebushes.

Passing from street to street, I came at length to the bank of the
Guadalquivir, close to the avenues of the Christina promenade, which
is to Seville what the Lung d'arno is to Florence. Here one enjoys a
charming spectacle.

I first approached the famous Torre del Oro. This famous tower was
called the Golden, either because it received the gold which the
Spanish ships brought from America or because King Don Pedro hid his
treasures there. It is an octagonal structure of three stories, growing
smaller as they ascend, crowned with battlements and washed by the
river. The story runs that this tower was built in Roman times, and
that for a long period the king's most beautiful favorite dwelt there
after it had been joined to the Alcazar by an edifice which was torn
away to make room for the Christina promenade.

This promenade extends from the ducal palace of Montpensier to the
Torre del Oro. It is entirely shaded with Oriental plane trees, oaks,
cypresses, willows, poplars, and other trees of northern latitudes,
which the Andalusians admire, as we admire the palms and aloes of the
plains of Piedmont and Lombardy. A great bridge spans the river and
leads to the suburb of Triana, from which one sees the first houses on
the opposite bank. A long line of ships, coasting vessels, and barges
extends along the river, and from the Torre del Oro to the ducal palace
there is a coming and going of rowboats. The sun was setting. A crowd
of ladies filled the avenues, groups of workmen were crossing the
bridge, the workmen on the ships labored more busily, a band of music
was playing among the trees, the river was rose-colored, the air was
fragrant with the perfume of flowers, the sky seemed all on fire.

I returned to the city and enjoyed the marvellous spectacle of Seville
by night. All the _patios_ were illuminated--those of the humble
houses with a half light, which gave them an air of mysterious beauty,
those of the palaces, full of little flames which were reflected in
the mirrors and flashed like jets of quicksilver in the spray of the
fountains, and shone with a thousand colors on the marbles of the
vestibules, the mosaics of the walls, the glass of the doors, and
the crystal of the candlesticks. Inside one saw a crowd of ladies,
everywhere one heard the sound of laughter, low voices, and music;
one seemed to be passing through so many ball-rooms; from every door
flowed a stream of light, fragrance, and harmony; the streets were
crowded; among the trees of the squares, in the avenues, at the end
of the narrow streets, and on the balconies,--everywhere were seen
white skirts fluttering, vanishing, and reappearing in the darkness,
and little heads ornamented with flowers peeped coquettishly from
the windows; groups of young men broke through the crowd with merry
shouts; people called to each other and talked from window to street,
and everywhere were rapid motion, shouting, laughter, and festal
gaiety. Seville was simply an immense garden in which revelled a people
intoxicated with youth and love.

Such moments are very sad ones for a stranger. I remember that I could
have struck my head against the wall. I wandered here and there almost
abashed, with hanging head and sad heart, as if all that crowd was
amusing itself for the sole purpose of insulting my loneliness and
melancholy. It was too late to present my letters of introduction, too
early to go to bed: I was the slave of that crowd and that gaiety, and
was obliged to endure it for many hours. I found a solace in resolving
not to look at the faces of the women, but I could not always keep my
resolve, and when my eyes inadvertently met two black pupils the wound,
because so unexpected, was more grievous than if I had encountered
the danger more boldly. Yes, I was in the midst of those wonderfully
famous women of Seville! I saw them pass on the arms of their husbands
and lovers; I touched their dresses, breathed their perfume, heard the
sound of their soft speech, and the blood leaped to my head like a
flame of fire. Fortunately, I remembered to have heard from a Sevillian
at Madrid that the Italian consul was in the habit of spending the
evening at the shop of his son, a merchant; I sought out the shop,
entered, and found the consul, and as I handed him a letter from a
friend I said, with a dramatic air which made him laugh, "Dear sir,
protect me; Seville has terrified me."

At midnight the appearance of the city was unchanged: the crowd and
light had not disappeared; I returned to the hotel and locked my door
with the intention of going to bed. Worse and worse! The windows
of my room opened on a square where crowds of people were swarming
around an orchestra that played without interruption, when the music
finally ended the guitars commenced, together with the cries of the
water-carriers and snatches of song and laughter; the whole night
through there was noise enough to wake the dead. I had a dream at
once delightful and tantalizing, but rather more tantalizing than
delightful. I seemed to be tied to the bed by a very long tress of dark
hair twisted into a thousand knots, and felt on my lips a mouth of
burning coals which sucked my breath, and around my neck two vigorous
little hands which were crushing my head against the handle of a guitar.

The following morning I went at once to see the cathedral.

To adequately describe this measureless edifice one should have at
hand a collection of the most superlative adjectives and all the most
extravagant similes which have come from the pens of the grand writers
of every country whenever they have described something of prodigious
height, enormous size, appalling depth, and incredible grandeur. When
I talk to my friends about it, I too, like the Mirabeau of Victor
Hugo, involuntarily make _un colossal mouvement d'epaules_, puff out
my throat, and gradually raise my voice, like Tommaso Salvini in the
tragedy of _Samson_ when, in tones which make the parquet tremble, he
says that he feels his strength returning to his limbs. To talk of the
cathedral of Seville tires one like playing a great wind instrument or
carrying on a conversation across a roaring torrent.

The cathedral of Seville stands alone in the centre of a vast square,
and consequently one can measure its vastness at a single glance. At
the first moment I thought of the famous motto which the chapter of the
primitive church adopted on the eighth of July, 1401, when they decreed
the erection of the new cathedral: "Let us build a monument which will
make posterity declare that we were mad." Those reverend canons did not
fail in their intention. But one must enter to be sure of this.

The exterior of the cathedral is grand and magnificent, but not to
be compared with the interior. The façade is lacking: a high wall
surrounds the entire building like a fortress. However much one walks
around and looks at it, one cannot succeed in fixing in one's mind a
single outline which, like the preface of a book, will give a clear
conception of the design of the work; one admires and occasionally
breaks out in the exclamation, "It is stupendous!" but it does not
please, and one hurries into the church, hoping to feel a sentiment of
deeper admiration.

On first entering one is amazed, and feels as if one were lost in an
abyss, and for some moments the eye can only describe immense curves
through that vast space, as if to assure you that the sight is real
and that fancy is not deceiving you. Then you approach one of the
pilasters, measure it, and look at the others in the distance: they are
as massive as towers, and yet they look so slender that one trembles
to think the edifice is resting on them. You run from one to another
with a rapid glance, follow their lines from pavement to vaulted
arch, and seem to be able to count the moments which it would take
for the eye to climb them. There are five naves, each of which would
form a great church, and in the central nave one could build another
high cathedral with its cupola and belfry. Altogether they form sixty
light, noble vaults which seem to be slowly expanding and rising as
one looks at them. Everything in this cathedral is enormous. The great
chapel in the middle of the principal nave, so high that it almost
touches the roof, seems like a chapel built for giant priests, to whose
knees the common altars would scarcely reach; the Easter candle seems
like the mast of a ship, the bronze candlestick which supports it,
like the pilaster of a church; the organs are like houses; the choir
is a museum of sculpture and carving which alone deserves a day's
study. The chapels are worthy of the church: in them are scattered
the masterpieces of sixty-seven sculptors and thirty-eight painters.
Montegna, Zurbaran, Murillo, Valdes, Herrera, Boldan, Roelas, and
Campana have left a thousand immortal traces of their handiwork. The
chapel of Saint Ferdinand, which contains the tombs of this king,
his wife Beatrice, Alfonso the Wise, the celebrated minister Florida
Blanca, and other illustrious personages, is one of the richest and
most beautiful. The body of King Ferdinand, who rescued Seville from
the dominion of the Arabs, clothed in his coat-of-mail with crown and
royal robe, rests in a crystal casket covered with a pall; on one side
lies the sword which he wore on the day of his entrance into Seville;
on the other, the staff, an emblem of authority. In this same chapel
is preserved a little ivory Virgin which the sainted king carried with
him to war, and other relics of great value. In the other chapels there
are great marble altars, Gothic tombs, statues of stone, wood, and
silver enclosed in large glass cases, with the breast and hands covered
with diamonds and rubies; there are also magnificent paintings, but,
unfortunately, the dim light which falls from the high windows does not
make them clear enough to be enjoyed in all their beauty.

From the examination of the chapels, paintings, and sculptures one
returns unwearied to admire the cathedral in its grand and, if one
may say, its formidable aspect. After climbing to those dizzy heights
one's glance and thoughts, as if exhausted by the effort, fall back
to the earth to gather new strength for another ascent. And the
images which multiply in one's head correspond to the vastness of the
basilica--measureless angels, heads of enormous cherubim, great wings
like the sails of a ship, and the fluttering of immense white robes.
The impression produced by this cathedral is wholly religious, but
it is not depressing: it is that sentiment which bears the thought
into interminable spaces and the awful silences where the thoughts of
Leopardi lost themselves; it is a sentiment full of yearning and holy
boldness, that delightful shudder which one feels on the brink of a
precipice, the turbulence and confusion of great thoughts, the divine
fear of the infinite.

As the cathedral is the most various of Spain (since the Gothic,
Germanic, Græco-Roman, Moorish, and, as it is vulgarly called, the
plateresque styles of architecture, have each left their individual
impress upon it), it is also the richest and has the greatest
privileges. In the times of greater clerical power they burned in
it every year twenty thousand pounds of wax; in it every day were
celebrated five hundred masses on eighty altars; the wine consumed
in the sacrifice amounted to the incredible quantity of eighteen
thousand seven hundred and fifty litres. The canons had trains of male
attendants like monarchs, came to church in splendid carriages drawn
by superb horses, and while they were celebrating mass had priests to
fan them with enormous fans adorned with feathers and pearls--a direct
concession from the Pope of which some avail themselves even in this
day. One need not speak of the festivals of Holy Week, which are still
famous the world over, and to which people gather from all parts of
Europe.

But the most curious privilege of the cathedral of Seville is the
so-called dance _de los seises_, which takes place every evening at
dusk for eight consecutive days after the festival of _Corpus Domini_.
I was in Seville during those days, and went to see it, and it seems
to me worth describing. From what had been told me I expected to see
a scandalous piece of buffoonery, and entered the church with my
mind prepared for a feeling of indignation at the desecration of the
sanctuary. The church was dark; only the great chapel was lighted; a
crowd of kneeling women filled the space between the chapel and the
choir. Some priests were sitting to the right and left of the altar; in
front of the altar-steps was spread a great carpet; two lines of boys
from eight to thirteen years of age, dressed like Spanish cavaliers
of the Middle Ages, with plumed hats and white stockings, were drawn
up, one before the other, facing the altar. At a signal from a priest
a soft strain from violins broke the profound silence of the church,
and the two rows of boys advanced with the step of a contra-dance, and
began to divide, intermingle, separate, and come together again with a
thousand graceful movements, and then all together they broke into a
harmonious musical chant, which echoed through the gloom of the vast
cathedral like the singing of an angelic choir; and a moment later
they began to accompany the dance and the chant with tamborines. No
religious ceremony has ever moved me like this. It is impossible to
express the effect produced by those young voices under those immense
domes, those little creatures at the foot of the towering altars, that
dance, solemn and almost humble, the ancient costume, the kneeling
crowd, and the surrounding gloom. I left the church with my soul calmed
as if I had been praying.

A very curious anecdote is related in connection with this ceremony.
Two centuries ago an archbishop of Seville, who regarded the dance
and tamborines as unworthy instruments of praising God, wished to
prohibit the ceremony. Everything was thrown into confusion: the
people protested; the canons made themselves heard; the archbishop was
obliged to appeal to the Pope. The Pope, whose curiosity was aroused,
wished to see this silly dance with his own eyes, that he might decide
intelligently in the matter. The boys in their cavalier dress were
taken to Rome, received at the Vatican, and made to dance and sing
before His Holiness. His Holiness laughed, did not disapprove, and,
wishing to give one knock on the hoop and another on the barrel, and so
to satisfy the canons without offending the archbishop, decreed that
the boys should continue to dance so long as the clothes which they
then wore lasted; after that time the ceremony was to be abolished.
The archbishop laughed in his beard, if he had one; the canons laughed
too, as if they had already found the way to outwit both the Pope and
the archbishop. And, in fact, they renew some part of the boys' dress
every year, so that the whole garment can never be said to have worn
out, and the archbishop, as a scrupulous man, who observed the commands
of the Pope to the letter, could not oppose the repetition of the
ceremony. So they continued to dance, and they dance and will dance so
long as it pleases the canons and the Lord.

As I was leaving the church a sacristan made me a sign, led me behind
the choir, and pointed out a tablet in the pavement, upon which I read
an inscription which stirred my heart. Under that stone lay the bones
of Ferdinand Columbus, the son of Christopher, who was born at Cordova,
and died at Seville on the twelfth of July, 1536, in the fiftieth
year of his age. Under the inscription run some Latin verses with the
following significance:

"Of what avail is it that I have bathed the entire universe with my
sweat, that I have three times passed through the New World discovered
by my father, that I have adorned the banks of the gentle Beti, and
preferred my simple taste to riches, that I might again draw around
thee the divinities of the Castalian spring, and offer thee the
treasures already gathered by Ptolemy,--if thou, passing this stone in
silence, returnest no salute to my father and givest no thought to me?"

The sacristan, who knew more about the inscription than I did,
explained it to me. Ferdinand Columbus was in his early youth a page of
Isabella the Catholic and of the prince Don Juan; he travelled to the
Indies with his father and his brother the admiral Don Diego, followed
the emperor Charles V. in his wars, made other voyages to Asia, Africa,
and America, and everywhere collected with infinite care and at great
expense the most precious books, from which he composed a library which
passed after his death into the hands of the chapter of the cathedral,
and remains intact under the famous name of the Columbian Library.
Before his death he wrote these same Latin verses which are inscribed
on the tablet of his tomb, and expressed a desire to be buried in the
cathedral. In the last moments of his life he had a vessel full of
ashes brought to him and sprinkled his face with them, pronouncing
as he did so the words of Holy Writ, _Memento homo quia pulvis es_,
chanted the _Te Deum_, smiled, and expired with the serenity of a
saint. I was at once seized with a desire to visit the library and left
the church.

A guide stopped me on the threshold to ask me if I had seen the _Patio
de los Naranjos_--the Court of Oranges--and, as I had not done so, he
conducted me thither. The Court of Oranges lies to the north of the
cathedral, surrounded by a great embattled wall. In the centre rises a
fountain encircled by an orange-grove, and on one side along the wall
is a marble pulpit, from which, according to the tradition, Vincenzo
Ferrer is said to have preached. In the area of this court, which is
very large, rose the ancient mosque, which is thought to have been
built toward the end of the twelfth century. There is not the least
trace of it now. In the shade of the orange trees around the margins of
the basin the good Sevillians come to take the air in the burning noons
of summer, and only the delightful verdure and the perfumed air remain
as memorials of the voluptuous paradise of Mohammed, while now and then
a beautiful girl with great dark eyes darts between the distant trees.

The famous Giralda of the cathedral of Seville is an ancient Moorish
tower, built, it is affirmed, in the year one thousand after the design
of the architect Geber, the inventor of algebra. The upper part has
been changed since Spain was reconquered, and has been rebuilt like a
Christian bell-tower, but it will always retain its Moorish appearance,
and, after all, is prouder of the banished standards of the vanquished
than of the cross recently planted upon it by the victors. It is a
monument which produces a strange sensation: it makes one smile; it is
measureless and imposing as an Egyptian pyramid, and at the same time
light and graceful as a summer-house. It is a square brick tower of a
mellow rose-color, unadorned to a certain height, and from that point
up ornamented with mullioned Moorish windows, which appear here and
there like the windows of a house provided with balconies, and give
it a very beautiful appearance. From the platform, which was formerly
covered by a variegated roof surmounted by an iron pole which supported
four enormous golden balls, now rises the Christian bell-tower in three
stories, the first of which is taken up by the bells, the second is
encircled by a balcony, and the third consists of a sort of cupola
upon which, like a weather-vane, turns a colossal gilded statue which
represents Faith, with a palm in one hand and a banner in the other.
This statue is visible a long distance from Seville, and flashes when
the sun strikes it like an enormous ruby in the crown of a gigantic
king, who sweeps with his glance the entire valley of Andalusia.

I climbed all the way to the top, and was there amply rewarded for
the fatigue of the ascent. Seville, all white like a city of marble,
encircled by a diadem of gardens, groves, and avenues, surrounded by a
landscape dotted with villas, lay open to the view in all the wealth of
its Oriental beauty. The Guadalquivir, freighted with ships, divides
and embraces it in a majestic curve. Here the Torre del Oro casts its
graceful shadow on the azure waters of the river; there the Alcazar
rears its frowning towers; yonder the gardens of Montpensier raise
above the roofs of the building an enormous mass of verdure: one's
glance penetrates the bull-ring, the public gardens, the _patios_ of
the homes, the cloisters of the churches, and all the streets which
converge toward the cathedral; in the distance appear the villages
of Santi Ponce, Algaba, and others which whiten the slopes of the
hills; to the right of the Guadalquivir the great suburb of Triana;
on one side along the horizon the broken peaks of the Sierra Morena;
and in the opposite direction other mountains enlivened by infinite
azure tints; and over all this marvellous panorama the clearest, most
transparent, and entrancing sky which has ever smiled upon the face of
man.

I descended from the Giralda and went to see the Columbian Library,
located in an old building beside the Court of Oranges. After I had
seen a collection of missals, Bibles, and ancient manuscripts, one of
which is attributed to Alfonso the Wise, entitled "The Book of the
Treasure," written with the most scrupulous care in the ancient Spanish
language, I saw--let me repeat it, I saw--I, with my own moist eyes,
as I pressed my hand on my beating heart--I saw a book, a treatise
on cosmography and astronomy in Latin, with the margins covered with
notes written in the hand of Christopher Columbus! He had studied that
book while he revolved his great design in his mind, had pored over
its pages in the night-watches, had touched it perhaps with his divine
forehead in those exhausting vigils when sometimes he bent over the
parchments with utter weariness and bathed them with his sweat. It is
a tremendous thought! But there is something better. I saw a writing
in the hand of Columbus in which are collected all the prophecies of
the ancient writers, sacred and profane, in regard to the discovery of
the New World, written, it is said, to induce the sovereigns of Spain
to provide the means to carry out his enterprise. There is, among
others, a passage from the _Medea_ of Seneca, which runs: _Venient
annis saecula seris, quibus oceanus vincula rerum laxet et ingens
pateat tellus_. And in the volume of Seneca, which may also be found
in the Columbian Library, alongside of this passage there is a note
by Ferdinand Columbus, which says: "This prophecy was fulfilled by my
father, the admiral Christopher Columbus, in the year 1492." My eyes
filled with tears; I wished I were alone, that I might have kissed
those books, have tired myself out turning and re-turning their leaves
between my hands, have detached a tiny fragment, and carried it with me
as a sacred thing. Christopher Columbus! I have seen his characters! I
have touched the leaves which he has touched! I have felt him very near
me! On leaving the library, I know not why--I could have leaped into
the midst of the flames to rescue a child, I could have stripped myself
to clothe a beggar, I could joyfully have made any sacrifice--I was so
rich!

After the library the Alcazar, but before reaching it, although it is
in the same square as the cathedral, I felt for the first time what the
Andalusian sun is like. Seville is the hottest city of Spain, it was
the hottest hour of the day, and I found myself in the hottest part
of the city; there was a flood of light; not a door, not a window,
was open, not a soul astir; if I had been told that Seville was
uninhabited, I should have believed it. I crossed the square slowly
with half-shut eyes and wrinkled face, with the sweat coursing in great
drops down my cheeks and breast, while my hands seemed to have been
dipped in a bucket of water. On nearing the Alcazar I saw a sort of
booth belonging to a water-carrier, and dashed under it headlong, like
a man fleeing from a shower of stones. I took a little breathing-spell,
and went on toward the Alcazar.

The Alcazar, the ancient palace of the Moorish kings, is one of the
best-preserved monuments in Spain. From the outside it looks like a
fortress: it is entirely surrounded by high walls, embattled towers,
and old houses, which form two spacious courtyards in front of the
façade. The façade is bare and severe, like the rest of the exterior;
the gate is adorned with gilded and painted arabesques, between which
one sees a Gothic inscription which refers to the time when the Alcazar
was restored by order of King Don Pedro. The Alcazar, in fact, although
a Moorish palace, is the work of Christian rather than of Moorish
kings. It is not known exactly in what year it was built: it was
reconstructed by King Abdelasio toward the end of the twelfth century,
conquered by King Ferdinand toward the middle of the thirteenth
century; altered a second time, in the following century, by King Don
Pedro; and then occupied for longer or shorter periods by nearly all
the kings of Castile; and finally selected by Charles V. as the place
for the celebration of his marriage with the infanta of Portugal. The
Alcazar has witnessed the loves and crimes of three generations of
kings; every stone awakens a memory and guards a secret.

You enter, cross two or three rooms in which there remains little
of the Moorish excepting the vaulted ceiling and the mosaics around
the walls, and come out into a court where you stand speechless with
wonder. A portico of very delicate arches extends along the four sides,
supported by slender marble columns, joined two by two, and arches
and walls and windows and doors are covered with carvings, mosaics,
and arabesques most intricate and exquisite, here perforated like
lace, there closely woven and elaborate like embroidered tapestry,
yonder clinging and projecting like masses and garlands of flowers;
and, except the mosaics, which are of a thousand colors, everything
is white, clean, and smooth as ivory. On the four sides are four
great doors, through which you enter the royal apartments. Here
wonder becomes enchantment: whatever is richest, most various, and
most splendid, whatever the most ardent fancy sees in its most ardent
dreams, is to be found in these rooms. From pavement to the vaulted
ceiling, around the doors, along the window-frames, in the most hidden
corners, wherever one's glance falls, one sees such a luxuriance
of ornaments in gold and precious stones, such a close network of
arabesques and inscriptions, such a marvellous profusion of designs and
colors, that one has scarcely taken twenty steps before one is amazed
and confused, and the wearied eye wanders here and there searching for
a hand's breadth of bare wall where it may flee and rest. In one of
these rooms the guide pointed out a red spot which covered a good part
of the marble pavement, and said in a solemn voice, "These are the
blood-stains of Don Fadrique, grand master of the order of Santiago,
who was killed on this very spot, in the year 1358, by order of his
brother, King Don Pedro."

I remember that when I heard these words I looked in the face of the
custodian, as if to say, "Come, let us be going," and that good man
answered in a dry tone,

"_Caballero_, if I had told you to believe this thing on my word, you
would have had every reason to doubt; but when you can see the thing
with your very eyes, I may be wrong, but--it seems to me...."

"Yes," I hastened to say--"yes, it is blood: I believe it, I see it;
let's say no more about it."

But if one can be playful over the blood-spots, one cannot be so over
the story of the crime; the sight of the place revives in the mind all
the most horrible details. Through the great gilded halls one seems
to hear the echo of Don Fadrique's footsteps, followed by those of
the bowmen armed with bludgeons; the palace is immersed in gloom; one
hears no other sound save that of the executioners and their victim;
Don Fadrique tries to enter the courtyard; Lopez de Padilla catches
him; Fadrique throws him off and is in the court; he grasps his sword;
curses on it! the cross of the hilt is held fast in the mantle of
the order of Santiago; the bowmen gain upon him; he has not time to
unsheath the sword; he flees here and there, groping his way; Fernandez
de Roa overtakes him and fells him with a blow of his club; the others
run up and set upon him, and Fadrique dies in a pool of blood....

But this sad recollection is lost among the thousand images of the
sensuous Moorish kings. Those graceful little windows, where it seems
as if you ought to see every other moment the languid face of an
odalisque; those secret doors, at which you pause in spite of yourself,
as if you heard the rustle of garments; those sleeping chambers of
the sultans, shrouded in mysterious gloom, where you seem to hear
only the confused amorous lament of all the maidens who there lost
the flower of their virgin purity; that prodigal variety of color and
line, which like a tumultuous and ever-changing harmony arouses the
senses to such fantastic flights that you doubt whether you are waking
or sleeping; that delicate and lovely architecture, all of slender
columns, that seem like the arms of women; capricious arches, little
rooms, arched ceilings crowded with ornaments hanging in the form of
stalactites, icicles, and clusters of grapes, of as many colors as a
flower-garden;--all this stirs your desire to sit down in the middle of
one of those rooms and to press to your heart a lovely brown Andalusian
head which will make you forget the world and time, and, with one long
kiss that drinks away your life, give you eternal sleep.

On the ground floor the most beautiful room is the Hall of the
Ambassadors, formed by four great arches which support a gallery
with forty-four smaller arches, and above a beautiful cupola carved,
painted, gilded, and chased with inimitable grace and fabulous splendor.

On the upper floor, where were the winter apartments, there remain only
an oratory of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic, and a little room in
which the king Don Pedro is said to have slept. From it one descends by
a narrow mysterious staircase to the rooms where dwelt the famous Maria
de Padilla, the favorite of Don Pedro, whom popular tradition accuses
of instigating the king to kill his brother.

[Illustration: _Moorish Arches, Alcazar, Seville_]

The gardens of the Alcazar are neither very large nor particularly
beautiful, but the memories which they recall are of greater value than
extent or beauty. In the shade of those orange trees and cypresses, to
the murmur of those fountains, when the great white moon was shining in
that limpid Andalusian sky, and the many groups of courtiers and slaves
rested there, how many long sighs of ardent sultanas! how many lowly
words from proud kings! what passionate loves and embraces! "Itimad, my
love!" I murmured, thinking of the famous mistress of King Al-Motamid
as I wandered from path to path as if following her phantom,--"Itimad,"
I repeated, "do not leave me alone in this silent paradise! Dost
thou remember how thou camest to me? Thy wealth of hair fell over my
shoulder, and dearer than the sword to the warrior wert thou to me! How
beautiful thou art! Thy neck is soft and white as the swan's, and like
berries are thy red, red lips! How marvellous is the perfection of thy
beauty! How dear thou art, Itimad, my love! Thy kisses are like wine,
and thy eyes, like wine, steal away my reason!"

While I was thus making my declarations of love with phrases and images
stolen from the Arabian poets, at the very moment when I turned into
a bypath all bordered with flowers, suddenly I felt a stream of water
first on one leg and then on the other. I jumped aside, and received
a spray in my face; I turned to the right, and felt another stream
against my neck; to the left, another jet between my shoulders. I began
to run: there was water under me and around me in every direction, in
jets, streams, and spray; in a moment I was as wet as if I had been
dipped in the bath-tub. Just as I opened my mouth to call for help it
all subsided, and I heard a ringing laugh at the end of the garden. I
turned and saw a young fellow leaning against a low wall looking at me
as if he were saying, "How did you like it?" When I came out he showed
me the spring he had touched to play this little joke, and comforted me
with the assurance that the sun of Seville would not leave me long in
that dripping condition, into which I had passed so rudely, alas! from
the lovely arms of my sultana.

That evening, in spite of the voluptuous images which the Alcazar had
called to my mind, I was sufficiently calm to contemplate the beauty
of the women of Seville without fleeing to the arms of the consul for
safety. I do not believe that the women of any other country are so
bewitching as the fair Andalusians, not only because they tempt one
into all sorts of mischief, but because they seem to have been made to
be seized and carried away, so small, graceful, plump, elastic, and
soft are they. Their little feet could both be put easily into one's
coat-pocket, and with an arm one could lift them by the waist like
babies, and by the mere pressure of the finger could bend them like
willow wands. To their natural beauty they add the art of walking and
looking in a way to turn one's head. They fly along, glide, and walk
with a wave-like motion, and in a single moment, as they pass, they
show a little foot, make you admire an arm or a slender waist, reveal
two rows of the whitest teeth, and dart at you a long veiled glance
that melts and dies in your own; and on they go with an air of triumph,
certain of having turned your blood topsy-turvy.

To form an idea of the beauty of the women of the people and the
picturesqueness of their dress you must go by day to visit the
tobacco-manufactory, which is one of the largest establishments of
the kind in Europe and employs not less than five thousand hands. The
building faces the vast gardens of the duke of Montpensier: almost all
of the women work in three immense rooms, each divided into three parts
by as many rows of pillars. The first view is astounding: there, all
at once, eight hundred girls present themselves before one's eyes in
groups of five or six, sitting around work-tables as close as possible,
the farthest indistinct and the last scarcely visible; all of them
young and a few children--eight hundred jet-black heads and eight
hundred brown faces from every province of Andalusia, from Jaen to
Cadiz, from Granada to Seville!

One hears a buzzing as of a square full of people. The walls, from one
door to the other, in all three of the rooms are lined with skirts,
shawls, kerchiefs, and scarfs; and--a very curious thing--that entire
mass of garments, which would fill to overflowing a hundred old-clothes
shops, presents two predominant colors, in two continuous lines one
above the other, like the stripes of a very long flag--the black of the
shawls above, and the red mixed with white, purple, and yellow--so that
one seems to see an immense costumer's shop or an immense ball-room
where the ballet-dancers, in order to be free, have hung on the walls
every part of their dress which it is not absolutely necessary to wear.
The girls put on these dresses when they go out, and wear old clothes
to work in; but white and red predominate in those dresses also. The
heat is insupportable, consequently they lighten their clothing as
much as possible, and among those five thousand one will scarcely find
fifty whose arms and shoulders the visitor may not contemplate at
his pleasure, without counting the extraordinary cases which present
themselves suddenly as one passes from room to room, behind the doors
and columns, and around the distant corners. There are some very
beautiful faces, and even those who are not beautiful have something
about them which attracts one's glance and lingers in the memory--the
complexion, the eyes, the brow, or the smile. Many of them, especially
so-called _Gitane_, are as dark as dark mulattos and have protruding
lips; others have eyes so large that a faithful picture of them would
be considered a monstrous exaggeration; the greater part are small and
well-formed, and all have a rose or carnation or some sort of wild
flower in their hair. They are paid in proportion to the work they do,
and the most skilful and industrious earn as much as three francs per
day; the lazy ones--_las holgazanas_--sleep with their arms crossed on
the table and their heads resting on their arms; mothers are working,
and swinging a leg to which is bound a cord that rocks the cradle.
From the cigar-room one passes to the cigarette-room, and from it to
the box-factory, and from the box-factory to the packing-room, and in
them all one sees the red skirts, black hair, and fine eyes. In each of
those rooms how many stories of love, jealousy, despair, and misery!
On leaving the factory one seems for some time to see black eyes in
every direction regarding him with a thousand varying expressions
of curiosity, indifference, sympathy, cheerfulness, sadness, and
drowsiness.

