Random Spanish Notes

SPAIN is for all the world the land of romance. For the artist it is the land of Murillo, Velasquez, Fortuny, and Goya, of sunlight and color. For the student of history it holds the precious archives of the New World adventure and daring, of that subtle and sanguinary policy in religion and war which is typified in the names of Loyola and Philip II. For the lover of architecture it contains some marvels of Gothic boldness and fancy, and Saracenic beauty and grace. For the investigator of race and language it holds the problems of the Basque and the gypsy. The great races who have had their day there, the Roman, the Goth, the Norman, the Moor, have left visible traces and au historical atmosphere of romance.

And yet the real Spain is the least attractive country in Europe to the tourist. The traveler goes there to see certain unique objects. He sees them, enjoys them, is entranced by them, leaves them with regret and a tender memory, and is ghul to get out of Spain. There are six things to see : the Alhambra, the Seville cathedral and Alcazar, the Mosque of Cordova, Toledo and its cathedral, the Gallery at Madrid, and Monserrat. The rest is mainly monotony and weariness. With the exception of the Alhambra, which has a spell that an idle man finds hard to break, and where perhaps he could be content indefinitely, there is no place in Spain that one can imagine he would like to live in, for the pleasure of living. Taking out certain historical features and monuments, the towns repeat each other in their attractions and their disagreeables. Every town and city in Italy has its individual character and special charm. To go from one to another is always to change the scene and the delight. This is true of the old German towns also. Each has a character. The traveler sees many a place in each country where he thinks he could stay on from month to month, with a growing home-like feeling. I think there is nothing of this attraction in Spain. The want of it may be due to the country itself, or to the people. I fancy that with its vast arid plains, treeless and tiresome, its gullied hills and its bare escarped mountains, Spain resembles New Mexico. It is an unsoftened, unrelieved landscape, for the most part, sometimes grand in its vastness and sweep, but rugged and unadorned. The want of grass and gentle verdure is a serious drawback to the pleasure of the eye, not compensated by the magic tricks of the sunlight, and the variegated reds, browns, and yellows of the exposed soil and rocks, and the spring-time green of the nascent crops. I speak, of course, of the general aspect, for the mountain regions are rich in wild-flowers, and the cultivation in the towns is everywhere a redeeming feature.

The traveler, of course, gets his impressions of a people from the outside. These are correct so far as they go, and it is in a sense safe to generalize on them, though not to particularize. He catches very soon the moral atmosphere of a strange land, and knows whether it is agreeable or otherwise, whether the people seem pleasant or the reverse. He learns to discriminate, for example, between the calculated gemüthlichkeit of Switzerland and the more spontaneous friendliness of Bavaria. He can pronounce at once upon the cordial good humor of the Viennese, the obligingness of the people of Edinburgh, the agreeableness of the Swedes, simply on streetknowledge, without ever entering a private house or receiving any personal hospitality. He knows the wily, poetical ways by which he is beguiled in Italy, but grows fond of the sunny race.

In Spain he is pretty certain to be rubbed the wrong way, most of the time. He is conscious of an atmosphere of suspicion, of distrust, of contempt often. He cannot understand, for instance, why attendants in churches and cathedrals are so curt and disobliging, keeping him away, on one pretense and another, from the sights he has come far to see, and for which he is willing to pay. Incidents occurred both at Granada and Toledo that could be accounted for only on the supposition that the custodians liked to discommode strangers. If we had been Frenchmen, whom the Spaniards hate as the despoilers of churches and galleries, we could have understood it. By reputation the Spaniard is at home hospitable, and on acquaintance gracious, and generally willing to oblige. But the national atmosphere is certainly not what the Germans call gemüthlich. In no other European country is the traveler likely to encounter so much incivility and rudeness, so little attempt at pleasing him and making him like the country. At least, the attitude is that of indifference whether the country pleases him or not. Perhaps this springs from a noble pride and superiority. Perhaps it is from a provincial consciousness of being about two hundred years behind the age. But, elsewhere, the pleasantest people to travel among are those whose clocks stopped two centuries ago. Individually, I have no doubt, the Spaniards are charming. Collectively, they do not appear to welcome the stranger, or put themselves out to make his sojourn agreeable.

I should say all this with diffidence, or perhaps should not say it at all, if I had been longer in Spain. But surface impressions have a certain value as well as deep experiences. Some philosophers maintain that the first impression of a face is the true one as to the character of the person.

