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 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
t^3 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 BY 
 
 S. L. BENSUSAN 
 
 WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1910 
 
^ 
 
 -?A'^ 
 
 "b 
 
 J^y/^ 
 
TO MARIAN 
 
 " As the song of a bird in May 
 Shall my song be, 
 That close in a brake all day 
 Sits bowered and sings ; 
 For there in his chosen hom( 
 
 To his mate pipes he, 
 Nor cares for a while to roai 
 On travelling wings." 
 
PREFACE 
 
 MY acquaintance with Spain dates back nearly 
 twenty years. Since the first trip to Anda- 
 lusia, taken on a tramp steamer that still fills a leading 
 role when I suffer from nightmare, I have revisited 
 the south half a dozen times and lived awhile in centre, 
 north, and east. On several occasions holiday-making 
 has provided the sole excuse for a visit, but I have 
 acted as special correspondent to two daily papers, and 
 this work gave me my first insight into the working 
 of Spain's political machine. Of the fascination of the 
 country and the charm of the people there is little set 
 down in the following pages, not that it is possible to 
 forget either, but because many pens have made the 
 recital more tedious than a twice told tale. In the 
 preparation of this volume I have relied for the most 
 part upon memory and Charles Rudy. He it is who 
 has set me right when memory tired or sought to play 
 me false ; in his pleasant company I still recall inci- 
 dents of half-forgotten days and nights spent in the 
 most fascinating country in Europe. He it is who 
 came to my rescue when I sought in vain to do justice 
 to Spanish pigs and Spanish literature, he who is on 
 far more intimate terms with both the cookery and 
 
 Vll 
 
viii HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 the modern books of the country. When the old 
 never-satisfied longing for Spain finds me out even 
 in this remote corner of the English country, Charles 
 Rudy's delightful volume, "Companions in the Sierra," 
 can bring the land, that seemed so far away, vivid and 
 palpitating before me. No other books, save those of 
 Cervantes, Borrow, and Cunninghame Graham, can 
 do as much. So my readers, should I have any, will 
 share a debt I am pleased to acknowledge. 
 
 S. L. BENSUSAN 
 
 Great Easton, Essex, 
 August y 1 910 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 i I. 
 in. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 iv. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 , X. 
 
 ^|xi. 
 
 ^XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ^XIV. 
 
 \ XV. 
 
 ^XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 
 /xxi. 
 
 XXII. 
 XXIII. 
 
 PREFACE e . . . 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE SPANIARD AT HOME 
 
 IDLE DAYS IN SOUTHERN SPAIN 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVILLA . 
 
 THE CHURCH IN SPAIN . 
 
 CHURCH FESTIVALS 
 
 THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH 
 
 THE THEATRE IN SPAIN. 
 
 THE SPANISH KITCHEN . 
 
 THE STORY OF THE TABLE 
 
 THE FERIA \ 
 
 THE Spaniard's summer holiday 
 
 CAFES AND RESTAURANTS 
 
 ETIQUETTE AND HOSPITALITY . 
 
 THE PLAZA DE TOROS . 
 
 STUDENT LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 IN A SPANISH VILLAGE . 
 
 LIFE IN THE COUNTRY-SIDE . 
 
 LOTTERIES IN SPAIN 
 
 SPANISH INTERNAL POLICY 
 
 LITERATURE IN SPAIN . 
 
 SPANISH LAW COURTS AND THEIR JURISDICTION 
 
 ARMS AND THE MAN 
 
 INDEX ..... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 I 
 6 
 
 20 
 
 32 
 
 46 
 61 
 76 
 90 
 106 
 122 
 
 147 
 
 154 
 766 
 
 180 
 189 
 208 
 223 
 236 
 246 
 261 
 274 
 281 
 30s 
 
 IX 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 i The Law of Necessity. (Mother leaving her Little 
 
 One to Nurse another Woman's Child) . Frontispiece 
 From the Painting by M. Santa Maria. 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 4 An Old-time Street Scene in Seville . . .32 
 
 From the Painting by L. Alvarez. 
 
 4After Confirmation 46 
 
 From the Painting by Carlo Vazquez. 
 
 a Choir Dancers in the Cathedral of Seville, before 
 
 AN Image of the Virgin 72 
 
 ^The Market Place 106 
 
 From the Painting by M. DOMINGUEZ Meunier. 
 
 ^GiRL IN Bull-Fighter's Costume with White Mantilla 137 
 
 From the Painting by J. Casado. 
 
 Before the Corrida. Fighting Bulls in the Fore- 
 ground . . . 146 
 
 i Sunshine and Shadow. A Street Scene in the South 176 
 
 *The Goatherd . . . . . . . .208 
 
 \ Beside the Noria^ or Moorish Water Wheel . . 223 
 
 \ In Rural Andalusia — The Rival to the Train . 234 
 
 .War. (Two of the Guardia Civil fetching a Recruit) 281 
 
 From the Painting by Legna. 
 
 XI 
 
HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 IT IS easier to talk about home life in Spain than to grasp 
 the full significance of the expression. The English- 
 man who knows Spain fairly well must needs wonder where 
 a description of the country's home life begins or ends. For 
 regionalism is more marked in the Iberian Peninsula than 
 in any other country of Europe, and in some aspects it 
 might be said that Spain is a geographical expression rather 
 than a country. 
 
 Four great divisions are apparent to everybody who has 
 visited the country with open eyes and a receptive intel- 
 ligence. There is the north, including the Basque provinces 
 and inhabited by sturdy, independent men and women who 
 still have a certain number of laws (fueros) that do not apply 
 to other regions ; there is the south, the country of vine- 
 yards tenanted by people whose nature has to all outward 
 seeming nothing in common with that of the north. The 
 Andalusian is neither idle nor gay as he is depicted so often ; 
 he has his own highly strung nervous temperament and 
 suffers the sun to work its will upon him without too large 
 a measure of resistance. In the busy, bustling east, Cata- 
 lonia and Valencia, you have yet another type of Spaniards — 
 men and women — progressive, ambitious, hard-working, and 
 well informed, hating the Castiles that tax them for their 
 
i 
 
 J 
 
 2 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 idleness, and inclined to be intolerant of the ruling house 
 that stands between them and their republican ideal. Onlj 
 in Catalonia and other parts of eastern Spain can literature 
 be held to flourish, or art claim significance and sincerity, o 
 science boast of a following. And yet, side by side in thi* 
 truly progressive region, we find the sober man of affairs ani 
 the anarchist drunk with dreams of authority overthrown! 
 We find the peaceful, prosperous citizen who greets the taxJ 
 collector's frequent call by lighting yet another cigarette an 
 shrugging his shoulders, and the eloquent orator who ca 
 talk for hours on end, loves high principles nearly as muc 
 as he loves the sound of his own voice and believes that if 
 he talks long enough, loud enough, and with sufficient ap- 
 plause from the loversof well-sounding words, the Millennium 
 will hear him. Practical business and hopeless ideals seem 
 to find a common ground in the east of Spain, but the fact 
 remains that that district holds the business intelligence and 
 the greater part of the country's intellect, and that it is the 
 storm centre of Spain, regarded with deep and ever-grow- 
 ing suspicion by the Church and the State. 
 
 In the centre and west we come to the land of vast open 
 spaces where one may ride for hours without seeing more 
 than an occasional granja or farm. A flock of goats or a 
 herd of pigs move across the open country in charge of men 
 or boys as far removed from the twentieth century as the 
 shepherds of the Theocritean idylls. These men or lads 
 know nothing, and care less, of the world that lies beyonc 
 them ; they have dispensed quite happily with education 
 their religion, if any, is no more than a mass of crude and un- 
 digested superstitions ; they know the extremes of heat anc 
 cold, of poverty and privation, but as a class they are perhaps 
 happier than the most of those who live in big cities anc 
 have cafes and music-halls within easy reach. 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 Here then we have four distinct regions with nothing in 
 common. But regionalism in Spain is not limited to four 
 districts or to forty. To the Spaniard, the city or even the 
 village of his birth is all the world that matters. When a 
 Spaniard says " mi pueblo^' his mind has gone back to 
 the village of his birth, where his patron saint is enshrined, 
 where the politics are his own, and where his patriotism is 
 localized. The district in which his village is set lies right 
 outside his interests ; the province of which it is a part has 
 no claims upon him ; of his country itself he is supremely 
 independent. History records with a smile that finds much 
 sympathy the story of the valiant Alcalde of Mostoles, a 
 village near Madrid, who solemnly declared war against the 
 great Napoleon on the all-sufficient ground that the rest of 
 Spain seemed to be in two minds upon this serious under- 
 taking. These instances might be multiplied, though not so 
 significantly ; they serve to indicate the depth of root which 
 regionalism has spread in every corner of the land, and by 
 way of an apology for the necessity of dealing in nothing 
 more than general terms with the more varied aspects of 
 Spanish home life, though the outstanding regional differ- 
 ences will be set down. 
 
 Englishmen as a class have but the smallest acquaint- 
 ance with Spanish life and thought For the most part 
 they know only the chief cities of Spain and the leading 
 hotels of those cities, where they encounter a French chef 
 and a London season scale of charges, where Spanish life 
 as Spain knows it is carefully kept from their knowledge. 
 At every turn, on every side, their wants are provided for 
 on the special basis that applies to foreigners. Do they 
 want to see " Spanish dancing," one of the hotel guides is 
 ready to improvise an entertainment that is sufficiently 
 Spanish to satisfy those who know nothing about it. Does 
 
4 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN ^^^^^ 
 
 one wish to go to a zarzuela or visit the arena de gallos or 
 the plaza de toros, his mentors will see to it that he gets the 
 best seats and incidentally that he pays something consider- 
 ably in advance of the best prices. But Spanish life and 
 Spanish character are no more accessible to him than the 
 Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem or the Church of the Holy 
 Sepulchre are accessible to a tourist armed with native 
 assurance and Cook's coupons. 
 
 The average Spaniard pictures the average Englishman 
 as an aggressive person with prominent teeth, long whiskers, 
 a sun helmet, a green umbrella and pockets full of gold, 
 and the picture does not please the Spanish mind. Quite 
 without enthusiasm the hidalgo^ together with his less dis- 
 tinguished fellow-countrymen, remark the intrusion of John 
 Bull. His enthusiasm for their cathedrals, picture galleries, 
 places of entertainment and the rest awake no response in 
 the Spanish mind, and the average Englishman is careful 
 to say nothing and do nothing that may conciliate the in- 
 habitants of the land he has deigned to favour. Armed with 
 insular pride and circular tickets, he goes everywhere, pries 
 into all things, and thanks Providence for his own special 
 equipment of virtues and his British birth. The Spaniard 
 cannot close his public places, nor would his courtesy permit 
 him to do so ; the foreigner puts money in circulation and 
 the Spaniard says with the Roman Emperor who was re- 
 proved for taking a heavy tax from the Jews, " non olet ". 
 But he closes the doors of his own house and opens them 
 to very few. For many years towards the end of the nine- 
 teenth century Spain had reason to complain of a lack of 
 British sympathy — more particularly during the terrible time 
 of the Cuban troubles and the American War. The old cry 
 
 paz con Inglaterra 
 
 y con todo el mundo guerra 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 was heard no longer. There was a feeling that Great 
 Britain should have stood between Spain and the deliberate 
 misrepresentations that led to the conflict which, in the long 
 run, has done Spain more good than harm. 
 
 The presence of a British-born Queen in the Palacio Real 
 has brought about a considerable change in public sentiment, 
 and the feeling has been further aided by the frequent visits 
 of King Alfonso to this country. It may well be that in a 
 few years the intimacy between Great Britain and Spain 
 will be deeper and more widely spread. The desired change 
 should certainly follow the advent of a really Liberal Govern- 
 ment in Madrid, and it may be that Senor Canalejas, who 
 is now in power, will be able to maintain his position. 
 Then the traveller who desires to spend a few months in 
 one of the most fascinating countries in Europe, among 
 people whose native charm and courtesy are hard to match 
 anywhere, will be enabled to confirm and enlarge the details 
 of Spanish home life set out in the following chapters. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE SPANIARD AT HOME 
 
 THE average traveller, tourist, or holiday-maker in Spain 
 asked to describe the Spaniard at home would find 
 himself in difficulties at once. He may have some smatter- 
 ing of the language, he may have paid a few ceremonial 
 visits to the houses of friends or acquaintances, but the vie 
 intime of the home is probably a sealed book to him, and it 
 is the purpose of this chapter to remove the seals, or some 
 of them. 
 
 All things considered, the Spanish home is a very happy 
 one. There is a certain simplicity of life, a certain measure 
 of good feeling, and a respect for tradition that always has a 
 pleasing influence on the home. However out of date a cus- 
 tom may be, if it has been sanctioned by use through long 
 generations, it gains a beauty that is not perhaps its own 
 through intimate association with the childhood of those who 
 follow it. The life of the home is beset with countless tradi- 
 tions in Spain, and while some few of the customs are de- 
 plorable in our eyes, still more are exceedingly gracious. 
 
 The modern Spanish house is as much a gift of the Moors 
 as the noria that works on every hacienda in the country. 
 The house is built round a patio or central courtyard which 
 is generally square but sometimes oblong in shape. The 
 patio varies very much according to the district in which the 
 house of which it is a part is built. In the north it is little 
 
 6 
 
THE SPANIARD AT HOME 7 
 
 better than a dingy courtyard ; the broad flags that pave it 
 are often seen to have suffered displacement from the strong 
 weeds and grasses that have sprung up between them. The 
 family washing hangs on lines drawn across the patio, and 
 if the house should be let off in floors, each floor will parade 
 its washing on the same day. As a rule, each tenant occu- 
 pies one side of the square, and it is by friendly arrange- 
 ment with an opposite neighbour that the washing lines, 
 which are fastened on pulleys, have running rights to that 
 neighbour's boundary. The patio of the Spanish house, 
 particularly if each side of the house be let to different 
 tenants, has a curious soul of its own ; there are sights and 
 sounds associated with it that we do not find anywhere else. 
 At certain' hours food is being prepared and utensils not 
 to be met elsewhere in Europe are in noisy use. A little 
 later the smell of cooking, a smell that is strictly regional, 
 pervades the patio ; everybody having prepared the same 
 material in the same sort of utensil is now cooking it in 
 accordance with one recipe. In all probability that recipe 
 has not varied for hundreds of years and will survive the 
 reigning house and the dominant faith. Very cheerful, to 
 those a little removed from it, is the chatter of the servants, 
 who go about their work as though time were of no account, 
 flourishing feather brooms or allowing pails to fall on to 
 hard stone floors with a sound that draws expostulation 
 from the mistress of the house who in her turn is probably 
 scolded for interfering, if her maid should chance to be an 
 old family retainer. Sometimes the girls sing as they ply 
 broom and- pail or nurse the latest addition to the house- 
 hold, and one hears quaint folk-songs that have never been 
 set down and seem to clamour for the expert musician to 
 save them from oblivion. And the voices ! Sometimes, 
 of course, they are shrill and harsh enough, but how often 
 
8 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 are they absolutely true and pure and fresh, of a quality 
 that demands nothing but a little training to fit the singei 
 for some measure of success in a professional career. li 
 there is very little sunshine and very little gaiety in thel 
 natural aspect of the northern patio, it is at least brightened] 
 by many charming aspects of the simple national life. 
 
 Down in the south the patio is quite another institution, 
 It corresponds in some measure to the roof-garden in modern] 
 American cities. Screened from the road by double gates] 
 often richly chased, filled with bright flowers planted in pots, 
 generally boasting a fountain whose waters, never at rest,] 
 cool the place during the hours of fire, the patio plays 
 most delightful part in the home life of the south, and has; 
 entered so deeply into the affection of the people, that one 
 of the most popular plays in Spain to-day is the charm- 
 ing comedy **E1 Patio" by the Brothers Quintero. This 
 popular piece is very little more than a series of living 
 pictures taken from an Andalusian patio, but it stirs 
 Spaniards to enthusiasm. 
 
 In the patio the lady of the house receives her guests, 
 either during the afternoon or at night when the heat of the 
 best- ventilated rooms is intolerable. Here the hour of the 
 siesta is spent by those who being old and feeble find an 
 added luxury in open-air repose, while the younger members 
 of the household flock to the patio as soon as ** the hours 
 of fire'* have passed. After dinner the mistress of the 
 house receives in the patio, giving her guests sweet cakes 
 and chocolate while her daughters play their own accom- 
 paniment on the guitar to soft Andalusian songs, or are per- 
 suaded by some lover of the national art to dance one of 
 the national measures. Nowhere else does dancing acquire 
 the same measure of abandon and grace. The stage seems 
 but a poor place for dancing in the eyes of those who have 
 
THE SPANIARD AT HOME 9 
 
 sat in an Andalusian patio and seen a sevillana or ^ijota 
 performed by those who dance as naturally as a bird sings 
 or a flower blooms. A varied company meets in the patio, 
 but as a rule it would seem that the entertainment of the 
 younger generation is the most important, or is it that the 
 old are young in Andalusia, and that Father Time, a little 
 ashamed of the speed with which he pursues poor humanity 
 elsewhere, contrives to relax his pace ? Certainly most of 
 the guests seem to have responded to an invitation from 
 the younger members of the family, but the father will 
 generally find a friend of his own age among the callers, 
 and the parish priest or even some rather higher dignitary 
 of the Church, may look in for brief relaxation after the 
 hard day's work. Who shall name the hour at which these 
 entertainments end ? As late as midnight the gipsy girl 
 picturesque in her rags will probably still be telling for- 
 tunes ; she arrived quite late on the road lying between the 
 regions of No Man Knows Whence and No Man Knows 
 Whither. Curious that although the gitana may be hungry 
 and penniless she will show little or no gratitude for 
 favours received. Between her and the community through 
 which she wanders there is a measure of deepest antipathy 
 that nothing will ever remove; she hates the Christians 
 with a fierce hatred that finds its expression in curses, some 
 of them exceedingly quaint, too, like the one addressed so 
 often to those who refuse to have their fortunes told : ** May 
 you be made to carry the mail and have sore feet ". It is 
 perhaps permissible to remark that the gipsies are the 
 worst horse thieves in Spain ; their king rules from Granada 
 where he lives among the rocks of the Barrio de los Gitanos. 
 Their hand is against all men and all men's hands are 
 against them. Often the poor gipsies are punished for 
 offences they have not committed, but still more often they 
 
10 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 contrive to escape punishment in cases where they are un- 
 deniably guilty. 
 
 Turning from those who visit the house to the house 
 itself, one finds that, in the south a gallery runs round the 
 first floor and overlooks the patio ; all the bedrooms open 
 upon the balcony. This system of building prevails also 
 in the east, and is fairly common in Italy. In the winter 
 the gallery is closed in with windows (mirddores), while in 
 summer the little green blinds and shutters {persianas) 
 hold a too ardent sun at bay, or at least they do their 
 best 
 
 The reja is the heavy open-work shutter that is built often 
 in beautiful wrought iron after a most delightful pattern in 
 front of the ground-floor windows in Spanish houses. Some 
 of the rejas are so beautiful, particularly in the north of Spain, 
 that the innocent traveller passing by night through some 
 old Spanish street, and wishing to examine some reja at 
 his leisure, will often embarrass two lovers of whose exist- 
 ence he was quite unaware ; the man standing motionless 
 in the shadows of the pavement and the girl shrinking 
 modestly behind the reja^ seem to be part and parcel of 
 the place itself, in perfect keeping with the atmosphere 
 and tradition of the street itself. There is nothing to do 
 save raise the hat and make a brief apology that will be 
 acknowledged by a bow and a low muttered " Vaya Usted 
 con Dios " (go in God's keeping). Then you must hurry 
 away and leave the street to lovers and the night. 
 
 The floors in Spanish houses are frequently tesselated 
 and on some the mosaic decorations are very beautiful. In 
 most houses they are covered lightly during the winter 
 with thin hemp carpets called esteras, that only serve to 
 keep the dust warm. These esteras are nailed to the 
 wooden border running round the room and amass a tre- 
 
THE SPANIARD AT HOME it 
 
 mendous amount of dirt during the winter. On the 
 polished wooden floors of houses belonging to the wealthy, 
 carpets, that have passed through the London or Paris 
 market on their way from the place of manufacture, are fre- 
 quently to be met. They do not always seem in place. In 
 the summer the floors are kept highly polished, the windows 
 are full of flowers, and the balconies and shutters are ar- 
 ranged so cleverly that the maximum of fresh air is attracted 
 to the room. To appreciate the coolness of the Spanish 
 room, you have but to walk along the sunny side of the 
 pavement and breathe the white-hot air that seems to rise 
 up from the pavement and wellnigh take your breath away, 
 while from the windows above and around a current of 
 cool air comes as though sent by the city's patron saint 
 to refresh the stricken street. Not without trouble and ex- 
 perience has the Spanish housewife succeeded in making 
 her home as cool as natural conditions will permit. The 
 Englishman who sets up housekeeping in Spain and lacks 
 the service of a good native housekeeper will probably find 
 his home uncomfortably hot at a time when the houses or 
 flats of his friends are cool. So proud are the Spanish 
 women at their capacity for subduing " the enemy," as the 
 sun is called, that the relative coolness of their respective 
 apartments is the topic of frequent discussion during the 
 dog-days. In the happy absence of a thermometer — and 
 that useful instrument is unknown to the general public in 
 Spain — each speaker can pledge his or her conscience with 
 complete serenity, and repent at leisure. 
 
 The Spanish bedroom holds the bed in an alcove ialcobd)^ 
 and by so doing conforms to one of the least healthy customs 
 that the Moors left in Spain. The alcoba is stuccoed, and in 
 very poor houses merely whitewashed, to keep an all too 
 vigorous insect life at bay. Iron beds are more popular 
 
12 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 than wooden ones, the single beds being absurdly small 
 and the double beds absurdly large. It is the custom in 
 Spain for the bride to present her partner with the nuptial 
 couch. The bedroom in a Spanish house is comparatively 
 bare ; furniture is scanty, and the chief ornament consists of 
 a plaster shrine with a figure of the local virgin and a few 
 " genuine Murillos," of which nearly every Spaniard has one 
 or two to spare. The writer well remembers how a dear 
 old gentleman in Andalusia offered him a " g'enuine 
 Murillo " at a price that came down slowly from ten thou- 
 sand pesetas to seventy-five — four hundred pounds to three 
 pounds ! 
 
 Unfortunately for Spain there is a winter as well as a 
 summer, and in parts of the Peninsula the winter invasion 
 is a very serious one. The Spaniard makes little or no 
 attempt to cope with it. There are still very few houses 
 in which one finds a modern stove and reasonable warmth. 
 For some reason best known to himself the Spaniard likes 
 to believe that his brasero can yield as much heat as is 
 required. There are three kinds of brasero^ the little low 
 one in a wooden frame used among the lower classes, the 
 tall and often beqtutifully chased one that stands on a 
 tripod and makes a beautiful ornament in any room, and 
 another one called the Camilla^ which is a brass bowl, fitted 
 in a permanent frame between the four legs of a table. 
 All three have one quality in common : they can warm 
 nothing but themselves. Even if you put your feet on 
 one in which the charcoal is sufficiently glowing to restore 
 to you some measure of circulation, its effect will probably 
 stop a little below the knees and the rest of you will endure 
 the arctic rigour of the winter days. In some parts of 
 Spain the winter wind goes about in gentlest fashion 
 possible on the lookout for people with weak lungs. When 
 
THE SPANIARD AT HOME 13 
 
 it finds any, they are presented with pneumonia, pleurisy, 
 bronchitis, or any of the kindred troubles that, with the aid 
 of a Spanish doctor, are safe to be fatal. They say of the 
 icy wind that blows off the Guaderrama that so great is 
 its suavedad that while it is not strong enough to blow out 
 a candle it can kill a man. Many a madrileno has found 
 to his cost that this is no idle boast, but then of course 
 Madrid is about the worst residential city of all Spain and 
 only came into existence because Philip \\ wanted a capital 
 near the Escorial. Really, if you wish to be warm in 
 Madrid during the winter season nothing can be better than 
 to make friends with the cook and live in the kitchen. It 
 is the most comfortable part of the Spanish house to those 
 sensible people who do not mind the smell of strong oil 
 and stronger garlic. 
 
 The Spanish kitchen is worthy of a chapter to itself, and 
 shall not have any smaller measure of attention when it is 
 time to consider the country's cookery. Just now let us 
 be content to remark that in the towns the kitchen is 
 generally as white as lime-wash will make it ; the walls are 
 wainscotted to the height of a man's shoulder, and the pots 
 and pans hang against them in spotless purity. Copper, 
 polished to the colour of old gold, is one of the most strik- 
 ing additions to the national scheme of decoration, and 
 many a Spanish housewife would rather add a new copper 
 dish to her batterie de cuisine than a new dress to her 
 scanty wardrobe. She still prefers to use the old charcoal 
 stove that her mother and her grandmother's mother used 
 before her. It stands in one corner, high up, so that the 
 dishes are well under the control of their maker, and above the 
 charcoal there is a great bell-shaped funnel that carries the 
 poisonous fumes away. The stove is a fixture and con- 
 sequently is not likely to be removed, but the modern 
 
14 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 kitchener and the portable oil-stove are beginning to make 
 a few friends, though a long time must elapse before the 
 Spaniard will regard a modern stove that does not burn 
 charcoal as anything better than a luxury or a vulgar foreign 
 innovation of little worth. The women of the middle class 
 are not ashamed to go into the kitchen and place the results 
 of their prowess before their husband and their friends. 
 Theirs may be at times the faith that casts out fear, for it 
 would be idle to deny that much Spanish cooking is accept- 
 able only to the Spanish palate. But even the imported 
 palate — so it be not a French one — can learn to appreciate 
 Spanish cookery as practised among the middle classes wh( 
 have learnt to exercise a certain amount of restraint when 
 handling oil and garlic. But to discuss cooking in detail 
 now would be to interfere with the proposed order of thes( 
 chapters. 
 
 The Spanish housewife of the middle classes is an honest 
 soul, and lovable. She is proud of her home, even if it b( 
 no more than a tiny little piso. She will labour in it day 
 after day in complete contentment. She loves cleanliness 
 and order, and is not afraid to work with her servants in 
 kitchen or parlour. Between her and those who serve then 
 is a curious relationship, not widely known in this country 
 a deep friendship that does not admit of familiarity but is 
 based upon a common measure of respect and appreciation 
 for services rendered. The relations between Don Quixot< 
 and Sancho Panza find many a counterpart in Spain to this 
 day, not only among the men but among the women. Sc 
 it happens that the terrible servant trouble hardly exists ir 
 Spain where you find men and women serving the hous( 
 with the fidelity of watch-dogs, prosperous in the day o 
 their employer's prosperity, and contentedly shabby whert 
 the sun does not shine upon those they serve. It woul( 
 
THE SPANIARD AT HOME 15 
 
 not be too much to say that in many of the serving class 
 all the virtues that endear the Spaniard to those who have 
 the good fortune to know him intimately seem to find a 
 home. 
 
 Although a Spaniard may be full of blue blood and 
 pride there is a certain strain of democracy in him that finds 
 expression at home. In short, it may be said that he is 
 accessible to his own household though he be inaccessible 
 to everybody else in the world. Outside the ranks of the 
 grandees and the nouveaux riches it is no uncommon sight 
 to see the servant sit at the master's table where he or she 
 seems to fill the vacant place quite naturally without 
 assumption or familiarity. On his saint's day the servant 
 becomes the host and the master the guest, and the kitchen 
 or servant's hall the place of entertainment. On this great 
 occasion the servant buys wine and cakes to entertain the 
 master who meets the other friends of the servant, and joins 
 them on equal terms. In the same way the maid entertains 
 her friends on her name-day and her mistress is among her 
 guests. Doubtless this good understanding accounts for 
 the excellence and continuity of Spanish domestic service. 
 It may be unnecessary to say that every Spanish child is 
 named after a saint whose day in the Roman Catholic 
 calendar becomes the child's name-day. 
 
 It is very easy to keep a servant in Spain however poor 
 you may be ; there is little extra expense beyond the cost 
 of food, for the servant is quite content to take wages when 
 they are forthcoming, will sleep in any odd corner in com- 
 fort and contentment and is generally very healthy. The 
 conditions prevailing among the poorer classes restrict sur- 
 vival to the very fit in a country where the infant mortality 
 is appallingly high. 
 
 Perhaps the presence of the foster-mother in so many 
 
i6 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Spanish families strengthens the ties between those who 
 serve and those who are served. The average Spanish 
 woman prefers to nurse her own children, and performs the 
 act which is a mother's special privilege with a simple dignity 
 that adds to the natural beauty of the most primitive of all 
 services. In England women are ashamed to nourish their 
 children in public, but in Spain this ugly false modesty does 
 not exist. Women of gentle birth and refinement will not 
 hesitate to fulfil their appointed task on a tram, in a railway 
 carriage, or even in the street, without any loss of self- 
 respect or the respect of others. Many a woman has the 
 will but not the capacity to rear her own children, but when 
 she finds herself unable to fulfil the mother's first duty, she 
 does not fly to patent preparations that are guaranteed 
 to turn the most puny child into a pocket Hercules. She 
 prefers, if means permit, to send for a wet-nurse {amd) from 
 one of the healthiest parts of the^country, those of the 
 Province of Santander being in great demand. They are 
 familiar figures in the streets of big cities. They wear white 
 caps ; their hair is dressed in special fashion, a long tress 
 hanging down on either side, and their silver ornaments 
 prove on examination to be made of peseta and half peseta 
 pieces. The anta arrives at her destination with no worldly 
 possessions save her health and the rags she stands up in, but 
 such welcome strangers are immediately made much of. 
 Decent clothes are substituted for the rags, rich food takes 
 the place of the coarse rough fare to which they have been 
 so long accustomed, and the infant thrives in their charge. 
 At the same time it must be confessed that the ama is very 
 often a tyrant, and is apt to strain the resources of a small 
 household to breaking-point, for she does not take any 
 modest view of her own importance in the scheme of things, 
 and will not compare for a moment with one of the regular 
 
7 
 
 THE SPANIARD AT HOME 17 
 
 household servants in point of good service, patience, or 
 economy. 
 
 The best has now been said about the Spanish mother's 
 care for her children ; it must be confessed that infant 
 mortality in Spain is on a scale that would strike horror 
 into the hearts of English mothers. Medical science is not 
 exactly in a thriving condition south of the Pyrenees, where 
 a doctor in good practice relies largely upon the Santissima 
 Trinidad and two or three medicines. There is sufficient 
 belief in predestination throughout Spain — a legacy this 
 from Morocco — to atone for all the doctor's mistakes, and 
 there are times of course when the patient's constitution is 
 stronger than sickness and a Spanish doctor in combination. 
 Unfortunately, these patients are seldom children. In the 
 big cities as in the tiny villages it is no uncommon sight to see 
 unweaned children sucking the small green cucumbers called 
 gherkin {pepinilld)^ while little tiny children, who can just 
 run about, may be seen on hot summer days eating fruit 
 which is either over-ripe or actually rotten. To make 
 matters worse sanitation is unknown among the poorer 
 classes ; indeed sanitary science is not popular in any part 
 of Spain, and consequently dysentery, small-pox, and typhus 
 are more or less endemic, and infantile cholera claims its 
 thousands. Spaniards are a very prolific race, but the 
 incapacity to rear children extends through all classes, and 
 it is no uncommon experience to meet a man or woman who 
 claims to be the sole survivor of ten, twelve, fifteen, or even 
 twenty children, or to meet some old man or woman reduced 
 to indigence, who is heard to regret that of a family of more 
 than a dozen not one has survived to help in the hour of 
 need. If the mother be ignorant, the ama is more ignorant 
 still, and to make matters worse the average Spanish mother 
 would rather allow a child to have something that is 
 
18 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 notoriously bad for it than vex the child by withholding it. 
 As a class Spanish mothers spoil their children, and regard 
 with horror the parents whose discipline is strict. They 
 have never heard of King Solomon's dictum, or if they have 
 they ignore it. The effect of this lax up-bringing is very 
 unpleasant, and if it were not for the tremendous mortality 
 among children would be more unpleasant still. But it is 
 not hard to understand that when a woman pan only succeed 
 in rearing one child out of three or four she is apt to spoil it. 
 
 The Spaniard who survives the kind attention of his 
 ama is duly grateful. As long as they both live she has a 
 moral claim upon him that he never repudiates, and many 
 an old woman in Spain to-day lives in comfort because in 
 the days of her youth she nurtured some baby who con- 
 trived to reach man or woman's estate and thrive. 
 
 The increasing wealth of Spain, the king's marriage to 
 an English princess, and the arrival of the motor-car beyond 
 the Pyrenees have all served in their way to introduce 
 certain alien elements into the Spanish household in the 
 form of the chauffeur and the governess. The chauffeur is 
 as often as not a Frenchman, but few Spaniards would 
 hesitate in their choice if they had an Englishman or a 
 Frenchman to choose from. The English governess in a 
 Spanish house has a good time, for the consideration ex- 
 tended to her is often greater than any she has experienced 
 at home. Doubtless she undertook her journey with much 
 fear and trembling, and looked to find surroundings of un- 
 relieved gloom amid people of constitutional melancholy. 
 Her awakening will have been a pleasant one, for in the 
 majority of cases she is likely to find a friend as well as an 
 employer, while the various phases of Spanish social life in 
 which she will have ample opportunity of taking part, will 
 make her work seem very light and pleasant. The chauffeur 
 
THE SPANIARD AT HOME 19 
 
 will hardly have such a pleasant time, for although the 
 wealthy Spaniard has beautiful cars, he has abominable 
 roads, and unless his master be satisfied with the limited 
 attractions of the paseo, the chauffeur's heart will be torn 
 almost as badly as his tyres. " Running repairs " is a term 
 possessing a terrible significance south of the Pyrenees. 
 
 The attitude of the average Spanish servant to the foreign 
 chauffeur is distinctly amusing. He cannot quite rid his 
 mind of a belief that the motor-car is an invention of the 
 anti-Christ, and that the last address of the chauffeur was 
 not England or France, but quite another place. He re- 
 gards the car itself with holy horror, arid will not often pass 
 it, even when it is at rest, without making the sign of the 
 cross. This of course applies only to those who are at 
 once superstitious and devout, the others will be content with 
 some sign by which they learned in some far-off native 
 village to avert the evil eye. 
 
 There is yet another class of Spaniard who, strong in his 
 beliefs, will treat the car with contempt, and he is the most 
 dangerous of all. He is probably related in sentiment if not 
 in blood to the worthy baturro (native of Aragon) who in the 
 early days of Spain's railways is said to have ridden on his 
 donkey down the line. A train came up behind him, slowly 
 of course and with deliberation, as becomes a Spanish train ; 
 and the engine driver blew his whistle as hard as he could. 
 The worthy baturro turned round in his tracks and shook 
 his fist at the intruder. " If you don't get out of my way 
 . . ,*' and here the story, like this chapter, stops, not with* 
 out giving the keynote to the next. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IDLE DAYS IN SOUTHERN SPAIN 
 
 THE joy of travelling in Spain will never be understood 
 by the great majority of restless tourists who make 
 their journey to the south by way of the Pyrenees and 
 Madrid. Nor will the pleasure of life in Don Quixote's 
 country be known to the patrons of hotels that have no- 
 thing more Spanish than a French chef and a British scale 
 of charges. But let the traveller turn into Andalusia's by- 
 ways and he will find that, though the costume of the 
 eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has suffered 
 change, in all or most other aspects life seems to pass along 
 much the same road as in the days when Goya's marvellous 
 brush recorded the society of which the rest of Europe 
 knew little or nothing. " Civilization ends at the Pyre- 
 nees" we have been told by men who should have known 
 better, but we may never justly forget that Spain as an 
 Empire has filled the foreground of Europe. Had she 
 survived the grip of the Church, and the too ardent 
 splendour of the sun, she might have stayed there. Perhaps 
 purely western civilization ends at the Pyrenees, that is all. 
 But I do not propose to speak of Spanish history or 
 politics in this place. I have done no more than refer to 
 my notebook for odds and ends of travel impressions, to 
 present them here without elaboration or heightened 
 colour. My first visit to the Iberian Peninsula was paid 
 
 20 
 
IDLE DAYS IN SOUTHERN SPAIN 21 
 
 in the early nineties when I was but twenty-one and knew 
 few other countries. Since then I have been a wanderer 
 in many lands, but Spain comes back to me with perennial 
 freshness, and if inclination guide my footsteps it is there 
 my holidays are spent. 
 
 The idlest of all idle days may be passed in a Spanish train. 
 It is no roaring, bustling affair like the trains of other 
 countries ; it is something that contributes to the interest 
 of village life, stimulates gossip, and quite incidentally takes 
 passengers from one place to another in manner befitting 
 a country that has never learned to hurry. I remember how 
 when going on a short journey in Andalusia, the train that 
 carried me stopped at a small junction. The station build- 
 ings were all on one side of the line, and included a 
 charming little farm-house and a glittering flower garden 
 half-screened from passengers by a wall of undried tapia. 
 Tickets were issued in the farm-house kitchen which was 
 made as official as possible by the presence at its door of 
 two members of the Guardia Civil who were on duty. 
 These good fellows smoked cigarettes and chattered affably 
 with passengers, but bore real carbines and wore cocked 
 hats that no evildoer might seek to carry off train or station, 
 or even hold passengers to ransom. While we were at rest 
 here, after some hours of travel at the rate of at least twelve 
 miles an hour, the driver uncoupled his engine and pro- 
 ceeded down the line with it in the direction we were not 
 to take. The passengers walked contentedly up and down, 
 smoked countless cigarettes, ate oranges, resisted the im- 
 portunities of beggars, or watched the bloom of figs, pears, 
 and quinces in the orchard and the acacias in the garden 
 beyond. At last I became uneasy and asked where the 
 driver had gone. *' Pedro has run down the line on his 
 engine to take a birthday gift to his mother who lives over 
 
22 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 there," explained the stationmaster ; "he is indeed a good 
 son, and will not trust his parcel to the post. Spain is full 
 of thieves." And when the good son had come back from 
 his mission he restored the engine to its proper position, and 
 we re-entered the train which went on its journey after three- 
 quarters of an hour's delay. 
 
 On another occasion, just as we were leaving a wayside 
 station some young turkeys escaped from the garden, and the 
 stationmaster stopped the train lest it should do any dam- 
 age to them. As some of the passengers were in a hurry 
 that day, they left their carriages and with the aid of broom 
 and sticks provided by the stationmaster's wife, hunted the 
 errant poultry home. Then we were allowed to proceed. 
 While time is your servant all this does not matter ; if he be 
 your master of course you do not go to Southern Spain. 
 Even between Algeciras and Bobadilla, over a line that is well 
 managed by a Scotsman, the Spaniard manages to leave the 
 route supremely interesting and to make the least possible 
 surrender to the business instincts of the Saxon. If we 
 take Sevilla or Cordoba for our objective — and surely there 
 are no cities in Europe that invite more pleasantly to idle 
 days — it is well to choose this route, more particularly if you 
 have travelled by sea to Gibraltar, as so many people do. 
 
 In England no man is a hero because he travels by rail ; 
 in the villages of Southern Spain I am inclined to think the 
 case is different, and that you advance in the social scale in 
 the Andalusia country-side if you have so much as a friend 
 who travels in a train. When the engine pants into the 
 station, conscious of a great task nobly done, all the villagers 
 have assembled to meet it. The function corresponds in 
 Andalusian fashion to Church Parade in Hyde Park. The 
 stationmaster moves with an air of distinction through one 
 of the most interesting crowds to be seen anywhere. Chil- 
 
IDLE DAYS IN SOUTHERN SPAIN 23 
 
 dren — of whom three out of four are beautiful — are present 
 in great numbers ; there is no school board to make them 
 scholars in spite of themselves. Very often the girls have 
 no shoes or stockings, but nearly all have a flower in their 
 hair, or a handkerchief arranged as a mantilla. Many un- 
 occupied men are to be seen ; all are smoking, nearly all 
 have forgotten to shave. Beggars, who seem to thrive by 
 the exercise of their profession, go from carriage to carriage, 
 pleading for charity in most pitiful accents. Happy is the 
 man who can boast a mutilated limb or an incurable disease 
 that has outward and visible manifestations. The healthy 
 members of his brotherhood look upon him with keen envy. 
 The few people who, by some unfortunate accident, were 
 born industrious, march up and down the platform with big 
 earthenware jars full of water, for heat and thirst are chronic. 
 Girls carry baskets of oranges, and in all the larger stations 
 you may find modest refreshments provided at a stall, gener- 
 ally in the shape of rolls half cut through to aid the insertion 
 of a slice of greasy sausage. 
 
 Seeing the amount of public interest taken in the train's 
 arrival, the stationmaster would be a callous fellow indeed if 
 he sent the long-expected visitor away too soon. I am in- 
 clined to think that he enjoys his official position immensely ; 
 indeed, I have seen him stroll up and down in front of the 
 train with his wife on his arm and his numerous family at 
 heel as though he felt he had not lived in vain. Only when 
 he realizes that the train has done its duty by the district 
 does he ring his bell with an energy and vigour worthy the 
 occasion. He rings until he is tired, and then the train 
 moves off* very slowly, and the ticket tormentor appears 
 suddenly from the knifeboard and demands your ticket that 
 he may mutilate it further. I believe that the ticket col- 
 lector must be'a lineal descendant of the old-time Inquisitors. 
 
24 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Nothing else will account for his cruel pleasure in defacing 
 the tickets entrusted to his care. He has all the suspicion 
 of an Inquisitor too, and will appear before you suddenly 
 at odd times of the night, as though fearful that some in- 
 truder has reached the carriage by way of tHe lamp-hole or 
 by jumping on to the knifeboard that is his own happy 
 hunting ground. 
 
 The journey to Sevilla, by way of Algeciras and Ronda, 
 or even by the lesser-known route from Huelva, is full of 
 curious interest. Villages on either side recall the Moorish 
 occupation of Spain. They are screened with hedges of 
 cactus, aloe, and prickly pear, in fashion that suggests an 
 Arab douar. Here and there one passes cork woods, the 
 dark-red trunk showing beneath the stripped bark ; a file 
 of mules, loaded with the produce of the woodlands, plods 
 over the tracks to the music of their own tinkling bells, in 
 charge of a gaily-clad muleteer. Olive and eucalyptus 
 fringe the woods, and in spring the yellow gorse flames 
 along the hill-sides where patches of brilliant broom and 
 iris help to lend variety to the colour schemes. 
 
 Between the stations are the huts of the signal men or 
 women, and as he approaches one of these, the driver always 
 puts on steam and passes at top speed as though to remind 
 the watchers that a train accustomed to stop in railway 
 stations cannot communicate, even distantly, with mere 
 hand-signal folk. There are orchards along the road whose 
 colour in blossoming time is a feast to the eye, and in spring 
 the southern land is so full of flowers that one might think 
 April had showered down roses instead of rain. Even the 
 hard workers seem to enjoy themselves, and to remind the 
 travellers that when the Moors were in Andalusia they 
 raised three crops a year from one field. Now and again the 
 engine runs — no, I should say strolls — through valleys cut 
 
IDLE DAYS IN SOUTHERN SPAIN 25 
 
 in the limestone rock, and there one may look for romantic 
 caves and rushing waterfalls, while the overwhelming white- 
 ness of the earth seems to lend a deeper blue to the sky, a 
 keener freshness to the air. Here and there one passes a 
 bull-farm, where the fierce animals are bred for the Plaza 
 de Toros. You see the bulls feeding peacefully, knee-deep 
 in lush grasses born of the first rains, with some ganadero 
 or bull-farmer — always a horseman and a dandy — watching 
 over their welfare. Anon one encounters a herd of pigs 
 driven by some barefooted lad who is puffing at a cigarette, 
 though in all probability he has not a real to his credit. 
 Poor he may be, and hard-worked, but he has all the sun- 
 shine he requires, sufficient food, of the coarsest kind, and 
 no knowledge of the more complicated problems that come 
 into life side by side with education. So he passes along 
 the dusty road that winds like a white thread amid the fields, 
 singing to his heart's content as he drives his restless charges 
 to pastures new, and the pigs do not mind his singing so 
 long as he finds them roots and acorns in plenty. Sometimes 
 when he has found suitable pasture for his charges, he turns 
 his thoughts to music and plays a pipe, as did the shepherds 
 whom Theocritus has made immortal. 
 
 If you travel far enough on the Spanish railway you come 
 to a really big junction, where trains congregate and a long 
 dejeuner is served in the restaurant. There you may chance 
 to find the train that carries his Spanish Majesty's mails, the 
 *' Oficina Ambulante Servicio de Correos ". It is splendidly 
 blazoned, and is as full of pride as of letters, but it is never 
 in a hurry. I remember some years ago reaching Bobadilla 
 Junction on a journey to the capital. A mail train south- 
 ward bound was in the station. I was preparing to make 
 my way to the buffet when the guard warned me to stay 
 where I was. *' We are not going to stop," he explained, 
 
26 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 *^we are late already." I could see the restaurant and hear 
 the stimulating clatter of spoons against plate ; I saw white- 
 aproned waiters moving with dignity to and fro, laden with 
 the good things of the earth. I felt inclined to let the train 
 go on its way, but in the morning I had wired to a friend to 
 meet me in Madrid, and delay would have cost me twenty- 
 four hours. So I remained as disconsolate as the Peri out- 
 side the gate of Paradise, and far more hungry. Some 
 twenty-five minutes later the engine driver ceased to talk 
 politics with his brother of the mail train and a small group 
 of unshaven patriots, and condescended to accept the long- 
 standing invitation of the signals. When the train reached 
 Madrid on the following morning my friend was nowhere 
 to be seen. Slowly though we had travelled, we had out- 
 paced the telegraph office, and my telegram arrived in the 
 afternoon. Perhaps it was sent by post. In countries where 
 public service is poorly paid, and business is a negligible 
 quantity, stranger things happen, and the secrets of the 
 Spanish post office are as many, though not so gruesome, as 
 those of the Inquisition. 
 