The same day I went to see the Museum of Painting. The Seville gallery
does not contain very many paintings, but those few are worth a
great museum. There are the masterpieces of Murillo, and among them
his immortal _Saint Anthony of Padua_, which is said to be the most
divinely inspired of his works, and one of the greatest achievements
of human genius. I visited the gallery in the company of Señor Gonzalo
Segovia and Ardizone, one of the most illustrious young men of Seville,
and I wish he were here beside my table at this moment to testify in a
foot-note that when my eyes first lit upon the picture I seized his arm
and uttered a cry.

Only once in my life have I felt such a profound stirring of my soul as
that which I felt on seeing this picture. It was one beautiful summer
night: the sky was bright with stars, and the vast plain lay extended
before me from the high place where I stood in deep silence. One of
the noblest creatures I have ever met in my life was at my side. A few
hours before we had been reading some pages from one of Humboldt's
works: we looked at the sky and talked of the motion of the earth, the
millions of worlds, and the infinite with those suppressed tones as of
distant voices which one unconsciously uses in speaking of such things
in the silent night. Finally we were still, and each, with eyes fixed
on the heavens, gave himself up to fancies. I know not by what train
of thought I was led; I know not what mysterious chain of emotions was
formed in my heart; I know not what I saw or felt or dreamed. I only
know that suddenly a veil before my mind seemed to be rent asunder; I
felt within me a perfect assurance of that which hitherto I had longed
for rather than believed; my heart expanded with a feeling of supreme
joy, angelic peace, and limitless hope; a flood of scalding tears
suddenly filled my eyes, and, grasping the hand of my friend, which
sought my own, I cried from the depths of my soul, "It is true! It is
true!" and began to cry like a child.

The _Saint Anthony of Padua_ brought back the emotions of that evening.
The saint is kneeling in the middle of his cell; the child Jesus in
a nebulous halo of white vaporous light, drawn by the power of his
prayer, is descending into his arms. Saint Anthony, rapt in ecstasy,
throws himself forward with all his power of body and soul, his head
thrown back, radiant with an expression of supreme joy. So great was
the shock which this picture gave me that when I had looked at it a few
moments I was as exhausted as if I had visited a vast gallery, and a
trembling seized me and continued so long as I remained in that room.

Afterward I saw the other great paintings of Murillo--a _Conception_, a
_Saint Francis embracing Christ_, another version of _Saint Anthony_,
and others to the number of twenty or more, among them the famous and
enchanting _Virgin of the Napkin_, painted by Murillo upon a real
napkin in the Capuchin convent of Seville to gratify a desire of a lay
brother who was serving him: it is one of his most delicate creations,
in which is revealed all the magic of his inimitable coloring--but none
of these paintings, although they are objects of wonder to all the
artists of the world, drew my heart or thoughts from that divine _Saint
Anthony_.

There are also in this gallery paintings by the two Herreras, Pacheco,
Alonzo Cano, Pablo de Cespedes, Valdes, Mulato, a servant of Murillo
who ably imitated his style, and finally the large famous painting of
the _Apotheosis of Saint Thomas of Aquinas_, by Francesco Zurbaran,
one of the most eminent artists of the seventeenth century, called
the Spanish Caravaggio, and possibly his superior in truth and moral
sentiment,--a powerful naturalist, a strong colorist, and an inimitable
painter of austere friars, macerated saints, brooding hermits, and
terrible priests, and an unsurpassed poet of penitence, solitude, and
meditation.

After seeing the picture-gallery Señor Gonzalo Segovia led me through
a succession of narrow streets to the street _Francos_, one of the
principal ways of the city, and stopped me in front of a little
draper's shop, saying with a laugh, "Look! Doesn't this shop make you
think of something?"

"Nothing at all," I replied.

"Look at the number."

"It is number fifteen: what of it?"

"Oh! plague on it!" exclaimed my amiable guide,

    "'Number fifteen,
    On the left-hand side'!"

"The shop of the _Barber of Seville_!" I cried.

"Precisely!" he responded--"the shop of the Barber of Seville; but
be on your guard when you speak of it in Italy; do not take your
oath, for traditions are often misleading, and I would not assume the
responsibility of confirming a fact of such importance."

At that moment the merchant came to the door of the shop, and, divining
why we were there, laughed and said, "_No esta_" ("Figaro is not
here"), and with a gracious bow he retired.

Then I besought Señor Gonzalo to show me a _patio_, one of those
enchanting _patios_ which as I looked at them from the street made me
imagine so many delightful things. "I want to see at least one," I said
to him--"to penetrate once into the midst of those mysteries, to touch
the walls, to assure myself that it is a real thing and not a vision."

My desire was at once fulfilled: we entered the _patio_ of one of his
friends. Señor Gonzalo told the servant the object of our visit, and we
were left alone. The house was only two stories in height. The _patio_
was no larger than an ordinary room, but all marble and flowers, and
a little fountain in the middle, and paintings and statues around,
and from roof to roof an awning which sheltered it from the sun. In
a corner was a work-table, and here and there one saw low chairs and
little benches whereon a few moments previously had doubtless rested
the feet of some fair Andalusian, who at that moment was watching us
from between the slats of a blind. I examined everything minutely, as
I would have done in a house abandoned by the fairies: I sat down,
closed my eyes, imagined I was the master, then arose, wet my hand with
the spray of the fountain, touched a slender column, went to the door,
picked a flower, raised my eyes to the windows, laughed, sighed, and
said, "How happy must those be who live here!" At that moment I heard
a low laugh, and saw two great black eyes flash behind a blind and
instantly disappear. "Truly," I said, "I did not believe that it was
possible to still live so poetically upon this earth. And to think that
you enjoy these houses all your life! and that you have the inclination
to rack your brains about politics!"

Señor Gonzalo showed me the secrets of the house. "All this furniture,"
said he, "these paintings, and these vases of flowers disappear on
the approach of autumn and are taken to the second story, which is
the living apartment from autumn to spring. When summer comes beds,
wardrobes, tables, chairs--everything is brought down to the rooms on
the ground floor, and here the family sleep and eat, receive their
friends, and do their work, among the flowers and marbles to the murmur
of the fountain. And at night they have the doors open, and from the
sleeping-rooms one can see the _patio_ flooded with moonlight and
smell the fragrance of roses."

"Oh, stop!" I exclaimed, "stop, Señor Gonzalo! Have pity on strangers!"
And, laughing heartily, we both went out on our way to see the famous
_Casa de Pilato_.

As we were passing along a lonely little street I looked in a window
of a hardware-shop and saw an assortment of knives so long, broad,
and unusual that I felt a desire to buy one. I entered: twenty were
displayed before my eyes, and I had the salesman to open them one by
one. As each knife was opened I took a step backward. I do not believe
it is possible to imagine an instrument more barbarous and terrifying
in appearance than one of them. The handles are of wood, copper, and
horn, curved and carved in open patterns, so that one may see through
their little pieces of isinglass. The knives open with a sound like a
rattle, and out comes a large blade as broad as the palm of your hand,
as long as both palms together, and as sharp as a dagger, in the form
of a fish, ornamented with red inlaying, which suggests streaks of
clotted blood, and adorned with fierce and threatening inscriptions.
On the blade of one there will be written in Spanish, _Do not open
me without reason, nor shut me without honor_; on another, _Where I
strike, all is over_; on a third, _When this snake bites, there is
nothing left for the doctor to do_; and other gallantries of the same
sort. The proper name of these knives is _navaja_--a word which also
has the meaning of razor--and the _navaja_ is the popular duelling
weapon. Now it has fallen into disuse, but was at one time held in
great honor; there were masters who taught its use, each of whom had
his secret blow, and duels were fought in accordance with the rules
of chivalry. I bought the most terrible _navaja_ in the shop, and we
entered the street again.

The _Casa de Pilato_, held by the Medina-Coeli family, is, after
the Alcazar, the most beautiful monument of Moorish architecture in
Seville. The name, _Casa de Pilato_, comes from the fact that its
founder, Don Enriquez de Ribera, the first marquis of Tarifa, had
it built, as the story goes, in imitation of the house of the Roman
prætor, which he had seen in Jerusalem, where he went on a pilgrimage.
The edifice has a modest exterior, but the interior is marvellous.
One first enters a court not less beautiful than the enchanting court
of the Alcazar, encircled by two orders of arches, supported by
graceful marble columns, forming two very light galleries, one above
the other, and so delicate that it seems as if the first puff of wind
would cast them into ruins. In the centre is a lovely fountain resting
on four marble dolphins and crowned by a bust of Janus. Around the
lower part of the walls run brilliant mosaics, and above these every
sort of fantastic arabesque, here and there framing beautiful niches
containing busts of the Roman emperors. At the four corners of the
court the ceilings, the walls, and the doors are carved, embroidered,
and covered with flowers and historic tapestries with the delicacy of
a miniature. In an old chapel, partly Moorish and partly Gothic in
style, and most delicate in form, there is preserved a little column,
scarcely more than three feet in height, the gift of Pius V. to a
descendant of the founder of the palace, at one time viceroy of Naples:
to that column, says the tradition, was bound Jesus of Nazareth to be
scourged. This fact, even if it were true, would prove that Pius V. did
not believe it in the slightest degree. For he would not lightly have
committed the unpardonable mistake of depriving himself of a valuable
relic to make a present to the first comer. The entire palace is full
of sacred memories. On the first floor the custodian points out a
window which corresponds to that by which Peter sat when he denied his
Lord, and the little window from which the maid-servant recognized him.
From the street one sees another window with a little stone balcony,
which represents the exact position of the window where Jesus, wearing
the crown of thorns, was shown to the people.

The garden is full of fragments of ancient statuary brought from Italy
by that same Don Pedro Afan de Ribera, viceroy of Naples. Among the
other fables that are told about this mysterious garden is one to the
effect that Don Pedro Afan de Ribera placed in it an urn brought
from Italy containing the ashes of the emperor Trajan, and a curious
person carelessly struck the urn and overturned it; the emperor's ashes
were thus scattered over the grass, and no one has ever succeeded in
collecting them. So this august monarch, born at Italica, by a very
strange fate has returned to the vicinity of his natal city, not in the
very best condition in which to meditate upon its ruins, to tell the
truth, but he was near it, at any rate.

In spite of all that I have described, I may say that I did not see
Seville, but just commenced to see it. Nevertheless, I shall stop
here, because everything must have an end. I pass by the promenaders,
the squares, the gates, the libraries, the public buildings, the
mansions of the grandees, the gardens and the churches; but allow
me to say that, after several days' wandering through Seville from
sunrise to sunset, I was obliged to leave the city under the weight of
a self-accusing conscience. I did not know which way to turn. I had
reached such a condition of weariness that the announcement of a new
object to be seen filled me with foreboding rather than pleasure. The
good Señor Gonzalo kept up my courage, comforted me, and shortened the
journeys with his delightful company, but, nevertheless, I have only a
very confused remembrance of all that I saw during those last days.

Seville, although it no longer merits the glorious title of the
Spanish Athens, as in the times of Charles V. and Philip II., when it
was mother and patron of a large and chosen band of poets and artists,
the seat of culture and of the arts in the vast empire of its monarchs,
is even yet that one among the cities of Spain, with the exception
of Madrid, in which the artistic life is most vigorously maintained,
as is evidenced by the number of its men of genius, the liberality
of its patrons, and the popular love of the fine arts. It contains a
flourishing academy of literature, a society for the protection of the
arts, a well-known university, and a colony of scholars and sculptors
who enjoy an honorable distinction throughout Spain. But the highest
literary fame in Seville belongs to a woman--Catharine Bohl, the
author of the novels which bear the name of Fernan Caballero, widely
read in Spain and America, translated into almost all the languages
of Europe, and known also in Italy (where some of them were published
not long since) by every one who at all occupies himself with foreign
literature. They are admirable pictures of Andalusian manners, full
of truth, passion, and grace, and, above all, possessing a vigor of
faith and a religious enthusiasm so fearless and a Christian charity
so broad that they would startle and confuse the most skeptical man
in the world. Catharine Bohl is a woman who would undergo martyrdom
with the firmness and serenity of a Saint Ignatius. The consciousness
of her power is revealed in every page: she does not hesitate to
defend her religion, and confronts, assails, threatens, and overthrows
its enemies; and not only the enemies of religion, but every man and
everything that, to use a common expression, conforms to the spirit
of the age, for she never forgives the least sin which has been
committed from the times of the Inquisition to our own day, and she is
more inexorable than the Pope's syllabus. And herein perhaps lies her
greatest defect as a writer--that her religious convictions and her
invectives are entirely too frequent and grow tiresome, and disgust and
prejudice the reader rather than convince him of her own beliefs. But
there is not a shadow of bitterness in her heart, and as her books, so
is her life, noble, upright, and charitable. In Seville she is revered
as a saint. Born in that city, she married early in life, and is now a
widow for the third time. Her last husband, who was Spanish ambassador
at London, committed suicide, and from that day she has never laid
aside her mourning. At the time of my visit she was almost seventy; she
had been very beautiful, and her noble, placid face still preserved
the impress of beauty. Her father, who was a man of considerable
genius and great culture, taught her several languages in early life:
she knows Latin thoroughly and speaks Italian, German, and French
with admirable facility. At this time, however, she is not writing at
all, although the editors and publishers of Europe and America are
offering her large sums for her works. But she does not live a life of
inactivity. From morning to night she reads all sorts of books, and
while she reads she is either knitting or embroidering, for she very
firmly believes that her literary studies ought not to take one minute
from her feminine employments. She has no children, and lives in a
lonely house, the best part of which has been given to a poor family;
she spends a great part of her income in charity. A curious trait of
her character is her great love of animals: she has her house full of
birds, cats, and dogs, and her sensibilities are so delicate that she
has never consented to enter a carriage, for fear of seeing the horse
beaten on her account. All suffering affects her as if she herself
were bearing it: the sight of a blind man or of a sick person or of a
cripple of any sort distresses her for an entire day; she cannot close
her eyes to sleep unless she has wiped away a tear; she would joyfully
forego all her honors to save any unknown person a heartache. Before
the Revolution her life was not so isolated: the Montpensier family
received her with great honor, and the most illustrious families of
Seville vied with each other in entertaining her at their homes: now
she lives only among her books and a few friends.

In Moorish times Cordova took the lead in literature and Seville in
music. "When a scholar dies at Seville," said Averroes, "and they wish
to sell his books, they send them to Cordova; but if a musician dies
at Cordova, they send his instruments to Seville to be sold." Now
Cordova has lost her literary primacy, and Seville holds first place
both in literature and music. Truly the times are past in which a poet
by singing of the beauty of a maiden draws around her a crowd of lovers
from all parts of the realm, and when one prince envies another simply
because a poet has sung in his praise a verse more beautiful than any
which the other had inspired, and a caliph rewards the author of a
noble hymn by a gift of a hundred camels, a troop of slaves, and a vase
of gold--when a happy strophe improvised at an opportune time releases
a slave from his chains or saves the life of one condemned to death,
and when the musicians are followed through the streets of Seville by
a train of monarchs, and the favor of poets is more sought than that
of kings, and the lyre is more terrible than the sword. But the people
of Seville are always the most poetic people of Spain. The _bon mot_,
the word of love, the expression of joy and enthusiasm, fly from their
lips with a fascinating spontaneity and grace. The common people of
Seville improvise, and talk as though they are singing, gesticulate as
if they are declaiming, laugh and play like children. One never grows
old at Seville. It is a city where life melts away in a continuous
smile, with no other thought than the enjoyment of the beautiful sky,
the lovely little houses, and the delightful little gardens. It is
the most peaceful city in Spain, and the only one which since the
Revolution has not been agitated by those sad political commotions
which have stirred the others: politics do not penetrate the surface;
the Sevillians are content to make love; all else they take in jest.
_Todo lo toman de broma_, say the other Spaniards of the Sevillians;
and in truth with that fragrant air, with those little streets like
those of an Oriental city, with those fiery little women, why should
they trouble themselves? At Madrid they speak ill of them; they say
they are vain, false, fickle, and silly. It is jealousy: they envy them
their happy indolence, the sympathy which they inspire in strangers,
their girls, their poets, their painters, their orators, their Giralda,
their Alcazar, their Guadalquivir, their life, and their history. So
say the Sevillians, striking their breasts with one hand and puffing
into the air a cloud of smoke from the inseparable _cigaritto_; and
their lovely little women revenge themselves upon their envious sisters
and all the other women in the world, speaking with spiteful pity of
long feet, large waists, and dull eyes, that in Andalusia would not
receive the honor of a glance or the homage of a sigh. A charming and
amiable people, in truth; but, alas! one must look at the reverse side
of the medal: superstition reigns and schools are lacking, as is the
case throughout all Southern Spain; this is partly their own fault and
partly not; but the negative is probably the smaller part.

The day of my departure arrived unexpectedly. It is strange: I remember
scarcely any particulars of my life at Seville; it is remarkable if
I can tell where I dined, what I talked about with the consul, how I
spent the evenings, and why I chose any given day to take my departure.
I was not myself; I lived, if I may use the expression, out of myself;
all the while I remained in the city I was a little dazed. Apart from
the art-gallery and the _patio_ my friend Segovia must have found that
I knew very little; and now, I know not why, I think of those days
as of a dream. Of no other city are my recollections so vague as of
Seville. Even to-day, while I am certain of having been at Saragossa,
Madrid, and Toledo, sometimes when I think of Seville a doubt steals
upon me. It seems to me like a city much farther away than the most
distant boundaries of Spain, and that to journey there again I must
travel months and months, cross unknown continents and wide seas,
among people totally different from our own. I think of the streets
of Seville, of certain little squares and certain houses, as I would
think of the spots on the moon. Sometimes the image of that city passes
before my eyes like a white figure, and disappears almost before I
can grasp it with my mind--sometimes in a breath of air, at certain
hours of the day, at a garden-gate; in humming a song which I heard a
boy sing on the steps of the Giralda. I cannot explain this secret to
myself; I think of Seville as of a city which I have still to see, and
I enjoy looking at the prints and thumbing the books which I bought
there, for they are tangible things that convince me of my visit. A
month ago I received a letter from Segovia which said, "Come back to
us." It gave me untold pleasure, but at the same time I laughed as if
he had written, "Make a voyage to Pekin." It is for this very reason
that Seville is dearer to me than all the other cities of Spain; I
love it as I might love a beautiful unknown woman who, crossing a
mysterious wood, might look my way and throw me a flower. How often in
the theatre or at the café, when a friend shakes me and asks, "What are
you thinking about?" I am obliged to leave the little room of Maria de
Padilla to return to him, or a boat that is gliding along in the shade
of the Christina plane trees, or Figaro's shop, or the vestibule of a
_patio_ full of flowers, fountains, and lights.

I embarked on a boat of the Segovia Company, near the Torre del Oro, at
an hour when Seville is wrapped in deep sleep and a burning sun covers
it with a flood of light. I remember that a few moments before the
boat started a young man came on board in search of me, and gave me a
letter from Gonzalo Segovia, containing a sonnet which I still cherish
as one of my most precious mementos of Seville. On the boat there was
a company of Spanish singers, an English family, some laboring-men,
and babies. The captain, being a good Andalusian, had a cheery word
for everybody. I soon began a conversation with him. My friend Gonzalo
was a son of the proprietor of the line, and we talked of the Segovia
family, of Seville, the sea, and a thousand pleasant things. Ah! the
poor man was far from thinking that a few days later the unlucky ship
would founder in the midst of the sea and bring him to such a terrible
end! It was the _Guadaira_, that was lost a short distance from
Marseilles by the bursting of the boiler on the sixteenth day of June,
1872.

At three o'clock the boat started for Cadiz.




CADIZ.


That was the most delightful evening of all my journey.

A little while after the ship had commenced to move there sprang up one
of those gentle breezes which played with one as an infant plays with
one's cravat or a lock of one's hair, and from stem to stern there was
a sound of the voices of women and children, like that which one hears
among a group of friends at the first crack of the whip announcing
their departure for a merry outing. All the passengers gathered at the
stern in the shade of a gayly-colored awning like a Chinese pavilion:
some were sitting on coils of rope, others were stretched at full
length on the benches, others were leaning against the rail--every one
looked back in the direction of the Torre del Oro to enjoy the famous
and enchanting spectacle of Seville as it faded away in the distance.
Some of the women had not yet dried the tears of parting, and some of
the children were still a little frightened by the sound of the engine.
And some ladies were still quarrelling with the porters for abusing
their baggage; but in a few moments all was serene again, and the
passengers began to peel oranges, light cigars, pass little flasks of
liquor, converse with their unknown neighbors, sing and laugh, and in a
quarter of an hour we were all friends.

The boat glided along as smoothly as a gondola over the still, limpid
waters, which reflected the white dresses of the ladies like a mirror,
and the breeze brought the delightful fragrance from the orange-groves
of the villas scattered along the shore. Seville was hidden behind
her circle of gardens, and we saw only an immense mass of trees of
vivid green, and above them the black pile of the cathedral and the
rose-colored Giralda surmounted by its statue flaming like a tongue
of fire. As the distance widened the cathedral appeared grander and
more majestic, as if it were following the vessel and gaining upon
her: now, although still following, it seemed to retire a great way
from the shore; now it would seem to be spanning the river; one
moment it would appear suddenly to return to its place; a moment
later it looked so close that we suspected the boat had turned back.
The Guadalquivir wound along in short curves, and as the boat turned
this way and that Seville appeared and disappeared, now peeping out
in one place as if it had stolen beyond its boundaries, now raising
its head suddenly behind a wood, gleaming like a snowclad mountain,
now revealing some white streaks here and there amid the verdure, and
suddenly disappearing from view and performing all sorts of fantastic
wiles, like a coquettish woman. Finally it disappeared and we saw it
no more: the cathedral alone remained. Then every one turned to look
at the shore. We seemed to be sailing on the lake of a garden. Here
was a hillside clothed with cypresses, here a hilltop all covered
with flowers, yonder a village extending along the shore, and under
the garden trellises and along the terraces of the villas sat ladies
looking at us with spy-glasses; and here and there were peasants'
families in brightly-colored dresses, sail-boats; and naked boys who
plunged into the water and turned sommersaults, frisked about, shouted,
and waved their hands toward the ladies on the boat, who covered their
faces with their fans. Some miles from Seville we met three steamboats,
one after the other. The first came upon us so suddenly at a turn of
the river that, having had no experience in that sort of navigation,
I was afraid, for a moment, that we should not have time to avoid a
collision; the two boats almost grazed each other in passing, and the
passengers of each saluted each other and threw across oranges and
cigars, and charged each other with messages to be borne to Cadiz or
Seville.

My fellow-voyagers were almost all Andalusians, and so, after an
hour of conversation, I knew them from first to last as well as if
we had all been friends from infancy. Every one instantly told every
one else, whether he wanted to know it or not, who he was, his age,
occupation, and where he was going, and one even went so far as to tell
how many sweethearts he had and how many pesetas were in his purse. I
was taken for a singer; and this is not strange if one considers that
in Spain the people think three-fourths of the Italians are trained to
sing, dance, or declaim. One gentleman, noticing that I had an Italian
book in my hand, asked me, point-blank, "Where did you leave the
company?"

"What company?" I demanded.

"Weren't you singing with Fricci at the Zarzuela?"

"I am sorry, but I have never appeared on the stage."

"Well, I must say, then, that you and the second tenor look as much
alike as two drops of water."

"You don't say so?"

"Pray excuse me."

"It's of no consequence."

"But you are an Italian?"

"Yes."

"Do you sing?"

"I am sorry, but I do not sing."

"How strange! To judge by your throat and breast, I should have said
that you must have a splendid tenor voice."

I put my hand to my chest and neck, and replied, "It may be so; I will
try--one never knows. I have two of the necessary qualifications: I am
an Italian and have the throat of a tenor; the voice ought to follow."

At this point the prima donna of the company, who had overheard the
dialogue, entered the conversation, and after her the entire company:

"Is the gentleman an Italian?"

"At your service, madam."

"I ask the question because I wish him to do me a favor. What is the
meaning of those short verses from _Il Trovatore_ which run--

              "Non può nemmeno un Dio
              Donna rapirti a me."
    (Not even a god can steal my lady from me.)

"Is the lady married?"

They all began to laugh.

"Yes," replied the prima donna; "but why do you ask me that?"

"Because ... 'not even a god can steal you from me' is what your
husband ought to say, if he has two good eyes in his head, every
morning when he rises and every night when he goes to bed."

The others laughed, but to the prima donna this imaginary presumption
on the part of her husband in affirming that he was secure even against
a god seemed too extravagant, possibly because she knew that she had
not always been sufficiently wary in her regard for men; and so she
scarcely deigned by so much as a smile to show that she had understood
my compliment. She at once asked the meaning of another verse, and
after her the baritone, and after the baritone the tenor, and after
the tenor the second lady, and so on, until for a little while I did
nothing but translate poor Italian verses into worse Spanish prose, to
the great satisfaction of some of them, who for the first time were
able to repeat intelligently a little of what they had so often sung
with an air of perfect knowledge. When every one had learned as much
as he wished to know, the conversation came to a close, and I stood
talking a little while with the baritone, who hummed me an air from
the _Zarzuela_; then I attached myself to one of the chorus, who told
me that the tenor was making love to the prima donna; then I went off
with the tenor, who told me about the baritone's wife; then I talked
with the prima donna, who said disagreeable things about the whole
company; but they were all good friends, and when they met, as they
walked about the boat and gathered under the awning, the men pulled
each other's beards and the women kissed each other, and one and all
exchanged glances and smiles which revealed secret understandings. Some
ran through the gamut here, some hummed yonder, others practised trills
in a corner, and others again tried a guttural _do_ that ended in a
wheezing sound in the throat; and meanwhile they all talked at once
about a thousand trifles.

Finally, the bell sounded and we rushed headlong to the table, like
so many officials invited to a spread at the unveiling of a monument.
At this dinner, amid the cries and songs of all those people, I drank
for the first time an unmixed glass of that terrible wine of Xeres
whose wonders are sung in the four corners of the earth. I had scarcely
swallowed it before I seemed to feel a spark run through all my veins,
and my head burned as if it was full of sulphur. All the others drank,
and all were filled with unrestrained mirth and became irresistibly
loquacious; the prima donna began to talk in Italian, the tenor in
French, the baritone in Portuguese, the others in dialect, and I in
every tongue; and there were toasts and snatches of song, shouts,
arch glances, clasping of hands above table and the kicking of feet
below, and declarations of good fellowship exchanged on all sides,
like the personalities in Parliament when the opposing factions join
battle. After dinner we all went on deck, flushed and in great spirits,
breathless and enveloped in a cloud of smoke from our cigarettes, and
then, in the light of the moon, whose silvery rays gleamed on the wide
river and covered the hillsides and the groves with limpid light, we
began again a noisy conversation, and after the conversation there
was singing, not only the trifling airs of _Zarzuela_, but passages
from operas, with solos, duets, trios, and choruses, with appropriate
gestures and stage strides, diversified with declamations from
the poets, stories, and anecdotes, hearty laughter, and tumultuous
applause; finally, tired and breathless, we were all silent, and some
fell asleep with upturned faces, others went to lie down under cover,
and the prima donna seated herself in a corner to look at the moon.
The tenor was snoring. I profited by the occasion to go and have an
aria from the _Zarzuela_--_El Sargento Federico_--sung to me in a low
voice. The courteous Andalusian did not wait to be pressed: she sang,
but suddenly she was silent and hid her face. I looked at her: she
was weeping. I asked her the cause of her distress, and she answered,
sadly, "I am thinking of a perjury." Then she broke into a laugh and
began to sing again. She had a melodious, flexible voice, and sang with
a feeling of gentle sadness. The sky was all studded with stars, and
the boat glided so smoothly through the water that it scarcely seemed
to be moving; and I thought of the gardens of Seville, of the near
African shore, and of the dear one waiting for me in Italy, and my eyes
too were wet, and when the lady stopped singing, I said, "Sing on, for--

    'Mortal tongue cannot express
    That which I felt within my breast....'"

At dawn the boat was just entering the ocean; the river was very wide.
The right bank, scarcely visible in the distance, stretched along like
a tongue of land, beyond which shone the waters of the sea. A moment
later the sun rose above the horizon, and the vessel left the river.
Then there unfolded before my eyes a sight that could not be described
if it were possible to join poetry, painting, and music in one supreme
art--a spectacle whose magnificence and enchantment I believe not even
Dante could describe with his grandest images, nor Titian with his
most brilliant colors, nor Rossini with his most perfect harmonies,
nor even all three of them together. The sky was a miracle of sapphire
light unflecked by a cloud, and the sea was so beautiful that it seemed
like an immense carpet of shimmering silk; the sun was shining on the
crests of the little ripples caused by a light breeze, and it seemed as
if they were tipped with amethyst. The sea was full of reflections and
luminous bands of light, and in the distance were streaks of silver,
with here and there great white sails, like the trailing wings of
gigantic fallen angels. I have never seen such brilliancy of color,
such splendor of light, such freshness, such transparency, such limpid
water and sky. It seemed like a daybreak of creation, which the fancy
of poets had pictured so pure and effulgent that our dawns are only
pale reflections in comparison. It was more than Nature's awakening and
the recurring stir of life: it was a hallelujah, a triumph, a new birth
of creation, growing into the infinite by a second inspiration of God.