Spain, then, impresses one with a sense of barrenness, — a barren land with half a dozen rich “ pockets.” The present race, if we take out a few artists and writers, has produced nothing that the world much cares for. It destroyed and, sheerly from want of appreciation, let go to ruin the most exquisite creations of a people of refinement and genius. The world ought never to forgive the barbarity that constructed the hideous palace of Charles V., in the Alhambra, — tearing down priceless architectural beauty to make room for it, — or that smashed into the forest of twelve hundred columns in the mosque of Cordova, to erect a chapel in the centre. Since the era of the magnificent Gothic cathedrals, Spanish taste and character seem typified in that palace of Charles in the Alhambra, and in the ugly and forbidding pile — as utilitarian as a stone cotton-mill — the Escorial. Modern Spanish architecture is generally uninteresting, and would be wholly so for the inheritance of the Moorish courts or patios, which give a charm to the interiors.

But for these and the few remains of a better age, nothing could be more commonplace than the appearance of the city of Seville, or uglier than its dusty and monotonous plazas. This character is thatof the cities of Andalusia. Yet what undying romance there is in the very names of Andalucia and Sevilla! What visions of chivalry and beauty and luxury they evoke ! What a stream of the imagination is the turbid Guadalquivir, running through a flat and sandy country ! Seville itself is flat, and subject to the overflow of the river. Consequently it is damp and unwholesome a part of the year; in summer it is hot, in winter it has a fitful, chilly climate. In spite of the mantillas and fans and dark eyes, the pretty patios with flowers and perhaps a fountain, the iridescent splendors of the Alcazar and the decaying interiors of some old Moorish houses, like the Casa de Pilatos (said to be built in imitation of the House of Pilate in Jerusalem), the magnificent cathedral, which is as capable as anything in this world, built of stone, to lift the soul up into an ecstasy of devotional feeling, the aspect of the town is essentially provincial and common. It is modernized without taste, and yet when the traveler comes away he hates to admit it, remembering the unique attractions of the cathedral and the Alcazar, and a narrow, winding street, still left here and there, with the overhanging balconies high in the air, the quaint portals, the glimpses of flowery courts, the towers white with whitewash, the sharp blue shadows, the rifts of cerulean sky overhead. He tries to forget the staring Plaza Nueva, with its stunted palms, and the Bull Ring, and the gigantic cigar factory, where are assembled, under one roof, three thousand coarse women, many of whom have learned to roll cigars and rock the cradles at their side at the same time, — three thousand coarse women, with now and then a wild beauty ; for it is difficult to keep beauty out of the female sex altogether, anywhere.

The traveler will fare very well in the larger towns of Spain, where the French art of cooking is practiced, with the addition of an abundance in the way of fruit. We were very well off at the Hotel Madrid in Seville, which has spacious rooms and a charming large interior court, overlooked by verandas, with a fountain and flowers and oleanders and other low-growing trees, and with garlands of vines stretched across it. The company was chiefly Spanish, and the long table d’hôte was not seldom amusing, in spite of all the piety of formality which in Europe belongs to the ceremony of dining. Of course none but the best people were there, and after the soup, and at any time during the courses, the gentlemen lit cigarettes, so that we could see the ladies’ eyes flashing through a canopy of smoke. It was a noisy table; it was in fact a Babel. The Spaniard, in public, does not appear to converse ; he orates, and gesticulates, and argues with the vehemence of a man on the rostrum. He is carried away by his own eloquence; he rises, pounds the table, shakes his fist at his adversary. But it is not a quarrel. His adversary is not excited; he sits perfectly calm, as the listeners do ; and then in turn he works himself up into a paroxysm of communication. Occasionally they all talk together, and it looks like a row, and sounds like one. At the first occurrence of this phenomenon I expected trouble, and was surprised to see that nothing came of it, for the talkers subsided, and left the table together in a friendly manner. This exuberance gives a zest to dining.

