Théophile Gautier

Travels in Spain (Voyage en Espagne, 1840)

Parts X to XII - Toledo, Granada, and Málaga

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Part X: Toledo – The Alcazar – The Cathedral – The Gregorian Rite and the Mozarabic Rite – Our Lady of Toledo – San Juan de Los Reyes – The Synagogue – The Galiana Palace, Charlemagne and Bradamant – Florinda’s Dwarf – The Cave of Hercules – The Cardinal’s Hospital – Toledo Blades
Part XI: A Festival Procession in Madrd – Aranjuez – A Patio – The Countryside of Ocaña – Tembleque and its Garters – A Night in Manzanares – The Knives of Santa Cruz de Mudela – The Puerto de los Perros – The Colony of La Carolina – Bailén – Jaén, its Cathedral and its Dandies – Granada – The Alameda – The Alhambra – The Generalife – The Albaicín – Life in Granada – The Gitanos – The Charterhouse – Santo Domingo – An Ascent of Mulhacen
Part XII: The Thieves and Pirates of Andalusia – Alhama de Granada – Málaga – Students on Tour – A Bullfight – Montes – The Theatre

Part X: Toledo – The Alcazar – The Cathedral – The Gregorian Rite and the Mozarabic Rite – Our Lady of Toledo – San Juan de Los Reyes – The Synagogue – The Galiana Palace, Charlemagne and Bradamant – Florinda’s Dwarf – The Cave of Hercules – The Cardinal’s Hospital – Toledo Blades

Drop Cap W

We had exhausted the curiosities of Madrid, we had viewed the palace, the Armeria, the Buen-Retiro, the museum and the academy of art, the Teatro del Principe, and the Plaza de Toros; we had walked the Prado from the fountain of Cybele to the fountain of Neptune, and a slight feeling of ennui began to invade us. So, despite a temperature of thirty degrees Centigrade and all kinds of horrifying stories about rebels and rateros, we set off boldly for Toledo, the city of fine swords and Romantic daggers.

Toledo is one of the oldest cities not only in Spain, but in the entire world, if the chroniclers are to be believed. The most conservative place the date of its foundation before the flood (why not under the pre-Adamite kings, a few years before the creation of the world?) Some attribute the honour of having laid its first stone to Tubal, others to the Greeks; some to Telmon and Brutus, Roman consuls; others to the Jews, who entered Spain with Nebuchadnezzar, relying on the etymology of Toledo, which comes from Toledoth, a Hebrew word meaning generations, since the twelve tribes contributed to building and populating it.

Be that as it may, Toledo is certainly an admirable old town, located a dozen leagues from Madrid, Spanish leagues I mean, which are longer than a twelve-column newspaper article, or a penniless day, the two longest things I know of. One travels there by one-horse gig, or in a small stagecoach which leaves twice a week; we preferred the latter as being safer, since beyond the mountains, as formerly in France, one draws up one’s will before the briefest journey. The dread of brigands must be exaggerated, for, in a very long pilgrimage through those provinces with the reputation of being the most dangerous, we never saw anything that could justify such a degree of panic. However, the fear adds greatly to the pleasure; it keeps you alert and protects you from boredom: you are performing a heroic action, displaying superhuman courage; the anxious and fearful look of those who remain behind enhances you in your own eyes. A trip in a stagecoach, the most ordinary thing in the world, becomes an adventure, an expedition; you are leaving, it is true, but you are unsure whether you will arrive or return. That is something, in a civilization as modern as ours, in this prosaic and misguided year of 1840.

We left Madrid by the Toledo gate and bridge, decorated with stone vases exuding flames, scrolls, statues, and foliage, all in mediocre taste, and yet producing something of a majestic effect; we left behind on the right the village of Carabanchel, where Hugo’s Ruy Blas sought that little blue German flower for Maria de Neubourg. He would not find today the least vergissmeinnicht (forget-me-not) in this hamlet of cork-oak, built on pumice stone. One enters, by a vile path, onto an interminable dusty plain, covered entirely with wheat and rye, the pale yellow of which further adds to the monotony of the landscape. A few crosses auguring ill, which here and there spread their fleshless arms, a few bell-tower spires which reveal an insignificant village in the distance, or a dry ravine bed bridged by a stone arch, are the only features which present themselves. From time to time, we met a peasant on his mule, rifle at his side; a muchacho chasing two or three donkeys in front of him, loaded with jars or chopped straw held by cords; or a woman, poor, haggard and sunburnt, dragging a savage-looking brat, and that was all.

As we advanced, the landscape became more arid and more desolate, and it was not without a feeling of inner satisfaction that we saw, on a drystone bridge, the five green-clad huntsmen on horseback who were to serve as our escort, since an escort is needed when travelling from Madrid to Toledo. Might one not think one was amid the plains of Algeria, and that Madrid was surrounded by its own Mitidja populated by Bedouins?

We halted for lunch at Illescas, a town or a village, I am not sure which, where we saw some traces of ancient Moorish buildings, and whose houses have windows adorned with complex ironwork and surmounted by crosses.

Lunch consisted of soup with garlic, eggs, the inevitable tomato tortilla, toasted almonds, and oranges, all washed down with a Val-de-Penas wine, fairly good, though thick enough to cut with a knife, bitter with resin, and the colour of blackberry syrup. Its cuisine is not Spain’s best offering, and the inns have not improved appreciably since Don Quixote; those descriptions of omelettes full of feathers, tough hake, rancid oil, and chickpeas that could serve as bullets, are still most true to life; I know not, for example, where one might find today the fine chickens and monstrous geese served at Camacho’s wedding.

From Illescas, the terrain becomes more rugged, and results in an even more abominable road; nothing but potholes and death-traps. Though this did not prevent us from travelling at full speed; the Spanish postilions are like Morlach coachmen, they care little for what sits behind them, and as long as they arrive, even if only with an axle and the little front wheels, they are satisfied. However, we reached our destination without incident, in the midst of the cloud of dust raised by our mules, and the huntsmen’s horses, and we entered Toledo, panting with curiosity and thirst, through a magnificent gateway in the Arab style, with an elegantly curved arch, granite pillars topped with stone balls, and decorated with verses from the Koran. This portal is called the Puerta del Sol; it is red, sun-burnt, and candied in hue, like a Portuguese orange, and stands out admirably against the limpidity of a lapis-lazuli sky. In our foggy climate, we can barely gain an idea of that violence of colour, and harshness of contour, and the paintings that recall it always seem exaggerated.

After passing the Puerta del Sol, you find yourself on a sort of terrace from which you enjoy an extensive view; there is the Vega dappled and striped with trees and crops which owe their freshness to the irrigation system introduced by the Moors. The Tagus, crossed by the San Martín bridge and the Alcántara bridge, flows swiftly with yellowish waves, and enfolds the city almost entirely. At the foot of the terrace, the brown and shiny roofs of the houses, and the bell-towers of the monasteries and churches, their green and white earthenware tiles arranged in a checkerboard pattern, float before the eyes; beyond, one sees red hills and bare escarpments on the horizon. The view is singular in that it is entirely deprived of that ambient mist in the air, which with us, always bathes the broadest perspectives; the transparent atmosphere leaves the contours all their sharpness, and allows one to discern the smallest detail at considerable distance.

Having retrieved our luggage, there was nothing more urgent than to seek out a fonda or parador of some kind, since the eggs we partook of in Illescas already seemed far away. We were led, through alleys so narrow that two loaded donkeys could not have passed abreast, to the Fonda del Caballero, one of the most comfortable in the city. There, collecting the little Spanish that we knew, and with the help of pathetic mime, we managed to make the hostess, a gentle and charming woman, with the most interesting and distinguished air, comprehend that we were dying of hunger, something which always seemed to greatly astonish the natives of the country, who live on air and sun, in the highly economic fashion of chameleons.

The whole kitchen was put to work; about the fire, countless little pots were set, in which the spicy stews of the Spanish cuisine are distilled and sublimated, and we were promised dinner in an hour. We took advantage of that hour to examine the fonda in more detail.

It was a fine building, no doubt some old hotel, its interior courtyard paved with coloured marble forming a mosaic, and decorated with white marble wells, and troughs lined with earthenware tiles for washing the glasses and bowls.

The courtyard is called a patio; it is usually surrounded by columns and arcades, with a fountain in the middle. A canvas tendido (awning) which is folded up in the evening to let in the cool night air, serves as the ceiling for this sort of inside-out living room. All around, at the height of the first floor, there is an elegantly-worked iron balcony, onto which the windows and doors of the rooms open, rooms which one enters only to dress, dine, or take a nap. The rest of the time, we remained in this courtyard-salon, which was furnished with paintings, chairs, sofas, a piano, and embellished with flower-pots and orange trees in tubs.

Our inspection was barely over when Celestina (a strange and whimsical serving girl) came to tell us, while humming a song, that dinner was served. The meal was quite passable: cutlets, eggs with tomatoes, chicken fried in oil, and trout from the Tagus, accompanied by a bottle of Peralta, a thick sweet mulled wine, flavoured with a certain hint of muscat which is not unpleasant.

The meal over, we wandered into the city, preceded by our guide, a barber by trade, and an aid to tourists in his spare time.

The Toledo streets are extremely narrow; one could link hands from one window to its opposite, and nothing would be easier than to climb over the balconies, if those very fine grilles and elegant bars of rich ironwork, with which they are so lavish beyond the mountains, did not keep such good order by preventing aerial familiarities. The lack of width would make all those partisans of civilisation cry aloud, who dream only of immense squares, vast market-places, wide streets and other more or less progressive embellishments; yet nothing is more reasonable than narrow streets in a torrid climate, and the architects and engineers who are cutting such large gaps in the massif on which Algiers stands will shortly realise it is so. At the bottom of these narrow passages, conveniently set between blocks and islands of houses, one enjoys delightful freshness and shade, and one moves around under cover of the ramifications and porosities of this human coral-reef called a city; the ladles full of molten lead that Phoebus-Apollo pours from the sky at midday scarcely reach you; the projecting roofs serve as a parasol.

Street in Toledo

If, by misfortune, you are forced to pass through some plazuela (little square) or calle ancha (wide street) exposed to the scorching rays of the sun, you soon appreciate the wisdom of former days, when architects chose not to sacrifice everything to some foolish idea of regularity; the paving slabs are like those red-hot sheet-metal plates on which showmen make geese and turkeys dance the krakowiak; the wretched dogs, lacking shoes or alpargatas, cross them at the run, uttering plaintive howls. If you raise a door-knocker, you burn your fingers; you can feel your brain boiling in your skull like a cooking pot on the fire; your nose turns crimson, your hands burn, you evaporate in sweat. This is all that large squares and wide streets achieve. Anyone who has spent between noon and two o’clock in Madrid’s Calle de Alcalá will agree with me. Moreover, to win spacious streets, the houses are reduced in size, while the opposite seems more reasonable. It is to be understood that this observation only applies to hot countries, where it never rains, where mud is seldom found, and vehicles extremely rare. Narrow streets in our rainy climate would be abominable cesspools. In Spain, women go about on foot in shoes of black satin, and make long journeys thus; for which I admire them, especially in Toledo, where the pavements are composed of small sharp brightly-polished stones, which seem to have been carefully placed with the cutting edge uppermost; but the women’s small arched and muscular feet prove as tough as the hooves of a gazelle, and they flit about as gaily as anything on diamond-cut pavements which makes the traveller accustomed to the softness of asphalt from Seyssel on the Rhône, and the elasticity of Antoine Polonceau’s bitumen, cry out in anguish.

Houses in Toledo present a severe and imposing appearance; they possess few windows on the facade, and those are usually barred. The doors, decorated with bluish-granite pillars topped with stone balls, a decoration which is frequently reproduced, have an air of solidity and thickness added to by constellations of enormous nails. The houses have the air, at one and the same time, of monastery, prison, fortress, and to some extent harem after the Moors passed through. Some of the residences, in bizarre contrast, are decorated and painted externally, either in fresco or tempera, with imitation bas-reliefs, grisailles, flowers, rocailles and garlands, with vases, medallions, cupids, and all the mythological jumble of the last century. These trumeau and pompadour houses produce the strangest, most farcical effect beside their sullen sisters of feudal or Moorish origin.

We were guided to the Alcázar, located like an acropolis on the highest point of the city, through an inextricable network of small alleys, where my companion and I walked one behind the other, like the geese in the ballad, for lack of room to link arms, and we entered it after some discussion, since the first reaction of those to whom one addresses oneself is always a refusal, whatever the request may be. ‘Come back this evening; or tomorrow; the guard is taking a nap; the keys are lost; you need permission from the governor’: such are the answers one receives at first; but, by exhibiting the sacred peseta, or the gleaming duro (a five-peseta coin) in case of extreme difficulties, we always ended up forcing the issue.

The Alcázar, built on the ruins of the ancient Moorish palace, is today itself in ruins; it looks like one of those marvellous architectural dreams that Piranesi pursued in his magnificent etchings; it is by Alonso de Covarrubias, a little-known architect and sculptor, but far superior to the heavy and ponderous Juan de Herrera, whose fame is much overrated.

The facade, flowery and ornamented with the purest Renaissance arabesques, is a masterpiece of elegance and nobility. The ardent Spanish sun, which reddens marble and gives stone a saffron hue, has coated it with a dressing of rich and vigorous colour, very different from the leprous black with which the centuries encrust our old buildings. According to the expression of a great poet, Time has passed his thumb, thoughtfully, over the edges of the marble, over the too-rigid contours, and given to this sculpture, already so supple and so soft, a supreme polish and final completion. I especially remember a large staircase of magical elegance, with columns, banisters and marble steps already half-broken, leading to a door which opened onto a void, since that part of the building had collapsed. This admirable staircase, which a king could traverse, and which leads to nothing, has about it something prestigious and singular.

The Alcázar is built on a large esplanade surrounded by crenellated ramparts in oriental fashion, from the top of which one discovers an immense view, a truly magical panorama: here the cathedral thrusts its disproportionate spire into the heart of the sky; further away, in a ray of sunlight, shines the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes; the Alcántara bridge, with its tower-shaped gateway, spans the Tagus in bold arches; the Artificio de Juanelo (Juanelo Turriano’s hydraulic water-lift) clutters the river with its storied red-brick arcades which one might mistake for the remains of Roman constructions; and the massive towers of the Castillo de Cervantes (this Cervantes has nothing in common with the author of Don Quixote), perched on the rough and misshapen rocks which border the river, add one more set of jagged features to a horizon already cut so deeply by the ridged vertebrae of the mountains.

An admirable sunset completed the picture: the sky, through imperceptible graduations, went from the brightest red to orange, then to pale lemon, to arrive at a strange blue, the colour of greenish turquoise, which blended, in the west, with the lilac hues of night, whose shadow was already cooling that hemisphere.

Leaning on the corner of a niche, and looking down, in a bird’s eye view, at this city where I knew no one, and where my name was completely unknown, I fell into a deep meditation. Faced with all these objects, all these forms, which I saw now and probably would never see again, I was possessed by doubt of my own identity, I felt so absent from myself, transported so far from my own sphere, that everything seemed a hallucination, a strange dream, from which I was about to wake with a start to the sharp, quavering sound of vaudeville music rising from beyond the edge of some theatre-box. By one of those leaps of thought so common in reverie, I reflected on what my friends might be doing at that hour; I wondered if they had noticed my absence, and if, by chance, at this very moment, as I was leaning over that niche in the Alcázar of Toledo, my name was fluttering on some beloved and faithful Parisian lips. Apparently, my internal response was not in the affirmative; since, despite the magnificence of the spectacle, I felt my soul invaded by an immeasurable sadness, and yet I was fulfilling the dream of my whole life, I was touching with my fingers one of my most ardently cherished goals: I had spoken enough, during the lovely verdant years of my Romanticism, of my fine blade from Toledo, to be curious to see the place where it was made.

It took nothing less than the suggestion made by my friend that we go for a swim in the Tagus to rouse me from my philosophical meditation. Bathing is so a rare a feature in a country where, in summer, the riverbeds themselves are irrigated with water from the wells, that it made sense not to neglect the opportunity. On the guide’s assertion that the Tagus was a serious river, and possessed enough moisture to yield a cupful or two, we descended in all haste from the Alcázar, in order to take advantage of the daylight, and we headed for the river. After crossing the Plaza de la Constitución (Plaza de Zocodover) lined with houses whose windows, furnished with large esparto-grass blinds rolled-up or half-raised above the projecting balconies, gave it a most picturesque look of Venice and the Middle Ages, we passed under a beautiful doorway in the Arab style with a brick arch (El Arco de la Sangre), and arrived, by a steep and abrupt zigzag path snaking along the rocks and walls which serve to enclose Toledo, at the Alcántara bridge, near which there was a suitable place for bathing.

During the journey, night, which succeeds day so swiftly in southern climes, had fallen, and the darkness was complete, which did not prevent us from clawing our way into that estimable river, made famous by Queen Hortense’s languorous Romantic air (‘Fleuve du Tage’), and by the golden sand it bears in its crystal-clear waters according to the poets, the servants, and the travel-guides.

Our bathing over, we ascended again, hastily, so as to return before the doors were closed. We enjoyed a glass of horchata de chufas and iced milk, yielding an exquisite taste and aroma, and were guided back to our fonda.

The plaster of our room, like all Spanish rooms, was whitewashed and covered with those encrusted yellowed pictures, those mystical daubs executed like beer signs, which one meets with so often in the Peninsula, that part of the world which contains the greatest number of bad paintings; which is said without detriment to those that are good.

We determined to fall asleep as soon, and as deeply as possible, in order to wake early, and visit the cathedral the next morning, before the services began.

Toledo’s cathedral is considered, and with good reason, to be one of the finest and, above all, richest in Spain. Its foundation is lost in the mists of time, and, if local authors are to be believed, it goes back to the apostle Santiago, the first bishop of Toledo, who indicated the place to his disciple and successor Elpidius, hermit of Mount Carmel. Elpidius raised a church at the place so designated, invoking Saint Mary and granting it her title, while that divine lady still lived in Jerusalem. ‘Notable felicity! Illustrious coat of arms of the Tolédans! Most excellent trophy of their glories!’ exclaims, in lyrical effusion, the author from whom I extracted these details.

The holy Virgin proved not ungrateful, and, according to the same legend, descended in body and soul in order to visit the church in Toledo, and brought with her own hands to the blessed Saint Ildefonso a beautiful chasuble made of heavenly cloth. ‘See how well this queen repaid us!’ cries our author again. The chasuble still exists, and we see embedded in the wall the stone on which the divine foot was planted, the imprint of which it still retains. An inscription, conceived thus, attests to the miracle:

QUANDO LA REINA DEL CIELO

When Heaven’s Queen,

PUSO LOS PIES EN EL SUELO

set her foot on this floor,

EN ESTA PIEDRA LOS PUSO

it was on this stone it was set

Legend further relates that the Blessed Virgin was so pleased with her statue, found it so well made, so well-proportioned, and so good a likeness, that she kissed it and granted it the gift of working miracles. If the Queen of Angels came down to our churches today, I doubt she would be tempted to thus embrace her image.

More than two hundred of the most serious and honourable authors relate this story, which is as proven, to say the least, as that of the cause of Henri IV’s death; as for myself, I have no difficulty believing in this miracle, and am happy to accept the tale as authentic. The church remained as it was until Eugenius, sixth bishop of Toledo, enlarged and embellished it, as much as his means allowed, under the title of Santa María de Toledo, which it still retains today; but in the year 302, the time of the cruel persecution suffered by Christians under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, the prefect, Dacian, ordered the temple to be demolished and razed, so that the faithful no longer knew where to ask for and obtain the bread of grace. Three years later, Constantius, father of the great Constantine, having ascended the throne, the persecution ceased, the prelates returned to their seats, and Archbishop Melantius began to rebuild the church, on the same site. Shortly afterwards, around the year 312, Emperor Constantine, having converted to the faith, ordered, among other heroic works to which his Christian zeal impelled him, the repair and construction, at his own expense, in the most sumptuous manner possible, this basilica church of Our Lady of the Assumption of Toledo, which Dacian had destroyed.

Toledo then had as archbishop Patruinus, a learned, well-read man, who enjoyed the friendship of the emperor; this circumstance left him complete freedom to act, and he spared no expense in building a remarkable temple, of great and sumptuous architecture: it was this cathedral, that survived the time of the Goths, was visited by the Virgin, became a mosque during the conquest of Spain, and which, when Toledo was taken by King Alfonso VI, became a church again, the plan of which was carried to Oviedo by the order of the king of Asturias, Alfonso II the Chaste, in order to build, in accordance with that layout, the church of San Salvador of that city, in the year 803. ‘Those who are curious to know the grand and majestic form the cathedral of Toledo possessed at the time when the Queen of Angels descended to it, only have to visit that of Oviedo, and they will be satisfied,’ adds our author. For our part, we very much regret having been unable to grant ourselves that pleasure.

Finally, in the happy reign of Ferdinand III known as the Saint, Don Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada being archbishop of Toledo, the church took on the admirable and magnificent form that we see today, the form, it is said, of the temple of Diana at Ephesus. O naive chronicler! Permit me to believe not a word of it: the temple at Ephesus was no match for the cathedral of Toledo! Archbishop Rodrigo, assisted by the king and the entire court, after saying a pontifical mass, laid the first stone on a Saturday, in the year 1227; the work continued with great enthusiasm until the final touches had been made to it, and it had been brought to the highest degree of perfection that human art could attain.

Forgive the brief historical digression; I am not accustomed to the task, and will return swiftly to my humble role as tourist, guide, and literary daguerreotype.

The exterior of Toledo cathedral is far less rich than that of Burgos: no efflorescence of ornaments, no arabesques, no necklace of statues blossoming about the portals; solid buttresses, clear sharp angles, thick armour of dressed stone, a bell-tower of robust appearance, possessing none of the delicacy of Gothic jeweller’s-work, all this coated in a reddish hue, the colour of toast, or the sunburnt skin of a pilgrim returned from Palestine; the interior, on the other hand, is hollowed out and sculpted like a cave full of stalactites.

The door (Puerto del Reloj) through which we entered is of bronze and bears the following inscription: Antonio Zurreno del arte de Oro y Plata, faciebat esta media puerta (Antonio Zurreno, artist in gold and silver, made this half of the door). The impression one experiences is of the vividly grandiose; the church is divided into the nave and four aisles, two on each side: the nave is of disproportionate height, the aisles seem as if bowing their heads while kneeling as a sign of adoration and respect; eighty-eight pillars, as tall as towers and each composed of sixteen tapered columns joined together, support the enormous mass of the building; a transverse arm cuts the main nave between the choir and the high altar, forming the arms of the cross. All this architecture, a rare merit in Gothic cathedrals which were usually re-built several times, is in the most homogeneous and finished style; the original plan was executed from beginning to end, except for a few side-chapels which in no way conflict with the harmony of the general appearance. Stained-glass rose-windows sparkling with emerald, sapphire and ruby colours, set in stone ribs, produce a soft, mysterious filtered light conducive to religious ecstasy, and, when the sun is over-bright, esparto-grass blinds lowered over the windows maintain a semi-darkness full of cool air, which makes the churches of Spain such favourable places for meditation and prayer.

The main altar or retablo alone could pass for a church; it is an enormous pile of columns, niches, statues, foliage, and arabesques, of which the most minute description could give only a very faint idea; all this architecture, which rises to the vault and curves about the sanctuary, is painted and gilded with unimaginable richness. The tawny and warm tones of the antique gilding complement, in splendour, the glittering threads and rays of light caught in their traverse of the ribs and projections of the ornamentation, producing admirable effects, of the greatest and most picturesque opulence. The paintings, on a gold background, which adorn the panels of this altar equal, in their richness of the colour, the most dazzling Venetian canvases; this union of colour with the severe and almost hieratic forms of the art of the Middle Ages is encountered only very rarely; one might mistake the style of some of these paintings for Giorgione’s finest manner.

Opposite the high altar is placed the choir or silleria, according to Spanish usage; it is formed of three rows of carved, excavated wooden stalls, cut in a marvellous way, with historical, allegorical, and sacred bas-reliefs. Gothic art, on the verge of the Renaissance, produced nothing purer, more perfect, nor better designed. This work, involving a fearful amount of detail, is attributed to the patient chisels of Philippe de Bourgogne and Alonso Berruguete. The archbishop’s stall, set higher than the rest, is in the shape of a throne and marks the centre of the choir; jasper columns, of a brown shiny hue, crown this prodigious carpentry, and on the entablature rise alabaster figures, also by Philippe de Bourgogne and Berruguete, but in a freer and more flowing manner, of admirable elegance in appearance. Enormous bronze desks covered with gigantic missals, large mats of esparto-grass, and two organs of colossal size, placed facing each other, one on the right, the other on the left, complete the decor.

Behind the retablo is the chapel where Don Álvaro de Luna and his wife are buried in two magnificent juxtaposed alabaster tombs; the walls of this chapel are decorated with the arms of that constable, and the scallop shells of the Order of Santiago, of which he was the grand master. Close by, embedded in the vault of that portion of the nave which they here call the trascoro (afterchoir), I noticed a stone with a funeral inscription: that of a noble Toledan, whose pride revolted at the idea that his grave might be trampled on by the feet of people of low rank and doubtful extraction: ‘I prefer my chest not to be trodden by the masses,’ he had said on his deathbed; and, as he bequeathed a great deal of property to the church, his odd whim was satisfied by housing his body in the masonry of the vault where, indeed, no one was likely to step on him.

I shall not attempt to describe the side-chapels one after the other, it would take a whole volume for that: I will content myself with mentioning the tomb of a cardinal, worked with unimaginable delicacy in the Arab manner; the best comparison would be with guipure lace, but on a larger scale, and will arrive, without further delay, at the Mozarabic or Musharabic chapel, both terms being employed, one of the most curious in the cathedral. Before describing this chapel, let me explain what these words Mozarabic chapel mean.

At the time of the Moorish invasion, the inhabitants of Toledo were forced to surrender after a two-year siege; they sought to obtain the most favourable terms for their capitulation, and among the articles agreed was this: namely that six churches would be kept for those Christians who wished to live alongside the ‘barbarians’. The churches were those of San Marcos, San Lucas, San Sebastián, San Torcato, Santa Olalla, and San Justo. By this means, the Christian faith was preserved in the city during the four hundred years that Moorish domination lasted there, and for this reason the faithful Toledans were called Mozarabs, that is to say mixed with the Arabs. During the reign of Alfonso VI, when Toledo was returned to Christian authority, Cardinal Ricardo, the papal legate, wanted to abandon the Mozarabic office in favour of the Gregorian rite, supported in this by the king and by queen Constance, who both preferred the Roman rite. The clergy revolted, amidst a loud outcry; the faithful revealed their indignation, and there was nearly a mutinous popular uprising. The king, dreading the way things were going, and afraid the populace might take them to the last extreme, pacified them as best he could, and proposed to the Toledans this mezzo termine, this singular measure, entirely in the spirit of that age, which was accepted with enthusiasm on both sides: the supporters of the Gregorian rite and the Mozarabic rite were each to choose a champion and have them fight one another, so that God would decide in which manner and rite he preferred to be praised. Indeed, if ever God’s judgment were acceptable it must certainly be so in regard to liturgy.

The champion of the Mozarabs was one Don Ruiz de La Matanza; the day dawned; La Vega was chosen as the location for the fight. The victory remained uncertain for some time, but in the end Don Ruiz had the advantage and emerged victorious from the lists, to cries of delight from the Toledans, who, weeping with joy and throwing their caps in the air, entered the churches to kneel and return thanks to God. The king, queen, and court were most upset at this triumph. Realising, somewhat late, that it was an impious, reckless and cruel thing to have a theological question resolved by bloody combat, they claimed that only a miracle could decide the matter, and proposed a new test, which the Toledans, confident in the excellence of their ritual, were willing to accept. The test consisted, after a general fast and prayers in all the churches, of placing on a lighted pyre a book containing the text of the Roman liturgy, and another of the Toledan liturgy; the one which survived the flames without being burned would be deemed the best and most pleasing to God.

The test was carried out, point by point. A pyre of dry, highly-inflammable wood was erected on Zocodover Square, which, since it was created, had never seen such an influx of spectators; the two breviaries were thrown into the fire, each party raising their eyes and arms to heaven, and praying to God for the liturgy in which they preferred to serve him. The Roman ritual was rejected, the leaves scattered by the violence of the fire, and emerged from the ordeal intact, but a little scorched. The Toledan remained majestically in the midst of the flame, in the place where it had fallen, without stirring and without receiving any damage. Some enthusiastic Mozarabs even claim that the Roman missal was entirely consumed. The king, the queen and Cardinal Ricardo, the Papal legate, were scarcely content, but there was no path of retreat. The Mozarabic rite was therefore preserved and followed with ardour for many years by the Mozarabs, their children, and grandchildren; but, in the end, understanding of the text was lost, and no one remained capable of speaking or comprehending the office, the object of such lively dispute. Don Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, archbishop of Toledo, not wanting to let such a memorable rite fall into disuse, founded a Mozarabic chapel within the cathedral, had the rituals, which were in Gothic characters, translated and printed in ordinary letters, and instituted priests especially responsible for uttering this office.

The Mozarabic chapel, which still survives today, is decorated with Gothic frescoes of the highest interest: their subjects are battles between the Toledans and the Moors; the conservation is perfect, the colours as vivid as if the painting had been completed yesterday; an archaeologist might find from them a thousand intriguing items of information as regards weapons, costumes, equipment, and architecture, since the main fresco represents a view of ancient Toledo, which must have proved highly accurate. In the side frescoes the ships which brought the Arabs to Spain are painted in great detail; a professional seagoer might again draw useful information from them concerning the complex history of the navy in the Middle Ages. The coat of arms of Toledo, five sable stars on a field argent, is repeated in several places in this low-vaulted chapel, barred in the Spanish fashion by a gate of fine workmanship.

The chapel of the Virgin, entirely covered with porphyry, jasper, yellow and purple breccia of an admirable polish, is of a richness which exceeds the splendours of the Thousand and One Nights; many relics are kept there, including a shrine donated by Saint Louis, which contains a fragment of the true cross.