I went below deck to get my spyglass, and when I returned Cadiz was in
sight.

The first impression which it made upon me was a feeling of doubt
whether it was a city or not. I first laughed, then turned toward my
fellow-traveller with the air of one seeking to be assured that he is
not deceived. Cadiz is like an island of chalk. It is a great white
spot in the midst of the sea, without a cloud, without a black line,
without a shadow--a white spot as clear and pure as a hilltop covered
with untrodden snow, standing out against a sky of beryl and turquoise
in the midst of a vast flooded plain. A long, narrow neck of land
unites it to the continent; on all other sides it is surrounded by the
sea, like a boat just ready to sail bound to the shore only by a cable.
As we approached, the forms of the campaniles, the outlines of the
houses, and the openings of the streets became clear, and everything
seemed whiter, and, however much I looked through my spyglass, I could
not have discovered the smallest spot in that whiteness, either on a
building near the harbor or in the farthest suburbs. We entered the
port, where there were but a few ships and those a great way apart. I
stepped into a boat without even taking my valise with me, for I was
obliged to leave for Malaga that same evening, and so eager was I to
see the city that when the boat came to the bank, I jumped too soon
and fell to the ground like a corpse, although, alas! I still felt the
pains of a living body.

[Illustration: _Cadiz_]

Cadiz is the whitest city in the world; and it is of no use to
contradict me by saying that I have not seen every other city, for
my common sense tells me that a city whiter than this, which is
superlatively and perfectly white, cannot exist. Cordova and Seville
cannot be compared with Cadiz: they are as white as a sheet, but Cadiz
is as white as milk. To give an idea of it, one could not do better
than to write the word "white" a thousand times with a white pencil
on blue paper, and make a note on the margin: "Impressions of Cadiz."
Cadiz is one of the most extravagant and graceful of human caprices:
not only the outer walls of the houses are white, but the stairs are
white, the courts are white, the shop-walls are white, the stones are
white, the pilasters are white, the most secret and darkest corners
of the poorest houses and the loneliest streets are white; everything
is white from roof to cellar wherever the tip of a brush can enter,
even to the holes, cracks, and birds' nests. In every house there is
a pile of chalk and lime, and every time the eagle eye of the inmates
spies the least spot the brush is seized and the spot covered. Servants
are not taken into families unless they know how to whitewash. A
pencil-scratch on a wall is a scandalous thing, an outrage upon the
public peace, an act of vandalism: you might walk through the entire
city, look behind all the doors, and poke your nose into the very
holes, and you would find white, only and always and eternally.

But, for all this, Cadiz does not in the least resemble the other
Andalusian cities. Its streets are long and straight, and the houses
are high, and lack the _patios_ of Cordova and Seville. But, although
the appearance is different, the city does not appear less interesting
and pleasant to the eye of the stranger. The streets are straight, but
narrow, and, moreover, they are very long, and many of them cross the
entire city, and so one can see at the end, as through the crack in a
door, a slender strip of sky, which makes it seem as if the city was
built on the summit of a mountain cut on all sides in regular channels:
moreover, the houses have a great many windows, and, as at Burgos,
every window is provided with a sort of glass balcony which rises in
tiers from story to story, so that in many streets the houses are
completely covered with glass, and one sees scarcely any traces of the
walls. It seems like walking through a passage in an immense museum.
Here and there, between one house and the next, rise the graceful
fronds of a palm; in every square there is a luxuriant mass of verdure,
and at all the windows bunches of grass and bouquets of flowers.

Really, I had been far from imagining that Cadiz could be so gay
and smiling--that terrible, ill-fated Cadiz, burned by the English
in the sixteenth century, bombarded at the end of the eighteenth,
devastated by the pestilence, hostess of the fleets of Trafalgar, the
seat of the revolutionary council during the War of Independence, the
theatre of the horrible butchery of the Revolution of 1820, the target
of the French bombs in 1823, the standard-bearer of the Revolution
which hurled the Bourbons from the throne,--Cadiz always restless
and turbulent and first of all to raise the battle-cry. But of such
calamities and such struggles there remain only some cannon-balls
half buried in the walls, for over all the traces of destruction has
passed the inexorable brush, covering every dishonor with a white veil.
And as it is with the latest wars, so too there remains not a trace
of the Phœnicians who founded the city, nor of the Carthaginians and
Romans who enlarged and beautified it, unless one wishes to consider
as a trace the tradition which says, "Here rose a temple to Hercules,"
"There rose a temple to Saturn." But time has done a worse thing than
to deprive Cadiz of her ancient monuments: it has stolen away her
commerce and her riches since Spain lost her possessions in America,
and now Cadiz lies there inert on her solitary rock, waiting in vain
for the thousand ships which once came with flags and festoons to offer
her the tribute of the New World.

I had a letter of introduction to the Italian consul, and after
receiving it he courteously took me to the top of a tower from which I
was able to get a bird's-eye view of the city. It was a novel sight and
a very lively surprise: seen from above, Cadiz is white, entirely and
perfectly white, just as it appears from the sea; there is not a roof
in all the city; every house is covered on top by a terrace surrounded
by a low whitewashed wall; on almost every terrace rises a little white
tower, which is surmounted, in its turn, by another smaller terrace
or by a little cupola or sort of sentry-box: everything is white; all
these little cupolas, these pinnacles, and these towers, which give
the city a very odd and uneven appearance, gleam and stand out white
against the vivid blue of the sea. One's view extends over the entire
length of the isthmus which connects Cadiz to the main land, embraces
a far-off strip of distant coast whitened by the cities of Puerto Real
and Puerto Santa Maria, dotted with villages, churches, and villas, and
includes also the port and the clear and a very beautiful sky which
vies with the sea in transparency and light. I could not look enough
at that strange city. On closing my eyes it appeared as if covered
by an immense sheet. Every house seemed to have been built for an
astronomical observatory. The entire population, in case the sea should
inundate the city, as in ancient times, might gather on the terraces
and remain there in perfect ease, saving the fright.

I was told that a few years ago, on the occasion of some eclipse
of the sun, this very spectacle was witnessed: the seventy thousand
inhabitants of Cadiz all ascended to the terraces to watch the
phenomenon. The city changed its perfect whiteness for a thousand
colors; every terrace was thick with heads; one saw at a single glance,
quarter after quarter, and finally the entire population: a low murmur
rose to heaven like the roar of the sea, and a great movement of arms,
fans, and spy-glasses, pointing upward, made it seem as if the people
were awaiting the descent of some angel from the solar sphere. At a
certain moment there was a profound silence: when the phenomenon was
over the entire population gave a shout, which sounded like a clap of
thunder, and a few moments later the city was white again.

I descended from the tower and went to see the cathedral, a vast
marble edifice of the sixteenth century, not to be compared to the
cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo, but nevertheless dignified and bold in
architecture and enriched by every sort of treasure, like all the other
Spanish churches. I went to see the convent where Murillo was painting
a picture over a high altar when he fell from the scaffold and received
the wound which caused his death. I passed through the picture-gallery,
which contains some fine paintings of Zurbaran; entered the bull-ring,
built entirely of wood, which was created in a few days to provide
a spectacle for Queen Isabella. Toward evening I took a turn in the
delightful promenade along the sea-shore, in the midst of orange trees
and palms, where the most beautiful and elegant ladies of the city
were pointed out to me, one by one. Whatever may be the judgment of
the Spaniards, to me the feminine type of Cadiz did not seem at all
inferior to the celebrated type of Seville. The women are a little
taller, a little heavier, and are somewhat darker. Some observer has
ventured to say that they closely resemble the Grecian type, but I do
not know in what respect. I saw no difference from the Andalusian type
except in stature, and that was enough to make me heave sighs which
might have propelled a ship, and constrained me to return as soon as
possible to the vessel as a place of refuge and peace.

When I arrived on board it was night; the sky was all twinkling with
stars, and the breeze bore faintly to my ears the music of a band
playing on the promenade of Cadiz. The singers were asleep; I was
alone, and the sight of the city lights and the recollection of the
lovely faces filled me with melancholy. I did not know what to do
with myself, so I went down to the cabin, took out my note-book, and
commenced the description of Cadiz. But I only succeeded in writing ten
times the words, "White, blue, snow, brightness, colors," after which I
made a little sketch of a woman and then closed my eyes and dreamed of
Italy.




MALAGA.


The next day, at sunset, the vessel was passing through the Straits of
Gibraltar.

Now, as I look at that point on the map, it seems so near home that
when I am in the humor and my domestic finances permit I ought not to
hesitate a moment to pack my valise and run down to Genoa on my way
to enjoy a second time the most beautiful sight of two continents.
But then it seemed to be so far away that when I had written a letter
to my mother on the rail of the ship, intending to give it to one of
the passengers for Gibraltar to post, as I was writing the address I
laughed at my confidence, as if it were impossible for a letter to
travel all the way to Turin. "From here!" I thought--"from the Pillars
of Hercules!" and I pronounced the Pillars of Hercules as if I had said
the Cape of Good Hope or Japan.

"... I am on the ship Guadaira: behind me is the ocean, and in front
the Mediterranean, on the left Europe and on the right Africa. On this
side I see the cape of Tarifa, and on that the mountains of the African
coast, which look indistinct like a gray cloud; I see Ceuta, and a
little beyond it Tangiers like a white spot, and in a direct line with
the ship rises the Rock of Gibraltar. The sea is as placid as a lake,
and the sky is red and gold; all is serene, beautiful, and magnificent,
and I feel in my mind an inexpressible and delightful stirring of great
thoughts, which, if I could put them into words, would become a joyful
prayer beginning and ending with thy name...."

The vessel stopped in the Gulf of Algeciras: the entire company of
singers got into a large boat from Gibraltar, and went off, waving fans
and handkerchiefs as a parting salute. It was growing dark when the
boat started again. Then I was able to measure the enormous mass of the
Rock of Gibraltar at every turn. At first I thought we should leave
it behind in a few moments, but the moments became hours. Gradually,
as we approached, it towered above us, and presented a new appearance
every instant--now the silhouette of some measureless monster, now the
image of an immense staircase, now the outline of a fantastic castle,
now a shapeless mass like a monstrous aërolite fallen from a world
shivered in a battle of the spheres. Then, on nearer view, behind a
high rock like an Egyptian pyramid, there came into sight a great
projection as large as a mountain, with fissures and broken boulders
and vast curves which lost themselves in the plain. It was night; the
rock stood outlined against the moonlit sky as clear and sharp as a
sheet of black paper on a pane of glass. One saw the lighted windows
of the English barracks, the sentry-boxes on the summit of the dizzy
crags, and a dim outline of trees which seemed little larger than a
tuft of grass among the nearest rocks. For a long time the boat seemed
motionless or else the rock was receding, so close and threatening did
it always appear; then, little by little, it began to diminish, but our
eyes were weary of gazing before the rock grew weary of threatening us
with its fantastic transformations. At midnight I gave a final salute
to that formidable, lifeless sentinel of Europe, and went to wrap
myself up in my little corner.

At break of day I awoke a few miles from the port of Malaga.

The city of Malaga, seen from the port, presents a pleasing appearance
not wholly without grandeur. On the right is a high rocky mountain,
upon the top of which and down one side, even to the plain, are the
enormous blackened ruins of the castle of Gibralfaro, and on the
lower slopes stands the cathedral towering majestically above all the
surrounding buildings, lifting toward heaven, as an inspired poet might
say, two beautiful towers and a very high belfry. Between the castle
and the church and on the face and sides of the mountain there is a
mass--a _canaille_, as Victor Hugo would say--of smoky little houses,
placed confusedly one above the other, as if they had been thrown down
from above like stones. To the left of the cathedral, along the shore,
is a row of houses, gray, violet, or pale yellow in color, with white
window-and door-frames, that suggest the villages along the Ligurian
Riviera. Beyond rises a circle of green and reddish hills enclosing the
city like the walls of an amphitheatre, and to the right and left along
the sea-shore extend other mountains, hills, and rocks as far as the
eye can see. The port was almost deserted, the shore silent, and the
sky very blue.

Before landing I took my leave of the captain, who was going on to
Marseilles, said good-bye to the boatswain and passengers, telling them
all that I should arrive at Valencia a day ahead of the boat, and I
should certainly join them again and go on to Barcelona and Marseilles,
and the captain replied, "We shall look for you," and the steward
promised that my place should be saved for me. How often since then
have I remembered the last words of those poor people!

[Illustration: _Malaga_]

I stopped at Malaga with the intention of leaving that same evening
for Granada. The city itself offers nothing worthy of note, excepting
the new part, which occupies a tract of land formerly covered by
the sea. This is built up in the modern style, with wide, straight
streets and large, bare houses. The rest of the city is a labyrinth
of narrow, winding streets and a mass of houses without color,
without _patios_, and without grace. There are some spacious squares
with gardens and fountains; columns and arches of Moorish buildings, no
modern monuments; a great deal of dirt, and not a great many people.
The environs are very beautiful, and the climate is milder than that of
Seville.

I had a friend at Malaga, and after finding him we passed the day
together. He told me a curious fact: At Malaga there is a literary
academy of more than eight hundred members, where they celebrate the
birthdays of all the great writers, and hold twice a week a public
lecture on some subject connected with literature or science. That same
evening they were to celebrate a solemn function. Some months earlier
the academy had offered a prize of three golden flowers, enamelled
in different colors, to the three poets who should compose the best
ode on "Progress," the best ballad on the "Recovery of Malaga," and
the best satire on one of the most prevalent vices of modern society.
The invitation had been extended to all the poets of Spain; poems had
poured in in abundance; a board of judges had secretly considered them;
and that very evening the choice was to be announced. The ceremony was
to be conducted with great pomp. The bishop, the governor, the admiral,
the most conspicuous personages of the city, with dress-coats, orders,
and shoulder-scarfs, and a great number of ladies in evening dress,
were to be present. The three most beautiful Muses of the city were
to present themselves on a sort of stage adorned with garlands and
flags, each of whom was to open the roll containing the prize poem
and to proclaim three times the name of its author: if the author
were present, he was to be invited to read his verses and receive his
flower; if he were not present, his verses were to be read for him.
Throughout the whole city they talked of nothing but the academy,
guessed the names of the victors, predicted the wonders of the three
poems, and extolled the decorations of the hall. This festival of
poetry, called the _juegos floreales_, had not been celebrated for ten
years. Others may judge whether such contests and displays benefit or
injure poets and poetry. As for me, whatever may be the dubious and
fleeting literary glory which is bestowed by the sentence of the jury
and the homage of a bishop and a governor, I believe that to receive
the gift of a golden flower from the hand of a most beautiful woman
under the eyes of five hundred fair Andalusians, to the sound of soft
music and amid the perfume of jessamine and roses, that would be a
delight even truer and more lively than any which comes from real and
enduring glory. No? Ah! we are sincere.

One of my first thoughts was to taste a little of the genuine Malaga
wine, for no other reason than to repay myself for the many headaches
and stomachaches caused by the miserable concoctions sold in many
Italian cities under the false recommendation of its name. But either
I did not know how to ask or they did not wish to understand: the
fact remains that the wine they gave me at the hotel burned my throat
and made my head spin. I was not able to walk straight even to the
cathedral, or from the cathedral to the castle of Gibralfaro, or to
the other places, nor could I form an idea of the beauties of Malaga
without seeing them double and unsteadily, as some spiteful person
might suppose.

On our walk my friend talked to me about the famous Republican people
of Malaga, who are every moment doing something on their own account.
They are a very fiery people, but fickle and yet tractable, like all
people who feel much and think little; and they act upon the impulse
of passion rather than the strength of conviction. The least trifle
calls together an immense crowd and stirs up a tumult that turns
the city topsy-turvy; but on most occasions a resolute act of a man
in authority, an exhibition of courage, or a burst of eloquence is
sufficient to quiet the tumult and disperse the crowd. The nature of
the people is good on the whole, but superstition and passion have
perverted them. And, above all, superstition is perhaps more firmly
entrenched in Malaga than in any other city of Andalusia, by reason
of the greater popular ignorance. Altogether, Malaga was the least
Andalusian of the cities I had seen: even the very language has been
corrupted, and they speak worse Spanish than at Cadiz, where, forsooth!
they speak badly enough.

I was still at Malaga, but my imagination was far away among the
streets of Granada and in the gardens of the Alhambra and the
Generalife. Shortly after the noon hour I took my leave from the only
city in Spain, to tell the truth, that I left without a sigh of regret.
When the train started, instead of turning for a last look, as I had
done in all of its sister towns, I murmured the verses sung by Giovanni
Prati at Granada when the duke d'Aosta was leaving for Spain:

    "Non più Granata è sola
      Sulle sur mute pietre;
    L'inno in Alhambra vola
      Sulle Moresche cetre."

(_No more does Granada stand alone on her silent stones: the hymn flies
to the Alhambra on Moorish lyres._)

       *       *       *       *       *

And now, as I write them again, it seems to me that the music of the
band of the National Guard of Turin inspires peace and gladness more
even surely than Moorish lyres, and that the pavement of the porticoes
of the Po, although it be ever so silent, is better laid and smoother
than the stones of Granada.




GRANADA.


GRANADA.


The journey from Malaga to Granada was the most adventurous and
unfortunate that I made in Spain.

In order that my compassionate readers may pity me as much as I
desire, they must know (I am ashamed to occupy people with these
little details) that at Malaga I had eaten only the lightest sort of
an Andalusian repast, of which at the moment of departure I retained
a very vague recollection. But I started, feeling sure that I could
alight at some railway-station where there would be one of those rooms
or public choking-places where one enters at a gallop, eats until one
is out of breath, pays as one scampers out to rush into a crowded
carriage, suffocated and robbed, to curse the schedule, travel, and the
minister of public works who deceives the country. I departed, and for
the first hours it was delightful. The country was all gently sloping
hills and green fields, dotted with villages crowned with palms and
cypresses, and in the carriage, between two old men who rode with their
eyes shut, there was a little Andalusian who kept looking around with
a roguish smile which seemed to say, "Go on; your lovelorn glances
do not offend me." But the train crept along as slowly as a worn-out
diligence, and we stopped only a few moments at the stations. By sunset
my stomach began to cry for help, and, to render the pangs of hunger
even more severe, I was obliged to make a good part of the journey on
foot. The train stopped at an unsafe bridge, and all the passengers got
out and filed around, two by two, to meet the train on the other side
of the river. We were surrounded by the rocks of the Sierra Nevada,
in a wild, desert place, which made it seem as if we were a company
of hostages led by a band of brigands. When we had clambered into the
carriage the train crawled along no faster than before, and my stomach
began to complain more desperately than at first. After a long time we
arrived at a station all crowded with trains, where a large part of the
travellers hurried out before I could reach the step.

"Where are you going?" asked a railroad official, who had seen me
alight.

"To dine," I replied.

"But aren't you going to Granada?"

"Yes."

"Then you won't have time; the train starts immediately."

"But the others have gone."

"You will see them come back on the run in a minute."

The freight-trains in front prevented me from seeing the station; I
thought it was a great way off, and so stayed where I was. Two minutes
passed, five, eight; the tourists did not return and the train did not
start. I jumped out, ran to the station, saw a café, and entered a
large room. Great heavens! Fifty starving people were standing around
a refreshment-table with their noses in their plates, elbows in the
air, and their eyes on the clock, devouring and shouting; another fifty
were crowding around a counter seizing and pocketing bread, fruit, and
candies, while the proprietor and the waiters, panting like horses
and streaming with sweat, ran about, tucked up their sleeves, howled,
tumbled over the seats and upset the customers, and scattered here and
there streams of soup and drops of sauce; and one poor woman, who must
have been the mistress of the café, imprisoned in a little niche behind
the besieged counter, ran her hands through her hair in desperation. At
this sight my arms hung down helplessly. But suddenly I roused myself
and made an onslaught. Driven back by a feminine elbow in my chest, I
rushed in again; repulsed by a jab in the stomach, I gathered all my
strength to make a third attack. At this point the bell rang. There was
a burst of imprecations and then a falling of seats, a scattering of
plates, a hurry-scurry, and a perfect pandemonium. One man, choking
in the fury of his last mouthfuls, became livid and his eyes seemed
bursting from his head as though he were being hanged; another in
stretching out his hand to seize an orange, struck by some one rushing
past, plunged it into a bowl of cream; another was running through the
room in search of his valise with a great smear of sauce on his cheeks;
another, who had tried to drink his wine at one gulp, had strangled
and coughed as if he would tear open his stomach; the officials at the
door cried, "Hurry!" and the travellers called back from the room,
"Ahogate!" (choked), and the waiters ran after those who had not paid,
and those who wanted to pay could not find the waiters; and the ladies
swooned, and the children cried, and everything was upside down.

By good fortune I was able to get into my carriage before the train
started.

But there a new punishment awaited me. The two old men and the little
Andalusian, who must have been the daughter of the one and niece of
the other, had been successful in securing a little booty in the midst
of that accursed crowd at the counter, and they were eating right and
left. I began to watch them with sorrowful eyes like a dog beside his
master's table, counting the mouthfuls and the number of times they
chewed. The little Andalusian noticed it, and, pointing to something
which looked like a croquet, made a gracious bow as if to ask if I
would take it.

"Oh no, thank you," I replied with the smile of a dying man; "I have
eaten."

My angel, I continued to myself, if you only knew that at this moment
I would prefer those two croquets to the bitter apples--as Sir Niccolo
Machiavelli would generously say--even those bitter apples from the
famous garden of the Hesperides!

"Try a drop of liquor at least," said the old uncle.

I do not know what childish pique against myself or against those good
people took possession of me, but it was a feeling which other men
experience on similar occasions; however, I replied this time too, "No,
thank you; it would be bad for me."

The good old man looked me over from head to foot as if to say that I
did not appear like a man to be the worse for a drop of liquor, and the
Andalusian smiled, and I blushed for shame.

Night settled down, and the train went on at the pace of Sancho Panza's
steed for I knew not how many hours. That night I felt for the first
time in my life the pangs of hunger, which I thought I had felt already
on the famous day of the twenty-fourth of June, 1866. To relieve these
torments I obstinately thought of all the dishes which filled me with
repugnance--raw tomatoes, snails in soup, roasted crabs, and snails
in salad. Alas! a voice of derision told me, deep down in my vitals,
that if I had any of them I should eat them and lick my fingers. Then I
began to make imaginary messes of different dishes, as cream and fish,
with a dash of wine, with a coat of pepper, and a layer of juniper
preserves, to see if I could thus hold my stomach in check. Oh misery!
my cowardly stomach did not repel even those. Then I made a final
effort and imagined that I was at table in a Parisian hotel at the time
of the siege, and that I gently lifted a mouse by the tail out of some
pungent sauce, and the mouse, unexpectedly regaining life, bit my thumb
and transfixed me with two wicked little eyes, and I, with raised fork,
hesitated whether to let it go or to spit it without pity. But, thank
Heaven! before I had settled this horrible question, to perform such an
act as has never been recorded in the history of any siege, the train
stopped and a ray of hope revived my drooping spirits.

We had reached some nameless village, and while I was putting my head
out of the window a voice cried, "All out for Granada!" I rushed
headlong from the carriage and found myself face to face with a huge
bearded fellow, who took my valise, telling me that he was going to put
it in the diligence, for from that village to I know not how many miles
from _imperial Granada_ there is no railway.

"One moment!" I cried to the unknown man in a supplicating voice: "how
long before you start?"

"Two minutes," he replied.

"Is there an inn here?"

"There it is." I flew to the inn, bolted a hard-boiled egg, and rushed
back to the diligence, crying, "How much time now?"

"Two minutes more," answered the same voice.

I flew back to the hotel, seized another egg, and ran again to the
diligence with the question, "Are you off?"

"In a minute."

Back again to the inn, and a third egg, and then to the diligence: "Are
we going?"

"In half a minute."

This time I heaved a mighty sigh, ran to the inn, swallowed a fourth
egg and a glass of wine, and rushed toward the diligence. But before
I had taken ten steps my breath gave out, and I stopped with the egg
halfway down my throat. At this point the whip cracked.--"Wait!" I
cried in a hoarse voice, waving my hands like a drowning man.

"_Que hay?_" (What's the matter?) demanded the driver.

I could not reply.

"He has an egg stuck in his throat," some stranger answered for me.

All the travellers burst into a laugh, the egg went down; I laughed
too, overtook the diligence, which had already started, and, regaining
my breath, gave my companions an account of my troubles, and they were
much interested, and pitied me even more than I had dared to hope after
that cruel laugh at my suffocation.

But my troubles were not ended. One of those irresistible attacks
of sleepiness which used to come upon me treacherously in the long
night-marches among the soldiers seized me all at once, and tormented
me as far as the railway-station without my being able to get a moment
of sleep. I believe that a cannon-ball suspended by a cord from the
roof of the diligence would have given less annoyance to my unfortunate
companions than my poor nodding head gave as it bobbed on all sides as
if it was attached to my neck by a single tendon. On one side of me sat
a nun, on the other a boy, and opposite a peasant-woman, and throughout
the entire journey I did nothing but strike my head against these three
victims with the monotonous motion of a bell-clapper. The nun, poor
creature! endured the strokes in silence, perhaps in expiation for her
sins of thought; but the boy and peasant-woman muttered from time to
time, "He is a barbarian!"--"This must stop!"--"His head is like lead!"
Finally, a witticism from one of the passengers released all four of us
from this suffering. The peasant-woman was lamenting a little louder
than usual, and a voice from the end of the diligence exclaimed, "Be
consoled; if your head is not yet broken, you may be sure it will
not be, for it must certainly be proof against the hammer." They
all laughed; I awakened, excused myself, and the three victims were
so happy to find themselves released from that cruel thumping that,
instead of taking revenge with bitter words, they said, "Poor fellow!
you have slept badly. How you must have hurt your head!"

We finally arrived at the railway, and behold what a perverse fate!
Although I was alone in the railway-carriage, where I might have slept
like a nabob, I could not close my eyes. A pang went through my heart
at the thought of having made the journey by night when I could not see
anything nor enjoy the distant view of Granada. And I remembered the
lovely verses of Martinez de la Rosa:

"O my dear fatherland! At last I see thee again! I see thy fair soil,
thy joyful teeming fields, thy glorious sun, thy serene sky!

"Yes! I see the fabled Granada stretching along the plain from hill to
hill, her towers rising among her gardens of eternal green, the crystal
streams kissing her walls, the noble mountains enclosing her valleys,
and the Sierra Nevada crowning the distant horizon.

"Oh, thy memory haunted me wherever I went, Granada! It destroyed my
pleasures, my peace, and my glory, and oppressed my heart and soul! By
the icy banks of the Seine and the Thames I remembered with a sigh the
happy waters of the Darro and the Genil, and many times, as I carolled
a gay ballad, my bitter grief overcame me, and weeping, not to be
repressed, choked my voice.

"In vain the delightful Arno displayed her flower-strewn banks, sweet
seats of love and peace! 'The plain watered by the gentle Genil,' said
I, 'is more flowery, the life of the lovely Granada is more dear.' And
I murmured these words as one disconsolate, and, remembering the house
of my fathers, I raised my sad eyes to heaven.

"What is thy magic, what thy unspeakable spell, O fatherland! O sweet
name! that thou art so dear? The swarthy African, far from his native
desert, looks with sad disdain on fields of green; the rude Laplander,
stolen from his mother-earth, sighs for perpetual night and snow; and
I--I, to whom a kindly fate granted birth and nurture in thy bosom
blest by so many gifts of God--though far from thee, could I forget
thee, Granada?"

When I reached Granada it was quite dark, and I could not see so much
as the outlines of a house. A diligence drawn by two horses,

    "... anzi due cavallette
        Di quella de Mosé lá dell' Egitto,"

landed me at a hotel, where I was kept waiting an hour while my bed was
being made, and finally, just before three o'clock in the morning, I
was at last able to lay my head on the pillow. But my troubles were not
over: just as I was falling into a doze I heard an indistinct murmur in
the next room, and then a masculine voice which said distinctly, "Oh,
what a little foot!" You who have bowels of compassion, pity me. The
pillow was torn a little; I pulled out two tufts of wool, stuffed them
in my ears; and, rehearsing in thought the misfortunes of my journey, I
slept the sleep of the just.

In the morning I went out betimes and walked about through the streets
of Granada until it was a decent hour to go and drag from his home
a young gentleman of Granada whom I had met at Madrid at the house
of Fernandez Guerra, Gongora by name, the son of a distinguished
archeologist and a descendant of the famous Cordovan poet Luigi
Gongora, of whom I spoke in passing. That part of the city which I
saw in those few hours did not fulfil my expectation. I had expected
to find narrow mysterious streets and white cottages like those of
Cordova and Seville, but I found instead spacious squares and some
handsome straight streets, and others tortuous and narrow enough, it is
true, but flanked by high houses, for the most part painted in false
bas-reliefs with cupids and garlands and flourishes and draperies, and
hangings of a thousand colors, without the Oriental appearance of the
other Andalusian cities.

The lowest part of Granada is almost all laid out with the regularity
of a modern city. As I passed along those streets I was filled with
contempt, and should certainly have carried a gloomy face to Señor
Gongora if by chance as I walked at random I had not come out into
the famous _Alameda_, which enjoys the reputation of being the most
beautiful promenade in the world, and it repaid me a thousand times for
the detestable regularity of the streets which lead to it.