Cordova is not quite the deadest city in Spain, but it rubs Toledo very hard. If there were to he a fair and a competition for civic deadness, it is difficult to predict which city would win the prize. They would both deserve it, or at least honorable mention. Cordova, however, is not buried, and it is not, like Toledo, a mass of decay. It has simply stopped in a decent commonplaceness; it does not apparently do anything ; it has a vacation. It is whitewashed, and clean enough. But the streets are vacant, and there is a suspicion of grass growing up between the stones. The fiftythousand people here ought to be lively enough to keep it down, but there seems to be nothing to be lively about. And yet if the tourist only had time to take in the fact, this is one of the most interesting cities in Spain. No other, not Seville, preserves so much in its houses the Moorish appearance, which is the charm of Spain wherever it exists. It is a great pleasure to stroll about the echoing streets and note the old-time beauty of the dwellings. Cordova — Karta-tuba, an “ important city ” — had a million of inhabitants from the ninth to the twelfth century, nine hundred baths, six hundred inns, and three hundred mosques. Seneca was born here, and Lucan, and Thomas Sanches, the Jesuit author of De Matrimonio; and here Gonzalo de Cordova, the great captain, was baptized. It was once the capital of Moorish Spain, an independent Khalifate ; in art and letters an Athens; in wealth, refinement, and luxury the Paris of the time, with an added oriental splendor; a place of pilgrimage for the occidental world only less sacred than Mecca.

Cordova has now to show the unique mosque, one of the most interesting buildings in the world, the monument of Moorish genius and magnificence, and a monumental statue, El Triurfo, — an incongruous pile surmounted by Rafael, the patron saint of the city, easily the worst statue in Europe, and a witness of Spanish taste. This monument stands down by the great stone bridge over the Guadalquivir, from which the lounger has an admirable view of the picturesque old town.

The Great Mosque was begun in 786 by Abdu-r-rahma I., who determined to build the finest mosque in the world ; but even his splendid edifice was greatly enlarged in the tenth century. There was an era of good feeling between the church and Islam in those days. Before this mosque was built, Christians and Moslems amicably occupied different parts of the same basilica, and when the Caliph wanted to enlarge he bought out the Christians. Leo, Emperor of Constantinople, sent one hundred and forty precious antique columns for the new building, and Greek artists to decorate it; and when Cordova was conquered by the Christians, I believe that for some time the two religions held worship in this edifice. It occupies the whole of a vast square. The exterior walls, six feet in thickness, and from thirty to sixty feet high, with buttressed towers and richly carved portals to the different entrances, is the finest specimen of this sort of work existing. Nearly a third of the great square is occupied by the open Court of Oranges, the abode, it will be remembered, of Irving’s wise parrot, who knew more than the ordinary doctor of law; still a delightful grove of oranges, with great fountains, where the pious and the idle like to congregate. From this there were nineteen doors, — all now walled up except three, — opening directly into the sacred mosque. With all these openings, added to the entrances on the other three sides, to admit freely light and air, and to permit the light to play on its polished columns, what a cheerful and beautiful interior it must have been ! And what a bewildering sight it is yet! The roof is low, not above thirty-five feet high, and originally it was all flat. The area is about 394 feet east and west, by 556 feet north and south, and it is literally a forest of columns. Of the original 1200, 1096 still staud ; the others were removed to make room for the elaborate choir erected in the centre, which destroys the great sweep of pillars and much of the forest effect. It is fit to make a body weep to see how the Christians have abused this noble interior. It would have been more excusable if it had been done by early Christians, to whom we pardon everything; but it was not: it was done by late and a poor kind of Christians. These columns, all monoliths, and all made to appear of uniform height by sinking the longer ones in the floor, were the spoils of heathen temples in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Many came from Nîmes and Narbonne, some from Seville and Tarragona, numbers from Constantinople, and a great quantity from Carthage and other ancient cities of Africa. They are all of choice and some of them of rare marbles, jasper, porphyry, verd-antique, and all were originally highly polished, and many still retain their lustre. They might, with a little labor, be made again to shine like gems. From the carved capitals of these columns spring round Moorish arches, painted in red and white, which, seen in any diagonal view, interlace like ribbons, and produce a surpassing and charming effect.

This mosque was called Zeca, the house of purification; it was equal in rank to Al Aksa in Jerusalem, and its shrine of pilgrimage was second only to the Kaaba at Mecca. If the traveler chooses to walk seven times around the lovely little chapel in the centre, once the holy of holies, he will tread in a well-worn path in the stone made by tens of thousands of Moslem pilgrim feet. This chapel and the Mihrab are brilliant with mosaics, and fine carving in stone, and stucco ornamentation. I have heard some critics contrast the lowness of this edifice with the springing aspiration of the Gothic cathedrals, and say that it oppressed them ; but it is one of the wonders of the world.