To catch our breath, we will, if you please, take a walk in the cloister, which frames with elegant and severe arcades beautiful masses of vegetation to which the church’s shade grants freshness, despite the consuming ardour of the season; all the walls of this cloister are covered with immense frescoes, in the style of the Van Loo family, by a painter named Francisco Bayeu. These compositions, simply arranged and pleasantly coloured, are out of keeping with the style of the building, and undoubtedly replaced older paintings which had deteriorated over the centuries, or had been found too Gothic in style by people of good taste in those days. A cloister beside a church is well-sited; it happily allows a transition from the tranquility of the sanctuary to the hustle and bustle of the city. One can walk there, dream, and reflect, without however being required to follow the prayers and ceremonies of worship; Catholics enter the temple, Christians more often linger in the cloister. This state of mind was understood by the Catholics, such skilful psychologists. In religious countries, the cathedral is the most highly-decorated, the richest, the most gilded, the most ornate of places; it is there that the shade is coolest, and the feeling of peace deepest; the music is better there than in the theatre, and the pomp of its spectacle has no rival. It is the central point, the place that attracts all, much like the Opéra in Paris. We have no idea, we Catholics of the North, with our Voltairean temples, of the luxury, elegance, and comfort of Spanish churches; such churches are furnished, alive, and lack the glacially deserted appearance of ours: the faithful can live there on familiar terms with their God.

The sacristies and chapter house of Toledo cathedral are of a more than royal magnificence; nothing is more noble or more picturesque than these vast rooms decorated with the solid and severe luxury to which the Church alone holds the secret. One sees only joiner’s work in walnut or black oak, tapestry or Indian damask door-hangings, curtains of embossed fabric with large heavy folds, ancient drapes, Persian carpets, fresco paintings. I shall refrain from describing them one by one, and will only speak of a room decorated with admirable frescoes representing religious subjects, in that German style which the Spaniards imitate so well, attributed to Berruguete’s nephew, if not Berruguete himself, since those prodigious geniuses travelled the threefold path of their art at the same. I would also cite an immense ceiling by Luca Giordano, over which a whole world of angels and allegories teem, foreshortened in the freest manner, and which creates a unique optical effect. From the centre of the vault springs a ray of light which, though painted on a flat surface, seems to fall perpendicularly towards your eye, whichever side you observe it from.

Here the cathedral’s treasures are kept, that is to say beautiful copes of brocade, uncut cloth of gold, and silver damask, wondrous guipure lace, silver-gilt shrines, diamond-studded monstrances, gigantic silver candlesticks, and embroidered banners; all the equipment and accessories needed for the presentation of that sublime Catholic drama which we call the Mass.

One of these rooms contains the Blessed Virgin Mary’s wardrobe, since cold statues of marble or alabaster are not enough for these southerners’ passionate piety; in their transports of devotion, they heap ornaments of extravagant richness on the object of their worship; nothing is lovely enough, brilliant enough, costly enough; under this flow of jewels the form and substance disappear: it concerns them little. Their greatest aim is for it to be materially impossible to hang one more pearl on the marble ears of the idol, to embed a larger diamond in the gold of her crown, or to trace one more pattern of jewels on the brocade of her dress.

Never did a queen in ancient times, not even Cleopatra, who drank pearls, or an empress of the Late Empire, or a duchess of the Middle Ages, or a Venetian courtesan at the time of Titian possess a more glittering casket, a richer trousseau than Our Lady of Toledo. We were shown some of the dresses: one is entirely covered, masking the background, with patterns and arabesques of fine pearls among which there are some of inestimable size and value, among others several rows of black pearls of incredible rarity; suns and stars of precious stones stud this prodigious dress, whose brilliance the eye can scarcely tolerate, and which is worth several million francs.

We ended our visit with an ascent of the bell tower, whose summit we reached via a series of ladders that were quite steep, and not very secure. About midway we came across, in a kind of storage area that we traversed, a series of gigantic mannequins, coloured and dressed in the fashion of the last century, which are employed in some procession akin to that of the tarasque at Tarascon.

The magnificent view visible from the top of the spire compensates to a large degree for the effort involved in the ascent. The whole city appears before one’s eyes with the clarity and precision of those scale models sculpted in cork by Auguste Pelet, which we admired at the last industrial exhibition. The comparison may no doubt seem most prosaic and not very picturesque, but in truth I cannot find a better or more accurate one. Those humped and tortured rocks of blue granite, which enclose the Tagus and one side of Toledo’s horizon, further add to the singularity of this landscape, flooded by and riddled with a harsh, pitiless, blinding light, which no reflection tempers, and which is further increased by the radiant, cloudless, vapourless sky, turned white by the heat, like iron in the furnace.

The heat was indeed atrocious, that of a plaster-kiln, and a rabid curiosity was demanded in order not to relinquish the exploration of monuments in this Senegambian temperature, but we still possessed all the ferocious ardour of enthusiastic Parisian tourists for local colour! Nothing deterred us; we only stopped to drink, since we were thirstier than African sand, and absorbed water like dry sponges. I really don’t know how we missed becoming dropsical; not counting wine and ices, we consumed seven or eight jars of water a day. Water! Water! was our perpetual cry, and a chain of muchachas, passing jugs from hand to hand from the kitchen to our room, was barely enough to quench the fire. Without this persistent flood, we would have turned to dust like the sculptors’ clay models when they neglect to dampen them.

Having viewed the cathedral, we resolved, despite our thirst, to visit the church of San Juan de los Reyes, but it was only after long negotiation that we succeeded in obtaining the keys, because the church had been closed for five or six years, and the monastery of which it is part is abandoned and falling to ruin.

San Juan de Los Reyes is sited on a bank of the Tagus, close to the Puente de San Martín; its walls possess that beautiful orange tint which distinguishes ancient monuments in climates where it seldom rains. A collection of statues of various kings in noble, chivalrous attitudes, and of proud appearance, decorates the exterior; but this is not what is most singular about San Juan de los Reyes; all the churches of the Middle Ages are populated with statues. A multitude of chains hanging from hooks adorn the walls from top to bottom: these are the shackles of Christian prisoners set free following the conquest of Granada. The chains, hung up there as ornaments, and ex-votos, give the church the somewhat strange, forbidding, though false appearance of being a prison.

An anecdote on this subject was related to us, which I will set down here since it is short and characteristic. The dream of every jefe politico (civil governor), in Spain, is to lay out an alameda (promenade), as every prefect in France desires a Rue de Rivoli in his city. The dream of the jefe politico of Toledo was to grant his citizens, therefore, a pleasant walkway; the location was chosen, the earthworks were soon completed, thanks to the cooperation of the Presidio (garrison); all that was missing from the promenade were trees, but trees cannot be improvised, and the jefe politico had the wise idea of replacing them with stone markers linked together by means of iron chains. As money is scarce in Spain, the ingenious administrator, a resourceful man if ever there was one, thinking of the ancient chains of San Juan de Los Reyes, said to himself: ‘By Heaven, there’s the perfect solution!’ And the chains from the prisoners delivered by Ferdinand and Isabella were attached to the boundary stones of the alameda. The locksmiths who carried out the work each received a few fathoms of this noble scrap-metal; a handful of intelligent people (for there are some everywhere) opposed this barbarity, and the chains were returned to the church. As for those that had been given as payment to the workers, they had already been forged into plough-shares, iron shoes for the mules, and various utensils. The tale is perhaps a slander, but it has all the characteristics of plausibility: we relate it as it was told to us: now let us return to our church. The key turned, with some difficulty in the rusty lock. This slight obstacle overcome, we entered a ruined cloister of admirable elegance; slender, semi-detached columns supported, on flowered capitals, arcades with extremely delicate ribbing and embroidered decoration; on the walls ran long inscriptions in praise of Ferdinand and Isabella, in Gothic characters interspersed with flowers, branches and arabesques; a Christian imitation of the Moors’ employment of sentences and verses of the Koran as architectural ornamentation. What a pity that such a precious monument should have been abandoned in this way!

By giving a few kicks to doors obstructed by worm-eaten boards or blocked with rubble, we managed to gain entry to the church, which is of a charming style, and seemed, apart from a degree of violent mutilation, to have been completed only yesterday. Gothic art has produced nothing more pleasant, elegant or finer. A gallery surrounds all, pierced and fenestrated like a steel fish-slice, its adventurous balconies being suspended from the beams of the pillars, whose recesses and projections it follows perfectly; gigantic scrollwork, eagles, chimeras, heraldic animals, coats of arms, banners and emblematic inscriptions like those in the cloister complete the decoration. The choir placed opposite the retablo, at the far end of the church, is supported by a low arch of beautiful appearance and great boldness.

The altar, which was undoubtedly a masterpiece of sculpture and painting, had been mercilessly overturned. These unnecessary devastations sadden the soul and make us doubt human intelligence: how can old stones hinder new ideas? Can we not make a revolution without demolishing the past? It seems to me that the Constitucion would have lost nothing by Ferdinand and Isabella’s church being left intact; she, that noble queen who trusted in genius, and endowed the universe with a new world.

Risking our lives on a half-broken staircase, we entered the interior of the monastery: the refectory is quite large and holds nothing in particular except a frightful painting set above the door; it represents, made even more hideous by the layer of dirt and dust which covers it, a corpse prey to decomposition, with all those horrid details treated so complacently by Spanish artists. A symbolic and funereal inscription, one of those threatening biblical sentences which give such terrible warnings of human nothingness, is written at the bottom of this sepulchral painting, singularly chosen for a refectory. I know not if all the stories about the gluttony of monks are true; but, for my part, I would possess but a mediocre appetite in a dining room decorated in that way.

Above, on each side of a long corridor, the deserted cells of the vanished monks are arranged like cells in a bee hive; they are all exactly the same as each other, and plastered with lime. This whiteness greatly diminishes the poetical impression by ridding the dark corners of terrifying chimeras. The interior of the church and the cloister are also whitewashed, giving them an air of the fresh and recent that contrasts with the style of the architecture and the condition of the buildings. The absence of humidity and the heat have prevented flowering plants and weeds germinating in the interstices of the stones and rubble, and the debris lacks the green coating of ivy with which time clothes ruins in northern climes. We wandered through the abandoned building for quite some time, following its endless corridors, ascending and descending hazardous staircases, like none other than Ann Radcliff’s heroes, but saw no ghosts, in fact, except for two wretched lizards which fled on all fours, doubtless ignoring, in their capacity as Spaniards, the French proverb: ‘The lizard is man’s friend.’ As for the rest, this walk among the veins and members of a great construction from which life has withdrawn, is the liveliest of pleasures one can imagine; forever expecting to encounter at the corner of an arcade an ancient monk with gleaming forehead, eyes flooded with shadow, walking gravely, arms crossed on his chest, on his way to some mysterious service in the desecrated and deserted church.

We retreated, since there was no more of interest to see, not even the kitchens, to which our guide led us downwards with a Voltairean smile that a subscriber to the Constitutionnel would not have disavowed. The church and the cloister are of rare magnificence; the rest is of the strictest simplicity: everything for the soul, nothing for the senses.

A short distance from San Juan de los Reyes is, or rather is not, the famous synagogue (latterly the church of Santa María la Blanca) in the Moorish style; since, lacking a guide, you might pass it by twenty times without suspecting its existence. Our guide knocked at a door cut in the most insignificant reddish adobe wall in the world; after some time, since the Spaniard is never in a hurry, someone came, opened the door, and asked us if we wished to visit the synagogue; upon our affirmative answer, we were introduced into a sort of courtyard filled with uncultivated vegetation, in the middle of which flourished an Indian fig-tree with deeply incised leaves, of an intense and brilliant greenery as if they had been varnished. In the background was a characterless building, looking more like a barn than anything else. We were taken into this hovel. Never was there a greater surprise: we were in the midst of the Orient; the slender columns with capitals shaped like turbans, the Turkish arches, the verses from the Koran, the flat ceiling with cedarwood compartments, the daylight admitted from above, nothing was lacking. Remains of old, almost erased, illuminations dyed the walls strange colours, and further added to the singularity of the effect. This synagogue, of which the Arabs made a mosque, and the Christians a church, today serves as a workshop and dwelling for a carpenter. His workbench took the place of the altar; this desecration is very recent. We can still see the remains of the retablo, and the inscription on black marble which notes the consecration of the building to Catholic worship.

Speaking of the synagogue, let me set down a rather curious anecdote here. The Jews of Toledo, no doubt to abate the horror they seemingly inspired in the prejudiced Christian population who thought them deicides, claimed not to have consented to the death of Jesus Christ, as per the following: when Jesus was put on trial, the council of priests, chaired by Caiaphas, consulted the tribes to know whether he should be released or executed: the question was put to the Jews of Spain, and the synagogue of Toledo declared itself in favour of acquittal. This tribe was not covered in the blood of the Righteous One, and therefore did not deserve the execrations heaped upon those who voted against the Son of God. The original response of the Jews of Toledo, with a Latin translation of the Hebrew text, is said to be preserved in the Vatican archives. As a reward, they were allowed to build this synagogue, which is, I believe, one of the few that was thereafter tolerated in Spain.

We had been told of the ruins of an ancient Moorish pleasure-garden, the Galiana Palace; we were led there after leaving the synagogue, despite our fatigue, because time was pressing, and we were due to leave next day for Madrid.

The Galiana Palace is located outside the city, in La Vega, and you reach it via the Alcántara bridge. After a quarter of an hour walking through fields and crops where ran a thousand small irrigation canals, we arrived at a clump of fresh-looking trees, at the foot of which a water-wheel turned. of the most ancient and Egyptian simplicity. Earthen jars, attached to the spokes of the wheel by reed cords, lifted the water and poured it into a channel of hollow tiles, leading to a reservoir, from which it was easily directed to places where one could quench one’s thirst.

An enormous pile of reddish bricks was outlined, in broken silhouette, behind the trees’ foliage; it was the Galiana palace.

We entered this pile of rubble, inhabited by a peasant family, through a low door; it is impossible to imagine anything darker, smokier, dirtier or more cavernous. The Troglodytes were housed like princes compared to these people, and yet the charming Aixa Galiana, the Moorish beauty with long henna-tinted eyes and brocade jacket studded with pearls, had set her little slippers on this broken floor; she had leaned on this window, watching in the distance the Moorish horsemen in the Vega practicing throwing the djerrid (wooden javelin).

We continued our exploration, bravely; climbing to the upper floors on shaky ladders, clinging with hands and feet to the tufts of dry grass, which hung like beards from the sullen old walls.

Having attained the summit, we noticed a strange phenomenon; we arrived with white trousers, we left with black ones, but a blackness that was leaping, teeming, swarming: we were covered with imperceptible little flies which had precipitated themselves upon us in compact masses, attracted perhaps by the coolness of our northern blood. I never would have believed that there were so many flies in the world.

A few pipes to bring water to the ovens are the only vestiges of magnificence that time has spared: the glass and enamelled earthenware mosaics, the marble columns their capitals covered with gilding, relief-work, and verses from the Koran, the alabaster basins, the stones pierced with holes to allow perfumes to filter through, all have vanished. What remains is a carcass: high walls and piles of bricks that dissolve to dust; for these wondrous buildings, recalling the enchantments of the Thousand and One Nights, are sadly built only of bricks and adobe covered with a layer of stucco or lime. All this lacework, all these arabesques, are not, as is generally believed, cut from marble or stone, but moulded in plaster, which allows them to be reproduced endlessly, and at minimal expense. It takes all the conserving dryness of the Spanish climate for monuments built with such frail materials to survive till our day.

The legend of Galiana is better preserved than her palace. She was the daughter of King Galafre, who loved her above all, and had a pleasure house built for her in La Vega with delightful gardens, kiosks, baths, and fountains that rose and fell according to the moon’s phase, either by magic or one of the hydraulic devices so familiar to the Arabs. Galiana, idolised by her father, lived most pleasantly in this charming retreat, occupying herself with music, poetry, and dance. Her hardest task was to evade the gallantries and adorations of her suitors. The most importunate and relentless of all was a certain petty king of Guadalajara, named Bradamant, a giant of a Moor, bold and fierce. Galiana could not stand him; and, as the chronicler says: ‘What matter that the knight is full of fire, if the lady is made of ice?’ However, the Moor was not discouraged, and his passion to see Galiana and speak to her was so strong that he had a covered way dug from Guadalajara to Toledo along which he came to visit her every day.

At that time, Charlemagne, son of Pepin, came to Toledo, sent by his father, to bring relief to Galafre against the king of Cordoba, Abdelrhaman. Calafre lodged him in this same Galiana Palace; since the Moors allowed their daughters, willingly, to receive famous and important people. Charlemagne had a tender heart under his iron armour, and it was not long before he was madly in love with the Moorish princess. At first, he tolerated Bradamant’s attentions to her, not yet being sure of having himself touched the beauty’s heart; but as Galiana, despite her reserve and modesty, could not long hide from him the secret preference of her soul, he began to show jealousy, and demanded the suppression of his swarthy rival. Galiana, who was already French to the core, or so says the chronicle, and who moreover hated that petty king of Guadalajara, gave the prince to understand that she and her father were equally annoyed by the pursuits of the Moor, and that she would be glad to be rid of him. Charlemagne did not need to be told twice; he challenged Bradamant to single combat and, though Bradamant was a giant, defeated him, cut off his head, and presented it to Galiana, who found it a gift in good taste. This gallantry advanced the French prince strongly in the heart of the beautiful Moor, and, their mutual love increasing, Galiana pledged to embrace Christianity, so that Charlemagne could wed her; which was swiftly done, Galafre being delighted to give his daughter to so great a prince. In the meantime, Pepin had died, and Charlemagne returned to France, taking Galiana with him, she being crowned queen, and received with great rejoicing. This is how a Moorish lady become a Christian queen, ‘and the memory of this story, still associated with the ancient building, deserves to be preserved in Toledo,’ adds the chronicler by way of final reflection.

Before all else we needed to rid ourselves of the populations of microscopic insects that had stained the folds of our formerly white trousers; fortunately, the Tagus was not far off, so we bore Princess Galiana’s flies there directly, and did as foxes do who gradually immerse themselves in water up to their noses, gripping with the tips of their teeth a piece of bark, which they later abandon to the river when they feel it is sufficiently crewed; for the infernal little creatures, encroached on by the waves, take refuge and lie dormant thereon. We ask forgiveness from our readers for these ample and picaresque details which would be better suited to La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes or Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache; but a trip to Spain would not be complete without them, and we hope to be absolved on behalf of local colour.

The far bank of the Tagus is lined with sheer cliffs which are difficult of approach, and it was not without some difficulty that we descended to the place where we were to carry out this great drowning. I began to swim like a mariner as cleanly as possible, in order to be worthy of a river as famous and respectable as the Tagus, and, after a few strokes, I arrived at some ruined buildings, shapeless remains of masonry, which topped the level of the river by a few feet only. On the bank, on precisely the same side, stood an old ruined tower, with a semi-circular arched entrance, where some laundry hung up by washerwomen was drying, prosaically, in the sun.

I had merely reached the Baño de la Caba (or Cava), otherwise known to the French as the bath of the legendary Florinda, and the tower that I had in front of me was the tower of Rodrigo ‘the last king of the Goths’. It was from the balcony of this window that Rodrigo, hidden behind a curtain, spied on the young girls bathing, and saw the beautiful Florinda la Caba comparing her legs, and those of her companions, to discover who had the roundest and shapeliest. Behold, on what things great events hang! If Florinda had possessed an ugly calf or an unsightly knee, the Arabs would not have entered Spain. Unfortunately, Florinda had trim feet, slender ankles, and the whitest, most attractive legs in the world. Rodrigo fell in love with the reckless bather, and seduced her. Count Julian of Ceuta, father of Florinda, furious at the outrage, betrayed his country to take revenge, and called on the Moors for aid. Rodrigo lost this famous battle which is so much talked about in the romanceros, and perished miserably in a coffin full of vipers, where he had lain himself down to do penance for his crime. Poor Florinda, stigmatised by the ignominious name of Caba, was held responsible by all Spain for this horror; yet what a preposterous and singular idea to have allowed a bath for young girls to face the young king’s tower!

Since I have mentioned Rodrigo, let me also note here the legend of the Cave of Hercules, which is inevitably linked to the story of that unfortunate Visigoth prince. The Cave of Hercules (Cuevas de Hércules) is an underground passage which extends, it is said, three leagues beyond the walls, and whose entrance, tightly closed and padlocked, is in the alley of San-Ginès, on the furthest elevated point from the city. On this place there once stood a palace founded by Tubal; Hercules restored it, enlarged it, and established his laboratory and his school of magic there, for Hercules, of whom the Greeks later made a god, was above all a powerful cabalist. By means of his art, he built an enchanted tower, whose talismans and inscriptions stated that, if anyone entered this magical enclosure, a fierce and barbarous nation would invade Spain.

Fearing that this disastrous prediction would be fulfilled, all the kings, and especially the Gothic kings, added new locks and fresh padlocks to the mysterious entrance, not because they had certain faith in the prophecy, but because, as wise people, they cared not at all for involvement in such enchantments and sorceries. Rodrigo, more curious, or more in need as his debaucheries and prodigality had exhausted his wealth, wished to attempt the adventure, hoping to find considerable treasure in the enchanted depths: he made for the passage, at the head of a few determined folk equipped with torches, lanterns and ropes, and arrived at its entrance, carved from the living rock, closed with an iron cover amply-padlocked, and adorned by a tablet on which could be read, in Greek characters: The king who unlocks this passage and is able to discover the wonders it contains, will meet with both good and evil. Previous kings, fearful of the consequences, had not dared go further; but Rodrigue, risking evil in hopes of good, ordered the padlocks to be broken, the bolts forced open, and the lid lifted; those who boasted of being the bravest descended first, but soon returned, trembling, pale, frightened, their torches extinguished, and those who could speak reported that they had been rendered afraid by a dreadful vision. Rodrigo, still resolving to breaking the spell, arranged fresh torches in such a way that the air flowing from the cave could not extinguish them, placed himself at the head of the troop, and entered boldly: he soon came to a square chamber, its architecture of the finest, in the midst of which stood a bronze statue, tall in stature and fearsome in appearance. The statue’s feet were set on a column three cubits high, and it held in its hand a mace with which it struck great blows upon the pavement, producing the sound and gusts of air which had caused so much fear on first entry. Rodrigo, brave as any Goth, resolute as any Christian who trusts in God and is unsurprised by pagan enchantments, advanced upon this colossus and asked its permission to visit the wonders that were there.

The bronze warrior, signifying its agreement, ceased striking the earth with its heavy mace: it was possible to see what lay in the room, and it was not long before Rodrigo came across a chest on the lid of which was written: He who opens me will see wonders. On seeing the statues acquiescence, the king’s companions recovered from their fright, and encouraged by the auspicious inscription, prepared to fill their cloaks and pockets with gold and diamonds; but all that was found in the chest was a rolled-up canvas on which were painted troops of Arabs, their heads girded with turbans; some were on foot, others on horseback, armed with shields and spears, and an inscription whose meaning was: He who has come this far, and opened the chest, will lose Spain, defeated by people such as these. King Rodrigo tried to conceal the melancholy emotion he experienced, so as not to cause the others sadness, and sought to see if there would not be some compensation for so disastrous a prophecy. Looking higher, Rodrigue saw on the wall, to the left of the statue, a cartouche which read: Wretched king! You entered here to your misfortune! And, on the right, another meaning: You will be dispossessed by foreign nations, and your people suffer harsh punishment. Behind the statue was written: I invoke the Arabs; and in front: I do my duty.

The king and his courtiers withdrew in confusion, filled with dark foreboding. That same night there was a furious storm, and the ruins of the Tower of Hercules collapsed with a dreadful crash. Not long afterwards events justified the prediction in the magic cave; the Arabs, depicted thus on the rolled-up canvas in the chest, displayed, in actuality, their turbans, spears and shields of a strange shape, on the unfortunate soil of Spain: all this, because Rodrigo gazed at Florinda’s leg, and clambered down into a cellar.

But as night is falling, we must now return to the fonda, have supper, and sleep, since we still have to visit the hospital of Cardinal Don Pedro Gonzales de Mendoza, the arms factory, the remains of the Roman amphitheatre, and a thousand other curiosities, and we leave tomorrow evening. As for me, I am so weary of treading the diamond-sharp pavements, I would rather walk on my hands a while, like the clowns at the circus, and rest my aching feet. O hansom-cab of civilization! Omnibus of progress! I invoke you, painfully; yet how would you have done in the streets of Toledo?

The Cardinal’s hospital (Hospital de Tavera) is a large building of broad, severe proportions, which would take too long to describe. We will cross, in haste, its courtyard surrounded by columns and arcades, only remarkable for two circular air shafts with white marble copings, and immediately enter the church to examine the tomb of the cardinal, carved in alabaster by the prodigious Berruguete who lived for more than eighty years, blessing his homeland with masterpieces of varied style but always equal perfection. The cardinal lies on his tomb in his papal vestments; Death with his bony fingers, has pinched his nose, and a supreme muscular contraction that sought to hold back the soul on the verge of escape clamped the corners of the mouth and tapered his chin; never has the mask of a dead person’s face been more sinisterly faithful; and yet the beauty of the work is such that we forget whatever is repellent regarding this spectacle. Little children, in attitudes of desolation, support the plinth and the cardinal’s coat of arms; the most free and fluid terracotta possesses no greater a freedom and fluidity; it is not sculpted, it is kneaded!

There are also, in this church, two paintings by Doménikos Theotokópoulos, known as El Greco, an extravagant and bizarre painter who is, at present, scarcely known outside Spain. His folly was, as you may know, his fear of being seen as an imitator of Titian, whose pupil he had been; this preoccupation led him, stylistically, to indulge in the most baroque refinements and caprices.

The first of these two paintings, that which represents the Holy Family, must have rendered poor El Greco somewhat unhappy, since, at first glance, one might take it for a Titian. The ardent colouring, the liveliness of tone in the draperies, a beautiful yellow-amber glow which warms even the freshest nuances of the Venetian painter, everything combines to deceive the most practiced eye: the brushstrokes alone are less broad and thick. What little reason El Greco still possessed must have capsized utterly on the dark ocean of madness after having completed this masterpiece; there are few painters likely to go mad for a similar reason these days.

The other painting, whose subject is the Baptism of Christ, belongs entirely to El Greco’s second style: here there is an excessive use of black and white, violent contrasts, a singular use of colour, freedom in the poses, draperies folded and crumpled at will; while in all this there reigns a depraved energy, a sickly power, which betrays both the great painter and the mad genius. Few paintings interest me as much as those of El Greco, because the worst always reveal something unexpected, beyond imagining, that surprises one and makes one dream.

After the hospital we visited the arms factory. It is a vast, symmetrical building, in good taste, founded by Charles III of Spain, whose name can be seen on all monuments of public utility; the factory is built close to the Tagus, whose waters are used to temper the blades, and drive the wheels of the machinery. The workshops occupy the sides of a large courtyard, surrounded by porticos and arcades as are almost all courtyards in Spain. Here, the iron is heated; there, it is subjected to the hammer; further on it is tempered; in one room are wheels for polishing and sharpening; in another scabbards and hilts are made. We will carry this investigation no further, since it offers our readers nothing in particular, and will only say that the composition of these rightly famous blades involves the old iron shoes of horses and mules, carefully gathered for the purpose.

To confirm that the blades of Toledo still deserve their reputation, we were led to the testing room: a worker, of tall stature and colossal strength, took a weapon of the most ordinary kind, a straight cavalry sabre, drove it into a lead ingot fixed to the wall, and made the blade bend every way like a riding crop, so that the hilt almost reached the tip; the elastic and flexible temper of the steel allowed it to withstand this test without breaking. Then the man placed himself in front of an anvil and gave it a blow so well applied that the blade entered a millimetre or so; this feat made me think of the scene from a Walter Scott novel (The Talisman, chapter XXVII), in which Richard the Lionheart and Saladin practice cutting iron bars and cushions.

The Toledo blades of today then are equal in that respect to those of yesteryear; the secret of their temper is not lost, only the secret of their form: modern works in truth only lack that one little thing, so despised by progressive people unlike those of ancient times. A modern sword is merely a tool, a sixteenth-century sword is both a tool and a treasure.

We had hoped to find in Toledo various old weapons, daggers, poignards, longswords, two-handed swords, rapiers and other curiosities suitable to set as trophies on a wall or a dresser, and we had learned by heart, for this purpose, the names and the marks of the sixty armourers of Toledo collected by the medievalist Achille Jubinal, but the opportunity to put our knowledge to the test did not present itself, since there are no more such blades in Toledo than there is leather in Cordoba, lace at Mechelen, oysters at Ostend, or pâté de foie gras in Strasbourg; it is in Paris that all the rarities are found, and if we encounter any of them in foreign countries it is because they come from Mademoiselle Delaunay’s little shop, on the Quai Voltaire.

We were also shown the remains of the Roman amphitheatre and the naumachia, which have the exact appearance of a ploughed field, like all Roman ruins in general. I lack the imagination needed to go into ecstasies over such problematic nothingness; that is a task I will leave to the antiquarians; I would rather speak to you of the walls of Toledo, which are visible to the naked eye and have an admirably picturesque effect. The buildings blend very happily with the uneven contours of the land; it is often difficult to say where rock ends and rampart begins; each civilisation has set its hand to the work; this section of wall is Roman, that tower is Gothic, and these battlements are Arab. The entire portion which extends from the Puerta de Cambron to the Puerta de Bisagra (its name derived some say from via sacra), where the Roman road probably ended, was built by Wamba king of the Visigoths. Each of these stones has its story, and if I wished to relate everything, I would need a volume instead of an article; but what does not exceed the bounds of my role as traveller is to repeat once more what a noble sight Toledo makes on the horizon, seated on its throne of rock, with its belt of towers, and its diadem of churches: one cannot imagine a stronger or more severe profile, a form coated with richer colours, or a city that preserves the physiognomy of the Middle Ages more faithfully. I remained in contemplation of it for more than an hour, trying to sate my sense of vision, and to engrave the silhouette of that admirable perspective in the depths of my memory: night fell too soon, alas, and we retired to bed, since we had to leave at one in the morning, to avoid the worst of the heat. Indeed, our calesero (coachman) arrived punctually, at midnight, and we clambered, still asleep but in a state of pronounced somnambulism, onto the meagre cushions of our carriage. The dreadful jolting caused by Toledo’s cobblestones soon woke us enough to enjoy the fantastic appearance of our nocturnal caravan. The carriage, with its large scarlet wheels and extravagant trunk seemed to pass through waves of houses closing behind it so near were the walls! A sereno (watchman) with bare legs, loose breeches, and the colourful headscarf of the Valencians, walked before us, bearing at the end of his spear a lantern whose flickering rays produced a play of shadow and light that Rembrandt would not have disdained to employ in some of his fine etchings of night-watches and patrols; the only noise to be heard was the silvery tremor of the bells on our mule’s neck, and the creaking of the axles. The townspeople slept as soundly as the statues in the Chapel of Los Reyes Nuevos. From time to time, our sereno thrust his lantern under the nose of some odd fellow sleeping in the street, and drove him away with the shaft of his spear; for wherever sleep takes a Spaniard, he spreads his cloak on the ground, and retires to bed, with a perfect show of philosophy and phlegmatism. In front of the gate, which was not yet open, and at which we were made to wait for two hours, the floor was strewn with sleepers, snoring in every possible tone, because the street is the only bedroom which is not also full of animals, and where entering your alcove requires the resignation of an Indian fakir. Finally, the accursed gate swung on its hinges, and we returned by the road we had come.