Imagine a long avenue of unusual width, along which fifty carriages
might pass abreast, flanked by other smaller avenues, along which run
rows of measureless trees, which at a noble height form an immense
green arch, so dense that not a sunbeam can penetrate it, and at the
two ends of the central avenue two monumental fountains throwing up
the water in two great streams which fall again in the finest vaporous
spray, and between the many avenues crystal streams, and in the middle
a garden all roses and myrtle and jessamine and delicate fountains; and
on one side the river Genil, which flows between banks covered with
laurel-groves, and in the distance the snowclad mountains, upon whose
sides distant palms raise their fantastic fronds; and everywhere a
brilliant green, dense and luxuriant, through which one sees here and
there an enchanting strip of azure sky.

As I turned off of the Alameda I met a great number of peasants
going out of the city, two by two and in groups, with their wives and
children, singing and jesting. Their dress did not seem to me different
from that of the peasants in the neighborhood of Cordova and Seville.
They wore velvet hats, some with very broad brims, others with high
brims curved back; a little jacket made with bands of many-colored
cloth; a scarf of red or blue; closely-fitting trousers buttoned along
the hip; and a pair of leathern gaiters open at the side, so as to show
the leg. The women were dressed like those in the other provinces, and
even in their faces there was no noticeable difference.

I reached my friend's house and found him buried in his archæological
studies, sitting in front of a heap of old medals and historic stones.
He received me with delight, with a charming Andalusian courtesy, and,
after exchanging the first greetings, we both pronounced with one voice
that magic word that in every part of the world stirs a tumult of great
recollections in every heart and arouses a sense of secret longing;
that gives a final spur toward Spain to one who has the desire to
travel thither and has not yet finally resolved to start; that name at
which hearts of poets and painters beat faster and the eyes of women
flash--"The Alhambra!"

We rushed out of the house.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Alhambra is situated upon a high hill which overlooks the city,
and from a distance presents the appearance of a fortress, like almost
all Oriental palaces. But when, with Gongora, I climbed the street of
_Los Gomeles_ on our way toward the famous edifice, I had not yet seen
the least trace of a distant wall, and I did not know in what part of
the city we should find it. The street of _Los Gomeles_ slopes upward
and describes a slight curve, so that for a good way one sees only
houses ahead, and supposes the Alhambra to be far away. Gongora did not
speak, but I read in his face that in his heart he was greatly enjoying
the thought of the surprise and delight that I should experience. He
looked at the ground with a smile, answering all my questions with a
sign which seemed to say, "Wait a minute!" and now and then raised
his eyes almost furtively to measure the remaining distance. And I so
enjoyed his pleasure that I could have thrown my arms around his neck
in gratitude.

We arrived before a great gate that closed the street. "Here we are!"
said Gongora. I entered.

I found myself in a great grove of enormously high trees, leaning one
toward another, on this side and on that, along a great avenue which
climbs the hill and is lost in the shade: so close are the trees that
a man could scarcely pass among them, and wherever one looks one sees
only their trunks, which close the way like a continuous wall. The
branches meet above the avenues; not a sunbeam penetrates the wood; the
shade is very dense; on every side glide murmuring streams, and the
birds sing, and one feels a vernal freshness in the air.

"We are now in the Alhambra," said Gongora: "turn around, and you will
see the towers and the embattled barrier-wall."

"But where is the palace?" I demanded.

"That is a mystery," he answered; "let us go forward at random."

We climbed an avenue running along beside the great central avenue that
winds up toward the summit. The trees form overhead a green pavilion
through which not a particle of sky is visible, and the grass, the
shrubbery, and the flowers make on either side a lovely border, bright
and fragrant, sloping slightly toward each other, as if they are trying
to unite, mutually attracted by the beauty of their colors and the
fragrance of their perfume.

"Let us rest a moment," I said: "I want to take a great breath of this
air; it seems to contain some secret germs that if infused into the
blood must prolong one's life; it is air redolent of youth and health."

"Behold the door!" exclaimed Gongora.

I turned as if I had been struck in the back, and saw a few steps ahead
a great square tower, of a deep-red color, crowned with battlements,
with an arched door, above which one sees a key and a hand cut in the
stone.

I questioned my guide, and he told me that this was the principal
entrance of the Alhambra, and that it was called the Gate of Justice,
because the Moorish kings used to pronounce sentence beneath that arch.
The key signifies that this door is the key to the fortress, and the
hand symbolizes the five cardinal virtues of Islam--Prayer, Fasting,
Beneficence, Holy War, and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. The Arabian
inscription attests that the edifice was erected four centuries ago
by the Sultan Abul Hagag Yusuf, and another inscription, which one
sees everywhere on the columns, says, "There is no God but Allah, and
Mohammed is his Prophet! and there is no power, no strength, apart from
Allah!"

We passed under the arch and continued the ascent along an enclosed
street until we found ourselves at the top of the hill, in the middle
of an esplanade surrounded by a parapet and dotted with shrubs and
flowers. I turned at once toward the valley to enjoy the view,
but Gongora seized me by the arm and made me look in the opposite
direction. I was standing in front of the great palace of the
Renaissance, partly in ruins and flanked by some wretched little houses.

"Is this a joke?" I demanded. "Have you brought me here to see a
Moorish castle, for me to find the way closed by a modern palace?
Whose abominable idea was it to run up this building in the gardens of
the caliphs?"

"Charles V.'s."

"He was a vandal. I have not yet forgiven him for the Gothic church he
planted in the middle of the mosque of Cordova, and now these barracks
fill me with utter loathing of his crown and his glory. But, in the
name of Heaven, where is the Alhambra?"

"There it is."

"Where?"

"Among those huts."

"Oh, fudge!"

"I pledge you my word of honor."

I folded my arms and looked at him, and he laughed."

"Well, then," I exclaimed, "this great name of the Alhambra is only
another of those usual false exaggerations of the poets. I, Europe, and
the world have been shamefully deceived. Was it worth while to dream of
the Alhambra for three hundred and sixty-five nights in succession, and
then to come to see a group of ruins with some broken columns and smoky
inscriptions?"

"How I enjoy this!" answered Gongora with a peal of laughter. "Cheer up
now; come and be persuaded that the world has not been deceived: let us
enter this rubbish-pile."

We entered by a little door, crossed a corridor, and found ourselves
in a court. With a sudden cry I seized Gongora's hand, and he asked
with a tone of triumph,

"Are you persuaded?"

I did not answer, I did not see him: I was already far away; the
Alhambra had already begun to exercise upon me that mysterious and
powerful fascination which no one can avoid nor any one express.

We were in the _Patio de los Arrayanes_, the Court of the Myrtles,
which is the largest in the edifice, and presents at once the
appearance of a room, a courtyard, and a garden. A great rectangular
basin full of water, surrounded by a myrtle hedge, extends from one
side of the _patio_ to the other, and like a mirror reflects the
arches, arabesques, and the mural inscriptions.

To the right of the entrance there extend two orders of Moorish
arches, one above the other, supported by slender columns, and on the
opposite side of the court rises a tower with a door through which
one sees the inner rooms in semi-darkness and the mullioned windows,
and through the windows the blue sky and the summits of the distant
mountains. The walls are ornamented to a certain height from the
pavement with brilliant mosaics, and above the mosaics with arabesques
of very intricate design that seem to tremble and change at every step,
and here and there among the arabesques and along the arches they
stretch and creep and intertwine, like garlands, Moorish inscriptions
containing greetings, proverbs, and legends.

[Illustration: _Court of Myrtles, Alhambra_]

Beside the door of entrance is written in Cufic characters: Eternal
Happiness!--Blessing!--Prosperity!--Felicity!--Praised be God for the
blessing of Islam!

In another place it is written: I seek my refuge in the Lord of the
Morning.

In another place: O God! to thee belong eternal thanksgiving and
undying praise.

Elsewhere there are verses from the Koran and entire poems in praise of
the caliphs.

We stood some minutes in silent admiration; not the buzz of a fly was
heard; now and then Gongora started toward the tower, but I clutched
him by the arm and felt that he was trembling with impatience.

"But we must make haste," said he, finally, "or else we shall not get
back to Granada before evening."

"What do I know of Granada?" I answered; "what do I know of morning or
evening or of myself? I am in the Orient!"

"But this is only the antechamber of the Alhambra, my dear Arabian,"
said Gongora, urging me forward. "Come, come with me where it will
really seem like being in the Orient."

And he led me, reluctant though I was, to the very threshold of the
tower-door. There I turned to look once more at the Court of Myrtles
and gave a cry of surprise. Between two slender columns of the arched
gallery which faces the tower, on the opposite side of the courtyard,
stood a girl, a beautiful dark Andalusian face, with a white mantle
wound around her head and falling over her shoulder: she stood leaning
upon the railing in a languid attitude, with her eyes fixed upon us.
I cannot tell the fantastic effect produced by that figure at that
moment--the grace imparted by the arch which curved above the girl's
head and the two columns which formed a frame around her, and the
beautiful harmony which she gave to the whole court, as if she were
an ornament necessary to its architecture conceived in the mind of
the architect at the moment he imagined the whole design. She seemed
like a sultana awaiting her lord, thinking of another sky and another
love. She continued looking at us, and my heart began to beat faster. I
questioned my friend with my eyes, as if to be assured that I was not
deceived. Suddenly the sultana laughed, dropped her white mantle, and
disappeared.

"She is a servant," said Gongora.

Still I remained in the mist.

She was, in fact, a servant of the custodian of the Alhambra who was in
the habit of practising that joke upon strangers.

We entered the tower called the Tower of Comares, or, vulgarly, the
Tower of the Ambassadors. The interior forms two halls, the first of
which is called the Hall of the Barca, and takes its name either from
the fact that it is shaped like a boat or because it was called by the
Moors the Hall of _Baraka_, or Blessing, a word which might have been
contracted by the people into _barca_ (a boat.) This hall hardly seems
the work of human hands: it is all a vast network of tracery in the
form of garlands, rosettes, boughs of trees, and leaves, covering the
vaulted ceiling, the arches, and the walls in every part and in every
way--closely twining, checkered, climbing higher and higher, and yet
marvellously distinct and combined in such a manner that the parts
are presented to the eye altogether at a single glance, affording a
spectacle of dazzling magnificence and enchanting grace. I approached
one of the walls, fixed my eyes upon the extreme point of an arabesque,
and tried to follow its windings and turnings: it was impossible; my
eye was lost, my mind confused, and all the arabesques from pavement
to ceiling seemed to be moving and blending, as if to conceal the
thread of their inextricable network. You may make an effort not to
look around, to centre your whole attention upon a single spot of the
wall, to scan it closely and follow the thread with your finger: it
is futile; in a moment the tracery is a tangled skein, a veil steals
between you and the wall, and your arm falls. The wall seems woven
like a web, wrought like brocade, netted like lace, and veined like a
leaf; one cannot look at it closely nor fix its design in one's mind:
it would be like trying to count the ants in an anthill: one must be
content to look at the walls with a wandering glance, then to rest and
look again later, and then to think of something else and talk. After I
had looked around a little with the air of a man overcome with vertigo
rather than admiration, I turned toward Gongora, so that he might read
in my face what I would have spoken.

"Let us enter the other pile of ruins," he answered with a smile as he
drew me into the great Hall of the Ambassadors, which fills all the
interior of the tower, for, really, the Hall of the _Barca_ belongs to
a little building which does not form a part of the tower, although it
is joined to it. The tower is square in form, spacious, and lighted
with nine great arched windows in the form of doors, which present
almost the appearance of so many alcoves, so great is the thickness of
the wall; each one is divided down the middle toward the outside by a
little marble column that supports two beautiful arches surmounted in
their turn by two little arched windows. The walls are covered with
mosaics and arabesques indescribably delicate and multiform, and with
innumerable inscriptions extending like wide embroidered ribbons over
the arches of the windows, up the massive cornices, along the friezes,
and around the niches where once stood vases full of flowers and
perfumed water. The ceiling, which rises to a great height, is inlaid
with cedar-wood, white, gold, and azure, joined together in circles,
stars, and crowns, and forming many little arches, cells, and vaulted
windows, through which falls a wavering light, and from the cornice
which joins the ceiling to the walls hang tablets of stucco-work cut in
facets chiselled and moulded like stalactites and bunches of flowers.
The throne stood at the central window on the side opposite the door of
entrance. From the windows on that side one enjoys a stupendous view
of the valley of the Darro, deep and silent, as if it too felt the
fascination of the Alhambra's grandeur; from the windows on the other
two sides one sees the boundary-wall and the towers of the fortress;
and through the entrance the light arches of the Court of the Myrtles
in the distance and the water of the basin, which reflects the blue of
the sky.

"Well!" Gongora demanded; "was it worth dreaming of the Alhambra for
three hundred and sixty-five nights?"

"There is a strange thought passing through my brain at this moment," I
replied. "That court as it looks from here, that hall, those windows,
those colors, everything that surrounds me, seems familiar; it seems to
correspond with a picture which I have carried in my head I know not
how long and I know not in what manner, confused with a thousand other
things, perhaps born of a dream--how should I know? When I was sixteen
years old I was a lover, and the young girl and I alone in a garden in
the shade of a summer-house, as we gazed in each other's eyes, uttered
unconsciously a cry of joy that stirred our blood as if it had come
from the mouth of a third person who had discovered our secret. Well,
since that time I have often longed to be a king and to have a palace;
but in giving form to that desire my imagination did not rest merely in
the grand gilded palaces of our country; it flew to distant lands, and
there on the summit of a lofty mountain reared a castle of its own in
which everything was small and graceful and illumined by a mysterious
light; and there were long suites of rooms adorned with a thousand
fanciful and delicate ornaments, with windows through which we two
alone might look, and little columns behind which my little one might
almost hide her face playfully as she listened to my step approaching
from hall to hall, or heard my voice mingled with the murmur of the
fountains in the garden. All unconsciously, in building that castle
in fantasy, I was building the Alhambra; in those moments I imagined
something like these halls, these windows, and this court that we see
before us--so similar, indeed, that the more I look around the better
I remember and seem to recognize the place just as I have seen it a
thousand times. All lovers dream a little of the Alhambra, and
if they were able to reproduce all their dreams in line and color,
they would make pictures that would amaze us by their likeness to all
one sees here. This architecture does not express power, glory, and
grandeur; it expresses love and passion--love with its mysteries, its
caprices, its fervor, its bursts of God-given gratitude; passion with
its melancholy and its silences. There is, then, a close connection, a
harmony, between the beauty of this Alhambra and the souls of those who
have loved at sixteen, when longings are but dreams and visions. And
hence arises the indescribable fascination exercised by this beauty,
and hence the Alhambra, although deserted and ruined as it is, is
still the most enchanting castle in the world, and to the end of time
visitors will leave it with a tear. For in parting with the Alhambra
we bid a last adieu to the most beautiful dreams of youth revived
among these walls for the last time. We bid adieu to faces unspeakably
dear that have broken the oblivion of many years to stand beside us a
last time by the little columns of these windows. We bid adieu to all
the fancies of youth. We bid adieu to that love which will never live
again."

[Illustration: _Fountain in the Court of Lions, Alhambra_]

"It is true," answered my friend, "but what will you say when you have
seen the Court of the Lions? Come, let us hurry."

We left the tower with hasty steps, crossed the Court of Myrtles, and
came to a little door opposite the door of entrance.

"Stop!" cried Gongora.

I stopped.

"Do me a favor?"

"A hundred."

"Only one: shut your eyes and don't open them until I tell you."

"Well, they are shut."

"See that you keep them so; I sha'n't like it if you open them."

"Never fear."

Gongora took me by the hand and led me forward: I trembled like a leaf.

We took about fifteen steps and stopped.

"Look!" said Gongora in an agitated voice.

I looked, and I swear by the head of my reader I felt two tears
trickling down my cheeks.

We were in the Court of the Lions.

If at that moment I had been obliged to go out as I had come in, I
could not have told what I had seen. A forest of columns, a vision of
arches and tracery, an indefinable elegance, an unimaginable delicacy,
prodigious wealth; an irrepressible sense of airiness, transparency,
and wavy motion like a great pavilion of lace; an appearance as of
an edifice which must dissolve at a breath; a variety of lights and
mysterious shadows; a confusion, a capricious disorder, of little
things; the grandeur of a castle, the gayety of a summer-house; an
harmonious grace, an extravagance, a delight; the fancy of an enamored
girl, the dream of an angel; a madness, a nameless something,--such is
the first effect of the Court of the Lions.

The court is not larger than a great ball-room; it is rectangular in
form, with walls no higher than a two-storied Andalusian cottage.
A light portico runs all around, supported by very slender white
marble columns grouped in symmetrical disorder, two by two and three
by three, almost without pedestals, so that they are like the trunks
of trees standing on the ground: they have varied capitals, high and
graceful, in the form of little pilasters, above which bend little
arches of very graceful form, which do not seem to rest upon the
columns, but rather to be suspended over them like curtains upholding
the columns themselves and resembling ribbons and twining garlands.
From the middle of the two shortest sides advance two groups of
columns forming two little square temples of nine arches in the form
of stalactites, fringes, pendants, and tassels that seem as though
they ought to swing and become tangled with the slightest breeze.
Large Arabian inscriptions run along the four walls, over the arches,
around the capitals, and along the walls of the little temple. In the
middle of the court rises a great marble basin supported by twelve
lions and surrounded by a paved channel, from which flow four other
smaller channels that make a cross between the four sides of the
court, cross the portico, enter the adjoining rooms, and join the
other water-courses which surround the entire edifice. Behind the two
two little temples and in the middle of the other two sides there
appear halls and suites of rooms with great open doors, through which
one can see the dark background broken by the white columns, gleaming
as if they stood at the mouth of a grotto. At every step the forest
of columns seems to move and rearrange itself in a new way; behind
a column that is apparently single spring up two, three, a row of
columns; some fade away, others unite, and still others separate:
on looking back from the end of one of the halls everything appears
different; the arches on the opposite side seem very far away; the
columns appear out of place; the little temples have changed their
form; one sees new arches rising beyond the walls, and new columns
gleaming here in the sunlight, there in the shadow, yonder scarcely
visible by the dim light which sifts through the tracery of the stucco,
and the farthest lost in the darkness. There is a constant variety of
scene, distance, deceptive effects, mysteries, and playful tricks of
the eye, produced by the architecture, the sun, and one's heightened
imagination.

"What must this _patio_ have been," said Gongora, "when the inner
walls of the portico were resplendent with mosaics, the capitals of
the columns flashed with gold, the ceilings and vaults were painted
in a thousand colors, the doors hung with silken curtains, the niches
full of flowers, and under the little temples and through the halls ran
streams of perfumed water, and from the nostrils of the lions spurted
twelve jets which fell into the basin, and the air was heavy with the
most delicious perfumes of Arabia!"

We remained in the court over an hour, and the time passed like a
flash; and I too did what all have done in that place--Spaniards and
foreigners alike, men and women, poets and those who are not poets. I
ran my hand along the walls, touched all the little columns, clasped
them one by one with my two hands like the waist of a child, hid among
them, counted them, looked at them from a hundred directions, crossed
the court in a hundred ways; tried if it were true that by speaking a
word in a deep voice in the mouth of one of the lions you could hear
it distinctly from the mouths of all the others; searched along the
marbles for the blood-spots of the romantic legends, and wearied my
eyes and brain in following the arabesques. There were a number of
ladies present. In the Court of the Lions ladies show every sort of
childish delight: they look out between two twin columns, hide in the
dark corners, sit on the floor, and stand for hours motionless, resting
their heads upon their hands, dreaming. These ladies did likewise.
There was one dressed in white who, as she passed behind the distant
columns, when she thought no one saw her assumed a certain majestic
air, like a melancholy sultana, and then laughed with one of her
friends: it was enchanting.

"Let us go," said my friend.

"Let us go," I replied, and could not move a step. I was experiencing
not only a delightful sense of surprise, but I was trembling with
pleasure, and was filled with a longing to touch, to probe, and in some
way to see behind those walls and those columns, as if they were made
of some secret material and ought to disclose in their inmost part the
first cause of the fascination which the place exerts. In all my life I
have never thought or said, or shall ever say, so many fond words, so
many foolish expressions, so many pretty, happy, senseless things, as I
thought and said at that hour.

"But one must come here at sunrise," said Gongora, "one must come at
sunset, or at night when the moon is full, to see the miracles of
color, light, and shade. It is enough to make one lose one's head."

We went to see the halls. On the eastern side is the Hall of Justice,
which is reached by passing under three great arches, each of which
corresponds with a door opening into the court. It is a long, narrow
hall, with intricate arabesques and precious mosaics, and its vaulted
ceiling all points and hollows and clusters of stucco that hang down
from the arches and run along the walls, clustered together here and
there, drooping, growing one out of the other, crowding and overtopping
each other, so that they seem to dispute the space like the bubbles
in boiling water, and still presenting in many parts traces of old
colors that must have given the ceiling the appearance of a pavilion
covered with flowers and hanging fruit. The hall has three little
alcoves, in each of which one may see a Moorish painting, to which time
and the extreme rarity of works remaining from the brush of Moorish
artists have given a very high value. The paintings are on leather,
and the leather is fastened to the wall. In the central alcove there
are painted on a golden ground ten men, supposed to be ten kings of
Granada, clothed in white, with cowls on their heads and scimitars in
their hands, sitting on embroidered cushions. The paintings in the
other two alcoves represent castles, ladies and cavaliers, hunting
scenes, and love episodes whose significance it is difficult to
understand. But the faces of the ten kings are marvellously true to
the picture one has formed of their race: there is the dark olive
complexion, the sensuous lips, the black eyes, with an intense
mysterious glance that seems always to be shining in the dark corners
of the halls of the Alhambra.

On the north side of the court there is another hall, called the
hall _De las dos Hermanas_ (of the two sisters), so called from two
great marble slabs which form the pavement. It is the most beautiful
hall in the Alhambra--a little square arched room, with one of those
ceilings in the form of a cupola which the Spaniards call half oranges,
supported by slender columns and arches arranged in a circle, all
adorned, like a grotto full of stalactites, with an infinite number
of points and hollows, colored and gilded, and so light to the view
that it seems as if they are suspended in the air, and would tremble
at a touch like a curtain or separate like a cloud or disappear like
a cluster of soap-bubbles. The walls, like those of all the other
halls, are bedecked with stucco and carved with arabesques incredibly
intricate and delicate, forming one of the most marvellous works of
human patience and imagination. The more one looks, the more numberless
become the lines which blend and cross, and from one figure springs
another, and from that a third, and all three produce a fourth that
has escaped the eye, and this divides suddenly into ten other figures
that have passed unnoticed, and then they mingle again and are again
transformed; and one never ceases to discover new combinations, for
when the first reappear they are already forgotten, and produce the
same effect as at the beginning. One would lose sight and reason in
trying to comprehend that labyrinth: it would require an hour to
study the outlines of a window, the ornaments of a pilaster, and the
arabesques of a frieze; an hour would not be sufficient to fix upon
the mind the design of one of the stupendous cedar doors. On either
side of the hall there are two little alcoves, and in the centre a
little basin with a pipe for a fountain that empties into the channel
that crosses the portico and flows to the Fountain of the Lions.

Directly opposite the entrance there is another door, through which one
passes into another long, narrow room called the Hall of the Oranges.
And from this hall, through a third door, one enters a little chamber
called the Cabinet of Lindaraja, very richly ornamented, at the end of
which there is a graceful window with two arches overlooking a garden.

To enjoy all the beauty of this magical architecture one must leave the
Hall of the Two Sisters, cross the Court of the Lions, and enter a room
called the Hall of the Abencerrages, which lies on the southern side,
opposite the Hall of the Two Sisters, to which it is very similar in
form and ornamentation. From the end of this hall one looks across the
Court of the Lions through the Hall of the Two Sisters into the Hall
of the Oranges and even into the Cabinet of Lindaraja and the garden
beyond, where a mass of verdure appears under the arches of that jewel
of a window. The two sides of this window, so diminutive and full of
light when seen in the distance from the end of that suite of darkened
rooms, look like two great open eyes, that look at you and make
you imagine that beyond them must lie the unfathomable mysteries of
paradise.

After seeing the Hall of the Abencerrages we went to see the baths,
which are situated between the Hall of the Two Sisters and the Court
of the Myrtles. We descended a flight of stairs, passed a long narrow
corridor, and came out into a splendid hall called the hall _De las
Divans_, where the favorites of the king came to rest on their Persian
rugs to the sound of the lyre after they had bathed in the adjoining
rooms. This hall was reconstructed on the plans of the ancient ruins,
and adorned with arabesques, gilded and painted, by Spanish artists
after the ancient patterns; consequently one may consider it a room of
the Moorish period remaining intact in every part. In the middle is a
fountain, and in the opposite walls are two alcoves where the women
reposed on divans, and overhead the galleries where the musicians
played. The walls are laced, dotted, checkered, and mottled with a
thousand brilliant hues, presenting the appearance of a tapestry of
Chinese stuff shot with golden threads, with an endless interweaving of
figures that must have maddened the most patient mosaic-worker on earth.

Nevertheless, a painter was at work in the hall. He was a German who
had worked for three months in copying the walls. Gongora knew him, and
asked, "It is wearisome work, is it not?"

And he answered with a smile, "I don't find it so," and bent again over
his picture.

I looked at him as if he had been a creature from another world.

We entered the little bathing-chambers, vaulted and lighted from above
by some star-and flower-shaped apertures in the wall. The bathing-tubs
are very large, single blocks of marble enclosed between two walls. The
corridors which lead from one room to the other are low and narrow,
so that a man can scarcely pass through them; they are delightfully
cool. As I stood looking into one of these little rooms I was suddenly
impressed with a sad thought.

"What makes you sad?" asked my friend.

"I was thinking," I replied, "of how we live, summer and winter, in
houses like barracks, in rooms on the third floor, which are either
dark or else flooded with a torrent of light, without marble, without
water, without flowers, without columns; I was thinking that we
must live so all our lives and die between those walls without once
experiencing the delights of these charmed palaces; I was thinking that
even in this wretched earthly life one may enjoy vastly, and that I
shall not share this enjoyment at all; I was thinking that I might have
been born four centuries ago a king of Granada, and that I was born
instead a poor man."

My friend laughed, and, taking my arm between his thumb and finger, as
if to give me a pinch, he said, "Don't think of that. Think of how much
beauty, grace, and mystery these tubs must have seen; of the little
feet that have played in their perfumed waters; of the long hair which
has fallen over their rims; of the great languid eyes that have looked
at the sky through the openings in the vaulted ceiling, while beneath
the arches of the Court of the Lions sounded the hastening step of
an impatient caliph, and the hundred fountains of the castle sighed
with a quickening murmur, 'Come! come! come!' and in a perfumed hall
a trembling slave reverently closed the windows with the rose-colored
curtains."

"Ah! leave my soul in peace!" I replied, shrugging my shoulders.

We crossed the garden of the Cabinet of Lindaraja and a mysterious
court called the _Patio de la Reja_, and by a long gallery that
commands a view of the country reached the top of one of the farthest
towers of the Alhambra, called the _Mirador de la Reina_ (the Queen's
toilet), shaded by a little pavilion and open all round, hanging over
an abyss like an eagle's nest. The view one enjoys from this point--one
may say it without fear of contradiction--has not its equal on the face
of the earth.

[Illustration: _Queen's Boudoir, Alhambra_]

Imagine an immense plain, green as a meadow, covered with young grass,
crossed in all directions by endless rows of cypresses, pines, oaks,
and poplars, dotted with dense orange-groves that in the distance look
no larger than shrubs, and with great orchards and gardens so crowded
with fruit trees that they look like green hillocks; and the river
Xenil winding through this immense plain, gleaming among the groves
and gardens like a great silver ribbon; and all around wooded hills,
and beyond the hills lofty rocks of fantastic form, which complete the
picture of a barrier-wall with gigantic towers separating that earthly
paradise from the world; and there, just beneath one's eyes, the city
of Granada, partly extending to the plain and partly on the slope of
the hill, all interspersed with groups of trees, shapeless masses of
verdure which rise and wave above the roofs of the houses like enormous
plumes, until it seems as if they were striving to expand and unite
and cover the entire city; and still nearer the deep valley of the
Darro more than covered--yes, filled to overflowing and almost heaped
full--with its prodigious growth of vegetation, rising like a mountain,
and above it there rises yet again a grove of gigantic poplars tossing
their topmost boughs so close under the windows of the tower that one
can almost touch them; and to the right beyond the Darro, on a high
hill towering toward heaven, bold and rounded like a cupola, the palace
of the Generalife, encircled by its aërial gardens and almost hidden
in a grove of laurels, poplars, and pomegranates; and in the opposite
direction a marvellous spectacle, a thing incredible, a vision of a
dream--the Sierra Nevada, after the Alps, the highest mountain-range in
Europe crowned with snow, white even to a few miles from the gates of
Granada, white even to the hills on whose sides spread the pomegranates
and palms, and where a vegetation almost tropical expands in all its
splendid pomp.

Imagine now over this vast paradise, containing all the smiling graces
of the Orient and all the severe beauties of the North, wedding Europe
to Africa, and bringing to the nuptials all the choicest marvels of
nature, and exhaling to heaven all the perfumes of the earth blended
in one breath,--imagine above this happy valley the sky and sun of
Andalusia, rolling on to its setting and tinting the peaks with a
divine rose-color, and painting the mountain-sides of the Sierra
with all the colors of the rainbow, and clothing them with all the
reflections of the most limpid azure pearls, its rays breaking in a
thousand mists of gold, purple, and gray upon the rocks encircling
the plain, and, as it sinks in a flame of fire, casting like a last
good-night a luminous crown about the gloomy towers of the Alhambra and
the flower-crowned pinnacles of the Generalife, and tell me if this
world can give anything more solemn, more glorious, more intoxicating
than this love-feast of the earth and sky, before which for nine
centuries Granada has trembled with delight and throbbed with pride?

The roof of the _Mirador de la Reina_ is supported by little Moorish
columns, between which extend flattened arches which give the pavilion
an extremely fanciful and graceful appearance. The walls are frescoed,
and one may see along the friezes the initials of Isabella and Philip
interwoven with cupids and flowers. Close by the door there still
remains a stone of the ancient pavement, all perforated, upon which
it is said the sultanas sat to be enveloped in the clouds of perfumed
vapor which arose from below.