 Even night travel on Spanish trains is full of interest, 
 and the evening colour along the line is splendid. The 
 sunsets, with some wonderful scene painted on a background 
 of gold in manner that recalls the earliest art of the Tuscan 
 School ; the hush that comes over the land with fading 
 light, conjuring up memories of landscapes by Puvis de 
 Chavannes or Camille Pissarro ; the blossoming trees that 
 look like ghosts, and the little girls holding signal lights by 
 the side of butts set at some wood's edge, just as though 
 they were kindly fairies — these are things not to be for- 
 gotten. The journey is not without its troubles. When a 
 station is reached little boys come to the railway carriage 
 to shout, "Agua, Agua". Officious porters will insist 
 
IDLE DAYS IN SOUTHERN SPAIN 27 
 
 upon renewing foot-warmers, though the carriage is already 
 unpleasantly hot. Your .fellow-travellers have a most 
 unhealthy contempt for ventilation, and, in the miniature 
 whirlwind that follows the sudden opening of the carriage 
 window, the ticket tormentor pays a midnight call to do 
 what further harm he can to the uncomplaining piece of 
 pasteboard under the cover of darkness. But as soon as 
 the morning comes, you forget these discomforts, and when 
 you see shepherd or goatherd lying on the grass and pip- 
 ing to some Amaryllis who sits not too far away, you may 
 think for a moment in Milton's words that " Time has run 
 back to bring the Age of Gold ". 
 
 It is time to leave the train now, for to tell the truth the 
 days one spends there are not quite idle. The scene shifts 
 too rapidly ; the call upon the eye and ear are too insistent, 
 and even the Spanish train takes you to your destination, if 
 you will bear with it patiently. For me the two idlest and 
 sunniest cities of Spain are Cordoba and Sevilla, both on the 
 Guadalquivir, both steeped to the turrets in the Moorish 
 tradition. Indeed, Guadalquivir is no more than the native 
 rendering of Wad el Kebir, which is Moghrebbin Arabic for 
 " The Great River ". 
 
 When the train leaves me at Cordoba and ambles off 
 with other travellers bound elsewhere, I like to banish all 
 thoughts of the larger world, and to be as far removed from 
 letters and newspapers as are the monks and hermits of the 
 Sierra Morena, the hills that girdle Cordoba and may have 
 heard the echoes of Rozinante's hoofs when Don Quixote 
 fared abroad to win undying fame for Dulcinea de Toboso, 
 The little city is quite Moorish, almost as Mohammedan in 
 aspect and feeling as it was in the far-ofif days when the 
 Caliphs held sway, when the mueddin looked out over the 
 Court of Oranges, where Abdurrahman's fountain splashes 
 
28 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 still, and when the echoes of his sonorous call to prayer 
 rolled through the Hall of a Thousand Columns. Some 
 seven hundred of these pillars still remain. They are of 
 the rarest marble, and not easily to be seen in the perpetual 
 gloom — a gloom which in the palmy days of Islam was 
 dissipated by eight thousand lamps. Even to-day the 
 Court of Oranges has much of the aspect of the East, and 
 the beggars who sun themselves there or seek the shade of 
 cypress or of palm during the '* hours of fire '' seem to be 
 part of a world that has nothing in common with the 
 twentieth century. 
 
 Cordoba is a city of narrow streets, built to give shade 
 to the passers. There are few windows to the houses, and 
 those are heavily barred. The pavements are cobbled, 
 there are not many vdiicles, even if we include the antique 
 berlinas drawn by mules. The great Mosque has become a 
 cathedral, and its famous chamber, with shell-shaped roof 
 — cut from a single piece of marble, richly inlaid with mo- 
 saics, and once the abiding-place of a world-renowned copy 
 of the Koran — is now a chapel. They say that Charles V 
 seeing the changes made by his clergy, said : " You have 
 erected what any man might have built ; you have destroyed 
 what was unique in the world ". 
 
 In the sleepy market-place, where the glow from the 
 oranges and lemons seems to light up the dark faces of the 
 women who sell them, there are countless little cicadas for 
 sale in tiny cages. The poor little insects have no room to 
 turn round, but they sing as cheerfully as they did among 
 the tree-tops in the days when they were free. Life here, 
 as in other parts of Spain, is full of cruelty ; the indifference 
 to the sufferings of what we are pleased to call lower forms 
 of life is very noticeable. Cordoba has one cafe beloved of 
 the bull-fighting fraternity, where I have seen the famous 
 
IDLE DAYS IN SOUTHERN SPAIN 29 
 
 Rafael Guerra, Spain's greatest bull-fighter, now retired. I 
 remember the days, nearly fifteen years ago, when he was 
 at the top of his form, and could kill as many as nine or 
 ten bulls a day, travelling in order to do so from one town 
 to another by special train. Then he was so well-beloved 
 of the populace that he could draw an income of thirty or 
 forty thousand pounds a year from his poverty-stricken 
 country. To-day he is rich beyond the dreams of avarice — 
 a Spaniard's dreams — and has a great estate outside Cor- 
 doba, this quaint old city wherein, folks say, his father 
 worked as a butcher. You see toreadors in plenty at this 
 same cafe of his special choice, vigorous, athletic men, who 
 wear short coats, open-worked shirt-fronts, and tight waist- 
 bands and have their hair in a pigtail called the coleta. 
 There is a bull-ring close to the railway station, but it is a 
 plaza of the second class, in no way renowned. They say 
 Guerrita swore when he retired that he would fight no more 
 until Spain is a republic. Spain must hurry up. 
 
 In Cordoba you may be idle all day. Time himself 
 seems to drop the hot-toot pace at which he drives the 
 bustling West. Such industries as the place may have are 
 chiefly agricultural. The shopkeepers do not seek custom, 
 and if it come in the hours when they are wont to take 
 a siesta, they positively resent it. I remember visiting an 
 old bootmaker's shop at one or two o'clock in the after- 
 noon, when I should have been asleep. He told me as 
 much, and as my Spanish ran very lamely to apologies and 
 explanations, it was some time before I could get the sorely 
 tried man to accept my expressions of regret. Then when 
 the boots were purchased, he had no change, and wanted 
 me to give him back the boots and come on the following 
 day ! 
 
 In the wayside ventas and ventorillos you find the same 
 
ristfl 
 t 
 
 1 
 
 30 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 attitude. You can have what is to hand and must cheerfully 
 forego the rest. No discipline could be better for the tourist 
 who imagines that the earth and the fulness thereof are at 
 his disposal so soon as he is pleased to loosen his purse 
 strings. Residence in Cordoba would set him right, but 
 then tourists do not visit the town, or if they do, it is only 
 for a night and a day. They see little or nothing of the city 
 in its home aspect, though they may get a glimpse at the* 
 wonderful monasteries, the palaces, hospital, colleges, the 
 prison that was formerly the royal palace of the Alcazar. 
 They can never realize or appreciate the more subtle quality 
 of a city that ranked once as the most important in Spain, 
 home of the first Roman colony in the country, capital of the 
 Moorish dominions, and, even to-day, so conscious of its high 
 descent, that none of the storms which agitate less stately 
 cities can stir its deep content. Learn to accept the lesson 
 Cordoba has to teach, and you have mastered no little part 
 of the art of rational living. 
 
 By night the sereno, or watchman, keeps watch and ward 
 over Cordoba's safety, though it is permissible to suggest 
 that nobody in the city has sufficient enterprise to set up 
 business as a burglar. Indeed, the malefactor, were he 
 young and active, could deal readily with the sereno, who is 
 old and feeble. To be sure he carries a lantern, a spear, 
 and a rattle, but his hardest task is to proclaim the hour in 
 the wake of the city's clocks, to declare that the face of the 
 night is fair or cloudy, and to praise the Maria Santisima 
 from whom all blessings flow. Yet the sereno presents a 
 welcome figure as you stroll into the city in the small still 
 hours from some country-side inn that knows no licensing 
 laws, and will supply all your simple wants until the pro- 
 prietor can no longer keep awake. The sereno will court- 
 eously lead you home if you have lost the clue to the maze 
 
IDLE DAYS IN SOUTHERN SPAIN 31 
 
 streets lying so peacefully under the pale light of the moon, 
 and though he be as poor as the cathedral mice, he is every 
 inch a gentleman, your friend and obliging companion. 
 Even the little tribute that marks your parting does nothing 
 to lower him in his own eyes or yours. 
 
 From Cordoba to Sevilla it is no far cry. You can make 
 a walking journey of it in four days by way of Carmona and 
 
 Alcala, an easy ride in three, and if you are in a hurry a 
 
 most unlikely case— you can ride hard, or if too tired for 
 violent exercise you can take the train. The dusty road is 
 best for all its faults, and for all the roughness of its way- 
 side accommodation. On the road by the Guadalquivir's 
 banks, in a part where some cypress-^trees gave the surround- 
 ing country quite a melancholy aspect, I once met the most 
 tattered beggar I have ever seen. Only the special grace of 
 the Maria Santisima kept his rags together ; his worldly pos- 
 sessions were a staff, a frayed leather wallet, a piece of hard 
 bread, and a couple of oranges. And yet he was as human 
 as that St Felix whom Murillo painted ; his happiness was 
 positively infectious ; he sang an old ballad with a powerful 
 voice that had a good sense of music, and when I gave him 
 a handful of cigarettes and a couple of reals, he took off his 
 tattered hat and vowed he would not change his state with 
 the King. Then I noticed for the first time how beside the 
 cypress-trees the yellow broom was flowering, and that 
 the country-side was full of the sights and sounds and scents 
 of the southern summer, and I knew "it is a pleasant thing 
 for the eyes to behold the sun". When I think that the 
 world has been using me ill, or reflect upon the small 
 quantity of moss that rolling stones collect, I remember my 
 beggar friend by the river bank a few miles out of Cordoba, 
 and contentment follows on the heels of recollection. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVILLA ^f 
 
 IF you would be idle in good company — that is to say, 
 in the company of people who should have sufficient 
 education and resources to make them industrious — Sevilla 
 will give you more satisfaction than almost any city of its 
 size in the world. Laziness there is the order of the hour, 
 the day, the year. One or two streets, like Sierpes, for ex- 
 ample, are closed to vehicles. The clubs and cafes open on 
 to the roadway, and there, shaded from the fierce glare of 
 the sun by the awnings that stretch from roof to roof across 
 the narrow street, you sit at your ease, and to quote the late 
 Dr. Watts, you take no heed of time save by its flight. 
 
 Perhaps a pretty flower girl will beg you to buy a rose or 
 carnation, a beggar will stand making dumb petition by 
 your side, some small boy will off'er you a newspaper, or 
 unfold before you the latest edition of " La Lidia," the 
 bull-fighters' paper, with illustrations in colour, or he will 
 beg for a piece of sugar from the bowl before you. These are 
 the most serious disturbances that are likely to threaten. 
 Towards late afternoon the awnings above the Sierpes are 
 withdrawn, the promenade becomes quite gay, for the 
 Sevillana goes along Sierpes looking her best, not alto- 
 gether unconscious perhaps that she is criticized by connois- 
 seurs all the way down the street. Many a man blessed or 
 banned by a small income that removes him equally from j 
 
 32 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVILLA 33 
 
 want and ambition, idles half his life away here. By the 
 side of the Sevillians who have succumbed to the fascina- 
 tions of Sierpes, Tennyson's "Lotus Eaters " were hard- work- 
 ing men. Of course I do not speak in praise of this 
 habitual idleness ; it accounts in part for Spain's loss of her 
 former estate and for the corruption in high places, but, so 
 far as one is justified in seeking idle days, it is at least per- 
 missible to look for the spot where the art of doing nothing 
 is best understood. One would not go to Sevilla to be 
 industrious any more than one would go to Chicago to take 
 a holiday. Only professed tourists could be guilty of con- 
 duct so utterly indefensible and nobody takes tourists 
 seriously, at home or abroad. 
 
 Talking of these worthy people reminds me that they 
 have their own hotels in Sevilla, large, pretentious places 
 equally redeemed from real comfort and Spanish associa- 
 tions. There they can be fooled to the top of their bent, 
 and deluded into the belief that they have caught a glimpse 
 of the real Spain. The true idler will avoid these places, 
 even though his purse be as long as Midsummer Day. He 
 will seek some modest house that receives a few visitors 
 and makes them comfortable, he will accommodate him- 
 self to the conditions of the country and the customs of 
 its people. He will rise soon after the sun and enjoy his 
 morning stroll while the air is cool and fresh and pious folk 
 are flocking to the earliest service in the cathedral. Per- 
 haps he will explore the cathedral itself, once, says legend, 
 a Temple dedicated to Venus, and later, adds rumour, un- 
 shamed possessor of subterranean chambers, where Holy In- 
 quisition could work its will unseen upon the poor bodies of 
 heretics. Sevilla was the happy hunting-ground of the In- 
 quisitors. Within two centuries they burnt 30,000 people 
 in the name of the Roman Catholic faith. To-day, the 
 
34 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 cathedral is in charge of some really clever vergers to whose 
 skill I bow. When I went there for the first time and ex- 
 pressed a wish to see the different chapels, famous beyond 
 the country's boundaries by reason of their treasures of 
 pictures or precious stones, a verger took me over the first 
 one, pocketed a fee, and then remarked that the key of the 
 next chapel was in the keeping of another man. This one 
 showed me his share of the cathedral's beauties, took a fee, 
 and handed me over to a third rogue who had a chapel in 
 his charge. I grew tired of the game long before I had 
 met half the earnest workers who desired to take part in it. 
 Doubtless I was set down as a heretic. 
 
 But it is not necessary to journey to Spain to find cathe- 
 drals in the charge of grasping and illiterate men, nor can 
 they spoil our enjoyment of what cathedrals have to show 
 us. Southern Spain is full of the genius of Murillo, a master 
 whose limitations are hardly to be seen in the bright light 
 of his favourite city. In an age when Spanish painters 
 seemed to crowd as much ugliness as was possible within 
 the frame of their pictures, it must have been refreshing to 
 find an artist who chose perfectly charming types for his 
 Holy Mothers and Children and reached the simple heart 
 of the people as none did before him and few have done 
 since. 
 
 At Easter-tide one sees in the cathedral the famous 
 dance of the Seises, amid surroundings that are not readily 
 forgotten. Great Church dignitaries are everywhere in 
 evidence, the archbishop with golden crozier, bishops in 
 their mitres, priests in blue and white. Before the high 
 altar the dancing boys are grouped in a semicircle formed 
 by the musicians. These lads are dressed in blue and white 
 doublets, they wear white stockings and long-feathered hats. 
 They sing and dance to curious old-world music belonging 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVILLA 35 
 
 to any age between Palestrina and Gluck, and they mark 
 time with castanets. It is a weird performance of which 
 nobody knows the origin. 
 
 Sevilla has countless charming walks. One can go 
 across the Guadalquivir by the Tower of Gold, once a State 
 Treasury, and so into the Triana where the gipsies live. 
 It is a rare place, rivalled only by the environs of Granada. 
 One can stroll along the river-side to the public gardens 
 that the Duchess of Montpensier took from the grounds of 
 her palace of St. Telmo and gave to the public I remember 
 these gardens when they were very wild and solitary, in part 
 like a jungle, and yet so rich in scent and colour that it was 
 a pleasure to get lost within their mazy depths. Now alas, 
 they are more tidy. The paths are cleaned, the hedges 
 trimmed, the flowers shine from well-ordered beds, and 
 electric trams have a right of way through the home of 
 orange, lemon, and syringa trees. This suggestion of smug 
 prosperity is not nearly so pleasing as the joyful poverty 
 that greeted me, when an idler, I saw the garden for the first 
 time only twelve years ago. 
 
 Then Spain still owned Cuba and the Philippines, but the 
 natives were in revolt and the campaign was spreading dis- 
 tress from Malaga to San Sebastian. There was no public 
 money for gardening work. I remember once how I was 
 taking an early morning stroll through Sevilla when I heard 
 the sound of martial music and hurried in its direction. In 
 the Plaza San Fernando there was a great crowd of women 
 and children on one side of the square, and presently, along 
 the other side, a military band approached. Following, with 
 the red and yellow flags a-flying, came two or three hun- 
 dred recruits marching to Sevilla's southern station to 
 entrain for Cadiz, where the transports lay. Spain had sent 
 her best soldiers already, these were but raw lads, untrained, 
 
36 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 unnerved, unfit, going from the pleasant old city that had 
 sheltered their boyhood to die in the Cuban swamps. And 
 the women, not able to encourage them, were crying bitterly. 
 I had not quite grasped the situation, and turned to an old, 
 tear-stricken peasant by my side. " Where are they going, 
 mother?" I said to her. " To heaven, friend," she replied, 
 and told me that her three grandsons were in the ranks that 
 were passing, and that her two sons had laid down their 
 lives already. 
 
 Since those days I have seen something of war and suffer- 
 ing, but I cannot forget the Plaza San Fernando as it was 
 on that June morning when everything under heaven seemed 
 made for happiness, and was, so far as I could see, full of 
 misery. One realized for the first time perhaps the atmos- 
 phere of the Book of Lamentations. And yet how quickly 
 the scene changed. Two days later one of Spain's great 
 matadors, Espartero or Guerrita, I think, came to Sevilla to 
 kill bulls " in manner that would honour the city," and the 
 crowd took the horses from the great matador's carriage as 
 he was going to the station in the evening and dragged him 
 in triumph through that same square, with lighted torches 
 that put the lamps to shame, and shouts that sent the 
 startled pigeons circling round the Giralda Tower. To-day 
 such an attention would be impossible, your matador rides in 
 a motor-car. 
 
 I would not be so presumptuous as to express a decided 
 opinion about the Spanish temperament. Among the hardest 
 workers I have found industry, thrift, and a serious purpose, 
 but the higher one goes in the social scale, the less one notes 
 of strenuousness. The Catalans have the brains of Spain, 
 the Castilians are contented with the traditions of world 
 supremacy. Where the heat is greatest and the soil most 
 fertile there is a minimum of work. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVILLA 37 
 
 But we had gone for a morning walk before I began to 
 moralize, and only a cock-fight could have kept me out so 
 late. 
 
 The chief objection to cock-fighting in those degenerate 
 idle days lay in the difficulty of getting back to the house 
 under the blaze of the noonday sun. Save for the cock-pit's 
 patrons, the streets would be deserted : from end to end 
 Sevilla knew no shade. But home would come in sight at 
 last, and I would sit at ease among the myrtles, the orange 
 trees and the white acacias in the patio that was kept cool by 
 sunblinds and by a fountain that never ceased from its play. 
 It is so warm in Sevilla that only the very modern houses 
 boast fire-places. The others are content in winter with the 
 use of the copa^ a round brass dish filled with charcoal. When 
 I reflect upon this and upon the English June days that de- 
 mand fires I recall Jean Paul Richter's statement that an 
 English summer is merely winter painted green. 
 
 With half-past twelve breakfast would arrive, and follow- 
 ing that I would pay back to sleep the hours stolen from 
 the morning, and when four o'clock brought shade in the 
 wake of sunlight to the streets, it would be time to dress 
 carefully, and sally forth to ride, drive, or walk, where the 
 life of Sevilla congregated. Among the places worth a visit 
 in the late afternoon was a large barrack-like building stand- 
 ing in a big courtyard, and fronted with iron rails that could 
 be seen from the gardens of the Alcazar. During the heat of 
 the day it would be quiet enough, but towards evening a 
 great crowd would gather by the gates — artisans, idlers, 
 soldiers, all sorts and conditions of men — and women would 
 stream across from the building by the score. It was 
 Sevilla's great tobacco factory. Prosper Merim6e wrote the 
 story of Carmen, who was a cigarrera^ and Bizet set it to 
 music and gave us the delightful and familiar opera that 
 
38 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 takes us all to Sevilla, or as near to it as the stage-manager can 
 contrive. I have seen that opera in many cities, but I have 
 never seen the tobacco factory properly presented, though it 
 is an eighteenth-century building and has not altered since 
 the day when the story was written. I have been over the 
 factory several times, and have seen the cigarreras hard at 
 work, in long, bare rooms, making cigars and cigarettes that 
 are better to look at than to smoke. One sees some of the 
 prettiest heads in all Europe — and the emptiest. The 
 flowers the girls wear in their hair are set aside for the 
 time being, to be resumed when work is done, and the cig- 
 arrera is free to lounge in the gardens, or patronize the little 
 cafes with the rest of Sevilla^s citizens. As a rule she is a 
 very industrious worker, neat and tidy, able to extract the 
 last ounce of effect from the most simple ornament, fond of 
 music, a passionate dancer, and ready to spend an unfair 
 proportion of her earnings upon weekly visits to the plaza 
 de toros. And she walks with a grace that is all to seek 
 outside Spain. Tobacco is a Government monopoly, and 
 is leased to a very influential company ; the piece-work system 
 prevails throughout the factory, and at normal times four or 
 five thousand people find employment within its walls. 
 
 Like most cities beloved of Phoebus Apollo, Sevilla keeps 
 late hours, in fact it may also be said that she turns night 
 into day. By the time dinner is over the air has regained 
 the coolness that left with early morning, the shops light up, 
 as though they really did attach some importance to busi- 
 ness after all, and the city seeks the streets. If you care for 
 the theatre, you can always go and hear three zarzuelas or 
 comic operas for a very little money, and, speaking of these 
 entertainments, so bright, so merry, and so poorly paid, I am 
 reminded that the theatrical world cannot be idle even in 
 Sevilla. I have passed a theatre before ten o'clock in the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVILLA 39 
 
 morning, and heard rehearsals in full swing, and an evening 
 programme thatoccupies four hours is not considered too long. 
 The reward of all this service is quite inadequate. A man 
 who has written the book of music of one successful musical 
 comedy in London can make more money than his Spanish 
 brother receives throughout the days of his life. I suppose 
 the real truth is that the Spaniard has been accustomed to 
 spend so much on bull-fights that playgoing has ceased to 
 be taken seriously, and the stage that gave Europe a Calderon 
 and a Lope de la Vega has fallen upon evil days as far as 
 the remuneration of workers is concerned, though in point of 
 patronage and the activity of dramatists the Spanish stage 
 is more flourishing than our own, as will be suggested in 
 in a later chapter. 
 
 I do not despise the zarzuelas, as the musical comedies 
 are called, but in Sevilla you waste the night in the city. 
 Beyond its boundaries the country is at its best, and you 
 can find a dozen little wayside inns, ventas or ventorillos, as 
 they are called, where all the requirements of an idler are 
 fulfilled. These are very simple, of course. You should 
 want no more than a garden, one or two little arbours with 
 the vine trellised over them so that in vintage-time you can 
 pluck the purple grapes without effort, a bottle of white wine 
 or red, some cigarettes, and a little music. In the country 
 round Malaga I have spent the most enjoyable season of the 
 year watching the grape harvest, but the harvest men and 
 women were so active that I grew quite tired of doing noth- 
 ing. Sevilla, on the other hand, never offended me with 
 suggestions of work when I wanted to be idle. To be sure, 
 in one garden that I favoured with more than common 
 pleasure there was a defect. The place was full of roses and 
 pinks, tobacco plants and sugar-cane, to say nothing of 
 orange-trees, palms, rhododendrons, and one huge saffron- 
 
40 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 tree, pride of the place. There were trellised vines every- 
 where, but my enjoyment was nearly spoilt by the water 
 supply. It was the primitive Moorish well, with water-wheel 
 and bucket and chain apparatus, and as the buckets came 
 up full, they tilted mechanically over the wheel into little 
 sloping ditches that carried the water to most distant corners 
 of the garden. I might have pardoned the ceaseless ac- 
 tivity of the buckets but for the fact that they were worked 
 by an old blindfolded horse that, seemingly, had never 
 known the luxury of an eight hours' day. He was at his 
 hard labour when I went to the venta in the afternoons, and 
 had not always finished when I arrived after dinner. His 
 patient, plodding work seemed to reproach me ; he had 
 never known what it meant to be lazy all the summer 
 through. The hotter the day the more the garden needed 
 water, and I could do no more than sweeten his life by giving 
 him sugar, and bribing his small boy attendant not to ill- 
 treat him. *' Why, he is worn out,'' explained the lad, when 
 first I remonstrated with him. 
 
 There was one other annoyance in this garden. At its 
 far end, in a regular jungle of sugar-cane, palms, and rushes, 
 the bull-frogs croaked incessantly. They would never be 
 quiet. Tonio, the tame stork, used to walk down the garden 
 every afternoon and help to depopulate the marsh, but so 
 soon as the night came, the survivors would assemble, to 
 pass a vote of censure upon Tonio, I suppose, and go through 
 the roll-call in order to ascertain the dimensions of the 
 casualty list. They kept it up till daylight, perhaps later, 
 for aught I know ; I can only answer for the very earliest 
 morning hours. 
 
 At the end of the garden, where it overlooked the highway, 
 there was a pagoda, a flimsy thing enough with coloured 
 glass windows on all but the road side. It had a Moorish 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVILLA 41 
 
 hanging lamp, a little round table, and some benches. I 
 retained it three nights a week, for supper. This meal was 
 served about one o'clock in the morning, or a little later, 
 and was a simple afifair of meat cut into very thin slices 
 and served with salads, fruit, and wine of the district. The 
 pagoda's lamp could be seen for a very long way across the 
 country, and before it had been alight very long, it would 
 attract some wandering guitarrero, one of the tattered 
 musicians who are always to be found on the open road, 
 their guitar and stock of ballads being all their worldly 
 wealth. He would aim for the light as surely as a moth 
 goes to a candle ; perhaps one or two would see it, and then 
 supper would be set to music. And such music, national, 
 characteristic, with mournful Moorish cadences, but withal 
 absolutely fitting the hour and the place. If the singers and 
 players did but know you loved their work, they would keep 
 on, heedless of the hours, and then they would accept a 
 modest gift with all possible courtesy, before they passed 
 singing out of sight and hearing. Even these prosaic nine- 
 teenth and twentieth centuries of ours have their troubadours 
 if we do but know where to look for them. In the mean- 
 time, if there were globe-trotting Europeans in the big hotels 
 of Sevilla, they were being entertained by native guides with 
 mock Spanish dances in the patios of the hotels, or were 
 taken to the cafes that have arisen even in unsophisticated 
 Sevilla to trick tourists. 
 
 During my first stay in this part of Spain, only two men 
 who knew me found me. These very pushful acquaintances 
 invited themselves to my pagoda, so I gave them a Spanish 
 meal of the sort that only a Spaniard dare eat with impunity. 
 There was puchero, of the sort in which garlic plays a 
 strong and leading role ; inigas^ in which breadcrumbs highly 
 seasoned and fried in oil take a prominent part, and gazpacho, 
 
42 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 largely compounded of bread and oil. I had prepared my- 
 self for the ordeal by taking the lightest of dinners, and I 
 could afford to indulge. They couldn't ; the first guitarrero 
 who came along to sing and pla}^ to us was sent on a three- 
 mile tramp to the city to find a cab, and my visitors never 
 troubled me again. I know it was wrong to treat them in 
 this fashion, but desperate diseases require desperate re- 
 medies, and your cockney tourist is a dangerous disease in 
 Sevilla, requiring the isolation of a cosmopolitan hotel. 
 
 Among all the pagoda nights one stands out above the 
 rest. I had invited some friends to the theatre, and to sup 
 with me afterwards, and had engaged a guitarrero whose 
 voice, had it been properly developed, might have made his 
 fortune in opera. Of course it is at least likely that he 
 would not have been so happy as he was while just singing 
 for a bare subsistence. We had supped and were listening 
 to his songs, when we heard the quick beat of a horse's hoofs 
 and a man came down the road at a gallop. " It is the 
 * encierro,' " cried our friend with the guitar, and I re- 
 membered it was a Saturday night, that there was to be a 
 great bull-fight on the morrow, and that the fighting bulls had 
 to be driven to the arena in the darkness. The horseman 
 was hurrying on to warn stray wayfarers to seek hedges, and 
 the drivers of belated vehicles to get off the road as best 
 they could. We stood by the open casement, and soon 
 heard, above the croaking in the marsh, a far-off bellowing 
 and a tinkle that recalled the sounds in an English meadow 
 when the cows are coming home. The noises came steadily 
 nearer, until they resolved themselves into the tramp of 
 great beasts, moving clumsily to the music of cow bells.- 
 Then two horsemen, carrying long poles, came in sight, 
 followed by a herd of tame bullocks escorting the six black 
 fighting bulls of the herd known among bull-fighters as the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVILLA 43 
 
 ** herd of death," because of the damage they have wrought 
 in their time. It would be impossible to bring bulls along 
 the road alone, so they are kept with bullocks on the bull- 
 farms and in the corrales. They get accustomed to the 
 sound of the bells and will follow where the bullocks lead. 
 Behind the massed bulls and bullocks rode a mixed com- 
 pany of the bull-ring patrons, farmers, fighters, amateurs, 
 and friends of the great diestro who was to give additional 
 honour to Sevilla on the following afternoon. Such a sight 
 would be impressive at any time, and in most places ; here 
 under the light of the stars, and the faint glow of the 
 pagoda's lamp, it was one of the most picturesque studies 
 that has ever come my way. The little company moved 
 along the road as far as the bull-ring, beyond which great 
 bonfires were burning, to keep even restless bulls from 
 venturing farther and make them well content to turn. 
 
 I suppose some description of bull-fighting is held to be 
 a part of every record of life in Spain, but I do not propose 
 to say anything here about the actualities of the plaza de 
 toros. They are very ugly, and I cannot conceal their ugli- 
 ness ; indeed, I would not if I could. As far as is necessary 
 some account will be given in a later chapter. Not without 
 very careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion 
 that in bull-fighting, as practised in Spain, the vices outweigh 
 the virtues. When I went to Andalusia for the first time, 
 I saw nothing beyond the supremely vivid picture that the 
 arena affords. The strong light, the gay dresses of the 
 women, the splendid costumes of the bull-fighters, the bar- 
 baric music, the courage of the matador, the strength and 
 ferocity of the bull — these impressions dominate all others. 
 I was sorry in a vague way for the horses, but my senses 
 could not grasp the full misery of their plight, because 
 nobody round me noted it. Only when I returned to Spain 
 
44 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 after an absence of four years did I realize a change. I 
 found myself idle in Madrid, on an afternoon when a great 
 fight was to be held, and I drove out to the crowded Plaza 
 by myself. The animated crowd stirred me as of old time, 
 for Madrid was in full season, and the sight along the road 
 was a splendid one ; but before the fight was half over I 
 was driving home again, to the mingled amusement and 
 contempt of the coachman. 
 
 In the early days I had seen little or nothing of human 
 suffering ; now I realized its meaning, if only to a limited 
 extent, and I went home, wondering how I could have gone 
 at any time to such a degrading spectacle as a bull-fight. 
 Spanish children are taken at a tender age to the arena, and 
 applaud sights that would sicken you or me. Can it be 
 that their parents never realized the horrors, and that their 
 little ones are growing up to be equally ignorant ? When 
 they have reached manhood or womanhood the habit of 
 visiting \h& plaza de toros will be so rooted that they will not 
 think anything of it. I cannot express a decided opinion ; 
 I am content to make the suggestion. It may help to solve 
 a problem that has baffled many people. 
 
 A friend of mine who likes the excitement of the great 
 gathering drives or rides out to the plaza de toros when he 
 is in Spain, and goes early to his seat. There he watches 
 the crowd assemble, and the arrival of the President, enjoys 
 the music of the Spanish National Anthem, the splendid 
 entry of the cuadrillas in their capas de paseo^ the delivery of 
 the toril key to the alguaziles, the triumphant onrush of the 
 first doomed bull. Then he leaves his seat, oblivious quite 
 of the scoffing remarks of rude neighbours, and goes home. 
 
 The only country I know in which bull-fighting has no 
 cruelty worth mentioning is Portugal. In Lisbon, Oporto, 
 and Alges, you can see splendid fights in which no horses 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVILLA 45 
 
 suffer save by accident. No bulls are killed, and no men 
 are seriously hurt. I can still enjoy these mild encounters, 
 particularly when some great Spanish diestro comes across 
 the border, and, being full of contempt for animals whose 
 horns are cased in leather, awaits the bull's charge seated 
 in a chair, or with no other aid than can be given by a 
 slender pole, leaps right over the head of an animal coming 
 down upon him at full gallop. But these matters belong to 
 idle days in Portugal, and though I have placed many to 
 my credit, further reference to them here would be out of 
 place. 
 
 Pan y toros, bread and bulls ! That has been the cry of 
 the Spanish proletariat these very many years. Only lately 
 a ministerial decree forbade bull-fighting on Sundays, but 
 this decree was rescinded, and a nervous Government has 
 given the people their Sunday bulls once more. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CHURCH IN SPAIN 
 
 THE Church in Spain ! Though one or two chapters 
 must suffice me here, how many would be required to 
 enable a writer to deal even briefly with such a stupendous 
 scheme ? When the mind turns to the subject there passes 
 before the mental vision a long procession of kings, princes, 
 popes, cardinals, founders of brotherhoods — some militant, 
 some purely clerical, and others combining both — saints, the 
 record of whose lives thrills us to the heart even now, con- 
 quistadores carrying the sword and the cross to new worlds, 
 there to leave marks on the tablets of time that the traveller 
 may see to-day, ascetics, martyrs, inquisitors — a company 
 whose lines seem to " stretch to the crack of doom ". Ideal- 
 ism, statecraft, bigotry, love, mysticism, cruelty, the cunning 
 of the Jesuit and the simplicity of the little child — all stand 
 on record, and we are left with the overwhelming impression 
 that in all the history of the world the seeds of faith never 
 fell on more prolific soil. Some of the seed ripened into 
 splendid fruit, of which any civilization may be proud, but 
 the greater part of it produced monstrous growths that thrust 
 their roots among the foundations of the Empire and over- 
 turned them. Spain's greatest glories and Spain's greatest 
 shame are associated with her religion. It helped her to 
 conquer the world but compelled her to force illiteracy upon 
 her own people ; helped her to rear the tree of faith and im- 
 
 46 
 
THE CHURCH IN SPAIN 47 
 
 pelled her to nourish its roots in blood ; enabled her to create 
 a great Empire and then brought about its downfall. Even 
 to-day, when the Church in Spain is no more than ^' a remnant 
 most forlorn of what it was," it proves comfort for thousands 
 of sick souls and stifles the moral and intellectual develop- 
 ment of millions. 
 
 The traveller in Spain will be quick to see that, although 
 free-thought is spreading, old-time superstitions retain their 
 grip upon the national mind, and that, while agnosticism 
 flourishes most in progressive districts like Catalonia, the 
 life of the Spanish village is shadowed from the cradle to 
 the grave by the representatives of a once dominant faith. 
 Political parties have attacked the Church again and again ; 
 they have reduced its wealth, cut down its privileges, and 
 restricted the area of its influence. But all these efforts 
 have failed to do more than prune a vigorous tree, and while 
 Castile continues to govern Spain and the leading ladies of 
 the Royal house are more accessible to Church influence 
 than to any other, there will be little change. Should the 
 republicans realize their ambitions, the very foundations of 
 ecclesiastical influence will be uprooted, but the regionalism 
 rampant throughout the country makes united action practi- 
 cally impossible. When the Ethiopian can change his skin 
 and the leopard his spots, all Spain, the north, south, east, 
 and west, will unite in the common cause of progress ; until 
 that day it is at least exceedingly likely that the Church will 
 remain the strongest institution. When Portugal enforced 
 its old Law of Associations a few years ago, and across the 
 Pyrenees France did the same, some attempt was made in 
 Spain to follow suit, but the effort ended in complete failure, 
 and may be said to have strengthened the hold of the Church 
 upon the people. The matrimonial alliance between Spain 
 and Austria, when Alfonso XII married Queen Maria 
 
48 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Cristina, was a tower of strength to the ecclesiastical party, 
 and has remained so ever since to the despair of those who 
 hold a perfectly honest belief that the country's future will 
 depend upon the Church's downfall. It may be noted 
 here that the Church moves nowadays with more caution 
 than it has practised hitherto, though the influence of the 
 Jesuits is very marked in Court and Cabinet. But the iron 
 hand needs a thicker velvet glove than it has ever required 
 before, for while Liberalism is only beginning to rise from 
 its low estate in Spain just now. Commercialism is at a pre- 
 mium, and in the wake of commercial development hun- 
 dreds of remote country districts are coming into practical 
 touch with life for the first time in their history. Nor is 
 the literary activity of Catalonia to be despised. The print- 
 ing presses are hard at work ; there are books in plenty for 
 the small but ever-growing circle that will read them, and as 
 new ideas permeate into a soil wellnigh choked with super- 
 stition, a few at least spring up into active life. 
 
 Let us consider for a moment the influence of the Church 
 upon the Spaniard from his cradle to his grave. A few 
 days after his birth he is taken to the church for baptism, 
 and though in a poor parish, where the priest gets little or 
 nothing for his pains, the ceremony is but a brief one, its 
 neglect would create a sensation. It may be said that con- 
 vention rather than faith is responsible for the ceremony, 
 for there never was a country in which superstition and 
 convention outweighed faith as they do in Spain. Among 
 the upper classes the function of baptism is associated with 
 a mass of ceremonials that is eminently pleasing to the 
 Spanish mind. The ceremony takes place in the nave ; a 
 full choir is employed and the organist is in attendance ; 
 the godmother holds out the infant to receive the holy 
 water on the forehead, oil on the neck, and the cross on its 
 
THE CHURCH IN SPAIN 49 
 
 lips ; the prayers are said in Latin, but the necessary ques- 
 tions are asked and answered in Spanish ; then the names 
 are entered in the parish register and the priest receives his 
 douceur. It has already been remarked that no Spanish child 
 can receive a name that does not figure in the calendar of 
 saints. This church service, though customary, is not obliga- 
 tory, and free-thinkers — a growing class in Spanish towns — 
 register their child in the local alcaldia and contrive to give it 
 some name that no saint has ever enjoyed. It is on record 
 in Barcelona that a gentleman, who combined the principles 
 of free-thought with the practice of anarchy, endeavoured to 
 have his boy named ^* Acid sulfurico " (Sulphuric Acid), after 
 the chemical that is so undeniably useful in carrying out 
 the propaganda of his belief. For reasons best known to 
 themselves, the Government officials refused to saddle the 
 babe with such a burden, and the indignant father was 
 compelled to choose one less significant. After baptism 
 comes an entertainment at the house of the parents — an 
 entertainment in which the alluring, irresistible pastry of 
 Spain plays a worthy part, and the sugar-coated almonds 
 associated with marriage ceremonies are also to be found. 
 Throughout his childhood, the young Spaniard lives on 
 intimate terms with Church ceremonial. He sees the 
 ecclesiastical influence entering into all festivities ; there will 
 be a miniature altar in his mother's bedroom, surrounded 
 by her chain of beads ; he will go once or twice to church 
 on Sunday ; his attention will be called to the religious aspect 
 of the feria; nuns will be among his mother's visitors, and 
 he will be taught to regard them as privileged people. 
 There will be few rooms in his parents' house free from some 
 highly coloured picture of saint or martyr — one of Murillo's 
 most famous Assumptions, often as a vile oleograph in a 
 cheap frame, prominent among them. He will hear the 
 4 
 
50 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Deity and the Virgin invoked daily and see the sign of the 
 cross made on every possible occasion, even upon a loaf before 
 cutting. He will feel even in his earliest years that the 
 Church rules no small part of his parents' lives and will in 
 turn rule his own ; nor will the influence of the priest fail 
 to make itself felt during his schooldays. It may even be 
 that some of his aunts or cousins have already taken the veil 
 and that the prospects of his sisters' doing the same are fre- 
 quently discussed before him. He will not fail to see that, 
 although the Church does not lay open claim to omni- 
 potence, its power to rule the lives around him is not dis- 
 puted. As far as is possible he is kept away from any 
 influence that may tend to corrupt his beliefs, and he learns 
 to regard the Church as the high power to which the order 
 of his present life and the destiny of the future one are irrevo- 
 cably committed. At the most impressionable period of his 
 young life he will be taken on certain days in the year to 
 visit relatives and friends in the religious houses, to find 
 himself in vast sombre buildings still adorned with more 
 than a little of their old splendour, still following the very 
 letter of the regulations laid down by some pious founder, 
 and still possessing to all outward seeming the spirit of 
 tranquillity and contentment that seems to breathe a higher 
 life than ours. He will be taken to see holy relics handled 
 with supreme veneration, and will be taught how, through 
 many centuries of strife and unrest, the religious house has 
 fulfilled its destiny and opened for the elect a path to the 
 world to come. Let us not forget that the Spanish child is 
 highly imaginative, and that life in cities, watched over by an 
 ardent sun, stimulates the imagination to an extent not to 
 be easily realized by dwellers in colder climes. 
 
 The lad passes on to puberty, and finds that the same force 
 that directed his childhood will control his youth. He has 
 
THE CHURCH IN SPAm 51 
 
 walked rather self-consciously through the streets, wear- 
 ing the white badge of confirmation on his sleeve, in com- 
 pany with other lads of his own age and girls all clad in 
 white, and the parish priest has prepared him for his entry 
 into the larger life that the years of puberty spread out be- 
 fore him. He knows that his sisters go regularly to con- 
 fession, and he believes that the intercession of the local 
 saint can save the current of any ambition from turning 
 awry. It may be that he himself will make an occasional 
 visit to the confessional, if the local priest should chance to 
 be a man of commanding personality, although it is only 
 fair to add that the average Spanish boy prefers to entrust 
 nobody but himself with the story oihis pecadillos. Of the 
 light love which comes in his way we need take no account 
 in this place, merely remarking that sun-stricken lands are 
 not conducive to a high standard of sexual morality, and the 
 Spanish boy has far fewer opportunities than an English 
 lad for the active exercise which tends to produce a healthy 
 mind in an active body. But when the time for marriage 
 comes, and the young Spaniard seeks a permanent alliance, 
 he knows that it must be confirmed and regulated by Mother 
 Church, whose influence overshadows this, the most impor- 
 tant moment of his life. 
 
 Civil marriage of the kind so increasingly popular in 
 France and so often met in this country is hardly known in 
 Spain, though of course it obtains in the republican region of 
 Catalonia where the people as a class are opposed to the 
 Church. In the remote villages, where the hand of the 
 parish priest lies so heavily upon the community, civil mar- 
 riage is unknown, and the couple proposing to embark 
 upon the sea of matrimony without the preliminary bless- 
 ing of the Church, would have a very poor time indeed. 
 Their marriage would not be regarded as legal. It is not 
 
52 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 so much an act of religious faith that stands in the way ; it 
 is the tradition and convention that are so much more deeply- 
 rooted than belief. A fortnight before the intended marriage 
 the banns are published in the church, and ere the great 
 day arrives the ceremonies of confession and communion 
 have been gone through by both contracting parties. The 
 marriage celebration seems to be limited only by the purse 
 of the family of bridegroom and bride, and varies from a 
 quaint simplicity that takes due heed of local custom, and 
 is extremely picturesque, up to a heavy, cumbersome, and 
 cosmopolitan ceremonial which must be extremely trying 
 to those chiefly concerned. The Spaniard can hardly be 
 called an ostentatious man, but there are times in his life 
 when he likes to fling restraint to the wind and to impress 
 upon his neighbours the full extent of his capacity for spend- 
 ing money. Marriage is one of these rare occasions and 
 often leaves a little load of debt behind. 
 
 After marriage the Spaniard places the burden of prayer 
 upon his wife's shoulders and hands her over cheerfully to a 
 Church for which he himself has little more than toleration. 
 The average Spanish woman has a large measure of what, 
 for lack of a better term, may be called devotion. She is 
 the most regular patron of the priest. She enters church 
 with covered head ; for failing a hat or the mantilla that she 
 wears with such exquisite grace, she covers her head with a 
 handkerchief As she enters she dips her hand in the font 
 of holy water, and any companions may receive the full 
 effect of its efficacy by touching her fingers and making the 
 sign of the cross with the thumb of the right hand. The 
 action is very rapid and briefer than the elaborate sign that 
 is common in France. Forehead, chin, left cheek, and right 
 cheek mark in turn the limits of the cross, and then the 
 thumb is kissed and the simple ceremony is over. Unless 
 
THE CHURCH IN SPAIN 53 
 
 you look carefully at the woman who enters a church her 
 rapid, furtive action may escape your notice altogether. 
 
 In France and Italy the wayside cross is a common object 
 in the country-side, and it is often a very ugly erection de- 
 signed to stimulate the sense of faith rather than the sense 
 of beauty. In Spain they contrive to make a more fitting 
 appeal to the devout wayfarer. On convent walls, in corri- 
 dors of great factories, like the famous home of Carmen, one 
 encounters little shrines with perhaps rather more scarlet 
 and tinsel than is absolutely necessary to stimulate our 
 sense of colour, and a figure of the Virgin — the local Virgin 
 one might say — with a little lamp before it. The term " local 
 Virgin " will doubtless puzzle many people who do not know 
 that the intensely regional patriotism of the Spaniard classes 
 the Virgin under many heads. There is the Virgin of Pilar 
 and the Virgin of Dolores, the Virgin of Carmen and many 
 others who need not be enumerated, and the Spaniard who 
 worships one of these regards the others as strangers, and 
 will take no account of them. In fact, though his theology 
 teaches him that there is no more than one Virgin, he will 
 be heard to speak very disrespectfully indeed of all Virgins 
 save his own. Throughout Andalusia the full number of 
 Virgins can only be known to the experts of the Church, 
 and it is on this account that the country is called La Tierra 
 de Maria Santisima. 
 
 In the gloomy north, where fear lays its griping hand upon 
 the rank and file, the prospects of death create a consterna- 
 tion that is one of the Church's most valuable assets. Even 
 in the laughter-loving south the approach of the King of 
 Terrors is dreaded, but in the north people fear to die save 
 on the battle-field. Few sights can be more impressive 
 than those that accompany death in a city of Northern 
 Spain. 
 
54 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 When the priest walks in his robes through the dim 
 streets attended after nightfall by acolytes bearing torches, 
 the passers-by kneel at the summons of the bell that is 
 carried in the procession, and they say a credo for the soul 
 now passing beyond all the care and joys of mortal life. 
 Sometimes the priest travels in a closed carriage, moving at 
 a slow pace and surrounded by attendants. The business 
 of the thoroughfare is suspended ; a wave of devotion seems 
 to surge along the narrow way and all the people fall on 
 their knees. On balconies and miradores the women 
 who only a moment ago were holding animated conversa- 
 tion as they scanned people below, relapse into silence 
 and sink upon their knees. In that moment some sense of 
 what awaits one and all penetrates every heart, and even in 
 the districts where the influence of the Church is at its 
 lowest the majority succumb to the passing of death, while 
 the minority bares its head. 
 