Toledo, so often figured and described, I am sure needs no description from me. Everybody knows that it stands, with its crumbling walls and towers and decaying palaces, on a high hill of rock perpendicular on three sides, and that the muddy Tagus flows around it in a deep ravine, making it almost an island. I walked and scrambled entirely around it one day, — not on the city side, for that is impossible, but on the high overlooking hills circling it on the opposite side of the river, — and marked well its ramparts and towers. I could n’t throw an orange into it from the encircling hills, but from this vantage ground artillery could quickly reduce it to a stone heap. But I do not know as that would much change the exterior appearance of the city. Nothing in the world looks so old, scarred, and battered.

Within it is the city of silence. Not in Karnak is this silence, if one may say so, more audible to the listening ear. There are no carriages, except the omnibus that took us up from the station, over the bridge Alcantara — the high arch beneath which flows the rapid Tagus — and through the Moorish Gate of the Sun, and this can make its way only in a few of the streets; the others are too steep, too narrow, too rough. There is no traffic, and the footfalls have little echo in the deserted streets. But what a museum of the picturesque it is, this stately widow, as somebody calls it, of two dynasties, with the remains of noble façades and the loveliest carved portals and recesses and windows ! Everywhere Moorish suggestion and Moorish fancy, a perpetual charm. The tourist goes hunting everywhere for the remains of Saracen genius, and prizes every broken tile, stuccoed room, ornamented wall and celling, and quaintly carved door-way.

Ah, well, this is not a guide-book. We stayed, while we were in Toledo, with the sisters Figueroa, descendants, I believe, of a noble house, who dwell in a rambling, high, and gaunt tenement that, has seen better days, but not cleaner ; for its entrance steps are scrubbed, its bare floors are scrubbed, and I think its hard beds are scrubbed. It is, after all, a comfortable sort of place, though I did not find out exactly in what the comfort consisted. There is only one other place of entertainment in the whole city, the inn, and we were zealously warned against that by all the travelers we saw who had preceded us. On coming away, we warned people against the Figueroa. It was the least we could do. And yet we did it with humorous regret; for the ancient maiden sisters were neat. Ah, if they had only given us anything we could eat; if they had not served our morning coffee and bread on an old salver rusty with age, and not too clean, and the rusty old coffee-pot had had a handle, and the bread had been sweet, how different it would have been ! We took a liking to these venerable virgins, although they were churlish and unaccommodating, and treated our humble requests for certain conveniences with lofty scorn. But pride and hotelkeeping must go together in Spain. They must have had good hearts, these women, although they were not liberal, for they kept the house full of pets, — quail that were always whistling, and doves that were always loudly cooing, especially when we wished to sleep in the morning. We took our frugal repasts in their neat and stuffy little sitting-room. There was not a book or a newspaper in the house (in sight), but the walls were covered with trumpery pictures of saints and madonnas. In the little sitting-room, where the sisters sat by the deep-cushioned window and sewed, there were five saints and eleven madonnas. But most pathetic of all was an étagère, on which these dear old ladies (it was probably our traveled rudeness, and their keen perception of our ignorance of what was good enough food for anybody, that made them so angular to us) kept the playthings of their far-away youth, — their dolls, their baby-houses, the little trifles dear to girlhood. No, indeed, I would n’t have had these excellent women different in any respect, — not in Toledo. For what has Toledo itself except the toys of its youth? It is rather surprising that Toledo is as clean as it is, as it has no water, except what is brought up the steep hill from the river in jars on the patient donkeys. It is in no danger of modern improvements and drainage. I suppose the rains of heaven wash it; and the snow, perhaps, helps, for it is a frightfully cold place In winter. But it makes up for that by a hot summer, when the sun, reflected from the bare rocks about it, blazes away at it without hindrance. Its sole specialty is the beautiful niello work, the inlaying of gold and silver in steel, which is carried on at a couple of shops, and at the ancient factory across the river, ever famous for its high-tempered, inlaid Toledo blades. We made a journey thither, but it was not remunerative, except for its historical associations. A few inferior arms are manufactured there ; but as fine blades are probably now made in America and England as Toledo ever tempered; and the inlaying of brooches and fancy scarf pins and other ornamental things is not equal to the ancient work. Still Toledo keeps something of its craft in this exquisite art.