Everything in this place tells of love and happiness. There one
breathes an air as pure as that on a mountain-peak, there one perceives
a mingled fragrance of myrtles and roses, and no other sound reaches
the ear save the murmur of the Darro as it dashes among the rocks of
its stony bed, and the singing of a thousand birds hidden in the dense
foliage of the valley; it is truly a nest of loves, a hanging alcove
where to go and dream of an aërial balcony to which one might climb and
thank God for being happy.

"Ah, Gongora," I exclaimed after contemplating for some moments that
enchanting spectacle, "I would give years of my life to be able to
summon here, with a stroke of a magic wand, all the dear ones who are
looking for me in Italy."

Gongora pointed out a large space on the wall, all black with dates and
names of visitors to the Alhambra, written with crayon and charcoal and
cut with knives.

"What is this written here?" he demanded.

I approached and uttered a cry: "Chateaubriand!"

"And here?"

"Byron!"

"And here?"

"Victor Hugo!"

After descending from the _Mirador de la Reina_ I thought I had seen
the Alhambra, and was so imprudent as to tell my friend so. If he had
had a stick in his hand, I verily believe he would have struck me; but,
as he had not, he contented himself by regarding me with the air of one
demanding whether or not I had lost my senses.

We returned to the Court of the Myrtles and visited the rooms situated
on the other side of the Tower of Comares, the greater part in ruins,
the rest altered, some absolutely bare, without either pavement or
roof, but all worth seeing, both in remembrance of what they had
been and for the sake of understanding the plan of the edifice. The
ancient mosque was converted into a chapel by Charles V., and a great
Moorish hall was changed into an oratory; here and there one still
sees the fragments of arabesques and carved ceilings of cedar-wood;
the galleries, the courts, and the vestibules remind one of a palace
dismantled by fire.

After seeing that part of the Alhambra I really thought there was
nothing else left to see, and a second time was imprudent enough to
say so to Gongora: this time he could no longer contain himself, and,
leading me into a vestibule of the Court of Myrtles and pointing to a
map of the building hanging on the wall, he said, "Look, and you will
see that all the rooms of the courts and the towers that we have so far
visited do not occupy one-twentieth part of the space embraced within
the walls of the Alhambra; you will see that we have not yet visited
the remains of the three other mosques, the ruins of the House of Cadi,
the water-tower, the tower of the Infantas, the tower of the Prisoner,
the tower of Candil, the tower of the Picos, the tower of the Daggers,
the tower of the _Siete Suelos_, the tower of the Captain, the tower of
the Witch, the tower of the Heads, the tower of Arms, the tower of the
Hidalgos, the tower of the Cocks, the tower of the Cube, the tower of
Homage, the tower of Vela, the Powder Tower, the remains of the House
of Mondejar, the military quarters, the iron gate, the inner walls, the
cisterns, the promenades; for I would have you know that the Alhambra
is not a palace: it is a city, and one could spend his life in studying
its arabesques, reading its inscriptions, and every day discovering
a new view of the hills and mountains, and going into ecstasies
regularly once every twenty-four hours."

And I thought I had seen the Alhambra!

On that day I did not wish to learn anything more, and the dear
knows how my head ached when I returned to the hotel. The day after,
at the peep of dawn, I was back at the Alhambra, and again in the
evening, and I continued to go there every day so long as I remained
at Granada, with Gongora, with other friends, with guides, or alone;
and the Alhambra always seemed vaster and more beautiful as I wandered
through the courts and halls, and passed hour after hour sitting among
the columns or gazing out of the windows with an ever-heightening
pleasure, every time discovering new beauties, and ever abandoning
myself to those vague and delightful fancies among which my mind had
strayed on the first day. I cannot tell through which entrances my
friends led me into the Alhambra, but I remember that every day on
going there I saw walls and towers and deserted streets that I had not
seen before, and the Alhambra seemed to me to have changed its site,
to have been transformed, and surrounded as if by enchantment with new
buildings that changed its original appearance. Who could describe
the beauty of those sunset views; those fantastic groves flooded with
moonlight; the immense plain and the snow-covered mountains on clear,
serene nights; the imposing outlines of those enormous walls, superb
towers, and those measureless trees under a starry sky; the prolonged
rustling of those vast masses of verdure overflowing the valleys and
climbing the hillsides? It was a spectacle before which my companions
remained speechless, although they were born in Granada and accustomed
from infancy to look upon these scenes. So we would walk along in
silence, each buried in his own thoughts, with hearts oppressed by mild
melancholy, and sometimes our eyes were wet with tears, and we raised
our faces to heaven with a burst of gratitude and love.

On the day of my arrival at Granada, when I entered the hotel at
midnight, instead of finding silence and quiet, I found the _patio_
illuminated like a ball-room, people sipping sherbet at the tables,
coming and going along the galleries, laughing and talking, and I was
obliged to wait an hour before going to sleep. But I passed that hour
very pleasantly. While I stood looking at a map of Spain on the wall a
great burly fellow, with a face as red as a beet and a great stomach
extending nearly to his knees, approached me and, touching his cap,
asked if I was an Italian. I replied that I was, and he continued with
a smile, "And so am I; I am the proprietor of the hotel."

"I am delighted to hear it, the more so because I see you are making
money."

"Great Heavens!" he replied in a tone which he wished to seem
melancholy. "Yes, ... I cannot complain; but, ... believe me, my dear
sir, however well things may go, when one is far from his native land
one always feels a void here;" and he put his hand upon his enormous
chest.

I looked at his stomach.

"A great void," repeated mine host; "one never forgets one's
country.... From what province are you, sir?"

"From Liguria. And you?"

"From Piedmont. Liguria! Piedmont! Lombardy! They are countries!"

"They are fine countries, there is no doubt of that, but, after all,
you cannot complain of Spain. You are living in one of the most
beautiful cities in the world, and are proprietor of one of the finest
hotels in the city; you have a crowd of guests all the year round, and
then I see you enjoy enviable health."

"But the void?"

I looked again at his stomach.

"Oh, I see, sir; but you are deceived, you know, if you judge me by
appearances. You cannot imagine what a pleasure it is when an Italian
comes here. What you will? Weakness it may be.... I know not, ... but
I should like to see him every day at table, and I believe that if my
wife did not laugh at me I should send him a dozen dishes on my own
account, as a foretaste."

"At what hour do you dine to-morrow?"

"At five. But, after all, ... one eats little here, ... hot country,
... everybody lives lightly, ... whatever their nationality may be....
That is the rule.... But you have not seen the other Italian who is
here?"

So saying, he turned around, and a man came forward from a corner of
the court where he had been watching us. The proprietor, after a few
words, left us alone. The stranger was a man of about forty, miserably
dressed, who spoke through closed teeth, and kept continually clenching
his hands with a convulsive motion as if he was making an effort to
keep from using his fists. He told me he was a chorus-singer from
Lombardy, and that he had arrived the day before at Granada with other
artists booked to sing at the opera for the summer season.

"A beastly country!" he exclaimed without any preamble, looking around
as if he wished to make a speech.

"Then you do not remain in Spain voluntarily?" I asked.

"In Spain? I? Excuse me: it is just as if you had asked me whether I
was staying voluntarily in a galley."

"But why?"

"Why? But can't you see what sort of people the Spaniards
are--ignorant, superstitious, proud, bloodthirsty, impostors, thieves,
charlatans, villains?"

And he stood a moment motionless in a questioning attitude, with the
veins of his neck so swollen that they seemed ready to burst.

"Pardon me," I replied; "your judgment does not seem favorable enough
to admit of my agreeing with you. When it comes to ignorance, excuse
me, it will not do for us Italians, for us who still have cities where
the schoolmasters are stoned and the professors are stabbed if they
give a zero to their scholars,--it will not do for us, I say, to pick
flaws in others. As for superstition, alas for us again! since we may
still see in that city of Italy in which popular instruction is most
widely diffused an unspeakable uproar over a miraculous image of the
Madonna found by a poor ignorant woman in the middle of a street!
As for crime, I frankly declare that if I were obliged to draw a
comparison between the two countries before an audience of Spaniards,
with the statistics now in hand, without first proving my data and
conclusions, I should be very much alarmed.... I do not wish to say
by this that we are not, on the whole, sailing in smoother water than
is Spain. I wish to say that an Italian in judging the Spanish, if he
would be just, must be indulgent."

"Excuse me: I don't think so. A country without political direction!
a country a prey to anarchy! a country--Come, now, cite me one great
Spaniard of the present day."

"I cannot, ... there are so few great men anywhere."

"Cite me a Galileo."

"Oh, there are no Galileos."

"Cite me a Ratazzi."

"Well, they have none."

"Cite me ... But, really, they have nothing. And then, does the country
seem beautiful to you?"

"Ah! excuse me; that point I will not yield: Andalusia, to cite a
single province, is a paradise; Seville, Cadiz, and Granada are
splendid cities."

"How? Do you like the houses of Seville and Cadiz, with walls that
whiten a poor devil from head to foot whenever he happens to touch
them? Do you like those streets along which one can hardly pass after
a good dinner? And do you find the Andalusian women beautiful with
their devilish eyes? Come, now, you are too indulgent. They are not a
_serious_ people. They have summoned Don Amadeus, and now they don't
want him. They are not worthy of being governed by a _civilized man_."
(These were his actual words.)

"Then you don't find any good in Spain?"

"Not the least."

"But why do you stay?"

"I stay ... because I make my living here."

"Well, that is something."

"But what a living! It is a dog's life! Everybody knows what Spanish
cooking is."

"Excuse me: instead of living like a dog in Spain, why not go and live
like a man in Italy?"

Here the poor artist seemed somewhat disconcerted, and I, to relieve
his annoyance, offered him a cigar, which he took and lighted without
a word. And he was not the only Italian in Spain who had spoken to me
in those terms of the country and its inhabitants, denying even the
clearness of the sky and the grace of the Andalusian women. I do not
know what enjoyment there can be in travelling after this fashion, with
the heart closed to every kindly sentiment, and continually on the
lookout to censure and despise, as if everything good and beautiful
which one finds in a foreign country has been stolen from our own,
and as if we are of no account unless we run down everybody else. The
people who travel in such a mental attitude make me pity rather than
condemn them, because they voluntarily deprive themselves of many
pleasures and comforts. So it appears to me, at least, to judge others
by myself, for wherever I go the first sentiment which the sights and
the people inspire in me is a feeling of sympathy; a desire not to find
anything which I shall be obliged to censure; an inclination to imagine
every beautiful thing more beautiful; to conceal the unpleasant things,
to excuse the defects, to be able to say candidly to myself and others
that I am content with everything and everybody. And to arrive at this
end I do not have to make any effort: everything presents itself
almost spontaneously in its most pleasing aspect, and my imagination
benignly paints the other aspects a delicate rose-color. I know well
that one cannot study a country in this way, nor write sage essays, nor
acquire fame as a profound thinker; but I know that one travels with a
peaceful mind, and that such travels are of unspeakable benefit.

The next day I went to see the Generalife, which was a sort of villa
of the Moorish kings, and whose name is linked to that of the Alhambra
as is that of the Alhambra to Granada; but now only a few arches and
arabesques remain of the ancient Generalife. It is a small palace,
simple and white, with few windows, and an arched gallery surrounded
with a terrace, and half hidden in the midst of a grove of laurel and
myrtles, standing on the summit of a mountain covered with flowers,
rising upon the right bank of the Darro opposite the hill of the
Alhambra. In front of the façade of the palace extends a little garden,
and other gardens rise one above another almost in the form of a
vast staircase to the very top of the mountain, where there extends
a very high terrace that encloses the Generalife. The avenues of the
gardens and the wide staircases that lead from one to another of the
flower-beds are flanked by high espaliers surmounted by arches and
divided by arbors of myrtle, curved and intertwined with graceful
designs, and at every landing-place rise white summer-houses shaded by
trellises and picturesque groups of orange trees and cypresses. Water
is still as abundant as in Moorish times, and gives the place a grace,
freshness, and luxuriance impossible to describe. From every part one
hears the murmur of rivulets and fountains; one turns down an avenue
and finds a jet of water; one approaches a window and sees a stream
reaching almost to the window-sill; one enters a group of trees and
the spray of a little waterfall strikes one's face; one turns and sees
water leaping, running, and trickling through the grass and shrubbery.

From the height of the terrace one commands a view of all those gardens
as they slope downward in platforms and terraces; one peers down
into the abyss of vegetation which separates the two mountains; one
overlooks the whole enclosure of the Alhambra, with the cupolas of its
little temples, its distant towers, and the paths winding among its
ruins; the view extends over the city of Granada with its plain and
its hills, and runs with a single glance along all the summits of the
Sierra Nevada, that appear so near that one imagines they are not an
hour's walk distant. And while you contemplate that spectacle your ear
is soothed by the murmur of a hundred fountains and the faint sound of
the bells of the city, which comes in waves scarcely audible, bearing
with it the mysterious fragrance of this earthly paradise which makes
you tremble and grow pale with delight.

[Illustration: _Court of the Generalife, Granada_]

Beyond the Generalife, on the summit of a higher mountain, now bleak
and bare, there rose in Moorish times other royal palaces, with gardens
connected with each other by great avenues lined with myrtle hedges.
Now all these marvels of architecture encircled by groves, fountains,
and flowers, those fabulous castles in the air, those magnificent and
fragrant nests of love and delight, have disappeared, and scarcely
a heap of rubbish or a short stretch of wall remains to tell their
story to the passer-by. But these ruins, that elsewhere would arouse a
feeling of melancholy, do not have such an influence in the presence
of that glorious nature whose enchantment not even the most marvellous
works of man have ever been able to equal.

On re-entering the city I stopped at one end of the _Carrera
del Darro_, in front of a house richly adorned with bas-reliefs
representing heraldic shields, armor, cherubs, and lions, with a little
balcony, over one corner of which, partly on one wall and partly on
another, I read the following mysterious inscription stamped in great
letters:

          "ESPERANDO LA DEL CIELO,"

which, literally translated, signifies "_Awaiting her in Heaven_."
Curious to learn the hidden meaning of those words, I made a note of
them, so that I might ask the learned father of my friend about them.
He gave me two interpretations, the one almost certainly correct, but
not at all romantic; the other romantic, but very doubtful. I give the
last: The house belonged to Don Fernando de Zafra, the secretary of
the Catholic kings. He had a very beautiful daughter. A young hidalgo,
of a family hostile or inferior in rank to the house of Zafra, became
enamored of the daughter, and, as his love was returned, he asked
for her hand in marriage, but was refused. The refusal of her father
stirred the love of the two young hearts to flame: the windows of the
house were low; the lover one night succeeded in making the ascent
and entered the maiden's room. Whether he upset a chair on entering,
or coughed, or uttered a low cry of joy on seeing his beautiful love
welcoming him with open arms, the tradition does not tell, and no one
knows; but certain it is that Don Fernando de Zafra heard a noise, ran
in, saw, and, blind with fury, rushed upon the ill-fated young man
to put him to death. But he succeeded in making his escape, and Don
Fernando in following him ran into one of his own pages, a partisan
of the lovers, who had helped the hidalgo to enter the house: in his
haste his master mistook him for the betrayer, and, without hearing his
protests and prayers, he had him bound and hanged from the balcony. The
tradition runs that while the poor victim kept crying, "Pity! pity!"
the outraged father responded as he pointed toward the balcony, "Thou
shalt stay there _esperando la del Cielo_!" (awaiting her in heaven)--a
reply which he afterward had cut in the stone walls as a perpetual
warning to evil-doers.

I devoted the rest of the day to the churches and monasteries.

The cathedral of Granada deserves to be described part by part in
an even higher degree than the cathedral of Malaga, although it too
is beautiful and magnificent; but I have already described enough
churches. Its foundation was laid by the Catholic kings in 1529 upon
the ruins of the principal mosque of the city, but it has never been
finished. It has a great façade with three doorways, adorned with
statues and bas-reliefs, and it consists of five naves, divided by
twenty measureless pilasters, each composed of a bundle of slender
columns. The chapels contain paintings by Boccanegra, sculptures by
Torrigiano, and tombs and other precious ornaments. Admirable above all
is the great chapel, supported by twenty Corinthian columns divided
into two orders, upon the first of which rise colossal statues of
the twelve apostles, and on the second an entablature covered with
garlands and heads of cherubs. Overhead runs a circle of magnificent
stained-glass windows, which represent the Passion, and from the frieze
which crowns them leap ten bold arches forming the vault of the chapel.
Within the arches that support the columns are six great paintings by
Alonzo Cano, which are said to be his most beautiful and finished work.

And since I have spoken of Alonzo Cano, a native of Granada, one of
the strongest Spanish painters of the seventeenth century, although
a disciple of the Sevillian school rather than the founder, as some
assert, of a school of his own, but less original than his greatest
contemporaries,--since I have spoken of him, I wish here to record some
traits of his genius and anecdotes of his life little known outside
of Spain, although exceedingly remarkable. Alonzo Cano was the most
quarrelsome, the most irascible, and the most violent of the Spanish
painters. He spent his life in contention. He was a priest. From 1652
to 1658, for six consecutive years, without a day's intermission, he
wrangled with the canons of the cathedral of Granada, of which he was
steward, because he was not willing to become subdeacon in accordance
with the stipulated agreement; before leaving Granada he broke into
pieces with his own hands a statue of Saint Anthony of Padua which he
had made to the order of an auditor of the chancery, because the man
allowed himself to observe that the price demanded seemed a little
dear. Chosen master of design to the royal prince, who, as it appears,
was not born with a talent for painting, he so exasperated his pupil
that the boy was obliged to have recourse to the king that he might
be taken out of his hands. Remanded to Granada, to the neighborhood
of the chapter of the cathedral, as an especial favor, he bore such a
deep rancor from his old litigations with his canons that throughout
his life he would not do a stroke of work for them. But this is a small
matter. He nursed a blind, bestial, inextinguishable hatred against the
Hebrews, and was firmly convinced that in any way to touch a Hebrew or
any object that a Hebrew had touched would bring him misfortune. Owing
to this conviction he did some of the most extravagant feats in the
world. If in walking along the street he ran against a Jew, he would
strip off the infected garment and return home in his shirt-sleeves.
If by chance he succeeded in discovering that in his absence a servant
had admitted a Jew into the house, he discharged the servant, threw
away the shoes with which he had touched the pavement profaned by the
circumcised, and sometimes even had the pavement torn up and reset. And
he found something to find fault with even as he was dying. When he was
approaching the end of life the confessor handed him a clumsily-made
crucifix that he might kiss it, but he pushed it away with his hand,
saying, "Father, give me a naked cross, that I may worship Jesus Christ
as He Himself is and as I behold Him in my mind." But, after all, his
was a rare, charitable nature which abhorred every vulgar action,
and loved with a deep and very pure love the art in which he remains
immortal.

On returning to the church after I had made the round of all the
chapels and was preparing to leave, I was impressed by a suspicion that
there was something else still to be seen. I had not read the Guidebook
and had been told nothing, but I heard an inner voice which said to
me, "Seek!" and, in fact, I sought with my eyes in every direction,
without knowing what I sought. A cicerone noticed me and sidled up to
me, as all of his kind do, like an assassin, and asked me with an air
of mystery, "_Quiere usted algo?_" (Do you wish something, sir?)

"I should like to know," I replied, "if there is anything to see in
this cathedral besides that which I have seen already?"

"How!" exclaimed the cicerone; "you have not seen the royal chapel,
have you, sir?"

"What is there in the royal chapel?"

"What is there? Caramba! Nothing less than the tombs of Ferdinand and
Isabella the Catholics."

I could have said so! I had in my mind a place ready for this idea,
and the idea was lacking! The Catholic kings must certainly have been
buried in Granada, where they fought the last great chivalrous war of
the Middle Ages, and where they gave Christopher Columbus a commission
to fit out ships which bore him to the New World. I ran rather than
walked to the royal chapel, preceded by the limping cicerone; an old
sacristan opened the door of the sacristy, and before he allowed me to
enter and see the tombs he led me to a sort of glass cupboard full of
precious objects, and said to me, "You will remember that Isabella the
Catholic, to furnish Christopher Columbus with the money that he needed
to supply the ships for the voyage, not knowing where to turn because
the coffers of the state were empty, put her jewels in pawn."

"Yes: well?" I demanded impatiently; and, divining the answer, felt my
heart beat faster the while.

"Well," replied the sacristan, "that is the box in which the queen
locked her jewels to send them to be pawned."

And so saying he opened the cupboard and took out the box and handed it
to me.

Oh! brave men may say what they will; as for me, there are things that
make me tremble and weep. I have touched the box that contained the
treasure by which Columbus was enabled to discover America. Every time
I repeat those words my blood is stirred, and I add, "I have touched it
with these hands," and I look at my hands.

That cupboard contains also the sword of King Ferdinand, the crown and
sceptre of Isabella, a missal and some other ornaments of the king and
queen.

We entered the chapel. Between the altar and a great iron chancel that
separates it from the remaining space stand two great mausoleums of
marble adorned with statuettes and bas-reliefs of great value. Upon
one of them lie the statues of Ferdinand and Isabella in their royal
robes, with crown, sword, and sceptre; on the other the statues of the
other two princes of Spain, and around the statues lions, angels, and
arms, and various ornaments, presenting a regal appearance, austere and
magnificent.

The sacristan lighted a flambeau, and, pointing out a sort of trap-door
in the pavement between the two mausoleums, asked me to open it and
descend into the subterranean chamber. With the cicerone's aid I opened
the trap-door; the sacristan descended, and I followed him down a
narrow little staircase until we reached a little room. There were five
caskets of lead, bound with iron bands, each sealed with two initials
under a crown. The sacristan lowered the torch, and, touching all five
of them, one after another, with his hand, said in a slow, solemn voice,

"Here rests the great queen Isabella the Catholic.

"Here rests the great king Ferdinand V.

"Here rests the king Philip I.

"Here rests Queen Joanna the Mad.

"Here rests Lady Maria, her daughter, who died at the age of nine years.

"God keep them all in his holy peace!"

And, placing the torch on the ground, he crossed his arms and closed
his eyes, as if to give me time for meditation.

One would become a hunchback at his desk if he were to describe all
the religious monuments of Granada--the stupendous Cartuja; the Monte
Sacro, containing the grottoes of the martyrs; the church of San
Geronimo, where the great leader Gonzalez di Cordova is buried; the
convent of Santo Domingo, founded by Torquemada the Inquisitor; the
convent of the Angels, containing paintings by Cano and Murillo and
many others; but I suppose that my readers may be even more weary than
I am, and will consequently pardon me for passing by a mountain of
description which probably would only give them a confused idea of the
things described.

But as I have mentioned the sepulchre of the great commander, Gonzalez
di Cordova, I cannot forbear translating a curious document in
reference to him which was shown me in the church of San Geronimo by a
sacristan who was an admirer of the deeds of that hero. The document,
in the form of an anecdote, is as follows:

"Every step of the great captain Don Gonzalez di Cordova was an
assault, and every assault a victory; his sepulchre in the convent of
the Geronomites at Granada was adorned with two hundred banners which
he had taken. His envious rivals, and the treasurers of the kingdom of
Naples in particular, induced the king in 1506 to demand a statement
from Gonzalez of the use he had made of the great sums received from
Spain for the conduct of the war in Italy; and, in fact, the king was
so small as to consent, and even to be present on the occasion of the
conference.

"Gonzalez acceded to the demand with the haughtiest disdain, and
proposed to give a severe lesson to the treasurers and the king upon
the treatment and consideration to be accorded a conqueror of kingdoms.

"He replied with great indifference and calmness that he would prepare
his accounts for the following day, and would let it appear which was
the debtor, himself or the exchequer, which demanded an account of one
hundred and thirty thousand ducats delivered upon the first payment,
eighty thousand crowns upon the second, three millions upon the third,
eleven millions upon the fourth, thirteen millions upon the fifth,
and so on as the solemn, nasal, foolish secretary who authorized so
important an act continued to enumerate the sums.

"The great Gonzalez kept his word, presented himself at the second
audience, and, bringing out a voluminous book in which he had noted his
justification, he began with the following words in a deep, sonorous
voice:

"'Two hundred thousand seven hundred and thirty-six ducats and nine
reales to the fathers, the nuns, and the poor, to the end that they
might pray God for the triumph of the Spanish arms.

"'One hundred thousand ducats for powder and shot.

"'Ten thousand ducats for perfumed gloves to protect the soldiers from
the stench of the corpses of the enemy left on the field of battle.

"'One hundred and seventy thousand ducats for renewing bells worn out
by continuous ringing for constant new victories over the enemy.

"'Fifty thousand ducats for brandy for the soldiers on the day of
battle.

"'A million and a half ducats for the maintenance of the prisoners and
wounded.

"'A million for returning thanks and Te Deums to the Omnipotent.

"'Three hundred millions in masses for the dead.

"'Seven hundred thousand four hundred and ninety-four ducats for spies
and ...

"'One hundred millions for the patience which I showed yesterday on
hearing that the king demanded an account from the man who has given
him his kingdom.'

"These are the celebrated accounts of the great captain, the originals
of which are in the possession of Count d'Altimira.

"One of the original accounts, with the autograph seal of the great
captain, exists in the Military Museum of London, where it is guarded
with great care."

On reading this document I returned to the hotel, making invidious
comparisons between Gonzalez di Cordova and the Spanish generals of our
times, which, for grave state reasons, as they say in the tragedies, I
dare not repeat.

In the hotel I saw something new every day. There were many university
students who had come from Malaga and other Andalusian cities to take
the examination for the doctor's degree at Granada, whether because
they were a little easier there or for what other reason I do not
know. We all ate at a round table. One morning at breakfast one of the
students, a young man of about twenty, announced that at two o'clock
he was to be examined in canon law, and that, not feeling very sure of
himself, he had decided to take a glass of wine to refresh the springs
of eloquence. He was accustomed to drink only wine weakened with water,
and committed the imprudence of emptying at a single draught a glass
of the vintage of Xerez. His face changed in an instant in so strange
a manner that if I had not seen the transformation with my own eyes I
should not have believed that he was the same person.

"There! that is enough!" cried his friends.

But the young man, who already felt that he had become suddenly strong,
keen, and confident, cast a compassionate glance at his companions, and
with a lordly gesture ordered the waiter to fetch him another glass.

"You will be drunk," they said.

His only response was to drain a second glass.

Then he became wonderfully talkative. There was a score of persons
at table: in a few minutes he was conversing with them all, and he
revealed a thousand secrets of his past life and his plans for the
future. He said that he was from Cadiz, that he had eight thousand
francs a year to spend, and that he wished to devote himself to a
diplomatic career, because with that revenue, added to something which
his uncle would leave him, he should be able to cut a good figure
wherever he might be; that he had decided to take a wife at thirty, and
to marry a woman as tall as himself, because it was his opinion that
the wife should be of the same stature as her husband, to keep either
from getting the upper hand of the other; that when he was a boy he
was in love with the daughter of an American consul as beautiful as a
flower and strong as a pine, but she had a red birth-mark behind one
ear, which looked badly, although she knew how to cover it very well
with her scarf, and he showed us with his napkin how she covered it;
and that Don Amadeus was too ingenuous a man to succeed in governing
Spain; that of the poets Zorilla and Espronceda, he had always
preferred Espronceda; that it would be folly to cede Cuba to America;
that the examination on canon law made him laugh; and that he wished to
drink another four fingers of Xerez, the finest wine in Europe.

He drank a third glass in spite of the good counsel and disapprobation
of his friends, and after prattling a little longer amid the laughter
of his audience, he suddenly became silent, looked fixedly at a lady
sitting opposite to him, dropped his head, and fell asleep. I thought
that he could not present himself for the examination that day, but
was mistaken. A short hour later they awakened him; he went up stairs
to wash his face, ran off to the university still drowsy, took his
examination, and was promoted, to the greater glory of the wine of
Xerez and Spanish diplomacy.

I devoted the following days to visiting the monuments, or, to be
more accurate, the ruins of the Moorish monuments which besides the
Alhambra and the Generalife attest the ancient splendor of Granada.
Insomuch as it was the last bulwark of Islam, Granada is the city which
presents the most numerous relics of all the cities of Spain. On the
hill called the hill of _Dinadamar_ (the Fountain of Tears) one may
still see the ruins of four towers rising at the four corners of a
great cistern into which flowed the waters from the Sierra to supply
the highest part of the city. There were baths, gardens, and villas of
which not a trace remains: from that point one overlooked the city with
its minarets, its terraces, and its mosques gleaming among the palms
and cypresses. Near there one sees a Moorish gate called the gate of
Elvira--a great arch crowned with battlements--and beyond it are the
ruins of the palaces of the caliphs. Near the Alameda promenade stands
a square tower in which there is a great hall ornamented with the usual
Arabian inscriptions. Near the convent of San Domingo are the remains
of gardens and palaces once joined to the Alhambra by a subterranean
passage. Within the city is the Alcaiceria, a Moorish market almost
perfectly preserved, formed of a few little streets as straight and
narrow as corridors, lined with two rows of shops, one adjoining the
other, and presenting the strange appearance of an Asiatic bazaar.
In short, one cannot take a step in Granada without coming face to
face with an arch, an arabesque, a column, or a pile of stones which
suggests its fantastic, luxurious past.

What turns and windings have I not made through those tortuous streets
at the hottest hour of the day, under a sun that shrivelled my brain,
without meeting a living soul! At Granada, as in the other cities of
Andalusia, the people are alive only at night, and the night repays
them for the imprisonment of the day; the public promenades are crowded
and confused by the hurry and jostling of a multitude, one half of
which seems to be seeking the other half upon urgent business. The
crowd is densest in the Alameda, but, for all that, I spent my evenings
on the Alameda with Gongora, who talked to me of Moorish monuments, and
with a journalist who discoursed on politics, and also with another
young man who talked of women, and frequently with all three of them
together, to my infinite pleasure, because those cheery meetings, like
those of school-boys, at odd times and places, refreshed my mind, to
steal a beautiful simile, like a summer shower refreshes the grass as
it falls faster and faster, dancing for joy.