 Half of the double entrance door is shut in the house of 
 death, and the bedroom in which the deceased rests is 
 turned into a capella ardiente^ where the corpse lies in an 
 open coffin with candles burning at the head and foot and 
 the cross upon its breast. Round the bed the nuns in the 
 garb of their order, white Carmelites or brown Franciscans, 
 pray ceaselessly for the soul gone to the bourne from which 
 no traveller returns. 
 
 Burial follows upon the heels of death, and in the country 
 districts men and women follow the coffin, while in the 
 town the women remain at home. The funeral ceremonial 
 varies from extreme simplicity to a display that seems to 
 mock the occasion. Among the very poor the State is the 
 undertaker. A one-horse vehicle without attendants carries 
 the coffin to ^^foso comun^ and the dead disappears utterly 
 without so much as the tribute of a wooden cross. High 
 
THE CHURCH IN SPAIN 55 
 
 up in the social scale the order of procedure is very different 
 and simplicity would not be tolerated for a moment. Per- 
 haps one of the great dignitaries of the Church will ac- 
 company the procession ; torches and candles in silver 
 candlesticks issue their feeble challenge to the sun ; the 
 coffin, richly decorated, is carried in a hearse that glitters 
 with silver and glass and is almost covered by masses 
 of beautiful flowers. The trappings of the six or eight 
 horses that take the dead to his last home are as brilliant 
 as money can make them. In the case of a statesman or a 
 great soldier or a Prince of the Church, the military are 
 called out to take part in the procession, and when a Senator, 
 a Deputy, or an Academician departs this life, th.Q comitatzva^ 
 as the procession is called, starts from Senate House, or 
 Academy where, by the permission of the family, the body 
 has lain in state. If the dead should have chanced to have 
 been a great torero, the authorities must be represented to 
 keep in order the vast concourse that has assembled from 
 every part of the city, quite indifferent to the calls of daily 
 labour, to pay the last honours to one who has so often 
 " conferred honour upon the city " by the certainty of the 
 stroke that drove the glittering " espada " through the bull's 
 lungs and heart. 
 
 In Spain, as in other Catholic countries, there is a day of 
 All Saints, and it is set aside by all classes, from the lower 
 middle class upwards, to visit the graves of their dead. 
 The well-beloved of the very poorest have no memorial ; 
 there is no sign by which willing feet and eager eyes can 
 travel to the spot that is above all others sacred. The 
 foso comiin will yield its secret, if at all, to the Angel of the 
 Resurrection, and the prayers that may shorten the period 
 of purgatory for the departed are said by the parish priest 
 who prays for one and all. At the same time those who 
 
56 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 have the wherewithal can not only secure the extra service 
 known as the novena^ nine days after the ordinary burial 
 service, but can also order special masses for departed 
 friends. These vary in length, and presumably in efficacy, 
 from the single mass that costs no more than the widow^s 
 mite can purchase, up to perpetual masses guaranteed for 
 all time to the donor of an altar. All Saints' Day is marked 
 in Spain by rather more reserve than we find in France. 
 Spain has few beautiful cemeteries, nothing to compare 
 with the Campi Santi of the great Italian cities, or the P^re 
 Lachaise in Paris. Certainly the cemetery of San Lorenzo 
 in Madrid has family vaults crowned with fine groups in 
 marble and bronze, and Spain has its Pantheon for those 
 distinguished in State and the Arts, while kings sleep in 
 peace in the lordly Escorial, but the rest of Spain is not 
 endowed with great burial grounds. 
 
 As soon as the country began to recover from the financial 
 depression caused by the troubles in the Philippines and 
 the American War, a great enthusiasm for sculpture de- 
 clared itself; not only the dead who were illustrious— or 
 would have been illustrious if they could — were singled out 
 for distinction and such immortality as marble may confer, 
 but the living were caught in the net of popular enthusiasm 
 — if they did not deliberately seek to be entangled in its 
 meshes. 
 
 It is a custom in Spain for a city to give the honourable 
 title of hijo predilecto (chosen son) to one of its citizens who 
 has gained special distinction in some walk of life. The 
 custom corresponds to the British ceremony of conferring 
 the freedom of a city upon some worthy gentleman who 
 would, as often as not, rather be without it. In the case 
 referred to above the hijo predilecto was a sculptor whose 
 estudio was not exactly groaning under the weight of com- 
 
THE CHURCH IN SPAIN 57 
 
 missions, and it occurred to him — or let us be charitable and 
 say to his admirers — that if he could carve his own statue 
 at the expense of the city, he would provide himself with 
 present occupation, 'adequate remuneration, and immortality 
 of which he could gather the assured foretaste. Unfortun- 
 ately, as Robert Burns remarked, " the best laid schemes of 
 mice and men gang aft agley ". The story reached some 
 witty members of the Fourth Estate, and in place of occu- 
 pation, emoluments, and immortality, the poor hijo predilecto 
 was forced to content himself with a very large allowance of 
 ridicule. But there is something in the idea that deserves 
 attention. There are several men and women in our own 
 country who know full well that they deserve a statue from 
 the town they have honoured by their birth or residence. 
 May the simple little story just told give them the necessary 
 precedent and impetus. 
 
 It has been pointed out that superstition enters largely 
 into the measure of observance accorded to Church ritual in 
 Spain. But superstition is so widespread in its range and 
 so gross in its character, that some examples may well be 
 set down in detail. 
 
 In the Monastery of (juadelupe there is a fine collection 
 of pictures by Zurbardn, the great mystic of Spanish art, and 
 a few years ago, when an exhibition of the master's work 
 was held in Madrid, it was decided by the authorities to 
 borrow these pictures. The monastic heads were quite 
 willing, but the villagers were well assured that misfortune 
 would follow if they were removed, and it was necessary to 
 send a company of the Guardia Civil to the spot to protect 
 those who were entrusted with the removal of the works 
 around which a perfect network of most fanciful superstitions 
 was woven. 
 
 Although the Church looks askance at the belief in witch- 
 
58 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 craft, and does all it can to discourage it, the countryman 
 in Spain has a devout belief in wizards and witches. Dreams 
 are full of significance for him ; he seeks protection from 
 evil spirits and from the Evil Eye ; some natural events 
 betoken good fortune, others are held to be the precursors of 
 disaster. In the south, where superstition is no whit less 
 rampant than in the north, snakes are regarded with special 
 horror ; the mere mention of their name is sufficient to make 
 the hearer cry *' lagarto^ lagarto'' (lizard), and stretch out 
 the first two fingers of his right hand. Only in this way 
 can some terrible disaster be averted. Your bull-fighter is 
 the most superstitious of men, and although he will face a 
 bull that is mad with pain and fury, he will turn pale with 
 terror if one of the bulls emerges from the toril in an uncon- 
 ventional manner. The matador himself, when he takes 
 espadaand muleta for his final encounter with the bull, wets 
 the tip of his finger with his tongue and applies that finger 
 to the point of the sword, knowing that in this fashion alone 
 can he avoid the dreaded cogida. Cogida is a portmanteau 
 word, and is used to express the accident that befalls when 
 the bull manages to reach the matador. Every great diestro 
 has endured a cogida, and to a few the experience has been 
 fatal. 
 
 Superstition enters into some alliance with the Church in 
 the frequent use of the sign of the cross to avert disaster, 
 imaginary or real. This sign is often made when startling 
 intelligence is conveyed to women even of the educated 
 classes. 
 
 Far worse than these forms of superstition are those that 
 obtain in the very remote country districts where priest and 
 doctor — to say nothing of the schoolmaster — are quite 
 powerless to deal with customs that would seem to precede 
 the dawn of civilization. In such places the influence of 
 
THE CHURCH IN SPAIN 59 
 
 the local wise man or wise woman is a terrible power for 
 evil. Parents take their sick children to these people and 
 follow horrible prescriptions that cannot be set down here, 
 with the result that the small sufferers can have no better 
 fortune than to die quickly. Witchcraft, like everything 
 else in Spain, is regional and consequently exercises a far 
 more potent sway in the gloomy north than in the sunny 
 south ; here one finds a measure of native humour that acts 
 as a more potent counterblast to the words of wise men and 
 wise women than all the thunders of the Church. 
 
 It is impossible to close this chapter without reference to 
 the sinister part played by the Jesuits in Spain. Their 
 influence rules Court and Cabinet even to-day, and it extends 
 through all classes of the community : the confessional being 
 beyond a doubt the medium through which their work is 
 done. Once the Jesuit has gained the ear of the house, he 
 will retain it for all time. Indeed, there is a Spanish saying 
 to the effect that the Jesuit can always have the ownership 
 of the house in which he has been permitted to hang up 
 his hat. Some of the Jesuit confessors in Madrid have an 
 extraordinary following among women of the highest class^ 
 and it is notorious that they use their influence for purely 
 political purposes. If it were not that the personal note 
 is out of place in a work like this, chapter and verse 
 could be given. At the same time it must be confessed 
 that there is nothing in Spain so finely ordered, so splendidly 
 controlled or carried out with a clearer conception of vital 
 aims regardless of the means to the end, than the order of 
 Jesuits. The hand that is nowhere seen is everywhere felt, 
 and if the tremendous forces of Jesuitism had been devoted 
 with equal success to Spain's progress, the country would 
 probably compare favourably with any in Europe. 
 
 As things are, the organization, pertinacity, and loyalty 
 
6o HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 of the Jesuits has postponed their downfall indefinitely, and 
 while their practical qualities remain as they are to-day, 
 he would be a bold man who would venture to predict 
 the downfall of the order in Spain. Indeed, it has received 
 valuable and unexpected support in high places during the 
 past few years, and is stronger now than it was some 
 years ago. But if Sefior Maura was in earnest when he 
 denounced the famous treaty between Liberals and Con- 
 servatives, the treaty that has kept progressive parties out 
 of power in Spain, the day of reckoning may come within 
 our time. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CHURCH FESTIVALS 
 
 THE ritual of the Roman Catholic Church, always rich 
 and stately, seems to reach its culminating point on 
 the occasion of an important Festival. Not only are the 
 great wealth and vast tradition of the Church made manifest 
 to those who crowd the streets, but the processions appeal 
 in varying degree to all classes. Even those who have no 
 well-established religious feeling seem to take a certain 
 measure of delight in the splendour of what they have come 
 to regard as the outward and visible sign of the wealth and 
 importance of the National Church. The devout look upon 
 Church Festivals with a certain quickening of their sense of 
 patriotism. 
 
 Church and State being so closely united in Spain, an 
 added splendour is often given to processions by the presence 
 of the Spanish soldiery in bright uniforms, and it may well 
 be that the ruling powers have a distinct political motive in 
 displaying to a public, that tends in many parts of Spain to 
 become irreligious, the strength of the forces that they must 
 combat. In the conflict that the twentieth century must 
 witness quarter will neither be asked nor granted, and when 
 occasion arises to put an enemy of Mother Church out of 
 the way, his place will know him no more. The murder of 
 Sefior Ferrer last year was eloquent testimony to this truth. 
 The Spaniard is too keen an observer of the currents of his 
 
 6i 
 
62 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 own national life to permit the significance of the union of 
 Church and State to escape him, though of course his gay 
 and irresponsible temperament may not allow the lesson to 
 be very lasting. As a rule Church processions are associated 
 with the^m^^ and here again the wisdom of Mother Church 
 is manifest. She has chosen to relate her special functions 
 to all the great occasions of the Spaniard's life, and to take 
 her place by his side at times of joy as well as at seasons of 
 sorrow, even although her presence be unsought. 
 
 Before entering into the details of any procession, it is per- 
 haps best to indicate the seasons in which the chief ones take 
 place, and give a list of the chief Spanish holidays. 
 
 The New Year (Afio Nuevo) is not associated with any re- 
 ligious festivity, but friends exchange cards and presents : 
 the spirit of good-fellowship, which seems to have taken up 
 its permanent abode in Spain, is very much in evidence, and 
 the shops make a brave show. 
 
 The approach to Lent is marked by the Carnival, which 
 is greeted no less heartily in Spain by all classes of the 
 population than it is in every other Roman Catholic country. 
 Perhaps of all the cities that celebrate Carnival, Madrid and 
 Valencia may be said to treat the occasion most effectively. 
 In Valencia, the city of orange groves, the wonderful trees are 
 a-flower when Carnival comes round, and the fete des fleurs 
 presents scenes of indescribable beauty. A spirit of youth 
 settles upon the city while Carnival rules, everybody is young, 
 and if there be a trouble in the world it hides carefully from 
 sight. Not only are the people joyful, but the happiness of 
 every man, woman, and child seems to depend upon the 
 happiness of everybody else, and he is best pleased who can 
 make others happy. Carnival lasts three days, and one of 
 the quaintest customs associated with it in Madrid is the 
 " Burial of the Sardine " (enterrando la sardind), the subject 
 
CHURCH FESTIVALS 63 
 
 of one of Goya's famous cartoons. In old times the sar- 
 dine, which must play such an important part on the table 
 during Lent, was solemnly interred, and the sorrow of the 
 burial was drowned in drink. Nowadays the burial is for- 
 gotten, but the sorrow is kept away in the old familiar 
 fashion. Only in Lent need the Spaniard fast on Fridays, 
 for in response to the intercession of an old-time Cardinal 
 Archbishop of Toledo, one of the Popes was graciously 
 pleased to grant all Spain a dispensation against Friday fast- 
 ing. Some of the very devout still prefer to keep on the 
 safe side, but the majority are quite content to accept the 
 papal assurance that they need not trouble themselves. Mi- 
 Careme is unknown in Spain. 
 
 Palm Sunday is specially associated with confirmation, 
 and white-robed children are seen everywhere. On Palm 
 Sunday, too, the priest blesses the palm leaves that are to 
 be fixed for a twelvemonth to the balconies and rejas of 
 the house. Among the lower classes the ramo santo is be- 
 lieved to act as a lightning-conductor, but its full efficacy in 
 this direction has apparently been overlooked by the scientific 
 world. Perhaps now their attention is called to it they will 
 investigate the matter carefully, for even granting that the 
 less orthodox conductor serves its purpose very well, the fact 
 remains that the dried leaves of the palm never quite suc- 
 ceed in losing their beauty, and the average lightning-con- 
 ductor of these islands is a poor thing to look upon. 
 
 Following Palm Sunday comes the great religious occa- 
 sion of the Spanish year — Easter. Holy Week is a time of 
 mourning in Spain, a season of abstention from the joys of 
 life. Early on the Thursday morning before Good Friday 
 shops are shut ; it is impossible to buy meat during the 
 next three days. Theatres are closed ; the houses of public 
 entertainment receive their patrons only at stated hours. 
 
64 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Gloom clothes the city. During Thursday afternoon and 
 on Good Friday, between the hours of twelve and three, the 
 recollection of the tragedy consummated in Palestine nearly 
 two thousand years ago seems to weigh heavily on every 
 living thing. The stranger finds himself in a city of the 
 dead, traffic is suspended in the streets ; the few carriages 
 that pass are those of the doctor and the priest. In the 
 churches the altars are shrouded in black, and from the bel- 
 fries the carillon echoes through the city in strangely 
 muffled tones. 
 
 On Easter Sunday (Domingo de Gloria) the city wakes 
 to a new mood. Joy has taken the place of sadness. 
 Where mourning prevailed gaiety rules. The old national 
 costumes — rich lace, black mantillas, and black silk dresses — 
 were worn by the ladies of the upper classes on Maundy 
 Thursday and Good Friday. For once the French " toques " 
 had disappeared ; the mantilla resumed its beautiful and 
 lawful sway, and the spirit of the city was the spirit of old 
 Spain. Easter Sunday changes all that ; the women resume 
 their wonted modern finery. Under a cloudless sky, to the 
 sound of bells, the city moves joyfully in pursuit of relaxa- 
 tion. Cafes and theatres open their doors and the day in- 
 vades the domain of night, and night responds with a 
 counter-invasion. In the afternoon the corrida de toros is 
 thronged and packed to witness the first formal bull-fight of 
 the season ; the most illustrious matadors available lead 
 their cuadrillas into the arena ; the taste for blood is catered 
 for lavishly ; it may be that upwards of twenty horses and 
 six bulls will be done to death. 
 
 Following Easter-time comes the Dos de Mayo, a festival 
 dating from the time of the French invasion in 1808 and 
 also recorded by Goya. The spirit of regionalism prevailing 
 throughout all Spain does something to diminish the popu- 
 
CHURCH FESTIVALS 65 
 
 larity of this' llbliday, for the • massacre it commemorates 
 occurred in Madrid, and every good Spaniard outside the 
 Castiles wants to know why nothing more important than 
 a mere happening in Madrid should justify a public holiday. 
 If massacre had been universal so that every city and village 
 had suffered, he would welcome the holiday with a far better 
 grace, and doubtless had Napoleon's legionaries understood 
 the proper spirit of the country they were endeavouring to 
 subjugate, they would have done their best to make the 
 holiday more popular. 
 
 Following the Dos de Mayo comes the great early summer 
 feast of the Corpus Christi. This is celebrated all over 
 Spain, but the traveller who wishes to see the most elab- 
 orate ceremonial should go to Toledo, where the feast of 
 the Corpus Christi is associated with the annual feria. At 
 this time of the year the famous Toledo apricots, with their 
 sweet kernel, are newly ripe, and to the lover of fine fruit 
 they are worth the journey to Toledo from any part of 
 Spain. 
 
 All Saints' Day (Todos los Santos), on which the Spaniards 
 visit the graves of their relatives, is the next great festival, 
 and comes with the fall of the year ; but between Corpus 
 Christi and Todos los Santos there are many provincial 
 celebrations that have a national character, such as the day 
 of Santiago, celebrated in Galicia, the day of San Lorenzo 
 in the Escorial, of the Virgin of the Pilar in Saragossa, and 
 the day of Dolores in Sevilla, as well as the feast days of 
 the Ascension, the Assumption, and other Catholic calendar 
 festivities. 
 
 Christmas Eve (Noche Buena) and Christmas Day 
 
 (Navidad) are the final public holidays of the year. 
 
 Booths are set up in many of the cities and villages and 
 
 lighted at night by flaming naphtha lamps, around which 
 
 5 
 
66 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 the populace congregates as readily as the moths, but with 
 less fatal effect, until the small hours crawl up. Nougat 
 {turron) is the special sweet associated with this occasion. 
 The Christmas tree has no place in Spain, but the occasion 
 IS celebrated on behalf of the children by navidades — card- 
 board or plaster representations of a landscape supposed to 
 be Bethlehem, with certain figures that represent the Holy 
 Family and the donkey upon which the Infant Christ is said 
 to have been carried out of Herod's reach. Some of these 
 toys can be bought for the equivalent of a few pence, while 
 others, far more ornate and carefully made, command quite 
 a high price. It may be remarked in this place that the 
 Spanish child is most fortunate in the matter of toys. Toy 
 shops exist in abundance, and the prices at which the various 
 trifles are sold are ridiculously low, so that the poorest 
 child can rely upon a well-stocked nursery, and the Spaniard 
 has learned to understand that most children care more for 
 quantity than quality, and would rather have a dozen toys 
 that cost half a crown than one that cost ten shillings, as 
 the breaking of the expensive plaything would be regarded 
 seriously. The itinerant toy dealer is quite a familiar figure 
 in Spanish parks and gardens, and if the truth is to be told 
 without fear, let it be whispered that the father of the family 
 may be seen upon occasion joining his children at their 
 games with a measure of interest and enthusiasm that is 
 quite open and unashamed. He is pleased to remember the 
 days of his youth. Perhaps he remembers Agesilaus the 
 Spartan who, caught " playing at horses " with his children 
 by a young man, said, " Tell no one until you are a father 
 yourself". 
 
 Shops assume their brightest aspect on the occasion of 
 Noche Buena, and one of their chief exhibits is the Christmas 
 hamper — an open basket, profusely beribboned and holding 
 
CHURCH FESTIVALS 67 
 
 a splendid ham — probably from some lusty porker that 
 lived a purely idyllic life among the acorns that autumn 
 strewed with such profusion across his path — sausages into 
 whose mysteries no wise man pries, potted meats that 
 have for the most part been imported from abroad, a bottle 
 or two of fine old wine or sherry, potted fruit from 
 Aragon, some game and some sweets. Perhaps the hamper 
 may even boast one of the splendid turkeys that the country 
 folk drive in flocks through the city streets, to sell to passers- 
 by or to housewives on the doorstep. If it were not for 
 fear of making Englishmen envious, one would not conceal 
 the fact that a really beautiful bird in splendid condition can 
 be bought in the streets of a Spanish city {or five shillings. 
 Think of that, good English housewives, whose turkey, no 
 better in flavour and hardly heavier, has been reckoned 
 cheap at twenty-five, and gather from the comparison some 
 hint of the difference between the cost of food in England 
 and Spain. Remember, too, that the consumos or food duties 
 in Spain are high. 
 
 The hampers to which reference has been made are 
 given very freely by the wealthy to those whose financial 
 circumstances are straitened, and are of course specially re- 
 served for families whose share of the good things of life is 
 known to be small The Christmas gifts do not end here. 
 The struggling clerk, and even the well-salaried manager of 
 a wealthy house, may rely upon receiving a substantial 
 Christmas gift, indeed, it is quite common to hear of the 
 former receiving a full month's salary as a Christmas box. 
 This is the more useful to him because he in his turn is 
 preyed upon by every man who performs, or is merely paid 
 to perform, small public services. The lamplighter, the 
 scavenger, the tradesman's assistant (who as often as not 
 brings round a present from the tradesman), the postman 
 
68 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 who has delivered some of your letters and lost the rest, the 
 telegraph boy who has brought you one or two wires which 
 the operator in a distant city sent by post in order that he 
 might pocket the fee, the newspaper boy, the beggar whom 
 in a moment of benevolence you have patronized — one and 
 all are on your doorstep to share your Christmas joy and 
 emoluments, and it is only the generosity of the rich to the 
 lower middle classes which enables the heavy load of impo- 
 sition to be borne, though, let it be said, that while the 
 Spaniard has he will give. His generosity is proverbial. 
 
 The Spanish holidays have now been passed in very 
 brief review, and it becomes possible to turn from general 
 consideration to the details of some of the great processions 
 associated with the Church, for they cannot be passed over 
 lightly in any attempt to picture the ceremonial side of 
 Spanish life. In this country we have, alas, nothing 
 worth mentioning. Only in the past year or two have the 
 ancient glories of the pageant been revived in our midst. 
 Spain, on the other hand, has never lacked her pageants, not 
 only in historic cities like Sevilla and Valencia, but in re- 
 mote villages where they can only be arranged by the aid 
 of some personal sacrifice, however small, on the part of 
 those who assist. A Spain without pageant is unthinkable, 
 and not a little of the spirit of contentment and mirth that 
 thrives in the sorely tried country is due to the interesting 
 processions which play a great part in preserving the regional 
 spirit of the country. Many a custom that might be for- 
 gotten, many a costume that has long passed from regular 
 use, is kept alive by the pageant, and though much of the 
 picturesque aspect of Spanish life has passed away, those 
 who wish to realize what it was like in the times when 
 Spain was a great world-empire, can find all the material 
 they need by travelling from one Church pageant to another, 
 
CHURCH FESTIVALS 69 
 
 entering into the spirit which pervades it, and seeking for 
 information from those who have made a life-study of the 
 special institutions of their province. 
 
 Who having been in Sevilla during Holy Week (Semana 
 Santa) will ever forget the experience? The writer has 
 spent Easter in many cities, Florence, Rome, Jerusalem, but 
 the memory of Semana Santa in Sevilla has mastered other 
 memories, as the serpent of Aaron is said to have mastered 
 the serpents of the magicians at the court of the Egyptian 
 king. For the spring comes in happiest guise to Andalusia, 
 summoning flowers innumerable to the field and blossoms 
 in varied profusion to the orchards. Birds sing in the air 
 and cigarrons from the high tree-tops, while in the marshes 
 of the Guadalquivir the bull-frogs add their croaking 
 chorus to the melody of day and night. Is there any 
 night in the Andalusian spring? The question is not 
 readily answered, for before the simple pleasures of the 
 evening have passed away the east is reddening and an- 
 other day full of the joy of sunshine has returned. Time 
 is a thing of no account, and no wise man pauses to count 
 the hours that lead him in dancing rhythm along the flower- 
 strewn road of life. There is some subtle quality in the 
 air itself that stimulates like the golden manzanilla in the 
 tiny glasses {copitas) that seem ever to lie within his reach. 
 There is a perennial sense of fragrance born in the river-side 
 garden to perfume the air until the white city lies quivering 
 in the ardent embrace of full-blown spring. Everybody is 
 gay, from the beggar in his rags on the sunny pavement 
 by cathedral or Caridad, through the ranks of those who 
 surrender their lives to the leisure of club and caf6 on 
 the Sierpes, up to the old nobility, whose mansions, gloomy 
 though they may be at first sight, yield exquisite glimpses 
 of fountained patios ablaze with brilliant flowers. He who 
 
70 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 cannot be happy in the Andalusian spring must surely 
 bear the weight of a sorrow for which the world itself holds 
 no anodyne. With the approach of Semana Santa, the 
 city of Saints Justina and Rustina, the amiable ladies for 
 whose portraits Goya employed two courtesans to sit, wakes 
 to a sudden access of feverish life. Such little business as 
 holds the city at other times is forgotten now. The talk 
 is all of processions and pageants and the coming feria in 
 the Campo de San Fernando. Visitors flock to Sevilla from 
 all the touring quarters of civilization, and the worthy 
 managers of hotels stretch their accommodation beyond all 
 reasonable limit and try to lift their scale of charges as 
 high as the golden Virgin of the Giralda Tower. As the 
 great days approach the city seems to don the garment of 
 festivity. Is it imagination, or did the streets never seem 
 so gay, the white walls never so bright, the flowers on the 
 balconies never so fresh? Young and old, rich and poor, 
 sick and sound, are united in paying the homage of glad- 
 ness to a great occasion ; all enjoy to the full the gifts that 
 the city spreads before them. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of these preparations, the Holy 
 Days arrive, and for a little while the city lays aside its high 
 spirits. Just as in old days when the Roman Emperors 
 triumphed through the streets of the world's greatest city, 
 amidst scenes whose splendour our century cannot match, 
 there was one in attendance on the imperial car whose duty 
 it was to remind Imperial Csesar that he too must die, so 
 the Church seizes the occasion of a city's exuberant mirth 
 to sound its solemn warning in every ear. Merriment is 
 hushed, and along streets in which all regular traffic is 
 suspended, religious processions, full of the suggestion of 
 pain and mourning, pass through the awe-struck crowd, 
 bearing aloft reminders, terrible in their realism, of the 
 
CHURCH FESTIVALS 71 
 
 Tragedy of Calvary. In the cathedral, whose perennial 
 gloom is deepened by shrouded altars and solemn candle- 
 light, the Archbishop of Sevilla, clad in his simplest vest- 
 ments, and attended by a host of dignitaries of the Church, 
 celebrates High Mass. Ceremonial and costume seem to 
 belong to another world, another century, an earlier stage 
 in the development of the human mind. Fasting and prayer 
 and penitence are in evidence on every side ; it is with a 
 sense akin to wonder that the traveller sees the sun still 
 shining, hears the birds still singing, and realizes that Nature 
 has refused to play her part in the fantastic pageantry that 
 holds the city in a vice. Maundy Thursday passes, Good 
 Friday brings deepening depression in its train and sees the 
 startled tourist wandering uncomfortably about the streets 
 in which, as he is fully conscious, he plays no more than a 
 ridiculous part. He is in the city but not of it — a heretic 
 whose sentence is pronounced by the thousands who pass 
 him without comment, without notice. Holy Saturday 
 does no more than intensify his loneliness. He can do 
 no more than stand with bared head as the processions 
 move by, and feel glad that he has not been conducted to 
 the city gates and thrust beyond them as an alien and an 
 undesirable. And on the Sunday he awakes to a new 
 world. Had he been about on the Saturday night he 
 would have known before retiring that the hour of change 
 had struck, but in all probability he did not dare to venture 
 into the streets. 
 
 Those who keep bees know that, for a little time before 
 the swarm leaves the hive, the abode of honey is a place of 
 anxiety and of silence. Then on a sudden the swarm leaves 
 the hive, the air is full of music, as thousands of workers 
 claim the only holiday of their lives. Sevilla is a bee-hive 
 in Holy Week and gives up its swarm on Easter Sunday 
 
72 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 when one and all fill the streets, the sense of unrest and 
 gloom forgotten, the appetite for enjoyment kindled by the 
 three days of abstinence. In the Campo, where the feria is 
 held, it is difficult to force a passage. Every figure that 
 plays its part in Spanish country-life, each amusement 
 that the Spaniard loves, every dainty in which he indulges, 
 is spread before him. A city of many thousand souls is 
 making holiday in fashion only possible to those fortunate 
 people in whose life sunshine is partner throughout the 
 year. Even the tourist forgets his troubles, while rank and 
 file of those who make profit out of the feria endeavour to 
 prove to him that he need not stay in his hotel to be robbed. 
 If he be a man of blood he may see a score or so of horses 
 disembowelled and half a dozen bulls killed in the arena 
 under the Giralda's shadow, or the Arrebola will supply him 
 with the miniature bloodshed of the cockpit, while if he be 
 a man of peace \h^ feria will hold him long into the night, 
 and should he wish to sup he can seek one of the ventas 
 along the Guadalquivir road and hire a minstrel or two to 
 sing him songs of Spain to the accompaniment of a guitar. 
 He can see real Spanish dancing, either in the Campo de San 
 Fernando or in the Triana across the river where the gipsies 
 live, or in one of the cafes in or round the Sierpes, while at 
 the big hotels the gentlemen of dubious professions, who, 
 with a fine regard for euphemism call themselves guides, 
 will provide an entertainment to which they give the title 
 of Spanish dancing, though costume and movements are as 
 far removed from the real thing as a mule is from a thorough- 
 bred Arab. Should he desire entertainment of another sort 
 there will be zarzuelas (musical comedies) at more than one 
 theatre, and though he cannot hope to enjoy the good 
 points so frequently made unless he chance to know some- 
 thing of Spain in its manifold regional aspect, he will at 
 
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CHURCH FESTIVALS n 
 
 least hear pretty music and see delightful costumes. The 
 religious spirit, if one may be truly said to have existed in 
 the three doleful days that have passed, is entirely forgotten. 
 Mother Church has retired within her boundaries ; her altars 
 are out of mourning, the ghastly dummies of her procession 
 are gone into hiding with the hideous masks that covered 
 their attendants, and the only suggestion of a religious 
 Spain is to be found in the grounds oi\}s\^feria where count- 
 less plaster images of saints and virgins find a ready sale. 
 
 Although Holy Week has its fixed limits in the diary of 
 the ecclesiastical authorities, its spirit lingers a little beyond 
 the appointed time in the city itself. Hotel proprietors, 
 restaurant keepers, and shop managers will not lightly leave 
 their golden harvest. The city is full of strangers ; these 
 strangers are absurdly wealthy or they would not have come 
 to the city ; it is necessary then to see that they pay 
 appropriately for their privilege, and on this account Semana 
 Santa prices persist, and until the tourist is tired of yielding 
 to them there is no return to ordinary market conditions. 
 The feria persists for a full fifteen days, starting on the 
 Sunday before Easter and only beginning to pass when the 
 last day of Semana Santa is a week old. Even then the 
 break up is but a gradual affair, and is limited very largely 
 to the section that has sold its wares or has engagements to 
 keep in another part of the country. The roundabout, 
 known by the curious title of tio vivo (lively uncle), is work- 
 ing just as long as it can command a sufficient number of 
 paying guests, while the stalls which supply food-stuffs that 
 can be bought in the city linger in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of the " lively uncle ". Gipsies and horse-coupers are 
 also very persistent, for the great Romany family has its 
 head-quarters near at hand, and numbers among its ranks 
 some of the cleverest horse-thieves and horse-coupers in 
 
74 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Europe. After the first fortnight the feria prices suffer a 
 considerable decline, and many poorer visitors arrive to take 
 advantage of the reduction, as people in England go to a 
 flower show or bazaar on the last day. Surely the hope of 
 bargains springs eternal in the human breast. 
 
 It must not be supposed that Sevilla has relied exclusively 
 upon foreign patronage during the Semana Santa. Wealthy 
 Englishmen and Germans have been very much in evidence, 
 and a certain number of Americans have returned to their 
 old home to find memories of the Spanish-American War 
 quite obliterated among those who are in business, and know 
 that the American on holiday does not count his change. 
 But during its Holy Week, and the week following, nearly 
 every great Spanish centre has sent its hundreds to the city 
 from all points of the compass. The tren botijo with its 
 liberal garnish of water-bottles and its indescribable odours 
 of food at blood-heat, has crawled daily and nightly into 
 one or other of the terminus stations, and a huge crowd of 
 pleasure-seekers drawn from the lower orders has hunted 
 cheerfully through the poor quarters of the city for such 
 cheap lodging as it may chance to afford. They are not 
 entirely on pleasure bent, these new-comers ; some of them 
 have arrived with the fullest intention of growing rich in a 
 hurry ; a few are likely to make the intimate acquaintance 
 of the town's carcel which would hardly accommodate all 
 who deserved to enjoy its rigorous hospitality. But when 
 the worst has been said it may be doubted whether Holy 
 Week in Sevilla brings together as unsavoury a crowd as 
 the average English race-course can show, and considering 
 the size of the mixed multitude that invades the city, crimes 
 against the person are singularly few. The last Spanish 
 brigand died years ago ; his descendant keeps an h8tel or 
 posada or serves the railways as a ticket inspector. 
 
CHURCH FESTIVALS 75 
 
 One charming custom associated only with the Andalusian 
 feria must not be forgotten, and that is, the custom among 
 the upper classes of having their own tent at \}s\q feria and 
 entertaining friends there. A certain part of the Campo 
 de San Fernando is railed off for the convenience of these 
 tiendas and the most charming hospitality, often of the al- 
 fresco kind, is practised there. Needless to say the grandees 
 bring their own liveried servants and entertain en prince^ 
 while the splendour of the costumes worn by the ladies in 
 the enclosure recalls, though it does not rival, the scenes at 
 Ascot and Goodwood. Seville has one notable advantage 
 over the English resorts named, the weather in Southern 
 Spain at Easter-tide is certain to be fine ; you can arrange 
 to hold picnics on any day in April with the full knowledge 
 that the sun will shine upon your gaiety. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH 
 
 WE have considered the position that the Church holds 
 in Spain from the point of view of the man who 
 feels its influence, and now it is time to consider the Church 
 itself and those who minister to its service, from his Grace 
 the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of all the 
 Spains, down to the unwashed and seldom-shorn parish 
 priest who combines a little poaching and an occasional 
 convivial evening with ministration to erring souls, and, 
 whatever his faults, is often a cheerful companion and good 
 friend. 
 
 Just as Madrid is Spain*s chief political centre, so the 
 picturesque city of Toledo is the ecclesiastical head-quarters 
 of the country, though as it is within a short journey of the 
 capital where the Papal Nuncio is stationed it is not easy to 
 say where the various decrees of Mother Church are formu- 
 lated. A tren correo can cover the distance between the two 
 cities in a couple of hours. There are nine Archbishoprics 
 in Spain, and each archbishop is responsible only to Rome 
 and to the Minister of Grace and Justice in Madrid. Nomin- 
 ally the Government appoints to the archbishoprics; in 
 reality the Papal Nuncio has a very large voice in the selec- 
 tion ; the Vatican and the Palacio Real work hand in glove, 
 knowing they stand together. Among the cities that have 
 archbishops are Toledo, Valencia, Saragossa, Valladolid, 
 
 76 
 
THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH ^^ 
 
 Granada, Sevilla, and Santiago. The districts that come 
 under the archiepiscopal jurisdiction are divided up into 
 bishoprics on certain lines that are rather irregular ; they do 
 not appear to be founded upon latter day conditions at all. 
 We find bishops whose diocese has a very small and scattered 
 population, while Madrid, with its half million or more inhabi- 
 tants, shares a bishop with Alcala de Henares. It may be 
 when these bishoprics were established for the first time they 
 were established to commemorate the capture of certain cities 
 from the Moor, while others may and probably do owe their 
 creation to the desire of some high authority to establish a 
 sinecure for a friend. The foundation of the Alcala de 
 Henares bishopric, for example, was due, not to the spiritual 
 needs of the district, but to the fact that a certain Archbishop 
 of Toledo did not care to prolong his residence in such a 
 gloomy city while a very pleasant corner of the earth, as 
 Alcala undoubtedly is, called so loudly to a man of means 
 and good taste to set up a palace there. So he built him- 
 self a stately home and the bishopric was established to 
 justify it. Avila and Segovia, on the other hand, are un- 
 deniable examples of bishoprics established to commemorate 
 victories over the Moors, and there was a time when they 
 were of the first importance. 
 
 When we leave the august company of the bishops the de- 
 scent in the scale is rapid. We pass at once to suffragan 
 bishops who are merely workers and consequently have 
 little time to associate themselves with the pomp and cir- 
 cumstance of their superiors, and then we reach the vicar 
 whose jurisdiction corresponds with that of a dean in this 
 country. Nor must the title of vicar be confused with that 
 of the vicario general^ which is borne by the dreaded head 
 of the Jesuits in Spain. Thereafter we come without delay 
 to the parish priest. He is one of two classes, the first of 
 
78 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 these being very numerous, the second comparatively rare. 
 The representative of the former is the drudge, who con- 
 trives, perhaps through no fault of his own, to make his work 
 doubly unsatisfactory to those who start out with a poor 
 equipment of faith. He is illiterate, cleanliness is not pro- 
 minent among his virtues, he is superstitious, and when 
 worsted in argument will fall back upon his claim to Divine 
 authority. The other type corresponds in some measure to 
 the cacique in politics ; he is restless, energetic, eloquent, per- 
 suasive ; men regard him with favour, for they declare that 
 he is one after their own hearts ; a man of the world, tolerant 
 in spite of the clothes he wears. The women are devoted 
 to him ; one feels that some of them find consolation for little 
 faults in the thought that their lapses from grace justify con- 
 fession, and that Padre So-and-So will confess them. They 
 do not know him as a man of the world, for they see quite a 
 different facet in the well-cut jewel of his personality ; they 
 know him for a man whose eyes are fixed upon heaven, 
 whose lips are devoted to prayer and good counsel. When 
 he preaches there is a crowd of women to hear him, so large 
 a crowd indeed that he seems to be a serious rival of some 
 of London's popular preachers who would address a beggarly 
 array of empty benches but for that softer sex upon whose 
 softness Sam Weller's father commented so severely. But 
 it suffices this cacique of the ecclesiasts to secure the patron- 
 age of the women, for they rule the men, and the men sup- 
 port the Church. The progress of the successful priest is 
 watched carefully from above; there is little slackness in 
 the ranks of those who actually administer the Church in 
 Spain, and when he has justified himself translation and pro- 
 motion will reward him. It may be pointed out here that 
 ecclesiastical administration in Spain is and always has 
 been conducted on a sounder and more business-like basis 
 
THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH 79 
 
 than political administration. To be sure, some of the 
 purely decorative appointments are given for political pur- 
 poses only. There are bishops and archbishops too in the 
 hierarchy of ecclesiastical Spain of whom the best that can 
 be said is that they do no harm. They lack executive 
 ability and political sagacity, but the need for such qualities 
 in the area of their administration is not overlooked, and 
 some hard-working suffragan will see to it that all the aims 
 and intentions of the Church are pursued, although His 
 Grace may be more concerned with the appointment of his 
 table than with anything else. From time to time in the 
 past few decades serious attempts have been made by politi- 
 cal parties to enforce laws against the Church and to deprive 
 her of the enormous treasure she has accumulated. In the 
 brief days of the Republic the Church suffered heavily, per- 
 haps more heavily than in the days of the Napoleonic in- 
 vasion, but the anti-clericals are by no means satisfied, as 
 one of them said to the writer a few years ago in Madrid : 
 '^Salmeron did no more than tap the big barrel of the 
 Church's wealth ; some day we will turn that tap on ; there's 
 enough rich wine for every Spaniard to slake his thirst ". 
 The opponents of the Church exaggerate its wealth, but the 
 fact remains that the wealth is enormous ; the Spanish Church 
 is rich beyond the dreams of a layman's avarice. 
 
 On the other hand, most of those who have travelled in 
 the immediate neighbourhood of a bishop's or archbishop's 
 palace will find, and will in fairness acknowledge, that the 
 great ecclesiastical authorities are popular with a large pro- 
 portion of the masses. Even if they be as immensely 
 wealthy as their enemies say, it must be confessed that they 
 do good work in relieving the poor, and in country districts, 
 where some high Church official has his palace, the neigh- 
 bourhood is en fete when it is open for the season and full 
 
8o HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 of regrets when its ecclesiastical chief returns to the leading 
 city in his diocese. The same condition obtains in this 
 country in the neighbourhood of big estates. Only a few 
 years ago when the late Sefior Sagasta was contemplating 
 a movement against the Church — though he probably knew 
 well that it Would never travel beyond the stage of discus- 
 sion — there was some talk of reducing episcopal establish- 
 ments. But it was soon apparent that such a measure 
 would create very great hostility to the Government, and the 
 reform was dropped. Probably Sagasta, who had concluded 
 an important secret agreement with the Carlist party in 
 favour of the Church some years before, fostered the opposi- 
 tion while proposing the change. 
 
 The Church exists in Spain, less on account of the spirit- 
 ual needs of the people than because of the exquisite art and 
 consummate tact with which it wields authority at Court. 
 If the Royal House of Spain were anxious to despoil the 
 Church, there is no power to hinder it from doing so. But 
 there is no question of spoliation. Not only is the Church 
 allowed to keep her rich territory, but this is supplemented 
 on every possible occasion. History tells us how this wealth 
 came. The Republic in its short career cut down her 
 landed interests very considerably, but only the least part of 
 the Church's wealth is in land. Emperors, kings, conquista- 
 dores, men who have returned home with fabulous fortunes 
 acquired in the New World, prosperous caciques at the point 
 of death with the well-earned terror of hell before them, and 
 no further personal need for their fortunes — one and all have 
 yielded heavy tribute to the Church that claims to be 
 eternal. No published record of these testamentary disposi- 
 tions exists ; they are known only to the Church. Much 
 of the wealth is of course visible to the public for it is re- 
 presented by jewels of fabulous value upon the effigies of the 
 
THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH 8i 
 
 Madonnas. In all the great cathedrals and in many of the 
 smaller churches, such as the Pilar at Saragossa, there are 
 figures of the Virgin whose jewels are worth a king's ransom. 
 Those in Toledo are second to none in Spain, though Sevilla 
 boasts the wonderful emerald that is said to light the chapel 
 in which it is placed. Unfortunately the writer has never 
 been able to be present when the emerald was exercising its 
 proper function. Perhaps it would not shine for one whose 
 ancestors were expelled from Spain. 
 
 When any event of great national importance takes place, 
 suitable tribute is paid to the Church. During King 
 Alfonso's first visit to Paris he had the good luck to es- 
 cape from the attentions of a gentleman who sought to 
 emphasize certain objections to the principle of kingship 
 by throwing a bomb. When the news reached Spain the 
 Queen Mother immediately presented the Virgin of Carmen 
 with a new and costly mantle, and naturally the great ladies 
 of Madrid could do no less than copy the Queen Mother's 
 example and see that the other Virgins of Madrid were 
 not slighted. For who can say whether it was the Virgin, 
 or Our Lady of Las Palomas, or la Santisima Virgen de 
 Atocha that had kept the bomb from exploding ? Perhaps 
 in point of fact it was none of these but merely some saint 
 who guards folk from picric acid. This is a nice question 
 and delicate ; let us be content to record the fact that every 
 Virgin was duly decorated — to the very considerable benefit 
 of the Church and to the benefit of certain effigies that need no 
 little dressing up to make them look unlike ill-made dolls. 
 
 Turning back for a moment to the various types of 
 Churchmen, the private confessor must not be overlooked. 
 If you chance to be a grandee of Spain, with blood as blue 
 as the heavens, and whose pedigree is of extraordinary 
 length, no common confessor can be privileged to receive 
 6 
 
82 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 the tidings of your distinguished sins. The grandee has 
 his own confessor — it may happen in the case of a very 
 grand grandee indeed, that he has one confessor and his 
 wife another, and among the confessors of the aristocracy 
 it will be found that the most are Jesuits. The political 
 significance of this need hardly be insisted upon. There is 
 no aspect of family life upon which the Jesuit is not com- 
 petent and eager to advise. It may be said that through 
 his society the great Vicario General of the Jesuits has 
 all the secret history of Spain before him, and that no man 
 in this world is better cognisant of the fact that knowledge 
 is power. Not one man in a thousand outside Spain 
 knows the name of the Vicario General, but his power is 
 felt by millions. He is the most dramatic and sinister 
 figure in Europe to-day. 
 