Part XI: A Festival Procession in Madrid – Aranjuez – A Patio – The Countryside of Ocaña – Tembleque and its Garters – A Night in Manzanares – The Knives of Santa Cruz de Mudela – The Puerto de los Perros – The Colony of La Carolina – Bailén – Jaén, its Cathedral and its Dandies – Granada – The Alameda – The Alhambra – The Generalife – The Albaicín – Life in Granada – The Gitanos – The Charterhouse – Santo Domingo – An Ascent of Mulhacen

Drop Cap W

We were obliged to return to Madrid to take the diligence for Granada; we could have travelled to Aranjuez and waited for it there, but ran the risk of finding it full, and we decided on the former course.

We arrived at Illescas at around one, half-roasted, if not wholly so, but without further incident. We could barely wait to complete the journey which had nothing new to offer us, except that we were travelling in the opposite direction.

My companion preferred to sleep, while I, already more familiar with Spanish cuisine, began to compete for my dinner with countless swarms of flies. The hostess’ daughter, a charming child of twelve or thirteen years, with Arab eyes, stood near me, a fan in one hand, a small broom in the other, trying to ward off the unwelcome insects which returned to the charge buzzing more furiously than ever as soon as the fan slowed or halted its movements. With this aid, I managed to cram a few morsels, fairly free of flies, into my mouth and, when my appetite was a little appeased, I began a dialogue with my insect-hunter which my ignorance of the Spanish language necessarily constrained a good deal. However, with the help of my precious dictionary, I managed to carry on a very passable conversation for a foreigner. The little one told me that she knew how to read and write all kinds of printed script, even Latin, and that in addition she played the pandero (tambourine) quite well, a talent of which I urged her to give me a sample, which she did, with very good grace, to the detriment of my comrade’s sleep, whom the jingling of the copper plates, and the dull sound of the donkey-skin brushed by the thumb of the little musician, ended by waking.

The fresh mule was harnessed. We had to set out again on our way, and really needed substantial moral courage to leave, in thirty degrees of heat, a posada where the perspective consisted of several rows of jars, pots and alcarrazas (earthenware jugs) covered with beads of moisture. Merely drinking the water is a pleasure I only truly experienced in Spain; it is indeed pure, clear and of exquisite taste. The Muslim prohibition against drinking wine is the easiest of prescriptions to follow in such climes.

Thanks to the eloquent speeches our calesero never ceased to deliver to his mule, and the little stones that he threw at its ears with great dexterity, we progressed quite well. He called the creature, whenever circumstances grew difficult, vieja, revieja (old, doubly-old), an insult to which mules seem particularly sensitive, either because the reproach is always accompanied by a lash of the whip handle on its spine, or because it is most humiliating in itself. This epithet, applied several times with great aptness, allowed us to arrive at the gates of Madrid at five in the evening.

We were already familiar with Madrid, and saw nothing new there except the Corpus Christi procession, which has lost much of its ancient splendour through the suppression of the monasteries and their religious brethren. However, the ceremony does not lack for solemnity. The route of the procession is dusted with fine sand, and tendidos (awnings) of sailcloth, stretching from one house to another, maintain shade and coolness in the streets; the balconies are adorned with flags and adorned with pretty women in full regalia; it is the most charming sight imaginable. The perpetual merry-go-round of the fans which open, close, palpitate, and beat their wings like butterflies seeking to settle; the elbow movements of women gathering themselves in their mantillas and correcting the lie of an unsightly fold; the glances thrown from one window to another at their acquaintances; the pretty nod and the gracious gesture which accompany the agur (greeting) with which the señoras respond to the riders who greet them; the picturesque crowd intermingled with Gallegos (Galicians), Pasiegas (from Vega de Pas), Valencianos, manolas and water sellers, all this forms a spectacle of delightful animation and cheerfulness. The Niños de la Cuna (foundlings), dressed in their blue uniforms, walk at the head of the procession. In this long line of children, we saw very few who had a pretty face, and Hymen herself, in all her conjugal carelessness, would have had difficulty producing anything uglier than these children of Love. Then came the banners of the parishes, the clergy, the silver shrines, and, under a canopy of cloth of gold, the Corpus Dei, beneath a hot sun of unbearable brilliance.

The proverbial religious devotion of the Spaniards seemed to me to wax cold indeed and, in this regard, one might have believed oneself in Paris at that time when declining to kneel before the holy sacrament was a sign of opposition to it, and one in good taste. At most, as they approached the dais, the men touched the brim of their hats. Catholic Spain no longer exists. The Peninsula is left with Voltairean, and liberal ideas in respect of feudalism, the inquisition, and fanaticism. Demolishing monasteries seems to it, to be the height of civilisation.

One evening, near the Post Office, at the corner of Calle de Carretas, I saw the crowd parting in haste, and a host of sparkling lights approaching along Calle Mayor: it was the holy sacrament borne, in its carriage, to the bedside of some dying person; since in Madrid the good Lord no longer travels on foot. Their flight was so as to avoid having to kneel.

Since we are talking of religious ceremonies, let me say that in Spain the cross on the pall covering the dead is not white as in France, but an equally lugubrious sulphur-yellow. They don’t use a hearse to carry the corpse away, but a bier with arms.

Madrid proved unbearable, and the two days we had to linger there seemed two centuries at least. We could do no more than dream of orange trees, lemon trees, cachuchas, castanets, basquins, and picturesque costumes, since everyone related wonderful stories of Andalusia to us, with that somewhat boastful emphasis which the Spaniards can never rid themselves of, any more than can the Gascons of France.

The desired moment finally arrived, since everything occurs at last, even the day we wished for, and we set off in a most comfortable diligence, drawn by a team of shaven, gleaming, and vigorous mules, who trotted at a brisk pace. This diligence was upholstered in nankeen, and furnished with blinds and green curtains. It seemed to us the height of elegance after the abominable carts, sillas volantes (two-wheelers), and carriages, in which we had been shaken about until then; and we would have been very comfortable except for that oven-like heat which scorched us, despite our fans always being in motion, and the extreme thinness of our clothing. Thus, as we rolled along in that oven of ours, there was a perpetual litany of: Jesus! What heat! I’m suffocating! I’m melting! and other assorted exclamations. However, we bore our troubles patiently and, without grumbling too much, let our sweat cascade down our noses and from our temples, since, at the end of our weary torment, we would have sight of Granada and the Alhambra, the dream of every poet; Granada, whose name alone makes the dullest bourgeois, official, or corporal of the civic guard burst into expressions of admiration, and dance on one foot.

The countryside about Madrid is sad, bare and scorched, though less stony on the southern side than the road via Guadarrama; tracts of land, tormented rather than rugged, embrace one another and succeed one another uniformly, with no other particularity than dusty and chalky villages, scattered here and there amidst the general aridity, and which one would scarcely notice if the square tower of a church did not attract one’s attention. Pointed spires are rare in Spain, where the square bell-tower is the most common form. At forks in the road, dubious crosses extend their sinister arms; from time-to-time ox-carts pass by, the herdsman asleep under his coat; or peasants on horseback, with fierce faces and rifles on their saddles.

The sky, at midday, is the colour of molten lead; the earth, a grey micaceous dust, which turns a barely blue shade in the furthest distance. Not a single clump of trees, not a shrub, not a drop of water in the bed of the dry torrents; nothing to rest the eye or refresh the imagination. To find a little shelter from the devouring rays of the sun, you must traverse the narrow band of rare blue shadow cast by the walls. It is true that it was the middle of July, which is not exactly the coolest time to travel to Spain; but I am of the opinion that countries should be visited in their most violent season: Spain in summer, Russia in winter.

Until we reached the royal residence (sitio real) of Aranjuez, we encountered nothing that deserves special mention. Aranjuez is a brick-built castle with dressed-stone corners granting it a red and white appearance, with large slate roofs, pavilions, and weather vanes, which recall the type of architecture adopted by Henry IV and Louis XIII, in the palace of Fontainebleau, and the apartments of the Place Royale (Place des Vosges) in Paris. The Tagus, which is crossed by a suspension bridge, maintains a freshness of vegetation admired by the Spaniards, and allows northern trees to develop vigorously. In Aranjuez elms, ash trees, birches, and aspens can be seen, as much a curiosity there as Indian fig-trees, aloes and palm-trees would be here.

A gallery was pointed out to us, one built expressly, along which Manuel Godoy, the famous Prince of Peace, went from his house to the castle. Leaving the village, we saw on the left the Plaza de Toros, which is quite monumental in appearance.

While the mules were being changed, we hastened to the market to stock up on oranges, and obtain some ices, or rather pureed snow with lemonade, from one of those open-air refresco shops as common in Spain as cabarets in France. Instead of drinking barrels of cheap wine or small glasses of brandy, the peasants and herb sellers at the market imbibe a bebida helada, which costs them no more, and at least fails to addle their brains or stupefy them. The absence of drunkenness renders the common folk far superior to the corresponding classes in our so-called civilised countries.

The name of Aranjuez, which is claimed to have been formed from the two Latin words: ara Jovis (Jove’s altar), clearly indicates that the residence stands on the site of an ancient temple of Jupiter. We lacked the time to visit the interior, but hardly regretted it, since all the palaces are alike. It is the same with courtiers: originality is only found among the people; the masses seem to have retained the privilege of being poets.

From Aranjuez to Ocaña, the landscape, without being remarkable, is however more picturesque. Beautifully contoured hills, struck cleanly by the light, line each side of the road, whenever the whirlwind of dust amidst which the stagecoach gallops, enclosed like a god in its cloud, dissipates, borne away by some favourable breath, and allows you to view them. The road, though poorly maintained, is quite good, thanks to the wonderful climate of a region where it almost never rains, and to the scarcity of carriages, almost all transport being achieved on the backs of animals.

We were obliged to have supper, and to sleep, at Ocaña, so as to wait for the correo real (royal mail-coach) and take advantage of its escort by accompanying it, since we were about to enter La Mancha, then infested by bands led by Palillos, Polichinela, and other honest folk whom it was disagreeable to encounter. We stopped at a good-looking hostelry, with an arcaded patio covered with a superb tendido, whose canvas, single or doubled, formed more or less translucent designs and symmetries. The name of the manufacturer and his address in Barcelona were written there most legibly. Myrtles, pomegranates and jasmines, planted in red clay pots, brightened and perfumed this interior courtyard, lit by subdued half-light and full of mystery. The patio is a charming invention: you enjoy more freshness and space there than in your room; you can walk there, read there, be alone or with others. It is a neutral ground for meeting people, who, without going through the boredom of formal visits and presentations, end by knowing each other and bonding; and when, as in Granada or Seville, one can add the pleasure of a jet of water, or a fountain, I know of nothing more delicious, especially in a country where the thermometer remains at Senegambian heights.

While waiting to be fed, we went off to take a nap; it is a habit you absolutely must adopt in Spain, since the heat, from two till five in the afternoon, is something Parisians have no idea of. The pavement burns, the iron door-knockers turn red, a shower of fire seems to rain from the sky, ears of wheat ripen swiftly, the earth cracks like the enamel of an overheated stove, the cicadas flex their abdomens and click with more vivacity than ever, and the little air that reaches you seems to be blown through the bronze mouth of a furnace; the shops are closed, and you could not persuade a shopkeeper to sell you anything for all the money in the world. Only dogs and the French occupy the streets, as the common saying, most ungracious in regard to ourselves, has it. The guides, even if you gift them Havana cigars or tickets to the bullfight, two things eminently attractive to a Spaniard, refuse to take you to the least of monuments. The only thing left for you to do is to sleep like all the others, and to this you quickly resign yourself; for what can one do while awake in the midst of a sleeping nation?

Our rooms, which were whitewashed, were perfectly clean. The insects of which we had been given such vivid descriptions had not as yet appeared, and our sleep was undisturbed by nightmarish centipedes.

At five in the evening, we arose to take a walk while waiting for supper. Ocaña is not rich in monuments, and its greatest claim to fame is a desperate attack by Spanish troops on a French redoubt during the war of invasion. The redoubt was taken, but almost the entire Spanish battalion was left behind. Each of these heroes was buried in the place where he had fallen. The ranks had been in such tight formation, despite a deluge of grapeshot, that they can still be recognised by the symmetry of the grave-pits. Juan Batista Diamante wrote a play entitled El Hércules de Ocaña, undoubtedly composed for some athlete of prodigious strength, like the Goliath of the Cirque-Olympique. Our visit to Ocaña brought back memories thereof

The harvest is brought in, here, at a time when the wheat is just beginning to turn yellow, and the sheaves are carried to large areas of beaten earth, a sort of merry-go-round where horses and mules thresh the ears by stamping their hooves. The animals are harnessed to a sort of sled on which stands, in a pose of proud and daring grace, the man charged with directing the operation. It takes a lot of poise and self-assuredness to maintain oneself on this frail machine, drawn by three or four horses, while exercising the full force of the whip. A painter of the school of Louis-Léopold Robert would benefit greatly from viewing these scenes of a biblical and primitive simplicity. Here the fine tanned faces and sparkling eyes, the Madonna-like features of the young women, the characterful costumes, the bright light, the azure sky and the sun, concede nothing to Italy.

The sky that evening was a milky blue tinged with pink; the fields, as far as the eye could see, presented an immense sheet of pale gold to the gaze, where, here and there, like islets in an ocean of light, carts drawn by oxen appeared almost hidden beneath the sheaves. The chimera of a painting free of shadows, so much pursued by the Chinese, was realized. Everything was bright and clear; the darkest shade failed to exceed a pearly grey.

In the end, we were served with a passable supper, or at least one our appetite made us think was such, in a low-ceilinged room decorated with little paintings on glass in a rather bizarre Venetian rococo style. After supper, my companion Eugène (Eugène Piot) and I, being mediocre smokers and only able to take a minimal part in the conversation because of the requirement to convey everything we had to say in the two or three hundred words we knew, returned to our rooms, saddened somewhat by the various stories of brigands that we had heard related at table, which seemed all the more terrible to us for being only half-intelligble.

We were obliged to wait till two in the afternoon for the correo real to arrive, since it would not have been prudent to set out without it. We also had a special escort of four horsemen armed with blunderbusses, pistols, and large sabres. They were tall men, with characteristic faces, framed by enormous black whiskers, peaked hats, wide red belts, velvet breeches and leather gaiters, looking far more like thieves than gendarmes, and whom it was wise indeed to have accompany you, for fear of encountering them later.

Twenty soldiers crammed into a cart followed the correo real. Such carts are un-sprung with two or four wheels; a net of esparto-cord serves as support for the boards. This succinct description allows you to judge the position of those unfortunate fellows, forced to stand while gripping the rails with their hands so as not to tumble on top of each other. Add to that our speed of four leagues an hour, the stifling heat, a sun vertically above, and you will agree that it required heroic good humour to find the situation pleasant. And yet these poor soldiers, barely covered by their tattered uniforms, with empty stomachs, having nothing to drink but heated water from their flasks, shaken about like rats in a trap, did nothing but laugh out loud and sing, all the way along the road. The sobriety of the Spaniards and their patience in enduring fatigue is something miraculous. They seemed Arabs still, in that particular. One cannot take indifference to material existence any further. Yet these soldiers, who lacked bread and shoes, possessed a guitar.

The whole tract of the kingdom of Toledo we were traversing was dreadfully arid, presaging our approach to La Mancha, the homeland of Don Quixote, and the most desolate and infertile province of Spain.

Soon, we passed La Guardia, an insignificant little village with a most wretched appearance. At Tembleque we bought, for the fair ladies of Paris, a few dozen garters in cerise, orange, and sky-blue, embellished with gold or silver thread, with mottos in woven letters that would put to shame the most gallant doggerel verse on the kazoos at the Saint-Cloud Fair. Tembleque has a reputation for garters, as Châtellerault in France has for penknives.

While we were bargaining for the garters, we heard beside us a deep, hoarse, menacing growl, like that of an angry dog; we turned around suddenly, not without apprehension, unsure how Spanish mastiffs communicate, and found that this howl was produced not by an animal, but by a man.

Never has nightmare, planting its knee on the chest of a delirious patient, produced a more abominable monster. Hugo’s Quasimodo was a Phoebus compared to him. A square forehead, hollow eyes, glittering with a wild light, a nose so flattened that only the nostril-holes marked its place, a lower jaw two inches more advanced than the upper; such in two words is the description of this scarecrow, whose profile formed a concave arc like those crescents adorned with the moon’s face in the Almanach de Liège. The achievement of this wretch was to possess no nose and to imitate a dog, which he did wondrously well, being more nose-less than Death himself, and howling more than all the boarders of the Barriêre du Combat (The Pantin toll-gate in Paris, a site where bull-baiting took place) at lunchtime, combined.

Puerto Lápice consisted of a few more or less half-ruined hovels, squatting, perched, on the slope of a cracked, gravelly hillside, crumbling due to drought, and collapsing into curious ravines. It seemed the height of aridity and desolation. Everything was the colour of cork and pumice. Fire from heaven seemed to have passed that way; a grey dust, as fine as crushed sandstone, still coating the scene. Its state of misery is all the more heartbreaking because the brightness of an implacable sky highlights its depth of poverty. The cloudy melancholy of the North is nothing compared to the luminous sadness of hot countries.

Viewing such miserable shacks, one feels pity for thieves forced to live on the proceeds of their marauding in a country where one would be hard put to find the means to cook a boiled egg within ten leagues around. The volume of stagecoaches and convoys of carts is quite insufficient, and the poor brigands who roam La Mancha must often be content for their supper with a handful of those sweet acorns which were Sancho Panza’s delight. What can one derive from people who have neither purses nor pence, who live in houses furnished with four bare walls, and with only a frying pan and a jug for utensils? Plundering such villages seems to me one of the most dismal fantasies that could occupy the heads of workless thieves.

A little way beyond Puerto Lápice, we entered La Mancha, and saw on the right two or three windmills which lay claim to having sustained, victoriously, the impact of Don Quixote’s lance, and which, for a quarter of an hour, turned their flaccid sails nonchalantly beneath the breath of a wheezing wind. The venta where we stopped to drain two or three jars of fresh water, also boasted of having hosted Cervante’s immortal hero.

I will not weary readers with a description of our monotonous road through a flat, stony, dusty countryside, dotted here and there with olive trees showing glaucous, diseased green foliage, where we only encountered wild, haggard, mummified peasants, with sun-scorched hats, short breeches, and gaiters of thick blackish cloth, wearing ragged jackets on their shoulders, and driving before them some mangy donkey its coat blanched from old age, with drooping ears, of pitiful appearance; and where, at the entrance to some village one sees half-naked children, brown as mulattoes, who watch one pass with fierce and astonished gaze.

We arrived at Manzanarès in the middle of the night, dying of hunger. The courier who had preceded us, in exercising his right as first-comer, and his knowledge in the matter of lodgings, had exhausted all the provisions, consisting, it is true, only of three or four eggs and a slice of ham. We uttered the keenest and most touching cries, declaring we would set the house on fire and roast the hostess herself in the absence of other food. This energy earned us supper around two in the morning, for which we had to wake up half the town. We ate our quarter of kid, eggs with tomatoes, ham, and goat’s cheese, while consuming a fairly passable little white wine. We all dined together in the courtyard, in the light of three or four yellow-copper lamps, similar to ancient funeral lamps, the night air causing the flame to flicker, producing strange shadows and shafts of light and granting us the appearance of lamias and ghouls tearing apart pieces of disinterred children. So that the meal might possess a wholly enchanted air, a tall, blind-girl approached the table, guided by the noise, and began to sing verses to a plaintive and monotonous tune, which sounded like some vague Sibylline incantation. Learning that we were foreigners, she improvised laudatory verses in our honour, which we rewarded with a few reals.

Before returning to the coach, we walked about the town, a little gropingly it is true, but still, it was better than remaining in the courtyard of the inn.

We attained the market square, though not without setting foot, in the shadows, on some sleeper under the stars. In summer folk generally sleep in the street, some on their coats, others on a mule-blanket; here, on a bag filled with chopped straw (they are the sybarites), there, simply on the bare breast of mother Cybele with a stone for a pillow.

Peasants who arrived in the night slept pell-mell among strange vegetables and raw foodstuffs, between the legs of their donkeys and mules, waiting for daylight, which would soon appear.

A faint ray of moonlight vaguely illuminated a sort of ancient crenellated building in the darkness, in which one could recognise, by the whiteness of its plaster, defensive works carried out during the last civil war, which the years had not yet had time to harmonise with the rest. As a conscientious traveller, this is all I can say about Manzanarès.

We clambered into the coach once more; sleep overtook us and, when we opened our eyes, we found ourselves in the vicinity of Valdepeñas, a town renowned for its wine. The earth and the hills, dotted with stones, were a red tone of singular rawness, and we could distinguish on the horizon bands of mountains as jagged as saws, with an extremely clear outline despite their great distance.

Valdepeñas itself owns to nothing extraordinary, and owes its entire reputation to its vineyards. Its name of the ‘valley of stones’ is perfectly justified. We halted there for lunch, and, struck by an inspiration from heaven, I formed the idea of first consuming my own drink of chocolate, and then the one intended for my comrade, who had not yet awakened, and, foreseeing future famine, I added to each cup as many buñuelos (a kind of small doughnut) as would fit, so as to achieve a sort of fairly substantial soup, as I had not yet reached the state of asceticism camels achieve, which I accomplished only later after long exercise of an abstinence worthy of an anchorite of earliest times. I was not yet acclimatised, and I had brought from France an incredible appetite which inspired respectful astonishment among the natives of the country.

After only a few minutes, we left in great haste, as we had to follow the correo real closely, so as not to lose the benefit of an escort. Leaning out of the vehicle to take a last look at Valdepeñas, I dropped my cap on the path; a muchacho, between twelve and fifteen years of age, noticed it, and, to gain a few coppers as a reward, picked it up and began to run after the diligence, which was already far away; however, he caught up with us, though he ran barefoot, on a path paved with sharp, angular stones. I threw him a handful of cuartos which certainly made him the most opulent scamp in the whole country. I only report this insignificant circumstance because it is characteristic of this ability of the Spaniards, the foremost walkers in the world, and the most agile runners that can be seen. I have already had occasion to speak of these postilions on foot whom they call zagales, and who follow carriages at the gallop for whole leagues without appearing to feel fatigue, and without even breaking sweat.

At Santa Cruz de Mudela, all kinds of small knives and navajas were offered for sale; Santa Cruz de Mudela and Albacete are renowned for this fancy cutlery. These navajas, of a very characteristic Arabic and barbaric taste, have pierced copper handles whose holes are filled by red, green or blue inlays; curved excisions, vividly shaped, embellish the blade which takes on the shape of a fish and is always very sharp; most carry mottos like this: Soy de uno solo (‘I belong to one alone’); or Cuando esta vivora pica, no hay remedio en la botica (‘Whenever this viper stings, no remedy medicine brings’). Sometimes the blade is incised with three parallel grooves, the hollows being painted red, which gives it a truly formidable appearance. The size of these navajas varies from three inches to three feet; some majos (peasants of noble air) have ones which, when open, are as long as a sabre; a jointed spring, or a ring that one turns, holds the blade open. The navaja is the favourite weapon of the Spaniards, especially among the common folk, who handle it with incredible dexterity, while making a shield of their cape rolled around the left arm. It is an art which has its own principles akin to fencing, and masters of the navaja are as numerous in Andalusia as fencing-masters in Paris. Every wielder of the knife has his secret and individual moves; their followers, it is said, at the sight of a wound, recognize the artist who executed the work, as we recognize a painter by his touch.

The undulations in the terrain became more frequent and pronounced; we did nothing but ascend and descend. We were approaching the Sierra Morena, which forms the boundary of the kingdom of Andalusia. Behind this line of purple mountains lay the paradise of our dreams. Already the stones were changing to rocks, the hills to tiered ranges; thistles six or seven feet high bristled on the sides of the road like the halberds of concealed soldiers. Though I have no pretension to being a donkey, I truly like thistles (a taste, moreover, that I share with the butterflies), and these amazed me; the thistle is a superb plant from which charming ornamental motifs can be created. Gothic architecture possesses no arabesque or foliage more cleanly cut or more finely carved. From time to time, we saw large yellowish patches in the neighbouring fields, as if sack-loads of chopped straw had been emptied there; however, the patches of straw, as we passed by, rose like a whirlwind and flew away noisily: they were swarms of resting locusts; there must have been millions of them: it was strongly suggestive of Egypt.

It was about then that, for the first time in my life, I truly suffered from hunger: Ugolino in his tower was no hungrier than I, and unlike him I lacked four sons to eat. The reader, who remembers me downing two cups of chocolate in Valdepeñas, may perhaps be surprised at this premature state of starvation; but those Spanish cups are no bigger than a thimble and contain at most two or three spoonsful. My sadness was especially deepened, at the venta where we left our escort, on seeing a magnificent omelette intended for the troop’s dinner gilded by a ray of sunlight that descended the chimney; I prowled about like a hungry wolf, but it was too well guarded to be carried off. Fortunately, a lady from Granada, who was in the stagecoach with us, took pity on my martyrdom and gifted me a few slices of La Mancha ham glazed with sugar, and a piece of bread, which she had held in reserve in one of the pockets of our vehicle. May that ham be returned to her a hundredfold in the next world!

Not far from the venta, on the right of the road, stood pillars on which the heads of three or four criminals were exposed: a spectacle which always reassures one, by proving that one is in a civilised country.

The road climbed, making numerous zig-zags. We were about to thread the Puerto de los Perros: this is a narrow gorge, a gap made in the mountain wall by a torrent that barely leaves room for the road which runs alongside it. The Puerto de los Perros (the Despeñaperros Gorge, the Pass of the Dogs) is so named because it is through this that the defeated Moors left Andalusia, taking with them the joys of civilisation which they had granted Spain. Spain, which touches on Africa as Greece touches on Asia, is not made for European customs. The genius of the East shines there in all forms, and it is perhaps unfortunate in that respect that it has not remained Moorish and Muslim.

One could not conceive of anything more picturesque and grandiose than this gateway to Andalusia. The gorge is cleft into immense red marble cliffs whose gigantic layers overlap with a kind of architectural regularity; these enormous blocks with large transverse cracks, veins of the mountain’s marble, by means of a terrestrial cross-section of which one can study the anatomy of the globe, have proportions which reduce the largest Egyptian granites to microscopic size. In the gaps, cling holm oaks, and enormous cork-trees, which seem no bigger than tufts of grass on an ordinary wall. As we reached the bottom of the gorge, the vegetation thickened to form an impenetrable thicket through which once could see, in places, the crystal waters of the torrent gleaming. The escarpment is so steep on the side of the road that it was considered prudent to provide it with a parapet, otherwise coaches, always travelling at the gallop, and difficult to steer because of the frequency of the bends, might very well somersault five or six hundred feet at least.

It is in the Sierra Morena that the Knight of the Sorrowful Face, in imitation of Amadis on the Peña Pobre (the Poor Rock), accomplished his famous penance which consisted of doing somersaults in his shirt among the sharpest stones, and Sancho Panza, most positive of men, common sense accompanying his master’s noble madness, found Cardenio’s saddle-pack so well stocked with ducats and fine shirts. One cannot take a step in Spain without encountering some memory of Don Quixote, for Cervantes’ work is profoundly Spanish, and those two figures sum up in themselves the entire Spanish character: chivalrous exaltation, an adventurous spirit united with a deeply practical common sense, and a sort of jovial good-naturedness full of refined and caustic wit.

At Venta de Cárdenas, where we changed mules, I saw a pretty little child with dazzling white skin, lying in a cradle, looking like a wax Jesus in his crib. The Spaniards, when they are not yet tanned by the sun, are in general extremely white in complexion.

On crossing the Sierra Morena, the appearance of the country changes completely; it is as if one passes, suddenly, from Europe to Africa: vipers, returning to their nests, streaked obliquely across the fine sand of the road; aloes begin to brandish their large thorny swords at the edges of ditches. These large fans of fleshy, thick, blue-grey leaves at once gave the landscape an altered appearance. One truly felt in an alien place, and understood that one had altogether left Paris behind; the difference in climate, architecture, dress is less disorientating than the presence of those large plants from torrid regions one is only used to seeing in hothouses. The laurels, holm-oaks, cork-trees, fig-trees with their gleaming metallic foliage, have about them something free, robust, and wild, indicating a climate where nature is more powerful than human beings and can do without them.

Before us, in all its beauty, spread the kingdom of Andalusia, like an immense panorama. The view possessed the grandeur in appearance of the sea; mountain ranges, graduated by distance, unfolded in undulations of infinite gentleness, like long azure waves. Large trails of pale vapour clothed the intervening spaces; here and there bright rays of sunlight glazed some closer peak, shimmering with a thousand colours like a pigeon’s throat, with gold. Other oddly-crumpled mounds resembled the fabrics in old paintings, yellow on one side, blue on the other. All this was flooded with glittering light as splendid as that which illuminated the earthly paradise must have been. The sun’s rays streamed over this ocean of mountains like liquid gold mingled with silver, spraying a phosphorescent gleam of foam over every obstacle. The vista seemed greater than the broadest landscapes of the English artist John Martin, and a thousand times more beautiful. The infinite is far more sublime and prodigious viewed in the light than in semi-darkness.