If I were obliged to say something about the people of Granada, I
should be embarrassed, because I have not seen them. In the day-time
I met no one in the streets, and at night I could not see them. The
theatres were not open, and when I might have found some one in the
city I was wandering through the halls or avenues of the Alhambra; and
then I had so much to do to see everything in the short time which I
had allowed myself that no unoccupied moments remained for those chance
conversations, like the ones I had in the other cities, in the streets
and the cafés, with whomever I happened to meet.

But from what I learned from men who were in a position to give me
trustworthy information, the people of Granada do not enjoy an enviable
reputation in Spain. They are said to be ill-tempered, violent,
vindictive, and bloodthirsty; and this arraignment is not disproved by
the pages of the city newspapers. It is not publicly stated, but every
one knows it for a fact, that popular instruction in Granada is at a
lower ebb than even in Seville and the other smaller Spanish cities,
and, as a rule, everything that cannot be produced by the sun and the
soil, which produce so bountifully, goes to the bad, either through
indolence or ignorance or shiftlessness. Granada is not connected
by railway with any important city: she lives alone, surrounded by
her gardens, enclosed by her mountains, happy with the fruits which
Nature produces under her hand, gently lulling herself to sleep in the
vanity of her beauty and the pride of her history--idle, drowsy, and
fanciful, content to answer with a yawn to any one who reproves her
for her condition: "I gave Spain the painter Alonzo Cano, the poet
Louis de Leon, the historian Fernando de Castillo, the sacred orator
Luis di Grenada, and the minister Martinez de la Rosas. I have paid
my debt, leave me in peace;" and this is the reply made by almost all
the southern cities of Spain, more beautiful, alas! than wise and
industrious, and proud rather than civilized. Ah! one who has seen them
can never have done exclaiming, "What a pity!"

"Now that you have seen all the marvels of Moorish art and tropical
vegetation there remains the suburb of the Albaicin to be seen before
you can say that you know Granada. Prepare your mind for a new world,
put your hand on your purse, and follow me."

So said Gongora to me on the last evening of my sojourn in Granada.
A Republican journalist was with us, Melchiorre Almago by name, the
director of the _Idea_, a congenial, affable young man, who to
accompany us sacrificed his dinner and a leading article that he had
been cogitating since morning.

We walked on until we came to the square of the _Audiencia_. There
Gongora pointed out an alley winding up a hill, and said to me, "Here
commences the Albaicin;" and Señor Melchiorre, touching a house with
his cane, added, "Here commences the territory of the republic."

We turned up the alley, passed from it into another, and from that into
a third, always ascending, without my seeing anything extraordinary,
although I looked curiously in every direction. Narrow streets, squalid
houses, old women dozing on the doorsteps, mothers carefully inspecting
their children's heads, gaping dogs, crowing cocks, ragged boys running
and shouting, and the other things that one always sees in the suburbs;
but in those streets nothing more. But gradually, as we ascended, the
appearance of the houses and the people began to change; the roofs
became lower, the windows fewer, the doors smaller, and the people more
ragged. In the middle of every street ran a little stream in a walled
gutter, in the Moorish style; here and there over the doors and around
the windows one saw the remains of arabesques and fragments of columns,
and in the corners of the squares fountains and well-curbs of the time
of the Moorish dominion. At every hundred steps it seemed as if we had
gone back fifty years toward the age of the caliphs. My two companions
touched me on the elbow from time to time, saying as they did so, "Look
at that old woman!"--"Look at that little girl!"--"Look at that man!"
and I looked, and asked, "Who are these people?" If I had unexpectedly
found myself in that place, I should have believed on seeing those men
and women that I was in an African village, so strange were the faces,
the dress, the manner of moving, talking, and looking, at so short a
distance from the centre of Granada--so different were they from the
people that I had seen up to that time. At every turn I stopped to look
in the face of my companions, and they answered, "That is nothing; we
are now in the civilized part of the Albaicin; this is the Parisian
quarter of the suburb; let us go on."

We went on, and the streets seemed like the bed of a torrent--paths
hollowed out among the rocks, all banks and gullies, broken and
stony--some so steep that a mule could not climb them, others so narrow
that a man could scarcely pass; some blocked by women and children
sitting on the ground, others grass-grown and deserted; and all so
squalid, wild, and uncouth that the most wretched of our villages
cannot give one an idea of them, because this is a poverty that bears
the impress of another race and another continent. We turned into a
labyrinth of streets, passing from time to time under a great Moorish
arch or through a high square from which one commanded a view of the
wide valleys, the snow-covered mountains, and a part of the lower city,
until finally we arrived at a street rougher and narrower than any we
had yet seen; and there we stopped to take breath.

"Here commences the real Albaicin," said the young archeologist. "Look
at that house!"

I looked; it was a low, smoke-stained, ruinous house, with a door that
seemed like the mouth of a cavern, before which one saw, under a mass
of rags, a group, or rather a heap, of old women and little children,
who upon our approach raised their eyes heavy with sleep, and with bony
hands removed from the threshold some filth which impeded our passage.

"Let us enter," said my friend.

"Enter?" I demanded.

If they had told me that beyond those walls there was a facsimile of
the famous Court of Miracles which Victor Hugo has described, I should
not have doubted their word. No door has ever said more emphatically
than that, "Stand back!" I cannot find a better comparison than the
gaping mouth of a gigantic witch breathing out pestilential vapors. But
I took courage and entered.

Oh, marvellous! It was the court of a Moorish house surrounded by
graceful little columns surmounted by lovely arches, with those
indescribable traceries of the Alhambra along the porticoes and around
the mullioned windows, with the beams and ceiling carved and enamelled
with little niches for vases of flowers and urns of perfume, with a
pool in the middle, and all the traces and memorials of the delicate
life of an opulent family. And in that house lived those wretched
people!

We went out and entered other houses, in all of which I found some
fragments of Moorish architecture and sculpture. From time to time
Gongora would say to me, "This was a harem. Those were the baths of
the women; up yonder was the chamber of a favorite;" and I fixed my
eyes upon every bit of the arabesqued wall and upon all the little
columns of the windows, as if to ask them for a revelation of their
secrets--only a name or a magic word with which I might reconstruct in
an instant the ruined edifice and summon the beautiful Arabians who had
dwelt there. But, alas! amid the columns and under the arches of the
windows there were only rags and wrinkled faces.

Among other houses, we entered one where we found a group of girls
sewing under the shade of a tree in the courtyard, directed by an old
woman. They were all working upon a great piece of cloth that seemed
like a mat or a bed-spread, in black and gray stripes. I approached and
asked one of the girls, "What is this?"

They all looked up and with a concerted movement spread the cloth open,
so that I could see their work plainly. Almost before I had seen it I
cried, "I will buy it."

They all began to laugh. It was the mantle of an Andalusian
mountaineer, made to wear in the saddle, rectangular in form, with
an opening in the middle to put one's head through, embroidered in
bright-colored worsteds along the two shortest sides and around the
opening. The design of the embroideries, which represented birds
and fantastic flowers, green, blue, white, red, and yellow, all in
a mass, was as crude as a pattern a child might make: the beauty of
the work lay altogether in the harmony of the colors, which was truly
marvellous. I cannot express the sensation produced by the sight of
that mantle, except by saying that it laughed and filled one with its
cheerfulness; and it seems to me impossible to imagine anything gayer,
more festive, or more childishly and gracefully capricious. It was a
thing to look upon in order to bring yourself out of a bad humor, or
when you wish to write a pretty verse in a lady's album, or when you
are expecting a person whom you wish to receive with your brightest
smile.

"When will you finish these embroideries?" I asked one of the girls.

"_Hoy mismo_" (to-day), they all replied in chorus.

"And what is the mantle worth?"

"_Cinco_" (five), stammered one.

The old women pierced her with a glance which seemed to say,
"Blockhead!" and answered hastily, "Six _duros_."

Six _duros_ are thirty francs; it did not seem much to me, and I put my
hand in my pocket.

Gongora cast a withering glance at me which seemed to say, "You
simpleton!" and, drawing me back by the arm, said, "One moment: six
_duros_ is an exorbitant price."

The old woman shot him another glance which seemed to say, "Brigand!"
and replied, "I cannot take less."

Gongora gave her another glance, which seemed to say, "Liar!" and said,
"Come, now; you can take four _duros_; you would not ask more from the
country-people."

The old woman insisted, and for a while we continued to exchange with
our eyes the titles of simpleton, swindler, marplot, liar, pinch-penny,
spend-thrift, until the mantle was sold to me for five duros, and I
paid and left my address, and we went out blessed and commended to
God by the old woman and followed a good way by the black eyes of the
embroiderers.

We went on from street to street, among houses increasingly wretched
and growing blacker and blacker, and more revolting rags and faces. But
we never came to the end, and I asked my companions, "Will you have the
goodness to tell me if Granada has any limits, and if so where they
are? May one ask where we are going and how we shall return home?" But
they simply laughed and went forward.

"Is there anything stranger than this to be seen?" I asked at a certain
point.

"Stranger?" they both replied. "This second part of the suburb which
you have seen still belongs to civilization: if not the Parisian, it is
at least the Madrid, quarter of the Albaicin, and there _is_ something
else; let us go on."

We passed through a very small street containing some scantily-clothed
women, who looked like people fallen from the moon; crossed a little
square full of babies and pigs in friendly confusion; passed through
two or three other alleys, now climbing, now descending, now in the
midst of houses, now among piles of rubbish, now between trees and
now among rocks, until we finally arrived at the solitary place on a
hillside from which we saw in front the Generalife, to the right the
Alhambra, and below a deep valley filled with a dense wood.

It was growing dark; no one was in sight and not a voice was heard.

"Is this the end of the suburb?" I asked.

My two companions laughed and said, "Look in that direction."

[Illustration: _The Alhambra and the Valley of the Darro_]

I turned and saw along the street that was lost in a distant grove
an interminable row of houses. Of houses? Rather of dens dug in the
earth, with a bit of wall in front, with holes for windows and
crevices for doors, and wild plants of every sort on top and along
the sides--veritable caves of beasts, in which by the glow of faint
lights, scarcely visible, swarmed the gypsies by hundreds; a people
multiplying in the bowels of the mountain, poorer, blacker, and more
savage than any seen before; another city, unknown to the greater part
of Granada, inaccessible to the police, closed to the census-officers,
ignorant of every law and of all government, living one knows not
how, how numerous no one knows, foreign to the city, to Spain, and to
modern civilization, with a language and statutes and manners of their
own--superstitious, false, thieving, beggarly, and fierce.

"Button up your coat and look out for your watch," said Gongora to me,
"and let us go forward."

We had not taken a hundred steps when a half-naked boy, black as the
walls of his hovel, ran out, gave a cry, and, making a sign to the
other boys who followed him, dashed toward us; behind the boys came the
women; behind the women the men, and then old men, old women, and more
children; and in less time than it takes to tell it we were surrounded
by a crowd. My two friends, recognized as Granadines, succeeded in
saving themselves; I was left in the lurch. I can still see those
horrid faces, still hear those voices, and still feel the pressure of
those hands: gesticulating, shouting, saying a thousand things which I
did not understand; dragging at my coat, my waistcoat, and my sleeves,
they pressed upon me like a pack of famished people, breathed in my
face, and cut off my very breath. They were, for the most part, half
naked and emaciated--their garments falling in tatters, with unkempt
hair, horrible to see; I seemed to be like Don Roderick in the midst of
a crowd of the infected in that famous dream of the August night.

"What do these people want?" I asked myself. "Where have I been
brought? How shall I get out of this?" I felt almost a sense of fear,
and looked around uneasily. Little by little I began to understand.

"I have a sore on my shoulder," said one; "I cannot work; give me a
penny."

"I have a broken leg," said another.

"I have a palsied arm."

"I have had a long sickness."

"_Un cuarto, Señorito!_"

"_Un real, caballero!_"

"_Una peseta para todos!_"

This last request was received with a general cry of approval: "_Una
peseta para todos!_" (a _peseta_ for us all).

With some little trepidation I drew out my purse; they all stood on
tiptoe; the nearest poked their chins into it; those behind put their
chins on the heads of those in front; the farthest stretched out their
arms.

"One moment," I cried. "Who has the most authority among you all?"

They all replied with one voice, stretching out their arms toward the
same person, "That one."

It was a terrible old hag, all nose and chin, with a great tuft of
white hair standing straight above her head like a bunch of feathers,
and a mouth which seemed like a letter-box, with little clothing save a
chemise--black, shrivelled, and mummified; she approached me bowing and
smiling, and held out her hands to take mine.

"What do you want?" I demanded, taking a step backward.

"Your fortune," they all cried.

"Tell my fortune, then," I replied, holding out my hand.

The old woman took my poor hand between her ten--I cannot say fingers,
but shapeless bones--placed her sharp nose on it, raised her head,
looked hard at me, pointed her finger toward me, and, swaying and
pausing at every sentence as if she were reciting poetry, said to me in
inspired accents, "Thou wert born upon a famous day.

"Upon a famous day also shalt thou die.

"Thou art the possessor of amazing riches."

Here she muttered I know not what about sweethearts and marriage and
felicity, from which I understood that she supposed I was married,
and then she continued: "On the day of thy marriage there was great
feasting in thy house; there were many to give and take.

"And another woman wept.

"And when thou seest her the wings of thy heart open."

And so on in this strain, saying that I had sweethearts and friends
and treasures and jewels in store for me every day of the year, in
every country of the world. While the old woman was speaking they
were all silent, as if they believed she had prophesied truly. She
finally closed her prophecy with a formula of dismissal, and ended the
formula by extending her arms and making a skip in a dancing attitude.
I gave her the peseta, and the crowd broke into shouting, applause,
and singing, making a thousand uncanny hops and gestures around me,
saluting me with nudges and slaps of the hand on my back, as if I were
an old friend, until finally, by dint of wriggling and striking now
one and then another, I succeeded in opening a passage and rejoined
my friends. But a new danger threatened us. The news of the arrival
of a foreigner had spread, the tribes were in motion, the city of the
gypsies was all in an uproar; from the neighboring houses and from the
distant huts, from the top of the hill and the bottom of the valley,
ran boys, women with babies about their necks, old men with canes,
cripples, and professional imposters, septuagenarian prophetesses who
wished to tell my fortune--an army of beggars coming upon us from every
direction. It was night; there was no time for hesitation; we broke
into a run toward the city like school-boys. Then a devilish cry broke
out behind us, and the nimblest began to chase us. Thanks to Heaven!
after a short race we found ourselves in safety--tired and breathless,
and covered with dust, but safe.

"It was necessary to escape at any cost," said Señor Melchiorre with a
laugh; "otherwise we should have gone home without our shirts."

"And take notice," added Gongora, "that we have seen only the door of
Gypsy-town, the civilized part, not the Paris nor the Madrid, but at
least the Granada, of the Albaicin. If we could only have gone on! if
you could have seen the rest!"

"But how many thousand are there of those people?" I demanded.

"No one knows."

"How do they live?"

"No one can imagine."

"What authority do they recognize?"

"One only--_los reyes_ (the kings), the heads of families or of houses,
those who have the most money and years. They never go out of their
city; they know nothing, they live in the dark as to all that happens
beyond the circle of their hovels. Dynasties fall, governments change,
armies clash, and it is a miracle if the news ever reaches their ears.
Ask them if Isabella is still on the throne; they do not know. Ask
them who Amadeus is; they have never heard his name. They are born
and perish like flies, and they live as they lived centuries ago,
multiplying without leaving their own boundaries, ignorant and unknown,
seeing nothing all their lives beyond the valleys lying below their
feet and the Alhambra towering above their heads."

We passed again through all the streets that we had traversed, now
dark and deserted, and endless as it seemed to me; and, climbing and
descending, turning and twisting, and turning again, we finally arrived
at the square of the Audiencia in the middle of the city of Granada--in
the civilized world. At the sight of the brightly-lighted cafés and
shops I experienced a feeling of pleasure, as if I had just returned to
city-life after a year's sojourn in an uninhabited wilderness.

On the evening of the next day I left for Valencia. I remember that a
few moments before starting, as I was paying my hotel-bill, I observed
to the proprietor that there was an overcharge for one candle, and
playfully asked him, "Will you deduct it for me?" The proprietor seized
his pen, and, deducting twenty centimes from the total charge, replied
in a voice which he wished to appear emotional, "The devil! among
Italians!"




VALENCIA.


The journey from Granada to Valencia, made all _de un tiron_ (at one
breath), as they say in Spain, is one of those recreations in which a
rational man indulges only once in his life. From Granada to Menjibar,
a village on the left bank of the Guadalquivir, between Jaen and
Andujar, is a night's ride by diligence; from Menjibar to the Alcazar
de San Juan is a half-day's journey by railway in an uncurtained
carriage, through a plain as bare as the palm of one's hand, under
a blazing sun; and from the Alcazar de San Juan to Valencia, taking
account of an entire evening spent in the station of the Alcazar, makes
another night and another morning before one reaches the longed-for
city at noon, where Nature, as Emile Praga would say, is horrified at
the dreadful idea that there are still four months of summer.

But it must be said that the country through which one passes is
so beautiful from beginning to the end that if one were capable of
appreciation when one is dead with sleep and finds one's self turning
into water by reason of the heat, one would go into ecstasies a
thousand times. It is a journey of unexpected landscapes, sudden
vistas, remarkable contrasts, theatrical effects of Nature, so to
speak--marvellous and fantastic transformations, which leave in the
mind an indescribable, vague illusion of having passed not through a
part of Spain, but along an entire meridian of the earth across the
most dissimilar countries. From the _vega_ of Granada, which you cross
in the moonlight, almost opening a way among the groves and gardens,
in the midst of a luxuriant vegetation that seems to crowd around
you like a tossing sea, ready to overflow and engulf you with its
billows of verdure,--from this you emerge into the midst of ragged
and precipitous mountains, where not a trace of human habitation is
to be seen; you graze the edge of precipices, wind along the banks of
mountain-torrents, run along at the bottom of the ravines, and seem to
be lost in a rocky labyrinth. Then you come out a second time among
the green hills and flowery fields of upper Andalusia, and then, all
suddenly, the fields and hills disappear and you find yourself in the
midst of the rocky mountains of the Sierra Morena, that hang over
your head from every direction and close the horizon all around like
the walls of an immense abyss. You leave the Sierra Morena, and the
desert plains of La Mancha stretch before you; you leave La Mancha and
advance through the flowery plain of Almansa, varied by every sort of
cultivation, presenting the appearance of a vast carpet of checkered
pattern colored in all the shades of green that can be found upon the
pallet of a landscape-painter. And, finally, the plain of Almansa opens
into a delightful oasis, a land blest of God, a true earthly paradise,
the kingdom of Valencia, from whose boundaries, even to the city
itself, you pass through gardens, vineyards, fragrant orange-groves,
white villas encircled by terraces, cheerful, brightly-colored
villages, clusters, avenues, and groves of palms, pomegranates,
aloes, and sugar-canes, interminable hedges of Indian fig, long
chains of low hills, and conical mounds cultivated as kitchen-gardens
and flower-beds, laid out with minute care from top to bottom, and
variegated like great bunches of grass and flowers; and everywhere a
vigorous vegetation which hides every bare spot, covers every height,
clothes every projection, climbs, falls, trails along, marches forward,
overflows, intertwines, shuts off the view, impedes the road, dazzles
with its verdure, wearies with its beauty, confounds with its caprices
and its frolics, and produces an effect as of a sudden parting of the
earth raised to fever heat by the fires of a secret volcano.

The first building which meets the eye on entering Valencia is an
immense bull-ring situated to the right of the railway. The building
consists of four orders of superimposed arches rising on stout
pilasters, all of brick, and in the distance resembling the Colosseum.
It is the bull-ring where on the fourth of September, 1871, King
Amadeus, in the presence of thousands of spectators, shook hands with
Tato, the celebrated one-legged _torero_, who as director of the
spectacle had asked permission to render his homage in the royal box.
Valencia is full of mementos of the duke d'Aosta. The sacristan of the
cathedral has in his possession a gold chronometer bearing the duke's
initials in diamonds, with a chain of pearls, which was presented by
him when he went to pray in the chapel of Our Lady of the Desolate.
In the hospice of the same name the poor remember that one day they
received their daily bread from his hand. In the mosaic workshop of
one Nolla they preserve two bricks, upon one of which he cut his own
name with his sword, and upon the other the name of the queen. In the
Plaza di Tetuan the people point out the house of Count di Cervellon,
where he was entertained; it is the same house in which Ferdinand
VII. signed the decrees annulling the constitution in 1814, in which
Queen Christina abdicated the throne in 1840, in which Queen Isabella
spent some days in 1858. In short, there is not a corner of the city
of which it cannot be said, Here he shook hands with a working-man,
here he visited a factory, there he passed on foot far from his suite,
surrounded by a crowd, trustful, serene, and smiling.

It was in Valencia, since I am speaking of the duke d'Aosta,--it was
in the city of Valencia that a little girl of five years in reciting
some verses touched upon that terrible subject of a _foreign king_
with probably the noblest and most considerate words spoken in Spain
for many years previous to that time--words which, if all Spain had
remembered and pondered then, would perhaps have spared her many of
those calamities which have befallen her, and others which still
threaten; words which perhaps one day some Spaniard may repeat with
a sigh, and which already at this time draw from events a marvellous
light of truth and beauty. And, since these verses are graceful and
simple, I transcribe them here. The poem is entitled "God and the
King," and runs as follows:

    "Dios, en todo soberano,
    Creó un dia á los mortales,
    Y á todos nos hizo iguales
    Con su poderosa mano.

    "No reconoció Naciones
    Ni colores ni matices?
    Y en ver los hombres felices
    Cifró sus aspiraciones.

    "El Rey, che su imágen es,
    Su bondad debe imitar
    Y el pueblo no ha de indagar
    Si es aleman ó francés.

    "Porqué con ceño iracundo
    Rechazarle siendo bueno?
    Un Rey de bondades lleno
    Tiene por su patria el mundo.

    "Vino de nacion estraña
    Cárlos Quinto emperador,
    Y conquistó su valor
    Mil laureles para España.

    "Y es un recuerdo glorioso
    Aunque en guerra cimentado,
    El venturoso reinado
    De Felipe el Animoso.

    "Hoy el tercero sois vos
    Nacido en estraño suelo
    Que viene á ver nuestro cielo
    Puro destello de Dios.

    "Al rayo de nuestro sol
    Sed bueno, justo y leal,
    Que á un Rey bueno y liberal
    Adora el pueblo español.

    "Y á vuestra frente el trofeo
    Ceñid de perpetua gloria,
    Para que diga la historia
    --Fué grande el Rey Amadeo."

"God, Ruler over all, created mortals one day, and made all equal
with His mighty hand. He recognized neither nations nor colors nor
divisions, and to behold men happy was His desire. The king, who is His
image, ought to imitate His goodness, and the people have no need to
ask whether he be German or French. Why, then, with angry frown repulse
him if he be good? A king abounding in good deeds holds the world as
his country. Charles V., the emperor, came from a foreign nation, and
by his valor won a thousand laurels for Spain. And the fortunate reign
of Philip the Courageous is a glorious memory even though founded upon
war.

"To-day a third king rules you born on a foreign soil, who comes to
look upon our sky, a clear spark of God. His love is true and just and
loyal to the light of our sun, and this is a good and liberal king
Spanish people adore. And around your brows you shall wear the trophy
of perpetual glory upon which history shall write, 'Great was King
Amadeus.'"

Oh, poor little girl! how many wise things you have said! and how many
foolish things others have done!

The city of Valencia, if one enters it with one's mind full of the
ballads in which the poets sang of its marvels, does not seem to
correspond to the lovely image formed of it; neither, on the other
hand, does it offer that sinister appearance for which one is prepared
if one considers its just fame as a turbulent, warlike city, the
fomenter of civil strife--a city prouder of the smell of its powder
than of the fragrance of its orange-groves. It is a city built in the
midst of a vast flowery plain on the right bank of the Guadalquivir,
which separates it from the suburbs, a little way from the roadstead
which serves as a port, and consists all of tortuous streets lined with
high, ungainly, many-colored houses, and on this account less pleasing
in appearance than the streets of the Andalusian cities, and entirely
devoid of that evasive Oriental grace which so strangely stirs one's
fancy. Along the left bank of the river extends a magnificent promenade
formed of majestic avenues and beautiful gardens. These one reaches by
going out of the city through the gate of the Cid, a structure flanked
by two great embattled towers named after the hero because he passed
through it in 1094 after he had expelled the Moors from Valencia. The
cathedral, built upon the spot where stood a temple of Diana in Roman
times, then a church of San Salvador in the time of the Goths, then
a mosque in Moorish times, afterward converted into a church by the
Cid, changed a second time into a mosque by the Moors in 1101, and
for the third time into a church by King Don Jayme after the final
overthrow of the invaders, is a vast structure, exceedingly rich in
ornaments and treasures, but it cannot bear comparison with the greater
number of the other Spanish cathedrals. There are a few palaces worth
seeing, besides the palace of the Audiencia, a beautiful monument of
the sixteenth century in which the Cortes of the kingdom of Valencia
assembled; the _Casa de Ayuntamiento_, built between the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, in which are preserved the sword of Don Jayme, the
keys of the city, and the banner of the Moors; and, above all, _the
Lonja_--the Bourse of the merchants--notable for its celebrated hall
consisting of three great naves divided by twenty-four spiral columns,
above which curve the light arches of the vaulted roof in bold lines,
the architecture imparting to the eye a pleasing impression of gayety
and harmony. And, finally, there is the art-gallery, which is not one
of the least in Spain.

But, to tell the truth, in those few days that I remained at Valencia
waiting for the boat I was more occupied by politics than by art. And
I proved the truth of the words I heard an illustrious Italian say
before I left Italy--one who knew Spain like his his own home: "The
foreigner who lives even for a short time in Spain is drawn little
by little, almost insensibly, to heat his blood and muddle his brain
over politics, as if Spain were his own country or as if the fortunes
of his country were depending upon those of Spain. The passions are
so inflamed, the struggle is so furious, and in this struggle there
is always so clearly at stake the future, the safety, and the life of
the nation, that it is impossible for any one with the least tinge
of the Latin blood in his imagination and his system to remain an
indifferent spectator. You must needs grow excited, speak at party
meetings, take the elections seriously, mingle with the crowd at the
political demonstrations, break with your friends, form a clique of
those who think as you think--make, in a word, a Spaniard of yourself,
even to the whites of your eyes. And gradually, as you become Spanish,
you forget Europe, as if it were at the antipodes, and end in seeing
nothing beyond Spain, as if you were governing it, and as if all its
interests were in your hands."

Such is the case, and this was my experience. In those few days the
Conservative ministry was shipwrecked and the Radicals had the wind
behind them. Spain was all in a ferment; governors, generals, officials
of all grades and of all administrations fell; a crowd of parvenus
burst into the offices of the ministry with cries of joy: Zorilla was
to inaugurate a new era of prosperity and peace; Don Amadeus had had an
inspiration from heaven; liberty had conquered; Spain was saved. And
I, as I listened to the band playing in front of the new governor's
mansion under a clear starry sky in the midst of a joyous crowd,--I too
had a ray of hope that the throne of Don Amadeus might finally extend
its roots, and reproached myself for being too prone to predict evil.
And that comedy which Zorilla played at his villa when he would by no
means accept the presidency of the ministry, and sent back his friends
and the members of the deputation, and finally, tired of continually
saying no, fell into a swoon on saying yes, this, I say, gave me at
the time a high opinion of the firmness of his character and led me to
augur happily for the new government. And I said to myself that it was
a sin to leave Spain just when the horizon was clearing and the royal
palace of Madrid was tinted rose-color. And I had already considered
the plan of returning to Madrid that I might have the satisfaction
of sending some consoling news to Italy, and so be pardoned for the
imprudence of sending unvarnished accounts of the situation up to that
time. And I repeated the verses of Prati:

    "Oh qual destin t'aspetta
    Aquila giovenetta!"

(Oh what a destiny awaits thee, young eagle!) And, save a little
bombast in the appellation, it seemed to me that they contained a
prophecy, and I imagined meeting the poet in the Piazza Colonna at
Rome and running toward him to offer my congratulations and press his
hand....

The most beautiful sight in Valencia is the market. The Valencian
peasants are the most artistic and bizarre in their dress of all the
peasants of Spain. To cut a good figure in a group of maskers at one
of our masquerades they need only enter the theatre dressed as they
would be on a festival or market-day in the streets of Valencia and
along the country roads. On first seeing them dressed in this style,
one laughs, and cannot in any way be brought to believe that they are
Spanish peasants. They have an indescribable air of Greeks, Bedouins,
buffoons, tightrope-walkers, women partly undressed on their way to
bed, the silent characters of a play not quite ready to make their
appearance, or facetious people who wish to make themselves generally
ridiculous. They wear a full white shirt that takes the place of a
jacket; a parti-colored velvet waistcoat open at the breast; a pair of
zouave linen breeches which do not reach the knee, looking like drawers
and standing out like the skirts of a ballet-dancer; a red or blue sash
around the waist; a sort of embroidered white woollen stockings that
leave the knee bare; a pair of corded sandals like those of the Catalan
peasants; and on their heads, which are almost all shaved like those
of the Chinese, they wear a handkerchief, red, sky-blue, yellow, or
white, bound around like a cornucopia, and knotted at the temples or
at the nape of the neck. They sometimes wear small velvet hats similar
in shape to those worn in the other provinces of Spain. When they go
into the city they nearly all carry around their shoulders or on their
arms, now like a shawl, now like a mantle, or again like a little
cape, a woollen _capa_, long and narrow, in brightly-colored stripes
in which white and red predominate, adorned with fringe and rosettes.
One may easily imagine the appearance presented by a square where there
are gathered some hundreds of men dressed after this fashion: it is a
Carnival scene, a festival, a tumult of colors, that makes one feel as
gay as a band of music; a spectacle at once clownish, pretty, imposing,
and ridiculous, to which the haughty faces and the majestic bearing
which distinguish the Valencian peasants add an air of gravity which
heightens the extraordinary beauty of the scene.