 Perhaps the chief danger to the Church in Spain arises 
 from what the Spaniard calls latifundio — the single word 
 expressing the unequal division of wealth. It is said of 
 the late Lord Salisbury that while he was travelling in 
 Andalusia he was astonished by the enormous size of the 
 estates of some of the old nobility, and remarked, near the 
 boundary-stones of one of the largest haciendas, " This is 
 where the next revolution in Spain will break out ". The 
 place was desolate enough in all conscience ; save for the 
 statesman and his friends there was not a soul in sight, but 
 the utterance was not the less true though the revolution 
 may come quite peacefully and on account of causes that 
 could not be foreseen at the time, and are not too clear even 
 to-day. The latifundio extends from State to Church, or 
 perhaps it would be more accurate to say from Church to 
 State. The men at the head of the Church in Spain have 
 enormous wealth; the parish priest must sometimes take 
 his gun on to his neighbour's land in order to fill the pot and 
 
THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH 83 
 
 borrow wood from the State forests to keep his fire burning. 
 Between the wealth of the Church and the wealth of the 
 aristocracy there is a curious similarity in Spain which has 
 seldom been pointed out. The Spanish grandee likes to 
 have his wealth in bullion, and keeps it in the vaults of a 
 bank. Unless he be under the influence of the Jesuits, 
 whose organization has extensive commercial ramifications, 
 he will not invest his money save in a Government loan. 
 When a loan was issued for naval purposes in the year 
 1908, the three million pounds applied for was subscribed 
 three times over in one day in Madrid alone. The money, 
 belonging for the most part, if not altogether, to the 
 grandees, was lying in the bank, useless to the country at 
 large, yielding no more than such interest as is paid on 
 deposit accounts, and worth comparatively little to its 
 possessors, whose wealth increases more rapidly than it can 
 be spent. In similar fashion the great wealth of the Church 
 is idle. It is represented by jewels and jewelled vestments 
 to the value of many millions that lie in the strong rooms 
 of some cathedral and on the altars of others. There is 
 sufficient unproductive riches to give all Spain a fair measure 
 of education, to pay the national debt, to endow universities 
 that stand sadly in need of funds, and to develop agriculture 
 to a point that would raise the Spanish peasant to compara- 
 tive affluence. On the other hand, the parish church is 
 as poor as the cathedral is rich. Whitewash is the only 
 decoration that it does not lack, and some of this cries out 
 for renewal, to the intense regret of the poor and devout few 
 whose faith is from the heart. 
 
 Happily the salt of humour that does so much to save a 
 life in many parts of Spain keeps the cura rural contented. 
 In the north he is a gloomy fellow enough, imbued with 
 something of the spirit of the Inquisition. The great 
 
84 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 enemy of heretics, superstitious and often brutal, he is a man 
 who may excite fear but never affection. This description 
 applies best to the rural of Galicia, Navarre, and the Basque 
 Provinces ; in the centre of Spain humour begins to assert 
 itself, and in the south it colours life. There the rural is 
 often a man who would claim our affection if he practised 
 the rites of the Druids or the forms of worship that obtain 
 among the natives of West Africa. So long as the parish 
 priest can keep his pot boiling and his bota filled, in some 
 sunny, happy village where the requirements of the inhabi- 
 tants are almost as simple as their resources, and can get 
 a few days' sport under the rose and live in peace with 
 his housekeeper, he proceeds quite happily along the rough 
 road from the eternity of the unborn to the eternity of the 
 dead. He knows well enough that his parishioners will 
 turn a lenient eye upon his pecadillos and rather accept 
 them as a proof that he is hombre como cualquier otro (the 
 same as any other man). To insure this immunity from 
 censure he has only to accept convention, tradition, and 
 local superstitions, and leave politics severely alone. If 
 he be a politician let him for his own sake be a Conservative. 
 Sometimes he is a business man and does not hesitate to 
 turn natural phenomena to a good use. Only a few years 
 ago there was a rather well-informed priest in the province 
 of Leon who knew that an eclipse of the sun was imminent. 
 His congregation was a little remiss in handing over the 
 necessary dues to Mother Church, and the good priest took 
 occasion some weeks before the eclipse roundly to denounce 
 the backslidings of his flock. He warned them to bring a 
 considerable peace-offering if they wished to avert the wrath 
 of heaven, and his congregation, being better equipped 
 with humour than faith, gave him a respectful hearing but 
 no tribute. Thereupon the padre reinforced his tale of 
 
THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH 85 
 
 disaster and waited for Providence to justify him. The 
 eclipse brought terror upon the village. Never in the 
 history of the Church were such ample stores of corn, 
 wine and oil offered by remorseful penitents. As the 
 padre's pockets filled and promises of permanent penitence 
 rolled in, the heavy load of offerings touched his heart ; he 
 promised to intercede with Providence, and his intercession 
 was so successful that the sun resumed its normal sway and 
 the wrath of Divine Power was averted. Since then the 
 Church has boasted an added altar or two, and the priest, 
 from being a spare man whose ribs could have been counted, 
 had decency permitted, has waxed as fat as Jeshurun of old. 
 Since those days the worthy priest's barrel of meal has not 
 wasted, neither has his cruse of oil failed. The story has 
 leaked out, but it has not reached the village wherein its 
 hero is regarded with superstitious veneration. 
 
 The best class of rural is the man of middle age, who 
 having spent his ambitions in some other pursuit, and hav- 
 ing a patron in high places, has taken the vows and entered 
 upon the work of some delightful parish where he can live 
 in ease for the rest of his life. A few years ago the con- 
 ductor of one of the leading theatrical orchestras in Madrid 
 tired of the rank perfume of the footlights. Pie had made 
 friends and was able to take the vows and become a ruraL 
 To-day he is the most popular man in his community, in- 
 dispensable at picnic and fiesta^ welcome alike at christening, 
 wedding, and house of mourning. His charming manners, 
 good sense, and camaraderie endear him to men and women 
 alike, and the village ranks him on a level with its patron 
 saint. His sermons are extremely popular, for he speaks of 
 the folly and vanity of life as one having knowledge, and not 
 as the illiterate who discuss things with which they have no 
 first-hand acquaintance. 
 
86 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 In the manufacturing districts where socialism and atheism 
 have their strongest hold upon the populace, the rural has 
 a bad time. Half-educated, ill-read, and deep in the mire 
 of prejudice and superstition, he is the butt of those he is 
 supposed to teach. Their jibes must be very hard to bear 
 and often drive him to the ranks of those whose ignorance is 
 as well developed as his own. If he be a devout man, that 
 constant persecution to which he is subjected may have its 
 spiritual consolations, but the fact remains that very few of 
 the rurales are devout ; they have learned certain formulae 
 in a perfunctory fashion without grasping their significance. 
 It is right to add that of late years the Church has recognized 
 the paramount claims of districts in which commercial pros- 
 perity has produced spiritual revolt, and the best rurales in 
 her service are delegated to Catalonia and the Asturias. 
 Here they must submit to all the discipline of the Church 
 — a discipline that is frequently relaxed in parts where 
 the new spirit of unrest has yet to find a home. In the 
 manufacturing cities the priest must always wear clerical 
 garb when he goes out ; he must lay aside his cherished 
 cigarette and conform to the smallest detail of established 
 usage. There is a large class of better-educated men in the 
 Asturias, Catalonia, and Valencia who would like to find a 
 via media between atheism and retrograde ecclesiasticism, 
 and they endeavour to bring such influence as they may 
 upon Madrid to ensure the presence of enlightened Church- 
 men at the head of affairs. They are not very successful. 
 A few years ago, when Sefior Maura, the Mallorcan cacique 
 who fell from power last autumn, was premier the first time, 
 he sent a notorious reactionary to the Archbishopric of 
 Valencia. The educated Valencians to a man refused to 
 accept him, and Sefior Maura, who for all his many and 
 notorious faults is one of the strongest men in Spain, declared 
 
THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH 87 
 
 that his nominee should go to his palace, if necessary at 
 the point of the bayonet. The Valencians swore that if the 
 archbishop came he should leave as did one of his great 
 predecessors who was so pleased to quit Valencia that he is 
 said to have removed his sandals and shaken out the city's 
 dust as soon as he got outside the walls. 
 
 All South-eastern Spain was in a ferment, for Sefior Maura 
 is a strong, determined man, and the Valencians are a sturdy 
 people, and folk were wondering what would happen when 
 an irresistible force came into contact with an immovable 
 body. To understand the spirit of Valencia and its extreme 
 regionalism, it is only necessary to recall the fact that dur- 
 ing the brief reign of the Republic two Valencian villages 
 solemnly declared war upon one another, and it required the 
 hard work of the stolid Guardia Civil to keep the declaration 
 of war from being followed by active hostilities. The crisis 
 was solved for the moment by Sefior Maura's first fall from 
 power. The Liberals decided to leave Valencia severely 
 alone, and the Province existed as best it could without an 
 archbishop. Any lack of prosperity that may have been 
 entailed by the loss is not recorded, but as soon as Sefior 
 Maura returned to office his nominee went to Valencia. 
 The will of the premier was the irresistible force, the body 
 was not immovable. 
 
 It will be seen that the Church in Spain must fight hard 
 and without cessation of hostilities against forces that 
 threaten upon every side, and are bound ultimately to pre- 
 vail as education grows and the rank and file begin to think. 
 It enjoys the traditional support of the ruling house and of 
 the Government, but development, whether social or com- 
 mercial, is a danger and must be checked whenever occasion 
 offers. At the same time it is not politic to pose as the 
 open foe of progress or to incense those who may change 
 
88 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 their mood from one of benevolent neutrality to active op- 
 position. The whole position calls for a very clever diplo- 
 macy, and Spain's ecclesiastical diplomats, whether they be- 
 long to the ranks of the regular Church or to the splendidly 
 organized Society of Jesus, are men competent to deal with 
 any emergency. Each one is imbued with the spirit of re- 
 sponsibility. Schism is unknown ; authority is undisputed. 
 Even if people cannot think that the Church's work is for 
 the ultimate good of humanity, they must admire the way in 
 which, on its purely administrative side, it is carried on. All 
 the intellectuals in the service of the Church work to a com- 
 mon end with a measure of devotion and self-sacrifice that 
 should be seen in the working to be properly appreciated. 
 The State may be betrayed, political parties may be be- 
 trayed, but the Church is never betrayed. Its ranks are al- 
 ways closed, its weapons are always polished. Baffled it 
 may be, but it is never beaten. The growth and brief blos- 
 soming of Republicanism, the spread of socialism and atheism 
 have served down to the present to make the Church stronger 
 and more alert. Though it may seem to have surrendered 
 some of the outposts in Eastern Spain to the enemy, that 
 surrender is less real than apparent. For the work of re- 
 covering them goes on by night and by day. Throughout 
 countless miles of territory the Church's rule is paramount. 
 It holds the Spanish Royal House, the aristocracy, and the 
 Cabinet in the hollow of its hand. The great Carlist move- 
 ment has become a pawn upon the board of its policy, and 
 it has turned developments to its own signal advantage. 
 
 It would be interesting to learn the ultimate ambition of 
 the Church in Spain. For how long does it hope to control 
 the destinies of the country? For how long will it keep in 
 check the Liberal movement that the east has inaugurated ? 
 This is the secret of the Church and will never be directly 
 
THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH 89 
 
 revealed. Those who prophesy from beyond Spain's borders 
 have failed to take into consideration the added strength that 
 regionalism confers upon the forces of the Church. If Spain 
 could unite for any purpose, the latifundios would soon 
 disappear. But Spain has never united in all her history to 
 any greater extent than she did when the legions of the great 
 Napoleon were overrunning her fertile territories, and even 
 then the massacres that Goya has left on record in his 
 terrible Dos de Mayo inspired less horror in the Peninsula 
 than the sacking of the churches. So it is well to rest con- 
 tent with recording facts and to leave prophecy to the un- 
 erring eye and sound judgment of the tourist who, having 
 spent a fortnight in Spain under the patronage of St. Thomas 
 Cook, is qualified to write and speak for all time with un- 
 questionable authority upon Spain and her political and 
 religious problems. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE THEATRE IN SPAIN 
 
 THE stage has a certain growing importance in nearly 
 every European country, and there are always en- 
 thusiasts who believe that if the stage is subtracted from life, 
 nothing worth consideration is left. It is the greater pleasure 
 to find a country boasting a great national dramatic literature 
 in which the drama pursues the even tenor of its way, 
 touching social life at every point, remaining equally free 
 from sensation and sensuality, thriving without problems of 
 maintenance and support, and capable of offering those who 
 write for it and those who act sufficient to sustain life com- 
 fortably without superfluity. Spain's leading dramatists and 
 leading actors have heads of normal size ; the one does not 
 believe that Spain was created that he might write plays 
 about it, the other does not believe that " the part is greater 
 than the whole '\ 
 
 The stage in Spain is in a singularly healthy condition. 
 There are dozens of playwrights who toil for it with un- 
 failing regularity and success, thousands of citizens whose 
 means are modest and whose patronage of the theatre is 
 perennial. The Spanish stage seems to take its proper place 
 in the scheme of things, far below Church and State, not 
 quite on the level of the learned professions. The stage and 
 those who appear upon it can make no pretensions to large 
 social recognition. The Spanish actor and actress advance 
 
 90 
 
THE THEATRE IN SPAIN 91 
 
 no claims to a prominent position in the national Valhalla ; 
 their greatest ambition is to achieve distinction in their 
 work, not to gain admission to any casa senorial. The 
 Spaniard with his fine common sense recognizes that the 
 actor is like any other man and the actress like any other 
 woman. They — actors and actresses — leave their limelight 
 in the theatre and their photographs among their personal 
 friends. Few posters glorify them, and their opinions on 
 matters lying outside the scope of their profession are 
 neither sought nor publicly expressed. Plays are not written 
 round people, for a Spanish audience would be quick to 
 resent the production that is chiefly remarkable for the 
 opportunities it gave to the "Lessee and Manager" to 
 monopolize the centre of the stage and dominate all the 
 striking situations. The Spaniard leaves all this vulgarity 
 to the Plaza de Toros, where, if the diestro does dominate 
 the arena, he risks his life all the time and is applauded for 
 his skill and courage, not merely for usurping all the best 
 situations. The playgoing public in Spain demands that all 
 parts be well filled and that the interest be fairly distributed. 
 A play must have some definite relation to life and character ; 
 for in life, as the playgoer knows, there is a measure of in- 
 terest in all men's actions. The sanity of the Spanish mind 
 has enforced the sanity of the Spanish stage, and though 
 Spain has had long periods of depression and poverty, the 
 theatre has never declined in popularity or worth. Very 
 frequently it criticizes the State, but of late years it has 
 added support to criticism. When the Spanish-American 
 War broke out, the Government, at its wits' end to increase 
 the sources of revenue, imposed a ten per cent ad valorem 
 duty on theatre tickets in common with those issued for all 
 other places of amusement, and though the necessity for the 
 tax may be said to have gone by, it remains unrepealed. 
 
92 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 For every thousand pounds that Spain spends on amuse- 
 ment, one hundred passes, in theory at least, to the coffers 
 of the State. Doubtless a little falls by the way, but then 
 Spanish administration is framed on lines that seem to re- 
 cognize human frailty, and nobody expects that the State 
 will receive all its due. 
 
 In Spain you go to the theatre by the hour. You can 
 go from eight to nine, from nine till ten, ten till eleven, or 
 eleven till twelve. This of course is at one of the theatres 
 in which four short plays are given in the course of the 
 evening. Such pieces belong to the system of production 
 called genero chico. At certain theatres, like the Liceo at 
 Barcelona and the Espafiol and theComedia in Madrid, the 
 genero grande system is in vogue, and tickets are issued for 
 the whole evening which is given to one play in three or 
 four acts. The Spanish temperament responds a little 
 more readily to the system of genero chico : the Spaniard 
 likes to spend one hour or two hours at a theatre and give 
 the rest of his evening to a cafe or to a pleasant stroll, or 
 to reunion at a friend's house. For the genero grande in a 
 big city he will pay the equivalent of six shillings for a stall, 
 and for \}s\^ genero chico a trifle under two shillings for each 
 hour-section in the same part of the house. 
 
 The price of boxes varies according to tier. The platea^ 
 or box on the ground floor, holds six seats that cost a trifle 
 more than the stalls, for in addition to the price of the box 
 itself a fee for entry into the theatre (entradd) is charged 
 to each seatholder. For the whole evening the entrada 
 costs one peseta. The six seats in a first-tier box cost 
 rather less than six stalls, and on the second tier prices 
 suffer a still further reduction. Entrada in the form of a 
 supplement is only charged on the boxes ; it serves as an 
 admission to the house, and while he who has a box but no 
 
THE THEATRE IN SPAIN 93 
 
 entrada must wander as disconsolate as the Peri outside 
 the gates of Paradise, he who has an entrada without a box 
 may find a seat in the gallery, for the entrada is no more 
 than the ticket by which one gains the right to sit among 
 the gods. The system is slightly confusing to the English 
 tourist, who is accustomed to make one payment and no 
 more for his privileges. Many a sturdy Briton has been 
 encountered in the vestibule of a Spanish theatre at one of 
 the great tourist centres, fiery red with indignation as he 
 endeavours to explain in hotel Spanish that he has paid for 
 his box once, and will see Spain in a place where the 
 climatic conditions are still more enervating before he will 
 part with another peseta. Perhaps somebody who knows 
 a little of Spanish customs and the Spanish language comes 
 to the rescue ; paterfamilias pays the extra six pesetas for 
 his six entradas^ and followed by his indignant wife and 
 equally outraged olive-branches, makes his way to his platea, 
 vowing that he will write on the morrow to his Britannic 
 Majesty's Ambassador and his favourite daily paper in order 
 that British subjects may be warned that brigandage still 
 obtains in Spain. 
 
 The prices quoted above are those that are claimed in 
 the most expensive Spanish theatres, exclusive of the opera 
 house ; in provincial cities they are much lower, and it is 
 easy to understand that under these conditions " the play 
 is the thing ". The impresario does not try to reach his 
 patron's brain or heart through the eye ; he has learned by 
 experience that a Spanish audience will not respond to 
 such an endeavour. Mounting and dressing are quite a 
 secondary consideration, with the result that the quality of 
 stage plays is higher in Spain than it is in England, where 
 the mise en scene covers or uncovers such an appalling 
 poverty of ideas. The musical comedy that thrives for a 
 
94 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 couple of years in London to the acclamations of the half- 
 educated comfortable classes, on whose behalf Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes pleaded for *^ A Society for the Propaga- 
 tion of Intelligence," would only secure a three months' 
 run in Spain by flying from the contempt of one city to the 
 contempt of the next. 
 
 Spain has no institution corresponding to the Comedie 
 Frangaise, but it is not without hopes of establishing one. 
 The only indication of national feeling is revealed by the 
 Teatro Espafiol, where the productions are limited to those 
 of Spanish dramatists, but it is recognized on all sides by 
 the people who take an interest in drama that Spain has a 
 sufficient number of competent writers to carry on the tra- 
 ditions of Calderon and Lope de Vega, and that if a national 
 theatre can be established, there will be no dearth of sound 
 modern plays to hold the mirror up to the social or political 
 life of the hour — and the hour never varies in Spain — or 
 reflect some aspect of the country's regionalism in which all 
 Spain is interested. For it should be remembered that in 
 spite of the diff'erences of life and thought which are founded 
 upon regionalism and serve to prevent or at least to hinder 
 political cohesion, there is no district in Spain that does not 
 take a'platonic interest in the idiosyncrasies of its neighbours, 
 and a regional play dealing with one district of Spain will 
 always draw a good house in another district, provided the 
 play has certain intrinsic merits. The dialect, costume, and 
 mode of thought of any district in Spain are intensely in- 
 teresting to those who believe their own special methods of 
 approaching the phenomena of life to be the only methods 
 that matter. 
 
 Some light upon the Spaniard's attitude to life in its varied 
 aspects may be gathered from the reception that has been 
 accorded to certain dramatists of world-wide repute. For 
 
THE THEATRE IN SPAIN 95 
 
 example, Ibsen enjoyed a very brief reign in Spain ; his 
 appeal was limited to the intelectuales who imported their 
 Ibsen from Paris, and were prepared to receive the plays 
 with enthusiasm because they regard the French capital as 
 the supreme centre of intellectual life. But there was some- 
 thing about Ibsen that even they could not accept ; they 
 were puzzled and shocked, and, after a few months' con- 
 sideration, put Ibsen's plays upon the shelf, where they lie 
 to this day under an ever-accumulating pile of dust. 
 Shakespeare, on the other hand, has always met with ready 
 acceptance in Spain ; Hamlet is given frequently not only in 
 Madrid but in the provincial theatres, and the success is the 
 more significant because it would be idle for us to believe 
 that England is accepted by the Spaniard as a centre of art 
 or intelligence. The Spaniard has a kindly feeling for the 
 Englishman, but still associates him with the sun-helmet, 
 green umbrella, prominent front teeth, and Dundreary 
 whiskers. He is a good friend, el senor ingles, but a terrible 
 business-like person whose pocket drops gold, whilst strange 
 oaths issue from his mouth and his hand is ready to become 
 a fist on the least provocation, while his eye roams over sea 
 and land in search of fresh territory on which to plant the 
 Union Jack, the Bible, a barrel of rum, and a battery of 
 quick-firing guns. Other conceptions of the Englishman 
 may exist, but this is the popular one, and figures very 
 frequently upon the lighter Spanish stage. Perhaps Shake- 
 speare is regarded as the universal dramatist, and it must 
 not be forgotten that Paris herself has given him her 
 cachet. 
 
 Turning to deal in detail with various aspects of the 
 Spanish stage, it is necessary to say a few words about the 
 grand opera. This flourishes at certain seasons of the year in 
 Barcelona and Madrid with the aid of a Government subsidy 
 
96 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 It is entirely Italian in form, this form having being fixed 
 when Rossini came to Madrid. Since then Spain has never 
 found an opening on the grand opera stage for the expres- 
 sion of her national musical genius, though of late years 
 Spanish opera has been produced in Barcelona. " Los 
 Pirineos," a Trilogy by the Catalan composer Pedrell, created 
 something like a sensation. It tried to embody the legends 
 of the Pyrenees but failed, largely because the composer was 
 not sufficiently faithful to his own genius, and reflected both 
 Italian and German influences to an extent that did not 
 flatter the patriotic instincts of his countrymen. Pedrell is 
 reckoned the premier composer of Spain. Other attempts 
 have been made, but they have not been sufficiently success- 
 ful to call for record here. In Madrid the Teatro Lirico, 
 built for the development and encouragement of National 
 Opera, failed altogether. At present grand opera in Spain 
 is an exotic, just as it is in London ; Italian artists are 
 engaged, Italian operas are mounted, and French or German 
 work is rendered in Italian. Wagner came into Madrid, not 
 from Bayreuth, but from Paris, and was hailed with 
 enthusiasm by the intelectuales , Some attempt was made 
 to establish a Wagner cult, but it met with very little success, 
 for every one opera-goer whose admiration for the master 
 is absolutely genuine, there are half a dozen who merely 
 pretend to like him, and neither Barcelona nor Madrid can 
 draw a crowded house to a Wagner programme, though one 
 of the old-fashioned Italian operas, with plenty of melody 
 and little sense, will strain seating and standing accom- 
 modation to the uttermost. The attitude of the Spaniard 
 towards ** Carmen " is very interesting. He loves the music, 
 which is founded to no small extent upon national airs, but 
 any very realistic interpretation of the name part, any at- 
 tempt to present the gipsy-girl of Prosper Merim^e's story 
 
THE THEATRE IN SPAIN 97 
 
 is an offence. One of the greatest exponents of the part, 
 whose interpretation has roused enthusiasm in Europe and 
 America, would hardly care to appear as Carmen in Madrid 
 or Barcelona. The regionalism of Catalufia and Castile 
 differs very widely from that of Seville, and it might have 
 been supposed that neither Castilian nor Catalan would 
 have been ill-pleased to see one aspect of Sevillian life 
 treated with frank and unsparing realism. Perhaps the 
 suggestion of barbarism offends the average Spaniard, who 
 knows that no other expression of the national life has ever 
 found acceptance in grand opera, and objects to this pictur- 
 esque but uncomplimentary treatment. Neither " Don 
 Giovanni '' nor the *' Barber of Seville " is Spanish in the 
 same sense as " Carmen ". 
 
 It may be said without fear of contradiction that nearly 
 every Spaniard is musical, and it can readily be understood 
 that performances of grand opera in an alien tongue in 
 Madrid and Barcelona do very little to satisfy the national 
 appetite for music. On the occasion of great fiestas, when 
 the bull-ring is not required for a corrida, it frequently 
 serves for an open-air concert, which assumes the size and 
 importance of a great gathering at the Albert Hall, with 
 the reservation that the Plaza de Toros in one of the great 
 cities of Spain could put the Albert Hall in one corner and 
 forget it was there. The Spaniard has a natural love 
 of melody and a very receptive ear. Let him listen to a 
 tune once or twice and he can sing it or pick out the 
 melodies on his guitar, and as concerts are few and far be- 
 tween, and grand opera beyond his reach, he falls back on 
 the zarzuela, the national musical comedy of Spain. 
 
 The zarzuela is purely regional ; each one reflects the 
 habits, customs, and spirit of the district round which it is 
 written. It becomes in a way a piece of highljj; specialized 
 7 
 
98 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 work with a regional basis, and he who would wish to learn 
 Spain intimately in the countless divisions that are un- 
 marked on any map, could hardly do better than attend a 
 course of zarzuelas in Madrid, Seville, or Barcelona with 
 some Spanish friend who can explain references that are 
 absolutely lost to the uninitiated. The zarzuela seldom lasts 
 more than an hour, two or three are required to make up 
 an evening's entertainment. The zarzuela grande in three 
 acts is no longer popular, and some of the best specimens 
 of the class have been cut down to play within the hour. 
 
 Although the Spanish theatre has little money to spend 
 on the mise en scene, strict attention is always paid to ac- 
 curacy of local colour and costume where the zarzuela is 
 concerned. There are keen critics in the audience ; excite- 
 ment runs high, and the most trifling inaccuracy would be 
 held to justify something that can only be referred to as a 
 demonstration in force. It does not take the form of hissing, 
 but of rhythmic hammering on the floor with feet or sticks, 
 accompanied by shrill whistling. In the early days of the 
 writer's Spanish experiences, he attended a performance of 
 " La Gran Via '' in Madrid and sat with some friends in a 
 stage box. The prima donna sang extremely well, and the 
 novice, anxious to accord his approval, hammered enthusi- 
 astically on the floor of the box with his walking-stick. 
 The lady darted a reproachful glance at him, and refused 
 her encore. One of his friends remarked, ^'You are very 
 critical to-night. I thought she sang well." 
 
 " So did I," replied the novice, " that is why I applauded." 
 Then he was told that the noise that is a compliment 
 to an English singer is an insult to her Spanish sister. 
 Happily a bouquet and some applause of the more orthodox 
 description {pl^ and muy bi^n) helped an explanation to set 
 the matter right, Spaniards are very excitable, whether in 
 
THE THEATRE IN SPAIN 99 
 
 the theatre or in the bull-ring ; they do not hesitate, frankly 
 to criticize a performance, whether by matador or opera 
 singer, that falls short of the standard they wish to see 
 established. Madrid is a scene of frequent interruption 
 both in zarzuela and grand opera. Some years ago a very 
 bad tenor was singing in "Aida" at the opera house, and 
 when the trial scene was in progress and the High Priest 
 called out ^* Radames, Radames, Radames," a voice from the 
 gallery, imitating to a nicety the clerical gentleman's intona- 
 tion, added, " Que malo es^ que tnalo es^ que malo es " (he's no 
 good) with absolutely fatal results, as far as the grief of 
 Amneris and the gravity of the house were concerned. 
 
 The music of a zarzuela is built up from some national 
 airs belonging to the region, or consists of original themes 
 one and all so closely allied in thought and feeling that, 
 not infrequently, they pass into the ranks of that region's 
 folk-songs. Happy is the man who can give one of these 
 songs to his province, as Caballero did in his *^ Gigantes y 
 Cabezudos," etc. It gives him such a measure of distinc- 
 tion as comes to the young matador when he " takes the 
 alternativa " from one of Spain's greatest diestros. 
 
 It is to the zarzuela that we must go to see the finest 
 dancing in Spain. Dancing, like everything else, is regional ; 
 the measures so very popular in the north find no accept- 
 ance in the south ; east and west hold no communion where 
 dancing is concerned. But the zarzuela introduces the 
 dances of the district of its birth, entrusts them to men 
 and women who were born there, sets them in surround- 
 ings which are as faithful as possible to nature, and accom- 
 panies them with the music that is their own. The result 
 is stimulating to a degree, and because every Spaniard is a 
 dancer at heart, he loves his country's measures even when 
 they belong to the parts he deems benighted. But for 
 
loo HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 the zarzuela Spanish dancing would have fallen on evil 
 days, just as folk-lore would have done, for even the 
 Pyrenees have not altogether served as a barrier between 
 the natural genius of the Spanish stage and the cosmo- 
 politan forces that are at work on the French side of the 
 frontier. Slowly but surely even the zarzuela is acknow- 
 ledging the influence of the music hall, an institution which 
 does not flourish in Spain. There is a regrettable tend- 
 ency to introduce interludes — alien in thought and feeling 
 from the main idea animating the production — and it may 
 be that in the course of time the zarzuela will become 
 corrupt and then Spanish folk-lore, folk-songs, and dances 
 will disappear as the mantilla is disappearing from the 
 flower-decked hair of the modern Spanish lady. Down to 
 the present the zarzuela has preserved Spanish types as 
 faithfully as Goya did ; it has served as the connecting-link 
 between the Spain of yesterday and to-day, and nobody 
 who loves Spain can witness the substitution of such futile 
 work as ''El Perro Chico " for ''La Virgen de la Paloma" 
 without sincere regret Happily Spain's increasing pros- 
 perity has enabled many interesting scores to be published 
 in the past few years. Doubtless they will inspire the 
 musicians of other lands — some of whom may even forget 
 to acknowledge the source of their inspiration. 
 
 The music of the zarzuela^ like its dances, is regional. The 
 northern composer and his southern brother in the Lord 
 have nothing in common save the Spanish sense of tuneful- 
 ness and a certain proficiency in matters of technique. The 
 country impresses its mood upon those who write ; it is as hard 
 for the Galician composer to be gay as for the Andalusian 
 to be morbid. In the Basque Provinces, in the village of 
 Loyola to be precise, where the great Ignatius founded the 
 still greater Society of Jesus and took the name by which 
 
THE THEATRE IN SPAIN loi 
 
 he is best known, the Basques have their sacred tree called 
 the " Guarnica ". It is the emblem of their liberties of which 
 they still preserve some that are not enjoyed by the rest of 
 Spain, and the Guarnica lends its name to their national 
 hymn. The rhythm of this music differs altogether from 
 that of other parts of Spain, and when the Basque Provinces 
 give a composer to their country, his music has its own 
 essential characteristics that none in Spain can imitate and 
 few outside Spain can understand. It expresses in its own 
 strange fashion the spirit of the wild land of its birth, and 
 the Guarnica, heard thousands of miles beyond the shadow 
 of the Pyrenees, will rouse a Basque to such enthusiasm as we, 
 whose blood runs so quietly in our veins, can hardly under- 
 stand. To realize the strength of the national feeling that 
 finds its reflection in Basque music, we have but to remember 
 it was only the people of the Basque Provinces and Navarre 
 who made the Carlist rising possible and gave the best 
 generals to the cause. Don Carlos did no more than promise 
 that in the event of his success he would confirm his sup- 
 porters the enjoyment of their traditional rights. 
 
 In Galicia, where th^gallegada is the popular song, a certain 
 sadness pervades the country's music. There is nothing 
 Oriental about this ; it is purely Celtic, and marks the racial 
 union between the Galician, the Breton and the Welshman. 
 In the Asturias music begins to grow lively, and the jota 
 makes an incomplete appearance. The long-drawn cadence 
 of the g-al/egada begins to yield to the shrill merry notes of 
 the jo^a which has crept up from the centre and east. 
 Aragon has brought thejota to perfection ; here it seems a 
 national product untouched by Moorish influence; in the 
 Castiles and Navarre it is also predominant. In Valencia 
 and Murcia the Arab influence still lingers in strength, and 
 has given the jota a certain sombre effect that seems to find 
 
I02 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 fitting place amid its surroundings. Thejo^a is always sung 
 by a male tenor voice, and the chorus which follows the copla 
 or tenor solo is an accompaniment to a dance with a strange 
 jerky rhythm that has no exact counterpart in English 
 music. 
 
 Down in the south we find the expression of another life, 
 not always joyful, but always holding something of the spirit 
 of the sun. There are countless songs and dances native to 
 Andalusia. The ^ang-o and the granadinos^ the bolero and 
 the sevillanas, one and all are Andalusian, associated with 
 striking movements of which the peculiar action from the 
 hip, called, I think, zarandeo^ is most noticeable to English 
 eyes. Some measures are written in quick time, a very 
 frenzy of music and movement, others are slow and stately ; 
 still more have a certain strange fascination that rouse a 
 Sevillian to ecstasy. Such a one is the dance by a man and 
 a woman, the first dressed as a bull-fighter and wearing the 
 capa de paseo, and a girl in the local dress of Seville or 
 Malaga. It is in three parts, and is a dance of fascination 
 from start to finish. In the last moment the torero flings 
 his cloak on the ground and his partner stands triumphant 
 upon it, to a chorus of oles. This dance is a variation of the 
 popular and beautiful sevillana which is generally danced 
 by two girls or a series of girls in couples. 
 
 The writer remembers, in the early days of his first visit 
 to Spain, finding a little company of girls in far-away 
 Carmona who danced so beautifully that he wrote to the 
 managing director of one of our leading variety theatres in 
 London, asking him to engage them. A reply came back 
 asking him to arrange for them to come over on certain 
 terms that seemed absurdly generous. The girls were not 
 professional dancers ; they earned their living in little shops 
 and probably gained no more than twelve pounds a year 
 
THE THEATRE IN SPAIN 103 
 
 apiece. Their parents were quite willing for them to come 
 to London, but every girl's parents insisted upon coming too, 
 and in one case an uncle was also deemed indispensable. 
 All these worthy people demanded as the price of their visit 
 to the Metropolis the salary of an ambassador, and the cost 
 of bringing over the six girls and their expensive families 
 was absolutely prohibitive. So they remained where they 
 were, and London, not knowing what it had missed, re- 
 mained quite tranquil. But some years afterwards these 
 dancers were to be met in Seville under the segis of a guide 
 associated with one of the large hotels, who would declare 
 unblushingly that they had fulfilled engagements at enor- 
 mous salaries in London, Paris, and Berlin. Doubtless the 
 worthy and imaginative man would have added to the 
 list of capitals had he known the names of any more. 
 
 The music of these national songs and dances is supplied 
 by the guitar, the castanets, and, one regrets to add, the 
 bagpipes. This weird and offensive instrument is happily 
 only played in Galicia and Asturias. Heard from a great 
 distance, it is less unpleasant than it might be under other 
 conditions, but the ideal way of hearing the bagpipe is 
 perhaps realized by those who allow an ample province to 
 stretch its miles of mountain, plain, and meadow between 
 the performer and themselves ; they can then imagine that 
 they hear the strange substitute for music, and there is 
 nothing' radically wrong in this attitude, for those who go to 
 Spain make a practice of imagining that they have seen and 
 heard things, and learn in this fashion to lie with circum- 
 stance if not with pomp. 
 
 But be the music what it may, the detestable bagpipe, the 
 shrill Castanet, or the tinkling guitar, it is the proper accom- 
 paniment of Spanish song and dance. The zarzuela^ the 
 finest repository of Spanish folk-lore and Spanish folk-songs. 
 
104 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 makes use of the traditional accompaniment, though it must 
 be confessed that down to the present the writer has seen 
 no zarzuela in which the bagpipe has been introduced, the 
 bassoon and oboe supplying a sufficiently effective substitute 
 to satisfy all save Galicians. 
 
 Romantic drama of a tragic kind follows the traditions of 
 Calderon and still thrives in Spain. A very notable example 
 of this is " Don Juan Tenorio,'^ none other than our old 
 friend Don Giovanni whom Mozart immortalized for the rest 
 of Europe. Don Juan was of course an Andalusian, " in 
 Seville was he born, a pleasant city," and the city of his 
 birth still preserves the legendary story of his life. The 
 play *^Don Juan Tenorio" was written by Zorilla less than 
 fifty years ago and has achieved such extraordinary popu- 
 larity in Spain that it is given regularly in every theatre of 
 importance, to say nothing of others, on the night of Todos 
 los Santos. The romantic drama is not the less popular in 
 Spain on account of the costume with which it is associated. 
 It carries the Spaniard back to the palmy days of world- 
 empire, and the costumes assumed are those that obtained 
 in those years. The capa and espada are worn in the old 
 fashion that has almost passed from the country, though there 
 are a few Madrilefios who still contrive to bring the atmo- 
 sphere of Spanish tragedy and world-empire into their 
 daily life. 
 
 In the world of comedy the Spanish dramatist ignores 
 regionalism and invokes satire. The mordant Spanish 
 humour that sees into the heart of things finds its happiest 
 reflection on the comedy stage, where the abuses of admini- 
 stration and social usage seem to evoke the heartiest laughter 
 from those who suffer most under them, until the stranger 
 wonders whether it is not the saving grace of humour that 
 keeps the Spaniard from taking his troubles too seriously. 
 
THE THEATRE IN SPAIN 105 
 
 It will be seen that the drama in Spain is in a prosperous 
 condition enough — sane, clever, and able to steer an even 
 course between the Scylla of extreme modernity and the 
 Charybdis of banality. The apotheosis of the music hall 
 in other countries has affected the zarzuela slightly, and the 
 kinematograph is still fresh enough to attract and delight 
 many thousands of simple folks. There is no snobbery in 
 the world of Spanish drama ; a zarzuela, a smart modern 
 comedy, and a kinematograph display will join forces to 
 afford the public a pleasant evening's entertainment, and 
 there are many who will pass from one item to the other 
 with complete enjoyment. 
 
 A revival of the sainetes^ tiny, little plays with two or 
 three characters founded upon and illustrating some popular 
 proverb, is another feature of the modern Spanish stage. 
 Lope de Vega brought the sainetes to a high state of perfec- 
 tion and thereafter they passed from popularity only to 
 regain it in these latter days. 
 
 r 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE SPANISH KITCHEN 
 A Statement for the Defence 
 
 WHEN you speak to the average Englishman of 
 Spanish cooks and cookery, he draws himself up 
 as if suddenly suspicious of danger, sniffs the air as though 
 to assure himself that garlic is not going to spring upon him 
 unawares, and regards you with some measure of mistrust 
 for all future time. His suspicions are unfounded ; his pre- 
 judices would be removed or at least modified by residence 
 in Spain. 
 
 The first impression that comes to the Englishman who 
 has a few opportunities for enjoying Spanish hospitality is 
 one of simplicity. The Spaniard is neither a gourmand nor 
 a gourmet ; he eats comparatively little, and likes that little 
 not only to be simple but to be associated as intimately as 
 possible with the district in which he has been brought up. 
 Every part of Spain has its special dish, the only one that 
 seems likely to attain to national importance being the 
 puchero, which, of old time, found its popularity limited by 
 the boundary of the Castiles. Owing to the intensely 
 regional spirit that can never be disregarded when Spanish 
 life — political, social, or domestic — has to be considered, 
 questions relating to domestic cookery sometimes acquire 
 an immense importance. If a Castilian should marry a lady 
 from Valencia, or a Sevillana should entrust her destinies to 
 
 1 06 
 
THE SPANISH KITCHEN 107 
 
 the custody of a Galician, the couple are faced with a crisis 
 of the first magnitude. To what extent must the arroz 
 valenciano of the first-named bride yield pride of place to 
 thepuchero of her lord? How far will the Galician be pre- 
 pared to go in surrendering his mXAomXpote to th^ gazpacho 
 beloved of the lady of his choice? Compromise, the chief 
 factor in statecraft, is also of first importance in the realms 
 of domesticity, and doubtless under the influence of love 
 and in a spirit of toleration, the happy couples will decide 
 to allow each national dish to share the place of honour in 
 turn. At the same time no lady of the Castilian's family 
 will Qditpuchero of the wife's making without a certain feeling 
 of pity and contempt for one to whom the true secrets are 
 withheld, nor will this Sevillana learn readily to make a 
 pote that can reach her husband's heart as readily as it can 
 reach a less sentimental part of his anatomy. On the 
 other hand, the fair Valencian will prefer the arroz of her 
 native land as long as she lives, and the Sevillana will find 
 in gazpacho and chocolate all that she requires to sustain 
 her interest in the table. After all, religious difficulties 
 between married couples only come to the fore once a 
 week, or when the Church celebrates a fiesta^ but where 
 food is concerned, divergencies of opinion and taste can 
 hardly be avoided at least twice a day, and it may well be 
 that the existence of dishes that are strictly regional in their 
 popularity do much to define the boundaries of Spain's 
 provinces and hinder the movements towards national 
 unity that might add so much to the country's prosperity. 
 Carlyle in his " Sartor Resartus '' has dwelt upon the impor- 
 tance of clothes. There is room for a philosopher equally 
 gifted to discuss the influence of food upon national life 
 and character, and nowhere will he find more ample 
 material for reflection than in Spain. 
 
io8 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Marketing in Spain has its own special characteristics, of 
 which the search for bargains and the persistent effort to 
 obtain something for less than the price demanded are most 
 noticeable. So pronounced is this disposition to buy cheaply 
 that it is difficult to arrive at the truth about the price paid 
 for a certain article from any person of ordinary moral 
 standing. Wives, whose devotion to their husbands could 
 hardly be greater than it is, will lie to them cheerfully and 
 with circumstance when it comes to telling the story of the 
 morning^s marketing. Every woman likes to persuade her 
 friends that she can beat the tradesman down below the 
 profit mark. 
 
 The housewife relies to no small extent upon street vendors, 
 and though she is a fairly regular patron of the established 
 market, she seldom remains faithful to any one dealer. She 
 knows that only by constant change can she hope to secure 
 bargains or even honest service, for the Spanish trades- 
 man will not make much effort to keep an old customer, 
 though he will make an effort to placate a new one. Fully 
 aware of this, the careful housewife constantly changes her 
 favours. 
 
 The Spanish market can compare with any in the South 
 of Europe without fearing to be reckoned inferior in point 
 of colour, variety, and cleanliness. It opens at a very early 
 hour. Buyers and sellers often meet for the preliminary 
 skirmish that precedes business as early as five o'clock in the 
 morning. Ladies of small means go unattended to the market 
 and bargain with an eloquence worthy of a popular politician. 
 The buyer calls heaven to witness that she can pay no more, 
 the seller affirming with equal emphasis that she can accept 
 no less. Ladies of the upper middle class are attended by 
 a servant, generally one who has grown old in. the study of 
 market conditions and can assist her mistress with a free- 
 
THE SPANISH KITCHEN 109 
 
 dom of expression not permitted to a lady in knocking the 
 last ha'penny off the price. Ladies of high position are 
 seldom seen in the market : they are content to send their 
 servant. 
 
 Before the morning is well advanced the path between 
 the stalls is blocked by a mass of cheerful women who seem 
 quite sure that they will reach their destination sooner or 
 later, and manage under all circumstances to keep a smiling 
 face. The attitude of the shopkeepers varies in accordance 
 with the day's prosperity. If they have done well, they are 
 inclined to be a little truculent, a little intolerant of any 
 suggestion that they should abate their demand, while on 
 the other hand, if business is not brisk they are prepared to 
 deal on a basis that would seem to leave no margin of 
 profit. At the same time it is worth noting that the price 
 of certain necessaries of life — bread and meat for example — 
 is regulated by the district authorities, so that very little 
 bargaining is possible here. On the other hand, fish, vege- 
 tables, fruit, poultry are subject to violent fluctuations and 
 prices vary hourly. 
 
 The aspect of a Spanish market on a fine summer's day 
 is perfectly delightful. The close observer of Spanish life 
 will hardly have failed to notice that it is never far removed 
 from the Church, and many ladies are in the habit of taking 
 their beads as well as their market basket, and combining the 
 service of their bodily wants with some attention, however 
 brief, to their spiritual needs. It may be remarked too that 
 the interior of a church, cold and cool and comparatively 
 silent, comes as a great relief after the glare and bustle of 
 the market-place, although the conditions, not altogether 
 pleasing, are more than atoned for by the splendour of the 
 colouring, the fragrance of flowers and fruit, the jovial 
 spirit of buyers and sellers. There are few places where the 
 
no HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 colour of the country is more vividly represented than in the 
 market. In the first place there is the cloudless blue sky 
 looking down upon walls intensely white ; if the market be 
 at a seaport there will be a glimpse of water that seems 
 studded with jewels, an expanse in which every wavelet 
 wears its glittering tiara of the sun's own diamonds. Con- 
 trasting with these vivid blues and whites we have the scarlet 
 pimientos that are ripe and the bright green pimiento that 
 has yet to ripen ; the red cabbage lending some of its tint to 
 the cauliflowers by its side; the tender green of the lettuces 
 that have been newly watered and seem to retain their fresh- 
 ness. Of the flowers detailed description would be im- 
 possible — the beauty of colour, form, and perfume is literally 
 intoxicating, and sometimes when pressure from the crowd 
 keeps sensitive people in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 the flower stalls, they complain of headache and faintness, 
 the spikenard — nardo — being held responsible for this 
 malaise. The flower-girls in the market seem to call aloud 
 for a gifted and sympathetic artist. They are often girls of 
 rare beauty — the beauty that blooms so suddenly and fades 
 almost as quickly as it came. Miserably ill-clad, bare-headed 
 and bare-footed, and dependent for the rest upon rags worn 
 with some approach to nicety, they have their regular 
 patrons for the rich carnations that women love to wear in 
 their hair. The prices vary according to the season ; they 
 may fetch as much as a real or as little as a halfpenny, and on 
 the sale of a few handfuls of these the Spanish flower-girl 
 lives and seems to live happily. Simple fare, fresh air in 
 abundance and sunshine are the secrets of her content, and 
 it is a rare pleasure to be one of her patrons, for her gracious 
 movements and pretty smile make ample atonement to the 
 stranger for paying twice or thrice the market value of a 
 boutonntere. To her countrymen, and specially to those 
 
THE SPANISH KITCHEN iii 
 
 whose sordid pleasure it is to speak rudely or coarsely to 
 defenceless women, the florera has a sharp tongue and a 
 ready wit. 
 
 " What will you have ? In La Verdura 
 All the day long she keeps a stall : 
 Sells you a rose for your peseta, 
 Given with a look and — well, that's all." 
 