While gazing at this marvellous picture, which altered to present fresh magnificence at each rotation of the wheels, we saw the pointed roofs of the symmetrical pavilions of La Carolina rise above the horizon; La Carolina is a sort of model village, belonging to an agricultural community, constructed by the Count of Floridablanca (José Moñino) for Charles III of Spain, and populated by him with Germans and Swiss brought there at great expense. This village, built suddenly, conceived by an act of will, possesses the tedious regularity which dwellings lack that have gathered slowly, one by one, at the whim of time and chance. Everything is in straight lines; from the centre of the square, you can see the whole town: here is the market in the Plaza de Toros, there is the church and the alcalde’s house. It is well laid-out, certainly, but I prefer the most wretched of villages blessed with a little adventurousness. Moreover, the colony failed: the Swiss became homesick merely from hearing the bells ring, and died like flies; they were obliged to halt the bell-ringing. Not all died, however, and the population of Carolina still retains traces of its Germanic origin. We ate a proper dinner at Carolina, washed down with excellent wine, without them needing to serve double portions; we no longer followed the mail-coach, the roads being perfectly safe that side of the gorge.

Aloe trees, increasingly African in size, continued to appear beside the track, and to the left a long garland of flowers of the brightest pink, sparkling amidst emerald foliage, marked the winding bed of a dried-up stream. Taking advantage of a relay halt, my travelling companion ran towards the flowers and brought back an enormous bouquet; they were oleanders of incomparable freshness and brilliance. Monsieur Casimir Delavigne’s question to the Greek river could be addressed to this stream, whose name I do not know, and which perhaps does not have one: ‘Eurotas, Eurotas, que font tes lauriers-roses? (Eurotas, Eurotas, what of your oleanders?)

The oleanders were succeeded, like a melancholy reflection following a crimson burst of laughter, by large olive groves whose pale foliage recalled the floury hair of the willows of the North, and harmonised admirably with the ashen hue of the land. This foliage, with its sober, austere and soft tone, was very judiciously chosen by the ancients, those skilful connoisseurs of natural correspondences, as a symbol of peace and wisdom.

At about four, we arrived at Bailén, famous for the disastrous Capitulation of that name. We had to spend the night there and, while awaiting supper, we took a walk through the town and surrounding areas with the lady from Granada, and a very pretty young person who was going to take the sea-water baths at Málaga, in the company of her father and mother; since the customary reserve of the Spaniards quickly gives way to a straightforward and cordial familiarity, as soon as they are sure that you are neither travelling tradesmen, rope dancers, or sellers of unguents.

The church at Bailén, whose construction hardly dates to before the sixteenth century, surprised me with its strange colour. The stone and marble, preserved by the Spanish sun instead of blackening as under our humid skies, had taken on reddish tones of extraordinary warmth and vigour, bordering on saffron and purple, like the hue of vine leaves in late autumn. Next to the church, above a small wall gilded by the warmest of glows, a palm-tree, the first I had ever seen in open ground, suddenly rose against the dark azure of the sky. This unexpected palm-tree, like a sudden revelation of the Orient, at a bend in the street, had a singular effect on me. I expected to see the ostrich necks of camels silhouetted against the sunset light, and the white burnouses of Arabs, part of some caravan, flowing by.

The picturesque ruins of the ancient fortifications offered sight of a tower, well-preserved enough that one could climb it by using one’s hands and feet and taking advantage of protruding stones. We were rewarded for our trouble with a most magnificent view. The town of Bailén, with its tiled roofs and red church, and its white houses clustered at the foot of the tower like a herd of goats, formed an admirable foreground; further off, the wheat fields undulated in waves of gold, and in the far background, above several ranges of mountains, one saw shining, like a wedge of silver, the distant crest of the Sierra Nevada. Veins of snow, startled by the light, sparkled with reflected and prismatic lightning rays, and the sun, like a great golden wheel of which its disc was the hub, spread its flaming rays like spokes in a sky nuanced with all the varied hues of quartz and agate.

The inn where we were to sleep consisted of a large building, a solitary room only, with a fireplace at each end, a ceiling of blackened rafters varnished by smoke, stalls on each side for horses, mules and donkeys, and for travellers a few small side-rooms each containing a bed made of three planks placed on twin trestles and covered with those sheets of canvas between which float a few slabs of wool which the hoteliers, with the cold-blooded effrontery that characterises them, claim to be mattresses; nonetheless, that did not prevent us snoring like Epimenides and the Seven Sleepers combined.

We left early next morning to avoid the heat, and again viewed those beautiful oleanders, bright as glory and fresh as love, which had enchanted us the day before. Soon the Guadalquivir with its murky and yellowish waters rose to block our path; we crossed it by means of the ferry, and took the road to Jaén. On our left, we noticed the tower of Torrequebradilla struck by a ray of light, and not long after saw the curious silhouette of Jaén, capital of the kingdom of that name.

An enormous ochre-coloured mountain, tawny as a lion’s skin, in the dusty light, bronzed by the sun, rises suddenly in the midst of the city; massive towers and the long zig-zags of ancient fortifications streak its gaunt sides with their strange and picturesque lines. The cathedral, an immense collection of architectural styles, which, at a distance, seems larger than the city itself, rises proudly, an artificial mountain beside the natural mountains. This cathedral, in the style of Renaissance architecture, which boasts of possessing the authentic cloth on which Saint Veronica gathered an imprint of the figure of Our Lord, was built by the Dukes of Medina Coeli. It is beautiful, no doubt, but from afar we had dreamed of it being more ancient and, above all, more intriguing.

On my way from the parador to the cathedral, I looked at the theatre posters; the day before, they had performed Voltaire’s Mérope, and that same evening were to perform El Campanero de San-Pablo, por el illustrissimo señor don José Bouchardy, in other words: Le Sonneur de Saint-Paul, by my comrade Jospeh Bouchardy. To have one’s play enacted in Jaén, a wild town where it is customary to walk about with a knife in your belt, and a rifle on your shoulder, is certainly flattering, and very few of our great contemporary geniuses can boast of such success. If in the past we have borrowed various masterpieces from the ancient Spanish theatre, today we are repaying them for their plays with vaudeville and melodrama.

After our visit to the cathedral, we returned, like the other travellers, to the parador, the appearance of which seemed to promise an excellent meal; a café was attached to it, and it had quite the air of a European and civilised establishment. But I noticed, as we sat to the table, that the bread was hard as a millstone, and asked for a softer version. The hotelier would not consent to change it. During the quarrel, someone else noticed that the dishes had been reheated, and must have been served at a previous meal. All began to utter the most plaintive cries, and demand a new, entirely fresh, dinner.

The answer to the enigma was this: the diligence which preceded us had been stopped by the bandits of La Mancha, so that the travellers, borne off into the mountains, had not been able to consume the meal prepared for them by the hotelier from Jaén. The latter, in order to recover his expenses, had kept the dishes and reserved them for us, in which matter his expectation was disappointed, since we all rose and ate elsewhere. The unfortunate dinner would have to be presented a third time to subsequent travellers.

We took refuge in a run-down posada, where, after a long wait, we were served a few chops, a few eggs, and a salad, on dog-eared plates, with mismatched glasses and knives. The meal was mediocre, but it was seasoned with so many jests and bursts of laughter regarding the comic fury of the hotelier on seeing his guests leave in procession, and the fate of the unfortunate people to whom he would not fail to present his bony chickens reheated a third time on the stove, that we were more than compensated for the meagreness of the repast. When once the ice is broken, Spaniards, seemingly cold at first, become childishly happy, and offer an extreme display of naive charm. The slightest thing makes them laugh till they cry.

It was in Jaén that I saw the most picturesque and authentic national costume: the men, for the most part, wore blue velvet breeches decorated with silver filigrane buttons, gaiters from Ronda, decorated with stitching, braided cord, and arabesques, of a darker leather. The height of elegance is to fasten only the button at the top, and that at the bottom, so as to reveal the calf. Wide yellow or red silk belts, a decorated brown cloth jacket, a blue or brown coat, and a wide-brimmed peaked hat, embellished with velvet and silk tassels, complete the outfit, which looks quite similar to the traditional costume of Italian bandits. Others wore what is called a vestido de cazador (hunter’s outfit), in tawny deerskin and green velvet.

Some of the women-folk wore red capes which pierced the darker depths of the crowd with bright sparks and scarlet sequins. The curious attire, the tanned complexions, the sparkling eyes, the liveliness of the faces, the impassive and calm attitude of the majos, more numerous there than anywhere else, gave the population of Jaén an appearance more African than European; an illusion to which the heat of the climate, the dazzling brightness of the houses whitewashed in accord with Arab custom, the tawny tone of the land, and the unalterable azure of the sky, add greatly. There is a saying in Spain about Jaén: ‘An ugly town, with ill-looking people,’ which no painter would find to be true. Besides, there as here, for most folk, what they mean by a beautiful city is one laid out in straight lines, and furnished with an ample quantity of street lamps and bourgeois people.

On leaving Jaén, we entered a valley which extends to the Vega of Granada. At first it is dry; the gaunt hills, crumbling from drought, burn you with reflected brightness, like fiery mirrors; there’s no trace of vegetation except a few pale tufts of fennel. But soon the valley narrows and deepens, the watercourses begin to flow, vegetation is reborn, shade and freshness reappear, and the Rio de Jaën occupies the bottom of the valley, where it flows swiftly between the stones and the rocks which thwart it, and block its course at every moment. The path runs alongside, and follows the river in its windings, because, in mountainous countries, the torrents are ever the most skilful engineers for tracing a passage, and the best one can do is to follow them, and be guided by them.

Vega of Granada

A farmhouse at which we stopped to drink was surrounded by two or three channels of running water which further distributed it to a clump of myrtles, pistachio-trees, pomegranate-trees, and others of all kinds, exhibiting extraordinary growth. It had been so long since we had seen true greenness that this uncultivated, three-quarters wild garden seemed to us a little earthly paradise.

The young girl who poured us a drink from one of those charming porous clay pots which keep the water so fresh, was very pretty, with eyes elongated to the temples, a tawny complexion, an African mouth as full and ruddy as a beautiful carnation, a flounced skirt, and velvet shoes of which she seemed very proud and conscious. Her type, frequently found in Granada, is clearly Moorish in origin.

At a certain place the valley narrows, and the cliffs approach until they barely leave space for the river. Formerly, coaches were forced to enter and progress along the bed of the torrent itself, which was dangerous however, because of the rocks and crevices, and the height of the water, which, in winter, rises considerably. To obviate this inconvenience, one of the cliffs was pierced through and a fairly long tunnel made, in the manner of railway viaducts. This work, involving considerable effort, dates from only a few years back.

From there, the valley widens, and the path is no longer obstructed. There is a gap here, in my memory, of several leagues. Oppressed by the heat, which the stormy weather made truly suffocating, I ended up falling asleep. When I awoke, the darkness, which falls so suddenly in southern climates, was complete, and a dreadful wind raised whirlwinds of fiery dust; this wind must be closely related to the African sirocco, and I know not how we failed to be asphyxiated. The outlines of objects vanished in the fog of dust; the sky, usually so splendid on summer nights, seemed like the vault of an oven; it was impossible to see two steps in front of you. We entered Granada at about two in the morning, and went straight to the Fonda del Comercio, said to be a hotel run in the French style, where there were no sheets on the bed, and where we slept fully dressed on the boards; but these petty tribulations affected us but little; we were in Granada, and in a few hours would visit the Alhambra and the Generalife.

Our first care was to have our local guide direct us to a casa de pupilos, that is to say a private house in which boarders are accommodated, since our stay in Granada being fairly long the mediocre hospitality of the Fonda del Comercio would no longer suit. This guide, named Louis, was French, from Faremoutiers en Brie. He had deserted at the time of the French invasion under Napoleon, and had lived in Granada for more than twenty years. He had the strangest bodily form one could imagine: his height, at five feet eight inches, contrasted most singularly with his small head, wrinkled like an apple, and the size of a fist. Deprived of all communication with France, he had retained his former Briard dialect in all its native purity and spoke like Jeannot in the comic-opera (Jeannot et Colin), seeming to recite, endlessly, words penned by Monsieur Charles Étienne. Despite living there for so long, his obstinate brain had refused to furnish itself with a new idiom; he barely knew the most essential phrases. From his Spanish home derived only his alpargatas (espadrilles) and his little Andalusian hat with turned up brim. These concessions troubled him greatly, and he took revenge by overwhelming the natives he encountered with all sorts of grotesque insults, in Briard of course, since master Louis was afraid of being struck, and cherished his skin as if it was something worth.

He led us to a very decent house, on Calle Párraga, near the Plazuela de San Anton, and a stone’s throw from the Carrera del Darro. The female owner of this boarding-house had lived in Marseille for a long time and spoke French, a deciding factor for us, whose vocabulary was still very limited.

We were lodged in a room on the ground floor, whitewashed, and furnished with an ornament like a rose of varied colours in the ceiling; but this room had the advantage of opening onto a patio surrounded by white marble columns topped with Moorish capitals, undoubtedly from the demolition of some ancient Arab palace. A small pool with a fountain, in the centre of the courtyard, kept it cool; a large mat of esparto-grass, forming a tendido, filtering the rays of the sun, and scattering gleams of light, here and there, over the sections of pebble-stone paving.

It was here that we ate our meals, where we read, where we lived. We barely entered our room except to dress and sleep. Without a patio, an architectural arrangement reminiscent of the ancient Roman atrium, the houses of Andalusia would not be habitable. The sort of vestibule which fronts it is usually paved with small pebbles of varied colours, forming rough mosaic designs, and representing sometimes flower-tubs, sometimes soldiers, Maltese crosses, or simply showing the date of construction.

From the roof of the house, topped with a sort of mirador (viewpoint), we could see, on the crest of a hill, clearly outlined against the blue sky amidst clumps of trees, the massive towers of the fortress of the Alhambra coated by the sun with extremely hot and intense reddish hues. The silhouette was completed by two large juxtaposed cypresses, whose black tips extended into the azure above the red walls. These cypresses were never lost from sight; whether we climbed the snow-streaked sides of Mulhacen, or whether we wandered across the Vega or on the Sierra Elvira, we could always locate them on the horizon, dark, and motionless beneath the flow of bluish or golden vapour, which denoted the distant roofs of the city.

Granada is built on three hills, at the end of the Vega plain: the Vermilion Towers (Torres Bermejas), so named because of their colour and which are claimed to be of Roman or even Phoenician origin, occupy the first and the least elevated of these eminences; the Alhambra, which is an entire city in itself, covers the second and highest hill, its square towers linked together by the high walls and immense blocks of buildings, which enclose within their interior gardens, groves, buildings, and courtyards; the Albaicín is located on the third slope, separated from the others by a deep ravine crowded with vegetation, cacti, gourds, pistachio trees, pomegranate-trees, oleanders and tufts of flowers, at the bottom of which flows the Darro with the quickness of an alpine torrent. The Darro, which bears gold, traverses the city, sometimes beneath the open sky, sometimes under bridges so long that they deserve the name of tunnels, and meets the Genil, which is content to bear only silver, in the Vega, a short distance from the promenade. This course of the torrent through the town is called the Carrera del Darro, and from the balconies of the houses which border it one may enjoy a magnificent view. The Darro cuts into its banks a great deal, and causes frequent landslides; also, an old verse, sung by the children, alludes to its penchant for carrying everything off, and a grotesque reason for it is given. Here are the lines in question:

Darro tiene promiseido

River Darro gave a promise

El vasarse con Genil

To up and marry the Genil

Y le ha de llevar en dote

And bore away as a dowry

Plaza Nueva y Zacatín

Plaza Nueva and Zacatín

The gardens called Los Cármenes del Darro, of which there are such delightful descriptions in Spanish and Moorish poetry, are found on the banks of the Carrera del Darro, rising towards the fount of Los Avellanos.

The city is therefore divided into four large districts: Antequerula, which occupies the ridges of the hill, or rather mount, crowned by the Alhambra; the Alhambra and its appendage the Generalife; the Albaicín, once a vast fortress, today a ruined and depopulated district; and Granada proper, which extends into the level area around the cathedral and the Plaza de Bib-Rambla, forming a separate quarter.

This is the topographical plan of Granada, more or less; crossed in its entire breadth by the Darro, bordered by the Genil which bathes the Alameda (promenade), and sheltered by the Sierra Nevada, which can be seen at each end of the street, brought so near by the air’s transparency, that it seems as if one could touch it with one’s hand from the upper balconies and miradores.

The general appearance of Granada greatly belied any predictions I might have formed. Despite myself, and the numerous disappointments already experienced, I refused to believe that three or four hundred years, and waves of bourgeois living, might have so transformed the scene of so many romantic and chivalrous actions. I imagined a city half-Moorish, half-Gothic, where bell-towers mingled with minarets, and gables alternated with terraced roofs; I expected historic houses adorned with carvings, coats of arms and heroic mottos, strange buildings, their floors overlapping one another, with protruding beams, balconies adorned with Persian carpets, and blue and white jars; in sum the realisation of an opera set, representing some marvellous perspective on the Middle Ages.

The people you meet, in modern costume, wearing flared top-hats, and dressed in proprietorial frock-coats, involuntarily produce an unpleasant effect and seem more ridiculous than they actually are; since they could not in reality stroll about, to the greater glory of the local colour, in the Moorish albornoz (loose robe) of the time of Boabdil, or steel armour from the days of Ferdinand and Isabella. They take it upon themselves, like almost all the bourgeoisie in the cities of Spain, to proclaim that they are not in the least bit picturesque, and to demonstrate their degree of civilisation by means of trousers with boot-straps. Such is the idea that preoccupies them: they are afraid of being seen as barbaric, as backward, and when the savage beauty of their country is praised they humbly excuse themselves for not yet having acquired railways, and for the lack of steam-driven factories. One of these honest townspeople, to whom I praised the amenities of Granada, replied to me: ‘It is the best-lit city in Andalusia. Note how many street lights there are; but such a shame that we fail as yet to employ gas jets!’

Granada is a cheerful, lively city full of laughter, even though it has lost its former splendour. The inhabitants multiply and it enjoys a large population; the canopies there are more beautiful and in greater numbers than in Madrid. Andalusian exuberance fills the streets with a movement and a life unknown to serious Castilian pedestrians, who raise no more noise than their shadows: what is said here applies especially to the Carrera del Darro, the Zacatín, the Plaza Nueva, the Cuesta de Gomérez which leads to the Alhambra, the square containing the Theatre (the Teatro del Campillo, fronting on the Plaza de Bailén renamed the Plaza Mariana Pineda. The theatre had been formerly the Teatro Napoléon, then the Teatro Principal, and ultimately became the Teatro Cervantes, now demolished), the borders of the promenade, and the main arterial streets. The rest of the city is criss-crossed in all directions by inextricably narrow alleys, three to four feet wide, which cannot admit carriages, and are wholly reminiscent of the Moorish streets of Algiers. The only noise one hears is of donkeys’ or mules’ hooves, raising a spark from the gleaming paving stones, or the monotonous plink-plink of a guitar being strummed in the depths of some courtyard interior.

The balconies adorned with blinds, flower pots, and shrubs; the vines that venture from one window to another; the oleanders that throw their gleaming bouquets over the garden walls; the unfamiliar play of sunlight and shadow that recalls the paintings of Decamps that depict Turkish villages; the women seated on doorsteps; the half-naked children playing and leaping about; the donkeys coming and going laden with parcels of feathers, and bales of wool, give the lanes, almost always sloping upwards, and sometimes interrupted by a few steps, a particular appearance which is not without charm and whose unexpectedness more than compensates for any lack of regularity.

Victor Hugo, in charming oriental style, said of Granada: ‘She paints her houses in the richest colours.’ That is accurate in every detail. The wealthier houses are painted on the outside in the strangest manner, with simulated architecture, grisaille ornamentation, and false bas-reliefs. There are panels, cartouches, piers, vases emitting flames, spirals, medallions decorated with pompom roses, ovals, chicory-leaves, and pot-bellied cupids supporting all kinds of allegorical implements, painted on backgrounds of apple-green, dusty pink, yellowish-brown: the rococo genre taken to its ultimate. At first it is difficult to accept these as the facades of serious dwellings; one feels one is walking endlessly among scenic flats, backstage, in some theatre. We had already seen buildings decorated in this way in Toledo, but they were different from those of Granada in their excessive ornamentation and the curious use of colour. Personally, I am not averse to the fashion, which is bright on the eye, and makes a happy contrast with the chalky tint of walls painted with whitewash.

I spoke earlier of the bourgeoisie dressed in French costume, but fortunately folk there do not follow the fashions of Paris; men retain the peaked hat with velvet brim, decorated with tufts of silk, or truncated in form, with a large brim curved like a turban; the jacket embellished with embroidery and patches of cloth in colours of every kind on elbows, facings, and collar, vaguely recalling Turkish jackets; a red or yellow belt; trousers with turn-ups, held by filigrane buttons or coins soldered to a shank, the leather gaiters open at the side, revealing the leg; but all this more dazzling, more flowery, more colourful, more exuberant, more laden with tinsel and frills than in other provinces. We also saw many costumes which are referred to as vestido de cazador (hunting wear), made of Cordoba leather and blue or green velvet, enhanced with ropes of cord. The grandest style involves carrying in one’s hand a cane (vara), a white stick, four feet long, and bifurcated at the end, on which one leans nonchalantly whenever one stops to chat. No self-respecting majo would dare to appear in public without his vara. Two handkerchiefs whose ends hang from the jacket pockets, and a long navaja (folding-knife) passed through the belt, not at the front, but in the centre of the back, are the height of elegance for these popinjays of the people.

The costume appealed to me so much that my next step was to order one. I was taken to see Don Juan Zapata, a man with a great reputation regarding national costume, and who harboured a hatred for dark clothing and frock coats at least equal to my own. Finding in me someone who shared his antipathy, he gave free rein to his bitterness, and fed my heart with an elegy on the decadence of his art. He recalled, with a pain that resonated with me, those happy times when a foreigner dressed in the French mode would have been booed in the streets, and pelted with orange peel, when the toreadors wore fine embroidered jackets worth more than five hundred pesetas, and young people of good families exorbitantly-priced embellishments, and ropes of cord (aiguillettes). ‘Alas! sir, only the English purchase Spanish clothing now,’ he cried, as he finished measuring me.

This Señor Zapata behaved as regards the clothes he produced, much as Hoffman’s Cardillac with regard to his jewellery. It troubled him greatly to hand them over to his customers. When he came to try the fit of my costume, he was so dazzled by the brilliance of vase of flowers he had embroidered, in the centre of the back, on the brown surface of the cloth, that he became madly joyful and to commit all kinds of extravagances. But, suddenly, the thought of leaving this masterpiece in my hands stifled his mirth and darkened his mood. Under the pretext of I know not what essential alterations, he enveloped the jacket in a length of wrapping, and handed it to his apprentice, as a Spanish tailor would think himself dishonoured if he had to carry a parcel himself, and then ran away, as if all the devils were after him, while giving me a fierce and ironic glance. The next day he returned alone and, taking from a leather purse the money I had paid him, told me that it was too painful for him to part with the jacket, and that he preferred to return me my duros. It was only on my observing to him that the costume would inspire a true idea of his talent, and enhance his reputation in Paris, that he consented to yield.

The women of Granada had the good taste not to abandon the mantilla, the most delightful hair-adornment that can frame a Spanish lady’s face; groups of them traversed the streets and walk-ways, in their black lace, their hair covered thus, a red carnation at each temple, and promenaded along the walls, wielding their fans with incomparable grace and agility. A woman’s hat is a rarity in Granada. The elegant ones may well have some jonquil or poppy-coloured thing in a hat-box, that they reserve for special occasions; but such occasions, thankfully, are rare, and those dreaded hats only see the light on the Queen’s saint’s-day, or at solemn Lyceum events. May our fashions never invade the city of the Caliphs, and that fearsome threat contained in those two words daubed in black at the crossroads: Modista francesas (French couture), never be realised! So-called serious minds will no doubt find my attitude outdated, and laugh at my picturesque grievances, but I am among those who believe that patent-leather boots and rubberised overcoats contribute little or nothing to civilisation, and who consider civilisation itself an undesirable thing. It is a painful spectacle for poets, artists, and philosophers to see form and colour vanish from the world, the lines blurring, the tints becoming confused, and a most desperate uniformity invading the universe under the pretext of it representing some kind of progress. When everything achieves the same uniformity, travelling to other countries will become utterly pointless, yet it is precisely then, by a happy coincidence, that the railways will achieve their full development. What is the point of journeying afar, at a speed of ten leagues an hour, merely to see some Rue de la Paix lit by gas and filled with comfortable bourgeoisie? I believe that such was not the divine plan, the deity having formed each country in a different manner, granting it specific vegetation, and populating it with unique inhabitants as regards their conformation, language, and appearance. To wish to impose the same livery on folk from differing climes is to misunderstand the nature of creation, and to commit one of the thousand errors of European civilisation; in court-dress one is much uglier, yet just as barbaric. The poor Turks under Sultan Mahmud II have cut a fine figure indeed since the reform of their old Asian costume, and since enlightenment has made infinite progress among them!

To enjoy a walk, follow the Carrera del Darro, cross the square housing the Teatro del Campillo (Plaza de Bailén, now the Plaza Mariana Pineda) where a funeral column has been erected in memory of Isidoro Máiquez by Julián Romea, his wife, Matilde Diez, and other artists of the drama, and which is overlooked by the facade of the Arsenal, a rococo building, daubed in yellow and garnished with statues of grenadiers painted mouse-grey.

The Alameda of Granada is undoubtedly one of the most pleasant places in the world: it is called the Salon; a singular name for a promenade: imagine a long avenue with several rows of trees of a greenness unique in Spain, terminating at each end in a monumental fountain, each of whose basins raises strangely deformed aquatic gods of a delightful barbarity on its shoulders. These fountains, contrary to custom where such constructions are involved, pour forth large sheets of water which evaporate in a fine rain and humid mist, spreading a delightful freshness. In the side alleys, the flow of streams of a crystal-clear transparency is channelled along beds of coloured pebbles. A large parterre, adorned with water-jets, filled with shrubs and flowers, myrtles, rose-bushes, jasmines, the entire cornucopia of Granadan flora, occupies the space between the Salon and the River Genil, and extends as far as the bridge built by General Sébastiani at the time of the French invasion. The Genil, in its marble bed, arrives from the Sierra Nevada through laurel groves of incomparable beauty. Glass and crystal, by comparison are too opaque, too dense, to give an idea of the purity of this water which on the previous day had spread, as yet, in silver sheets, over the white shoulders of the Sierra Nevada. It is a torrent of molten diamond.

In the evenings, between seven and eight, the elegant Granadins and their little friends meet at the Salon: their carriages follow the road, deserted most of the time, since the Spaniards are extremely fond of walking, and, despite their pride, deign to show themselves doing so. Nothing is more charming than seeing the young women and girls come and go in small groups, in mantillas, arms bare, fresh flowers in their hair, satin shoes on their feet, fans in their hands, followed at some distance by their friends and chaperones, because in Spain it is not customary to give one’s arm to a woman, as we have already pointed out when speaking of the Prado in Madrid. This habit of walking alone gives them a frankness, an elegance, and a freedom of movement that our women do not have, who are always hanging on someone’s arm. As the painters say, they bear themselves perfectly. This perpetual separation of man and woman, at least in public, already signals the Orient.

A spectacle of which the peoples of the North would be hard put to gain an idea is the Alameda of Granada at sunset: the Sierra Nevada, whose jagged outline borders the city on that side, takes on unimaginable shades. All the escarpments, all the peaks, struck by the light, become pink, but a dazzling, ideal, fabulous pink, glazed with silver, mingled with iris and opal-tinted reflections, which would make the freshest hues from the pallet seem muddy; their tones born of mother-of-pearl, translucent rubies, veins of agate, and adventurine-quartz defy all the magical jewellery of the Thousand and One Nights. The valleys, crevices, and cavities, all the places the rays of the setting sun fail to reach, are of the blue of lapis-lazuli and sapphire, and compete with the azure of sky and sea; the contrast of tone between light and shadow has a prodigious effect: the mountain seems to take on an immense robe of shifting silk, spangled and ribbed with silver; little by little the splendid colours fade and melt into violet half-tones, shadows invade the lower hills, the light retreats towards the highest peaks, and the whole plain lies in darkness while the silver diadem of the Sierra still sparkles in a serene sky, beneath the farewell kiss of the sun.

The walkers take a few more turns, then disperse, some to seek out sorbets or agraz at Don Pedro Hurtado’s café, the best parlour for ices in Granada; others to the tertulia, to meet their friends and acquaintances.

This hour is the most cheerful and lively in Granada. The open-air stalls of the aguadores and sellers of ices, are lit by a multitude of lamps and flares; the street-lights and lanterns lit before images of the Madonna compete in brightness and number with the stars, which is say a great deal; and, if it is moonlight, one can read the most microscopic print perfectly. The light is blue instead of yellow, that is all.

Thanks to the lady who had prevented me from dying of hunger in the diligence, and who introduced us to several of her friends, we were soon widely received in Granada, and led a delightful life there. It is impossible to receive a freer, kinder, or more cordial welcome; within five or six days, we were completely at home and, following Spanish usage, were referred to by our first names: in Granada, I was Don Teofilo, my comrade Don Eugenio, and we were free to call the women and girls of the houses in which we were received by their first names, Carmen, Teresa, Gala, etc. This familiarity was accompanied by the most polished manners and respectful attention.

Thus, we attended the tertulia every evening, in one house or another, from eight till midnight. Tertulias take place in patios surrounded by alabaster columns, and adorned with a fountain whose basin is ringed by flowers in pots, and boxes of shrubs on whose leaves the drops fall with a hiss. Six or seven lamps hang from the walls; sofas and chairs made of straw or rushes furnish the arcades, guitars lie here and there; the piano occupies one corner, and card-tables another.