One hesitates to speak of the glory of the place, the cathedral, because no justice can be done it in a paragraph ; nor can any justice be done the surly custodians who refused to let us see some of its locked-up treasures, after appointing time after time for us to come. It was a mine of hoarded wealth and art before it was plundered by the French in 1808. The corner-stone was laid by St. Ferdinand in 1226, and it was completed in the year America was discovered ; but its enrichment went on, and the names of one hundred and forty-nine artists are given who for centuries worked at its adornment. I do not know anywhere else a finer example of the pure, vigorous Gothic, scarcely another so nobly and simply impressive, nor any other richer in artistic designs. It satisfies the mind by its noble solidity, purity, and picturesqueness. When you are in it, you are quite inclined to accept its supernatural inception. The Virgin is said to have come down from heaven during its erection, and the marble slab is shown on which she stood when she appeared to St. Ildefonso. But I do not see how that could have been, for the cathedral was not projected till 1226, and St. Ildefonso died in 617. His body, carried off during the Moorish invasion, was recovered about the year 1270, and is supposed to be buried here. But I believe the legend is that the Virgin made several appearances here, and was present a good deal of the time during the building of the cathedral. At any rate, the stone is here, encased in red marble in the rear of the shrine of the saint, and quite worn with the kisses of the believers, who come still to put their lips on the exact spot touched by the Virgin’s feet. The cathedral has also a famous image of the Virgin in black wood, about which are told the same legends that enhance the other black images in Spain. I confess that I looked with more interest at the banner which hung from the galley of Don John of Austria at the battle of Lepanto. In this cathedral also is the Muzarabic chapel, where the ancient Muzarabic ritual is daily performed. I suppose the litany has some affinity with that of the Eastern church before the great division. The Muzarabes were Christian worshipers under the Moorish rulers, and were tolerated by them. I saw in the street women wearing yellow flannel petticoats, which are said to be the distinguishing female dress of this sect. I believe there are several Muzarabic parishes in Toledo, but their ritual is performed only in this hospitable cathedral. It is a service of more simplicity than that at the other altars, and probably would be regarded as “ low ” in ecclesiastical terminology. It is said that the peculiar ritual of this chapel was established here in 1512 by Cardinal Ximenez, as a note of Spanish independence of the Pope.

Madrid, notwithstanding its size and large population — about half a million — and its many stately buildings, a few brilliant streets and beautiful public gardens, is still provincial in aspect. When I saw the ox-carts in the principal streets I was reminded of Washington before the war. It has put on a veneer of French civilization, which contrasts sharply with the lingering Spanish rusticity and provincialism. It has the air of a capital in many ways. Its bullfights are first-rate; as Paris attracts the best singers, Madrid draws to it the most skillful matadores. The Ring is, I believe, the largest in the kingdom, and capable of seating fourteen thousand spectators. The fight is the great Sunday fête, at which the king and the royal family are always present. As the performances are in the afternoon, they do not interfere with the morning church-going. And if they did, an excuse for it might be urged that Madrid has not a single fine church, and, not being a city, it has no cathedral. The town has several fine libraries, besides the Biblioteca Nacional, a splendid collection of armor, and archæological and other museums that properly claim attention. Of course the distinction of the capital is its Royal Picture Gallery, which compels and repays a pilgrimage from any distance. One must go there to see Murillo, Velasquez and Ribera, and he is almost equally compelled to go there for the study of the great Italian and Flemish masters. The collection is so vast and varied that after days of wandering through its galleries the tourist feels that his acquaintance with it has only just begun.

Almost no one speaks well of the climate and situation of Madrid. Its forced location was the whim of Charles V. The situation offers no advantages for a great city. It is built on a lofty plateau formed by several hills at an elevation of 2450 feet above the sea ; but it is not picturesque, for its environs are sterile plains, swept by the winds. It is the only large capital that does not lie on a respectable river; the Manzanares is commonly a waterless, stony bed. And yet, having heard all this about the detestable climate and the unhealthy location, the traveler, if he happens there at a favorable time of the year, will probably be surprised at the cheerful aspect of the town under the deep blue sky. Within a few years very much has been done to beautify it by planting trees, laying out fine parks, and building handsome villas. It is amazing what money can do in the way of transforming a sterile and intractable place into beauty. Madrid is on the way to be a city of brilliant appearance in the modern fashion, though it is not yet very interesting as a whole. But, for details, in Spain, the traveler is inclined to resent Paris shop windows and Paris costumes. Perhaps the climate is maligned. From what I could hear I should judge it far better than that of Paris, except, perhaps, for a part of the summer. Our minister, Mr. Hamlin, told me that the winter he spent there — which may have been an exception — he found agreeable, with very little frost, almost constant sun, and that it compared favorably with a winter in Washington.