 One part of the market is given up to live poultry. The 
 unfortunate chickens, tied up by the leg in bunches and 
 slung across the back of mule or donkey, or carried care- 
 lessly in the hand, have been brought to the market and 
 sold there to the storekeeper. They have now to face the 
 closing hours of their existence, and these hours are painful. 
 Spanish women are not acutely conscious of animal suffering 
 or greatly concerned with it. They will not hesitate to pick 
 up chicken or duck and dig their fingers into it to see if it 
 is fat enough to be worth bargaining about. If they are 
 not satisfied the unfortunate bird is thrown aside quite 
 carelessly to await the attentions of another purchaser. If 
 they are satisfied the still unfortunate bird must submit to 
 have its defects pointed out by the buyer and its merits 
 emphasized by the seller until the bargain is struck. Then 
 the pollero cuts the bird's throat over a big pail or butt 
 standing in the corner of the shop and hands the still 
 struggling body to his assistants — generally women or girls 
 — who proceed at once to pluck the still living fowl. Such 
 cruelty revolts a visitor but leaves the Spanish housewife 
 quite unmoved. 
 
 The fruit stalls with their golden oranges from Valencia, 
 bananas from the Canary Islands, asparagus and strawberries 
 from Aranjuez, big rough-skinned melons from Castile, 
 peaches from Aragon — second to no peaches in the world — 
 apricots from Toledo, green figs from Andalusia — all these 
 
112 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 delicious things are to be found in the market of a 
 great city. They are sold at prices that would make an 
 English buyer envious, and would lead an English fruit- 
 grower to retire at once from business. In a country where 
 a splendid peach weighing half a pound may be bought 
 for twopence and the finest sugar melon costs no more 
 than a shilling, fruit is to be found on every table, and in 
 connexion with the sale of melons a curious custom prevails 
 in Spain. When a purchaser has chosen his fruit he is 
 entitled to request the salesman to cut a small square 
 out of the selected melon in order that he may ascer- 
 tain whether the quality is equal to the appearance. 
 If the melon should be found to belie its promise, the 
 purchaser pays three halfpence and returns it to the seller, 
 by whom it is sold at a reduced price to some one not so 
 particular. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the stranger who knows 
 nothing of proper prices and has not learnt to bargain very 
 volubly and to realize that every man's hand is against him 
 is going to fare well. Unless you are voluble and can speak 
 with your hands and your eyes as well as with your tongue, 
 and add to your every offer an emphatic no vale mas (it's 
 worth no more), you will certainly retire hurt, and even the 
 people round you will be greatly amused and pleased to get 
 the better of you ; they will even use your misfortunes as a 
 lever by which to secure better bargains for themselves. To 
 take advantage of a stranger is fair play, and one of the 
 writer's earliest experiences was a very useful one. Going 
 early one morning to the market of Valencia, I was delighted 
 to find on one of the stalls of the fruit sellers a quantity 
 of delicious green figs. I inquired the price in my best 
 colloquial Spanish and was told that a real would buy ten. 
 Determined not to be robbed, I refused to pay more than a 
 
THE SPANISH KITCHEN 113 
 
 penny for six, and after much bargaining received fifteen for 
 my real. Later in the day I waxed vainglorious over 
 my capacity to carry out a bargain, much to the amuse- 
 ment of my hostess who, after listening patiently to all I 
 had to say, summoned her housekeeper and asked the 
 morning's price of figs in the market. They were twenty- 
 five a penny ! 
 
 Although food in Spain is very cheap, so cheap in fact 
 that the margin of profit seems to be quite obscure, it would 
 cost still less than it does but for the consumos — the tax 
 corresponding to the French octroi. This impost — a source 
 of considerable revenue to the authorities — is of course ex- 
 tremely unpopular, and every peseta gathered by the ad- 
 ministration may be said to have a heavy curse attached 
 to it. The effect of the tax is only felt seriously by the 
 unfortunate poor whose earnings are ridiculously small. 
 Many an agricultural labourer in Spain, a hard-worker 
 and diligent, can make no more than twenty-five shillings a 
 month, fifteen pounds a year, with perhaps an extra pound 
 or even two for the harvest, whether it be of corn or wine 
 or oil. On such a one the consumo presses heavily, but 
 in spite of that he looks upon life with a cheerful counten- 
 ance and does not grumble any more than the Englishman 
 who earns twice as much or even more. 
 
 Now we have followed the Spanish housewife to mar- 
 ket and may presume that she has beaten down prices 
 to the lowest possible figure, told her beads in the church 
 and gone back to her home heavily laden with good 
 things. They are now in the kitchen, whither we will 
 follow. 
 
 The room is very bright and clean, no less clean indeed 
 than the scrupulously tended market-place in which the 
 food-stuffs were bought. Brass or copper cooking utensils 
 
114 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 all in a state of high polish seem to smile from the white 
 walls. Cooking utensils vary according to the district. In 
 the Castiles th^ puchero is cooked in a vessel that takes its 
 name from the dish which is sacred to it. The puchero is 
 a jug or pot of blue enamel. Earthenware cooking vessels 
 are in use all over the Peninsula ; they are porous outside 
 and highly glazed within. They are used for boiling and 
 stewing, while the frying-pan shouts defiance to regionalism 
 from every corner of the country, uniting Galician, Valencian, 
 Sevillian and Castilian in the largest measure of universal 
 brotherhood that obtains in Spain. Among the lower orders 
 who cannot afford to buy their oil as often as they could 
 wish, the frying-pan is seldom or never cleaned ; when not 
 in use it is covered lightly with cloth or even paper, and the 
 housewife guards it with jealous care. Save in the big 
 cities and in the cooler north, most of the butter sold in 
 Spain is frankly rancid, the best quality being hard to obtain 
 under any circumstances and absurdly dear — five shillings 
 a pound being asked and paid in Madrid for the genuine 
 article. Dripping and lard are rarely used. Olive oil, crude 
 or refined, takes their place, save among the pastry cooks, 
 and it may be remarked that the Spanish housewife seldom 
 makes pastry and seldom entrusts the making to her own 
 cook ; she prefers to go direct to th^ pastelerta. Unrefined 
 oil has a rather repulsive green tint, and is brought from the 
 olive plantation in huge hog-skins. Before it can be used 
 the Spanish housewife " fries " it. She fills her frying-pan 
 with as much as it can safely hold and puts a piece of bread 
 in with it. The oil is then " fried " until the bread is burnt 
 black when the oil is poured off into a jar and is ready for 
 cooking. The great art of cooking in oil is to preserve the 
 right temperature ; if it is not hot enough when the food 
 is put in, it will soak right through it ; if it be too hot the 
 
THE SPANISH KITCHEN 115 
 
 food will be burnt. A great part of the prejudice with which 
 Spanish cooking is regarded by visitors is due to some ex- 
 perience of the efforts of a clumsy cook. In skilled hands 
 a dish cooked with oil is far from unpleasant. To enjoy 
 salads in Spain beyond the area of expensive hotels it is 
 necessary for the traveller to carry refined oil with him, for 
 it is notorious that the Spaniards have never learned to 
 refine their own crude product, and in the big cities the 
 best oil obtainable is called English oil {aceite inglesd) ; it has 
 been sent abroad either to France or England to be refined. 
 Not only are the Spaniards incapable of treating their oil 
 properly, their wine is no better case. Spain is a great 
 wine-producing country in many districts, and a large part 
 of the produce of the vineyard is sent in its crude state to 
 France, where after due doctoring it changes its nationality 
 and is known to the French and British public as Bordeaux 
 or claret as the case may be. Happily there are signs that 
 the country is wakening up to the heavy loss entailed upon 
 it by imperfect viticulture, and in Aragon a very successful 
 attempt is being made to deal with the rioja wines as they 
 deserve. Aragon is also learning to make jam and to 
 bottle fruit, and in this fashion will doubtless do something 
 to check the import from Great Britain which has hitherto 
 made up in large measure for Spain's deficiencies. But 
 as far as the oil is concerned, the properly equipped refinery 
 has yet to be established, perhaps because the great major- 
 ity of housewives are perfectly satisfied with their familiar 
 procedure. Indeed, you may hear them declare that the 
 clear refined oil imported from France and England is to be 
 regarded with suspicion. ** A^(9 se sabo loque contzene^^ (nobody 
 knows what it contains), says the Spanish housewife, proud of 
 the bilious green concoction out of which she must burn the 
 more obvious abominations before it is fit to use even in 
 
ii6 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 a Spanish kitchen. It may be of course that the national 
 palate is not a delicate one ; indeed but for the glorious light 
 that shines upon the Spanish table from the pasteleria one 
 would be inclined to favour this view, for it must be con- 
 fessed that a superabundance of garlic, rancid butter, 
 wine that takes the skin off the palate, and bread that is 
 frequently sour are distinct blemishes from our perhaps 
 insular standpoint. 
 
 Now it is time to sing the praises and discuss the in- 
 gredients of glories that remain to Spain even in these days 
 when world-empire is lost. Puchero^ gazpacho^ pote, arroz 
 valenciano^ olla podrida^ and pisto — here we have the most 
 notable sextette in the world — fit subjects for the poet's 
 song, the musician's ode, the painter's fancy, and the 
 sculptor's dream, while the historian scanning the story 
 of the world will look in vain to any country to supply 
 him with six national dishes of anything like equal im- 
 portance. 
 
 To make puchero soak garbanzos (chickpeas) in salt- 
 water over night. In the morning take a piece of beef, a 
 slice of lard that may be fresh or may be a year old, a 
 chorizo which is a sausage as full of subtle flavour as of 
 mystery, and potatoes, new for choice. Boil very slowly for 
 about five hours, and eat on three hundred and sixty-five days 
 in the year if the necessary papal dispensation can be 
 obtained. But do not seek to eat without knowledge. 
 Puchero must be approached with respect, for it is a many- 
 sided delicacy. In the first place it yields soup, and this 
 should be served with vermicelli and eaten with toasted 
 bread and a little flavouring of garlic. A glass of sherry 
 may be taken with propriety at a time like this. Then 
 follow the garbanzos and potatoes and certain green 
 vegetables that are not deemed quite worthy of intimate 
 
THE SPANISH KITCHEN 117 
 
 association with a puchero and are consequently cooked 
 apart. Tomato sauce is associated with this course. Then 
 the meat follows, rich in the added flavour of the in- 
 gredients among which it passed its hours of cooking. 
 Among the wealthy who are becoming denationalized a 
 dish offish may follow tho^ puchero, to which, by the way, 
 chicken and ham may have been added, while sweets 
 and cheese succeed as though to rob the meal of its 
 truly Spanish qualities. But the poor and the lower 
 middle classes are content with the xqbX puchero and nothing 
 else. 
 
 Let us now turn with renewed appetite to the arroz 
 valenciano. To make this take careful heed to the follow- 
 ing instructions. Procure a large earthenware vessel and 
 cover the bottom to the depth of an inch with the purest 
 oil you can buy. Add, when the oil has reached the 
 proper temperature, a measure of the finest rice and leave 
 it to suffer the pangs popularly reserved for sinners until it 
 has assumed a golden tinge. Then put in your meat, which 
 should be veal for choice, though you may call with equal 
 readiness upon rabbit or pig or sheep. Fill with water, suffi- 
 cient to cover the top of the meat (for every cupful of rice 
 twocupfuls of water are given by the wise and experienced) ; 
 error here is fatal. Add red peppers (pimientos) and then 
 close the pot. A short address to the patron saint may be 
 efficacious and can at least do no harm. If all goes well 
 within the earthen pot, there should be a result that will for 
 at least an hour or two drive all sorrow out of life. In 
 Valencia itself this dish is sometimes made without meat, 
 and then it is known as arroz viudo (widowed rice). Al- 
 though this formula properly belongs to Valencia and to 
 Valencia alone, it has been appropriated by the rest of 
 
ii8 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Spain for picnic purposes ; not only is it grateful and com- 
 forting to those who take part in the merienda, but the 
 cook who can produce it under alfresco conditions in a 
 perfect state receives the warmest congratulations of all 
 present. 
 
 While even the Englishman may reasonably be expected 
 to Qn]oy puckero and arroz valenciano, let us with all com- 
 mendable honesty admit that the taste for the four national 
 dishes that remain is nourished best and developed to the 
 farthest extent on Spanish soil and under the Spanish sun. 
 It is unwise even for the intelligent tourist to make too 
 intimate an acquaintance with the others. Pote gallego^ for 
 example, can be best appreciated by those who have ridden 
 through Galician highlands without breaking fast from morn- 
 ing to evening. Then when one's destination is reached, 
 perhaps it is some picturesque farm-house, wellnigh deserted 
 by the younger generation that has gone to seek its luck in 
 more prosperous lands allonde los mare (beyond the seas), 
 leaving the father of the family to gather what profit he 
 may from his herd of familiar, one might almost say vulgar, 
 pigs. He will not be unwilling to welcome the stranger to 
 share such rude accommodation as his neglected home 
 can afford and will set before him the pote gallego. It con- 
 sists of potatoes and a special cabbage grown in the district 
 on a much higher stalk than those we see at home. It is 
 called berza. Potato and cabbage are boiled in water with 
 lard and eaten with bread and garlic. Should the farmer have 
 a little meat to spare he will add it in honour of his guest, 
 but throughout Galicia, where the rural population is woe- 
 fully poor, the gallego is generally content to allow one of 
 his precious hams to hang over the pot and convey such 
 flavour as it can through the medium of suggestion or 
 
THE SPANISH KITCHEN 119 
 
 magic or first intention, or any other of the hidden forces of 
 nature. Yet let it be confessed that this national dish, even 
 when it cannot be reinforced by meat, is very satisfying. 
 It chases hunger away, and by so doing serves the only 
 purpose for which food is required in the ranks of hard- 
 working Spain. The traveller will find it difificult to 
 persuade his host to accept anything but thanks for his 
 entertainment, and when he rides away with the heart-felt 
 " vaya con Dios ! " in his ears, he will feel that he has left 
 a friend behind him. 
 
 The olla podrida is a savoury mixture of meat, onions, 
 garlic, potatoes, and oil, not unlike Irish stew, but better 
 flavoured, and differing from arroz valenciano inasmuch as 
 it lacks rice and substitutes potatoes. It is the national 
 dish of Northern Spain. If the Navarrese do not like their 
 neighbours across the Pyrenees, their dislike is directly 
 associated with this national dish, for they hold that the 
 French potpourri was stolen from Navarre, while on the 
 other hand patriotic Frenchmen have been heard to declare 
 that their country gave the olla podrida to ungrateful 
 Navarre in the far-off days when it belonged to France. 
 Oddly enough, the King of Spain and the President of the 
 French Republic have never troubled to appoint a Com- 
 mission to inquire into the merits of this vexed inter- 
 national question, preferring to leave it unsettled and justify 
 the unpopularity of their respective Governments. Many 
 a Royal Commission has wasted time and money over 
 matters of less interest and importance. 
 
 Pisto is eaten in La Mancha, the land through which Don 
 Quixote sought to confer honour on his Dulcinea. It is a 
 delicious combination of eggs fried in oil with a mixture of 
 Chile peppers and the red and green pimientos. The eggs 
 
I20 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 are scrambled and sufficient water is added to give the dish 
 a consistency of a thick soup. 
 
 Gazpacho^ the last of Spain's national dishes, is favoured 
 throughout the sunny land of the Maria Santisima where 
 people can live very happily without patronizing the butcher 
 more than once a week. Lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, cu- 
 cumber are made into a salad with oil and vinegar in which 
 garlic has been crushed. The bowl is then filled with water 
 and slices of bread are allowed to float on the top. Through- 
 out the summer the Sevillian of the lower middle class is 
 content with a jicara of chocolate and a roll for breakfast. 
 Shortly after midday he takes his gazpacho, and in the even- 
 ing a glass of milk or of wine, with perhaps another slice of 
 bread, satisfies his simple needs, to say nothing of the wants 
 of his wife who may be nursing a baby and yet finds all 
 the nourishment she requires in the three modest meals 
 just described. 
 
 It should be remarked that the simplicity of life among 
 the lower classes in Spain leads the household to need no 
 further setting to the table than the large bowl in which the 
 national dish is placed and one spoon apiece. If anything 
 has to be cut, bread or meat, the master of the house uses 
 the clasp knife (navaja) which he carries in his belt for all 
 emergencies. 
 
 In spite of these lapses from the conventions that obtain 
 among more cultivated people, meal time is a merry occa- 
 sion in Spain. The hour snatched from toil seems to be 
 sacred to the modest happiness of family life, and it may even 
 be suggested that the average Spaniard eats his meal with 
 greater relish because it is his national dish. The gallego 
 would not enjoy puchero though it is a richer dish than his 
 own ; he would feel he was a traitor to his province. Nor 
 
THE SPANISH KITCHEN 121 
 
 would the Sevillian give up his thin gazpacho for the best 
 arroz valenciano in the world. Even the upper classes whose 
 association with their own national dishes is almost platonic, 
 take care to eat them when they go into the country to en- 
 joy themselves. No merienda is complete without the special 
 dish of the province in which it is held. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE STORY OF THE TABLE 
 
 IN the preceding chapter reference was made at some 
 length to the national dishes of Spain, and now it is 
 time to point out that the Spaniard does not limit himself 
 to any of these unless he be so poor that he can afford no 
 more than one good meal a day. Among the middle and 
 upper classes there is a very marked taste for Spanish cook- 
 ing that has survived all the assaults of the French chef. 
 Fairly considered, the one and primal defect of Spain's cook- 
 ing is founded upon the poor quality of the oil used. If a 
 well-equipped modern refinery could be established in every 
 Spanish city boasting a population of more than ten thousand 
 people, and if it could be demonstrated beyond the doubts 
 of the most conservative standard that oil loses nothing 
 worth keeping of its native quality in changing its hue from 
 green to yellow and sacrificing the impurities which impart 
 such a vile taste and odour, the quality of Spanish cooking 
 would be doubled or trebled, and the bitterest enemies of 
 Spain would no longer be heard to declare that civilization 
 ends at the Pyrenees. It might be suggested courteously 
 to the ardent reformers and patriots of Catalonia and Vizcaya 
 that the most perfected machinery for propaganda, the one 
 instrument which might strike a blow at the heart of region- 
 alism, which might in a few years unite all Spain in a bond of 
 brotherhood and bring progressive men from all Europe 
 
 12:3 
 
THE STORY OF THE TABLE 123 
 
 quite cheerfully into their country, is the oil-refinery. This 
 suggestion is offered humbly, but with complete confidence, 
 to the leaders of Spain's progressive movement. 
 
 In the quality of her pigs and goats Spain bows to no 
 country in the world. The skins of the kids are greatly in 
 demand in this country and in France. High up in the 
 mountains of Castile, where some of the finest flocks of goats 
 are pastured, one meets the wildest people in Spain. These 
 goatherds, ill-shaven and unshorn, drive their flocks into La 
 Mancha for winter feeding, and up into the Castilian hills 
 — ^particularly in the neighbourhood of the Sierra de Gredos 
 — shortly before the kids are born. He whose taste for 
 blood has been nurtured in Plaza de Toros or Arena de 
 Gallos, and whose capacity for climbing seemingly inaccess- 
 ible hills has been developed to a considerable extent, may 
 enter with security into the highland fastnesses, once the 
 abode of the worst brigands in Spain. Here, in a day, he 
 may see a hundred kids yield their harmless life to the 
 slaughterer who exercises upon them the deadly navaja that 
 his grandfather was wont to dye in the blood of unfortunate 
 travellers. The flesh of the kids is sent down the mountain- 
 side in the cool of the evening to the nearest railway station 
 whence it is taken to Madrid, to the butcher's shop, the 
 carniceria. But the skins are carefully preserved to be packed 
 and sent across the frontier. Although there are fine flocks 
 of goats in the more arid parts of Andalusia, it is in Castile 
 and La Mancha that the goat thrives best, and throughout the 
 wilder parts of Spain goat's milk is far more in evidence than 
 cow's. It is, moreover, quite a common sight in a Spanish 
 city to see a little company of milch goats, some of them 
 decorated with tinkling bells, driven through the streets and 
 milked in front of the houses of their patrons. Spanish 
 doctors hold goat's milk in high esteem and prescribe it very 
 
124 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 freely for intestinal ailments. It is worth remarking that 
 Spain as a country does not suffer very much from con- 
 sumption, and scientists tell us that goat's milk is free from 
 the germs that develop tuberculosis in the human being, so 
 it may be that the widespread use of leche de cabra is re- 
 sponsible, in part at least, to this satisfactory condition. 
 
 There are many ways of cooking goat's flesh. It may 
 be included in one of the national dishes, the arroz valen- 
 ciano^ for instance. At picnics a kid is frequently roasted 
 whole. In the house the meat is sometimes put on a spit 
 in front of the fire and turned by hand, in fashion tiresomely 
 primitive. But perhaps the most popular way of treating 
 goat's flesh is to give it the leading role in the production 
 of a guiso. The meat is cut into pieces, dipped lightly in 
 flour and put into oil that has already reached a certain 
 high temperature recognized instinctively by the trained 
 Spanish cook. It must be stirred steadily to keep the flour 
 from burning, and in a little while water is added. If the 
 dish is to be an asado only a few potatoes are now intro- 
 duced and they roast in the oil and water — the water having 
 been added to keep the food from burning. If, on the other 
 hand, the dish is to be a guiso^ the water is put in with a 
 liberal hand, all kinds of vegetables are added — green peas 
 and young artichokes being most highly esteemed in this 
 connexion, and the stew is left to simmer for several hours. 
 Should the oil chance to possess a comparatively friendly 
 quality, the completed dish is delicious, while, if the oil be 
 stronger than meat and vegetables combined, the popularity 
 of the guiso will be limited strictly to the Spanish palate. 
 
 The pig occupies a responsible and honourable position in 
 Spain. Perhaps the esteem in which it is held may even have 
 developed the fierce Spanish hatred of Jew and Moor who eye 
 the strange animal askance and have no use for it, alive or 
 
THE STORY OF THE TABLE 125 
 
 dead. Great herds of pigs, for the most part quite black, 
 precede the piping swineherd through the Andalusian wilds, 
 and browse upon the fallen acorns of the Valombrosas of 
 Aragon and Navarre. For a month or two before the time 
 of its departure from the world it has endeavoured to adorn, 
 the pig no longer travels in a herd. Cribbed, cabined, and 
 confined within a sty, he fares sumptuously upon all the 
 waste provender his master can supply, these products 
 including a large number of green figs and prickly pears 
 not quite good enough for men to sell or eat Unconscious 
 of his impending doom, the pig waxes fat, and it is only 
 with the greatest difficulty that he can travel unaided to his 
 destination and face the debacle associated with All Saints' 
 Day. It is necessary to explain at once that in all large 
 Spanish cities, pigs can only be killed between November 
 and March, the authorities recognizing that pork and the 
 Spanish spring and summer cannot be associated without 
 grave risk of disease. Even in the villages where no very 
 rigid rule obtains, special licence must be applied and paid 
 for by those who, for their own particular benefit, would 
 kill a pig at any time of the year, and in town and village 
 alike, the carcass of the corpulent dead is carefully exam- 
 ined before it may be offered to a pig-loving public. Two 
 or three days before the advent of Todos los Santos, every 
 housewife has given her order to the butcher who is in tem- 
 porary receipt of her patronage, and the sorrow of remem- 
 bering the departed whose day is to be celebrated in every 
 Spanish churchyard, is brightened by the thought that thou- 
 sands of pigs are being sacrificed — though one would not 
 suggest for a moment that any Spaniard regards them as 
 an offering to the souls of the departed. On the day before 
 Todos los Santos every Spanish city is one big squeal, as 
 thousands of the animals despised by the heretic Jew and 
 
126 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 infidel Moor pass lamenting out of life, and throughout 
 the day the now silent carcasses hang stiffly and solemnly 
 outside the butcher's shop, while an unsympathetic public 
 saunters by thinking of joys to come. For one like the 
 writer, who is a member of the ancient community which 
 Spain expelled from her borders, there is little temptation 
 to dwell at length upon the many ways of cooking a food 
 that makes no personal appeal to him, but in this place duty 
 must override prejudice. At the same time the writer feels 
 his own shortcomings acutely, and is well aware that he can 
 do no justice to the various virtues latent in an animal he 
 has never learned to regard with enthusiasm or even ad- 
 miration. Accordingly he has asked Mr. Charles Rudy 
 whose knowledge of so many aspects of Spanish life is 
 superior to his own, and whose " Companions in the Sierra " 
 deals so delightfully with the intimate and personal side of 
 travel in Spain's by-ways, to do justice to a subject which 
 he himself cannot approach with judgment or first-hand 
 knowledge. 
 
 Thus, and in parliamentary language, "El Sefior Rudy 
 tiene la palabra " (has the word). 
 
 ** On receipt of the noble carcass of the hog, brought to 
 his shop from the matadero in a huge, two-wheeled cart 
 drawn by a tandem of five mules led by an ass, the butcher 
 allows his new acquisition to hang a day at his door — head 
 downward, with a small pail attached to the snout to receive 
 the drippings of blood. At night an expert carver comes, 
 and in less than half an hour, hams, steaks, chops, feet, and 
 sundry other parts of the animal's anatomy lie on the 
 counter ready for the morning's sale. The hams are, how- 
 ever, laid aside to be cured, when, cut in thin slices, they 
 will be eaten raw, and washed down by copas of vino tinto 
 (red wine), or else they will be cooked in sugared water 
 
THE STORY OF THE TABLE 127 
 
 and sherry. The result isjamon en dulce rightly or wrongly 
 considered one of Spain's delicacies. The epidermis of the 
 dead pig, with sundry gristly parts of the animal's body, are 
 boiled and fried into a pate, and sold under the name of 
 chicharrones. As for bacon, it is unknown in Spain, where 
 the hog is cut up in such fashion as to leave the lean part 
 (of the bacon) to be sold with the ribs, and the fatty part 
 as tocino or lard. The latter — one of the ingredients of the 
 puchero — is either eaten fresh or else anejo, when, as it is not 
 preserved as the French sdle in salt, it acquires a rancid 
 taste not wholly agreeable to all palates, Spanish though 
 they be. 
 
 " In the cities during the slaughtering season {matanza\ 
 the Spaniard's one delight — or at least one of his delights 
 — is to indulge in magro, by which name the lean parts, such 
 as chops and steaks, are known. Roast pork is not eaten, 
 and this neglect of a good thing is one of the drawbacks to 
 residence in Spain. But the steaks and chops make up for 
 this loss. As often as not the housewife lets the meat — 
 chuleta ox filete — steep a few days in a preparation of water, 
 salt, vinegar, garlic, and oregano^ — a spice that has given its 
 name to one of the States of the Union. Perhaps the 
 baptiser was a pork-loving conquistador of yore, and thus 
 the State in question may hold itself lucky not to have 
 been christened by some word even more expressive of the 
 explorer's Spanish tastes. 
 
 " Emerging from its bath, the cleansed flesh of the un- 
 clean animal is thrown into the frying-pan moistened with 
 oil. When it escapes therefrom, it is — with all due apologies 
 to those who despise it — a dish royal, with an aroma of ajo 
 about it which I, garlic-loving citizen of the world, cannot 
 praise too highly. But if a more perfected cuisine be desired 
 by the housekeeper anxious to make a passing impression 
 
J 
 
 128 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 upon her lord and master's heart, let her cut the meat up 
 into fq/as and include it in an arro^ valenciano^ rich in pimi- 
 entos morrones, almejas or shell-fish, and a yard of sausage 
 (for thus can they be bought in Spain) cut up into small 
 pieces. Then verily will the lord and master, the amo as 
 it were, chuparse los dedos^ by which is meant that, after 
 having eaten his full, he will place in his mouth, turn about, 
 the ten digital appendages of his hands, and withdraw them 
 carefully, lovingly, with the remembrance of an opipero meal 
 twinkling in the bead-like black of his eyes. 
 
 " There are many kinds of sausages in Spain. But it 
 might perhaps be better for all concerned if I were to omit 
 the life-history of those that are clandestinely made. There 
 is the chorizo (those of Logrono on the Ebro can be recom- 
 mended) which is eaten throughout the year for it is cured 
 or smoked ; there is the red salchicha reeking in pepper 
 ipimenton)^ and the white which is harmless. These are no 
 thicker than a child's finger, and long — yards long. The 
 morcilla^ corresponding to the French boudin (whence our 
 word pudding), is made of pig's blood and rice ; it also can be 
 purchased with or without pepper. In days gone by super- 
 fluous dogs used to be removed by means of a poisoned 
 morcilla ; they could thus pass away on top of a fragrant 
 supper, and not curse mankind too violently for having 
 sent them on the longest of long journeys on an empty 
 stomach. Though this custom has, thanks to civilization, 
 been abolished, allusion to it remains in the lenguaje del 
 pueblo (popular language) in the form of a gentle instrument 
 of torture. A friend has turned his hand against you and 
 yours, and thereby most naturally ceases to be your friend. 
 You reward him — by devoutly hoping that * he may be given 
 a morcilla ' {que le den morcilla)^ the verb ' to eat ' being 
 politely eliminated. 
 
THE STORY OF THE TABLE 129 
 
 " Raw ham is national. It is sustaining, and of a 
 pleasant odour and colour. Its taste is fragrant. On long 
 tramps across hills, plains, and through dirty hamlets — 
 picturesque only from a distance — I have lived on Spanish 
 ham, bread, and wine, relying upon no other manjares 
 (viands). You can be sure of your ham, for artificial curing 
 is unknown {alabado sea Dios !\ and my only advice to 
 tramps in Spain is that they eat no meat but goafs flesh, 
 and otherwise rely on ham. Thus, and with the bota of 
 wine slung across the shoulder, they will be able to fare far 
 and in peace with man, beast, and climate. 
 
 " If, in the city, the pig season is of short duration and 
 is followed by a dearth long and terrible to bear, the more 
 agonizing considering that no provision has been made to 
 meet it, in the country it is not so. Every farmer or 
 husbandman, even the poorest, annually kills his fattened 
 hog. But he does not gobble the lean parts as might a 
 glutton, or sell them as would the miser. Hams, codos 
 (elbows), and codillos (knuckles) are dried and smoked, the 
 tocino is packed away religiously, and as for the remainder 
 of the animal, part is turned into rich, home-made chorizos 
 or salchichas, and part is slightly fried in its own lard, to 
 which red pepper and garlic have been added, and then 
 stowed away in earthen jars and pots in the cueva or cellar. 
 There they slumber during the summer months when nature 
 frizzles away to desert-like aridity, and even the ham in the 
 kitchen melts with grief to a skeleton of its former robust- 
 ness. On grand occasions the good housewife, armed with 
 candil{p\\ lamp), knife, and frying-pan, will pay a mysterious 
 visit to the cellar, to one of her pots which, as she full well 
 knows, are each worth more than una onza de oro (an ounce 
 of gold). Then up she will come again — slowly as befits 
 a careful matron, and with a faint glamour of anticipated 
 9 
 
I30 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 pleasure twinkling in her eyes — and soon the delightful 
 aroma of fried pork drives away the more objectionable 
 odours of a Spanish hut, and involuntarily the honoured 
 guest smacks his lips and praises San Anton for his bless- 
 ings, not least among them being the good woman's larder, 
 a small fraction of which is now sizzling merrily under his 
 very nose in the frying-pan. 
 
 " He dicho " (I have had my say). 
 
 My good friend having come to my aid, it is possible for 
 one of the Chosen People to continue this narrative. Yet 
 another of the delightful national dishes of Spain is made 
 by frying slices of potatoes in oil until they are quite soft. 
 Eggs are beaten up and poured into the frying-pan, to- 
 gether with vegetable, meat, or fish, all in small pieces and 
 according to the district in which the tortilla is made. Near 
 the coast fish will be added, inland, at certain seasons of the 
 year, tomatoes are used, or wild asparagus will be requisi- 
 tioned, while some cooks add little pieces of the noble 
 animal concerning which Mr. Rudy has just discoursed so 
 eloquently. When eggs, green vegetables, and potatoes have 
 met their common end in Spanish oil, the mixture is treated 
 like an omelette, carefully turned and skilfully browned. 
 There are few things a Spaniard likes better than his 
 tortilla. He will cut a loaf in half, remove a part of the 
 crumb and insert a tortilla in its place, and armed with this 
 safeguard against hunger, will go cheerfully on a long 
 journey on foot or mule or in the tren botjo. If the wide 
 world holds a happier or more contented man my travels 
 through a small part of it have not revealed him, and those 
 of my friends who know Spain and have journeyed more ex- 
 tensively than I in parts remote, are in similar plight. 
 
 As soon as your digestive apparatus is tuned to Spanish 
 dishes you will doubtless enjoy garlic soup {sopas de ajo). 
 
THE STORY OF THE TABLE 131 
 
 This is made by frying nuts of garlic in oil with a liberal 
 sprinkling of red pepper. When the garlic is golden brown 
 it is withdrawn from the pot to which water is added. 
 Eggs are then beaten up and introduced, and bread in slices 
 completes a dish that is highly flavoured and very satisfying 
 to those who live in a hot climate where a little nourish- 
 ment goes a long way. 
 
 Spanish cheese is almost uniformly bad. It is not largely 
 in demand in the towns, where cheap imitations of French 
 and Swiss cheese command such sale as exists, but in the 
 country the farmer's wife makes her own cheeses and even 
 goes so far as to preserve some in the oil of her country, 
 thus ensuring them against the attack of the passing 
 traveller who hails from another land. Catalonia makes 
 a third-class Roquefort, and is perhaps responsible for 
 a large part of the queso de bola^ an imitation Dutch 
 cheese of deeper colour and poorer quality than the real 
 thing. In remote parts of the north, the mantequilla, 
 which seems to be made of butter and sugar, and is sold in 
 grease-proof papers, is eaten with bread. The town of its 
 origin would appear to be Reinosa in the Province of 
 Santander, on the main line from Madrid, and every 
 traveller to this city sends mantequillas to his friends. 
 Doubtless those for which the Spanish post office has no 
 urgent personal use reach their destination. Many Spanish 
 cities have some dainty that is always associated with them. 
 Some have been mentioned already, others include the 
 turon of Valencia, a very delicious Spanish form of nougat, 
 while Alcald de Henares is famous for its candied almonds, 
 and Guadalajara for its honey. 
 
 Among very popular Spanish dishes that may be success- 
 fully encountered in the houses of the upper middle class 
 are meat-balls {almondrigas) served with a sauce of bread 
 
132 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 and garlic, and lamb or mutton roasted in oil to which 
 water has been added at the psychological moment. Of 
 the beef eaten in Spain the less said the better. Few 
 will forget the shock following the demand for a beef-steak 
 in any of Spain's best restaurants. With all due ceremony 
 the waiter will place before him an unhappy and unwhole- 
 some slice of meat, browned throughout, which bids eternal 
 defiance to the best set of teeth and the iinest digestion 
 that ever crossed the Pyrenees. Beef does not enjoy much 
 popularity in Spain, though the blackened flesh of bulls that 
 have died in the Plaza de Toros commands a heavy sale at 
 a very small price among the lower classes, who believe that 
 they will gather from it some of the bull's strength and 
 perhaps — who knows — a little of the matador's skill. It is 
 fair to say that this repulsive food is not eaten right away ; 
 if it were, the consequences in hot summer weather might 
 be fatal. It is kept over night in salt and water with a 
 weight on the top of it to extract the blood, and is then 
 stewed with wine {estofadd). 
 
 In its supply of fish Spain is extremely fortunate, for 
 both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean bring the produce 
 of their teeming waters to coast, town, and village. Sardines 
 and anchovies (boquerones) are eaten fresh and are very 
 popular with all classes ; the cod reaches fine size and ex- 
 cellent quality — fresh it is called merluza, and dried bacalao ; 
 the tunny-fish is also eaten fresh, often fried like a steak 
 and far more palatable than any other steak one gets in 
 Spain ; excellent salmon and trout come from the north, 
 and among other sea dainties are bream, lobsters, and 
 oysters. Bream is very much in demand on Christmas Eve. 
 The Spanish fisherman tempts Poseidon in the strangest 
 vessels imaginable, most of which on our English coasts 
 would be condemned as unseaworthy. But Providence is 
 
THE STORY OF THE TABLE 133 
 
 kind to him ; his supplies are obtained within easy distance 
 of the shore and are sold at prices well within reach of a 
 slender purse. Even the cuttle-fish is not despised, and 
 shrimps, cray-fish, and prawns are very plentiful. Outside 
 Madrid fish is not readily obtained in the interior of Spain, 
 the facilities for transport and the supreme indifference of 
 railway authorities to such trifling questions as punctuality 
 being too much for the powers of endurance of the average 
 fish corpse under a Spanish sun. 
 
 Tea and coffee do not thrive in Spain, and the attempt 
 to establish tea-houses has never succeeded. Chocolate is 
 the national beverage, and is taken in small cups like those 
 that serve the Moors for their coffee. The making of 
 chocolate in Spanish fashion is quite a fine art. The 
 chocolate as the Spanish housewife buys it is already mixed 
 with flour and sugar, and an allowance of one ounce per 
 cup is deemed requisite. The cake is cut and then enough 
 water is added to make a thick paste. It is boiled slowly 
 over a charcoal fire in a heavy iron pot that is seldom washed, 
 but is carefully kept covered up. The morning chocolate is 
 taken with churros or bunuelos which can be bought from 
 street vendors in the early hours of the day. They are 
 made of a paste of ^^^ and flour fried very rapidly in boiling 
 oil. In small villages the keeper of the local taberna pre- 
 pares them for everybody, and at ih^feria they are made 
 throughout the day and night and eaten as soon as they are 
 taken out of the oil. A more curious custom still, and one 
 that is not quite so offensive as it sounds, is to eat the 
 morning chocolate with a mixture made of breadcrumbs, 
 garlic, and spice fried in oil. A spoonful of the composition 
 is taken and dipped in the chocolate! To the hardy 
 Spaniard this does not act as an emetic, although it may be 
 remarked that he often supplements the curious mixture 
 
134 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 with a small glass of aguardiente, a precaution to which the 
 most rigid total abstainer could hardly take exception 
 under the circumstances, 
 
 In the conduct of her household we have seen that the 
 Spanish lady is very suspicious of those who serve her. 
 Her baker, her butcher, her grocer are all changed, either 
 upon the slightest pretext or without any. And this 
 curious suspicion is almost an Oriental characteristic that is 
 perhaps developed to the fullest extent in a country where 
 the confessional plays such an important part. As a rule 
 the Spaniard suspects his neighbours, suspects those he 
 serves and those who serve him, and may be said to receive 
 a foreigner with less suspicion than he receives anyone else. 
 Now and again in a Spanish household one' meets the 
 housewife who places complete confidence in one of her 
 servants — the class of confidence that is kept as a rule for 
 the confessor. In this case the favourite domestic acts as 
 the medium through which everybody else in and out of the 
 household is suspected. The attitude towards his neigh- 
 bours of the average Spaniard who lives in a big city is 
 that of the English agricultural labourer and his woman- 
 kind towards the foreigner — that is to say, the man who 
 comes from another village perhaps only a mile or two 
 away. This suspicion is one of the traits of the Spanish 
 character which is mentioned with regret, for Spaniards as 
 a race are so eminently lovable, so simple and courteous 
 and kindly to strangers that it seems a thousand pities to 
 have to record this one undeniable blemish. A strong sus- 
 picion of everybody animates the Spanish housewife and 
 leads her to deal with all tradespeople as she dealt with the 
 traders of the market. The Englishwoman is fairly con- 
 stant to her dressmaker ; her Spanish sister never is. As 
 soon as two or three dresses have been purchased, the 
 
THE STORY OF THE TABLE 135 
 
 Spanish lady goes elsewhere for fear lest she should be ill- 
 served or kept waiting in favour of some new client. In the 
 lower middle classes the care of the pence is carefully 
 studied ; in the towns living is literally from hand to mouth ; 
 nobody would buy half a pound of anything if two ounces 
 will satisfy immediate needs. Even coal is bought in the 
 cities by the arroba — a measure of some thirty pounds — and 
 for reasons best known to the Spanish mind, tradesmen 
 offer no inducements to their customers to purchase in 
 greater quantities, reductions on large orders being un- 
 known. As there is no credit there is necessarily no dis- 
 count for cash. Even the store system is practically 
 unknown in Spain, and it is likely if any enterprising firm 
 were to set up a big store on the English or American 
 model, patronage would be conspicuous by its absence. 
 The business would be regarded as a swindle on a gigan- 
 tic scale, and even if it were possible to dispel this idea, 
 there would be the ever-present objection to the noise and 
 the methodical habits of the modern store-keeper. To 
 make matters worse, bargaining would be unknown ; every 
 woman would know what her neighbour paid for goods, 
 and the delightful fiction of marvellous bargains would 
 pass from the list of the Spanish woman's enjoyments. 
 While it would not be correct to describe Spanish clubs 
 as the historian described the snakes of Iceland, it must be 
 admitted that club-life does not flourish. The aristocracy 
 in Castile and Andalusia has its clubs — if they were in 
 this country the most of them would be closed by the 
 police, for gambling is their sole raison detre. For the 
 middle classes there are no clubs, but there are regional 
 caf6s in which the man from an outlying province, driven 
 to earn a living in a city, may meet his brother exiles 
 and water the national dish with tears. This of course is 
 
136 HOME LIF'E IN SPAIN 
 
 mere poetic licence on the writer^s part : they do nothing 
 of the kind, being well content to wash it down with the 
 best available wine — or cider, if they be Galicians or 
 Asturians — while they speak with profound contempt of the 
 barbarous city in which their lives are set, and look hope- 
 fully to the time when they will shake the dust of the 
 accursed place from off their alpargatas (sandals) and re- 
 turn to their native land. This expression is used advisedly. 
 To the Valencians the Sevillians and the Galicians forced to 
 earn a living in Madrid — Valencia, Seville, and Galicia are 
 the native land, Castile is a country of exile, and the same 
 remark, mutatis mutandis^ applies to strangers in every big 
 city of Spain. 
 
 The comparative absence of clubs helps to keep the 
 Spaniard devoted to his home. He is a good husband and 
 father. Should business permit, he is not ashamed to go 
 to market with his wife and carry her parcels for her ; he 
 takes her to the theatre as often as he can, and will ac- 
 company her when she pays calls, the late hour of receiving 
 guests in Spain enabling him to do this when the day*s 
 work is over. On Sunday he will take his wife and children 
 to picnics in the country, or, if his means permit, they will 
 all go together to the bull-fight, where he will have the 
 pleasure of seeing his little nine-year-old daughter clapping 
 her hands with joy at sights that would make many a 
 healthy Englishman ill. 
 
CxIRL IN BULL-FIGHTER'S COSTUME WITH WHITE MANTILLA 
 
 FROM THE PAINTING BY J. CASADO 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE FERIA 
 
 SPAIN is full of saints, the efficacy of whose intercession 
 is not to be understood or appreciated by the un- 
 initiated. South of the Pyrenees even the atheist has his 
 patron saint, and the Virgin Mary takes a special name 
 and special attributes from the city with which she has 
 some particular association. It has been mentioned that 
 there are Virgins of Saragossa and Seville, among many 
 others. Santiago de Compostela has St. James, the Patron 
 Saint of Spain, and, in addition to these outstanding figures, 
 there are countless saints and virgins of merely local 
 sanctity and repute, whose intercession in times of trouble 
 is most efficacious. They must be closely related — albeit 
 of another faith — to the saints one encounters on a journey 
 through Morocco. Strictly to be accurate one does not 
 encounter the saints ; it is their tombs that are met — zowias 
 is the Arabic title. These, consisting of a white domed 
 shrine, standing within four whitewashed walls and fiercely 
 throwing back the intolerable glare of the African sun, 
 shelter the remains of a holy man whose deeds are obscure, 
 and whose name is known only to those who appeal for 
 charity on the ground that they are descended from him. 
 But if a saint's shrine in Morocco is a place of pilgrimage, 
 a saint's city in Spain is no less honoured. Indeed, it may 
 be said that Spain is even more generous in the matter of 
 
 137 
 
138 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 offering tribute to saints, for there are few cities that do 
 not boast an annual feria which, as far as theory is con- 
 cerned, is always held in the local saint's honoi^r. The 
 hold of a patron saint upon the Spaniard is really extra- 
 ordinary. Sarasate, the famous violinist who died quite 
 recently to the unending regret of lovers of brilliant playing, 
 was a native of Pamplona in Navarre, and he was seldom 
 known to miss the feria held annually in that city in 
 honour of San Fermin. He would go down to his old 
 home and play in public that his fellow-townsmen might 
 dance the Xoc'oXjota^ just as though he had achieved no 
 greater success than falls to the wandering guitarrero of 
 Andalusian by-ways. For that week at least the world- 
 famous violinist was as simple a child of nature as any 
 of those who honoured Pamplona's patron saint, and the 
 applause of his old friends was dearer to him than the 
 plaudits of London, Paris, or New York. 
 
 In the city where the feria is held, the cathedral or 
 chapel is of course the point of special interest. Images of 
 the saint or virgin, executed quite roughly in plaster or 
 mud, find a ready sale, and they are generally sold with 
 the similar copy of a leading matador or politician. Pre- 
 sumably the saint is expected to look after the country's 
 spiritual welfare, while the political health is in the keeping 
 of the politician, and the traditions that the Spanish popu- 
 lace regard as Spain's highest and best are entrusted to 
 the torero. Moreover, there is economy in buying saint, 
 statesman, and bull-fighter together : you can purchase the 
 three for the price of any two bought separately. At the 
 booths in the immediate neighbourhood of the cathedral 
 toys of all kinds, artificial flowers, fruit, pastry, and sweets 
 of every description meet with a ready sale. Even the 
 toys that are known by the rude title of '* kill-the-mother- 
 
THE FERIA 139 
 
 in-law '* {inata suegra) rejoice in the additional qualification 
 " del santo " — of the saint, though presumably the saint's 
 mother-in-law is not alluded to. The light-hearted visitors 
 are so heavily laden with purchases at the close of the day, 
 that tramcar and railway carriage look like a shop. In 
 the brilliant colour scheme which prevails, one notices 
 that red and yellow are always to the fore, presumably 
 because they are Spain's national colours. 
 