On entering, guests greet the mistress and master of the house, who never fail, after the usual pleasantries, to offer you a cup of chocolate, which it is in good taste to refuse, and a cigarette which we sometimes accepted. These duties once accomplished, one makes one’s way to a corner of the patio and joins the group that seems most attractive to you. Parents and elderly people play Trecillo (or Ombre, a predecessor to Quadrille and Whist) the young men flatter the young ladies, recite rhymed verse composed that day, are scolded and granted penances for the crimes they may have committed the day before, such as having danced too often with a pretty cousin, or cast too keen a glance towards some forbidden balcony, along with other small peccadilloes. If they have been very good, in return for the gift of a rose they have brought, they are given a carnation from the bodice or hair, and they respond with a glance and a light pressure of the fingers in taking the lady’s hand when ascending to the balcony to listen to the music before retiring. Love seems to be Granada’s only occupation. One has no sooner spoken two or three times to a young girl before the whole town declares you novio and novia, that is to say engaged, and utters a host of innocent jokes about your so-called passion, which disturb you by making marital visions swim before your eyes. This form of gallantry is more apparent than real; despite the languorous looks, the burning glances, the tender or passionate conversations, the charming diminutives, and the querido (darling) with which your name is preceded, you must not assume anything. A Frenchman to whom some worldly woman uttered a quarter of what a young Granadan girl says without consequence to one of her many novios would believe some romantic tryst promised that very evening; a matter in which he would be much mistaken; if he behaved a little too freely, he would quickly be called to order, and commanded to declare his matrimonial intentions to her grandparents. This honest freedom of address, so far removed from the stilted and artificial customs of the Northern nations, is preferable to our hypocrisy in speaking which conceals, deep down, a greater crudeness in action. In Granada, showing interest in a married woman is regarded as quite extraordinary, while nothing is seen as more commonplace than courting a young girl. In France, we find the opposite: no one ever says a word to young ladies, which is what renders subsequent marriages so often unhappy. In Spain, a novio sees his novia two or three times a day, speaks with her without being overheard, accompanies her for walks, visits and chats with her, at night, through the railings of a balcony, or a ground floor window. He has all the time in the world to get to know her, to study her character, and so avoids entering on marriage blindly.

If the conversation languishes, one of the gallants takes down a guitar and, strumming the strings with his nails, marking the rhythm with the palm of his hand on the belly of the instrument, begins to sing some joyous Andalusian song or some farcical verses interspersed with Ay! and Ola! strangely modulated and with singular effect. Some lady sits down at the piano, and plays a piece by Vincenzo Bellini, who seems to be the Spaniards’ favourite maestro, or sings a romance by Manuel Bréton de Los Herreros, the great lyricist of Madrid. The evening ends with a small improvised ball, where they never, alas, dance the jota, fandango, or bolero, such things being left to the peasants, servants and gypsies, but a contradance or a rigadoon, or sometimes a waltz. However, at our request, one evening, two young ladies of the house were willing to perform the bolero; but first they closed the windows and the patio door, which usually always remain open, so afraid were they of being accused of bad taste and an affection for local colour. Spaniards, in general were angered when we spoke to them of the cachucha, castanets, majos, manolas, monks, brigands or bullfights, though deep down they have a great fondness for all these truly national and characteristic things. They ask you, with a visibly annoyed look, if you think them not as advanced as you in civilisation, for the deplorable mania for imitating the English or French has penetrated everywhere. Spain today is at the stage of Jean-Baptiste-Paul Touquet’s popular edition of Voltaire’s writings (Voltaire-Touquet), and of the Constitutionnel of 1825, that is to say hostile to all colour and poetry. Be it always understood here, that I speak of the so-called enlightened class that inhabits the cities.

When the contradances are over, one takes leave of one’s hosts, saying to the wife: A los pies de usted (at your service); to the husband: Beso a usted la mano (I kiss your hand); which is answered by: Buenas noches et beso a usted la suya (Good night, and I kiss your hand likewise) and on the doorstep, as a final farewell: Hasta mañana (until tomorrow) which commits you to returning. While being companiable, the common people themselves, the peasants, and even shameless scoundrels possess among themselves an exquisite urbanity very different from the crudeness of our own masses; it is true that a stab could easily follow a hurtful word, which ensures that the interlocutors employ a deal of caution. It is to be remarked that French politeness, once proverbial, has vanished since people stopped wearing swords. The law against duelling will ultimately make us the rudest people in the universe.

On returning home, one meets, beneath the windows and balconies, young gallants wrapped in their capes occupied in pelar la paba (plucking the turkey), making conversation that is with their novias, through the grilles and railings. These nocturnal conversations often last until two or three in the morning, which is not surprising, since the Spaniards spend part of the day sleeping. One may also encounter a serenade, played by three or four musicians, but most often the lover alone, who sings verses to the accompaniment of the guitar, his sombrero over his eyes, and his foot placed on a stone or a post. In the past, two serenaders in the same street would not have tolerated each other; the first occupant would lay claim to the spot, and forbid any guitar other than his to sound in the nocturnal silence. Such pretensions were maintained at the point of the sword or knife, unless the watch happened to pass by. Then the two rivals would unite together in attacking the patrol, if they had not yet settled their particular quarrel. Serenaders’ susceptibilities have softened over the years, and everyone can rascar el jamon (scrape away at the ham) under their beauty’s wall in peace.

If the night is dark, one must be careful not to set foot on the stomach of some honourable hidalgo wrapped in his mantle, this serving as his clothing, bed, and home. In summer nights, the granite steps of the theatre are covered with a pile of vagrants who have no other refuge. Each has their own step, as it were their own apartment, where one is always sure to find them. They sleep there, under the blue dome of the sky with the stars as nightlights, sheltered from bedbugs, their leathery skin defying the bites of mosquitoes, their visages tanned by the fieriness of the Andalusian sun, and as black, to be sure, as that of the darkest mulattoes.

Such, with a few variations, is the life we led: the morning devoted to shopping within the city, a stroll in the Alhambra, or a walk to the Generalife, and then the obligatory visit to the fair ladies with whom we had spent the evening. If we returned to our lodgings only twice on a given day, we were reproached for being ungrateful, and were received with such kindness that we indeed regarded ourselves as savage, fierce, and negligent in the extreme.

We had such a passion for the Alhambra that, not content with going there every day, we wished to stay there permanently, not in the neighbouring houses, which are rented at a high price to the English, but in the palace itself, and, thanks to the protection afforded us by our friends in Granada, without granting us formal permission they promised not to pay attention to our doing so. We lodged there for four days and nights, which were without a doubt the most delightful moments of my life.

To visit the Alhambra, if you so wish, let us pass by the Plaza de Bib-Rambla (Vivarambla), in which the valiant Moorish toreador Gazul once fought the bull, and whose houses, with their balconies and their wooden miradors, have the appearance somewhat of chicken coops. The fish-market occupies a corner of the square, the centre of which forms a platform surrounded by stone benches, populated by money-changers, and sellers of alcarrazas, earthen-pots, watermelons, haberdasheries, romances, knives, rosaries and other small wares in the open air. The Zacatín, which has retained its Moorish name, connects the Plaza de Bib-Rambla to the Plaza-Nueva. In this street, bordered by side-alleys, covered with tendidos of sail-cloth, all the commerce of Granada hums and bustles: hatters, tailors, shoemakers, makers of trimmings, and cloth- merchants occupy the majority of the shops to which the refinements of modern luxury are still unknown, and which recall the ancient stalls between the pillars in the market-halls of Paris. Crowds flock to the Zacatín at all hours. Sometimes a touring group of students from Salamanca, who play the guitar, tambourine, castanets and triangle, singing comic verses full of verve; sometimes a horde of gypsy women with their blue flounced dresses strewn with stars, their long yellow shawls, hair in disorder, and necks encircled by large necklaces of amber or coral, or else a line of donkeys loaded with huge jars huge and driven forward by a peasant from La Vega burned like an African.

Gate of the Vivarambla

The Zacatín opens onto Plaza-Nueva, one section of which is occupied by the superb Chancery Palace, remarkable for its rustic columns, and the formal severity of its architecture. Having crossed the square, we begin to climb the street called Cuesta de Gomérez, at the end of which we find ourselves on the border of the Alhambra’s jurisdiction, face to face with the Puerta de las Granadas, named Bib al-Buxar (the Gate of Glad Tidings) by the Moors, with on its right the Vermilion Towers (Torres Bermejas) built, according to the scholars, on Phoenician foundations, and inhabited today by basket-weavers and clay-potters.

Exterior of the Alhambra

Before proceeding further, I must warn my readers, who might find my descriptions, though scrupulously accurate, inferior to the idea they have formed of it, that the Alhambra, this palace-fortress of the ancient Moorish kings, fails to correspond in the least to the appearance imagination grants it. One expects terrace superimposed on terrace, minarets embroidered with openwork, perspectives formed of endless colonnades. There is none of this in reality; from the outside, we only see large, massive towers the colour of brick or toast, built at different times by the Arab princes; on the inside, merely a series of rooms and galleries decorated with extreme delicacy, but nothing grandiose. Having expressed these reservations, let us continue our visit.

Passing through the Puerta de las Granadas, we find ourselves within the walls of the fortress and under the jurisdiction of a special authority. Two paths trace their way through tall trees. Let us take that on the left, which leads to the fountain of Charles V (Pilar de Carlos V); it is the steeper of the two, but the shortest and the most picturesque. Streams flow rapidly in channels floored with pebbles, spreading freshness at the feet of the trees, which almost all belong to northern species, and whose verdancy provides a most delightful sense of life only a stone’s throw from Africa. The sound of babbling water mixes with the loud buzzing of a hundred thousand cicadas and crickets whose chorus never ceases, and inevitably summons the notion, despite the coolness of the place, of a southern and torrid clime. Water gushes from every crevice, from beneath tree-trunks, through the cracks in the ancient walls. The warmer it is, the more abundantly the springs flow, since it is the snow that feeds them. This mixture of water, snow, and heat grants Granada a climate without parallel in the world, a true earthly paradise and, when seemingly plunged in deepest melancholy, one does not have to be a Moor to apply the Arabic saying to oneself: He is thinking of Granada.

At the end of the path, which continues to ascend, we find the large monumental fountain dedicated to the Emperor Charles V which forms a retaining wall, with devices, coats of arms, emblems of victory, imperial eagles, and mythological medallions, in the Germano-Roman style, heavily and powerfully ornate. Two escutcheons bearing the arms of the House of Mondéjar indicate that Íñigo Lopez de Mendoza, Marquis of Santillana, raised the monument in honour of that red-bearded Caesar. The fountain, of solid masonry, supports the grounds of the ramp which leads to the Gate of Justice (Puerta de la Justicia), through which one enters the Alhambra proper.

The Gate of Justice was built by King Yusef I, Abu al Hajjaj, around the year 1348 AD: the name comes from the Muslim custom of administering justice at the threshold of their palaces; which has the double advantage of displaying majesty while not allowing anyone to enter the interior courtyards; for Monsieur Pierre Paul Royer-Collard’s maxim that: ‘Private life should be walled away,’ was invented many centuries ago in the Orient, that land of the sun from which all light and wisdom comes.

Tower, rather than gate, would be a term more aptly applied to King Yusef’s construction, since it is indeed a large square tower, fairly tall, and pierced by a large hollow heart-shaped arch, to which hieroglyphs of a key and a hand deeply engraved on two separate stones add a forbidding and cabalistic air. The key is a symbol greatly revered by the Arabs, due to a verse in the Koran which begins with these words: He opened, and to its several other hermetic meanings; the hand is intended to ward off the evil eye, the jettatura, much as the little coral hands folk wear in Naples as a pin or charm are thought to protect them from malicious glances. There was an ancient prediction that Granada would not be taken till the hand grasped the key; we must admit, to the shame of the prophet involved, that the two hieroglyphs remained as ever in the same place when Boabdil, el rey chico, as he was called because of his small stature, emitted that historic sigh at the fall of Granada, suspiro del Moro, which gave it name to a rock in the Sierra d’Elvire.

The massive crenellated, tower, glazed with orange and red against a backcloth of open sky, with an abyss of vegetation at its back, the city in the valley’s depths, and further off long mountainous folds veined with a thousand hues like African porphyry, forms a truly splendid and majestic entrance to the Arab palace. Below the gate is a guardhouse, where poor, ragged soldiers take a nap in the same place where caliphs, seated on gold-brocaded couches, dark eyes motionless in their marble faces, fingers buried in the waves of their silky beards, listened with a dreamy and solemn air to the complaints of the faithful. An altar, surmounted by an image of the Virgin, is attached to the wall, as if to sanctify from the first step this ancient residence of the followers of Muhammad.

Once through the door, we entered a vast square, the Plaza de los Algibes (the Square of the Cisterns), in the centre of which is a well whose rim is surrounded by a kind of wooden hut cloaked in esparto-matting beneath which one can imbibe, for a cuarto, large glasses of water as clear as diamonds, as cold as ice, and of exquisite taste. The Quebrada (the Broken) Tower, the Tower of Homage, the Tower of Arms, the Vela Tower (the Watchtower) whose bell announces the times of water distribution, and the stone parapets where you can lean on your elbows to admire the marvellous spectacle that unfolds before you, surround the square on the one side; the other is occupied by the palace of Charles V, a grand monument of the Renaissance period which we would admire anywhere else, but upon which we heap curses here, when we recall that it covers a corresponding area of the Alhambra demolished intentionally to embrace its heavy mass. This alcázar (palace) was designed by Alonso Berruguete; the trophies, the bas-reliefs, the medallions of its facade were carved by his proud, bold, and patient chisel; the circular courtyard with marble columns, where bullfights were to take place, is undoubtedly a magnificent piece of architecture, but non erat hic locus (this was not the place for it).

The well of the Plaza de los Algibes

We enter the Alhambra proper through a corridor located in the corner of the palace of Charles V, and arrive, after a few detours, at a large courtyard designated variously as the Patio de los Arrayanes (Courtyard of the Myrtle trees), de la Alberca (the Reservoir), or of the Mexuar, an Arabic word for the official who oversaw royal protocol.

Emerging from a dark corridor into this large enclosure flooded with light, one experiences an effect similar to that of Daguerre’s Diorama. The wave of some enchanter’s wand seems to have transported you to the Orient, four or five centuries ago. Time, which changes everything in its course, has in no way modified the appearance of these places, where the appearance of the Sultana ‘Subduer of Hearts’ (from the Thousand and One Nights) and the Moor Tarfe in his white cape (see Lope de Vega’s play: Los hechos de Garcilaso de la Vega y Moro Tarfe) would not cause the least surprise.

In the middle of the courtyard is a reservoir, long and wide, of three or four feet in depth and rectangular in shape, bordered by two beds of myrtles and shrubs, and terminated at each end by a kind of arcade with slender columns supporting Moorish arches of great delicacy. Basins with water-jets, the outpouring of which flows into the tank through a marble channel, are placed before each arcade and complete the symmetry of design. On the left are the archives and a room to which, among debris of all kinds, is relegated, to the shame of the Granadans it must be said, a magnificent vase from the Alhambra, nearly four feet high, covered with ornaments and inscriptions, a work of inestimable rarity, which alone would make a museum famous, and which Spanish neglect allows to deteriorate in an ignoble corner. One of the wings which form the handles was recently broken (see the Alhambra Vase, in the Museo Arqueologico de la Alhambra). On the left side, also, are the passages which lead to the ancient mosque, converted into a church, during the conquest and dedicated to Santa María de la Alhambra. To the right are the servants’ quarters, where the head of some dark-haired Andalusian servant, framed by a narrow Moorish window, produces a satisfactory enough oriental effect. In the background, above the ugly roof of rounded tiles, which replaced the cedar beams and golden tiles of the Arab roof, rises the majestic Comares Tower, its serrated vermilion battlements outlined against the sky’s admirable clarity. This tower encloses the Hall of the Ambassadors, and communicates with the Patio de los Arrayanes by a kind of antechamber called the Sala de la Barca, because of its boat-like shape.

This antechamber to the Hall of Ambassadors is worthy of its role: the boldness of its arcades, its variety, the intertwining of its arabesques, the mosaics on its walls, the ornamentation of its stuccoed ceiling, moulded like the roof of a cave adorned with stalactites, painted in azures, greens and reds, traces of which are still visible, creates an ensemble of charming oddity and originality.

On each side of the door which leads to the Ambassadors’ room, in the very jamb of the arcade, above the covering of glazed tiles whose triangles of sharp colour adorn the lower part of the walls, there are two niches, of white marble, hollowed out in the shape of small chapels and carved with extreme delicacy. This is where the ancient Moors left their slippers prior to entering, as a sign of deference, much as we doff our hats in places which demand respect.

The Hall of Ambassadors, one of the largest in the Alhambra, fills the whole interior of the Comares Tower. The ceiling, made of cedar wood, offers those mathematical variations so familiar to Arabian architects: all the pieces are placed so that their outward and inward angles form an infinite complexity of design; the walls vanish under a network of ornamentation so tightly, so inextricably intertwined, that the best comparison is with several layers of lace set one on top of another. Gothic architecture, with its stone lacework and carved rosettes, is as nothing compared to this. Ornamental pierced fish-slices, or the paper embroideries cut with a pastry cutter in which confectioners wrap their sugared almonds, alone gives some idea. One of the characteristics of the Moorish style is to offer few large projections or profiles. All this ornamentation is developed in flat planes, and the depth of relief hardly exceeds four to five inches; it is akin to a form of tapestry executed in the plaster itself. One particular element may be distinguished: the use of writing as a decorative motif. In truth, Arabic writing with its contoured and mysterious forms lends itself wonderfully to this use. The inscriptions, which are almost always suras from the Koran, or in praise of the various princes who built and decorated the rooms, flow along the friezes, over the jambs of the doors, and around the arches of the windows, interspersed with flowers, foliage, lacework, and all the riches of Arabic calligraphy. Those of the Hall of Ambassadors signify Glory to God, power and riches to the faithful, or contain words of praise for Abu Nasre (Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Nasr, Muhammad I), who, if he had been transported into the heavens alive, would have eclipsed the brightness of the stars and planets; a hyperbolic assertion which seemed a little too oriental to us. Other bands of writing are charged with the praise of Abu Abdullah (Muhammad V), another sultan who worked on this part of the palace. The windows are decorated with pieces of verse in honour of the limpidity of the waters of the reservoir, the freshness of the shrubs, and the scent of the flowers which adorn the courtyard of the Mexuar, which can, in fact, be seen from the Ambassadors’' room through the door and the columns of the arcade.

The pierced loopholes with interior balconies, at a great height from the ground, the framed ceiling with no other decoration than the zig-zags and interlacing formed by its fitted sections, give the Ambassadors' room a more severe appearance than the other rooms of the palace, one more in harmony with its purpose. From the rear window, one enjoys a fine view of the Darro ravine.

With this description complete, I must however destroy one more illusion: all this magnificence is executed neither in marble nor alabaster, nor even stone, but simply in plaster! This sadly contradicts the idea of enchanted luxury that the very name Alhambra positively evokes in the imagination; but nothing is truer: with the exception of the columns, usually carved in one piece, whose height hardly exceeds six to eight feet; a few pavements slabs; the hollows of the basins, and the small chapels for depositing slippers, there is not a single piece of marble used in the interior construction of the Alhambra. It is the same with the Generalife: none have exceeded the Arabs in the art of moulding, hardening and carving plaster, which acquires in their hands the hardness of stucco without its unpleasant glossiness.

Most of these forms of decoration are moulded therefore, and were replicated with little effort wherever symmetry required. Nothing could be easier than to reproduce a room of the Alhambra; to do so, it would be enough to take the impressions of all the ornamental motifs. Two arcades of the Tribunal Hall (Sala de los Reyes, the Hall of the Kings), which had collapsed, were rebuilt by workmen from Granada with a degree of perfection that leaves nothing to be desired. If I were rich enough, one of my fantasies would be to create a duplicate of the Patio of the Lions in one of our public parks.

From the Hall of Ambassadors, one walks, via a corridor of relatively modern construction, to the Tocador (boudoir), or Queen’s Dressing Room, (the Peinador de la Reina). It is a small pavilion located on the upper floor of a tower from which one enjoys the most admirable of panoramic views, and which served as an oratory for the Sultanas. At the entrance, one notes a slab of white marble pierced with small holes to allow ingress to smoke from perfumes which were burned beneath the floor. On the walls, fanciful frescoes attributed to Bartolomé de Ragis, Alonso Ferez, and Juan de La Fuente, are still visible. On the frieze, amidst groups of cupids, are the figures of Charles V and his empress, Isabel. It is difficult to dream of anything more elegant and charming than this dressing room with its little Moorish columns, and low arches, suspended over an azure abyss, the floor of which is dotted with the roofs of Granada, and to which the breeze brings the perfumes of the Generalife, of an enormous clump of oleanders blooming on the brow of the next hill, and the plaintive mewing of the peacocks that stroll on the ruined walls. How many hours I spent there, in a state of serene melancholy so different from the melancholy of the North, one leg dangling over the abyss, urging my eyes to fully capture every shape, every contour, of the admirable picture which unfolded before me, and which they will likely never see again! No description, no painting could ever achieve that degree of brilliance, that glow, that liveliness of tone. The most ordinary tints acquire the colours of precious stones, all forming the one spectrum. Towards the end of the day, when the sun is low, inconceivable effects are produced: the mountains sparkle like heaps of rubies, topazes and garnets; a golden dust bathes the valleys, and if, as is common in summer, the ploughmen are burning stubble on the plain, the plumes of smoke rising slowly towards the heavens take on magical hues from the fiery sunset. It surprises me that Spanish painters, in general, darkened their paintings so much, and set themselves, almost exclusively, the task of imitating Caravaggio, and the more sombre masters. The paintings of Decamps and Prosper Marilhat, who mainly painted locations in Asia or Africa, give a much more accurate idea of Spain than all the works brought to France, at great expense, from the Peninsula.

We will cross, without stopping, the Garden of Lindaraja, which is at present no more than uncultivated land, strewn with rubble, bristling with brushwood, and enter for a moment the Sultana’s Baths, tiled with mosaics of glazed clay, and embroidered with filigreed plaster that puts to shame the most intricate of corals. A fountain occupies the centre of the room; two alcoves are hollowed from the wall; it was here that the ‘Subduer of Hearts’ (Alcolomb), and Zobéide (See Antoine Galland’s translation of Les Mille et Une Nuits, or The Thousand and One Nights, 1806: the Histoire de Ganem, Volume IV, and other tales), rested on golden tiles, having savoured the delights and refinements of the oriental baths. One can still see, about fifteen feet from the ground, the stands or balconies where musicians and singers sat. The bathtubs are large tubs of white marble in a single piece, set in small vaulted rooms, lit via pierced rosettes and stars. We will omit, for fear of falling into tedious repetition, a description of the Room of Secrets (Sala de los Secretos), where one notices a singular acoustic effect and whose angles are blackened by the noses of the curious who whisper there some impertinence which is faithfully transported to the opposite corner; of the Hall of the Nymphs (Sala de las Ninfas), where above the door once sees an excellent bas-relief of Jupiter transformed into a swan, caressing Leda, executed with an extraordinary freedom of composition, and audacity of chisel; of the apartments of Charles V, in an outrageous state of devastation, which reveal nothing of interest other than their ceilings decorated with the ambitious inscription: Non plus ultra; and transport ourselves to the Court of the Lions, the most curious and best preserved portion of the Alhambra.

The engravings by English artists and numerous drawings that have been published showing the Court of the Lions give only an incomplete and quite false idea of the place: they almost all lack the correct proportions, and, through the excessive elaboration required to render the endless details of Arab architecture, suggest the idea of a monument of much greater importance.

The Court of the Lions is a hundred and twenty feet long, seventy-three feet wide, and the arcades which surround it are no more than twenty-two feet high. They are formed of a hundred and twenty-eight columns of white marble arranged in symmetrical alternating groups of four and three; these columns, whose elaborate capitals retain traces of gold and other colours, support arches of extreme elegance and most precise forms.

Pavilion of the Court of the Lions, Alhambra

On entering, you see before you, at the far end of the rectangle, the Tribunal Room, whose ceiling is an artistic masterpiece of inestimable rarity and value. Its Arab paintings are perhaps the only ones that have reached us. One of them represents the Court of the Lions itself with the famous fountain though painted in gold; various characters, whom the dilapidated state of the painting does not allow us to distinguish clearly, seem occupied in jousting, or warfare. The other has as its subject a kind of divan or Council of State to which the Moorish kings of Granada have gathered, whose white burnouses, olive-coloured heads, crimson mouths, and mysteriously dark pupils can still be clearly seen. These paintings, it is claimed, are on treated leather, glued to cedar panels, and serve to prove that the precept of the Koran which prohibits the representation of living beings was not always scrupulously observed by the Moors, even if the twelve lions of the fountain were not also there to confirm that assertion.

Fountain, Court of the Lions, Alhambra

On our left, amidst the arcade’s length, is the Hall of the Two Sisters, which is opposite the Hall of the Abencerrages on the right. Its name of Las Dos Hermanas comes from two immense slabs of white Macael marble, of equal size and perfectly alike, which are set in its pavement. The vault or dome, which the Spanish call, most expressively, media naranja (half-orange), is a miracle of work and patience. It looks akin to the cells of a beehive, the stalactites in a cavern, or the clusters of soapy globules that children blow from a straw. Its myriads of small vaults, or domes of three or four feet which rise out of each other, intersect and merge their edges at every moment, seem rather the product of fortuitous crystallisation than the work of human hands; blue, red and green colours still gleam in the hollow of the mouldings with a brilliance almost as vivid as when they were first created. The walls, like that of the Ambassadors’ Hall, are covered, from frieze to eye level, with stucco elaborations of incredible delicacy and complexity. The floor is covered with these glazed earthenware tiles whose black, green and yellow angular shapes form a mosaic with a white background. The centre of the room is occupied by a basin with a jet of water, according to the invariable custom of the Arabs, whose dwellings seem to be nothing more than large embellished fountains. There are four below the portico of the tribunal, as many below the entrance portico, another in the Hall of the Abencerrages, without counting the Taza de los Leones, which, not content with pouring water through the mouths of its twelve lions, launches a torrent towards the sky through the basin which surmounts them. All this water flows, through channels cut in the paving of the rooms and the paving of the courtyard, to the foot of the Lion fountain, where it is swallowed by an underground conduit. This certainly creates a type of dwelling where one is unbothered by the dust, but one wonders how habitable these rooms were in winter. No doubt the large cedar doors were closed, the marble pavement was covered with thick carpets, fires made from kernels and fragrant timber were lit in the braseros (braziers), and there the inhabitants awaited the return of fine weather, which is never long in arriving in Granada.

I shall not describe the Hall of the Abencerrages, which is similar to that of the Two Sisters, and contains nothing of interest except its old wooden door assembled from diamond shaped panels, which dates from the time of the Moors. In the Alcázar of Seville, we shall note another in exactly the same style.

The Taza de los Leones enjoys, in Arab poetry, a wondrous reputation; there is no praise with which these superb animals are not showered; I must admit that it is difficult to find anything that looks less like a lion than these products of African fantasy: the legs are plain stumps like those pieces of rough-hewn wood that are pushed into the underneath of cardboard dogs to keep them balanced; the muzzles, striped with transverse bars, undoubtedly meant to represent the creatures’ whiskers, create a perfect semblance of the muzzles of hippopotami; the eyes are primitive in design, and reminiscent of the shapeless attempts of children. However, these twelve monsters, if one accepts them, not as lions, but as chimeras, as ornamental whims, produce, with the basin they support, a picturesque and elegant effect, which helps one to understand the reason for their reputation, and the praise contained in the Arabic inscription of twenty-four lines of twenty-two syllables, engraved on the walls of the basin into which the waters of the upper jet fall. I ask forgiveness from our readers for the somewhat barbaric fidelity of this translation:

‘O you who gaze on these lions fixed in place, note that they need but life itself to achieve perfection! And you, to whom this Alcazar, and this realm fall, take it from the noble hands that without incurring hostility or resistance governed them. May Allah save you for the deeds you have done, and preserve you forever from your enemy’s vengeance! Honour and glory to you, O Muhammad our king, adorned with noble virtues with whose aid you have conquered all! May Allah never allow this fair garden, an image of your virtues, ever to be surpassed by some rival! The marble that shades the fountain’s basin is like mother-of-pearl beneath the clear glittering water; the surface resembles molten silver, since the water’s clarity above the whiteness of the stone is unparalleled; it gleams like a drop of translucent perfume on an alabaster face. It is hard to follow its course. Observe the water, observe the basin, and you will fail to distinguish whether this is water rendered immobile, or marble that flows. Like the prisoner of love, whose visage shows only annoyance or fear beneath the gaze of the envious, so the water, in its jealousy, shows indignation against the stone, while the stone shows envy on encountering the water. To this inexhaustible flow may be compared the hand of our king, who is as liberal and generous as the lion is valiant and strong.’

It was into the basin of the Fountain of Lions, that the heads of the thirty-six Abencerrages, lured into a trap by the Zirids, fell. The rest of the Abencerrages would have suffered the same fate without the dedication of a little pageboy who, at the risk of his life, ran to warn the survivors, and so prevent them from entering the fatal courtyard. One is shown large reddish patches in the depths of the pool, indelible accusations against the cruelty of their executioners left behind by the victims. Unfortunately, scholars claim that the Abencerrages and the Zirids never existed. I, relying utterly on the romances, on popular tradition and on Monsieur de Chateaubriand’s brief tale (‘Les Aventures du Dernier Abencérage’), firmly believe that the purplish stains are of blood and not rust.

We had established our headquarters in the Court of the Lions; our furniture consisted of two mattresses which we rolled into some corner during the day, a copper lamp, an earthenware jar, and a few bottles of sherry which we placed in the fountain to cool them. Sometimes we slept in the Hall of the Two Sisters, sometimes in that of the Abencerrages, and it was not without some slight apprehension that, stretched on my mantle, I watched the bright rays of the moon, astonished to encounter the flickering yellow flame of a lamp, falling, through the openings in the ceiling, into the water of the pool, and onto the glistening pavement.

I recalled to mind the popular legends Washington Irving gathered to form his Tales from the Alhambra. The stories of the Headless Horse (El Caballo Descabezado) and the Hairy One (El Velludo), related, gravely, by Father Juan Velázquez de Echevarría (the author of ‘Paseos por Granada y sus Contornos’), seemed extremely probable to me, especially when the light was quenched. The verisimilitude of such legends appears much greater at night, in the darkness traversed by those uncertain gleams that lend a fantastic appearance to all vaguely-outlined objects: doubt is a child of the daylight, faith a daughter of night, and I am one who is still surprised that Saint Thomas believed in Christ, after merely placing his finger in the wound. I am not certain I did not see the Abencerrages walking the arcades in the moonlight, carrying their heads under their arms: the fact remains that the shadows of the columns took on devilishly suspicious shapes, and the breeze, passing through the arcades, seemed like human respiration.

One morning, it was a Sunday, around four or five o’clock, while still asleep we felt our mattresses flooded with a fine, penetrating rain. The water jets had been turned on earlier than usual, in honour of a prince of Saxe-Coburg who was to visit the Alhambra, and who was to marry, it was said, the young queen when she was of age.