The Spanish people, though reckoned taciturn and reserved with strangers, have a Southern demonstrativeness with each other which does not shrink from public avowal. We had a pleasing illustration of this when we took the afternoon train from Madrid for Zaragoza. A bridal party were on the platform in the act of leave-taking with the happy couple, who entered our car. The tender partings at the house seemed to have been reserved for this public occasion. The couple, as it turned out, were not going very far, but if they had been embarking for China the demonstrations of affection, anxiety, grief, and other excitement could not have been more moving and varied. There were those who wept, and those who put on an air of forced gayety; and there was the usual facetious young man, whose mild buffooneries have their use on such occasions. The babble of talk was so voluminous that we did not hear the signal to start, and as long as we kept the group in sight their raised outstretched hands were clutching the air with that peculiar movement of the fingers which means both greeting and farewell in this land. The pretty bride, it soon appeared, was willing to take all the world into confidence in her happiness and affection. The car was well filled, and, as it happened, it would have been more convenient for her to sit opposite her husband of an hour. But this was not to be endured. She squeezed herself into the narrow place beside him, and began to pet and fondle him in a dozen decent ways, in the most barefaced and unconscious manner. The rest of us were as if we did not exist, and it was in vain that we looked out of the window in token of our wish to efface ourselves in the presence of so much private happiness. She could not keep either hands or eyes off him. And why should she ? He was hers, and for life, and we were mere accidents of the hour. The assertion of her possession embarrassed us, but the square - faced and somewhat phlegmatic young gentleman took it as of right and in a serene consciousness of merit. Opposite this delightful couple, who were entering Paradise by such a public door, sat the beau-ideal of a Spanish gentleman and grandee — tall, slender, grave, kindly, high-bred almost to the point of intellectual abdication — and his handsome young son, a most graceful and aristocratically marked lad, with the signs of possibly one step farther in the way of unvigorous refinement ; resembling very much in air and feature the young Prince Imperial who was killed in Africa : charming people, with a delicate courtesy and true, unselfish politeness, as we discovered afterwards. I watched to see what effect this demonstration of national manners had upon them ; and I am glad to say that their faces were as impassive as if they had been marble images. We all, I trust, looked unconscious, and perhaps we should ultimately have become so if the doting pair — God bless their union, so auspiciously begun ! — had not descended from the car in a couple of hours at a little way station. I hope she did not eat him up.

Somehow this little episode put us all in good humor, and made us think better of the world as we journeyed on in the night through a country for the most part dreary, and came at midnight to Zaragoza, and even brought us into the right sentimental mood to enjoy the moonlight on the twelve tiled domes of the Cathedral El Pilar, as we rattled in an omnibus over the noble stone bridge across the swift, broad, and muddy Ebro, — the most considerable and businesslike river we had seen in Spain. Zaragoza pleased us in a moment by its quaint picturesqueness and somnolent gravity. My room, in the rear of the hotel, looked upon a narrow street inclosed by high buildings, and was exactly opposite a still narrower street, into which the high moon threw heavy shadows from the tall houses. The situation was full of romantic suggestions, and I was familiar with just such scenes in the opera. As I looked from my window, before going to bed, a brigand in a long cloak and sombrero, carrying a staff in one hand and a lantern in the other, came slowly through this street, set his lantern down at the junction of the two streets, looked carefully up and down, and then in a musical tenor sang the song of the watchman, — “Half past one o’clock, and fine weather.” Then he took up his lantern and glided away to awake other parts of the town with his good news.

We found Zaragoza exceedingly attractive in its picturesque decay. Nowhere else did we see finer mediæval palaces, now turned into rookeries of many tenements and shops. We were always coming upon some unexpected architectural beauty, as we wandered about the narrow streets of high houses. Of the two cathedrals, the old one, La Seo, is the most interesting. It has a curious, lofty octagonal tower, with Corinthian columns, drawn out like a jointed telescope, and on one side some remarkable brick-work of the fourteenth century, inlaid with Moorish tiles, variegated in color. But El Pilar, modern and ugly within, attracts most worshipers, for there is the alabaster pillar upon which the Virgin stood. A costly chapel is erected over it, and upon it stands the black-wood image of the Virgin, blazing with jewels. The pillar cannot be seen from the front, but a little of it is visible in the rear, and this spot is kissed by a constant stream of worshipers all day long. This pillar and figure is the great fact in Zaragoza; it is its most sacred and consoling possession. Many shops are devoted to the manufacture and sale of representations of it, so that this seemed to be the chief industry of the city.