If there is an insolent, lying proverb, it is that old Spanish one
which says, "In Valencia flesh is grass, grass is water, men are
women, and the women nothing." Leaving that part about the flesh and
the grass, which is a pun, the men, especially those of the lower
classes, are tall and robust, and have the bold appearance of the
Catalans and Arragonese, with a livelier and more luminous expression
of the eye; and the women, by the consent of all the Spaniards and
of as many foreigners as have travelled in Spain, are the most
classically beautiful in the country. The Valencians, who know that
the eastern coast of the Peninsula was originally settled by Greeks
and Carthaginians, say, "It is a clear case. The Grecian type of
beauty has lingered here." I do not venture to say yes or no to this
assertion, for to describe the beauty of the women of a city where
one has passed only a few hours would seem to me like a license to be
taken only by the compiler of a "Guide." But one can easily discover
a decided difference between the Andalusian and Valencian types of
beauty. The Valencian is taller, more robust, and fairer, with more
regular features, gentler eyes, and a more matronly walk and carriage.
She does not possess the bewitching air of the Andalusian, which makes
it necessary to bite one's finger as if to subdue the sudden and
alarming insurrection of one's capricious desires at sight of her; but
the Valencian is a woman whom one regards with a feeling of calmer
admiration, and while one looks one says, as La Harpe said of the
Apollo Belvidere, "_Notre tete se releve, notre maintien s'ennoblit_,"
and instead of imagining a little Andalusian house to hide her from the
eyes of the world, one longs for a marble palace to receive the ladies
and cavaliers who will come to render her homage.

If one is to believe the rest of the Spaniards, the Valencian people
are fierce and cruel beyond all imagination. If one wishes to get rid
of an enemy, he finds an obliging man who for a few crowns undertakes
the business with as much indifference as he would accept a commission
to carry a letter to the post. A Valencian peasant who finds that he
has a gun in his hands as he passes an unknown man in a lonely street
says to his companion, "See if I can aim straight?" and takes aim and
fires. This actually occurred not many years ago: I was assured of its
truth. In the cities and villages of Spain the boys and young men of
the people are accustomed to play at being bulls, as they call it. One
takes the place of the bull and does the butting; another, with a sharp
stick under his arm like a lance, climbs on the back of a third, who
represents the horse, and repulses the assaults of the first. Once a
band of young Valencians thought they would introduce some innovations
into this sport, and so make it seem a little more realistic and afford
the spectators and the participants a little more amusement than the
customary way of playing it; and the innovations were to substitute
for the stick a long sharp-pointed knife, one of those formidable
_navajas_ that we saw at Seville, and to give the man who took the part
of the bull two other shorter knives, which, fastened firmly on either
side of his head, answered the purpose of horns. It seems incredible,
but it is true. They played with the knives, shed a sea of blood,
several were killed, some were mortally wounded, and others badly hurt,
without the game becoming a fight, without the rules of the sport
being transgressed, and without any one raising his voice to end the
slaughter.

I tell these things as they were told to me, although I am far from
believing all that is said against the Valencians; but it is certain
that at Valencia the public safety, if not a myth, as our papers
poetically say in speaking of Romagna and Sicily, is certainly not the
first of the good things which one enjoys after the blessing of life. I
was persuaded of this fact the first evening of my stay in the city. I
did not know the way to the port, but thought I was near it, and asked
a shop-woman which way I should take. She uttered a cry of astonishment:

"Do you wish to go to the port, _caballero_?"

"Yes."

"_Ave Maria purissima!_ to the port at this hour?"

And she turned toward a group of women who were standing by the door,
and said to them in the Valencian dialect, "Women, do you answer for
me: this gentleman is asking me the way to the port!"

The women replied in one voice, "God save him!"

"But from what?"

"Don't risk yourself, sir."

"What is your reason?"

"A thousand reasons."

"Tell me one of them?"

"You would be murdered."

One reason was enough for me, as any one can imagine, and I did not go
to the port.

For the rest, at Valencia as elsewhere, in whatever intercourse I had
with the people I met only with courtesy as a foreigner and as an
Italian--a friendly welcome even among those who would not hear foreign
kings discussed in general, and princes of the house of Savoy in
particular, and such men were numerous, but they were courteous enough
to say at once, "Let us not harp on that string." To a foreigner who,
when asked whence he comes, replies, "I am a Frenchman," they respond
with an agreeable smile, as if to say, "We recognize each other." To
one who answers, "I am a German or an Englishman," they make a slight
inclination of the head, which implies, "I bow to you;" but when one
replies, "I am an Italian," they eagerly extend the hand as if to
say, "We are friends;" and they look at one with an air of curiosity,
as you look for the first time at a person who is said to resemble
you, and they smile pleasantly on hearing the Italian tongue, as you
would smile on hearing some one, though in no mocking spirit, imitate
your voice and accents. In no country in the world does an Italian
feel nearer home than in Spain. The sky, the speech, the faces, and
the dress remind him of his fatherland; the veneration with which
the Spanish pronounce the names of our great poets and our great
painters, that vague and pleasing sense of curiosity with which they
speak of our famous cities, the enthusiasm with which they cultivate
our music, the impulsiveness of their affections, the fire of their
language, the rhythms of their poetry, the eyes of their women, the air
and the sun,--oh! an Italian must be without a spark of love for his
fatherland who does not feel an emotion of sympathy for this country,
who does not feel inclined to excuse its errors, who does not sincerely
deplore its misfortunes, who does not desire for it a happy future. O
beautiful hills of Valencia, smiling banks of the Guadalquivir, charmed
gardens of Granada, little white cottages of Seville, proud towers of
Toledo, roaring streets of Madrid, and venerable walls of Saragossa!
and you, kindly hosts and courteous companions of my travels--you who
have spoken to me of Italy as of a second fatherland, who with your
festal gayety have scattered my restless melancholy!--I shall always
carry deep down in my heart a feeling of gratitude and love for you,
and I shall cherish your images in my memory, as one of the dearest
recollections of my youth, and shall always think of you as one of the
loveliest dreams of my life.

I repeated these words to myself at midnight as I looked over
brightly-lighted Valencia, leaning against the rail of the good ship
_Xenil_, which was on the point of sailing. Some young Spaniards had
come on board with me. They were going to Marseilles to take ship from
that port to the Antilles, where they expected to remain for some
years. One of them stood alone weeping; suddenly he raised his head and
looked toward the shore between two anchored vessels, and exclaimed in
a tone of desolation, "Oh, my God! I hoped she would not come!"

In a few moments a boat approached the ship; a little white figure,
followed by a man enveloped in a cloak, hastily climbed the ladder, and
with a deep sob threw herself into the arms of the young man, who had
run to meet her.

At that moment the boatswain called, "All off, gentlemen!"

Then there followed a most distressing scene: the two young persons
were torn apart, and the young lady was borne almost fainting to the
boat, which pushed off a little and remained motionless.

The ship started.

The young man dashed madly forward toward the rail, and, sobbing, cried
in a voice that pierced one's heart, "Adieu, darling! adieu! adieu!"

The little white figure stretched out her arms and perhaps responded,
but her voice was not heard. The boat was dropped behind and
disappeared.

One of the young men said to me in a whisper, "They are betrothed."

It was a lovely night, but sad. Valencia was soon lost to view, and I
thought I should never see Spain again, and wept.


END OF VOL. II.




INDEX.


A.

  Abdelasio reconstructs the Alcazar of Seville, ii. 121.

  Abdurrahman I. builds the mosque of Cordova, ii. 68.

  Abdurrahman I. builds Medina Az-Zahra, ii. 88;
    his happy days, ii. 89.

  Abencerrages, Hall of the, Alhambra, ii. 209.

  Abrantes, duke d', at the bull-fights, 209.

  Absolutist party, 96.

  Academy, a dream of the, 280.

  Academy of San Fernando, Madrid, 193.

  Acquasola gardens, Genoa, 10.

  Alameda, Granada, ii. 188, ii. 241.

  Alarcon y Mendoza, Juan Ruiz de, dramatist, 169.

  Alarmed travellers, ii. 9, ii. 55.

  Albaicin at Granada, ii. 244;
    courtyard in, ii. 246;
    fortune-telling, ii. 253;
    government of, ii. 255;
    ignorance in, ii. 256;
    Parisian quarter, ii. 245;
    squalor of, ii. 251.

  Albornoz, Gil Carillo de, tomb of, Toledo, ii. 29.

  Alcaiceria, Granada, ii. 241.

  Alcala street, Madrid, 156, 168.

  Alcanadre, Roman aqueduct at, 91.

  Alcantara, bridge of, Toledo, ii. 18.

  Alcazar de San Juan, ii. 259;
    of Seville, ii. 120;
    of Toledo, ii. 39.

  Alcayde of Saragossa's bold republicanism, 83.

  Aleardi Gaetano, on the can-can, 171.

  Alfonso and the Cid, 121.

  Alfonso the Wise, MSS. of, ii. 118;
    tomb of, ii. 109.

  Alfonso VIII. defeats the Moors at las Navas de Tolosa, ii. 61.

  Alfonso XII., favored by the Moderate party, 96.

  Algaba, ii. 118.

  Algeciras, Gulf of, ii. 168.

  Alhambra, arabesques, ii. 197, 208, ii. 210, ii. 211;
    baths, ii. 211;
    cabinet of Linderaja, ii. 209;
    Charles V.'s palace, ii. 192;
    Court of Lions, ii. 201;
    Court of Myrtles, ii. 194;
    fascination of, ii. 205;
    Gate of Justice, ii. 192;
    grounds of ii. 190;
    Hall of Abencerrages, ii. 209;
    Hall of Barca, ii. 197;
    Hall of Divans, ii. 210;
    Hall of Justice, ii. 206;
    Hall of Oranges, ii. 209;
    Hall of the Ambassadors, ii. 198;
    Hall of the Two Sisters, ii. 207;
    Mirador de la Reina, ii. 212, ii, 215;
    mosque, ii. 216;
    paintings in, ii. 207;
    Patio de la Reja, ii. 212;
    realization of a dream, ii. 200;
    situation of, ii. 190;
    Tower of Commares, ii. 196;
    Tower of the Ambassadors, ii. 196;
    vastness of the, ii. 217;
    view from, ii. 213.

  Ali Pacha, relics of, 176.

  Almago, Melchiorre, republican journalist, ii. 243.

  Almansa, plain of, ii. 260.

  Almansur builds Zahira, ii. 89.

  Almodovar, castle of, ii. 99.

  Altimura, Count d', possesses the fiscal accounts of Gonzalez di
    Cordova, ii. 237.

  Alvarez, Gen., house of, at Gerona, 16.

  Amadeus at Gerona, 16;
    at Logroño, 85;
    at Madrid, 166, 194;
    at Saragossa, 82;
    at the bull-fights, 213;
    at Valencia, ii. 262;
    character of, 201;
    courage of, 199;
    court-life of, 194;
    encourages bull-fights, 223, 235;
    hostility of the newspapers to, 93, 200;
    hostility of the soldiery to, 204;
    prejudice against, 15, 33, 80.

  Ambassadors, Hall of the, Alhambra, ii. 198;
    at Seville, ii. 124;
    Tower of the, Alhambra, ii. 196.

  Amusements, 168.

  Andalusian characteristics, 36;
    dialect, ii. 93;
    scenery, ii. 61, 100, ii. 177;
    women, ii. 79, ii. 93, ii. 126.

  Angels, convent of, Granada, ii. 238.

  Ansurez, Pedro, tomb of, 137.

  Aosta, duke d'. See Amadeus.

  Aqueduct, Roman, at Segovia, 124.

  Arabesques in the Alhambra, beauty of, ii. 197;
    intricacy of design, ii. 197, ii. 208, ii. 210, ii. 211.

  Aranjuez, arrival at, ii. 10;
    gardens, ii. 12;
    historic associations, ii. 11;
    royal palace, ii. 11;
    suburbs of, ii. 10.

  Argamasilla de Alba, birthplace of Don Quixote, ii. 58.

  Argensola, the brothers, 72;
    sonnet by, 73.

  Arjonilla, ii. 62.

  Armory, royal, at Madrid, 174.

  Arragon, decay of, 52;
    dialect of, 54;
    independence of, 49;
    mountains of, 48.

  Artillery museum at Madrid, 180.

  Asturia, prince of, title instituted, 98.

  Atocha, Church of Our Lady of, Madrid, 166, 204;
    street of, Madrid, 174.

  Avilo, 124.

  "Awaiting her in heaven," ii. 227.

  Ayala, d', dramatist, 169.


  B.

  Banderillas, de fuego, 226.

  Barber of Seville, house of the, ii. 132.

  Barcelona, arrival at, 20;
    cafés, 30;
    carnival masqueraders, 22;
    Catalonian peculiarities, 35;
    cathedral, 24;
    cemetery, 27;
    Cervantes on, 42;
    circus, 235;
    dialect, 21;
    foreign hotel waiters, 20;
    palaces, 26;
    revolutionary proclivities, 35;
    Roman ruins, 26;
    streets, 22;
    suburbs, 22;
    theatre, 40;
    women of, 41.

  Baretti, Giuseppe, 206; ii. 82.

  Barili, Anton Giulio, travelling companion, 10.

  Batista, Juan, architect of the Escurial, 260.

  Beatrice, Queen, tomb of, ii. 109.

  Beggary, modest, 135.

  Berruguete, Alonzo, carvings by, at Toledo, ii. 25;
    at Valladolid, 146.

  Berseo, poet, 283.

  Blanca, Florida, tomb of, Seville, ii. 109.

  Boabdil's helmet, 176.

  Boccanegra, paintings by, at Granada, ii. 229.

  Bohl, Catherine de Faber ("Fernan Caballero"), 281;
    ascetic character of, ii. 140;
    charity of, ii. 141;
    genius of, ii. 139;
    history of, ii. 140.

  Boldan, painting by, at Seville, ii. 109.

  Bollo, a delicious cake, 31.

  Boscan, Juan, poet, influence on Spanish literature, 37.

  Bosch, Jacob van den, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  Bourse, the, at Saragossa, 74;
    at Valencia, ii. 266.

  Brazil, Dom Pedro, emperor of, arrives at Burgos, 123.

  Breton de los Herreres, Manuel, dramatist, 169, 281.

  Breughel, Jan, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  Bridge of Alcantara, Toledo, ii. 18.

  Briviesca, States-general, 98.

  Brujola, mountain of, 98.

  Buen Retiro garden at Madrid, 166, 174.

  Bull-fights at Madrid, 206;
    accidents, 225;
    anticipations of, 207;
    arena, the, 203;
    attendance, 208;
    banderillas, de fuego, 226;
    banderilleros, 214, 219, 220;
    brutality of, 227, 229;
    capeadors, 214, 217, 219, 220;
    chulos or apprentices, 214, 216, 217;
    dangers of, 229;
    death of the bull, 222, 228;
    disgusting spectacle, 218;
    entrance of the cuadrilla, 214;
    entrance of the bull, 215;
    espadas, 221;
    excitement of audience, 215, 224;
    exits, the, 232;
    fights in the audience, 230;
    final impressions, 231;
    getting into position, 215;
    history of, 234;
    Homeric struggle, 221;
    national amusement, the, 235;
    picadores, 214, 216, 218;
    picturesque scene, 214;
    sale of tickets, 207;
    torturing the bulls into fighting, 226;
    trophies of victory, 223;
    with other wild animals, 239.

  Bull-fighters, amateur, 237;
    artistic gradations, 241;
    dress, 240;
    female toreros, 238;
    lucrative business, 241.

  Burgos, arrival at, 98;
    birthplace of the Cid, 119;
    cathedral, 104;
    Cid's coffer, 112;
    gate of St. Maria, 104;
    houses, 101;
    municipal palace, 103;
    "remains of the Cid," 103;
    seats of the first judges, 103;
    "The Christ," 111;
    streets, 101;
    tobacco-shops, 118;
    undertaker's shop, 117;
    women hotel servants, 99.

  Byron, Lord, writing of, at the Alhambra, ii. 216.


  C.

  Caballero, Fernan. See Bohl, Catherine.

  Cadiz, arrival at, ii. 158;
    astronomical facilities, ii. 163;
    bird's-eye view, ii. 162;
    cathedral, ii. 163;
    circus, 235;
    commercial decay, ii. 161;
    historical remains, ii. 161;
    houses, ii. 160;
    Murillo's last painting, ii. 163;
    revolutionary tendencies, ii. 160;
    streets, ii. 160;
    whiteness, ii. 158;
    women, ii. 164.

  Cafés: Barcelona, 30;
    Madrid, 173;
    Miranda, 95.

  Calahorra, battle of, 91.

  Calderon de la Barca, Pedro, poet, 169;
    ii. 93.

  Calderon, Francesco, the matador, 207;
    patronizes cock-fights, 249, 250.

  Campana, Pedro, paintings by, at Seville, ii. 109.

  Can-can at Madrid, 171.

  Candan, political leader, 96.

  Cano, Alonzo, character of, ii. 231;
    hatred of Jews, ii. 231;
    history of, ii. 230;
    paintings by, at Granada, ii. 230, ii. 235;
    at Madrid, 182, 193;
    at Seville, ii. 132.

  Canovas del Castillo, political leader, 96.

  Canovist party, 96.

  Carbajal, Bernardino, paintings by, at Madrid, 182, 193.

  Cardenas, paintings by, at Valladolid, 143.

  Cardenio's penance, scene of, ii. 60.

  Carducci, Vincenzo, paintings by, at Madrid, 182;
    at Valladolid, 143.

  Carlists, 32, 33, 96, 194.

  Carlos I., Don, tomb of, 266.

  Carlos II., Don, tomb of, 266.

  Carlos III., Don, tomb of, 266.

  Carnival masqueraders at Barcelona, 22;
    at Saragossa, 65, 68.

  Cartuja convent, Granada, ii. 245.

  Castaños, Gen. Francisco Xavier, defeated at Tudela, 91.

  Castelar, Emilio, as an orator, 279;
    as a political leader, 80, 96;
    eloquence, 276;
    friendship, 291;
    on Arragon, 50;
    personal popularity, 277;
    ruler of the Assembly, 279.

  Castilian dialect, 39, 55;
    scenery, 124.

  Castillego, ii. 55.

  Castles: Almodovar, ii. 99;
    Hornachuelos, ii. 99;
    Monzon, 51;
    Pancorbo, 98;
    San Servando, ii. 41.

  Catalan characteristics, 35;
    dialect, 15, 39;
    dress, 18;
    hospitality, 148;
    school-boys, 46.

  Catalonia, description of, 18, 48.

  Cathedrals: Barcelona, 24;
    Burgos, 104;
    Cadiz, ii. 163;
    Cordova, ii. 74;
    Granada, ii. 329;
    Our Lady of the Pillar, Saragossa, 60;
    San Salvador, Saragossa, 65;
    Seville, ii. 108;
    Toledo, ii. 23;
    Valencia, ii. 266;
    Valladolid, 136.

  Cava, Los Baños de la, at Toledo, ii. 46.

  Cayetano, the matador, 214, 240.

  Cellini, Benvenuto, crucifix by, at the Escurial, 263.

  Cemetery, Barcelona, 27.

  Cervantes, Saavedra Miguel de, at Seville, ii. 103;
    house at Valladolid, 137;
    imprisoned at Argamasilla de Alba, ii. 58;
    naturalness of Don Quixote, ii. 57;
    on Barcelona, 42;
    popularity of, 286;
    statue at Madrid, 156;
    story of, 139.

  Cervellon, Count di, entertains Amadeus at Valencia, ii. 262.

  Cervera, 48.

  Ceuta, ii. 168.

  Cespedes, Pablo de, born at Cordova, ii. 90;
    paintings by, at Seville, ii. 132;
    quotation from, ii. 90.

  Charlemagne and the Moor, ii. 43.

  Charles I. (afterward Emperor Charles V. of Germany), altar at
    the Escurial, 272;
    anger at the destruction of mosque of Cordova, ii. 74;
    apartments at Aranjuez, ii. 13;
    a bull-fighter, 234;
    converts mosque of the Alhambra into a chapel, ii. 216;
    married in Alcazar of Seville, ii. 121;
    monumental gate at Burgos, 104;
    on the Spanish language, 160;
    palace in the Alhambra, ii. 192;
    relics of, 175, 176, ii. 112;
    statue at the Escurial, 262;
    tomb at the Escurial, 265, 267.

  Charles II. encourages bull-fights, 234;
    portrait at the Escurial, 264.

  Charles III. forbids bull-fights, 235;
    statue at Burgos, 102.

  Charles IV.'s billiard-room in palace of Aranjuez, ii. 13;
    resigns the crown, ii. 11.

  Chateaubriaud, François Auguste, Viscount de, writing in the
    Alhambra, ii. 216.

  Chocolate, Spanish, 31.

  Chorizos, 14, 162.

  Christina abdicates the throne at Valencia, ii. 262;
    promenade, Seville, ii. 104.

  Chulos, 214.

  Churches: Nuestra Señora, Toledo, ii. 50;
    Our Lady of Atocha, Madrid, 166;
    San Geronimo, Granada, ii. 235;
    San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, ii. 36;
    Santiago, Saragossa, 74;
    St. Agnes, Burgos, 121.

  Cid Campeador, the, and King Alfonso, 121;
    and the Jew, 120;
    at Valencia, ii. 266;
    birthplace, 120;
    coffer, 112;
    portrait of, 104;
    remains, 103;
    statue, 104;
    sword, 176;
    originator of bull-fights, 234.

  Cigars and cigarettes, 118;
    vs. pipes, 132.

  Cimbrios party, 96.

  Claude, Lorraine, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  Clot, 19.

  Cock-fighting at Madrid, 248;
    arena, the, 249;
    audience, 250;
    disgusting spectacle, 256;
    gambling on, 252, 254.

  Coello, Claudio, paintings by, at Madrid, 193;
    at the Escurial, 264.

  Colantes as an orator, 276.

  Collantes, Francisco, paintings by, at Madrid, 193.

  College of San Gregorio, Valladolid, 135;
    Santa Cruz, Valladolid, 443.

  Columbian library at Seville, ii. 118.

  Columbus, Christopher, annotations in books in library of
    Seville, ii. 118;
    armor of, 175;
    portrait of, 178;
    mementoes of, ii. 103.

  Columbus, Ferdinand, history of, ii. 115;
    library of, ii, 118;
    note on his father's annotations, ii. 118;
    tomb of, ii. 114.

  Concerts at Madrid, 173.

  Conde, Henry II. de Bourbon, prince de, sword of, 176.

  Conservative party, 96.

  Consuelo the beautiful, ii. 81.

  Consul, seeking the protection of the, ii. 106.

  Convents: Angels, Granada, ii. 235;
    Cartuja, Granada, ii. 235;
    of the Escurial, 268;
    Santo Domingo, Granada, ii. 235;
    San Pablo, Valladolid, 134.

  Cook, Capt. James, cane of, 180.

  Cookery, Spanish, 14, 160; ii. 223.

  Cordova, arrival at, ii. 62;
    at night, ii. 80;
    cathedral, ii. 74;
    Consuelo the beautiful, ii. 81;
    departed glory, ii. 62;
    impressions of, ii. 67;
    mosque, ii. 68;
    patio, a, ii. 65;
    pearl of the Orient, ii. 66;
    preaching the Holy War, ii. 75;
    relics of the past, ii. 80;
    streets of, ii. 64.

  Cordova, General de, at Saragossa, 84.

  Corregio, Antonio Allegri da, painting by, at Madrid, 182.

  Cortes, the, 274;
    deputies, 274;
    oratorical displays, 275.

  Cortez, Hernando, portrait of, 178;
    sword of, 176.

  Cosa, Juan de la, map by, at Madrid, 178.

  Costumes of peasantry: Andalusian, ii. 100;
    Catalan, 18;
    Cordovan, ii. 58;
    Granadan, ii. 189;
    Madrid, 165;
    Saragossan, 56;
    Valencian, ii. 270.

  Country houses, ii. 100.

  Courts: Lions, Alhambra, ii. 201;
    Myrtles, Alhambra, ii. 194;
    Oranges, Seville, ii. 115.

  Court-life under Amadeus, 198.

  Courtesy inherent in the Spanish people, 53, 290.

  Cuco the matador, 207; ii. 94.

  Currency, Spanish, 118.

  Custejon, 92.

  Customs officials, 14, 95.

  Cybele, fountain of, at Madrid, 166.


  D.

  "Daggers," ii. 55.

  Daguet, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  "Dance de los seises," ii. 112.

  Darro, the, ii. 213.

  Democratic party, 96.

  Democratic Progressionist party, 96, 97.

  Deronda, Francisco Romero, the torero, 235.

  Dialects: Andalusian, ii. 93;
    Arragonese, 55;
    Barcelonian, 20;
    Castilian, 55;
    Catalan, 15, 39;
    Madrid, 158;
    Perpignan, 12;
    Valencian, ii. 275;
    Valladolid, 132.

  Dinadamar, hill of, ii. 240.

  Discoveries, cabinet of, Naval Museum, Madrid, 177.

  Djihad, or Holy War, ii. 76.

  Domenichino, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  Dominoes, popularity of game of, 31.

  Don Quixote on Barcelona, 42;
    popularity of, 286;
    true to life, ii. 57.

  Door-keys in Madrid, 171.

  Drama, 169.

  Drunkenness rare in Spain, 162.

  Dumas, Alexandre, on Spanish cookery, 160.

  Dürer, Albert, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.


  E.

  Ebro, commerce on the, 51;
    description of, 92.

  Economist party, 96.

  Education in Granada, ii. 242.

  Egon ad Agoncilla, ruins of, 91.

  Elpidius, bishop of Toledo, ii. 27.

  Elvira Gate, Granada, ii. 240.

  Escurial, the, arrival at, 258;
    altar of Santa Forma, 264;
    cell of Philip II., 261;
    church, 262;
    convent, 268;
    courtyard, 261;
    gardens, 272;
    gloominess, 273;
    history of, 260;
    holy relics, 272;
    horrible place, 267;
    library, 268;
    pantheon, 265;
    picture-gallery, 268;
    royal palace, 261;
    sacristy, 264;
    statues, 262;
    tombs, 265;
    view from, 153, 272;
    village, 259.

  Espadas, famous, 214;
    dangerous life of, 230;
    skill of, 221.

  Espartero, Gen. Baldemero, addresses Amadeus, 85.

  Esperondo la del Cielo, house of, ii. 227.

  Esproncedo, Jose de, the Byron of Spain, 282;
    popularity of, 287;
    quotation from, 136.

  Exaggeration, the national failing, 287.


  F.

  Fadrique, Don, blood of, ii. 122;
    murdered by Don Pedro's orders, ii. 123.

  Farcical revenge, a, 71.

  Fatherly admonitions, 54.

  Federalist party, 96, 97.

  Ferdinand III. (the Saint) captures Seville, ii. 121;
    relics of, ii. 110;
    tomb of, 109.

  Ferdinand V. (the Catholic), oratory in Alcazar of Seville, 124;
    relics of, ii. 233;
    tomb of, ii. 234.

  Ferdinand VII. annuls the constitution, ii. 262;
    encourages bull-fighting, 235;
    tomb of, 266.

  Ferrer, Vincenzo, in Seville cathedral, ii. 116.

  Figueras, political leader, 80, 96.

  First glimpses of Spain, 14.

  Florinda, legend of, ii. 46.

  Flor, Roger de, a typical Arragonese, 50.

  Fomento picture-gallery, Madrid, 193.

  Fortune-telling in the Albaicin, Granada, ii. 253.

  Fountain of Cybele, Madrid, 166.

  Fra Angelica, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  Francis I., shield of, 176.

  Frascuelo the matador, 207, 214, 221, 225, 240, 242; ii. 94;
    interview with, 242.

  Fricci in opera at Madrid, 168; ii. 152.

  Fronterizos party, 96.

  Fruit, Spanish, 162.

  Fugitive wife, a, 69.

  Funeral memorial ceremonies of the second of May, 243.


  G.

  Galafro, legend of King, ii. 43.

  Galiana, palaces of, ii. 43.

  Gallegos, Don Juan Nicasio, poet, 282.

  Gamero, Antonio, historian of Toledo, ii. 48.

  Garbanzos, 161.

  Garcilaso de la Vega, poet, 37;
    armor of, 176.

  Gardens: Alcazar, Seville, ii. 125;
    Aranjuez, ii. 12;
    Buen Retiro, Madrid, 174;
    Escurial, 271;
    Montpensier, Seville, ii. 117.

  Garrido, political leader, 96.

  Gates: Elvira, Granada, ii. 240;
    Justice, Alhambra, ii. 192;
    Santa Maria, Burgos, 104.

  Gayangos, Pascual y, the Orientalist, 281.

  Geber, architect of the Giralda at Seville, ii. 116.

  Generalife, Granada, ii. 213;
    description of, ii. 225;
    view from, ii. 226.

  Genoa, 10.

  Gerona, arrival at, 16;
    Amadeus at, 16.

  Gibraltar, rock of, ii. 168;
    Straits of, ii. 167.

  Giordano Luci, paintings by, at Madrid, 182;
    frescoes by, at the Escurial, 262, 264, 268;
    at Toledo, ii. 30.