We had barely risen and dressed when the prince arrived with two or three members of his suite. He was furious. The guards, to celebrate his visit more worthily, had fitted the most ridiculous hydraulic contraptions ever known to the fountains. One of these inventions sought to represent the queen’s journey to Valencia by means of a small carriage of tin, accompanied by lead soldiers, which was activated by the force of the water. Judge the prince’s satisfaction with this ingenious and constitutional refinement. The Fray Gerundio, a satirical newspaper published in Madrid (edited by Modesto Lafuente y Zamalloa), persecuted the poor prince with particular savagery. It reproached him, among other crimes, for contesting the bill too heatedly in inns, and for having appeared at the theatre in the costume of a majo, with a peaked hat on his head.

A group of Granadans, men and women, came to spend the day at the Alhambra; there were seven or eight young and pretty women, and five or six cavaliers. They danced to the sound of the guitar, played little games, and sang in chorus, to a delightful tune, a song, by Fray Luis de Léon, which had achieved popular success in Andalusia. Since the water-jets were exhausted, having launched their silvery fireworks too early, and the fountains were therefore dry, the young girls sat in a mad circle, as if in a basket, on the edge of the alabaster basin in the room of the Two Sisters, and, throwing back their pretty heads, took up the chorus of the song together.

The Generalife is located a short distance from the Alhambra, on a summit of the same hills. One arrives there by way of a sort of sunken path which crosses the ravine of Los Molinos, and is bordered by fig trees with enormous shiny leaves, holm-oaks, pistachio-trees, laurels, and rock-roses in an incredibly lusty show of vegetation. The ground on which one walks is composed of moist yellow sand, of extraordinary fertility. Nothing is more delightful than to follow this path, which seems to be traced through virgin American forest so densely is it choked by foliage and flowers, while one breathes in the dizzying scent of aromatic plants. Vines spring from clefts in the broken walls, and hang fanciful tendrils and jagged leaves from every branch, like Arab ornamentation; aloes open their fans of azure blades, orange-trees contort their knotty trunks, and cling with their rooted fingertips to cracks in the cliffs. Everything flowers, everything blossoms in a dense disorder filled with the charm of chance alignments. A stray branch of jasmine mingles its white stars with the scarlet flowers of the pomegranate tree; a laurel, arching from one side of the path to the other, embraces a cactus, despite its thorns. Nature, abandoned to herself, seems to take pride in coquetry, and to wish to show how even the most exquisite and skilful works of art, are far inferior to her labours.

After a quarter of an hour’s walk, one arrives at the Generalife, which is, in a way, merely la casa de campo, the summer-house, of the Alhambra. The exterior, like that of all oriental constructions, is very simple: high walls without windows, surmounted by an arcaded terrace, and topped with a small modern belvedere. All that remains of the Generalife is the arcade, and large arabesque panels, unfortunately plastered with layers of whitewash which are renewed, obstinately, in a desperate desire for cleanliness. Little by little, the delicate sculptures, the marvellous guilloches, of this fairy-tale architecture are choked, obliterated, and lost. What today is nothing more than a vaguely vermiculated wall was once a piece of lacy openwork as finely wrought as those leaves of ivory the patience of the Chinese carves into fans. The whitewasher’s brush has destroyed more masterpieces than Time’s scythe, if we are permitted to use a mythological and obsolete expression. In one fairly well-preserved room, we noted a series of darkened portraits of the kings of Spain, which possess only historical merit.

The true charm of the Generalife lies in its gardens and waters. A canal, lined with marble, occupies the entire length of the enclosure, and its abundant and rapid waves flow beneath a series of arcades of foliage formed by twisted and oddly-clipped yew-trees. Orange-trees and cypresses are planted along each border; at the foot of one of these cypresses of monstrous size, and which dates back to the time of the Moors, Boabdil's wife (Morayma) if legend is to be believed, often proved that bolts and gates are feeble guarantors of the virtue of a Sultana. What is certain is that the tree is very large and very old.

The perspective is completed by a gallery-portico with water jets and marble columns, like the Court of the Myrtles in the Alhambra. The canal changes direction, and you enter other enclosures decorated with water-features, whose walls retain traces of sixteenth-century frescoes, depicting rustic architecture and landscape views. In the middle of one of these pools, blooms a gigantic basket-shaped oleander of incomparable brilliance and beauty. When I first saw it, it seemed an explosion of flowers, a firework-display of vegetation; a splendid and vigorous bouquet of freshness, almost loud enough, if that word can be applied to colour, to render the complexion of the most crimson rose appear pale! Its lovely flowers gushed forth, with all the ardour of desire, towards the pure light of the sky; its noble leaves, shaped expressly by nature to crown it in glory, laved by the mist created by the water-jets, sparkled like emeralds in the sun. Nothing has ever made me feel a more vivid sense of beauty than that oleander of the Generalife.

Water reaches the gardens by way of a kind of fast-flowing ramp, flanked by low walls like guardrails supporting channels, formed of large hollow tiles, from which the streams emerge into the open air with the most cheerful and lively gurgle in all the world. On every level, abundant jets leap from the centre of small pools and push their crystal plumes into the thick foliage of the laurel trees, whose branches cross above them. The hill flows with water on all sides; at every step a spring rises, and one always hears some wave, diverted from its course, murmuring nearby, which will feed a fountain or bring freshness to the roots of a tree. The Arabs carried the art of irrigation to its highest level; their hydraulic works attest to a most advanced civilisation; those works survive to this day, and it is to them that Granada owes its status of the paradise of Spain, and enjoys an eternal spring despite African temperatures. An arm of the Darro was diverted by the Arabs, and directed more than two leagues to attain the Alhambra hill.

From the belvedere of the Generalife, one can clearly see the plan of the Alhambra, with its enclosure of half-ruined reddish towers, and its sections of wall rising and falling, following the hill’s undulations. The palace of Charles V, which is invisible from the side where the city lies, pushes its square robust mass, gilded with a soft light by the sun, above the damask slopes of the Sierra Nevada, whose pale spine rises oddly against the sky, The Christian bell tower of Santa María displays its silhouette above the Moorish battlements. A few cypresses yield dark sighs of foliage through the crevices of the walls amidst all this light and azure, like a sad thought amidst the joy of a celebration. The slopes of the hill that descend towards the Darro and the Molinos ravine vanish beneath an ocean of greenery. It forms one of the most beautiful views one can imagine.

On the other side, as if to provide a contrast to so much freshness, rises an untouched hillside, scorched and tawny, coloured in tones of ochre and sienna, which is called La Silla del Moro (the Moor’s Chair) because of a few ruins which it bears on its summit. It was from there that King Boabdil watched Arab horsemen joust against Christian knights in the Vega. The memory of the Moors is still very much alive in Granada. It seems like only yesterday that they departed, and judging by what they left behind, it seems a shame that they went. What Southern Spain needs is a North-African not a European civilisation the latter being alien to the ardour of the climate and the passions it inspires. The mechanism of a constitution is only suitable for temperate zones; above thirty degrees Centigrade, such charters melt or self-immolate.

Now that we have completed our visit to the Alhambra and the Generalife, let us cross the Darro ravine and visit, by means of the path that leads to Sacromonte, the dwellings of the gitanos (gypsies), who are quite numerous in Granada. This path is cut in the flank of the Albaicín hill, which overhangs it on one side. Gigantic barbary-figs and monstrous prickly-pears, with their paddles and spears of verdigris, bristle along the gaunt and whitish slopes; beneath the roots of these large succulent plants, which seem to serve as spiked barriers and fences, the gypsies’ dwellings are dug into the living rock. The entrances to these caves are whitewashed; a taut rope from which a piece of frayed curtain hangs serves as a door. Here wild families swarm and multiply; naked children, without distinction of sex, and tawnier in complexion than Havana cigars, play on the threshold, and roll in the dust, uttering sharp, guttural cries. Gitanos are usually blacksmiths, mule-shearers, veterinarians, and above all horse-dealers. They have a thousand methods for granting fire and vigour to the most sluggish and exhausted of animals; a gitano would have made Rocinante gallop and Sancho Panza’s donkey prance. Their true metier, in fact, is that of thief.

The gypsies sell amulets, tell fortunes, and practice the doubtful industry usual for women of their race: I have seen few who are pretty, though their faces were remarkable in type and character. Their swarthy complexion brings out the limpidity of their oriental eyes whose ardour is tempered by some mysterious sadness, akin to the memory of an absent homeland and fallen greatness. Their lips, a little thick, strongly coloured, recall the blossoming African mouth; the smallness of the forehead, the hooked shape of the nose, demonstrate an origin common also to the gypsies of Wallachia and Bohemia, and to all the children of this strange people who crossed paths, under the generic name of Egyptians, with the society of the Middle Ages, and whose enigmatic affiliation has been uninterrupted for so many centuries. Almost all have such a natural majesty in their bearing, such a frankness of bearing, and are so well mounted on their haunches, that, despite their rags, dirt and poverty, they seem to possess the nobility of antiquity and the purity of a people free from admixture, for the gypsies only marry among themselves, and the children who arise from temporary unions are mercilessly rejected from the tribe. One of the pretensions of the gitanos is to be good Castilians and good Catholics, but I believe that deep down they are still to some degree Arabs and Muslims, a charge which they defend themselves from as best they can, out of a remnant of the terror aroused by the vanished Inquisition. Some deserted and half-ruined streets of the Albaicín are also inhabited by richer or less nomadic gitanos. In one of these alleys, we saw a little girl of eight years old, completely naked, who was practicing dancing the zorongo on the stony paving. Her sister, haggard, emaciated, with smouldering eyes in a citron-coloured face, crouched on the ground beside her, a guitar on her knees, the strings of which she plucked with her thumb, producing music similar to the hoarse chirping of the cicadas. The mother, richly dressed, her neck laden with beads, beat time with the tip of a blue velvet slipper which her gaze caressed complacently. The savage attitude, the strange attire, and the extraordinary colouring of this group would have rendered it an excellent motif for a painting by Jacques Callot or Salvator Rosa.

Sacromonte (Abadía de Sacromonte), which contains the caves of martyrs, discovered through some miracle, offers nothing of great interest. It is a monastery with a fairly ordinary church, beneath which the crypts were dug. These catacombs yield nothing that might produce a strong impression. They consist of a labyrinth of small narrow whitewashed corridors, seven or eight feet high. In recesses, made for the purpose, altars are erected, decorated with more devotion than taste. Here the shrines and bones of saintly folk are locked away, behind fences. I expected a dark, mysterious, almost frightening underground church, with squat pillars, a low vault, lit by the uncertain reflection of a distant lamp, something like ancient catacombs, and I was not a little surprised by the clean and pretty appearance of this whitewashed crypt, lit by skylights like a cellar. We somewhat superficial Catholics need the picturesque to achieve religious feeling. Devotees hardly think about the play of light and shadow, or the more or less clever proportions of its architecture; they know that beneath the mediocre altar are hidden the bones of saints who died for the faith they profess: that is enough for them.

The Charterhouse, now devoid of its monks like all the monasteries of Spain, is an admirable building, and one cannot regret sufficiently the diversion from its original purpose. I have never fully understood what harm cenobites, cloistered in their cells voluntarily, and living by austerity and prayer, could do, especially in a country like Spain, where there is certainly no shortage of land.

We ascended via a double staircase to the church portal, surmounted by a statue of Saint Bruno in white marble, which has quite a beautiful effect. The decoration of this church is singular and consists of moulded plaster arabesques of a truly prodigious variety and fertility of motif. It seems that the architect’s intention was to compete, though in a completely different style, with the lacework of the Alhambra in lightness and complexity. There is not a place as wide as a hand, in this immense building, which is not adorned with flowers, damask, leaves, guilloche, and is not as complex as a cabbage-heart; it would be enough to make anyone who wanted to make an exact drawing of it lose their mind. The choir is clad with porphyry and precious marble. A few mediocre paintings hang here and there along the walls and make you regret the spaces they hide. The cemetery is near the church, and in accord with the custom of the Carthusians, no tomb or cross designates the place where the deceased brothers sleep; monastic cells surround the cemetery and each is provided with a small garden. In a plot of land planted with trees, which undoubtedly served as a place for the monks to take their walks, a sort of pond with sloping stone margins was pointed out to me, where a few dozen pond-turtles were crawling about, clumsily, sniffing the sunlight and quite happy to be safe these days from the pot. The Carthusian rule required the monks to forego meat, but the turtle was considered a fish by casuists. They were there to be eaten by the monks. The revolution saved them.

While we are visiting the monasteries, let us enter, if you will, that of San Juan de Dios. Its cloister is one of the most bizarre, and in quite prodigious bad taste; the frescoed walls represent various admirable events in the life of San Juan, framed by grotesque decorative fantasies which outdo the most extravagant monsters of Japan or the carved figurines of China in their curious deformities. There are mermaids playing the violin, ugly women dressing, chimerical fish amidst impossible waves, flowers that look like birds, birds that look like flowers, mirrors in the shape of lozenges, faience tiles, love-knots, in inextricable medley!

The church, fortunately of another era, is almost all gilded over. The altarpiece, supported by Solomonic columns, produces a rich and majestic effect. The sacristan, who served as our guide, seeing that we were French, questioned us about our country, and asked us if it was true, as they said in Granada, that the Emperor of Russia, Nicholas I, had invaded France. and made himself master of Paris; such was the latest news. These gross absurdities are spread amongst the people by the supporters of Don Carlos (Carlos María Isidro Benito de Borbón, pretender to the Spanish throne) to make them believe in some absolutist reversion on the part of the powers of Europe, and to revive the failing courage of those disorganised bands with hopes of future aid.

Inside the church, I saw a most striking sight: an old woman crawling on her knees, from the door to the altar; her arms, stiff as stakes, were outstretched in the form of a cross, her head was thrown back, her eyes rolled upwards revealing only the whites, her lips pressed against her teeth, her face glistening and leaden; it was a picture of ecstasy taken to the point of catalepsy. Never did Francisco de Zurbarán depict a more ascetic or more feverish ardour. She was performing a penance ordered by her confessor, which still had four days left till its completion.

The monastery of San Jéronimo, now transformed into a barracks, contains a Gothic cloister with arcades of rare character and beauty on two levels. The capitals of the columns are embellished with foliage and fantastic animals created with charming caprice and fine workmanship. The church, desecrated and deserted, offers this peculiarity, that its ornamentation and its architectural reliefs are not real but painted on, in grey, like the vault of the Bourse. This is where Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, nicknamed ‘El Gran Capitán’, is buried. His sword, which was kept there, was recently removed and sold for two or three duros, the value of the silver which garnished the hilt. This is how many objects, considered precious as art or as souvenirs, have disappeared, with no benefit to the thieves other than the pleasure of doing wrong. There are better ways to imitate our Revolution than stupid vandalism. Such is the feeling one experiences every time one visits a depopulated convent, on seeing so much ruin and pointless devastation, so many masterpieces of all kinds lost without recourse, and the vast labour of several centuries overturned and swept away in an instant. We have no right to prejudge the future; but I doubt it can render us what the past created, and that we destroy as casually as if we had something finer to set in its place. Could we not build that something finer elsewhere, given that the earth is not so covered in monuments that we must raise new buildings on the rubble of the old? Such reflections preoccupied me when I visited the former monastery of Santo Domingo in the Antequerula quarter. The chapel is decorated with a surcharge of pendants, beading and unimaginable gilding. Nothing but twisted columns, volutes, chicory leaves, incrustations of coloured breccia, glass mosaic, marquetry in mother-of-pearl and nacre, crystal, bevelled mirrors, rayed suns, transparent panes, etc., everything that the tortuous taste of the eighteenth century, and a horror of straight lines can inspire that is disordered, counterfeit, deformed, baroque in the extreme. The library, which was saved, consists almost exclusively of folios and quartos bound in white vellum, their titles handwritten in black or red ink. These are, in general, theological treatises, casuistic dissertations, and other scholastic productions, of little interest to mere literati. The collection of paintings in the monastery of San Domingo has been gathered from abolished or ruined monasteries; a collection which, with the exception of a few beautiful ascetic heads, and several scenes of martyrdom which appear to have been painted by the executioners themselves, as they reveal vast erudition in the art of torture, offers nothing remarkable or superior, and demonstrates that the devastators were true art experts, since they knew how to keep the finer works for themselves. The courtyards and cloisters are of great beauty, decorated with fountains, orange trees, and flower-beds. How wonderfully well-arranged everything is for reverie, meditation and study! What a shame that the monasteries were inhabited by monks, and not poets! The gardens, left to their own devices, have taken on a wild rustic character. Lush vegetation invades the paths; nature everywhere has regained possession of her rights; in place of each fallen stone, she sets a tuft of grass, or flowers. What is most remarkable in these gardens is an alley of enormous laurel trees, forming an arbour, paved with white marble and adorned on each side with a long bench of the same material with an upturned back. Spaced water-jets maintain the freshness of this thick green vault, at the end of which one enjoys a magnificent view of the Sierra Nevada from a charming Moorish mirador, part of the remains of an ancient Arab palace incorporated within the monastery. It is said that this pavilion communicated with the Alhambra, a fair distance away, by means of long underground tunnels. This is a common idea, however, in Granada, where the least Moorish ruin is always attributed with possessing five or six leagues of underground passages, and a hidden treasure guarded by enchantment.

We visited Santo Domingo frequently, to sit in the shade of the laurel trees and bathe in a pool, in which the monks, if the satirical songs about them are to be believed, frolicked happily with pretty girls they had kidnapped or seduced. It should be noted that it is in the most Catholic of countries that holy things, priests, and monks are treated most lightly. Spanish couplets and tales about religious people compare favourably, as regards their degree of licence, with the facetious works of Rabelais and François Béroalde de Verville, and, on observing the manner in which religious ceremonies are parodied in the old plays, one would hardly suspect that the Inquisition ever existed.

Speaking of bathing, let me set down here a detail which will prove that the thermal arts, carried to such a high degree by the Arabs, have indeed lost their ancient splendour in Granada. Our guide led us to a rather well-arranged bathing establishment, with dressing rooms arranged round a patio shaded by a covering of vines, and largely occupied by a reservoir of most clear water. So far so good, but what do you think the bathtubs were made of? Copper, zinc, stone, wood? Not at all; nothing like. I shall tell you, since you will never guess. They were enormous clay jars like those in which oil is kept; these bathtubs, of a new species, were buried to about two-thirds of their height. Before seating ourselves in these jars, we had them covered with a white sheet, a precaution with regard to cleanliness which seemed extremely odd to the attendant, and which we had to ask of him several times before he obeyed, so astonished was he. He explained our whim to himself by making a commiserative gesture with his head and shoulders, and saying, in a low voice, the single word: Ingleses! We were squatting in these pots, our heads sticking out, akin to partridges in a terrine, creating a somewhat grotesque appearance. It was only then that I comprehended the tale of Ali-Baba and the Forty Thieves, which had always seemed rather difficult to credit, and had made me doubt for a moment the veracity of the Thousand and One Nights.

There are still ancient Moorish baths (El Bañuelo) in the Albaicín, a pool covered with a vault with small starred vents, but they are not in working order, and there is only a cold-water feed.

This is, to a large extent, all there is to do in Granada, during a residence of a few weeks. Distractions are rare: the theatre closes for the summer; the Plaza de Toros is not employed regularly; there are no casinos or public establishments, and one finds French and other foreign newspapers only at the Lycée, whose members hold sessions on certain days at which speeches and verses are read, there is singing, or comedies usually composed by some young poet of the upper echelons, are presented.

All are conscientiously active in doing nothing: gallantry, smoking, making verses, and especially playing at cards, is enough to fill life pleasantly. There is no sign of that furious anxiety, that need to act and to bustle about, which torments the people of the North. The Spaniards seem to me to be a very philosophical people: they attach little or no importance to material life, and comfort is a matter of complete indifference to them. The thousand artificial needs created by northern civilisation seem to them childish and embarrassing pursuits. Indeed, not having to continually protect themselves from the climate, the enjoyments of an English home inspire in them no desire whatsoever. What does it matter to folk who would pay for a draught of air, a breath of wind, that windows fit tightly? Favoured by clear skies, they reduce existence to its simplest expression; this sobriety and moderation in all things gives them a great sense of freedom, an extreme feeling of independence; they have time to live, while we can hardly say the same. The Spanish do not accept that one must work first and then rest. They much prefer to do the opposite, which actually seems wiser to me. A worker who has earned a few reals leaves his work, throws his beautifully embroidered jacket over his shoulder, takes his guitar, and goes off to dance, or make love, with the majas he knows until he had not a single quarto left; then he resumes his work. With three or four sous a day, an Andalusian can live splendidly; for this sum, he can obtain white bread, an enormous slice of watermelon, and a small glass of anisette; his accommodation only costs him the trouble of spreading his coat on the ground under some portico or the arch of some bridge or other. In general, work seems to the Spaniards a humiliating thing and unworthy of a free man, which is a very natural and very reasonable idea in my opinion, since God, wanting to punish man for his disobedience, was unable to find a greater torture to inflict on him than earning his bread by the sweat of his brow. Pleasures won like ours through pain, fatigue, mental stress, and endless diligence seem to them to cost far too dearly. Like simple tribes living close to nature, they have a rightness of judgment which leads them to despise conventional enjoyments. For someone arriving from Paris or London, those two whirlwinds of all-consuming activity, of feverish and over-excited existence, the life one leads in Granada provides a singular spectacle, a life wholly occupied by leisure, filled through conversation, siestas, walking, music, and dance. One is surprised at the happy calmness of these figures, the quiet dignity of these physiognomies. None possess the pre-occupied look of the passer-by in the streets of Paris. All seem at ease, seeking the shade stopping to chat with friends, while showing no haste to arrive. The certainty of being unable to earn anything extinguishes all ambition: there are few careers open to the young. The most adventurous go to Manila, Havana, or take service in the army; the rest, given the pitiful state of the Spanish economy, sometimes go for entire years without being paid. Convinced of the uselessness of effort, they make no attempt to win unattainable wealth, and spend their time in a charming idleness favoured by the beauty of the country, and the warmth of the climate.

I found hardly any arrogance among the Spaniards: nothing is as deceptive as the reputations given to individuals and peoples. I found them, on the contrary, extremely simple and good-natured; Spain is the true country of equality, if not in words, then at least in deeds. The least beggar lights his papelito at the puro of the great lord, who lets him do so without the slightest affectation of condescension; the marquise smilingly steps over the ragged bodies of the scoundrels sleeping across her doorway, and when travelling she does not grimace at drinking from the same glass as the mayoral, the zagal and the escopetero who are her attendants. Foreigners have great difficulty adapting to this familiarity, especially the English, who have their letters bought to them on plates, and pick them up with tweezers. One of those esteemed islanders, journeying from Seville to Jerez de la Frontera, sent his calesero (coachman) to the kitchen to eat. The latter, who, in his soul, thought it would be honouring a heretic to even eat at the same table with him, said nothing, and concealed his anger as studiously as a traitor in a melodrama; but, in the middle of the road, three or four leagues from Jerez, in a dreadful wasteland, full of potholes and brushwood, our man threw the Englishman, very neatly, from the carriage, and shouted to him, while whipping his horse: ‘Milord, you did not find me worthy of filling a place at your table; I, Don Jose Balbino Bustamente y Orozco, find you, too poor company to sit on the bench in my chaise. Good evening!’

Maids and servants are treated with a familiar courtesy very different from our affected politeness, which seems with every word to remind them of their inferior status. A small example will prove my claim. We had gone together to the country house belonging to Señora ***; in the evening, they wanted to dance, but there were many more ladies than gentlemen; Señora *** called the gardener and another servant, who danced all evening without embarrassment, without false shame, without servile eagerness, as if they were members of society. They invited the prettiest and the most titled to dance, in turn, and they complied with the request with all possible good grace. Our democrats are still far from this everyday equality, while our fiercest republicans would rebel at the idea of appearing, in a quadrille, opposite some peasant or lackey.

The remarks above, as with all generalisations, suffer from an infinity of exceptions. There are undoubtedly many Spaniards who are active, hardworking, sensitive to all the pursuits of life; but such is the general impression that a traveller receives after a stay of some length, an impression often more accurate than that of the native observer, less struck by, and taken by, the novelty of what they see.

Encountering a view of the Sierra Nevada at the end of every street, and with our curiosity satisfied in regard to Granada and its monuments, we resolved to make a more intimate acquaintance with the mountains and attempt an ascent on Mulhacen, the highest peak in the range. Our friends first tried to dissuade us from this project, which could not fail to present some danger; but, when we were seen to be quite determined, we were offered a huntsman, named Alexandro Romero, who had a thorough knowledge of the mountain and was capable of acting as our guide. He came to see us at our casa de pupilos (lodging house), and his frank and masculine countenance immediately convinced us in his favour; he wore an old velvet waistcoat, a red woollen belt, and white canvas gaiters like those of the Valencians, which showed his taut, muscular legs, tanned like Cordoba leather. A pair of alpargatas of braided rope served as shoes; a small Andalusian hat, scorched from the sun, a rifle, and a powder-horn on a chain, completed his attire. He took charge of the preparations for the expedition, and promised to bring us the next day, at three o’clock, the four horses required, one for my travelling companion, another for me, the third for a young German who joined himself to our caravan, and the fourth for our servant, in charge of the culinary part of the expedition. As for Romero, he went on foot. Our provisions consisted of ham, roast-chicken, chocolate, bread, lemons, sugar, and most importantly a large leather purse called a bota, filled with excellent wine from Val-de-Penas.

At the appointed hour, the horses arrived in front of the house, and Romero beat on our door with the butt of his rifle. We mounted the saddle, still barely awake, and our procession set off: our guide preceded us as a runner, and showed us the way. Though it was already daylight, the sun had not yet appeared, and the undulations of the lower hills, which we had passed, stretched round us, cool, limpid and blue like the waves of a motionless ocean. Granada faded into the distance in the vaporous atmosphere. When the orb of flame appeared on the horizon, all the peaks turned pink like young girls before a lover’s gaze, seemingly showing a modest embarrassment at being seen in their morning negligee. Till then we had only climbed fairly gentle slopes that merged into one another, and offered no difficulty. The ridges of the mountain range join the plain in easily managed contours, which form a lower plateau which is readily accessible. We had arrived at this first plateau. The guide decided that we should breathe our horses, allow them something to eat, and have lunch ourselves. We settled at the foot of a rock, near a small spring whose crystal waters glittered beneath emerald grass. Romero improvised a fire, as skilfully as an American savage, using a handful of brushwood, and Louis made us some chocolate which, augmented by a slice of ham and a sip of wine, composed our first meal in the mountains. While our lunch was cooking, a superb viper slid by us and seemed surprised and displeased by our installation on its property, which it demonstrated by a rude hiss which earned it a good stinging blow with a cane on the belly. A small bird, which had observed the scene with a very attentive air, no sooner saw the viper put out of action than it came scurrying, its throat feathers bristling, its wings flapping, its eyes on fire, screaming and chirping, in a strange state of exaltation; retreating every time one of the segments of the venomous snake twisted convulsively, but soon returning to the charge and giving the creature a few pecks, after which the bird rose three or four feet in the air. I have no idea what the snake can have done, while it lived, to this bird, or what grudge we had satisfied in killing it, but I never witnessed greater joy.

We set off once more. From time to time, we encountered strings of little donkeys coming down from the upper regions, laden with snow which they were carrying to Granada for the day’s consumption. The men who led them greeted us, as we passed, with the sacramental: Vayan ustedes con Dios, and our guide made some jokes about their merchandise, which would fail to reach the city, and which they would be forced to sell to the attendant in charge of irrigation.

Romero preceded us, jumping from stone to stone with the lightness of a chamois, shouting: Bueno camino (good road). I would be most curious to know what that brave fellow meant by a poor road, because there was no sign of a path. To the right and left the ground fell away, as far as the eye could see, into charming precipices, profound, blue, and vaporous, varying from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet in depth, a distinction which, worried us little, however, a few hundred yards more or less making little difference. I remember with a shudder a certain pass, three or four rifle shots in length and two feet wide, a natural bridge with a chasm on either side. As my horse was at the head of the line, I had to go first over this sort of tightrope, which would have given the most determined acrobat food for thought. In certain places, the path was so narrow that my mount only had room to place its hooves, and each of my legs overlooked a different abyss: I sat motionless in the saddle, as upright as if I was balancing a chair on the end of my nose. That journey of a few minutes seemed long indeed to me.

When I reflect, calmly, on this incredible ascent, I am astonished, as at the memory of an incoherent dream. We followed paths where goats would have hesitated to set foot, climbed slopes so steep that our chins touched our horses’ ears, across rocks and crumbling stone, along terrible precipices, describing zigzags, taking advantage of the slightest accident of terrain, seemingly advancing little, but always climbing by degrees towards the summit, the goal of our ambition, and which we had lost sight of since we attacked the mountain, because each plateau hid the next from the eyes. Each time our animals stopped to catch their breath we turned about in our saddles in order to contemplate the immense panorama presented by the canvas of the encircling horizon. The heights we had surmounted seemed like a vast geographical map. The Vega of Granada, and all of Andalusia, unfolded beneath the impression of an azure sea on which a few white puffs of cloud, struck by the sun, represented sails. The neighbouring bald summits, split and cracked from top to bottom, possessed tints of ash-green, Egyptian-blue, lilac and pearl-grey in the shadows; and tones of burnt-orange, lion-pelt, and burnished gold, the warmest and most admirable in the world, in the light. Nothing conveys the idea of chaos, of a universe still in the hands of the Creator, as does a mountain range viewed from on high. It seemed as if a race of Titans had tried to build one of those enormous towers there, one of those prodigious Lylacqs (Sanskrit: Līlās, playful endeavours) which alarm the Lord; that they had piled up the material, and begun the gigantic terraces, when an unknown breath like a storm shook and overturned their attempts at temples and palaces. It felt as if we were amidst the rubble of an antediluvian Babylon, in the ruins of some pre-Adamite city. Those enormous blocks, those pharaonic heaps awaken the idea of a race of vanished giants, so clearly is the old age of the world written, legibly, in deep wrinkles on the hoary forehead, and shrunken visage of those thousands-of-years-old mountains.