 A fair is of annual occurrence and lasts from three days 
 in a village up to a fortnight or more in a very large town. 
 Where the municipality has money to spend, it issues a pro- 
 gramme of entertainment covering each day ; the railway 
 companies run what they are pleased to call excursion trains 
 at rates so low that the most ill-tempered traveller can 
 hardly summon up courage to complain merely because he 
 is packed like a herring in a barrel and the tren botijo does 
 not happen to be on speaking terms with punctuality. 
 But it is impossible to be surly when you go to the fair, 
 for everybody is so supremely happy. The tren botijo 
 derives its name from the botijos or earthenware bottles 
 holding water, that are slung outside the carriages in order 
 that they may be kept cool by the current of fresh air. 
 When the journey has started, pleasant relations are estab- 
 lished between all members of the tightly packed company. 
 Every man has brought his pigskin bottle of rough wine — 
 a wine that threatens to take the skin off the palate of 
 those who have not learned to love it. Men will not 
 always provide themselves with food, because when one 
 has cigarettes and wine it is possible to go a long time 
 without feeling hungry. But the women are more careful, 
 and there is hardly a railway carriage in the tren botijo that 
 does not hold sufficient garlic to flavour all the salads that 
 are eaten in London on a summer day. Sausages, sand- 
 
140 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 wiches, omelettes, bread that would be more popular among 
 those who have little Spanish blood if it were a little less 
 sour — these constitute the main sources of food supply, and 
 are handed round freely to perfect strangers. The pigskin 
 wine bottle passes from one honest mouth to another with 
 a fervent con salud until its generous proportions are shrunk 
 and the last sub-acid drop has been drained. Then some- 
 body produces a guitar — perhaps a couple are forthcoming 
 — very little tuning is necessary and the players strike up 
 a local air or a national song in which one and all join 
 heartily. So, to sounds of merriment and happiness, as 
 real as brief, the tren botijo drags its slow length across the 
 country-side, while the signal women in their little huts by 
 the railside wave a hand in greeting, or lift up their little 
 children to catch a glimpse of the merriment. What matter 
 then if the heat be wellnigh intolerable, if the carriages are 
 innocent of springs and the seats are hard as though they 
 had been carved, not too carefully, out of stone. No 
 measure of unaccustomed comfort would add to the happi- 
 ness of the merry crowd that has forgotten all its troubles 
 in honour of Xki^feria and its saint. The same good spirits 
 prevail at night : your Spaniard tires but he does not sulk, 
 and he is as gentle with his women folk when he is going 
 home as when he is setting out. Some of those who 
 indulge in popular amusement on Bank Holiday in England 
 might take a lesson from the Spaniard. 
 
 Of late years a certain industrial interest has been added 
 to \}s\Q.feria^ and large manufacturers, anxious to show their 
 wares, set up stalls in the neighbourhood of the booths. 
 Pedlars, horse-dealers — the smartest rogues in Spain — 
 wandering minstrels {guitarreros\ travelling companies of 
 gipsies whose ancestral home is probably Granada, farmers 
 with whiskers on which you might strike a match, or with 
 
THE FERIA 141 
 
 which, detached from their owner, you might sweep a grate, 
 the most picturesque beggars in the world, bull-fighters of 
 local celebrity, travelling companies of actors who will give 
 several performances every day and devote to rehearsal the 
 " hours of fire " {horas defuegd) when the most ardent of 
 their patrons are in search of a little shade, women of all 
 ages whose costumes, however poor in quality, are worn 
 with a taste and nicety unapproached by any other women 
 in Europe — all lend charm to a scene that invites men of 
 every clime and temperament who wish to see real happi- 
 ness. There may be — indeed there are — times when the 
 Spaniard seems, for all the sun in which his life is set, to 
 be a melancholy man. But when you see him at \h^feria, 
 you realize that he has his hours of mental as well as of 
 physical relaxation. 
 
 As has been remarked, nearly every Spanish town has 
 its special food or sweetmeat, and at fair times there is a 
 very brisk demand for these. Visitors buy them in great 
 quantities, not only to eat but to take away with them ; 
 some are so venturesome as to entrust packets of the good 
 things to the custody of the local post office, though they 
 must know very well that the officials in charge will send 
 away just so much as they cannot eat or give to their 
 relatives. On the campo the merry-go-rounds are set up, 
 and there solemn men and women of middle age, who pass 
 fifty-one weeks of the year at hard labour in the fields, relax 
 the severity of their lives. They are arrayed in their best 
 clothes {traje de fiesta)^ only to be used when they celebrate 
 a birth, marriage, or a death, or when they take their annual 
 holiday. It would be idle to say that they look at their 
 ease or their best in these garments, and when they come 
 for the first time to the campo, they are profoundly con- 
 scious that they are honouring a great occasion to the best 
 
142 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 of their ability. But the merry-go-round avails to take 
 the starch out of their gait and their garments ; they be- 
 come simple children of nature once again. The campo is 
 thickly strewn with picnic parties, and beggars and gipsies 
 have a happy time while the merienda is in progress, for 
 when the huge bota has gone freely round, the fortune-teller 
 can find custom, and her numerous half-naked offspring can 
 enjoy a feast such as seldom falls to their lot outside fair 
 time. The guitar that did service in the train must work 
 once more, and the feast ends in a sing-song. Then the 
 worthy provider of the entertainment will probably re- 
 member that in his capacity of Spanish citizen he has a 
 serious grievance against the Government or local autho- 
 rities, and he will spare an hour to proceed to the local 
 Government offices or town hall and enter a complaint 
 against somebody for having done or failed to do part of 
 his duty. There is no malice in this action : it is merely 
 a compliance with a long-standing custom that serves to 
 remind the Government, whatever it may be, that even a 
 feria cannot make it popular with any self-respecting son 
 of Spain. There is another duty that must not be forgotten, 
 and that is "Besar al santo ". The worthy patron of the 
 fair feels that it is part of his business to kiss the figure 
 or relic of the town's patron saint in whose honour the 
 function is held, and although the act does not possess the 
 smallest religious significance for him, he never omits it, 
 knowing that if he did, the whole entertainment would 
 lose its efficacy. 
 
 There are countless side-shows at the feria^ but it is 
 impossible to deal with all of them within reasonable 
 limits of space. They vary too according to the district, 
 for Spain's regionalism affects the/m<3: as it affects every- 
 thing else. But in many of the fairs, particularly in the 
 
THE FERIA 143 
 
 south, we find the Arena de Gallos or cockpit, and though 
 cock-fighting is tending to disappear in many parts of Spain, 
 it is too interesting to be overlooked. The sport is carried 
 on in a place that looks like a Plaza de Toros in miniature ; 
 there is a small arena in the centre and a range of benches 
 all round it. Some cockpits will hold a couple of hundred 
 people or more, and the charge for admission is generally 
 one peseta. The presence of a member of the Guardia 
 Civil by the entrance demonstrates the fact that a paternal 
 Government finds it necessary to regulate the proceedings, 
 and for reasons the writer has been unable to fathom, 
 women are not admitted. The audience consists for the 
 most part of farmers, horse-dealers, bull-fighters, and non- 
 descripts, and betting is carried on briskly while each fight 
 is in progress. The birds are very carefully bred and pre- 
 pared. When they first go into training their combs are 
 cut close to the head, their necks are stripped to the crop, 
 and their spurs are sharpened, but are not steel-shod as is, 
 or was, the custom sometimes in England. About ten 
 couples are matched : the arrival of the first pair is greeted 
 very loudly, and bets begin to pass at once. The birds 
 are brought in by two attendants, waved gently in the air 
 half a dozen times and then set down facing each other ; 
 there is no delay. Each cock stretches his long bare neck 
 in the direction of his opponent, as though it were a rapier, 
 and they join with a sharp rattle of wings from which all 
 save the primary quills have been removed. The fight is 
 full of interest, and has no offensive aspect, for the birds 
 are evenly matched and are as keen as race-horses. Each 
 one aims at the other's head, and a bird whose comb had 
 not been closely cropped would stand no chance at all, 
 for the blood from the first wound would trickle on to its 
 eyes and leave it at the mercy of its opponent. Even 
 
144 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 under existing conditions this trouble sometimes arises, 
 and then the wounded bird thrusts its head between the 
 wing and breast of its opponent to clear away the blood 
 by the aid of the soft downy feathers that have not 
 been removed. Fighting cocks live game and die game, 
 and when one falls the victor stands on his prostrate body 
 and crows with all his might, sometimes falling dead as he 
 does so. But though dead he is the victor, and those whose 
 money was on his opponent hasten with curses loud and 
 deep, directed not so much against the loser as against the 
 Government and the Pope, to throw their losses to the 
 winner. I have heard the late Leo XIII most foully 
 abused by those who have lost money on a game cock, 
 though the precise responsibility of His Holiness was not 
 apparent to the uninitiated. Heavy silver duros whiz 
 across the arena, so deftly thrown and so deftly caught 
 that every piece seems to reach its destination. There is 
 a buzz of excited conversation in which the actions of the 
 victor and vanquished are freely criticized, and then the 
 attendants bring in the next couple and the courses are 
 resumed. 
 
 Somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
 Arena de Gallos you will find a man in charge of the fight- 
 ing cocks which have been carried to the arena in flat 
 wicker baskets. Victorious birds that have survived their 
 encounter are brought to him as he sits at a table spread 
 with some bottles, feathers, and a sharp knife. He ex- 
 amines wounded birds with an expert eye. If one is not 
 badly hurt he rubs lotion on its wounds, dips a long feather 
 in some restorative and thrusts it right down the bird's 
 throat. This strange action seems to be wonderfully 
 efficacious ; the cock that seemed to be in articulo mortis 
 recovers his spirits and is carried off to his basket crowing 
 
THE FERIA 145 
 
 lustily. When there is no hope the custodian of the birds 
 leaves bottles and feathers alone, takes up the keen-edged 
 knife, and the blood that was left in the unfortunate fighting 
 cock flows into the pail by his side. 
 
 As we have already remarked, cock-fighting tends to fall 
 from its high estate in Spain, but in the remote country 
 districts many a farmer keeps a few birds, often bred from 
 English stock, on his granja^ and will invite those of his 
 friends who are foolish enough to believe that their birds 
 are as good as his. There is, or used to be, in the Arrebola 
 of Seville a well-equipped Arena de Gallos where cock- 
 fights were held every Sunday morning at half-past nine — 
 presumably that winners and losers alike might go when 
 the courses were over to return thanks or ask for better 
 luck at the shrine of Her of the Dolours. This may seem 
 a little irreverent, but nobody who knows the Spanish 
 mood can have failed to see how closely superstition is 
 associated with the most ordinary acts of daily life, and 
 how it even enters into sport. 
 
 Throughout the week of Wx^feria^ bull-fights on the most 
 lavish scale possible serve as an attraction every afternoon. 
 The best bulls and the finest matadors are specially re- 
 served for the saint's own day, while on the closing of the 
 fair there is a corrida de novillos during which the excited 
 populace frequently climbs over the barricade to lend a 
 hand in the closing stages of the ghastly business. It is a 
 strange and sudden revelation of a blood-lust from which 
 no Spaniard among the lower orders seems to be altogether 
 exempt, and to those of us who look upon the entire pro- 
 ceeding dispassionately, this corrida de novillos is a stain 
 upon a holiday that has been enjoyed in a spirit of kind- 
 ness and consideration. When the last wretched novillo 
 has completed his hard journey out of life, the/m^ is at 
 10 
 
146 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 an end. To be sure, a few may linger until the night, but 
 the booths are being dismantled — gipsies, fortune-tellers, 
 tramps, beggars, itinerant minstrels and the rest have gone 
 their way to tramp over fragrant roads and sleep under the 
 stars. The tren botijo is waiting for the others, the hour of 
 leave-taking has come, the yearns holiday is over. Yet 
 another day and the little town buried in the heart of 
 brown sierras or lost amid the wide spaces of some vast 
 plain, will have recovered its normal aspect. Only the 
 residents will parade the streets through whose pavements 
 the grass rises unrebuked ; the shopkeepers, once more 
 indifferent to custom, will retire to the shadiest depths of 
 their tienda, the virgin or saint in whose honour Xh^feria 
 is held, will be worshipped only by the faithful few, her 
 festive garments and imitation jewellery carefully removed 
 by loving hands, and the feria will have passed so far 
 away that not even the faintest echo of its joy can reach 
 the city of its recent celebration. 
 
< 
 
 g 
 
 2 
 
 o 
 u 
 
 H 
 
 o 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SPANIARD'S SUMMER HOLIDAY 
 
 WHEN full summer gives to life in a Spanish city- 
 some suggestion of purgatory on earth, every 
 family that has a little money makes haste to take a holi- 
 day. Those in whom blue blood is not allied to filthy 
 lucre find themselves in the awkward position of being un- 
 able to go away for lack of means, and unable to remain 
 where they are lest their friends should despise them and 
 point them out with the finger of scorn as members of the 
 class that cannot afford to take a holiday. Now is the time 
 for a little diplomatic deception of the kind that is so often 
 associated with poverty and long descent in Spain. The 
 cursis, as these harmless pretenders are called in Spain, 
 announce that they are going to some fashionable seaside 
 place and invite their friends to attend their departure at 
 the railway station. After affectionate leave-taking the 
 train moves off, and the cursz^ alighting at the first village 
 at which the train stops (Pozuelo, in the case of Madrid), 
 lies perdu until the close of the summer season brings rank 
 and fashion back to the capital. Reference to the daily 
 papers has sufficed to keep the cursi in touch with every- 
 thing that has taken place in San Sebastian, Portugalete 
 or the other fashionable watering-places to which they 
 have gone only in imagination. A strange and pitiful 
 deception this, and useless too, since it does no more to 
 
 147 
 
148 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 deceive people than the banquets given to themselves by 
 distinguished nobodies in the big cities. A strange snob- 
 bery indeed, but not without a certain element of pathos 
 as a device which is one of the last laps in the desperate 
 race to keep up appearances, and to hide poverty from 
 curious eyes and cruel tongues. These are to be found in 
 Spain as elsewhere. 
 
 Even apart from the poor snobs who attempt so deliber- 
 ately to deceive, there are countless instances in Spain of 
 old families, once as wealthy as they are noble, who now 
 live in their casa senorial and have taken poverty to be 
 their only friend. Their blood is far too pure, their es- 
 cutcheon far too noble for them to admit to their ranks the 
 sons and daughters of the outer world. Within the ances- 
 tral walls they live a dim life in which piety and semi-starva- 
 tion play the leading roles. Furniture, ornaments, and even 
 clothes are wellnigh impossible to replace. In a country 
 where living is extremely cheap, the question of an adequate 
 supply of food and firing is one of gravest concern to these 
 impoverished ones, and the family literally lives and dies 
 within its own narrow boundaries. Holidays are unknown, 
 outside interests scarcely exist even in name. The sons 
 and daughters do not marry because they will not marry 
 out of their own class, so the sons remain bachelors while 
 the daughters stifle their lives in the shadow of the Church. 
 The tragedy of these lives has been the theme of some strik- 
 ing Spanish novels and plays, including Galdos' " Mariucha ". 
 In progressive Catalonia where young commerce raises its 
 head and is prosperous and unabashed, there is a perceptible 
 movement in the direction of a healthy change, and many 
 old families have, in Byron's picturesque phrase, ** ruined the 
 blood but much improved the breed ". Well-dowried brides, 
 sometimes from a commercial house but more often from 
 
THE SPANIARD'S SUMMER HOLIDAY 149 
 
 overseas, have brought the assistance necessary to restore 
 the faded fortune of noble houses, but Castile and Aragon 
 look out upon the present through the eyes of the past — 
 eyes that pride and prejudice have dimmed. 
 
 Turning back not without relief to summer holidays, it 
 is possible to discuss and describe more healthy conditions 
 of national life. Regionalism plays its inevitable part in 
 the choice and occupation of summer holidays, and we find 
 that Spaniards may be divided very roughly into two classes ; 
 the first consisting of those who rely for their holiday upon 
 the feria of their native town, and those who spend the 
 veraneo at some seaside place or go away to the mountains. 
 If it be remotely possible to go to San Sebastian or Biarritz, 
 which correspond in their fashion to Cowes in the yachting 
 season, the Spaniard on the fringe of society will not 
 hesitate to incur a heavy load of debt in order to get there. 
 In San Sebastian, where the King has a summer palace, life 
 is intensely cosmopolitan, and does not yield in point of 
 gaiety to any seaside resort in Europe. It may even be 
 said to challenge comparison with Monte Carlo in March 
 and April. In addition to the yachting, the feria, the 
 corrida de toros, and the entertainments at the Casino, 
 there is one long and seemingly endless round of pleasur- 
 ing to suit all tastes, and the gaiety is heightened by the 
 presence of leisured idlers from all the great capitals and 
 provincial cities of Europe. The wealthy Spanish families 
 that leave Madrid for their country estates at the close of 
 the season, do not fail to shed the lustre of their presence 
 if only for a week or two upon San Sebastian or Biarritz. 
 And it must not be forgotten that it would be hard to find 
 throughout the length and breadth of Spain a city more 
 happily set, more delightfully built or more fortunate in 
 surroundings. 
 
ISO HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Next in importance to San Sebastian and Biarritz— the 
 latter is situate in France — is Portugalete, near Bilbao. 
 This charming little seaport owes its prosperity partly to 
 the great wealth of the Bilbao merchants and partly to 
 its own natural attractions ; it is the head-quarters of the 
 first yachting club in Spain, and when the race week comes 
 round, King Alfonso, who is an enthusiastic yachtsman, 
 motors across from San Sebastian and stays at Portugalete 
 until the last race is run. 
 
 Perhaps on account of Queen Victoria's liking for the 
 mountain air. La Granja, in the Province of Segovia, has 
 come very much to the fore in the past few years. In the 
 days of *^ Ferdinand the Desired," Goya's blackguard patron 
 who did so little for the Spain that did so much for him, 
 La Granja was in high favour, and, in the days of Isabella, 
 the Revolution was proclaimed from the royal palace that 
 stands in such splendid retirement in the shadow of the 
 high hills of Guaderrama. The wealthy classes who do 
 not care for the seaside, and feel sufficiently independent 
 to go where they please, have villas at La Granja, which 
 is happily situated for rural entertainment. The fountains 
 in the Gardens of La Granja are perhaps the most beautiful 
 in Europe, and on a certain day in the summer, the day of 
 La Granja's patron saint, all the fountains are in play, and 
 the public is admitted to enjoy the beauty in the palace 
 gardens. Excursion trains from Madrid bring thousands 
 of visitors to celebrate the occasion, leaving them at Segovia, 
 generally in the small hours of the morning, to reach La 
 Granja on foot or in hired carriages. The wealthy Madri- 
 lefio, freed from all restrictions of speed, runs out from 
 Madrid to La Granja on his motor-car, and the journey 
 that the tren botijo takes six hours to accomplish, takes the 
 motor-car no more than an hour and a half. This style 
 
THE SPANIARD'S SUMMER HOLIDAY 151 
 
 of travelling suits the official classes admirably, for when 
 summer comes to Madrid, hard-worked officials — if there 
 be any in Spain — leave their labours soon after midday 
 when all the public offices are closed. 
 
 Officials whose salary is but moderate, together with the 
 rank and file of professional men and the burguesia^ cannot 
 spend the veraneo in the exclusive neighbourhoods that have 
 just been described. They are content to seek relaxation 
 either in the smaller provincial towns on the coast, or in 
 some of the delightful villages that are spread haphazard 
 along the Bay of Biscay, or they go to the rias of Galicia, 
 which correspond in most charming fashion to the fjords of 
 Norway. Life in these places is one long round of simple 
 pleasures. There is generally a casino of sorts — it looks 
 like a cafe very much out of repair — and acquaintances are 
 made without formality. An introduction to any family that 
 is well established in the social set places all the pleasures of 
 the district before the stranger : he is a welcome guest at 
 every picnic and excursion, and if he chance to be a sports- 
 man, he will find himself in congenial surroundings. There 
 is nearly always some local landlord who is devoted to the 
 gun and is quick to welcome the stranger who is a keen 
 sportsman and is well recommended. Sport varies in quality, 
 and ranges from the pursuit of the shy deer and the savage 
 tusker (in Asturias) down to modest rabbit shooting, which 
 is the special delight of the middle and lower classes. How 
 game manages to exist in a country where every man who 
 has no land of his own poaches that of his neighbour's, 
 where game laws seem to be conspicuous by their absence, 
 and you can buy roast partridge in the railway stations half 
 way through June, is one of the questions to which no solu- 
 tion is forthcoming. Friar Tuck has left some descendants 
 in Spain. Perhaps he shrived some fair Spanish penitents 
 
152 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 who chanced to be passing through Sherwood Forest, but 
 be that as it may — and the writer has no desire to pry too 
 curiously into matters with which he has no concern — the 
 fact remains that many a village cura is a notoriously fine 
 shot and indifferent to seasons, seeming to hold that the 
 better the day the better the deed. 
 
 Fishing in the rias of Galicia is very good, though it may 
 not compare with the trout-fishing in the Basque Provinces. 
 But it has the double advantage of attracting equally the 
 lover of sea line and the lover of the river rod. Many 
 Englishmen who have stayed in the rias of Galicia imitate 
 Brer Rabbit, *' They lie low and say nuffin' '* — content to 
 return year after year and enjoy such fishing as they could 
 only obtain in British waters at an expense possible to rich 
 men alone. Naturally enough they keep their discovery to 
 themselves ; they have no wish to find a crowd where they 
 left comparative solitude. 
 
 No man who is anxious to learn something of local 
 Spanish customs should miss the chance of taking a summer 
 holiday in turn in the rias of Galicia, the mountains of 
 Aragon and Navarre, or the vine-lands of Malaga. Spain's 
 regionalism will ensure for him different surroundings, 
 thoughts, and customs in each district, and as far as expense 
 is concerned the outlay, exclusive of the journey out and 
 home, is absurdly small. The bachelor who knows some 
 Spanish and cannot live en prince on six pounds a month, 
 even in these days when the English sovereign is worth little 
 more than twenty-five pesetas, must be but a foolish fellow. 
 In return for this small expense he will get countless glimpses 
 of old Spain, the Spain that seemed to disappear from history 
 when Goya laid down his brush. It lies beyond the reach 
 of the average tourist ; his circular tickets and hotel coupons 
 take no note of it ; the tren correo passes it by, the leading 
 
THE SPANIARD'S SUMMER HOLIDAY 153 
 
 journals have nothing to say about it. But whether it lie 
 north, south, east, or west, it is a fascinating region full to 
 the brim of hospitality, good-fellowship, and local colour. 
 Rich in beautiful scenery and quaint costumes that dwellers 
 in the big cities never see ; wealthy in a store of folk-lore 
 and folk-songs that have yet to be given to the world, and 
 stiniulating even to the traveller who has visited all the 
 places that come within the range of the average well- 
 travelled man. There may be other parts of Europe, par- 
 ticularly in the near East, where life is not less intensely 
 local, but one will look in vain there for the hearty welcome, 
 the boundless hospitality and the freedom from trouble 
 arising out of feuds that continue from generation to genera- 
 tion and give perennial licence to unrest Tranquillity is 
 the keynote of holiday in the remote country districts of 
 Spain, and the tourist who knows his Borrow will take keen 
 pleasure in noting how small and insignificant are the 
 changes that have come over the country since the author 
 of " The Bible in Spain '' rambled over the same ground. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 CAFfiS AND RESTAURANTS 
 
 THK /onda is the Spanish hotel that comes near to enter- 
 ing the ranks of those that attract foreign custom, 
 but never quite succeeds in doing so. The name is Arabic 
 rather than Spanish, and corresponds with the fandak or 
 caravansarai of Morocco. Here one finds no attempt to 
 vary the regional convention of Spanish cooking ; oil plays a 
 large and important part, garlic holds an honourable posi- 
 tion, rancid butter is not rejected nor is sour bread despised. 
 The Englishman who pays his first visit to an old-established 
 Spanish /onda, and be it added that in many parts of Spain 
 there exists nothing else in the way of hostelry, will find 
 himself compelled, despite his appetite, to leave some dishes 
 untouched, and to summon up a certain amount of moral 
 and physical courage to enable him to approach others. His 
 accommodation will not quite realize all the ideals or ambi- 
 tions of the Sybarite ; he will not suffer from excess of atten- 
 tion, though he will be treated with reasonable civility ; he 
 may share his exercise in the courtyard with many types of 
 Spanish wayfarer, including formidable-looking agriculturists 
 with ample waistbands and a wealth of black whisker which 
 gives them a peculiarly ferocious appearance and sends the 
 tourist flying to his Baedeker to assure himself once again 
 that there are no brigands left in Spain. But if the quality 
 of the fondds entertainment is not high, the prices do not 
 rise above its level, and most travellers when they have paid 
 
 154 
 
CAFES AND RESTAURANTS 155 
 
 their bill will agree, all things considered, that they have had 
 value for their money. 
 
 The posada corresponds to the English hotel in a county 
 town, although it is not run on such pretentious lines and is 
 not patronized by sportsmen. Spaniards, who have skins 
 through which nothing can bite, a digestive apparatus that 
 responds to the cooking of their own district, and a spirit of 
 contentment that never leaves them while they have a packet 
 of cigarettes in hand and a glass of wine within reach, thrive 
 in the posada. The slow pace of its life has some fascina- 
 tion for them, and it communicates itself in time to the 
 Englishman who has learned to suffer little inconveniences 
 without grumbling. Nobody hurries in the posada^ and 
 time is of no account ; there is sun and there is shade ; those 
 who are in the sun move slowly because it is too hot ; those 
 who are in the shade move hardly at all because it is so cool. 
 The master of the house, when he is not busily engaged lay- 
 ing down laws for the political salvation of his country, 
 may condescend to give an order or two for the benefit of 
 some fresh visitor ; his voice rings out like that of a com- 
 mander on the quarter-deck. Then you look for a short, 
 tense period of extraordinary activity on the part of the 
 household, but nothing happens, and the posadero resumes 
 his political discussion as though he had left the fate of Empire 
 trembling in the balance. Somewhere in the dim depths 
 of the posada the maid of all work responds to some 
 summons with a long-drawn out " Voy ! " (coming). But 
 she never comes, and no Spaniard would expect her to come. 
 Somewhere in the dining-room, which serves as a kitchen 
 as well, there is a large fireplace presided over by an old 
 Spanish woman, as completely smoke-cured, after half a cen- 
 tury's cooking, as the best ham in all Galicia. She too moves 
 with great deliberation : you cannot enter the posada at any 
 
156 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 hour in the day or any day in the year without finding her to 
 all outward seeming completing the task that was in progress 
 when you left. But she must do more than appears, for 
 the household is fed and visitors are catered for, and some 
 of them are men whose appetites would inspire a British 
 agricultural labourer or commercial traveller with respect. 
 Chickens have free right of entry into the posadds living- 
 room ; they do not respect the bedrooms, and unreasonable 
 visitors have been heard to complain instead of rejoicing 
 because some industrious hen has laid an egg on their pillow. 
 Even the pig, though nominally an exile from the guest- 
 chamber, contrives to show his intelligent face there now and 
 again, and throughout the low-raftered, stuffy chamber there 
 is a curious odour that is seemingly compounded of stale 
 tobacco, wine, garlic, leather, and lavender. You are con- 
 scious of each m turn, but happily in the winter the lavender 
 swallows up the others, and the situation is saved. Some 
 of the Spanish posadas are of very great age, and preserve 
 to this day their primitive simplicity. Ill-smelling oil lamps 
 still provide the traveller with something that enjoys the 
 courteous title of light when the day is done ; modern sani- 
 tation is unknown ; effective ventilation is regarded with 
 suspicion, and he who would venture to open the living- 
 room window when the air within is so thick that you can 
 feel the weight of it, would probably find that the window 
 was not made to open, and that nobody else found the 
 warmth intolerable. Perhaps one of the chief points of in- 
 terest in ^^ posada lies in the fact that it brings the tra- 
 veller face to face with such types as he will meet nowhere 
 else — types that have not varied since the days when 
 Cervantes saw them as he rested in the Posada de la Sangre 
 in Toledo to write his " Ilustre Fregona ". Here is ample 
 consolation for the intelligent traveller. 
 
CAFES AND RESTAURANTS 157 
 
 From the posada to the venta is no far cry, for the venta 
 is no more than a xodA'^i^^ posada^ a little point where the 
 highways cross and men gather for a few hours to refresh 
 themselves and exchange news of the world beyond. No 
 shepherd's cot-house in the remote Scottish highlands is 
 more lonely than the venta ; it is just a little spot in the 
 heart of the plain or some distant hollow of the hill, known 
 only to those whose life is cast in the world's waste places. 
 For all that the venta stands deserted by patrons for days 
 on end in the rainy season, it persists through the centuries 
 so that the small house which serves your modest require- 
 ments may have satisfied the still more simple needs of 
 Santa Teresa herself. Designed originally with some little 
 pretence to shapeliness that was soon forgotten, added to 
 as the generations passed and some fortunate proprietor 
 found himself with a few pesetas to spare, straggling over 
 a large space of ground, decorated with a very tall chimney 
 that serves as a landmark, being the last point of the building 
 to fade from sight and the first to reveal itself on the horizon, 
 often built of yellow sun-dried clay and whitewashed, the 
 venta does not lack the quality of picturesqueness. Some 
 long-forgotten proprietor — a man of more than common 
 learning — gave it a name, and wrote that name phonetically 
 in straggling letters that sprawl across the brow of his house 
 in fashion suggesting that they have quarrelled and wish 
 to be as far removed from one another as possible, but as 
 ninty-nine per cent of the venta s patrons are probably 
 unable to read or write, the title is safe from criticism. 
 
 A huge courtyard surrounds the venta, which boasts one 
 very large kitchen wherein a score of travellers may find 
 refreshment and, if need be, sleep— for bedrooms are few 
 and are occupied by the family, and those who would spend 
 a night in the venta wrap themselves in their horse-blankets. 
 
158 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 commit their body to the hard boards and their soul to 
 their patron saint, and snore with a ferocity calculated to be 
 equally terrifying to robbers and evil spirits. Many and 
 strange are the venta's visitors who seem to pass to and from 
 the back of beyond. What loneliness of life is theirs that 
 they should make the venta a meeting-house ; what silence 
 has weighed so heavily on them all their days that even the 
 unaccustomed gift of company cannot avail to oil the rusty 
 hinges of their tongues? Their order given and a brief 
 greeting exchanged, the teamsters and muleteers and 
 ganaderos who constitute by far the greatest proportion of 
 the venta' s patrons, become as silent as the land in which 
 the house is set. Only towards night, when the surround- 
 ing stillness is almost overwhelming, when the carts in the 
 open courtyard borrow some mysterious whiteness from the 
 reflection of the moonlight on the lime-washed walls, when 
 horse or mule stirring in its stall seems to set one's nerves 
 a-quiver, and the call of the cigarones from the tree-tops is 
 so clear and shrill, a little conversation springs up, desultory 
 and fitful as the wind that wanders over the plain, but in its 
 way a tribute to the brotherhood and loneliness of man. 
 
 Though the venta' s patrons pass and repass year by year, 
 no man appears to know another's business or to entertain 
 any curiosity regarding it. Life in the wide open spaces, so 
 sparsely populated, seems to develop or retain the latent 
 Orientalism of the Spaniard. To roll endless cigarettes, 
 drink rough wine, sparingly to exchange a few words in 
 tones that suggest preoccupation, greet the belated traveller 
 with a swift glance and a brief nod, sleep for a few hours, 
 and harness the team at break of day so as to be well upon 
 the road before the hours of fire make travel slow and 
 difficult — these are the only things that seem worth doing. 
 The spirit of Spain's open places is a spirit of melancholy. 
 
CAFES AND RESTAURANTS 159 
 
 There is no sadness, but there is a curious sobriety of mien, 
 a strange absence of the joy of life. Perhaps when the 
 feria comes round to the town nearest their home, these 
 sober-visaged countrymen will join in the fun as heartily 
 as any, but the mood of merriment will be short-lived. They 
 are the product of centuries of silence and loneliness ; they 
 have learnt to bear the extremes of heat and cold ; they 
 have gained strength and self-reliance and endurance by 
 sacrificing the spirit of conviviality and light-heartedness 
 that is so often associated with the Spaniard by those who 
 do not really know the Spanish country-side. Literally and 
 metaphorically the venta and its strange clients stand alone 
 in Spain, and they would seem to be well beyond the reach 
 of time and change. 
 
 Turning from the country to the town, we find a striking 
 difference in the places of public entertainment. Nothing 
 can be more gay in its own fashion than the taberna or popu- 
 lar cafe of the lower orders, where the wine and spirits sold 
 are adulterated to an extent that might well seem impossible 
 in a land of vineyards. The tabernas consist for the most 
 part of one long, low room sprinkled with bare tables at 
 which the patrons drink their bad wine or vile spirits, in- 
 cluding the notorious aguardiente — Spain's substitute for 
 gin — and eat raw ham, garlic sausage, tripe, and tortillas 
 — the potato cake, of which the exact method of making 
 has been described already in another chapter. There 
 is no music in the taberna^ but dominoes and cards are 
 very popular, and in addition to such card games as tute and 
 brisca there is a little indulgence, under the rose, in the 
 forbidden delights of banca^ which is the same as the 
 English game of bluff. It would be hard to say when the 
 taberna closes its doors. Quite late in the night, when the 
 most of a night-loving people have gone to bed, the lights of 
 
i6o HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 a taberna may be seen battling doggedly with the smoke of 
 innumerable cigarettes, and quite early in the morning the 
 workman on his way to his daily labours may be found seek- 
 ing the refreshment afforded by a cup of weak tea or a 
 small glass of crude spirit. Perhaps the house finds a few 
 hours of rest during the extreme heat of the day when the 
 place is left to the charge of one man who, on being called, 
 rouses himself from uneasy dreams to say he is coming, and 
 forthwith goes to sleep again. 
 
 Another house of entertainment of still lower class is the 
 bunshop, where at any hour of the night in a big city 
 chocolate, coffee, milk, and cakes may be procured. Even 
 these places have their hour of repute : respectable citizens 
 of small means will take their wives there for a few 
 moments on the road home from the theatre, but after one 
 o'clock in the morning the gathering is not of a nature that 
 commends itself to those who are careful of their company, 
 and the police keep a careful eye upon the bunshops, 
 substituting a heavy hand from time to time. 
 
 There are plenty of cafes of the kind one knows in 
 France, and the most of these boast a billiard-room, for 
 billiards is a game at which the Spaniard excels. In the 
 summer the little round tables of these cafes stretch out 
 over the pavement, and the scene they present from sunset 
 until one a.m. differs in no essentials from that which is 
 familiar to the boulevardier. 
 
 German influence is very strong in Spain, where many of 
 the public works have been taken over in recent years by 
 German commercial firms, and one of the most significant 
 results of the German invasion is the beer garden or 
 cerveceria. Even the Spaniard, long-suffering by tempera- 
 ment and necessity, cannot endure for ever the adulterated 
 wines and spirits that are offered to him in the taberna^ and 
 
CAFES AND RESTAURANTS i6i 
 
 the light beers of Germany please him the more because 
 there is very little strength in them. Quite insensibly 
 perhaps he is being influenced by this new form of refresh- 
 ment, and the scene in one of the beer gardens of Madrid, 
 Barcelona, Bilbao, or Seville recalls Bavaria. 
 
 If the writer were a poet, or if he could call the muses 
 from Parnassus, or even invoke the shade of old-time Horace 
 or the comparatively modern Herrick, he would devote all 
 the inspiration obtainable to a hymn of praise directed to 
 los pasteles de Espana (Spanish pastry). Travel where you 
 may, north, south, east, or west, from the patissiers of the 
 Paris Boulevards to the pastry-cook shops in the bazaars of 
 Damascus, where the traditions of the Arabian Nights still 
 linger, pass in review the famous confectioners of the world's 
 most prosperous cities, and surely you will not hesitate in 
 the end to pay the tribute of fullest appreciation to the 
 handiwork of the Spanish /(^j-Z^/^r^. He is a mighty crafts- 
 man, dearer to many of his countrymen than Velasquez or 
 El Greco, the Escurial or the Patio de los Leones that is in 
 Granada. The work of his hands is perfect, too subtle for 
 analysis, too delicate for adequate expression of its fine 
 shades save by some great artist who can use words or 
 paint or set musical notes with the same delicacy and 
 certainty of touch that \h.Q pastelero employs in handling 
 cream, chocolate, preserved fruit and exquisitely flavoured 
 and proportioned essences. 
 
 Strange it is that in a country of coarse, national dishes, 
 where garlic plays an important part in the national life, 
 and uncooked meat is not regarded as an abomination, the 
 delicate art of the pastelero should thrive and reach such a 
 perfect state. Surely when the history of Spain comes to 
 be written hundreds of years hence, we shall learn that the 
 closing years of the nineteenth century and the opening 
 II 
 
i62 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 decade of the twentieth were remarkable, less for the loss 
 of the Philippines, the Spanish-American War, and the 
 Anglo-Spanish Alliance than for the golden age of pastry. 
 In the cool depths of the pastry-cook's shop, rank, fashion, 
 and beauty assemble every afternoon, and to the accompani- 
 ment of a light babble of conversation, the world's most 
 wonderful pastry achieves its appointed end. It would be 
 hard to say whether the pastry, the conversation, or the 
 spray from the fountain that cools the air in many dipasteleria 
 is the lightest. Some people drink sweet wine with their 
 pastry, but this is a vile error that deserves correction at the 
 hands of an Inquisition. Iced water is indicated, for this 
 alone can clear the palate and make it properly susceptible 
 to every fresh seductive influence. For those who take 
 sweet wine or chocolate, the epicure can at best have no 
 more than a small measure of pity mingled with a large 
 leaven of contempt. Long may the pastelero thrive, wide 
 may his fame extend, happy be his end and everlasting his 
 fame. 
 
 The restaurant as it exists in France is not popular with 
 the rank and file of Spaniards, who prefer to offer their 
 friends a simple meal at their own table rather than to take 
 them to a restaurant where the national dishes may be man- 
 handled by an unsympathetic cook. Here regionalism plays 
 its part. In a cosmopolitan city you will find Castilians, 
 Galicians, Aragonese, Catalans and the rest, each one with 
 his faith pinned closely to the special dish of his district, and 
 accepting as an article of faith the theory that no cook who 
 is not one of his countrymen can present that dish in a satis- 
 factory manner. The proprietor of a restaurant, though 
 he have all the good intention in the world, cannot afford 
 to carry regionalism into his kitchen, so he seeks to find a 
 cook who can please all patriotic Spaniards, a task that 
 
CAFES AND RESTAURANTS 163 
 
 would have baffled Soyer himself. Then again, a modern 
 cook with a French training has an eye upon visitors from 
 France and England and no respect for the sacrosanct 
 Spanish belief that oil is far superior to butter. So the 
 fashionable restaurant does not fare very well ; indeed, two 
 or three suffice to serve the whole of Madrid, and these are 
 patronized very largely by people who come to the capital 
 from other countries in search of business or pleasure. 
 
 Suburban restaurants are essentially Spanish in character. 
 They are generally to be found in an ample garden filled 
 with orange- and lemon-trees and sweet-smelling shrub- 
 beries. There is a dancing-hall attached to them, and pro- 
 vision is made for illuminating the gardens at night. If 
 the restaurant possesses any points of vantage, such as a 
 view over the high road along which the bulls are driven 
 from tablada to Plaza de Toros on the night before a fight, 
 pagodas are set up and here supper parties assemble to see 
 the encierro, while the less fortunate patrons of the gardens 
 must leave their supper and gather around the hedge 
 separating their pleasaunce from the road. 
 
 In Madrid, only a few years ago, there was a restaurant 
 in the Ventas del Espiritu Santo whose proprietor could 
 not afford his guests any glimpse of the encierro because 
 the bulls did not come that way. But his garden over- 
 looked the Campo del Este, one of Madrid's great burial 
 grounds, so he put a large notice board up with the title of 
 his house on the top and underneath the words ** con vistas 
 al otro mundo " (with a view on the other world). One re- 
 grets to add that the authorities compelled the enterprising 
 man to remove the announcement of this added attraction 
 and to compete unaided with his rivals. Small wonder 
 that the Government enjoys perennial unpopularity when it 
 can commit such an outrage as this. 
 
t64 home life in SPAIN 
 
 The restaurants mentioned here are known in Spain as 
 viveros^ and are the scene of the banqueting that plays such 
 an important part in Spanish social life. When a man 
 thinks he has achieved or deserved a reputation, a banquet 
 is given in his honour. Not infrequently he pays all the 
 expenses and provides the ample meal for those who feel 
 that they can no longer live without honouring him. But 
 the newspapers whose representatives are invited, view 
 the proceedings with the eye of diplomacy, toleration, and 
 benevolence, and in their report of the entertainment treat 
 it as a spontaneous compliment paid by the countless ad- 
 mirers of the worthy gentleman who has footed the bill. 
 These little deceits deceive nobody and are good for trade. 
 
 When the summer lays its scorching hand upon Spain 
 the demand for cool drinks is universal. In park and 
 garden, even in the streets, water is sold by the glass, and 
 for those who have a few pence to spare there are countless 
 refrescos (iced drinks). Barley water and lemonade play 
 a considerable part in assuaging the national thirst ; but 
 perhaps the most popular drink is horckata^ made with a 
 certain bean flour called ckufa which is mixed with water, 
 cooled with ice' and sucked through straws or wafers. Cone- 
 shaped wafers {barquillos) are sold in the streets, and the 
 buyer finds the number that he can purchase for a penny 
 regulated by his luck. The seller carries a wheel with an 
 indicator that can be turned round rapidly and stops in 
 front of one of the numbers with which the disk is marked, 
 and according to the number indicated the buyer takes 
 his wafers. The cry of the barquillero is one of the few 
 street cries left to modern Spain, and certainly the most 
 popular. Pausing for a moment to deal with street cries, 
 that of the flower-seller can hardly be forgotten by those 
 who have heard it. The flower-seller drives or leads a 
 
CAFES AND RESTAURANTS 165 
 
 donkey with paniers loaded with flowers in pots. " Flores 
 vendo ! '' he cries, with a peculiar intonation impossible to 
 set down without the aid of musical annotation. How the 
 sound comes back to me as I write ! 
 
 Another favourite summer drink is water that owes the 
 opalescent tint beloved of the absintheur to a few drops ot 
 aguardiente. Those who have a sweet palate often add 
 an azucarillo — the popular Spanish cake, made with white 
 of ^^^ and sugar. 
 
 Old Spanish prints often show us some thirsty wayfarer 
 holding an earthenware jar high above his head and 
 allowing the water to fall down his throat without giving 
 any work to the mouth. Inexperienced people who have 
 never learnt this difficult art would probably choke if they 
 essayed it, but a special providence watches over thirsty 
 Spaniards who can empty a small botijo in this fashion 
 without any effort. When all is said and done, agua 
 fresca remains the Spanish national drink, and as the 
 adulteration of wine and spirits proceeds apace, the 
 Spaniard turns more and more to the one thirst-quencher 
 that never fails. Perhaps the influence of Moorish occupa- 
 tion is seen here too ; certainly the habit of water-drinking 
 is the one Spanish custom that defies regionalism, extend- 
 ing from the Basque Provinces to Malaga, and from 
 Valencia to the frontiers of Portugal. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ETIQUETTE AND HOSPITALITY 
 
 SPANISH etiquette is one of the most cumbersome 
 burdens that any nation could be called upon to 
 bear, and it must be put to the credit of Spain that she 
 carries her burden lightly. Sometimes in the East one 
 meets a beggar who is guarded against utter destitution by a 
 very obvious physical defect or a disease that is too plainly 
 in evidence. He does not repine but begs lustily from one 
 and all, pointing proudly the while to his misfortunes. In 
 his eyes perhaps they have ceased to be regarded as 
 troubles ; they have become something that distinguishes 
 him from other men, the means by which he lives and even 
 thrives. One cannot help feeling at times that there is 
 a certain definite association between the pride of the 
 Eastern beggar in his deformity or disease and the pride 
 of the Spaniard in an etiquette that hampers him at every 
 time and serves no useful purpose. At the top of the social 
 scale, in the Court of Spain, etiquette lies upon life like a 
 blight, and although the day has passed when the man who 
 chancing even by accident to touch the royal consort, in- 
 curred the death penalty, yet there still exists in the govern- 
 ing circles of Spain a system of meaningless etiquette that 
 has an almost religious force in the eyes of the half-edu- 
 cated and the superstitious. The old grandees of Castile 
 — a remnant most forlorn of what they were, both in 
 
 i66 
 
ETIQUETTE AND HOSPITALITY 167 
 
 influence and wealth — guard all points of etiquette with 
 a jealousy worthy a better cause, and they see to it that the 
 royal burden is not lightened in any direction. The in- 
 fluence of an English queen in the Palacio Real must needs 
 make for some change, and King Alfonso has understood 
 more clearly than most of his predecessors — one might say 
 more than any exclusive of Charles the Fifth — that the 
 dignity of ruling houses may be maintained without the 
 prop of meaningless restrictions. Queen Victoria is re- 
 ported to have rebelled against some of the regulations 
 with, which she was faced, and possibly her early popularity 
 was not strengthened by the contest. Attention was drawn 
 to Spanish Court etiquette on the occasion of the royal 
 marriage, and again when the Prince of Asturias was born. 
 Enough was said in the leading papers on these occasions 
 to give a hint to the observant of a condition of things be- 
 longing more to the Orient than the Occident, to the Middle 
 Ages rather than the twentieth century. It may be added 
 that the Queen's acceptance of authority in matters of 
 greater importance than etiquette has quite reconciled those 
 who looked askance at her in the early days. 
 
 Against the democratic spirit that has always existed in 
 Spain, but is more in evidence to-day than it has ever been, 
 the grandees have intrenched themselves behind a ram- 
 part of perjuicios sociales. They are conscious perhaps of 
 waning influence and diminishing significance in the scheme 
 of things, and what they lack as a class in usefulness or 
 attractiveness, they make up for in pride. They are not 
 unsociable or ungenerous, uncharitable or inhospitable, but 
 they live and act and talk as though Providence had been 
 at pains to create the world in order to find a fitting habita- 
 tion for the hidalgo of Spain. One of the worst results 
 of this extraordinary class prejudice, which is founded so 
 
i68 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 largely upon megalomania, is physical deterioration followed 
 in due course by some form of mental deficiency. A 
 grandee's son can only marry a grandee's daughter; no 
 fresh blood enters in to restore the rather thin blue stream 
 of which its possessors are so inordinately proud. Inter- 
 marriage too long persisted in brings about rapid degenera- 
 tion of the species, and it may be said that the Spanish 
 etiquette which leads to so much intermarriage is slowly but 
 surely reducing no small part of Spain's aristocracy to 
 mental and physical inferiority. Now and again a lady of 
 title, who has buried a first husband selected for her from 
 her own rank, will subject the prudent head to the influence 
 of the susceptible heart and choose for a second husband 
 a man whose perfection lies more in blood than breed. By 
 her union with him she raises him to her own rank, though 
 local wit rages furiously and scurrilous newspapers, of which 
 there are not a few in Spain, make caustic comment. But 
 perhaps as far as the next generation of the noble family 
 is concerned, broad chests and strong limbs may be found, 
 and some tendency to rank intelligent work nearly as high 
 as dissipation. So it may be that the special recording angel 
 who looks after the interests of Spanish grandees forgets to 
 make a note of the mesalliance. 
 