The Maid of Zaragoza is not much attended to, and it was difficult to get any traces of her, or to make her very real. We could not even determine the exact place of her heroic fight during the siege by the French in 1809. It was somewhere near the southwest gate of the city. Here, says the guide-book, which calls this heroine “ an Amazon, and a mere itinerant seller of cooling drinks,” — “ here, Agustina, the Maid of Zaragoza, fought by the side of her lover, — an artilleryman, — and when he fell, mortally wounded, snatched the match from his hand and worked the gun herself.” For all that, this plebeian maid, who has an immortal niche in poetry, may outlast Zaragoza itself, or suffice to preserve its memory.

Traveling towards Tarragona, we found dull scenery and a waste country. The land is worn in ragged gullies, and at intervals are mounds of earth, as if left by the action of water, that looked artificial, square-topped, with a buttonlike knob, — a singular formation. Now and then we had a glimpse of an old castle perched on a hill. At Lareda a genuine surprise awaited us, — the best breakfast we bad in Spain. It seems voracious to say it, but it is in human nature to be pleased with something really appetizing after two months of privation. The character of the costume changed here. The peasants wore sandals, often without stockings. The men sported the dull red, or purple, Phrygian cap, hanging well in front. The women wore no distinguishing costume, unless plainness of face is a distinction among the sex, and were more hard-featured than their soft southern sisters. Here is a different and a more virile race, for we are in Catalonia. As we approach Tarragona the country is very much broken into narrow valleys and hills, but all highly cultivated. Everything is dry and dusty. There is no grazing ground or grass, but vineyards, mulberry-trees, and pomegranates.

Tarragona is set on a hill, and from the noble terraces, opening out from the Rambla, one of the chief streets, six hundred feet above the shore, there is a magnificent view of the coast and the sea. The city has a small harbor, protected by a long mole. The commanding position, the dry air, the lovely winter climate, and the historic interest of the place cause Tarragona to he recommended for a winter residence. But I should think it would be dull. There is too much of a decayed and melancholy, deserted air about it. We had another surprise here, not so much in the excellence of the hotel in which we stayed as in the civility of the landlord. But our hopes were dashed of making the amende to Spain in this respect, when we found that he was an Italian.

If not for a whole winter, Tarragona might detain the traveler interested for many days, for it is exceedingly picturesque, inside and out. I made the circuit of its high but somewhat dilapidated walls, and marked the enormous stones laid in it. Within, the houses are built close to the wall, and occasionally windows are cut through it, — a very good use for these mediæval defenses. There are ruins of old fortifications on the hill back of the town, and I believe that the town is, in show at least, very well fortified ; but we did not inquire into it, having no intention of taking it. The cathedral, high up, and approached by a majestic flight of steps, sustains its reputation, on acquaintance, as one of the noblest Gothic edifices in Spain. We were especially detained by the wonderful archaic carving all over the interior. Attached is a pretty garden with fine cloisters, Moorish windows and arches, and the quaintest, most conceit-full, and amusing carving in the world. We wanted to bring away with us the gigantic iron knocker on the cathedral door, — a hammer striking the back of a nondescript animal. On an unfortunate afternoon, we were roughly jolted in a rattling omnibus — the only vehicle we could procure — three miles along the shore over a wretched road, enveloped in clouds of dust, to a grove of small pines, to see what is called Scipio’s Tower. I wished we had never had anything more to do with it than Scipio had. And yet the view from there of the rock-built city, with its walls sloping to the everfascinating sea, and the line of purple coast will long endure in the memory.

To come to Barcelona is to return to Europe. Signs of industry multiply as we approach the town. The land is more highly and carefully cultivated than elsewhere in Spain, but the absence of grass and the exposure of the red earth give the country a scarred, ragged, and raw appearance, which the vines and the few olive-trees do not hide. There is nothing to compensate the Northern-bred eye for the lack of grass and the scarcity of foliage.