We had reached the region of the eagles. From time to time, we saw one of those noble birds perched on a solitary rock, its gaze turned towards the sun, in that state of contemplative ecstasy which replaces thought in animals. One, indeed, floated at a great height, seemingly motionless in the middle of an ocean of light. Romero couldn’t resist the pleasure of sending him a bullet as if it were a business card. The lead carried away one of the great wing-feathers, while the eagle, with indescribable majesty, continued on its way as if nothing had occurred. The feather twirled for a long time before reaching the ground, where it was picked up by Romero, who employed it to adorn his felt hat.

Narrow veins of snow began to appear, scattered patches in the shadow of the rocks; the air became more rarified, the escarpments became steeper and steeper; soon the snow lay in immense sheets, in enormous piles, the sun’s rays no longer possessing the strength to melt it. We were above the sources of the Genil, which we saw in the shape of a blue ribbon, glazed with silver, rushing in haste towards its beloved city. The plateau on which we found ourselves rises to about nine thousand feet above sea level, and is dominated only by the peaks of Veleta and Mulhacen, which rise another two thousand feet or more towards the unfathomable abyss of the sky. It was there that Romero decided that we would spend the night. The harnesses were removed from the horses, who could go no further; Louis and the guide turned up brushwood, roots, and juniper trees, to keep our fire going, for, although the heat on the plain was thirty to thirty-five degrees, it was so cool at that height that the setting sun would necessarily give way to bitter cold. It might have been about five o’clock; my companion and the young German wanted to take advantage of the twilight to climb the last hill on foot alone. As for me, I preferred to rest, and, moved by the grandiose and sublime spectacle, I began to scribble in my notebook a few verses, which if not well written, at least possess the merit of being the only alexandrines composed at such an elevation. Having created my poem, I made some excellent sorbets for dessert with snow, sugar, lemon-juice, and brandy. Our camp was quite picturesque; the saddles of our horses served us for seats, our coats for carpets, and a large heap of snow sheltered us from the wind. In the centre burned a fire of broom which we fed by throwing a branch in from time to time, which twisted and hissed, darting forth jets of sap of every colour. Above us, the horses stretched out their narrow heads with soft, dull eyes, to catch a few puffs of heat.

Night was approaching swiftly. The lower mountains were shrouded first, in succession, and, like a fisherman fleeing before the rising tide, the light leapt from peak to peak, withdrawing towards the heights, to escape the darkness which advanced from the floor of the valleys, drowning everything in bluish shadow. The last shaft of sunlight, which lingered on the peak of Mulhacen, hesitated for a moment; then, opening its golden wings, flew like a bird of flame into the depths of the sky and vanished. The darkness was complete, and the quivering of our fire, magnified, sent grim shadows dancing over the walls of rock. Eugène and the German did not reappear, and I began to worry: they might have fallen from a precipice, or been swallowed by a pile of snow. Romero and Louis were already asking if I would sign a certificate to the effect that they had neither slaughtered nor robbed these two honest gentlemen, and that, if they were dead, it was their own fault.

Meanwhile, we strained our lungs uttering the loudest and wildest of cries to show them the direction of our bivouac, in case they were unable to see the fire. At last, a gunshot, echoed by all the slopes of the mountain, told us that we had been heard, and that our companions were only a short distance away. In fact, they reappeared after a few minutes, worn out with fatigue; and claiming to have seen Africa distinctly on the far side of the sea, which is quite possible, because the purity of the air is such in this climate that the view may extend up to thirty or forty leagues. They ate very happily, and by playing bagpipe tunes with the aid of the wineskin, rendered it almost as flat as the purse of a Castile beggar. It was agreed that everyone would take turns tending the fire, a task which was faithfully carried out. Only our circle, which at first possessed a fairly lengthy circumference, shrank more and more. From hour to hour, the cold increased in intensity, and we ended up literally setting our feet in the fire, to the point of burning our shoes and trousers. Louis burst into lamentation; he missed his gazpacho (cold garlic soup), his house, his bed, and even his wife; he promised himself, by his great gods, never to be ambushed into a second ascent, claiming that the mountains are more interesting from below than from above, and that he must have been mad to expose himself to breaking his bones a hundred thousand times, and to finding his nose and ears frozen in the middle of August, in Andalusia, in sight of Africa. All night he did nothing but grunt and moan in this manner, and we failed to silence him. Romero, who said nothing however, was only dressed in linen, and had only a narrow band of cloth to wrap about himself.

At last dawn broke; we were shrouded in cloud, and Romero advised us to begin our descent if we wanted to be back in Granada before nightfall. When it was light enough to distinguish the objects around us, I noticed that Eugène was as red as a cooked lobster, and at the same time he made a similar observation regarding myself which he thought it unnecessary to stifle. The young German and Louis too had become cardinals; Romero alone had retained his boot-leather complexion, and his bronze legs, though bare, had not suffered the slightest change. It was the harshness of the cold and the rarified nature of the air that had made us blush like this. Ascending is nothing, because you look higher, but descending with the abyss in perspective is a completely different matter. At first, this seemed totally impractical to us, and Louis began to cry out like a jay being plucked alive. However, we could not remain on Mulhacen indefinitely, an uninhabitable place if ever there was one, and, with Romero in the lead, we began the descent. Describing the path, or rather the absence of path, down which this devil of a man made us scramble, is impossible without being accused of stupidity; never was such a company of daredevils gathered for a steeplechase, and I doubt that the boldest gentlemen-riders have ever surpassed our exploits on Mulhacen. Roller-coasters are gentle by comparison. We were forever standing in the stirrups, and leaning back on the rumps of our horses, so as not to describe unending parabolas above their heads. All the contours of the landscape were blurred to our eyes; the streams seemed to be returning to their sources, the rocks wavered and tottered on their bases, the most distant objects seemed to us two steps away, and we had lost all idea of their proportions, an effect which is produced in the mountains, where the enormity of the masses of rock, and the verticality of their planes, no longer allow distances to be comprehended in the usual manner.

Despite these obstacles, we arrived in Granada without our horses having made the slightest misstep, though, they had only one shoe left between them. Andalusian horses, and these were definitely authentic examples, are unequalled in the mountains. They are so docile, so patient, so intelligent, that the best thing to do is to give them free rein.

Our return was awaited with impatience, for our fire shining like a lighthouse from the Mulhacen plateau had been seen from the city. I wished to go and tell the charming Señoras B*** about our perilous expedition, but was so tired that I fell asleep on a chair, holding a sock in my hand, and slept without waking till the next day at ten o’clock, in the same position. A few days later, we left Granada, with a sigh at least as deep as that once uttered by King Boabdil.

Part XII: The Thieves and Pirates of Andalusia – Alhama de Granada – Málaga – Students on Tour – A Bullfight – Montes – The Theatre

Drop Cap A

A piece of news designed to rouse a whole Spanish city spread suddenly, throughout Granada, to the great joy of aficionados. The new Málaga arena was finally complete, having cost the contractor five million reals. To solemnly inaugurate it with exploits worthy of the golden eras of the bullfighter’s art, the great Montes (Francisco Montes Reina) from Chiclana had been engaged with his company, and would take the lead role there for three consecutive days; Montes, the foremost toreador in Spain, the brilliant successor to Pedro Romero and ‘Pepe Illo’ (José Delgado Guerra). We had already attended several bull-fights, but had not had the pleasure of seeing Montes, whose political opinions prevented him from appearing in the Madrid arena; and leaving Spain without having seen Montes would have been as savage and barbaric as leaving Paris without having heard Mademoiselle Rachel (the actress Elisabeth Félix). Although by the plan of our route it would necessitate travelling via Cordoba, we could not resist the temptation, and we resolved to push on to Malaga, despite the difficulty of the journey and the little time that remained for us to do so.

There was no coach from Granada to Málaga, the only means of transport being galeras (carts) or mules: we chose the mules as safer and quicker, because we would need to follow the side roads in the Alpujarras, in order to arrive on the first morning of the event.

Our friends in Granada directed us to a cosario (leader of a convoy) named Lanza, a good-looking fellow, a most honest man, and well in with the bandits. That would seem a mediocre recommendation in France, but things are not the same beyond the mountains. The mule drivers and galera drivers know the thieves, strike deals with them, and for a fee of so much per traveller or convoy, depending on the conditions, they obtain free passage, and are not hindered. These arrangements are maintained on both sides with scrupulous probity, if such a word is not too out of place where such transactions are concerned. When the leader of the troop who controls a route is amnestied (indullo), or transfers his funds and his clientele to another for any reason, he takes care to officially present the cosarios who pay their shady contribution to his successor, so that they are not molested by mistake; in this way, travellers are assured of not being robbed, and thieves avoid the risk of an attack, and an often-perilous struggle. Everyone benefits.

One night, between Alhama de Granada and Vélez (Vélez-Málaga), our cosario had dozed off on the neck of his mule, at the back of the line, when loud cries, suddenly woke him; he saw the gleam of trabucos (blunderbusses) at the side of the road. There was no longer any doubt, the convoy was being attacked. Surprised at this, he threw himself from his mount, raised the mouths of the blunderbusses with his hand, and declared his name. ‘Ah! Your pardon, Señor Lanza!’ cried the bandits, embarrassed at their mistake, ‘we did not recognise you; we are honest people, incapable of such discourtesy, we have too much honour to take from you even a cigar.’

If you are not accompanied by a known individual on the road, you are forced to trail numerous escorts armed to the teeth, behind you, who are very expensive to employ and offer a less certain protection, since the escopeteros are, commonly, retired thieves.

In Andalusia, it is customary when travelling on horseback to the bullfight to wear the national costume. So, our little caravan was quite picturesque, and looked very fine as it left Granada. Joyfully seizing this opportunity to wear a disguise outside of the days of the Carnival, and to be free of our dreadful French undress for a while, I had donned my majo outfit: a peaked hat, an embroidered jacket, a velvet vest with filigrane buttons, a belt of red silk, knitted breeches, and gaiters open at the calf. My traveling companion wore his suit of green velvet and Cordoba leather. Others wore the montera, a black jacket and breeches adorned with silk trimmings of the same colour, with a yellow cravat and sash. Lanza was notable for the luxuriousness of his silver buttons made of multiple coins soldered to a shank, and the flossed-silk embroidery of a second jacket worn on the shoulder like a hussar’s pelisse.

The mule assigned me as a mount was shaved to halfway-down, which made it possible to study its musculature as easily as on a skinned carcase. The saddle consisted of two colourful blankets doubly folded so as to reduce as much as possible the protrusion of the animal’s vertebrae and the slope of its spine. On each flank hung a wooden trough similar to a rat-trap, as a sort of stirrup. The harness was so laden with rosettes, tufts, and other decorations one could barely discern the surly and obstinate profile of the animal itself through this ornamental profusion.

It is while travelling that the Spaniards display their original and ancient essence one more, and free themselves of all foreign influence; the national character reappears in full amidst these convoys through the mountains which hardly differ from caravans in the desert. The roughness of the barely-visible tracks, the grandiose wildness of the landscape, the picturesque costume of the arrieros (muleteers), the bizarre harnesses of the string of mules, horses, and donkeys, all this transports you a thousand leagues from civilisation. The journey then becomes a genuine thing, an action in which you are participating. In a diligence, one is no longer a man, one is merely an inert object, a bundle; you differ but little from your luggage. You are thrown about from one place to another, that is all. You might as well stay at home. What constitutes the traveller’s pleasure is the difficulty, the fatigue, the danger itself. What pleasure can there be in an excursion where one is always sure of arriving, of finding horses available, a soft bed, an excellent supper, and all the comforts one can enjoy at home? One of the great misfortunes of modern life is the lack of the unexpected, the absence of adventure. Everything is so well regulated, so well-organised, so well labelled, that chance is no longer a possibility; another century of improvement, and everyone will be able to predict, from the day of their birth, what will happen to them till the day of their death. The human will would then be completely annihilated. No more crime, no more virtue, no difference in physiognomy, an absence of originality. It will become impossible to distinguish Russians from Spaniards, the English from the Chinese, or the French from Americans. We will no longer even be able to recognise each other, because everyone will look the same. Then an immense ennui will grip the universe, and suicide will decimate the population of the globe, since the main motive of life will have been extinguished: that of curiosity!

Travel in Spain is still a perilous and romantic enterprise; one must make an effort, show courage, patience, and strength; one must risk one’s skin at every step. Privations of every kind, an absence of the most essential necessities of life, the danger of roads that are truly impassable for anyone other than Andalusian muleteers, the infernal heat, a mind-numbing sun, are the least disadvantages; you also have the guerillas, the thieves, and the hoteliers, gallows-birds whose probity depends on the number of rifles you carry with you. Danger surrounds you, follows you, precedes you; you hear whispered around you none but terrible and mysterious tales. Yesterday, bandits dined in this posada. The members of a caravan were kidnapped, and led into the mountains by thieves for ransom. Pallilos has laid an ambush at a certain place where you must pass! No doubt there is a lot of exaggeration in all this; yet, however incredulous one might be, there must be something in it all, when one sees, at every bend in the road, wooden crosses bearing inscriptions of this kind: Aqui mataron á un hombre (here they killed a man) … Aqui murio de manpairada (here one died of an itchy trigger-finger) ...

We left Granada in the evening, and had to walk all night. It did not take long for the moon to rise and glaze the cliffs exposed to its rays with silver. The shadows of the rocks lengthened, and stood out strangely on the road we were following, producing singular optical effects. We heard the bells of the donkeys that went ahead with our luggage, like the sound of scattered notes from a harmonica, in the distance, or some mozo de mulas (muleteer’s lad) singing verses of love in a guttural yet ever so poetic voice, that night in the mountains. It was charming, and I am grateful to report here two stanzas, probably improvised, which have remained engraved in my memory by their graceful oddity:

Son tus labios dos cortinas

Your lips are two curtains

De terciopelo carmesi;

Of crimson velvet;

Entre cortina y cortina,

Twixt curtain and curtain,

Niña, dime que sí.

Girl, grant me a yes.

Atame con un cabello

Come, tie me, with a hair,

A los bancos de tu cama,

To the head of your bed,

Aunque el cabello se rompa,

And though the hair breaks,

Segura esta que me vaya.

Be sure I’ll not leave you.

Soon, we passed Cacín, where we forded a pretty river a few inches deep, whose clear waters flickered over the sand like the bellies of common bleaks, and rushed in an avalanche of silver gleams down the mountain’s steep slope!

On leaving Cacín, the road turned dreadfully bad. Our mules suffered from stones striking their bellies, and jets of sparks scattered beneath their hooves. We ascended, we descended, skirting precipices, tracing zigzags and diagonals, for we were now in the inaccessible solitudes of the Alpujarras, a savage and precipitous mountain range, from which the Moors, they say, could never be completely driven, and where some thousands of their descendants live concealed from all eyes.

At a bend in the road, we had a moment of deep fear. We saw, by the light of the moon, seven tall fellows draped in long coats, peaked hats on their heads, trabucos over their shoulders, standing motionless in the middle of the path. The adventure we had sought so long was now occurring in the most Romantic way possible. Sadly, the bandits greeted us most politely, with a respectful: Vayan ustedes con Dios. They were precisely the opposite of thieves, being miquelets, that is to say irregulars. O bitter disappointment for the two enthusiastic young travellers, who would have gladly paid the price of an adventure with their luggage!

We were to sleep at a small town called Alhama de Granada, perched like an eagle’s nest on top of a sheer cliff. Nothing is as picturesque as the sharp bends the road leading to this eyrie is obliged to make, so as to conquer the difficulties of the terrain. We arrived there about two in the morning, thirsty, hungry, and worn out with fatigue. Our thirst was quenched by three or four jars of water, our hunger appeased by a tomato omelette, which for a Spanish omelette contained not too many feathers. A mattress, stony hard, resembling a sack of walnuts, was spread on the ground, and provided for our rest. After two minutes or so, I slept the sleep, religiously imitated by my companion, attributed to the righteous. The day found us in the same attitude, as motionless as lead ingots.

I descended to the kitchen to beg some food, and, thanks to my eloquence, obtained a few chops, a chicken fried in oil, half a watermelon, and for dessert some prickly pears the thorny covering of which the hostess removed with great dexterity. The watermelon did me a deal of good; the pink pulp in its green skin contains something fresh and reviving, and is a pleasure to see. As soon as one bites into it, one is flooded to one’s elbows with the slightly sweet juice, of a very pleasant taste, which has little similarity to that of our cantaloupes. We both needed refreshing slices of the fruit to temper the heat of the peppers and spices that enliven all Spanish dishes. Burnt inside, roasted outside, such was our situation: the heat was atrocious. Lying on the brick tiles of our room, we left our mark in patches of sweat; the only way to achieve a relative coolness is to block all the doors, and windows, and rest in total darkness.

However, despite the scorching temperature, I threw my jacket, bravely, over my shoulder, and went for a stroll through the streets of Alhama de Granada. The sky was as white as molten metal; the stones of the pavement gleamed as if they had been waxed and polished; the whitewashed walls glittered with micaceous sparkles, while the pitiless, blinding light penetrated into the smallest of corners. The shutters and doors creaked from lack of moisture; the dry ground split, the vine branches twisted like greenwood in the fire. Add to this the reflections from the neighbouring rocks, which were like fiery mirrors returning the sun’s rays even more fiercely. To add insult to injury, I had shoes with thin soles, through which the pavement burned my feet. Not a breath of air, not a breath of wind to stir a feather. Nothing drearier, sadder, or more savage could be imagined.

Wandering, at random, through the solitary streets, the chalk-white walls pierced by a few rare windows blocked by wooden shutters, and with a wholly African appearance. I arrived without meeting a body, I’ll not say soul, in the town square, which is of great and picturesque interest. It is spanned by the stone arches of an aqueduct. The ground is a plateau, sliced from the summit of the hill, and has no pavement other than the rock itself, carved with grooves to prevent one’s feet from slipping. One whole side is precipitous, and overlooks an abyss, at the foot of which can be seen, amidst clumps of trees, water-mills turned by a torrent foaming like soapy water.

The hour set for our departure approached, and I returned to the posada as wet with perspiration as if I had endured a downpour of rain, but satisfied to have done my duty as a traveller in a temperature that could hard-boil an egg.

The caravan moved off again along abominable, but most picturesque, paths, where only mules could maintain a foothold: I had rested the reins on the neck of my beast, judging her more capable of handling herself than I, and relying on her, entirely, to avoid false steps. Several rather lively discussions I had already had with her to encourage her to walk alongside my comrade’s horse, had convinced me of the uselessness of such efforts. The proverb: stubborn as a mule, is a truth to which I pay homage. Poke a mule with the spur, she halts; strike her with a whip, she lies down; pull on her reins, she gallops: a mule in the mountains is truly intractable, she senses her importance and abuses it. Often, she will stop, suddenly, in the middle of the road, raises her head in the air, stretch out her neck, contract her lips so as to reveal her gums and long teeth, and utter inarticulate sighs, convulsive sobs, and frightful cackles, horrible to hear, which resemble the cries of a child whose throat is being slit. You could beat her during such vocalization exercises without moving her a step forward.

We were travelling through a veritable Campo Santo. The crosses erected to mark murders became frighteningly frequent; in good places, there were sometimes three or four in the space of less than a hundred yards; it was no longer a road, it was a cemetery. It must be admitted, however, that if in France we chose to perpetuate the memory of every violent death with a cross, certain Paris streets would more than bear comparison with the Vélez-Málaga road. Several of these sinister monuments bore dates that were already ancient; they stir the traveller’s imagination endlessly, make one attentive to the slightest noise, keep one’s eyes on the alert, and prevent one from being bored for a single moment; at each bend in the road, as soon as a rock suspicious in form appears, or a clump of dangerous-looking trees one says to oneself: ‘There a hidden scoundrel hides, perhaps, who takes aim at me, and would render me the pretext for a fresh cross for the edification of future travellers and passers-by!’

Once that section of the route was done with, the crosses became somewhat rarer; we traversed mountainous locations of grandiose and severe appearance, their summits intersected by large archipelagos of vapour, in a wholly deserted landscape, where we encountered no other habitation than some reed hut, the dwelling of an aguador, or a seller of brandy. The brandy is colourless, and drunk from elongated glasses, which are filled to the brim with added water, that whitens it in the manner of eau de Cologne.

The air was heavy, the weather stormy, and suffocatingly hot; a few large drops, the only ones that had fallen in four months from that implacable lapis-lazuli sky, speckled the weathered sand and gave it the appearance of a panther’s skin; However, the rain was transient, and the celestial vault resumed its immutable serenity. The weather was so constantly blue during my stay in Spain, that I found in my notebook a note written thus: ‘Saw a white cloud,’ as being a thing entirely worthy of remark. We folk of the North, whose horizon cluttered with mists offers an ever-varied spectacle of shapes and colours, where the wind builds mountains, islands, and palaces of cloud, that it constantly dissolves to rebuild elsewhere, can form no idea of the deep melancholy inspired by that azure as constant as eternity, which we found forever hanging above our heads. In a small village that we passed through, everyone had rushed outside to enjoy the rain, just as in our country we rush inside to seek shelter.

Night fell, quite suddenly, with no pretence at twilight, as happens in hot countries, with us not far from Vélez-Málaga, the place where we were to sleep. The mountains softened into shallower slopes, and died away into small stony plains crossed by streams fifteen to twenty yards wide and a foot deep, bordered by gigantic reeds. The funereal crosses reappeared in greater numbers than ever, their whiteness rendering them easily distinguishable in the blue vapour of night. We counted three within a distance of twenty yards. The area was wonderfully desolate too, and most suitable for an ambush.

It was eleven o’clock when we entered Vélez-Málaga, whose windows blazed joyfully, and which echoed to the sounds of singing and guitars. The young girls, seated on their balconies, sang verses which their novios accompanied from below; at each stanza there was endless laughter, shouting and applause. Other groups danced the cachucha, fandango, and jaleo on street corners. The guitars buzzed, dully, like bees, the castanets chattered, and clicked their beaks: all was music and joy. It seemed to me that the only serious business Spaniards know of is pleasure; they engage in it with an admirable frankness, abandon and enthusiasm. No people seem less unhappy; foreigners, in truth, as they traverse the Peninsula, find it hard to credit the seriousness of past political events, and can scarcely imagine that this is a country desolate and ravaged by ten years of civil war. Our own country-folk are far removed from the happy carefreeness, the jovial gaze, and the costumed elegance of the Andalusian majos. And, in terms of education, they are far inferior to them. Almost every Spanish peasant knows how to read, possesses a memory furnished with poetry recited or sung without losing a beat, ride horses to perfection, and is skilled in the handling of knives and rifles. It is true that the admirable fertility of the earth, and the kindness of the climate, exempt them from the stupefying labour which, in less favoured countries, reduces a man to the status of a beast of burden or a machine, and robs him of the divine gift of strength and beauty.

It was not without personal satisfaction that I tied my mule to the bars of the posada. Our supper was very simple; all the maids and lads had gone dancing, and we had to be content with a simple gazpacho. Gazpacho deserves a special description, and we will give here the recipe, which would have raised the hairs on the head of the late Jean Brillat-Savarin. One pours water into a soup-bowl, to this water is added a drizzle of vinegar, cloves of garlic, onions cut in quarters, cucumber slices, a morsel of chili pepper, and a pinch of salt. Then one soaks pieces of bread in this agreeable mixture, and serve it cold. In our country, well-behaved dogs would refuse to dip their muzzles in such a mixture. It is the favourite dish of the Andalusians, and the prettiest women are not afraid to swallow large bowls of this infernal soup in the evening. Gazpacho is considered very refreshing, an opinion which seemed somewhat daring to us, but, however strange it may seem on first tasting, we became accustomed to, and even grew to like it. Most providentially, to wash down this meagre meal we were granted in compensation a large carafe full of an excellent dry white Málaga wine which we conscientiously emptied down to the last drop, and which repaired our strength exhausted by a journey of nine hours, on improbable paths, and in a temperature approaching that of a kiln.

At three, our convoy set off again; the weather was overcast; a warm mist covered the horizon, the humidity of the air suggested the nearness of the sea, whose solid blue bar soon appeared on the horizon. A few flakes of foam fluttered here and there, and the waves died away in large regular swirls over fine sawdust-like sand. High cliffs loomed on our right. Sometimes the rocks left us free passage, sometimes they blocked the path, and we ascended to circumvent them. The direct route is not often workable on Spanish roads; the obstacles so difficult to remove, that it is better to go round than surmount them. The famous Latin motto: Linea recta brevissima (the straight line is the shortest), proves completely false there.

The rising sun dissipated vapour like idle smoke; sky and sea recommenced their azure struggle, one in which it was impossible to say which of the two had the advantage; the cliffs took on their gilded hues of iridescent red, amethyst, and burnt-topaz; the sand began to turn dry and powdery, and the water to shimmer in the intense light. Far, far away, almost on the horizon, five sails fluttered in the wind like dove’s wings.

From far to near, small houses, as white as sugar, appeared on the slower slopes, with flat roofs and a kind of peristyle formed by a trellis supported at each end by a square pillar and in the middle by a massive pylon of fairly large Egyptian shape. The aguardiente booths multiplied, still built of reeds, but already more stylish, their counters whitewashed and daubed with a few red stripes. The road, now distinctly marked, was bordered by a line of cacti and aloes, interrupted here and there by gardens and houses before which women mended nets, and naked children played. When they saw us passing by on our mules, they shouted: ‘Toro, toro!’ Because of our majo garb we were taken, for the owners of ganaderias, or for toreros from Francisco Montes’ quadrille.

Carts drawn by oxen, and strings of donkeys, followed one another at shorter intervals. The movement that forever takes place on the outskirts of any large city was already in evidence. From all sides came convoys of mules carrying spectators for the opening of the arena; we had met many of them in the mountains, travelling from thirty or forty leagues around. The aficionados there are, in vehemence and fury, as much superior to our dilettanti as a bullfight is superior in interest to an opera performance; nothing deters them, neither the heat, difficulty, nor peril of the journey; so long as they arrive, take their places near the barrera, and are able to strike the bull’s rump with their hand, they believe themselves amply paid for their efforts. Where is the tragic or comic playwright who can boast of exercising such attraction? This does not prevent tender and sentimental moralists from claiming that the taste for this barbaric entertainment, as they term it, is diminishing, day by day, in Spain.

One cannot imagine anything more picturesque or unusual than the surroundings of Málaga. It feels as if one has been transported to Africa: the dazzling whiteness of the houses, the dark indigo tone of the sea, the dazzling intensity of the light, everything creates the illusion. On either side of the road enormous aloes bristle, brandishing their cutlasses; gigantic cacti, with grey-green platelets and deformed trunks, twist hideously like monstrous boas, or the spines of stranded sperm whales; here and there a palm-tree rises like a column, spreading its crown of foliage next to a European tree astonished by such proximity, and seemingly troubled at finding this formidable African vegetation crawling at its foot.

Malaga from the Alameda

An elegant white tower stood out against the blue sky: it was the Málaga lighthouse; we had arrived. It must have been about eight in the morning; the town was bustling with activity: sailors went to and fro, loading and unloading the ships anchored in the port, with an animation rare in a Spanish town; the women, dressed and draped in large scarlet shawls which framed their Moorish faces wonderfully, walked quickly, dragging after them some infant, naked or in a shirt. The men, huddled in their capes, or jackets over their shoulders, walked swiftly, and, curiously enough, the whole crowd appeared to be heading in the same direction, that is to say towards the Plaza de Toros. But what struck me most, among this colourful crowd, was encountering six African galley-slaves hauling a cart. They were of gigantic size, with monstrous faces so wild, so unhuman, imbued with such a stamp of ferocious bestiality, that I was seized with fear at their appearance as if I were viewing a streak of tigers. The sort of canvas dress which served them for clothing made them seem even more diabolical and more fantastic. I know not what led them to the galleys, but I might well have placed them there for the sole crime of possessing such faces.

We halted at the Parador de los Tres Reyes, a relatively comfortable inn shaded by a beautiful vine whose branches twined about the balcony railings, and adorned with a large room where the hostess sat, behind a counter overloaded with porcelain, as if in a Parisian café. A very pretty servant, a charming example of the beauty of the women of Malaga, famous throughout Spain, led us to our rooms, and gave us a moment of great anxiety by informing us that all the tickets for the bullfight were taken, and that we would have great difficulty obtaining them. Fortunately, our cosario, Lanza was able to find us two asientos de preferencia (numbered places); on the sunlit side, it is true, but that was of small concern: we had long ago sacrificed the skin on our faces, and one more layer of tan on our brown and yellowed visages was no matter. The bullfights were to take place on three consecutive days. The tickets on the first day were crimson, those on the second green, those on the third blue, to avoid confusion and prevent the adherents from entering twice for the price of a single ticket.

During lunch a group of students on tour arrived; there were four of them and they looked more like models for a Jusepe de Ribera or Murillo painting than students of theology, so ragged, unkempt, and dirty were they. They sang comic verses to the accompaniment of tambourine, triangle and castanets; the one who beat the pandero (tambourine) was a virtuoso in his genre; he made the donkey-skin resonate with his knees, elbows, feet, and, when all these means of percussion failed to suffice, tapped its round, decorated with copper discs, on the head of some muchacho or some old woman. One of them, the orator of the troop, took up the collection, spouting, with extreme volubility, all kinds of jokes to excite the audience’s largesse. ‘Just a realito!’ he cried, adopting the most pleading postures, ‘so I can finish my studies, become a priest, and live without working!’ When he had obtained the small silver coin, he stuck it to his forehead next to the others already extorted, just like the almahs (dancing-girls) who, after performing, cover their sweating faces with the sequins and piastres thrown at them by ecstatic Ottomans.

The bullfight was scheduled for five o’clock, but we were advised to attend the arena around one, because the corridors would soon be crowded with people, and we would not be able to reach our stalls, though they were numbered and reserved. We therefore ate a hasty lunch, and headed to the Plaza de Toros, preceded by our guide Antonio, a skinny boy, exceedingly constrained by a large red belt which further highlighted his thinness, the cause of which he charmingly attributed to sorrow in love.

The streets were filled by crowds that grew denser as we neared the arena; the aguadors, the sellers of iced cebada (barley-water), paper fans and parasols, and cigars, and the carriage-drivers, created a frightful uproar; a fog of noise, like a vague rumour, that hung over the city.

After a fairly long detour through the narrow and complicated streets of Málaga, we finally arrived at the arena, which is unremarkable on the outside. A detachment of soldiers had great difficulty containing the crowd which desired to invade the place; though it was at least an hour before the bullfight, the stands were already filled from top to bottom, and it was only with many nudges of the elbows, and exchanged invectives, that we reached our stalls.