 The future of Spanish etiquette is brighter than its past, 
 for it has lived in the past, and in the relatively near future it 
 will die with the most of those who preserve it. Spain is 
 still no more than a half-developed country with potenti- 
 alities known only to the few. At present the grandees will 
 not sell a square metre of land, and will do nothing to develop 
 or encourage industries upon their vast estates ; they prefer 
 to maintain vast preserves among an impoverished peasantry, 
 and are supremely indifferent to the signs of the times which 
 should teach them that a new spirit has entered their country 
 
ETIQUETTE AND HOSPITALITY 169 
 
 and is spreading rapidly towards the centre and west from 
 Catalonia. Already the national conscience is waking. 
 It stands face to face with a scandal of first magnitude. 
 The Castilian grandee must revise his policy in the course 
 of the next generation, or must be prepared to part with a 
 large share of his vast possessions for the good of a kingdom 
 that cannot continue to rely upon emigration as the safety- 
 valve if it is to retain its national prestige. When the 
 grandee dies out, he will take his etiquette with him ; an 
 ungrateful country will have no further use for the one or 
 the other. Threatened men live long, and the Spanish 
 grandee as the drone in the national hive, has often been 
 threatened and abused. But down to the past few years 
 there has been no force in Spain capable of shaking him from 
 his place. To-day the case is altered ; the commercial 
 development of Catalonia, and even Aragon, has created a 
 new class of wealthy man, one that is alert and vigorous, and 
 increases its fortune by putting money in all manner of sound 
 business ventures instead of allowing it to lie in deposit 
 at the banks. This new class, ostracised by the aristocrats, 
 is largely concerned with preparing a republican programme. 
 Happily or unhappily the regionalism that must be con- 
 sidered in every outlook upon Spanish affairs, stands between 
 Castile and the men who have ample means to voice their 
 discontent. Catalonia prefers a republic to a monarchy, but 
 would be still better pleased with a separate kingdom. 
 Quite conscious that it stands for no small part of the brain 
 and progress of Spain, it would like to pursue its own 
 destiny, and if it could do so, Spanish etiquette would not 
 be affected in any way but would reign in all its terror over 
 the Castiles while it remained a dead letter in the east. It 
 is not unlikely that, finding themselves quite unable to 
 establish home rule in Catalonia, the very wealthy Catalans 
 
I70 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 will seek persistently to invade the high places of Madrid 
 and that they will succeed in their endeavour. Should they 
 do so, the rigorous etiquette which* prevails now will as- 
 suredly be modified. Cervantes " laughed Spain's chivalry 
 away," and Catalonia may yet do the same for its etiquette. 
 
 Marriage among the upper classes is very largely a matter 
 of private arrangement between the parents of the contract- 
 ing parties. No Spaniard of high degree moves in any 
 circle lying outside his own. Even university life is of little 
 account among the aristocrats of Spain ; they may give one 
 of the leading colleges, Madrid or Barcelona, for instance, 
 the honour and labour of entering their distinguished names 
 upon its books, but they would not trouble to attend long 
 courses of lectures seeing that learning is at best no more 
 than a middle-class accomplishment for the strenuous people 
 whose veins are not refreshed by the sangre azul. Needless 
 to say that the etiquette that rules Spanish marriage among 
 the upper classes does not make the happy married life, but 
 the Church has plenty of consolation to offer a wife, while 
 the husband is generally able to console himself without 
 the aid of the ecclesiastical authorities. At the same time 
 the Spanish woman of whatever class is, as a rule, virtuous. 
 There is a high standard of sexual morality among the 
 women of Spain, and for this the Church is undoubtedly 
 deserving of credit. 
 
 Among the middle classes the etiquette that rules inter- 
 course before marriage is quite curious. Girls are very 
 closely guarded in Spain, though perhaps the custody has 
 been known to prove ineffective. When Cervantes wrote 
 his " Cuentos Morales " he emphasized the extraordinary 
 power of physical attractions upon the Spanish heart and 
 mind ; all the deserted wives of his stories retain their beauty 
 to the end, and their physical attractions are the lure that 
 
ETIQUETTE AND HOSPITALITY 171 
 
 draws their wandering husbands home. So it was in the 
 Spain of Cervantes, so in a certain sense it would seem to be 
 in the Spain of to-day. The opportunities for social inter- 
 course are so few, girls are so strictly guarded, and the 
 reputation of young men is so unsavoury, that the barriers for 
 marriage would seem unsurmountable to the middle classes 
 of any country but Spain. A daughter is nearly always in 
 charge of her mother, and when her future husband sees her 
 for the first time, he must be content to follow her home in 
 order that he may find out her address and catch her glance 
 on the way. If she be sufficiently interested and her mother 
 approves of the first step, she will show herself upon the 
 balcony and make some slight sign with which she recog- 
 nizes the attention conferred upon her. For some little 
 time the lover follows the lady when she walks abroad ; he 
 spends a certain part of each day in the street, while she 
 remains on the balcony, a ripening fruit still very much out 
 of reach. There is less comment from the neighbours than 
 might be expected, for all the married ones have been 
 through the same performance, and know that age cannot 
 wither nor custom stale its infinite variety. The lover 
 scours the city to find somebody who can give him the 
 necessary introduction to the house of his inamorata, and 
 should he succeed, acquaintance improves apace, more par- 
 ticularly if the lady's parents occupy the entire house or 
 the ground floor ; in that case she can come to the heavily 
 barred window and he can talk to her from the street. In 
 the cities of Andalusia there are few streets in the resi- 
 dential quarters in which you cannot see some amply 
 cloaked lover in close conversation with a shrouded figure 
 that shrinks away as a stranger passes, while the lover's 
 cloak and sombrero seem to meet in order that he may 
 remain unrecognized and undisturbed. This mild flirtation 
 
172 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 or sober courtship enjoys the curious title of plucking the 
 turkey (J)elando el pavd). Perhaps those who gave the name 
 to it can explain its significance. Happy love whose lady 
 lives on the ground floor ! Unhappy Romeo whose Juliet is 
 located on the fifth ! The street is still his portion, the 
 balcony hers, and sweet nothings can neither rise nor fall 
 through the intervening space. Like Juliet, " she speaks but 
 nothing says," while he, poor wretch, must use the alphabet 
 of the deaf and dumb and petition Providence to shorten 
 the period of courtship. On stated days at certain hours, 
 and in the teeth of countless restrictions, he will be per- 
 mitted to call, but until the engagement has been officially 
 recognized, his task is one of far greater difficulty than any 
 of the ten that Hercules is said to have put to his credit. 
 Even when the engagement is an accomplished fact the 
 parents have a deciding voice in fixing the date of mar- 
 riage, and they do not err on the side of short engagements, 
 nor do they permit the affianced pair to pass more than 
 the shortest possible intervals together without the presence 
 of some ** shadowy third". 
 
 Marriage, like everything else in Spain, pays tribute to 
 regionalism, and may be said to vary in its ceremonial in 
 every province of Spain. French influence is seen in the 
 conduct of the ceremony among the upper classes, while 
 the lower middle class, in the pursuit of its own purely 
 local customs, is almost as extravagant in the conduct 
 of a marriage as are our own lower classes in the matter 
 of funerals. One of the special characteristics of the 
 Spanish wedding is the presence and service of the sponsors 
 who correspond to the best man, maid of honour, godfather, 
 and godmother of our own country. But in Spain the 
 office of sponsor is no sinecure : the sponsors are expected 
 to contribute liberally to the expenses of the marriage 
 
ETIQUETTE AND HOSPITALITY 173 
 
 ceremony, even if they do not defray them altogether ; the 
 man must act as godfather to the first-born if it be a son, 
 and the , woman as godmother if it be a daughter, and 
 though these obligations are moral rather than legal, it is 
 the custom of the country that they should be generally 
 fulfilled. 
 
 Among the lower middle classes where the ceremonial 
 is not affected by French custom, the wedding procession, 
 headed by bride and bridegroom, walks in slow state 
 through the streets. If the bridegroom can produce a frock- 
 coat for the occasion, he is regarded as a man of substance 
 and importance, and if finances permit, the bride's black 
 wedding dress will be made of silk. She wears the flower 
 of the orange under the mantilla, and her women friends 
 are also faithful to the beautiful national head-dress that 
 the upper classes tend to neglect. Service over, carriages 
 or the more modest tramcar serve to convey the happy 
 party to one of the town's garden restaurants, where the 
 wedding breakfast is taken and a certain measure of in- 
 ebriety is deemed correct. A small amount of wine is 
 spilt, for there is a Spanish belief that vino vertido produce 
 alegria (spilt wine produces joy). May not this be some 
 modern echo of the far-off custom of pouring out a libation 
 to the gods. Spain received an early impress of the "gran- 
 deur that was Rome" indeed, the Cathedral of Seville 
 stands upon the site of a temple to Venus. The festivities 
 of the marriage day last well into the night, by which time 
 most of the revellers require a little friendly assistance to 
 enable them to reach their homes. Wedding cakes are 
 unknown in Spain, but when people are married or children 
 are baptized, sugared almonds {almendras) are distributed 
 among friends and sent in little packets to those who can- 
 not be present. A visiting card accompanies them. 
 
174 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 In connexion with visiting cards it may be remarked 
 that a gentleman's card bears in addition to his own 
 Christian name and surname that of his mother's family, 
 while the wife preserves her identity in fashion unknown to 
 the rest of Europe, and bears upon her visiting card the 
 name she has acquired and the name she was known by 
 before marriage. 
 
 There has always been some confusion in the minds of 
 foreigners in regard to the use of the terms Sefior, Sefiora, 
 Don, etc. And they are confusing, though when we come 
 to consider them the Spanish forms are the most democratic 
 in the world. 
 
 The word " man " is hombre and " woman " (or wife) is 
 mujer ; both terms can be used as familiar expressions of 
 surprise, protest, etc. A gentleman referring to his wife 
 speaks of her as his mujer or esposa (he is the marido), or 
 gives her her title if she possesses one — but he never calls 
 her mi sefiora. A third person refers to her in her husband's 
 hearing as la senora and never uses the word m,ujer which 
 would be impolite. Etiquette wills that the wife's name 
 should not be mentioned frequently (excepting among 
 intimate friends) , and this is a remnant of Islam's influence 
 over Spain. There is no such familiarity as in other Euro- 
 pean countries, and to this circumstance is due, I venture 
 to think, the almost total absence of adultery in Spanish 
 society, which in this regard can claim to stand almost alone 
 in Europe. 
 
 Among friends the lady in question is referred to as Dofta 
 followed by her Christian name. The use of the Don and 
 Dofia are most frequent in Spain. After having met Sefior 
 Sanchez once you will call him Don Felipe, and as soon as 
 you are on intimate terms with the family, his wife will be 
 Dofia Dolores ; both sefior and seftora will disappear as 
 
ETIQUETTE AND HOSPITALITY 175 
 
 titles, to be used only when writing or when accompanying 
 a spoken sentence, such as " yes " or " no," etc. As in 
 French, it is impolite to use the above without some other 
 word as sefior, seilora, hombre, mujer — hijo or hija in case 
 of a child. 
 
 A gentleman is a caballero (knight), a lady sefiora, and a 
 young lady seftorita. Sefiorito corresponds to our "sir" as 
 used by inferiors. Young ladies are rarely called Dofia, as 
 it is more appropriate for womanhood. Don and Dofia, 
 used as titles, must invariably be followed by the Christian 
 name ; sefior and sefiora (sefiorita) are used very little as 
 titles, excepting when the Christian name is unknown or as 
 a form of introduction ; in letter-writing it precedes Don or 
 Dofia, followed by the Christian name, and it is as careless 
 to omit the latter as it is the initial in English when the 
 surname is followed by Esq. On the other hand, the 
 Christian name cannot be preceded by Sefior or Seftora 
 without the intervening Don or Dofia. 
 
 Further, when speaking with a titled individual with 
 whom you are not well acquainted, the form of address is 
 seftor marques, etc., and sefiora duquesa, etc. Titles, in the 
 order of their importance, are baron (baronesa) ; vizconde 
 (vizcondesa) ; marques (marquesa) ; conde (condesa) ; mar- 
 ques (with title of grandee) ; duque (duquesa). The last 
 two, being grandees of Spain, have the prefix Excelent- 
 isimo. Cabinet Ministers, senators, deputies, provincial 
 governors, academicians, generals — besides a host of other 
 people in the political hierarchy, who really have no right to 
 the title but who are flattered by its use, receive it from 
 those who wish to flatter. 
 
 In the royal family the title of the King and Queen is su 
 majestad or S.M. (plural SS.MM.), the Crown Prince (Prin- 
 cipe de Asturias) is S.A.R. (H.R.H.), the sons and daughters 
 
176 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 of a monarch are Infante or Infanta with the title of S.A. 
 (plural SS.AA.). The use of the Don and Dofia is of course 
 general, hence Don Alfonso, Don Carlos, Dofta Victoria, 
 etc. 
 
 In the lower classes, and especially in the country where 
 Christian names are relatively few in number, everybody 
 has a nick-name {apodo\ preceded by some such expres- 
 sion as tio (uncle) or tia (aunt); thus, for instance, as Tio 
 Gallego, Tia Gorda, etc. 
 
 Turning from etiquette to hospitality, the travelled man 
 who enters into Spanish life for the first time will be struck 
 by the extraordinary similarity between the hospitality of 
 the Moor and the hospitality of the Spaniard. It may be 
 urged that there is nothing surprising in this if we pause to 
 remember how long and how widely the Moorish dominion 
 over Spain was established. On the other hand, it should 
 be remembered that the Spaniard has always been anxious 
 to forget Moorish influence, and that when a Spaniard, speaks 
 of his descent he is anxious to make it clear that his blood 
 is quite free from any Moorish strain. But the influence 
 of Morocco and Islam is still to be observed on every 
 hand, in the cathedrals, in the country-side where the norias 
 that the Moors introduced still serve to irrigate the thirsty 
 land, in many a social ceremony, and above all, in the 
 Spaniard's relations with friends. 
 
 There is no better mannered man on this earth than a 
 Spanish gentleman, and when he is extending hospitality, 
 your Spaniard, rich or poor, is at his best. It is not the 
 extent or quality of the hospitality that matters, it is the ex- 
 quisite grace with which it is tendered, the implied sugges- 
 tion that your comfort is the host's first consideration. 
 
 Visits in Spain are paid either during the '* hours of fire " 
 when the cool depths of a lofty room or the shady corner 
 
ETIQUETTE AND HOSPITALITY 177 
 
 of a patio are so welcome, or at five o'clock in the afternoon, 
 when the enemy — as the Moors call the sun — is loosening 
 his grip upon the stricken city. Refreshments are always 
 offered, sherry and cakes in the morning — the wine being 
 served in the little glasses called chatos, while in the after- 
 noon rich chocolate, that leaves you in doubt whether to 
 eat or drink it, is served in small cups and taken with bis- 
 cuits, followed by a glass of cold milk that serves to restore 
 the palate to its normal state. Wine and chocolate play 
 the same part in Spanish hospitality as coffee does in the 
 East. 
 
 The week-end has not yet reached Spain in the form of 
 an established institution, but many travelled Spaniards, par- 
 ticularly those who know our English custom, are develop- 
 ing it. The picnic or merienda is a very favourite institution, 
 and is associated with very charming simplicity. Elaborate 
 meals, necessitating great trouble and preparation and care 
 in carriage, are dispensed with ; one or two simple dishes, 
 which are again affected by the ever-present regionalism, do 
 all that is required, and are taken with the wholesome wine 
 of the country. Goats are eaten throughout Spain, and one 
 of the most favourite dishes at the merienda is a roasted 
 kid {cabrito asadd)^ which is prepared in the open air, just as 
 the Moors in the market-places of Morocco roast sheep in 
 their portable ovens. There is a striking similarity in the 
 way the food is eaten in both countries, conventionality 
 being conspicuous by its absence. 
 
 Birthdays are not celebrated very often in Spain, but 
 every man and woman has a name-day, that is to say, the 
 day of the saint after whom he or she is named, and when 
 this day comes round, the happy owner of the name is ex- 
 pected to extend hospitality in the form of cakes, sweets, 
 wine, cigars, and cigarettes to all who offer congratulations. 
 12 
 
178 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Open house is kept on this dia del santo^ and as the man 
 who has a large circle of friends will have several visits to 
 pay whenever a popular saint's day comes round, he has 
 no occasion to make any of his usual household arrange- 
 ments. In fact, on the name-day of saints such as San Jose 
 or Santiago, or the Virgin of the Dolores, after whom so 
 many girls are named, the main thoroughfares are crowded 
 with pastry cooks. 
 
 In describing the tren botijo mention was made of the 
 Spaniard's generosity in sharing his wine, and if necessary 
 his food, with fellow-travellers. No Spaniard will light a 
 cigarette in your company without offering you one and 
 passing you a match, nor will he allow you to smoke your 
 tobacco in his house, for you are his guest and he is the 
 amo de la casa. In short, the instinct of hospitality seems 
 to be born in the Spaniard, and he contrives when you are 
 staying in his house to put you at your ease and leave you 
 there. His formalities are never aggressive, his kindness 
 seems to come from the heart, and the foreigner who enters 
 Spain with a few good introductions will find it hard to 
 outstay his welcome. 
 
 The formulae of politeness claim attention here. When 
 a Spaniard meets you for the first time he is quick to assure 
 you that he kisses your hand and that he is your servant ; 
 if you are a woman he places himself " at your feet " ; in 
 signing his letters he calls himself " your very affectionate 
 and trusty servant who kisses your hand " or " kisses your 
 feet," and when he gives you his address it is with the for- 
 mulae " in such and such a house and street you have a home 
 and servant " ; when you visit him he says, " You have taken 
 possession of your house," much as the Moorish gentleman 
 says, " My house and all that is in it are yours ". The in- 
 fluence of Morocco is seen again if you are so thoughtless 
 
ETIQUETTE AND HOSPITALITY 179 
 
 as to express your admiration for something belonging to 
 your host. He at once tells you that it is yours, and it 
 is a pretty formula with which you reply as you return the 
 proffered gift : " Keep it, I beg you, because it could not be 
 in better hands than yours ". This, too, is Moorish in its 
 origin. 
 
 It goes without saying that much of this elegant discourse 
 is formula and nothing more, more particularly in modern 
 cities, and among those who do not feel the full force of 
 their country's tradition. Spain, like the rest of the world, 
 has its snobs and pretenders, and they are no less offen- 
 sive in the Iberian Peninsula than they are elsewhere, but 
 with the best type of Spaniard the old forms are no mere 
 empty words. His hospitality and generosity are a part of 
 his honour and the dearest thing in life to him, and the cath- 
 olicity of his kindness may be gathered from the fact that 
 Spanish has but one word, ""^ amigo^' to express both friend 
 and acquaintance. It must not be supposed that Spanish 
 hospitality is limited to those who can afford to dispense it. 
 On the contrary, the very poor are delighted to do some- 
 thing for a stranger who is sympathetic. It may be no 
 more than a cigarette or a glass of crude wine, an orange 
 or a handful of olives, but there is something in the way in 
 which the gift is offered that magnifies its intrinsic value a 
 thousand-fold. Even among those whose days are passed 
 in ceaseless toil, who live far remote from the com- 
 pany of their fellowmen, you find evidences of the inborn 
 courtesy that is one of the most striking charms of the com- 
 plex Spanish character. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE PLAZA DE TOROS 
 
 SIXTEEN years or more have passed since the writer 
 then Httle more than a boy, travelled from Lisbon to 
 Madrid in company with a cuadrilla that had distinguished 
 itself in the Campo Pequefto, near Lisbon, to the accompani- 
 ment of the frenzied enthusiasm of the Portuguese. Re- 
 verte and Bombita were the heroes of the hour, and their 
 treatment of the toros ejnbolados had been as daring as it 
 had been skilful. Nor had there been wanting a loud 
 demand for at least one combat a outrance. Needless to 
 say the Portuguese authorities refused to respond, and the 
 writer had decided to seek in the Plaza del Triunfo the full 
 expression of the corrida. The two matadors held some- 
 thing akin to a reception at half a dozen of the stations at 
 which the train stopped between the frontier station and 
 the capital, but after all they did not exercise their skill in 
 Madrid where the honours were divided between the great 
 Espartero, then in the last year of his life, and D. Luis 
 Mazzantini, lawyer, gentleman, and diestro^ who left the law 
 for the bull-ring and has since left the bull-ring for the Council 
 Chamber. A few weeks later the writer journeyed down 
 to the south to see Guerrita in the great bull-ring of Seville, 
 and travelled out to some of the bull-farms where the more 
 historic herds are raised. In the country and in the cafe 
 of the Emperadores on the Sierpes at Seville, he learned 
 something of the theory and practice of bull-fighting from 
 
 1 80 
 
THE PLAZA DE TOROS i8i 
 
 the closely shaved, sinewy aspirants to honour, who sat 
 through their hour of ease smoking cigarettes and telling 
 how fields are won, their splendid coletas^ as their pig-tails 
 are called, carefully twisted under broad-brimmed hats. 
 Tastes change ; to-day the writer's desire to attend a bull- 
 fight has been replaced by a still stronger desire to avoid 
 one at any cost. If there was any pleasure in days of old 
 that could atone for the sight of horses running round the 
 arena and treading out their entrails, it has gone for good. 
 But the splendid colour, the barbaric sounds, the glittering 
 crowd, the ornate uniforms and the blinding light of a 
 Spanish bull-ring in the hours of action will hold no small 
 measure of fascination for all time, and inasmuch as bull- 
 fighting is at once a science and the national pastime of 
 Spain, it cannot be overlooked and calls for certain ex- 
 planation in detail. 
 
 The finest fighting bulls belong to herds that have their 
 own stud-book and their own devisa in the form of a rosette 
 that the doomed animal carries with it into the ring. The 
 best farms are in the Utrera district where water is plentiful 
 and the pastures are rich. There the young bulls are care- 
 fully tended by ganaderos who watch over them night and 
 day, guiding and controlling them from horseback with the 
 aid of long poles. When the bulls are a year old they are 
 tested, being attacked in turn by a horseman ; those that 
 turn tail and run away change their status and become in 
 due time the property of the butcher. Those that show 
 fight and are " well armed " are named and entered in the 
 stud-book. Plucky bulls that suffer from some physical 
 defect which would prove a bar to their admittance to the 
 first-class arenas of Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, and other 
 cities, meet their fate while young at the inexpert hands of 
 second-class matadors in some corrida de novillos. Their 
 
1 82 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 1 
 
 better-equipped companions pass a full three years on the 
 farm in charge of the ganadero whom they come to regard 
 as companion, friend, and master, and surrounded by belled 
 bullocks in whose company they learn to travel at their ease. 
 When at last they are brought in for some great corrida 
 they make their way to the arena by night, the tame 
 bullocks, their life-long companions, surrounding them, their 
 ganadero in attendance. They are corraled in some spacious 
 meadow not far from the city of their destination, and the 
 supply of corn that has been given to them in such liberal 
 measure for some weeks prior to their departure is well 
 maintained. On the night before the fight they are driven 
 along the road to the arena in the small hours, and every 
 point of vantage on either side is crowded with spectators, 
 while a great company of afficionados follows behind. Once 
 within the prison walls each bull is driven into its con- 
 demned cell and left without food or water for the fifteen 
 hours that must elapse before the gates of the toril open> 
 the devisa is thrust into its shoulder, and the bull furious 
 with anger and with thirst, conscious of its enormous strength 
 and eager for vengeance against mankind, rushes out into 
 the light to see across the yellow sand, capadores and pica- 
 dores awaiting the attack which ten thousand spectators or 
 more are assembled to witness. 
 
 In the theory of bull-fighting, the bull is always the 
 aggressor, in practice he is known to sulk and sometimes 
 to require the cruel stimulus of the banderillos de fuego. 
 Should the hideous noise and his own burnt skin leave him 
 still unwilling to attack his tormentors, he is promptly 
 lamed by the aid of the media luna and stabbed by the 
 puntillero, while the excited crowd curses the Government 
 and the Pope, and yells for the blood of the administration. 
 This happens but seldom. 
 
THE PLAZA DE TOROS 183 
 
 The matador in charge of the cuadrilla responsible for 
 the bull in the arena decides most of the questions that 
 arise during the combat, but the judge who sits high up in 
 the arena with trumpeters by his side has power to limit 
 or extend the divisions into which the combat is divided. 
 It is for him to say when the bull has killed a sufficient 
 number of horses and has reached the point of exhaustion 
 at which the banderilleros may take up their work with 
 safety ; it is for him to decide when the matador's turn is 
 reached, and the divisions in the combat are announced to 
 the public by the shrill notes of the trumpeters stationed 
 under the judge's box. By the time the matador has received 
 from his attendant an espada and muleta (sword and small 
 scarlet cloak) and has asked permission to kill the bull " in 
 fashion that will confer honour upon the city," the arena is 
 strewn with dead and dying horses, the bull's shoulders are 
 pierced with lances and his horns are stained with blood to 
 the head. The contest between man and beast is followed 
 with keenest attention and deepest silence ; the diestro 
 manoeuvres to bring the bull into position in which his 
 forelegs will be close together ; if they are spread out at 
 all there will be no free passage for the sword as it passes 
 between the shoulders into the lungs. If the stroke be a 
 successful one and the bull falls slowly to his knees, the 
 air is rent with shouts, the matador walks off triumphant, 
 while flowers, cigars, hats, and even billets-doux are flung 
 to him from every side, and the puntillero, coming from 
 behind the bull, puts an end to its agony with one swift 
 thrust behind the head. Should several strokes miss, the 
 matador is greeted with howls of derision ; the trumpeters 
 sound a warning ; he must try again, and should he fail 
 several times, he may even suffer the disgrace of seeing 
 another matador summoned to complete his work, AvS 
 
1 84 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 soon as the bull is dead, a gaily decked team of mules is 
 driven into the arena, the carcase is dragged off to be cut 
 up in some neighbouring shambles from which the flesh, 
 almost black and quite unfit for food, is sold to the lower 
 orders of the populace. The mules return for the dead 
 horses ; the red or blue coated attendants carry their sand 
 baskets to and fro to cover up the purple patches plainly 
 to be seen on the floor of the arena. The second cuadrilla 
 replaces the first ; the trumpet sounds again, the gates of the 
 toril are drawn back, and another splendid animal rushes 
 to meet its doom. 
 
 Bull-fighting brings about a heavy drain upon the Spanish 
 exchequer, for in a comparatively poor country like Spain 
 many men at the head of the profession draw incomes 
 running into five figures. In the days of his greatest 
 achievements Rafael Guerra (Guerrita), whose father was a 
 butcher in the matadero of Cordoba, earned an annual income 
 of a million pesetas. Don Luis Mazzantini was said to earn 
 three-quarters of this amount, and when the Spanish diestros 
 crossed the Pyrenees to give the people of Nimes, Dax, 
 Aries, and Bayonne a taste of their quality, one of them, 
 Reverte, if I am not mistaken, lighted his cigarette with a 
 thousand-franc note, presumably to show that art and not 
 profit was the object of his excursion. The bull-fighter 
 must be a man gifted with fine physique, splendid nerve, 
 sound judgment and complete use of all his faculties. He 
 may receive his earlier training in the cuadrilla of some 
 second- or third-rate matador and fight his way through the 
 ranks unaided, or he may go to one of the escuelas de 
 tauromaquia where great fighters now retired from active 
 work labour among a rising generation as Royal Academi- 
 cians in this country work at the Academy School. The 
 path to Parnassus is a very steep one ; there are many falls 
 
THE PLAZA DE TOROS 185 
 
 and bruises. The young bull-fighter must learn in the first 
 place to wield the plum-coloured cloak of the capador, and 
 when he has acquired sufficient agility to enable him to 
 keep the most savage bull at bay he will be promoted to 
 the use of the banderillas. When he is an expert with them 
 he may persuade some administration to allow him to form 
 his own cuadrilla and kill novillos^ and, should he succeed, 
 one engagement follows another until the great day in his 
 life when he receives the alternativa and is admitted to 
 the ranks of first-class matadors. On this occasion some 
 leading diestro draws the bull into position for him and then 
 hands him espada and muleta that he may complete the 
 work ; thereafter he may take his cuadrilla to the leading 
 cities of Spain and kill the three- and four-year-old bulls. 
 Just as a great opera singer who has received the plaudits 
 of the audience at La Scala or San Carlo di Napoli travels 
 across the Atlantic, so the great matador is retained to visit 
 the capitals of South America and Mexico, where he per- 
 forms his office in return for enormous fees. Women bull- 
 fighters are not unknown in Spain, though they are seldom 
 entrusted with old bulls ; there is a school for women bull- 
 fighters in Barcelona. 
 
 A few years ago toreadors who died in the ring passed to 
 the world beyond without the rites of the Church, but now- 
 adays there is a chapel attached to the bull-ring where the 
 pious matador may commit his safety to the keeping of the 
 Virgin. A priest remains in attendance to administer the last 
 sacrament to any one of the fraternity who fails to escape 
 from the enemy. It often happens that one of the lesser 
 lights of the bull-ring is very badly mauled and the courage 
 with which one and all rush to his assistance is remarkable. 
 Now and again a wound is fatal, generally because blood- 
 poisoning sets in. Few great diestros can say that they have 
 
1 86 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 1 
 
 never been caught by the bull's horn though most of them 
 have escaped with little injury. Espartero who in his day — 
 that is to say in the early nineties of last century — was the 
 greatest matador of Spain, met his death facing the first bull 
 in a corrida at Madrid. The bull was one of the famous 
 Miura herd known on account of their prowess as the " herd 
 of death," and all Spain went into mourning for the dead 
 matador. The last appearance in the bull-ring of a famous 
 fighter is one that will never be forgotten by those who 
 witness it. Standing room is at a premium, every seat has 
 been sold weeks before the great day ; his last fight fought, 
 the great torero cuts off his cherished pigtail (coleta) and 
 lives in glory until he is translated to Paradise. His 
 presence in the arena as a spectator is always the occasion 
 for a display of frenzied enthusiasm. 
 
 The arena is divided into sides, a shady side {sombra) 
 and the sunny side (sol). To the sunny side the working 
 classes and students gather in their thousands. They 
 understand the value of every stroke and are prompt to 
 scream applause or howl disgust ; their technical knowledge 
 may compare with that of the people who go regularly to 
 the gallery of our national opera house. They arm them- 
 selves with pigskins full of wine, sandwiches made by cutting 
 a roll in half and inserting a slice of greasy sausage, malodor- 
 ous with garlic, and they enjoy themselves as though their 
 life were one long holiday. The girls wear flowers in their 
 hair and fight the sun with fans ; the men trust to their 
 sombreros; the, consumption of cigarettes is enormous. 
 The sunny side where it is unreserved fills as soon as the 
 arena is opened ; the shady side is seldom completely oc- 
 cupied until a few moments before the national anthem an- 
 nounces the arrival of the President. The roads between 
 the city and the arena are impassable. Every vehicle that 
 
THE PLAZA DE TOROS 187 
 
 can be pressed into service is engaged at a high price for 
 the afternoon ; the square in front of the Plaza is densely 
 packed : motor-cars, carriages, carts, bicycles, are to be num- 
 bered by the hundreds, and gallant cavaliers on splen- 
 did horses find a passage through the crowd in order to 
 exhibit their horsemanship and greet their friends. Even 
 little children, who have not yet entered their teens, are 
 taken to the Plaza de Toros, where they learn early to ac- 
 quire a taste for, or complete indifference to, a spectacle 
 that, for all its barbaric splendour, has many disgusting 
 elements. 
 
 Occasionally some spice of variety is introduced into the 
 arena. When the writer was last in Madrid, he saw during 
 his brief visit to the Plaza de Toros a celebrated man> 
 Don Tancredo, who stood on a pedestal in the middle of 
 the arena, dressed entirely in white. When the bull was 
 released from the toril and had taken a preliminary canter 
 around the arena he saw this motionless figure and ran up 
 to investigate. He sniffed eagerly and seemed for a moment 
 to be uncertain. D. Tancredo remained motionless as 
 marble ; the movement of a limb, a deep breath, would 
 have been the signal for his hideous death, but the most 
 savage bull does not make war on statues, and a moment 
 later toro was chasing the toreros around the arena while 
 the statue, suddenly animated, was making a bee-line for 
 the barrier amid a tumult of applause that made the bull 
 turn round and bellow defiance to his audience. Contests 
 between a bull and a lion, or a bull and a tiger are not un- 
 known, but need not be described. 
 
 There are many other aspects of the bull-ring : the fights 
 in which the aristocrats of Spain replace the ordinary 
 matador ; others in which the fighting is done by members 
 of some trading association who are celebrating their fete- 
 
1 88 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 day. But many of these are associated with the Spanish 
 fair which is one of the great national institutions and has 
 been discussed in another place. Sufficient has been said 
 to present a rough outline of the country's most popular 
 pastime, to indicate its fascination and its more repellent 
 aspect. The future of bull-fighting in Spain is uncertain, 
 for though the public taste remains as it has been since Pan 
 y los Toros was the most popular cry in the Iberian Pen- 
 insula, it is an open secret that King Alfonso's consort has 
 set her face against it and it is losing its hold upon the 
 educated classes. Moreover, and this is a very important 
 point, the breed of bulls is not what it used to be. The 
 fighting quality of some of the best herds is deteriorating, 
 while a general improvement in the financial outlook is 
 making the Spaniard more attentive to business than he 
 used to be and less indifferent to the waste of time and 
 money involved in the pursuit of bull-fighting. Years may 
 pass before a great change is noticeable, but there are many 
 who believe that the most prosperous days of the arena 
 have gone never to return. For no small part of the cruelty 
 to animals that is undoubtedly a national failing in Spain, 
 the Plaza de Toros must be held directly responsible. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 STUDENT LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 T T is not easy for one who has not been a Spanish student 
 ^ to write about the student life of Spain, and in order 
 to do so it is necessary to reflect that few Spanish students 
 would be able to set their impressions down. When one 
 is no longer young, even before the trumpeter under Time's 
 judgment seat has sounded the Urdo of middle age, certain 
 enthusiasms disappear. Our capacity for being rowdy 
 and careless has passed ; responsibilities of various kinds 
 dog our footsteps ; we are fortunate if we have not become 
 intolerant of*the games in which we can no longer play a 
 part — lajeunesse na qu'un temps. 
 
 Student life in all the world's great centres is full of an 
 exaggeration that stretches from sentiment to dress, from 
 thought to action. Spanish student life is no exception to 
 this rule. How could it be in a country where the sun 
 levies its daily toll upon the working hours, and education 
 is never taken quite seriously ? To be sure, there are theories 
 of free and compulsory education, but everybody knows 
 that in Spain theory and practice are seldom on speaking 
 terms. Elementary education is provided by the State but 
 competent teachers are not, and the dullest schoolmaster 
 has the wit, and finds the means, to keep on good terms 
 with the inspector. The higher education (so called) is 
 
 189 
 
I90 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 reserved for the few. Nominally it is the main road to the 
 learned professions and to Government appointments, but 
 it is better to be a dull young friend of the local cacique^ 
 than to be the brilliant lad with unattainable ideals and a 
 soul above paltering with the truth. This of course is as 
 far as material progress is concerned. 
 
 The young student who has ideals without influence, 
 runs a serious danger in Spain where the ranks of the forces 
 which oppose the established order of things are recruited 
 mainly from the estudiantes. Many a promising career has 
 come to an untimely end in the cells of Montjuich and the 
 other penal establishments of Spain, and it is as hard to 
 say that the Government is not as justified in protecting 
 itself against the inexperienced enthusiast for freedom, as 
 is the student himself in working against the established 
 order of things. In the eyes of youth many of the condi- 
 tions which wiser minds accept are intolerable. 
 
 Time was when the Spanish universities of Salamanca 
 and Alcald rivalled Oxford and Cambridge of to-day. 
 Not only did Spain send her most promising sons to these 
 institutions whose degree conferred a r<^^^^^ recognized by all 
 civilized Europe, but the young men of foreign lands were 
 sent to Spain's great universities to study Arabic and the 
 medical science. In those days the students wore the pre- 
 scribed costume, the short black cloak fastened to the left 
 shoulder, a three-cornered hat, knickerbockers, and a sword. 
 Their discipline was severe, but they had their own associa- 
 tions and were a force to be reckoned with, not only by the 
 alcalde but by the highest authorities. The philosophy of 
 Averrhoes and others who had translated the great works 
 of Greece into Arabic was taught in Salamanca, and at 
 Alcald Cardinal Cisneros edited the translation of the 
 Polyglot Bible. The eyes of scholarship were turned upon 
 
STUDENT LIFE IN SPAIN 191 
 
 Spain and the Spanish Renaissance budded, blossomed, and 
 filled the face of the Iberian world with fruit. 
 
 A great change has fallen upon Spain since those palmy 
 days of scholarship, when Ferdinand and Isabella and 
 Charles V ruled over the land. The two universities have 
 become ten, but it would be flattery to suggest that those 
 in existence to-day are worth together as much as either 
 of their two great forebears. When Carnival time comes 
 round groups of students who have assumed the old costume 
 of Salamanca and Alcald, parade the streets in some of the 
 big cities. They are armed with guitars and mandolins ; 
 they sing old student songs and the least shamefaced of 
 the estudiantina collects money from those who pass by. 
 With such echo of fallen greatness as this melancholy in- 
 cident can provide, the lovers of their country's old glory 
 must be content. 
 
 While Spain has fallen from her high estate as an apostle 
 of culture, it is fair to say that some of her ten universities 
 are effective educational forces. Madrid, Barcelona, and 
 Oviedo are undeniably the pick of the bunch, the last named, 
 situated in the cathedral town of what was the first capital 
 of Spain after the Moorish invasion, being very fortunate 
 in its professorial staff which includes that acknowledged 
 authority upon Spanish history, Seftor Altamira. Barcelona 
 is of course a centre of new ideas and is associated with the 
 best commercial enterprise in Spain, but the university can 
 hardly be said to lead the way in any direction. Perhaps 
 young Spain in the eastern and active portion of the 
 Peninsula thinks more of affairs than of intellectual pur- 
 suits ; perhaps commerce absorbs those who would be well 
 fitted to shine in other walks of life. Be these things as 
 they may, the fact remains that Barcelona's world progress 
 stops at the university gates. Barcelona's University, like 
 
192 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 its nine brethren, is under State control, and doubtless we 
 may look to this condition to explain some of the failings 
 of the Spanish university system. Patriots and scholars 
 may often be heard to deplore the fact that their country 
 has no endowed universities like Oxford and Cambridge, 
 and that consequently the progress of these institutions is 
 limited by forces they are unable to control or direct. In 
 their palmy days Salamanca and Alcald were very rich ; 
 to-day no university has more than is absolutely necessary 
 to carry on its immediate work, while Alcald, with its rich 
 traditions, has disappeared. 
 
 The University of Madrid is the largest, and in certain 
 respects the most progressive university in Spain. In times 
 past it attracted some of the biggest brains in the country 
 to its professorial chairs, and there is a healthy law that 
 binds the Ministry of Education to give professors in the 
 universities freedom to use their tongues as they think best. 
 Even the conservative rulers of Spain have realized the 
 impossibility of excluding Liberals from the catedra^ and it 
 is well that they have shown so much wisdom, for some of 
 the most distinguished professors of Madrid University have 
 been Liberals or Republicans. Salmeron and Castelar 
 among the dead, and Azcarrate among the living, have 
 been professors of law or philosophy of the Madrid Univer- 
 sity ; the two former were presidents of the short-lived 
 Spanish Republic. A good story told of Castelar deserves 
 record in this place. When Alfonso XII was brought to 
 Madrid after the fall of the Republic, Castelar with his 
 companions was exiled. Some years afterwards an amnesty 
 was proclaimed and Castelar returned in triumph to Madrid 
 to resume his office in the University. A vast gathering 
 attended to hear his first lecture, and the greatest orator in 
 all Spain mounted the rostrum, looked around him imper- 
 
STUDENT LIFE IN SPAIN 193 
 
 turbably at the sea of eager faces surrounding him, and 
 began " As I was saying yesterday ..." {Como decia ayer). 
 Between that yesterday and this day he had fought the 
 battle of the fallen Republic and had known the bitterness 
 of years in exile. All memory of this, however poignant 
 in the heart of Castelar, had passed from the professor of 
 Madrid's University, and he continued his lecture at the very 
 point at which it had been broken off. Needless to say 
 the incident made a profound impression not only upon 
 Madrid, but upon all Spain. 
 
 Madrid is the seat of the leading medical college of the 
 country, and it is the centre of the high schools as well as 
 the preparatory schools in which young Spain studies for 
 Government service. Chartered accountants, apothecaries, 
 civil and mining engineers, all find their chief educational 
 home in the capital, and this centralization of education is 
 one of the great grievances of Catalonia which, regional 
 to the core, objects most strongly to send its sons to the 
 hated Castiles where they say the men who work are gov- 
 erned by the men who play. But for all the objections of 
 Catalonia, Madrid is, and will probably remain, the leading 
 centre of Spanish student life. Other seats of universities 
 — Seville, Saragossa, Santiago and the rest — are of little or 
 no importance. 
 
 Spanish universities not being residential, gather their 
 students from all parts of the city and maintain no discipline 
 out of lecture hours. The rules for attendance are fairly 
 strict, and the students are not admitted to degrees unless 
 they have been diligent in their attendance. 
 
 Nominally the course of lectures in the Spanish univer- 
 sity is free, but in actual fact it is expensive for several 
 reasons. In the first place the Government levies a tax by 
 directing that all official communications are to be written 
 13 
 
194 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 on a stamped paper. This system of course is practised 
 ad nauseam in France where one must pay for the privilege 
 of making any application to a Government office, and in 
 Spain it presses very harshly upon the poor student who 
 can only make his application for examination or for a 
 degree on heavily taxed paper. Many a poor Spanish 
 student who has scraped together the money for his ex- 
 amination, is unable to secure the degree he has earned 
 because he is unable to pay for it. It is fair to remember 
 that fees in our English universities are tolerably — or should 
 one say intolerably — high. But here there is no suggestion 
 of a free higher education while in Spain the fiction is 
 religiously preserved. 
 
 Another tax upon the poor student is levied by the 
 impecunious professor who, by being born in Spain, has 
 brought his brains to such a bad market. He has the 
 privilege of enforcing his own textbooks upon his classes, 
 and if he be sufficiently poor to need the assistance granted 
 by this privilege, he will write a new textbook every year 
 and compel his unfortunate pupils to purchase it. In this 
 fashion he supplements his meagre State allowance. 
 Throughout the Spanish universities the vicious circle of 
 national maladministration may be seen revolving : the 
 State underpays its professors, the professors tax the 
 students, and everybody is profoundly dissatisfied. If it 
 were not for the fact that nearly every student and every 
 professor has in his brain a fully matured scheme for the 
 regeneration of national education against the time when 
 he becomes el Excelentisifno Senor Ministro de Instruccion 
 PAblica^ the trouble could hardly be endured without occa- 
 sional appeal to barricades and bloodshed. 
 
 Those who lack the money required to enable them to 
 take a degree, can generally spare a peseta to buy the paper 
 
STUDENT LIFE IN SPAIN 195 
 
 on which they enter themselves for one of the small com- 
 petitive examinations for a Government post. Teachers in 
 the primary schools, professors in the colleges, inspectors 
 of customs, post office officials — in short, all appointments 
 that are not political and are not given away as douceurs to 
 people who must be reckoned with, are gained by these 
 competitive examinations. It would be no exaggeration 
 to estimate these at two hundred and fifty per annum in 
 Madrid and it is not uncommon to find five hundred com- 
 petitors for a post, so that each of the examinations yield 
 a very considerable amount to the Government in fees, for 
 of the hundreds who pay their peseta for the right to com- 
 pete only one can be chosen. Even when the post has 
 been secured, its nominal emolument is subjected to a very 
 heavy Government tax {el discuento del Estadd), and as far 
 as some of the minor appointments are concerned, the fees 
 taken for the entrance examination by the Government 
 suffice to pay the successful candidate's salary for the first 
 year of his office. Happily for the victor, his appointment 
 lasts for life, but it is hardly matter for wonder that students 
 as a class are " agin the Government ". The worst side of 
 the existing system in Spain is its speculative character. 
 Many a man who ought to strike out for himself and de- 
 velop to the utmost such individuality as he may possess, 
 lingers month after month in the Spanish capital, leading a 
 careless, dissipated life while he proceeds from examination 
 to examination, hoping against hope that one of the prizes 
 in this rank State lottery will fall to him. The amount of 
 energy lost to the country is enormous. The national 
 strength is sapped, and a young countryman, whose devoted 
 parents strain their meagre resources to keep him in the 
 capital, wastes so much time in his endeavour to secure a 
 State appointment that when at last he gives up the 
 
196 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 struggle in despair, he is quite unfitted to return to the life 
 he left behind him in the country. Madrid has blighted 
 his hopes, and having no further use for him, cast him 
 adrift. Now he is ripe for the ranks of the more violent 
 agitators, a tool sharpened to cut into the existing order of 
 social life. 
 