  Giralda of Seville, the, ii. 116;
    first sight of, ii. 101;
    view from, ii. 117.

  Gitane of Seville, the, ii. 128.

  Godoy, Alvarez de Faria Rios Sanches y Zarsoa, Prince of Peace, ii. 11.

  Golden Tower, Seville, ii. 103.

  Gongora y Argote, Luis, poet, 129;
    birthplace at Cordova, ii. 92.

  Gongora, Señor, ii. 187, _et seq._

  Gonzales, Ferdinand (first Count of Castile), monument to, 119;
    portrait of, 104;
    statue of, 104;
    sword of, 176;
    tomb of, 114.

  Gonzalez, Fernandez y, novelist, 282.

  Gonzalez di Cordova, anecdote of, ii. 235;
    tomb, ii. 235.

  Goya, Francisco, criticism on, 185;
    love of bull-fights, 184;
    paintings by, at Madrid, 182, 183;
    sanguinary genius, a, 184;
    tapestries by, in the Escurial, 261.

  Granada, Alameda, ii. 188;
    Albaicin, ii. 244;
    Alcaiceria, ii. 241;
    Alhambra, ii. 190;
    arrival at, ii. 186;
    Audiencia square, ii. 244;
    birthplace of famous men, ii. 243;
    Cartuja, ii. 235;
    cathedral, ii. 229;
    church of San Geronimo, ii. 235;
    convent of Santa Domingo, ii. 235;
    convent of The Angels, ii. 235;
    education, ii. 242;
    Generalife, ii. 213, ii. 225;
    markets, ii. 241;
    Monte Sacro, ii. 235;
    royal chapel, ii. 232;
    ruins, ii. 240;
    streets, ii. 187, ii. 190, ii. 241;
    Vega, ii. 260.

  Granada, Fray Louis de, ii. 243.

  Granallers, 19.

  Gravina, Admiral Frederick de, relics of, 179.

  Guadaira, ill-fated steamer, ii. 146.

  Guadalquivir, the, ii. 59, ii. 60, ii. 101; ii. 118, ii. 150.

  Guadiana, valley of the, ii. 59.

  Guerra, Fernandez, archæologist, 281, 291; ii. 187.

  Guides, Spanish, persistency of, ii. 26.

  Guido, Reni, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  Guest-houses, 157.

  Gutierrez, Antonio Garcia, dramatist, 169.


  H.

  Halls: Abencerrages, Alhambra, ii. 209;
    Ambassadors, Alhambra, ii. 198;
    Barca, Alhambra, ii. 197;
    Divans, Alhambra, ii. 210;
    Justice, Alhambra, ii. 206;
    Oranges, Alhambra, ii. 209;
    Two Sisters, Alhambra, ii. 207.


  Hartzenbusch, Juan Eugenio, dramatist, 169, 281, 291.

  Heat, intense, ii. 260.

  Henry II. (de Transtamare), defeated by Pedro the Cruel, 91;
    tomb of, ii. 29

  Henry III. and Papa Moscas, 113;
    tomb of, ii. 29.

  Hernandez, sculptures by, at Valladolid, 146.

  Herrera, Francisco, paintings by, at Madrid, 182, 193;
    at Seville, ii. 109, ii. 132;
    at the Escurial, 263.

  Herrera, Juan de, architect of palace of Aranjuez, ii. 11;
    of the Escurial, 260.

  Historical Progressionist party, 96.

  Holy Cross, relics of the, 272.

  "Honor of Spain," 290.

  Hornachuelos, castle of, ii. 99.

  Hospitality, Catalan, 148.

  Hospital of Santa Cruz, Toledo, ii. 44.

  Hotel porters at Barcelona, 20;
    women as, 99.

  Huerva river, at Saragossa, 77.

  Hugo Victor's Mirabeau, ii. 107;
    at the Alhambra, ii. 216.


  I.

  "Il Trovatore," quotation from, ii. 153.

  Inquisition, palaces of; at Barcelona, 26;
    at Valladolid, 146.

  International Socialist party, 96.

  Isabella the Catholic opposed to bull-fights, 234;
    oratory in the Alcazar of Seville, ii. 124;
    relics of, ii. 233;
    sword of, 176;
    tomb of, ii. 234.

  Isabella II. at Madrid, 197;
    at Valencia, ii. 262;
    dressing-chamber at Aranjuez, ii. 12;
    encourages bull-fighting, 235;
    favored by the Moderate party, 96.

  Isabella, Empress, statue of, 262.

  Italian, the language of opera, 171.

  Italians, prejudice against, 34, 138.

  Italica, ruins of, ii. 101.


  Italy and Spain, compared, ii. 220.

  Itimad, a dream of, ii. 125.


  J.

  Jerez, circus at, 235.

  Joanes, Juan de, criticism on, 192;
    paintings by, at Madrid, 182, 183.

  Joanna the Mad, tomb of, ii. 234.

  John, Don, of Austria, 25.

  John I. of Castile and the States-General, 98.

  John II. of Austria, heart of, 63;
    sword of, 176.

  John II., admiration of de Mena's "Labyrinth," ii. 92;
    tomb of, ii. 29.

  John Frederick, duke of Saxony, armor of, 176.

  Jordaens, Jacob, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  Juegos floreales, ii. 172.

  Julian, Count, revenge of, ii. 46.

  Juni, Juan de, sculptures by, at Valladolid, 146.


  K.

  Knives, ii. 135.


  L.

  La Costa, Gen., killed at Saragossa, 59.

  La Cruz, Ramon de, dramatist, 170.

  Lagartijo the matador, 214, 240, 241; ii. 94.

  La Harpe, Jean François, on the Apollo Belvidere, ii. 272.

  Lainus Calvo, judge of Castile, 103.

  La Mancha, ii. 56, ii. 260.

  Language, Italian, in opera, 171;
    Spanish, allied to the Italian, 159;
    pronunciation of, 159.
    See also Dialect.

  Lauria, Roger de, 50.

  Leon, Louis de, 54;
    born in Granada, ii. 243.

  Leonardo, Lupercio, sonnet to, 73.

  Leopardi Giacomo, Count, 283;
  ii. 9;
    in Seville cathedral, ii. 111;
    on Spanish pride, 284.

  Lepanto, relics of battle of, 25, 174, 176.

  Lerida, 48.

  Light-fingered gentry, 98.

  Literature, discouragements of, 282;
    dramatic, 283;
    national pride in, 287;
    present state of, 280;
    contests of genius at Cordova, ii. 94.

  Logroño, Amadeus at, 85;
    Moorish ruins at, 91.

  Loneliness of travel, ii. 47, ii. 67, ii. 105.

  Lope de Vega's criticism of Gongorist poets, ii. 93;
    houses at Madrid, 156;
    popularity, ii. 9.

  Lorraine. See Claude Lorraine.

  Louis I., tomb of, 266.

  Love, travelling for, 13.

  Loyola, Ignatius, at Montserrat, 46.

  Luna, Don Alvaro de, tomb of, ii. 29.

  Lunatic asylum, Toledo, ii. 51.


  M.

  Madrazo, Federico de, paintings by, at Madrid, 183.

  Madrid, academy of San Fernando, 193;
    amusements, 168;
    armory, 174;
    arrival at, 154;
    Buen Retiro garden, 174;
    bull-fights, 206;
    cafés, 173;
    church of Our Lady of Atocha, 166;
    Fomento art-gallery, 193;
    guest-houses, 157;
    language, 157;
    markets, 174;
    museum of artillery, 180;
    museum of fine arts, 181;
    naval museum, 177;
    opera, 168;
    Prado, 166;
    Puerta del Sol, 155;
    Recoletos promenade, 167;
    royal palace, 154;
    serenos, 172;
    streets, 156, 163;
    suburbs, 173.

  Maksura of mosque of Cordova, ii. 69.

  Malaga, ii. 170;
    literary academy, ii. 171;
    poetical contests, ii. 172;
    popular characteristics, ii. 173;
    streets, ii. 170;
    wine of, ii. 172.

  Manners of the Spaniards, 290.


  Manzoni, Alessandro, 189.

  Margall, Pi y, political leader, 96;
    oratory of, 276.

  Maria, granddaughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, tomb of, ii. 234.

  Maria Louisa of Savoy, tomb of, 266.

  Marini, Giambattista, influence on Italian poetry, ii. 92.

  Markets: Granada, ii. 241;
    Madrid, 174;
    Valencia, ii. 269;
    Valladolid, 132.

  Marseilles, 11.

  Martina the torera, 238.

  Martinez de la Rosa, Francisco, 282, ii. 243;
    exiled in London, 65;
    quotation from, ii. 185.

  Martos, political leader, 96;
    oratory of, 226.

  Mascagni, Donato, paintings by, at Valladolid, 143.

  Masked balls, 86.

  May, second of, funeral memorial ceremonies, 243;
    monument to, 247.

  Medina Az-Zahra, ii. 88.

  Medina-Coeli, family, owners of the Casa de Pilato, ii. 136.

  Mena, Juan de, "Labyrinth," ii. 92;
    popularity of, 287;
    street of, ii. 92.

  Menendez, paintings by, at Madrid, 193.

  Mengs, Anton Rafael, paintings by, at Madrid, 183.

  Menjibar, ii. 259.

  Merced, marquis de, 207.

  Merriones, Gen., victories over Carlists, 288.

  Michelangelo, Buonarroti, Cespedes's tribute to, ii. 90;
    paintings by, at Burgos, 109;
    at Madrid, 182.

  Mihrab of mosque of Cordova, ii. 72.

  Military Museum of London possesses Gonzalez di Cordova's fiscal
    accounts, ii. 237.

  Militia system, 202.

  Mirabeau, Victor Hugo's description of, ii. 107.

  Miranda, 94.

  Moderate party, 96, 97.

  Monastery of Montserrat, 46.


  Monegro, Battista, statue by, 262.

  Montegna, paintings by, at Seville, ii. 109.

  Montpensier gardens, Seville, ii. 117, ii. 127;
    palace, ii. 104.

  Montpensier, duke of, at Madrid, 197;
    party, 96, 97.

  Montserrat, description of, 45;
    excursion to, 46;
    monastery of, 46.

  Monzon, 50;
    castle, 51.

  Moorish art, ii. 207;
    ruins, ii. 240.

  Morales, Ambrosio, born in Cordova, ii. 90.

  Moret, political leader, 96.

  Moreto, Don Augustin, dramatist, 169.

  Mosque of Cordova, ii. 68;
    of the Alhambra, ii. 216.

  Mozarabe chapel, Toledo, ii. 29.

  Mulato, paintings by, at Seville, ii. 109, ii. 132.

  Murat, Joachim, 50.

  Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban, a painter of saints and virgins, 191;
    death of, ii. 163;
    estimate of his genius, 192;
    last painting, ii. 163;
    mementoes of, ii. 103;
    painting by, at Granada, ii. 235;
    at Madrid, 182, 183;
    at Seville, ii. 109, ii. 129;
    statue at Madrid, 156, 292.


  N.

  Naples, king of, demands an accounting from Gonzalez di Cordova, ii. 235.

  Navagero, Andrea, influences poetry of Boscan, 37.

  Navajas, ii. 136.

  Navarrete, battle of, 91.

  Navarrete, Juan Fernandez (El Mudo), paintings by, at Madrid, 193;
    at the Escurial, 263.

  News from Spain, 10.

  Newspapers hostile to Amadeus, 93, 200.

  Nun, the flirting, 53.

  Nunes, Duke Ferdinand, at the bull-fight, 209.

  Night journey to Aranjuez, ii. 9;
    to Barcelona, 13;
    to Burgos, 97;
    to Cadiz, ii. 149;
    to Cordova, ii. 55;
    to Granada, ii. 181.



  O.

  O'Campo, Florian d', at Toledo, ii. 90.

  O'Donnell, Gen. Leopold, Spanish estimate of, 288.

  Olesa de Montserrat, 47.

  Olivares, Duke de, portrait of, by Velasquez, 183, 188;
    sword of, 176.

  Opera at Madrid, 168.

  Oranges, Court of, Cordova, ii. 69;
    Court of Seville, ii. 15;
    Hall of, Alhambra, ii. 207.

  Our Lady of Atocha, church of, at Madrid, 166;
    of the Pillar, Saragossa, 60.


  P.

  Pacheco, Francisco, paintings by, at Madrid, 193;
    at Seville, ii. 132.

  Padilla, Lopez de, assists in the murder of Don Fadrique, ii. 123.

  Padilla, Maria de, apartments of, in the Alcazar of
    Seville, ii. 124, 145;
    mementoes of, ii. 102.

  Painting, museums: Escurial, 268;
    Fomento, Madrid, 193;
    Madrid, 181;
    Seville, ii. 129;
    Toledo, ii. 37;
    Valencia, ii. 260;
    Valladolid, 143.

  Palaces: Audiencia, Valencia, ii. 266;
    Burgos, 102;
    Charles V., Granada, ii. 192;
    Consistorial, Barcelona, 26;
    Deputation, Barcelona, 26;
    Galiana, 43;
    Inquisition, Barcelona, 26;
    Inquisition, Valladolid, 146;
    Royal, Aranjuez, ii. 11;
    Royal, Escurial, 261;
    Royal, Madrid, 154;
    Royal, Valladolid, 133.

  Palafox, José, at Saragossa, 77.

  Palma, ii. 99.

  Pancorbo, 98;
    castle destroyed, 98.

  Paolo Veronese, paintings by, at Madrid, 182, 183.

  Papal question, the, 12, 34, 138.

  Papa Moscas, legend of, 113.

  Pareja, Juan de, paintings by, at Cordova, ii. 58;
    at Madrid, 193.

  Party spirit, 96, 289, ii. 60.

  Patio, described, ii. 65;
    at Seville,
  ii. 163;
    de la Reja, Alhambra, ii. 212;
    de los Arrayanes, Alhambra, ii. 194.

  Patriotism vs. common sense, ii. 222.

  Peasantry: Andalusian, ii. 100;
    Catalan, 18;
    Cordovan, ii. 58;
    of Madrid, 165;
    Saragossan, 56.

  Pedro Abad, ii. 62.

  Pedro the Cruel, apartments of, in the Alcazar of Seville, ii. 124;
    defeats Henry of Transtamare, 91;
    mementoes of, ii. 103;
    murders Don Fadrique, ii. 122;
    restores the Alcazar of Seville, ii. 120;
    treasure-house, ii. 103.

  Perpignan dialect, 12.

  Pescara, Marquis de, armor of, 176.

  Philibert, Emmanuel, armor of, 175, 176.

  Philip I., tomb of, ii. 231.

  Philip II., armor of, 175, 176;
    birthplace at Valladolid, 134;
    books in the library of the Escurial, 268;
    builds palace of Aranjuez, ii. 11, ii. 13;
    builds the Escurial, 260;
    cell of, 261;
    his personality pervades the Escurial, 271;
    statue of, 262;
    sword of, 176;
    tomb of, 265, 266.

  Philip III. encourages bull-fights, 234;
    tomb of, 265, 266.

  Philip IV., a royal bull-fighter, 235;
    statue of, 156;
    tomb of, 265, 266.

  Philip V. encourages bull-fights, 235;
    his garden of St. Ildefonso, 124.

  Philip of Bourgoyne, carvings by, at Burgos, 111;
    at Toledo, ii. 25.

  Piedmontese waiters in hotel at Barcelona, 20.

  Pilate's house, Seville, ii. 136.

  Pillar, church of Our Lady of the, Saragossa, 60.

  Pius V. presents holy relics to Ribera, ii. 137.

  Pizarro, Francisco, as a bull-fighter, 234;
    portrait of, 178;
    sword of, 176.


  Plazas: Alameda, Granada, ii. 188, ii. 241;
    Campo Grande, Valladolid, 131;
    Constitution, Saragossa, 74;
    Cortez, Madrid, 156;
    Mayor, Burgos, 123;
    Mayor, Madrid, 156;
    Mayor, Valladolid, 131;
    Orient, Madrid, 156;
    Puerto del Sol, Madrid, 155;
    San Pablo, Valladolid, 133.

  Poetical contests, ii. 171;
    rivalry, 38.

  Politeness, Spanish, 52.

  Political leaders, 96.

  Politics, absorbing interest in, 15, 32, 95, 147;
    partisanship in, 289; ii. 267.

  Pompey defeated by Sertorius at Calahorra, 91.

  Poussin, Nicolas, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  Prado, Madrid, 166.

  Praga, Emile, on Nature, ii. 259.

  Prati, Giovanni, quotation from, ii. 269.

  Pride, national, characteristic of the Spanish, 284.

  Priests, friendly, 46, 54.

  Prim, Gen. Juan, assassination of, at Madrid, 156, 166;
    high estimation of, 288.

  Puchero, the national dish, 161.

  Puerto del Sol, at Madrid, 155, 163;
    at Toledo, ii. 18.

  Puerto Real, ii. 162.

  Puerto de Santa Maria, ii. 162;
    circus at, 238.

  Pyrenees, the, 48, 92;
    crossing the, 13.


  Q.

  Quintana, Manuel José, poet of the Revolution, 282, 291.

  Quevedo, Francisco Gomez, on Valladolid, 129.


  R.

  Radical party, 96.

  Railway travel, 52; ii. 55; ii. 175.

  Raphael, paintings by, at Madrid, 182, 183.

  Rasura, Nunnius, judge of Castile, 103.

  Recoletos promenade at Madrid, 167.


  Rembrandt von, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  Republican opinions, 15, 16, 32, 80;
    of the soldiers, 205;
    party, 96, 97.

  Restaurants, Cordova, ii. 81.

  Revenge, a farcical, 71.

  Ribera, Enriquez de, builds the Casa de Pilato, ii. 136.

  Ribera, José, criticism of his genius, 186;
    a lover of the horrible, 188;
    paintings by, at Madrid, 182, 183;
    at the Escurial, 264.

  Ribera, Pedro Afan de, viceroy of Naples, ii. 137.

  Ribero, political leader, 96.

  Ricanati, quotation from, ii. 14.

  Rinconado, ii. 101.

  Rios, Amador de los, critic, 281.

  Rivas, Duke de, 282.

  Rizzi, Francisco, paintings by, at Madrid, 193.

  Roa, Ferdinand de, kills Don Fadrique, ii. 123.

  Roderic and the enchanted tower, ii. 45;
    and Florinda, ii. 46.

  Roelas, Juan de las, paintings by, at Seville, ii. 109.

  Rojas, Francisco de, 169;
    native of Toledo, ii. 49

  Rodriguez as an orator, 276, 291;
    political leader, 96.

  Roman aqueduct at Alcanadre, 91;
    at Segovia, 124;
    ruins at Barcelona, 26.

  Ros de Olano invents the soldier cap, 24.

  Rosas, Rios y, political leader, 96;
    oratory of, 276.

  Resell, Gen., at Saragossa, 84.

  Rubens, Peter Paul, paintings by, at Madrid, 182, 183;
    at Valladolid, 144.

  Ruins of Alcanadre, 91;
    Egon ad Agoncilla, 91;
    Logroño, 91.

  Ruiz Garcia, political leader, 96.


  S.

  Saavedra, Señor, 291, 292.

  Sagasta, Praxedes Mateo, political leader, 79, 96, 97;
    a modern Cardenio, ii. 60.

  St. Agnes, church of, Burgos, 121.


  St. Andrea de Palomar, 19.

  St. Anthony of Padua, Murillo's, ii. 129.

  St. Eugenia, tomb of, ii. 29.

  St. Eulalia, tomb of, 28.

  St. Ferdinand, chapel of, Seville, ii. 109.

  St. George Chapel, Barcelona, 26.

  St. Ildefonso, garden of Philip V., 124.

  St. Isadore, memorial ceremony at church of, 244.

  St. James, the first bishop of Toledo, ii. 23;
    and the Virgin Mary, 61.

  St. Lawrence, Philip II.'s vow to, 260;
    relic of, 272.

  St. Leucadia, tomb of, ii. 29.

  St. Theresa, birthplace of, 124;
    inkhorn of, 272;
    mementoes of, ii. 103.

  Salamanca, a suburb of Madrid, 167, 208.

  Salvator Rosa, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  Salvini, Tommaso, as Samson, ii. 107.

  San Fernando, Madrid, academy of, 193.

  San Geronimo, church of, ii. 235.

  San Ginés, church of, ii. 44.

  San Gregorio, college of, 135.

  San José, church of, Madrid, 204.

  San Juan de los Reyes, church of, ii. 36.

  San Pablo, convent of, 134.

  San Quentin, Philip II.'s vow at battle of, 260;
    relics of, 174.

  San Salvador, Saragossa, 65.

  San Servando, castle of, ii. 41.

  Santa Cruz, hospital of, ii. 50.

  Santa Cruz de Mudela, ii. 58.

  Santa Cruz, Marquis of, armor of, 176.

  Santa Domingo, convent of, ii. 235.

  Santa Maria, gate of, Burgos, 104.

  Santa Maria la Blanca, synagogue of, ii. 38.

  Santi Ponce, ii. 118.

  Saragossa, 56;
    alcayde's bold
  speech, 82;
    Amadeus enters, 82;
    arrival at, 55;
    Bourse, 74;
    carnival maskers, 65, 68;
    cathedral of Our Lady of the Pillar, 60;
    cathedral of San Salvador, 65;
    church of Santiago, 74;
    costume of peasantry, 56;
    masked balls, 87;
    new tower, 75;
    siege of, 59, 77;
    streets, 58;
    suburbs, 91.

  Sarto, Andrea del, paintings by, at Burgos, 109;
    at Madrid, 182.

  Schoen, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  School-boys, 46.

  Shrack, Frederick, description of the Djihad, ii. 75.

  Sea, beauty of the, ii. 157.

  Sebastian of Portugal, a royal bull-fighter, 234.

  Segovia, 124.

  Segovia and Ardizone, Gonzalo, ii. 130, 132, 145;
    sad fate of, ii. 146.

  Seneca, born in Cordova, ii. 90.

  Seo, Saragossa, 65.

  Serenos, 172.

  Serrano, Gen. Francesco, political leader, 96, 97;
    reputation of, 288.

  Sertorius defeats Pompey at Calahorra, 91.

  Seville, Alcazar, ii. 120;
    at night, ii. 106;
    Barber of, ii. 132, 14;
    cathedral, ii. 108;
    Columbian library, ii. 118;
    gaiety of, ii. 143;
    gardens, ii. 125;
    Giralda, ii. 101, ii. 116;
    house of Pilate, ii. 136;
    literary and artistic fame, ii. 139;
    museum of painting, ii. 129;
    Oriental character, ii. 102;
    patios, ii. 133;
    poetical character of, ii. 142;
    streets, ii. 120;
    Torre del Oro, ii. 103, 117;
    tropical heat, ii. 120;
    women of, ii. 126.

  Sierra de Segura, ii. 61.

  Sierra Morena, ii. 59, ii. 62, ii. 118, ii. 260.

  Sierra Nevada, ii. 214, ii. 226.

  Siestas necessary, ii. 79.

  Socialist party, 96.

  Soldiers, 23;
    political feeling shown by, 204;
    reviewed by Amadeus, 202.


  Soria, 124.

  Stagno in opera at Madrid, 168.

  Streets of Barcelona, 22, 27;
    Burgos, 101;
    Cadiz, ii. 160;
    Cordova, ii. 64;
    Granada, ii. 187;
    Madrid, 166;
    Malaga, ii. 170;
    Saragossa, 58;
    Seville, ii. 102;
    Toledo, ii. 17;
    Valencia, ii. 265.

  Studying for a degree, ii. 238.


  T.

  Tagus, the, at Aranjuez, ii. 12;
    at Toledo, ii. 17.

  Tamayo, dramatist, 169, 281, 291.

  Tangiers, ii. 168.

  Tarifa, Cape, ii. 167.

  Tasso, Torquato, influence on Italian poetry, ii. 93.

  Tato, the one-legged torero, ii. 262.

  Teniers, David, paintings by, at Madrid, 182.

  Theatres at Barcelona, 40;
    at Madrid, 168;
    and literature, 169, 282.

  Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista, paintings by, at Madrid, 183.

  Tintoretto, Giacomo, paintings by, at Madrid, 182;
    at the Escurial, 264.

  Tirso de Molina, dramatist, 169.

  Titian, paintings by, at Madrid, 182, 183.

  Tobacco manufactories at Burgos, 118;
    at Madrid, 173;
    at Seville, ii. 127;
    cigarettes vs. pipes, 132.

  Toledo, Alcazar, ii. 39;
    arrival at, ii. 17;
    at night, ii. 47;
    bridge of Alcantara, ii. 18;
    cathedral, ii. 23;
    church of San Juan de los Reyes, ii. 36;
    church of San Ginés, ii. 44;
    church of Nuestra Señora di Transito, ii. 50;
    dead city, a, ii. 48;
    historical, ii. 22;
    hospital of Santa Cruz, ii. 50;
    legends of, ii. 43;
    lunatic asylum, ii. 51;
    manufactory of arms, ii. 50;
    popular characteristics, ii. 48;
    Puerto del Sol, ii. 18;
    Santa Maria la Blanca, ii. 38;
    view from cathedral, ii. 34;
    silent and gloomy, ii, 21;
    streets, ii. 19.


  Tolosa, Las Navas de, battlefield, ii. 60.

  Topete, Juan, ii. 60.

  Toreros, 213;
    dangers of, 229;
    dress of, 240;
    highly respectable, 239;
    lucrative business, 241.

  Torrigiano, Pietro, sculptures by, at Granada, ii. 229.

  Torquemada, Tomas de, founds the convent of Santa Domingo, ii. 235;
    origin of, 235.

  Torre del Oro, Seville, ii. 103.

  Tower, new, Saragossa, 75;
    Golden, Seville, ii. 103.

  Trafalgar, relics of, 179.

  Trajan's ashes brought to Seville, ii. 138.

  Travelling for love, 13;
    amenities of, 48, 52;
    miseries of, ii. 177;
    opera troupes, ii. 153;
    philosophy of, ii. 224;
    soldiers, ii.

  Triana, ii. 118.

  Tudela, battle of, 91;
    canal, 51, 92.


  U.

  Undertaker's shop, 117.

  Unionist party, 96, 97.

  University students at Granada, ii. 238;
    at Valladolid, 148.


  V.

  Val de Peñas, ii. 58;
    wine of, 162; ii. 58.

  Valencia, ii. 265;
    Amadeus at, ii. 262;
    art-gallery, ii. 267;
    bull-ring, 235; ii. 262;
    Casa de Ayuntamiento, ii. 266;
    cathedral, ii. 266;
    dress of peasantry, ii. 270;
    historic houses, ii. 262;
    Lonja, ii. 266;
    market, ii. 269;
    palace of the Audiencia, ii. 266;
    popular characteristics, ii. 271;
    streets, ii. 266;
    women, ii. 271.

  Valdes Leal, Juan de, paintings by, at Seville, ii. 109, 132.

  Valera, Señor, 291.

  Valladolid, 129;
    cathedral, 136;
    convent of San Pablo, 134;
    college of San Gregorio, 135;
    decay of, 131;
    dialect of, 132;
    hospitality, 148;
    house of Cervantes, 137;
    house of Zorilla, 141;
    Inquisition, 146;
    markets, 132;
    picture-gallery, 143;
    Plaza Major, 132;
    polite beggary, 135;
    royal palace, 133.

  Van Dyke, Antonio, paintings by, at Madrid, 182, 183.

  Vega, Granada, ii. 260.

  Vega, de Armijo, Marquis de, 207.

  Vega, Garcilasso de la, armor of, 176;
    native of Toledo, ii. 49.

  Velasquez, Don Diego, masterpieces, 188;
    mementoes of, ii. 103;
    paintings by, at Madrid, 182, 183.

  Ventas de Alcolea, ii. 62.

  Ventura de la Vega, dramatist, 169.

  Veragua, duke of, 207.

  Victoria, at Madrid, 195;
    charity of, 196;
    learning of, 199;
    universal respect for, 81, 200.

  Vilches, ii. 61.

  Villadomat, paintings by, at Barcelona, 26.

  Villaseca, dowager of, 307.

  Vinci, Leonardo da, paintings by, at Burgos, 109.

  Virgin Mary appears to St. James at Toledo, ii. 27;
    miraculous image of, 61;
    robes of, ii. 31.


  W.

  Walk of the Spanish women, 136.

  War of Independence influences Spanish national character, 35, 285;
    relics of, 174.

  Water abundant in the Alhambra, ii. 226.


  Wife, a fugitive, 69.

  Wine of Malaga, ii. 172;
    Val de Peñas, 162; ii. 58;
    Xeres, ii. 155.

  Women of Barcelona, 41;
    Cadiz, ii. 164;
    Cordova, ii. 79;
    Madrid, 165;
    Saragossa, 57;
    Seville, ii. 126;
    Valencia, ii. 271;
    Valladolid, 136;
    toreros, 238;
    walk of Spanish, 136.


  X.

  Xenil river, ii. 213.

  Xeres, wine of, ii. 155.

  Ximenes, wife of the Cid, remains of, 103.


  Z.

  Zafra, Don Fernando de, legend of, ii. 228.

  Zahira, ii. 89.

  Zainete, 170.

  Zarzuela, the, 168, 170; ii. 154, ii. 156

  Zorrilla, Ruiz, political leader, 86, 69, 97;
    consents to accept office, ii. 268.

  Zorrilla, José, 281;
    birthplace at Valladolid, 141;
    influence on Spanish literature, 141;
    on people of Toledo, ii. 48;
    popularity of, 142.

  Zouave officers, 11.

  Zuera, 54.

  Zurbaran, Francisco de, paintings by, at Cadiz, ii. 163;
    at Madrid, 193;
    at the Escurial, 264;
    at Seville, ii. 109, ii. 132.


[Illustration: Map of SPAIN & PORTUGAL]






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