Barcelona is the only town in Spain where the inhabitants do not appear self-conscious, the only one that has at all the cosmopolitan air. The stranger is neither stared at nor regarded with suspicion. The people are too busy to mind anything but their own affairs, yet not too busy to be courteous and civil, after the manner of people who know something of the world, and there is a bright vivacity in the place which is very taking. We saw here, however, the first time on this abstemious peninsula, a man drunk on the street. Only once before had we seen any persons intoxicated, and they were a party of young gentlemen accompanying ladies through the Escorial, who had taken so much wine at dinner that even the gloom of that creation of a gloomy mind had no sobering effect on them. The traveler who has been told that Barcelona is too modern and commercial to interest him will be agreeably disappointed. If he likes movement and animation he will find it in the chief street of the place, the Rambla, a broad thoroughfare which runs from the port entirely through the city, planted with trees, and having in the centre a wide trottoir, which is thronged day and night with promenaders. On Sunday and Wednesday mornings it offers a floral show which is unequaled. On one side are displayed broad banks of flowers, solid masses of color, extending for something like a quarter of a mile, — roses, carnations, violets, and so on, each massed by its kind in brilliant patches ; and the buyers walk along from bank to bank and make up their bouquets with the widest range for selection. If the traveler cares for shopping he will find dazzling shops on the San Fernando, and he may amuse himself a long time in front of the fan and lace windows. As a rule, the windows of Spanish shops do not make a very attractive display, and the hunter after bricabrac and curios seems to be gleaning in a field that has been pretty well ransacked. But everywhere in Seville, Madrid, and Barcelona the most handsome windows are those filled with painted fans. Their prominence is a sign of the universal passion for these implements of coquetry. Barcelona is the centre of the lace manufactory, especially the machinemade. The traveler is also told that he can buy there better than elsewhere the exquisite blonde, which is made by hand. But it is like going to the seaside for fish. The finest blonde, of which very little is produced in comparison with the black, is sent to foreign markets, and in the three largest dépôts of handmade blonde lace we found only one sample in each, of the best.

The old part of the town will, however, most attract the Northern wanderer, and if he has heard as little as we had of the cathedral he has a surprise in store for him. Its wide and lofty nave is exceedingly impressive, and the slender columns supporting the roof give it a pleasing air of lightness and grace. There is also much rich ornamentation, and the stained glass is superb. The lover of old iron-work will find it difficult to tear himself away from the cloisters, where he will find an infinite variety of designs and exquisite execution. The cloisters and garden, with flowers and fountain and orangetrees, are altogether delightful. On one side is the court of the tailors, where the knights of the shears lie buried under the pavement, with the crossed shears cut in the stones, as honorable a symbol of industry as crossed swords elsewhere. The shoemakers also come to honor in this democratic resting-place, — God rest their souls! — and the emblem of the boot speaks of a time when honest work was not ashamed to vaunt itself.

It was the eve of Corpus Christi, and the quaint old court was beautifully decorated and garlanded with flowers. An egg was dancing on the fountain jet, and all the children of the town seemed to be there, watching the marvel with sparkling eyes, while a dozen artists were sketching the lively scene. The procession next day, which moved after a solemn service in the cathedral, showed remnants of the mingling of mediæval facetiousness with the religious pageantry. The principal figures were the King and Queen of Aragon, gigantic in size, and gaudy in mock-heroic apparel. The movers of these figures were men who were concealed under the royal skirts and carried the vast frame-work on their shoulders. The tetering motion of the queen, so incongruous with her size and royal state, called forth shouts of laughter. A very pretty sight was the troop of handsome boys on horseback, who followed their majesties, beating drums. Two of them wore white wigs and gowns of scarlet velvet trimmed with gilt, and rode white horses with similar caparison. Four other boys were more elaborately appareled. They were clad in red caps with blue tops and white feathers, a blue satin blouse, a belt of yellow, yellow breeches, scarlet hose, shoes laced with blue, and on the breast a shield of gold with the cross. The admiration of the crowd seemed to nurse the spiritual pride of these boys, who bore themselves with a haughty air. We fancied that the Catalonians, who are politically turbulent and independent, rather delighted in the exhibition of mock royalty made by the King and Queen of Aragon.

We left the cheerful town in the enjoyment of this curious pageant. Almost immediately the railway train took us into a new region. The character of the landscape wholly changed. Grass appeared, the blessed green turf, and trees. The earth was clothed again. And with whatever sentimental regrets we left the land of romance, the verdure so delighted the eye that it was like entering Paradise to get out of Spain.

Charles Dudley Warner.