The Málaga arena is of truly ancient grandeur and holds fourteen to fifteen thousand spectators within its vast funnel, of which the arena proper forms the floor, and whose parapet rises to the height of a five-storied house. The bullfight yields some idea of how the Roman Circus might have looked, during the spectacle of those dreadful games where men fought hand to hand, or against ferocious beasts, before the eyes of an entire people.

One could scarcely imagine a stranger and more splendid sight than that presented by those immense stands filled by an impatient crowd, seeking to cheat the time given to waiting with all sorts of antics and andaluzadas of the most piquant originality. Those in modern dress were few in number, and those who were so clad were greeted with laughter, jeers and whistles; the spectacle gained much from it: the bright colours of the jackets and sashes, the scarlet draperies of the women, the fans that folk waved, of motley greens and yellows, freed the crowd from that dark, lugubrious aspect which our crowds possess, in which sombre tones dominate.

There were quite a few women, and I noticed many pretty ones. The Malagueña is distinguished by the golden pallor of her even complexion, the cheek being no deeper in colour than the brow, the elongated oval of her face, the vivid crimson of her mouth, the delicacy of her nose and the radiance of her Arabian eyes, which one might believe dyed with henna, the eyelids freely extending towards the temples. Perhaps one should attribute this effect to the severe folds of the red drapery which frames their faces; they have a serious and passionate air which is wholly reminiscent of the Orient, and which the women of Madrid, Granada, and Seville, neater, more graceful, more coquettish, and always somewhat concerned with the effect they produce, fail to possess. I saw some admirable faces there, superb types of which the painters of the Spanish school have not taken enough advantage, and which would offer a talented artist a series of rare and entirely new studies. To my mind, it seems strange that women choose to view a spectacle where a man’s life is at risk every moment, where blood flows in streams, where unfortunate horses collapse then rise to their feet entangled in their own entrails; one might easily imagine these women to be violent in temper, with bold gazes, and frenzied gestures, yet one would be quite wrong: never have sweeter Madonna-like faces, more velvety eyelids, more tender smiles, bowed over an infant Jesus. The various twists and turns of the bull in its agony are followed attentively by pale and charming creatures of whom an elegiac poet would be content to make a Donna Elvira (see Mozart’s opera, Don Juan). The merit of each blow is a subject for lips so pretty that one would prefer to hear them speak only of love. Despite the fact that they witness, dry-eyed, scenes of carnage which would make our sensitive Parisian ladies ill, it would be wrong to infer that they are cruel and lack tenderness of soul: it in no way prevents their being good, honest-hearted, and compassionate to the unfortunate; but habit is everything, and the blood-stained aspect of the bullfight, which is what strikes foreigners the most, is what least concerns the Spanish women, who are attentive to the worth of the blows, and the skill displayed by the toreros, who run less severe risks than one might first imagine.

It was only two o’clock, yet the sun flooded the entire side of the stands in which we were seated with a deluge of fire. How we envied those privileged folk refreshed by the shade the upper boxes cast! After having travelled thirty leagues on horseback through the mountains, sitting for a whole day beneath an African sun, in a temperature of thirty-eight degrees Centigrade, was a bit much for a poor critic who, on this occasion, had paid for his place and had no wish to forego it.

Those in the asientos de sombra (seats in the shade) hurled all kinds of sarcastic comments at us; they directed the water-sellers towards us to save us from catching fire; they desired to light their cigars from the hot coal of our noses, or offered a little oil so we might fry completely. We responded as best we could, and when the shadow, retreating with the hour, delivered one of them to the scorching sun, there were endless bursts of laughter and bravos.

Thanks to a few jugs of water, several dozen oranges, and an endless waving of our two fans, we defended ourselves from the fire, and had neither been cooked to a turn, nor struck by apoplexy, by the time the musicians sat themselves down in their stand, and the cavalry-picket set about evacuating the arena which swarmed with muchachos and mozos who merged I know now how with the general mass, though mathematically there seemed scarcely room for another person; but a crowd in certain circumstances possesses a wondrous elasticity.

An immense sigh of satisfaction, exhaled from fifteen thousand chests, relieved the weight of expectation. The members of the ayuntamiento were greeted with frenzied applause, and, as they entered their box, the orchestra began to play the Spanish airs: Yo que soy contrabandista (‘The song of the horse’ from Manuel García’s operatic monologue ‘El Poeta Calculista’), and Riego’s march (named for Rafael del Riego), which the whole assembly sang simultaneously, clapping their hands and stamping their feet.

I do not intend to recount here the details of the bullfight. I had opportunity to make a thorough account of it during our stay in Madrid; I merely wish to report the main facts and the remarkable events of this contest in which the same toreros took part for three days without resting, and in which twenty-four bulls were killed, and ninety-six horses left in the arena, but without any other accident for the toreros than the blow from a horn that grazed the arm of a capeador, an injury which was in no way dangerous, and did not prevent him from reappearing in the arena next day.

At exactly five o’clock, the doors of the arena opened, and the troupe which was about to perform made a tour of the circus in procession. At the head walked the three picadores, Antonio Sanchez, José Trigo, both from Seville, and Francisco Briones, from Puerto Real, with fist on hip, lance resting on foot, and the gravity of triumphant Romans ascending to the Capitol. The saddles of their horses had the name of the arena’s owner marked out in golden studs: Antonio-Maria Alvarez. The capeadores or chulos, wearing tricorn hats, in their brightly-coloured coats, came next; the banderilleros, in the costume worn by Figaro, followed closely. At the rear of the procession, isolated in their majesty, came the two matadores, the swords as they say in Spain, Montes from Chiclana and José Parra from Madrid. Montes was with his loyal quadrille, a thing most important for the safety of the participants; since, in these times of political dissension, toreros who are Christinos (liberal supporters of Isabel II) often refuse to aid Carlist toreros who are in danger, and vice versa. The procession ended, significantly, with the teams of mules whose purpose was to remove the carcases of the dead bulls and horses.

Battle was about to begin. The alguazil, in bourgeois costume, who was to carry the keys of the toril to the lad appointed, and rode his spirited horse very badly, prefaced the tragedy with a somewhat hilarious farce: first losing his hat, then the stirrups. His trousers, lacking foot-straps, rose to his knees in a most grotesque way; and, the door having been maliciously opened for the bull to emerge before the rider had time to withdraw from the arena, his heightened fear rendered him even more ridiculous by the contortions he made his mount perform. However, he kept his seat, to the great disappointment of the crowd; the bull, dazzled by the torrent of light which flooded the arena, failed to see him at first and allowed him to depart without a blow from his horn. It was therefore amidst a burst of immense, Homeric, Olympian laughter that the fight began; but silence was soon restored, the bull having split the mount of the first picador in two and unhorsed the second.

We only had eyes for Montes, whose name is known throughout Spain, and whose prowess is the subject of a thousand marvellous stories. Montes was born in Chiclana, in the vicinity of Cádiz. He is a man of thirty-six years old or so, a little above average in height, with a serious demeanour, a measured gait, an olive-pale complexion, with no remarkable features other than the mobility of his eyes, which alone seem alive in that impassive face; he appears more agile than robust, and owes his success to his composure, rather than to the accuracy of his foresight, and to his in-depth knowledge of his art rather than to his muscular strength. From the very first steps a bull takes in the arena, Montes knows if the creature is short or long-sighted, and whether he is clear or dark, that is to say whether he will attack honestly or resort to a ruse; whether he is muchas piernas or aplomado, nimble or heavy-footed, and whether he will shut his eyes when delivering a cogida (goring), or keep them open. Thanks to these observations, made with the rapidity of thought, he is always in position for a sound defence. However, as he takes cool temerity to its ultimate limits, he has received a good number of blows from a horn in his career, as evidenced by the scar that crosses his cheek, and he has several times been borne seriously injured from the arena.

That day he was dressed in a costume of apple-green embroidered with silver, of extreme elegance and luxury, for Montes is rich, and, if he continues to occupy the arena, it is from love of his art and his need to experience the emotions aroused, his fortune amounting to more than fifty thousand duros, a considerable sum if we think of the cost of costumes that matadores are obliged to lay out, a complete outfit costing fifteen hundred to two thousand francs, and of the endless journeys they must make from one city to another, accompanied by their quadrilles.

Montes is not content, as are other swords, merely to kill the bull when the signal for death is given. He watches over everything, directs the fight, and comes to the aid of the picadores or chulos whenever they are in danger. More than one torero owes their life to his intervention. One bull, refusing to be distracted by the capes that were being waved in front of him, gored the belly of a horse he had overturned, and tried to do the same to its rider who was sheltering behind the corpse of his mount. Montes grasped the fierce beast by the tail, and made it do three or four waltzing gyrations, to its great displeasure and the frenzied applause of the entire audience, which gave the picador time to rise. Sometimes Montes stood upright in front of the bull, his arms crossed, his eyes fixed, at which the monster stops, suddenly, captivated by this clear gaze, as sharp and cold as a sword blade. Then there are cries, howls, vociferations, the noise of stamping feet, and explosions of ‘bravo’ of which one can barely form an idea; delirium takes possession of all, a general feeling of dizziness agitates the fifteen thousand spectators on the benches, drunk on aguardiente, sunlight, and the sight of blood; handkerchiefs are waved, hats leap in the air, while Montes alone, calm amidst this furor, savours, silently, his deep and self-contained joy, then bows slightly like a man capable of many another feat. For such acclaim, I can understand that one might risk one’s life in a moment; such folk are not overpaid. O singers with golden throats, dancers with enchanted feet, actors of every sort, emperors and poets, who think you have roused enthusiasm, you have not heard them applaud Montes!

Sometimes, the spectators themselves beg him to perform one of these skilful tricks from which he always emerges victorious. A pretty girl calls out to him, throwing him a kiss: ‘Come, Señor Montes, come, Paquiro (his nickname), you who are so gallant, perform a little something, una cosita, for a lady.’ And Montes leaps over the bull, places his foot on its head, or else shakes his cape in front of its muzzle, and, with a sudden movement, wraps himself in it so as to form an elegant shape with the drape, one with impeccable folds; then he leaps aside and lets the beast pass, since it is charging too fiercely to halt.

Montes’ manner of killing the bull is remarkable for its precision and lack of risk, and the calm execution of the blow; with him, all question of danger vanishes; he is so composed, so much the master of himself, and appears so sure of success, that the contest seems nothing more than a game; perhaps too much emotion even is lost. It is impossible to fear for his life; he strikes the bull where he wants, when he wants, and how he wants. The balance of the duel is too unequal; a less skilful matador sometimes produces a more striking effect due to the risks and chances he runs. This may, without doubt, seem merely a refined barbarity, but the aficionados, all those who have witnessed a bullfight, and sided passionately with an honest and brave bull, will certainly understand. An event which happened on the last day of the races will prove the truth of our assertion, and showed Montes, in a somewhat harsh manner, to what extent the Spanish public exhibit a spirit of impartiality towards man and animal.

A magnificent black creature had been released into the arena. From the abrupt manner in which he emerged from the toril, the connoisseurs in the crowd had formed the highest opinion of him. He combined all the qualities of a fighting bull; his horns were long and sharp, and the tips well curved; his lean, slender and sinewy legs promised great agility: his broad dewlap, and well-developed flanks, indicated immense strength. Thus, he bore the name of Napoleon in the herd, as the only title that might indicate his incontestable superiority. Without the slightest hesitation, the bull rushed at the picador posted near the tablas, and knocked him and his mount down, the latter being left dead on the spot, then rushed at the second, who was no more fortunate, and was barely given time to leap over the barrier, all crushed and crumpled from his fall. In less than a quarter of an hour, seven disembowelled horses lay on the sand; the chulos could only wave their coloured capes from afar, and chose not to lose sight of the palisades, leaping to the other side as soon as Napoleon seemed likely to approach. Even Montes himself seemed troubled, and once he placed his foot on the edge of the framework of the tablas, ready to cross in the event of alarm, and too keen a pursuit, which he had not done in the two previous fights. The joy of the spectators was expressed in loud exclamations, and the most flattering compliments aimed at the bull flowed from everyone’s lips. A new feat performed by the animal roused their exasperation and enthusiasm to the last degree.

A sobre-saliente (understudy) of a picador, since the two leads employed were hors de combat, awaited, with lowered lance, the attack of the fearful Napoleon, who, without worrying about a further barb in the shoulder, took the horse under his belly, with a toss of his head made the steed’s front legs descend on the edge of the tablas and, with a second, lifted its rump, and flung horse and master over the barrier, into the safety corridor which runs all around the arena.

Such a wondrous feat roused thunderous cheers. The bull was master of the place which he traversed like a victor, amusing himself, for lack of adversaries, by turning over the corpses of the horses which he had torn apart and throwing them into the air. The supply of victims was exhausted, and there was no longer enough in the arena’s stable to remount the picadores. The banderilleros stood on the tablas, not daring to descend to harass with their paper-adorned darts this formidable opponent, whose rage certainly needed no further stimulation. The spectators, impatient with this kind of entr’acte, shouted: Las banderillas! Las banderillas! Fuego al alcalde! Fire, take the alcalde, who failed to issue the command! Finally, at a sign from the governor, a banderillero broke from the group and lodged two darts in the neck of the furious beast, before fleeing with all his speed, but still not swiftly enough, for a horn grazed his arm. and split his sleeve. Then, despite the vociferations and the jeers of the people, the alcalde ordered the death-blow, and made a sign to Montes to employ his muleta and sword, in spite of all the rules of bullfighting which require that a bull receive at least four pairs of banderillas before being delivered to the matador’s thrust.

Montes, instead of advancing as usual to the middle of the arena, stood about twenty steps from the barrier, as a refuge in case of misfortune; he was very pale, and, without indulging in any of those attentions, that courageous coquetry, which had won him the admiration of all Spain, he displayed the scarlet muleta, and called to the bull which needed no asking before charging. Montes executed three or four passes with the muleta, holding his sword horizontally and at eye-level with the monster, who suddenly fell as if struck by lightning, and expired after a single convulsive leap. The sword had entered his forehead and pierced his brain, a blow forbidden by the laws of bullfighting, the matador being required to pass his arm between the horns of the animal, and deliver the blow between neck and the shoulders, which increases the risk to the man and grants his bestial adversary some slight chance.

When the nature of the blow became understood, for it had happened with the rapidity of thought, a cry of indignation rose from the tendidos to the palcos; a tempest of insults and whistles followed, amidst incredible tumult and noise. ‘Butcher, assassin, bandit, thief, galley-slave, executioner!’ were the gentlest terms employed. ‘To Ceuta. with Montes! To the flames, with Montes! Set the dogs on Montes! Death to the alcalde!’ such were the cries resounding from all sides. I have never witnessed such fury, and I confess with a blush of shame that I shared it myself. Vociferations were soon no longer enough; fans, hats, sticks, jars full of water, and fragments torn from the benches, were hurled towards the poor devil. There was still another bull to kill, but its death went unnoticed throughout this dreadful bacchanal, and it was José Parra, the second sword, who dispatched it with two fairly well-aimed blows. As for Montes, he was livid, his face turned green with rage, his teeth printed bloody marks on his pallid lips, though he displayed great calm and leaned with an affected grace on the hilt of his sword, the reddened tip of which he had wiped in the sand, quite against the rules.

What determines popularity? None could have ever imagined, the day before, or the day before that, that an artist so reliable, so much a master of his audience as Montes, could be so thoroughly punished for an offense undoubtedly urged on him by absolute necessity, given the extraordinary agility, vigour and fury of the animal. When the fight was over, he clambered into his carriage, followed by his quadrille, and departed, swearing to his great gods that he would never set foot in Málaga again. I know not if he has kept his word, having remembered the insults of that final day longer than the triumphs and ovations of its beginning. I think now, that the Málaga public was unfair to the great Montes de Chiclana, all of whose blows had been superbly delivered, and who had demonstrated, at the most dangerous moments, both heroic composure and admirable skill, so much so that the people, enchanted, had donated to him all the bulls he had conquered, and allowed him to cut off their ears as a sign of his ownership, so that they could neither be claimed by the hospital or the contractor.

Stunned, intoxicated, sated by violent emotion, we returned to our parador, hearing in the streets we followed only praise for the bull, and imprecations against Montes.

That same evening, despite my fatigue, I took myself off to the theatre, wishing to pass without any transition from the bloody reality of the arena to the intellectualised emotions of the stage. The contrast was stark; there the noise, the crowd; here solitariness and silence. The room was almost empty, a rare few spectators scattered here and there across the empty benches. However, they performed The Lovers of Teruel, a drama by Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, one of the most remarkable products of the modern Spanish school. It is a touching and poetic story of lovers who maintain an invincible fidelity despite a thousand temptations and a thousand obstacles: the subject, despite often successful efforts on the part of the author to vary a situation that is ever the same, would seem too simplistic to a French audience; the moments of passion are treated with great warmth and enthusiasm, though sometimes spoiled by a certain melodramatic exaggeration to which the author abandons himself too readily. The love of the Sultana of Valencia for Isabel’s lover, Juan Diego Martínez Garcès de Marsilla, whom she has had brought to the harem asleep, due to the employment of a narcotic, the revenge of this same Sultana when she finds herself scorned, the guilty letters from Isabel's mother found by Rodrigo de Azagra, who uses them as a means to wed the girl and threatens to show them to the deceived husband, are somewhat forced, but lead to moving and dramatic scenes. The play is written in prose and verse. As much as a foreigner can judge the style of a language whose subtleties he is ignorant of, Hartzenbusch’s verses seemed to me superior to his prose. They are free, open, lively, varied in style, quite moderate in their use of those poetic amplifications to which the ease of their prosody too often leads southerners. His prose dialogue seems imitated from modern French melodrama and suffers from heaviness and over-emphasis. The Lovers of Teruel, with all its faults, is a literary work and far superior to these organised or disorganised translations of our boulevard pieces which today flood the theatres of the Peninsula. I found evidence of the author’s study of ancient romance and the masters of the Spanish stage, and it is to be wished that young poets from beyond the mountains might take that path rather than wasting their time rendering dreadful melodramas into more or less legitimate Castilian.

A fairly comical skit followed the serious play. It was about an old fellow who employed a pretty servant, ‘to do everything,’ as the Parisian Petites Affiches (advertising posters) would say. The girl first introduced, as her brother, a great Valencian devil, six feet tall, with enormous whiskers, and an enormous navaja (pocket-knife), who was equipped with an insatiable hunger and inextinguishable thirst; then a cousin no less fierce, bristling with blunderbusses, pistols, and other destructive weapons, which cousin was followed by a smuggler uncle bearing a complete arsenal and of similar appearance, all to the great terror of the poor old man, already repentant of his reckless wish. The various rascals were rendered with admirable truth and verve by the cast. In the end a wise, military nephew appeared who freed his rogue of an uncle from the gang of brigands installed in his house, and caressed the servant-girl while drinking his wine, smoking his cigars, and plundering his house. The uncle promised that from now on he would only be served by elderly male servants. These sketches resemble our vaudevilles, but the plots are less complicated, and often consist of a few detached scenes, like the interludes in Italian comedy.

The performance ended with a baile nacional performed by two pairs of dancers in fairly satisfactory fashion. Female Spanish dancers, though they do not have the finish, precision, and elevation of their French counterparts, are, in my opinion, much superior to them in grace and charm; since they practise less and are not subject to these dreadful exercises in flexibility and posture which make a dance class seem like a torture chamber, they avoid that leanness of a horse in training which gives our ballet-dancers an excessively anatomical even macabre appearance; they retain the contours and fullness of their sex; they look like women dancing not danseuses, which is a quite different thing. Their style has not the slightest connection with that of the French school, where immobility and perpendicularity of the bust are expressly recommended; in leg-movements the body participates almost not at all. In Spain, feet barely leave the ground; there are none of these arching legs, of those contortions which make a woman look like an open compass, and which give a tasteless air of indecency to French ballet. Here, it is the body that dances, the back that arches, the flanks that bend, the waist that twists with the suppleness of a lover or a snake. In inverted poses, the dancer’s shoulders almost touch the ground; the arms, hanging freely, possess the flexibility and softness of a loose scarf; the hands seem as if they can barely rise so as to set the ivory castanets, with their braided and gilded cords, sounding; and yet, when the moment comes, the agile leaps of a young jaguar replace voluptuous languor, and prove that these bodies, soft as silk, hide muscles of steel. The Moorish almahs still follow the same system today: their dance consisting of harmoniously lascivious undulations of the torso, hips and loins, with arm movements above the head. The Arab tradition has been preserved in various countries, especially in Andalusia.

Spanish male dancers, though mediocre, display a bold, gallant and cavalier air, which I much prefer to the equivocal and insipid graces of the French. They do not seem concerned with themselves or the audience; they merely gaze and smile at their female partner, with whom they always appear passionately in love, and whom they seem ready to defend against all. They have a certain fierce grace, a certain insolent arch look which is specific to them. Removing their makeup, they would make excellent banderilleros, and could fittingly leap from the theatre’s boards to the arena’s sand.

The malagueña, a dance local to Málaga, is in truth charmingly poetic. The cavalier appears first, sombrero over his eyes, wrapped in his scarlet cape like a hidalgo out walking and seeking adventure. The lady enters, draped in her mantilla, fan in hand, with the air of a woman off to stroll on the Alameda. The cavalier tries to steal a glance at the face of this mysterious Siren, but the coquette manoeuvres the fan so well, opening and closing it so aptly, turning it about it so swiftly while level with her pretty face, that the gallant, disappointed, retreats a few steps and executes another stratagem. He makes the castanets sound forth beneath his coat. To this, the lady gives ear; she smiles, her breast tremors, the tip of her little satin-clad foot marks the measure in spite of herself; she throws away her fan, and mantilla, and reveals the loose dress of a dancer, sparkling with sequins and tinsel, a rose in her hair, a large tortoiseshell comb above. The rider removes his mask and his cape, and both perform steps of delightful originality.

As I returned, beside a sea which reflected the pale face of the moon in its burnished steel mirror, I reflected on the striking contrast between the arena’s crowd and the theatre’s emptiness, on the multitude’s eagerness to witness the brutal fact and its indifference to the speculations of the mind. As a poet, I began to envy the gladiator; I regretted having abandoned action for reverie. The day before, in the same theatre, a play by Lope de Vega had been performed which attracted no more people than the work of some newcomer: ancient genius and modern talent are worth less than a single blow from Montes’ sword!

Moreover, the other theatres in Spain are hardly better attended than that of Málaga, not even the Teatro del Principe in Madrid, where a great actor, Julián Romea, and an excellent actress, Matilde Diez, perform. The ancient vein of Spanish drama seems exhausted beyond recovery, yet never has a river flowed in greater waves in a deeper bed; never was there a more prodigious and inexhaustible fertility. Our most copious playwrights are still far from the achievements of Lope de Vega, who had no collaborators and whose works are so numerous that the exact number is unknown, and of which there is barely one complete copy. Calderón de la Barca, without counting his comedies of cape and sword, in which he has no rival, has made multitudes of autos sacramentales, a species of Catholic mystery-play where the strange depth of thought and singularity of conception combine with enchanting poetry of almost flowery elegance. We would need catalogues in folio to designate, simply by their titles, the plays of Lope de Rueda, Juan Pérez de Montalbán, Luis Vélez de Guevara, Francisco Quevedo, Tirso de Molina, Fernando de Rojas, Agustín Moreto, Guillén de Castro, Juan Diamante, and many others. The number of plays penned in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is beyond imagining; one might as well count the leaves in the forests or the grains of sand in the sea: they are almost all in octosyllabic verse employing occasional assonance, printed in two quarto columns on coarse grey candle-paper, with a crude engraving on the frontispiece, forming notebooks of six to eight sheets. The bookstores are full of them; thousands of them can be seen hanging pell-mell on open display, amidst the romances and verse tales of the stockists; one could apply to most Spanish playwrights, without exaggeration, the epigram made about a too fertile Roman poet, who was burned after his death on a pyre made of his own works. There is a fertility of invention, a wealth of action, a complexity of plot, of which one can scarcely form an idea. Well before Shakespeare, the Spanish reinvented the drama; their theatre is Romantic in the full sense of the word; apart from some erudite puerilities, their plays derive from neither the Greeks nor the Romans, and, as Lope de Vega says in his Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo (The New Art of Writing Plays Today, 1609):

‘... Y cuando he de escribir una comedia,

‘… And when it comes to writing plays

Encierro los preceptos con seis llaves.’

I’ve six keys to unlock its precepts.’

The Spanish playwrights appear to have been little concerned with depicting character, though we find, in every scene, fine and piquant lines of close observation; humankind is not studied in a philosophic way, and we hardly encounter, in their drama, the minor characters so frequent in great English tragedy, those sketched from life itself, who contribute only indirectly to the action, and have no other purpose than to represent some facet of the human soul, their unique individuality, or to reflect the poet’s thoughts. In their plays, the author rarely allows his personality to be seen, except at the close of the drama, when he asks forgiveness of the audience for his faults.

The main driving-force of Spanish theatre is the question of honour:

‘Los casos de la honra son mejores,

‘Examples of honour are best,

Porque mueven con fuerza a toda gente,

Since they move everyone deeply,

Con ellos las acciones virtüosas

In them virtuous action shows

Que la virtud es donde quiéra amada.’

That everywhere virtue is loved.’

So said Lope de Vega, who understood the drama thus, and never failed to follow his own precept. The question of honour played in Spanish theatre the role of fate in Greek tragedy. Its inflexible laws, its cruel necessities, easily gave rise to dramatic scenes of great interest. El pundonor (point of honour) a species of chivalrous code with its own judgements, subtleties and refinements, is much superior to the Aνάγκη, the ancient fatality, whose blows fall blindly, at random, on guilty and innocent alike. We are often repelled, when reading Greek tragedies, by the situation of the hero, equally a criminal whether he acts or not; the Castilian point of honour is always perfectly logical and in accord with itself. It is, indeed, simply exaggerated human virtue driven to the last degree of sensibility. In his most terrible anger, in his most dreadful act of vengeance, the hero maintains a noble and solemn attitude. It is always in the name of loyalty, marital faith, respect for his ancestors, or the integrity of his coat of arms, that he draws his great steel-bladed sword from its sheath, often against those he loves with all his soul, and whom an imperative necessity obliges him to destroy. The struggle of passion grappling with the question of honour provides the main point of interest in most plays of the old Spanish theatre, a deep interest, keenly felt, and arousing the spectators’ sympathies, who, in the same situation, would have acted no differently to the character. With so fertile a theme, one so deeply rooted in the customs of the age, we should not be surprised at the prodigious ease with which the ancient playwrights of the Peninsula practised their art. Other, no less abundant, sources of interest lie in virtuous action, chivalrous devotion, sublime renunciation, unalterable loyalty, superhuman passion, ideal delicacy, and resistance to the most skilfully-wrought intrigues, the most complex threats. In this form of the drama, the poet appears to offer the audience a finished model of human perfection. All the qualities that exist are heaped on the head of the prince or princess; rendering them more concerned with purity than the white ermine that prefers to die rather than incur a stain on its snow-white fur.

A deep feeling for Catholicism and feudal custom breathes throughout this theatre, truly national in origin, content, and form. The division into three acts, followed by Spanish playwrights, is without doubt the most reasonable and logical. Exposition, entanglement, and denouement, such is the natural sequence of all dramatic action, if well understood, and we would do well to adopt it, instead of the ancient division into five acts, two of which are so often pointless, namely the second and the fourth.

However, one should not imagine that the old Spanish pieces were exclusively sublime. The grotesque, that indispensable element of medieval art, appears there in the form of the gracioso (jester) and the bobo (fool), who lighten the gravity of the action with pleasantries and witty retorts, more or less at random, and produce the effect, at the hero’s side, of those deformed dwarves in motley doublets, toying with greyhounds larger than themselves, who appear alongside some king or prince in old portraits in art galleries.

Leandro Moratín, the author of El Sí de las Niñas, and of El Café (‘La Comedia Nueva’), he whose tomb can be seen in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, provided the last echo of Spanish dramatic art, as the elderly Goya, dying in Bordeaux in 1828, was the last still recognisable descendant of the great Velasquez.

Nowadays, only translations of the French melodramas and vaudevilles are performed in the theatres of Spain. In Jaén, in the heart of Andalusia, Bouchardy’s Le Sonneur de Saint-Paul is played; in Cadiz, a stone’s throw from Africa, Bayard and Vanderburch’s Le Gamin de Paris. The sketches, once so cheerful, so original, with such an intense local flavour, are now nothing more than imitations borrowed from the repertoire of the Théâtre des Variétés. Without mentioning Don Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, and Don Antonio Gil y Zarate, who already belong to a less recent era, the Peninsula nonetheless possesses several young people of talent and promise; but public attention, in Spain as in France, has been diverted from the theatre by the seriousness of the events. Hartzenbusch, the author of The Lovers of Teruel; José de Castro y Orozco, to whom we owe Fray Luis de León, or the Century and the World; José Zorilla, who successfully staged the drama El Zapatero y El Rey; Manuel Bréton de Los Herreros; Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas; Mariano de Larra, who killed himself for love; and José de Espronceda, whose death has just been announced in the newspapers, and whose compositions were marked by a fierce and passionate energy sometimes worthy of his model, Byron, are – alas, of the last two we must say were – writers full of merit, ingenious, elegant and fluent, who would take their place alongside the ancient masters, if they did not lack what we all lack, certainty, a fixed starting point, a fund of ideas shared with the public. The question of honour, and heroism portrayed in the old plays is no longer understood or appears ridiculous, and modern beliefs are not yet sufficiently formulated for poets to provide an interpretation.

We should not, however, place too much blame on the public, who invade the arena, meanwhile, seeking emotion where it lies; after all, it is not the people’s fault if the theatre is less attractive; worse luck for us, the poets, if we allow ourselves to be vanquished by the gladiators. In short, it is healthier for the mind and the heart to see a brave man kill a ferocious beast beneath the sky, than listen to a talentless performer sing an obscene piece of vaudeville, or spout adulterated literature, behind the footlights’ smoke.

The End of Parts X-XII of Gautier’s Travels in Spain

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Théophile Gautier

Travels in Spain (Voyage en Espagne, 1840)

Parts X to XII - Toledo, Granada, and Málaga

Contents

Part XII: The Thieves and Pirates of Andalusia – Alhama de Granada – Málaga – Students on Tour – A Bullfight – Montes – The Theatre