 Turning from this sober side of student life in Spain's 
 university centres, it is pleasant to remember that in the 
 years when he has hope as well as youth, the Spanish 
 student leads a merry life and does little or nothing to 
 complicate it by hard work. He has his club and he has 
 his friends, and students unite in friendliest fashion to oppose 
 grievances of whatever kind, so that if one professor proves 
 so unpopular that his class revolts against him, it may rely 
 upon the support of all the other classes, even those of the 
 most popular professors in the university. The student 
 has his sing-songs and is developing a taste for light 
 German beer ; he loves billiards, dominates the feria, speaks 
 slightingly of Mother Church, and will give his last peseta 
 for a seat on the sunny side of the bull-ring. Sometimes 
 on a Sunday afternoon you may see students sitting under 
 the blazing sun of the Plaza de Toros with their coats 
 tightly buttoned up, and a little examination or inquiry will 
 reveal the fact that these aficcionados have literally pawned 
 their shirts and their capas to assist at the function. The 
 dancing booths that are generally to be found a little way 
 beyond the city walls are greatly favoured by the students, 
 who love to dance with the country girls and the servants 
 who have an evening off duty. In times of a political 
 crisis the students bring a large store of superfluous energy 
 to the task of regenerating Spain, and make up in sound for 
 anything they may lack in sense. Whatever their faults 
 or shortcomings, the city they delight to honour looks upon 
 
STUDENT LIFE IN SPAIN 197 
 
 them with a friendly eye. They contribute no small part 
 of its life and colour, and the authorities are content to lay 
 a light hand upon them even in hours of extreme provoca- 
 tion. The philosopher and the patriot may look with un- 
 feigned regret upon the terrible waste of life that results 
 from the shortcomings of national administration. He 
 may deplore wasted years and purposeless existence, but 
 the Preacher himself has declared that there is a time for 
 rejoicing. 
 
 The lottery plays an important part in the life of the 
 Spanish student, for in a city where thousands are gathered 
 together a few prizes must be gained now and again by the 
 impecunious. When a student is fortunate he does not 
 cloud good luck with idle thoughts about a morrow ; he 
 summons all his friends and acquaintances, adding to their 
 numbers for the occasion, and with plenty of money in his 
 pocket, proceeds in colloquial English to " do it in ''. Suffi- 
 cient for the day or for the night tJie merriment and the 
 extravagance thereof. If to-morrow brings an aching head 
 and an empty purse in its train, these are no more than a 
 part of the game, and every student who has been un- 
 fortunate in the lottery hitherto doubles his subscription if 
 he can find the money to do so. When the great sorteo 
 comes around, the day when the big prizes are drawn, the 
 scene is one of extraordinary animation. 
 
 Of the theatre the Spanish student is an unfailing sup- 
 porter as long as he has the peseta or a couple of reales 
 that will pay for an entrada, A keen-witted and fearless 
 critic, he demands good value for his money, and his 
 capacity for whistling like a ship's siren, and hammering on 
 the floor with the noise like the passing of a regiment of 
 cavalry over a hard road, is something that must be heard 
 before it can be appreciated. The limits of his purse are 
 
198 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 the foundation of his preference for the genera chico^ the 
 series of one hour entertainments that make up the pro- 
 gramme in most Spanish theatres. Only when the 
 month's remittance has just arrived and is burning a hole 
 in his pocket will he patronize the genero grande with 
 its three act play, or the paraiso (gallery) of the opera 
 house. 
 
 One of the reasons why the Spanish student is always 
 poor is that the university life is almost limited to the 
 upper middle and lower middle classes. The aristocracy 
 engages private tutors for its sons, or sends them to the 
 military colleges, or gives them a year or two at some 
 foreign university. The Cadet College is situated at Toledo, 
 and on the occasion of the annual distribution of awards 
 the King, attended by full military staff, is always present. 
 Doubtless this visit has its own political significance. 
 
 The path of the Spanish student is not made easier 
 for him by scholarships ; such stimulus as the scholar- 
 ship gives to the English lad is unknown in Spain, 
 where the papel sellado enfolds one and all in its costly 
 embrace, and no student can receive his degree or an ap- 
 pointment until his path to it has been paved with stamped 
 paper. 
 
 As a class Spanish students are pleasant lads enough, 
 fond of fun, inclined to look with suspicion or impatience 
 upon work, very full of life and good spirits. They have 
 no sense of responsibility, and are frequently heard to refer 
 to their father as the treasurer sent by Providence {el 
 cajero enviado por Dios), 'The allowance of a student 
 whose parents are not blessed with a generous proportion 
 of the world's goods, is as low as fourteen shillings a week. 
 This would be rather a small allowance for Madrid, but 
 would be quite sufficient to maintain a lad in a provincial 
 
STUDENT LIFE IN SPAIN 199 
 
 university. The higher cost of living in the capital is 
 recognized by the Government, and the scale of pay for 
 Madrid officials is higher than that which must suffice their 
 provincial brethren. 
 
 It has been said that the students' habits are cheerful 
 and inoffensive, but an exception to the last adjective must 
 be taken on account of th^Jltrteo, The Spanish student 
 claims the right to make remarks (echar piropos, literally, 
 to throw compliments) to every pretty girl or young woman 
 he passes in the street. He limits his attentions to those 
 ladies who please his eye, and to these his remarks are 
 frequently vulgar without being funny. When the student 
 sees a pretty girl approaching, he immediately assumes the 
 gait of a matador, squares his shoulders, throws his chest 
 out, fixes the fair damsel with his eye, as Mr. Sim Tappertit 
 used to fix the locksmith's daughter. Oddly enough one 
 does not hear of cases in which the student gets his ears 
 boxed or is soundly kicked by some outraged relative of 
 the lady. Only when this interference with young women 
 is resented by their relatives, the palmy days of th^Jlirteo 
 will draw to an end, but it is impossible to avoid the 
 thought that the Spanish mujer is flattered by the atten- 
 tions. If the too ardent student be the reverse of per- 
 sonable, she can stab him with her eyes, and leave him 
 wellnigh paralysed on the pavement, following her with 
 his glance but quite incapable of moving. If the student be 
 an attractive specimen of his class, he will still get no further 
 recognition than a glance, but it will be one of a more 
 friendly sort. The working girls who labour in the factories 
 of the university towns have had a long training in the 
 arts of flirteo. Woe to the student who does not seem 
 sufficiently attractive to justify his coarse remarks ; the 
 chula is on him quick as a hawk on its quarry. In a second 
 
200 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 she has taken stock of his most prominent disabilities, 
 mental, moral, or physical. In picturesque language, 
 largely metaphorical, in a few terse sentences full of scorn, 
 the chula can make her little persecutor regret the day of 
 his birth. To make matters more difficult for the beaten 
 party, the rebuke is always delivered, by a chula at least, 
 at the top of her voice, and as \h^flirteo is quite a recog- 
 nized part of student life, passers-by are always keenly in- 
 terested in the outcome of one of the little encounters. 
 The writer remembers a passing scene in a tram-car in 
 Madrid between one of these manolas and a tall, rather thin 
 and meagre-looking youth. The latter had boarded the 
 car and sat down beside the woman scanning her with the 
 impertinence of Spanish eyes. At a favourable moment — 
 for such at least it must have seemed to him — he whispered 
 some words, doubtless of admiration, in her ear. Quick as 
 a flash of lightning the chula turned full upon her aggressor, 
 glanced at him scornfully, and then, in a loud voice to be 
 heard by the deafest of the occupants of the car, she said : 
 " Cdllese, es Usted un chico en grande de limon " — by 
 which was meant, metaphorically speaking, a small capacity 
 in a large compass, though literally the picture of a few 
 drops of lemonade lost in a big glass, was referred to. 
 There was a hearty burst of laughter from the travellers on 
 the car at this sharp sally, which only increased the thin 
 youth's embarrassment ; nor is it to be wondered at that 
 at the next turning he should jump off the tram and dis- 
 appear hurriedly in the crowd, leaving the manola in trium- 
 phant possession of the field of her victory. 
 
 In winter the student wears the capa which, for purposes 
 of th^Jlirteo^ he endeavours, generally with small success, 
 to fold after the fashion of the bull-ring. The capa is a 
 black cloak, the remnant of the old dress of Spain, and the 
 
STUDENT LIFE IN SPAIN 201 
 
 forepart of the inside lining generally consists of a broad 
 strip of bright-coloured velvet. When the capa is adjusted, 
 it is thrown back over the shoulder intended to display the 
 lining to advantage. The capa has great advantages as a 
 winter covering, keeping the wearer warm from his shoulders 
 to the immediate neighbourhood of his knees ; below the 
 knees he must suffer all the rigor of the Spanish winter. 
 There is a steadily growing class in Spain that eyes the 
 capa with profound disapproval, declaring that it is one of 
 the three stumbling-blocks to Spanish progress, the other 
 two being the Plaza de Toros and the garbanzos. Here 
 again we see the Spanish taste for metaphor. There is no 
 feeling that chick-peas are harmful, but they are the most 
 outstanding component part of the national dish puchero^ 
 and those Spaniards who have been educated abroad or 
 have joined the ranks of the intelectuales have a certain 
 intolerance of their own national institutions. They would 
 like to see their country flattened out like a lawn under a 
 heavy roller, all idiosyncrasies removed under a dead level 
 of thought and custom that would, in their own picturesque 
 language, sink the Pyrenees into the earth and seal down 
 the doorways leading to the Cid's tomb. Happily per- 
 haps for certain of the most alluring aspects of Spanish 
 life, the Spanish student is a great stickler for tradition, 
 and as the opinions of the advanced few cannot permeate 
 far beyond the city walls, the Spaniard of the small pro- 
 vincial cities and the vast open spaces of the country 
 remains wholly unaffected by them. 
 
 If the life of the student of letters is hard, the life of the 
 art student is harder still. There are several important art 
 schools in Spain, and in the large provincial towns the 
 schools of art are allied to the ordinary secondary school. 
 To sum up the situation in a sentence, it may be said that 
 
202 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 only the industrial arts flourish in Spain, and when a lad 
 wishes to become a painter or a sculptor he is safe to find 
 himself faced by the uncompromising opposition of his family 
 and friends. Their attitude is really justified, because the 
 art of the Spanish painter is not national to-day. If parents 
 can afford the outlay, they send their sons abroad, generally 
 to Paris, where perhaps one in a hundred will make a name 
 for himself. The Government art schools of Spain draft a 
 small number of their most prominent pupils to the Spanish 
 Academy in Rome, where at the expense of the Government 
 they remain for at least two years and are required to send 
 to Spain one work of art a year, the first being a study from 
 the nude and the second an historical picture. It is worth 
 remarking that there is very little room for the nude in 
 Spanish art, perhaps because the beauty of Spanish national 
 costume makes the female figure so much more attractive 
 when it is dressed and appeals to the national sentiment 
 of the country. Others would hold that this aversion from 
 the nude is the outcome of the Spaniard's strong feeling for 
 things as he sees them in public life. 
 
 In the university towns that boast an academy of art the 
 art-students do not make a group by themselves as they do 
 in France. They unite with other students and enjoy them- 
 selves after the same fashion. As a class they worship El 
 Greco and Velasquez, sneer at Murillo, denounce their in- 
 structors, and sigh for the Latin Quarter and the modern 
 art movement of Paris. As they grow older the great part 
 of them break away from whatever influence France or Italy 
 may have brought to bear upon them, the regional spirit of 
 Spain being too strong for it. Only in Madrid and Bar- 
 celona can one find a foreign convention enjoying some mea- 
 sure of feeble life on Spanish soil. It is permissible to 
 suggest that as far as Madrid is concerned, this modern in- 
 
STUDENT LIFE IN SPAIN 203 
 
 fluence is merely second-hand, and has filtered through to 
 the capital by way of Barcelona where all activity is more 
 or less modern. 
 
 Once in two years there is a great exhibition of pictures 
 in the Palace at the Hippodrome of Madrid. It is run on 
 principles differing very considerably from those that obtain 
 in this country, every artist being at liberty to send his work 
 in and to have it hung as long as the subject is not flagrantly 
 immoral. A certain amount of favouritism may be displayed 
 in the hanging of the pictures but nobody is crowded out, 
 and there is much to be said for this principle which has 
 been copied of late years in London by the Allied Artists' 
 Association in its exhibitions at the Albert Hall. At the 
 exhibition in Madrid one sees the work of the Spanish 
 students in Rome. Medals are given by the State for the 
 best work of the year which is supposed to be purchased by 
 the Government, but it is no uncommon thing for the artist 
 who has secured his medal to be compelled to wait two or 
 three years for his money. In the granting of the medals 
 personal influence plays a very considerable part, and while 
 many of those who have achieved a medal have passed al- 
 together from public notice, a large number who are at the 
 head of Spanish art to-day, have never received recognition 
 from the State. 
 
 Other exhibitions are those of the various Circulos de 
 Bellas Artes which belong for the most part to provincial 
 towns, are supported by their own members, and do 
 not exhibit outside work. Being smaller than the great 
 exhibition of Madrid, they attract more detailed atten- 
 tion from those who are interested in art, for the majority 
 of the patrons of the exhibition at the Hippodrome never 
 brought anything more like a picture than one of the 
 highly coloured oleographs of saint or martyr that, like 
 
204 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 so many other of Spain's commodities, has been made in 
 Germany. 
 
 Among Spain's living painters many are called but few 
 are chosen. The clever portrait-painters — Sorolla, Car- 
 bonero, and Pradilla — can command good prices and fairly 
 constant work, but the middle classes are not patrons of 
 art and the very wealthy prefer to collect or speculate in 
 old masters. It is only in the great commercial centres, 
 Barcelona and Bilbao, that the modern painter who com- 
 bines talent and individuality can hope to achieve prosperity 
 in some moderate measure ; in Madrid, unless he be a highly 
 favoured portrait-painter, his case is hopeless. 
 
 For the unsuccessful — and their name is legion — there is 
 much trouble. Penury marches at their heels, and after 
 years of striving their last pesetas are spent on papel sellado 
 that will enable them to enter into competition for the 
 small living wage of the Government art teacher. Failing 
 this they may betake themselves, comparatively late in life, 
 to some other profession, or may retire to their country town 
 to live in such halo as they can carry from a well-known art 
 centre on the slender profits of an estudio to which pupils are 
 admitted at very low fees. The lad who goes to a country 
 studio of this kind is one whose parents cannot afford an 
 annual outlay of £2^ for his eight months' course in some 
 provincial university centre. Still others, who find they 
 cannot earn a living by the exercise of their gifts at serious 
 work, paint hundreds of the little genre pictures that are 
 exhibited in shop windows or hawked about in the cafes as 
 souvenirs of the city, much in the same way as the shops 
 in our seaside towns sell amazing plates, dishes, and glasses 
 on which are printed the moving words, " A Present from the 
 Seaside ". Others, who have probably lost all love for their 
 fatherland, join the ranks of picture-restorers, and for quite 
 
STUDENT LIFE IN SPAIN 205 
 
 a moderate fee will spoil any masterpiece entrusted to their 
 care. This passion for restoration has always been a Spanish 
 vice ; time was when the Prado had its restorer. To him 
 Titian, Velasquez, and countless others of lesser degree were 
 cheerfully surrendered, and he did with them as seemed 
 good in his eyes, correcting their faults of drawing and per- 
 spective, restoring their colour and generally man-handling 
 them with an indifference born of conscious superiority. Of 
 late years the activity of this official restorer would seem to 
 be in abeyance ; perhaps his post has been abolished, per- 
 haps the growing interest in old masters has led the 
 Spanish authorities to believe that they are better left 
 alone. But for a very long time the scandal was a crying 
 one. 
 
 Sculpture does not flourish in Spain, probably on account 
 of the progress made in wood-carving which has reached a 
 high state of perfection in pasos and retablos^ but in the 
 industrial arts Spain is making a rapid and well-defined 
 progress. Schools of industrial arts are thriving! and are 
 developing along different lines, drawing students from all 
 parts of the country. While on the one side we find a 
 modern movement emanating from Barcelona and Bilbao, 
 and founded entirely upon French and English ideas, on 
 another side we note a movement in the direction of an older 
 tradition. Engraving on metal, inlaying, wrought-iron work 
 of the old patterns, wood-carving for altar-pieces — all these 
 industries are being revived and vigorously followed up, side 
 by side with modern industries that only a few years ago 
 were unknown in Spain. Some of our English art magazines, 
 notably the " Studio,'' have exercised great influence upon 
 the work that comes from Bilbao, where modern furniture, 
 following English fashions, old or new, is undeniably the 
 best in Spain to-day. From an English standpoint Bilbao's 
 
2o6 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 attitude towards modern industrial art is far more sane 
 than that of Barcelona, for the former recognizes the value 
 of an occasional straight line and Barcelona has a startling 
 penchant for curves. The revival of the old industrial arts 
 is associated with the north ; in the south no revival of the 
 regional industries was , necessary ; they have been thriving 
 within the limits of Spain's prosperity since they were first 
 established by the Moors. The chief industries are those 
 in leather (Cordoba) and the azulejos in Valencia. Need- 
 less to say the Castiles do not concern themselves with 
 any other industry save those of tax-collecting and ad- 
 ministration. Even the departure of the steel industry 
 from Toledo — once famous throughout Europe for its 
 sword blades — to Eibar in the Basque Provinces, seems to 
 have raised little comment and to have excited no regret. 
 Perhaps Castile feels that the change removes com- 
 mercialism still farther from her borders. There are those 
 among the most progressive class in Spain who see in this 
 departure of the last industry from the governing provinces 
 a certain sinister significance that they welcome. Castile, 
 they say, is becoming farther and farther removed from the 
 rest of Spain ; indeed, the great central plain in which 
 Madrid is set tends strongly towards depopulation ; the 
 inhabitants move steadily in the direction of the coast, and 
 the time will come when the capital will stand alone, 
 separated by miles of waste land from the rest of Spain. 
 Across this desert to the city they see an ever-dwindling 
 procession of students approaching a goal that becomes 
 year by year less desirable. East, south, and north they 
 see a new Spain arising, with an administration that will 
 successfully defy the central Government. 
 
 This is the dream of the republican and the socialist, 
 who never pause to remember that their country's faults, 
 
STUDENT LIFE IN SPAIN 207 
 
 like their country's virtues, are affairs of climate, and that if 
 all the governing classes could be replaced to-morrow, 
 their successors would be compelled to face the problems 
 of government in some spirit of compromise not unlike 
 that which obtains to-day. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 IN A SPANISH VILLAGE 
 
 LET us pass together across the foot-hills of the rugged, 
 savage Castilian sierra. We are bound for the village 
 of Doquiera, the village to which no rail runs, where in the 
 heat of the year no green thing grows, where the appear- 
 ance of the postman creates something between a sensation 
 and a scandal, and the daily passing of the stage-coach 
 summons the lovely, half-clad, ill-cared-for boys and girls 
 from their play. A bridle path over the oak-topped spurs 
 leads us from el diablo mundo to Doquiera. The deep 
 valley on our left, now so dry and bare, carries a rushing 
 torrent in the rainy season, and far away on the right, in 
 the hollow of the hill, those ruins, now so hopeless, solitary, 
 and grey, were once a thriving convent in which a hundred 
 voices were raised in prayer by day and by night. From 
 the belfry, now invisible, the people of Doquiera were re- 
 minded that time was slipping from beneath their feet, and, 
 in joy or trouble, they would seek the walls, which once 
 enclosed a great part of the valley and hid thriving vine- 
 yards and an orchard, certain that within its shelter they 
 would find welcome and good counsel. 
 
 To-day owls and bats divide between them such shelter 
 as the convent affords. But far away on the left, over the 
 bridge that must have been built by Spain's Moorish in- 
 vaders to span the winter torrent, Doquiera basks in sun- 
 
 208 
 
"HE (;OA'rHKRl) 
 
IN A SPANISH VILLAGE 209 
 
 shine and takes no heed of the flight of time. If it ever 
 thinks of solitude and remoteness from the world beyond 
 its walls, the thought is a pleasant one, and the daily sight 
 of the antique berlina that brings an occasional passenger 
 or two, and a still more occasional letter, is a happy re- 
 minder to Doquiera that there is no intention on the part 
 of the powers that rule Spain to inflict the indignity of a 
 railway service upon her. The village knows that black 
 care rides ever behind the horseman, or to be more exact, 
 that the tax collector will appear by the first train. 
 Doubtless, too, a railway company would demand a subsidy 
 of perhaps five hundred pesetas (twenty pounds sterling). 
 Doquiera is already heavily in debt to the Provincial 
 Government : when the village accounts were last audited, 
 she was some sixty pesetas (two pounds five shillings) in 
 arrear, and although an attempt has been made to put the 
 matter right by reducing the schoolmaster's salary and 
 allowing the postmaster's stipend to get a little in arrear, 
 the deficit is not likely to be made up this year, and they 
 say in Doquiera that the Provincial Governor is meditating 
 some very drastic action. Reckoning that Doquiera has 
 two hundred inhabitants, the financial situation might be 
 saved by a forced levy of one real a head, but with the 
 exception of the cacique^ who is popularly reported to be a 
 millionaire, hardly anybody in Doquiera has a real to spare. 
 The village clusters round the hill crow^ned by a church 
 dedicated to San Anton, to whose care mules, horses, and 
 asses, to say nothing of other four-footed animals, are com- 
 mitted. It is a bare edifice, the only ornament being an 
 elaborate side altar erected by the cacique for the salvation 
 of his soul, which is said to stand rather in need of special 
 attention owing to accidents inseparable from the making 
 of a fortune. Happily for his future state the altar is quite a 
 14 
 
2IO HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 high-class affair, boasting far more tinsel and glass than 
 the main altar, and served by candles of superior size. 
 
 On a little plateau slightly below the church is the Plaza 
 de la Constitucion. The careful observer will be a little 
 puzzled to find that the plaza has three names. Half-ob- 
 literated on the right-hand side as you come out of the 
 church is the old title, Plaza Mayor, dating from the time 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella. On the left is the more modern 
 title of Plaza de la Libertad put up in the days when some 
 echo of Salemeron's republican rule spread across the sierras 
 to far Doquiera. Then, when the monarchy was restored, 
 the proud title of Plaza de la Constitucion was affixed to 
 one of the square's unoccupied corners, but the authorities 
 lacked either the time or the energy to remove the old 
 names. If the republic should come back the second title 
 will serve, and if some new and unexpected form of govern- 
 ment obtain in Spain, there is still an unoccupied corner to 
 serve for the plaza's rechristening. 
 
 The plaza is planted with pepper trees — male trees on 
 one side and female trees on the other — and at certain times 
 of the year, when the rainfall has been generous, their 
 stunted little trunks seem to make up their minds to achieve 
 distinction. But the effort is too much for them : the rain 
 passes, and the sun returns, and the trees shrivel back to 
 insignificance. 
 
 Prominent on one side of the plaza is the alcaldia or 
 town hall. Doquiera would promptly take up arms against 
 the rest of Spain if the Government sought to lay violent 
 hands upon her town hall. Our village is not so famous 
 in the annals of Spain as the little (village of M6stoles, near 
 Madrid, whose alcalde^ be it remembered, declared war 
 against Napoleon ; but within the memory of man Doquiera 
 picked a quarrel with another village lying behind the 
 
IN A SPANISH VILLAGE 211 
 
 sierra's spur far away to the right as you look across the 
 plaza from the steps of the church, and she sent more than 
 fifty braves armed with navajas and sticks to do battle on 
 her behalf. Doubtless she would have covered herself with 
 glory had she been a little quicker about the business, but 
 mobilization takes some time in Doquiera, and the driver 
 of the coche told the authorities of the big provincial town 
 twenty miles away, with the result that twenty stalwarts 
 of the Guardia Civil were waiting on the prado to avert a 
 civil war. Disgust was universal, but the situation was saved. 
 For the captain of the guards informed the alcalde of each 
 village that if hostilities were resumed the provincial 
 governor would fine each village, and, to make matters worse, 
 would raise the rate on consumos (food-stuffs) until the fine 
 was paid. The hottest blood cooled at the thought of such 
 a catastrophe. 
 
 But the alcaldia is very sacred. It holds a number of 
 bare whitewashed rooms with a desk and a chair here and 
 there, and sometimes an empty cupboard that may serve 
 some useful purpose in years to come. Nobody quite knows 
 the office hours or the duties associated with the alcaldia. 
 But the alcalde himself has a pair of black whiskers which are 
 an honour to the whole province, and he moves as though 
 conscious that the governing circles of far-away Madrid re- 
 gard his procedure with an anxious eye, and he talks as 
 if the burden of the whole Spanish Empire lay heavily upon 
 his broad shoulders. 
 
 Facing the alcaldia across the plaza is the modest mansion 
 of the village aristocrat, the casa senorialy built centuries 
 ago, with a ponderous escutcheon over the carved doorway 
 and a wonderful knocker wrought in iron matched by a no 
 less beautiful lock admitting a key more than a foot long. 
 The rejas protecting the lower windows are of rare beauty, but 
 
212 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 no caballero is ever seen to stand in front of one. Doquiera 
 holds no man fit to mate with the lady of the house, who 
 lives with her brother in semi-regal state on an income that 
 hardly amounts to fifteen shillings a week. The blue- 
 blooded couple are kind and courteous to one and all, but 
 they dwell in a world apart, on intimate terms with nobody, 
 their only companion, beyond the old couple who serve 
 them, being poverty. Even the cacique abates his normal 
 attitude of bluster and forgets his importance when D. 
 Felipe Guzmdn or Dofia Serafina are abroad, and while they 
 do not demand humility from others, they accept it as their 
 due. All the cacique's riches, which, although they fall very 
 far below the popular estimate, are not inconsiderable, can- 
 not purchase him admittance to the casa senorial, and so it 
 happens that when he walks on that side of the plaza he 
 lowers his proud look. 
 
 The only other house on the plaza that calls for notice here 
 is the casa del cura^ the home of the parish priest. He is a 
 kindly soul, and enters intimately into the life of the parish, 
 a welcome guest in every house, for Doquiera knows nothing 
 of atheism or free-thought. His ama or housekeeper is no 
 longer young and is well favoured — too well favoured, it is 
 said, to be the companion of one who is vowed to celibacy. 
 But she has a good heart, a discreet tongue, a helping hand, 
 and a pleasant smile, and the worst that is said in Doquiera 
 is that the cur a is a ** man like any other ". 
 
 Much to its regret Doquiera has no Plaza de Toros, but 
 every year when the feria comes round the last day is 
 given to a bull-fight. It is a very crude affair, and is cele- 
 brated in the plaza which has been barricaded on all sides. 
 Nothing but a bull-fight would lead to the accomplishment 
 of so much hard work as is entailed by the erection of these 
 barricades, and as Doquiera is too poor to use full-grown 
 
IN A SPANISH VILLAGE 213 
 
 bulls, becerros (young bulls about fifteen months old) are 
 exposed to the clumsy assault of a cuadrilla that seems to 
 have been recruited from the gutter. A local ganadero 
 armed with an unpointed pole takes the place oi \\\^ picador ; 
 there is no money to spend on horses, although the poor 
 beasts slaughtered to make a Spanish holiday can be bought 
 for a pound apiece. The banderilleros are amateurs ; he who 
 can place " half a pair " in the becerrds quivering shoulders is 
 accounted skilful. The diestro himself will make half a 
 dozen attempts to get the espada home, and when the 
 populace that throngs the barriers and has been recruited 
 from neighbouring villages feels that the master of the 
 sword requires assistance, the barriers are stormed and the 
 poor becerro falls under a score of knives. It is a bloody and 
 disgusting spectacle, but it provides a use for the alcaldia^ 
 whose windows are crowded by the mayor's friends, and 
 from the balcony of the casa senortal, decorated on this 
 high occasion with the ancestral tapestries, Don Felipe 
 Guzman and his sister sit in state, their two servants 
 respectfully behind them — the woman sitting down — and 
 survey the scene with no expression of emotion. It is just 
 a part of the life they have known since first they assumed 
 the heavy burden of the sangre azuL In their own fashion 
 they are as friendless as the poor tortured becerro in the 
 plaza at their feet. 
 
 Even uglier than the corrida de toros is the corrida degallos 
 in which all the local horsemen compete. Three parts down 
 the centre of the plaza two poles are stuck up and a thin cord 
 stretched taut between them about twelve feet above the 
 ground. From this cord half a dozen fowls are suspended by 
 the legs. The caballeros on their small ponies race from the 
 far end of the plaza, and as they pass underneath the cord en- 
 deavour to wring the head off one of these living fowls. The 
 
214 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 poor birds, as though conscious of what awaits them, endeav- 
 our to tuck their head under their wing ; but the cabellerds 
 eye is keen and his hand is strong and steady, and one 
 after another they turn their ponies and gallop back with 
 the bloody head in one hand while the still moving carcass 
 remains suspended to the cord. And yet the men who do 
 this hideous thing, and those who applaud their skill, are 
 kindly folk, who work hard, are good to their wives and 
 children, and fulfil their duties to Church and State. Such 
 sports as these are quite beyond our comprehension ; we 
 can only be devoutly thankful that they make no appeal 
 to us. 
 
 Happily 'Cn^feria has a brighter side and more innocent 
 amusement. The, greased pole that was once familiar to 
 those who visited the fairs in rural England is always in 
 evidence in Doquiera, and children as well as men endeavour 
 to climb it in competition for the prizes of money or a ham, 
 provided by subscription, of which the State, represented by 
 the alcalde^ the Church, and the cacique have given a liberal 
 part. There is also a small firework display, sometimes 
 associated with trifling accidents. 
 
 But the/m«^, with its curious mixture of revolting and 
 harmless amusement, only occupies the plaza for one week 
 out of fifty-two. Throughout the rest of the year it is 
 Doquiera's market-place, and the market folk are very early 
 afield. The most of the merchandise is displayed upon the 
 ground ; the butcher is almost the only man who boasts a 
 stall made of a few boards stretched across trestles. Once 
 a week he has fresh beef for sale, on other days his patrons 
 are content with mutton or goafs flesh. The fact that no 
 consuino is levied on sheep or goats doubtless serves to give 
 their meat an added flavour to the thrifty Spanish housewife, 
 for beef carries a tax, 
 
IN A SPANISH VILLAGE 215 
 
 Round the corner, by Doquiera's village church, and 
 consequently in the full odour of sanctity, the taberna raises 
 its modest head. Early in the morning the wreath of 
 smoke, rising straight up through windless air to the blue 
 vault above, tells that the ama is cooking the little cakes of 
 egg and flour that Doquiera will eat with its morning's 
 chocolate, and already in the bar parlour men are fortify- 
 ing themselves against the day's toil with the capita de 
 aguardiente that costs a ha'penny, and in their brief moments 
 of leisure they discuss affairs of Church and State, life and 
 death, and the world to come, as gravely and to no less 
 purpose than if they were philosophers, each boasting the 
 degree of a learned university and the authorship of half a 
 dozen works that nobody reads. There is not a man in all 
 Doquiera who does not know that he has all the panaceas 
 for his country's troubles in his brain. 
 
 As the sun moves up from the east, sprinkling the white 
 walls with burning violet shadows, the little group round 
 the taberna disperses. The market women gather what is 
 left of their wares and betake themselves to their homes or 
 seek a few minutes' shelter in the cool silence of the church. 
 Peace settles upon Doquiera's plaza and lays a light 
 hand upon the streets surrounding it. Even the birds cease 
 their song ; only a few gaunt and hungry fowls wander to 
 and fro like Apollyon of old seeking what they may devour. 
 Doquiera is not idle, but its men have gone to the field, to 
 woo the means of living from the rich, ill-tended soil ; the 
 women are already preparing the evening meal, and in the 
 bare, whitewashed schoolhouse the maestro is imparting 
 some of his scanty store of knowledge to his indifferent 
 flock of boys and girls. He enforces no discipline nor do 
 the children give him much trouble. The school inspector 
 may make an occasional visit, but he can only come by the 
 
2i6 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 cache; he must book his seat a day before he sets out, and 
 the driver is an old friend of the maestro. Even if the 
 inspector should be young and energetic, a contingency so 
 remote that it may be disregarded, the maestro need do no 
 more than point to the fact that his salary is in arrear and 
 the inspector will accept a cigarette, shrug his shoulders and 
 accompany the " educator of youth" to the taherna, where 
 over two ha'penny glasses of aguardiente the worthy men 
 will evolve a new and perfect system of education to take 
 effect when the inspector has been appointed to be Minister 
 of Education, and the schoolmaster has been promoted to 
 be rector of a University. 
 
 The only shopkeeper of importance in Doquiera is the 
 grocer, a man of repute, who is " agin the Government," 
 though he probably does not know why. It is likely that he 
 felt the necessity of being opposed to something, if only to 
 show his independence, and in the eyes of the local patriot 
 Government exists to act as a target for grievances. 
 Between the cacique and the grocer there is a rivalry that 
 only death can end. Doquiera's grocer is a diplomat, and 
 if there were a Ministry for Grocery in the Spanish Cabinet 
 he knows that he would be asked to accept the portfolio. 
 His diplomacy enables him to oppose the cacique^ who 
 is the recognized political agent of the Government in 
 Doquiera, and yet to retain his agency for the Banco de 
 Espana^ and bank the little savings of his patrons. He 
 calls himself tendero — but this is a very elastic term in Spain, 
 and in this case includes banking, the sale of toys, clothes, 
 food-stuffs, and the still more profitable practice of usury. 
 Doquiera has very little money, and its purchases are made 
 on the most modest scale imaginable. But the grocer wears 
 a prosperous smile and raises a large family in comparative 
 comfort. It may be that some change in the Ministry will 
 
IN A SPANISH VILLAGE 217 
 
 help him to the caciques place, or that some higher appoint- 
 ment will tempt the cacique to a big provincial town, satisfied 
 with the reflection that the altar in Doquiera's church re- 
 mains to atone for past pecadillos, and that the profit of a 
 new job will pay for the erection of yet another, in expiation 
 of offences to come. 
 
 The estanco sells tobacco in Doquiera together with post- 
 age-stamps and lottery tickets under the auspices of the 
 company that buys the tobacco monopoly from the Govern- 
 ment. Here one may realize the amazing truth which 
 larger cities enforce : the truth that there are no good cigars 
 in Spain. The very best cigar Doquiera can offer is not very 
 much worse than the best that is to be purchased in Cadiz or 
 Saragossa. In Madrid or Barcelona a really good cigar may 
 be bought, though even there the price is higher than the 
 quality. The best products of Havana go to London, 
 Paris, and New York. Like the rest of the world of Spain, 
 Doquiera scorns the pipe, but for such a little village its 
 consumption of cigarettes is enormous. Those who can 
 afford to buy cigarettes can get from four to six for a 
 penny ; but the general practice among the poor is to buy 
 tobacco and roll the cigarettes for themselves. You will 
 hunt in vain through Doquiera for a man whose first finger 
 is not stained a permanent yellow with nicotine. The 
 tobacconist is a woman, one of the widows left by the 
 Spanish-American War. Throughout the country these 
 small billets have been given by the Government to widows, 
 who must relinquish them if they marry again. They do 
 not marry again, but one would hesitate to affirm that all 
 their lives are barren of domestic bliss. 
 
 Doquiera has its caf6 or casino, quite distinct from the 
 taberna, and far removed from the Plaza de la Constituci6n. 
 It is a pleasant place with tiny marble-topped tables that 
 
2i8 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 may have had quite a good colour in years long gone by, 
 and towards the evening it is well patronized by all classes 
 of the community, including the Guardia from the little 
 barracks. Here one may meet the apothecary, surely a 
 lineal descendant of him who burnt Don Quixote's godless 
 books, a learned man, and one who has helped the doctor to 
 keep Doquiera's population within reasonable limits. His 
 shop is not well equipped according to modern ideas, but 
 such simples as he boasts are compounded with as much 
 care as he thinks the case demands, and as several sick 
 people have been known to use his medicines and recover, 
 he is not without a reputation. His position is greatly 
 strengthened by his wife, who is the grocer's eldest daughter, 
 and the two, representing as they do the ripe fruit of science 
 and commerce, claim a considerable social position in the 
 village. In the cafe one meets the telegraph operator, for 
 Doquiera has lately come into communication with the 
 outer world, though it must be confessed that the village 
 wire seldom troubles the junction lying miles away across 
 the brown sierra. But in the worthy operator one sees the 
 instrument by which under Providence Spain is enabled to 
 keep in touch with Doquiera's progress, and when telegraphist, 
 apothecary, his faithful ally the doctor, and the schoolmaster 
 are assembled together, Doquiera waits upon their wisdom 
 and profits by it, for, let it be known to every man, these 
 worthies have taken all knowledge to be their province, and 
 nothing in the heaven above or earth beneath or the waters 
 under the earth, can escape from the all-circling net of their 
 intelligence. 
 
 In Doquiera there are no weekday amusements save once a 
 year when the feria reigns supreme, but on Sunday while 
 one generation prays in the church, a younger generation 
 ^\3.ys pelota against the church wall. That which would be 
 
IN A SPANISH VILLAGE 219 
 
 a scandal of the first dimension in this country is accepted 
 almost without comment in Spain. The pelota of the 
 children is little more than a game of ball, not unlike the 
 English game of fives ; but the real pelota is also played 
 against the church wall, while service is being cele- 
 brated within, by men who care more for physical than 
 spiritual exercise. Those who stand half-way between 
 spiritual and worldly things, too lax to go and listen to the 
 cura, too devout to p\a,ypelotay compound with their con- 
 science by watching the game. If Doquiera were situated 
 in Navarre or the Basque Provinces, the pelota players 
 would have their own wall {fronton) set up in a field, 
 away from the shadow of the church, but in these northern 
 provinces the betting would assume very formidable 
 dimensions, while in Doquiera, although the wagering 
 is brisk, the money lost is small. On Sunday afternoons 
 the girls who have been in the church in the morning meet 
 the boys who were playing outside, and the young couples 
 stroll to and fro along the plaza, where many vows are made 
 and perhaps a few are broken. Sometimes from the balcony 
 of the casa sehorial Dofia Serafina may be seen watching the 
 procession of youth, beauty, and happiness. Can the know- 
 ledge that hers is the true sangre azul^ unstained by a single 
 drop of plebeian admixture, console the poor creature for 
 standing so high above, so far beyond the life around her ? 
 Qui^n sabe? Perhaps the cura^ who receives all the secrets 
 of that distorted life under the seal of the confessional. 
 
 Hitherto we have wandered amid the rank and fashion 
 of Doquiera. We have hardly ventured beyond the Plaza 
 de la Constituci6n, save to visit men of mark in the village. 
 Now let us venture into the lower quarters where the poor 
 thrive as best they may on the weekly wage of seven or 
 eight shillings earned by the master of the tapia hut that 
 
220 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 passes for home. It is hardly necessary to explain why 
 Doquiera has not yet had time to master the elements of sani- 
 tary science, and the result of local indifference to hygiene 
 IS revealed by the high death-rate in fashion which it seems 
 best to leave wholly undescribed. The narrow allies between 
 the hovels of sun-dried clay are the happy hunting-ground 
 of thin chickens, aggressive pigs, and the loveliest little dirty 
 children in the world. In the cool of the evening every 
 hut seems to dismiss its inhabitants to a place where the 
 pavement ought to be. Men and women who look to be 
 of a very great age but are probably younger than they 
 look, create a mild astonishment in the mind of the passer 
 who cannot quite understand how people have managed to 
 live so long in such unsavoury surroundings ; women give 
 their lately born infants their evening meal ; children play 
 happily in the dirt unquestioned and unrebuked ; the tired 
 father of the house whose slender earnings support parents 
 as well as wife and children toils painfully from the fields to 
 eat his simple supper and recover his spirits. The pitcher, 
 full of grape juice, is brought to the doorway, and if the 
 alcalde, the apothecary, the priest or the schoolmaster 
 should pass, he will be invited to taste the contents. 
 The most careless traveller, coming from a land full of 
 pavements and main-drains, will realize that a spirit of 
 happiness, not inferior to anything he has ever known, 
 has taken up its abode in these squalid alleys and that 
 save for death and the tax-collector the people have few 
 troubles. 
 
 Let us ask permission to enter the home of the sturdy 
 vine-dresser who just passed us with a civil good-night 
 The door is low and admits to a living-room leading in its 
 turn to a kitchen through whose big, bell-shaped chimney 
 inquisitive stars are peeping down upon the faggots from the 
 
IN A SPANISH VILLAGE 221 
 
 vineyard that our friend has just placed on the smoking 
 straw, a couple of pots {pucheros) are simmering and giving 
 out their pleasant suggestion of the national dish awaiting 
 a hungry man. Under the living-room is the cellar reached 
 by a trap-door, and here, in huge earthenware, tar-lined jars 
 {tinajas\ is the goodman's store of wine. It is made in 
 simplest fashion possible. Ripe grapes are thrown into the 
 vessel. Honey is added to sweeten it, lime to clear it, and 
 a few weeks after fermentation the wine can be drawn off 
 into the pigskins, quite clear and ready for use, if it be 
 intended for home consumption. Returning to the living- 
 room on our way to the street, we may notice the ladder- 
 like staircase leading to the bedrooms in which young and 
 old must herd together. 
 
 In all Doquiera there is but a single house of any preten- 
 sion below the plaza. It stands in one of the alleys on the 
 site of half a dozen hovels that have been cleared away ; it 
 is four-square and hideous, with green wooden shutters, and 
 built round a patio in which nothing was ever known to 
 thrive. Here the cacique dwells on the site of the hovel in 
 which he was born, one of ten children, of whom he is the 
 sole survivor. He is now past the prime of life, but keen- 
 eyed and keen-witted, owner of much surrounding land and 
 considerable interests in the provincial city to which the 
 coche makes its daily progress. He has a wife from a far 
 province who has no part or parcel in Doquiera's social life. 
 How she lives in that squalid quarter that has for her no 
 sentimental associations, is a mystery of which there is no 
 solution. She is said to have two sons but they are away 
 studying at one of the Universities. Friends she has none ; 
 the Church is her only bond of union with the life around 
 her. And the cacique himself, grave, self-controlled and 
 scheming to the last, does he find consolation for all he 
 
222 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 has done to establish his present position in the thought 
 that he has substituted an ugly house for a picturesque 
 mud hovel, and amassed money for his children to spend ? 
 This is yet another of the secrets that Doquiera refuses to 
 reveal. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 LIFE IN THE COUNTRY-SIDE 
 
 ALTHOUGH this chapter sets out another aspect of 
 Spanish life, its story still lingers round Doquiera, 
 where the toil and travail of the day assume many varied 
 aspects. Our village is fortunate beyond the most that lie 
 in little white heaps upon the sierra, like the tiny white eggs 
 on an ant-hill. For some of the land around the village 
 belongs to the villagers themselves. The plots are small- 
 small as those that the Italian labourer builds up with so 
 much labour and love in terraces along the mountain-side. 
 But the produce of each little holding suffices, though not 
 too fully, to keep the pangs of hunger from some tapia 
 hovel of the kind we have visited, and out of the labourer's 
 long day in the field comes the wherewithal to purchase the 
 pig whose precious limbs hang smoked from the ceiling, 
 whilst some of the less distinguished parts of his corpulent 
 body have been treated in manner known best to the 
 Spanish housewife, and stand in covered jars upon the 
 kitchen shelf or in the cellar. In the cellar, too, the tar-lined 
 earthenware vats, filled with the pure juice of the grape, are 
 replenished out of the proceeds of labour on the small plot, 
 which, although it may be scattered and one part may be 
 half an hour from another, would not, if put all together, 
 cover a couple of acres. In Doquiera there is no agrarian 
 problem. Less fortunate country districts have a landowner 
 who employs all the available male labour in the neighbour- 
 
 223 
 
224 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 hood, paying no better wages than will suffice to keep body 
 and soul on terms of acquaintance rather than intimacy. 
 In such parts any small plot belonging to a labouring man 
 must be worked by his wife, and when we remember that 
 it may be half an hour's walk from the village, and that she 
 must look after her house and her children in the intervals 
 of toiling under a blazing sun, it is not hard to understand 
 why the infantile mortality is so high. And yet the instinct 
 of the Spaniard to have a definite interest of his own, 
 however small, is always in evidence. In parts of Spain 
 where the poor man is landless, in such districts, for instance, 
 as parts of Soria and the Batuecos, which are said to be as 
 poverty-stricken as any corner of Europe, the Spaniard con- 
 trives to keep a pig and a few fowls, one and all as gaunt 
 and hungry as himself. He must be hard pressed at times 
 to provide the very meagre allowance necessary to keep 
 them alive. But they serve to suggest to him a feeling of 
 comparative independence, and he would deem himself an 
 outcast if he had no live stock at all. 
 
 In Doquiera there are but three landlords who employ 
 labour. The cacique is one, and of course the largest ; longo 
 intervallo^ the grocer follows ; the last of the men of 
 means and mark is ih^ for aster o^ a stranger who recently 
 started a small huerta^ and has had the amazing presump- 
 tion to import new-fangled agricultural implements all the 
 way from Barcelona— implements that no priest has ever 
 blessed, presumably because they were invented by the 
 devil. To make matters worse, and still further to show 
 his indifference to honourable and established custom, the 
 forastero bottles his wine though everybody in Doquiera 
 knows that wine in bottles is never worth drinking. Even 
 the cacique and the grocer would not venture upon the 
 modern road that the forasterOy who comes from across the 
 
LIFE IN THE COUNTRY-SIDE 225 
 
 plains, travels over so gaily, and one regrets to add so pro- 
 fitably. Small wonder if when some of Doquiera's most 
 pious women-folk pass th.^ forastero on the plaza, they avert 
 their heads and make the sign of the cross, suspecting that 
 he is no better than an atheist 
 
 Let us pay a visit to the huerta of one of Doquiera's hus- 
 bandmen — a tall, lean, sunburnt man, extremely shabby, 
 prematurely aged by toil but very well contented with his 
 lot in life. Perhaps as the result of his labours on some acre 
 and a half of land he earns the equivalent of two pounds 
 a month, perhaps twenty-five pounds a year. Of this 
 modest sum not more than six pounds will be in cash, de- 
 rived from the sale of some five or six pigskins of wine, sold 
 in March or April before the tax-collector makes his annual 
 call. The trifle that the tax-collector leaves behind him 
 will go to buy the family clothes and such groceries as 
 cannot be secured through the medium of the system of 
 barter that will be presently explained. 
 
 Our friend, known in Doquiera as Tio Paco, though his 
 baptismal name is Francisco Jose Sanchez y Perez, divides 
 his huerta into several parts. There is the small vegetable 
 garden in which he raises potatoes, beans, peas, onions, 
 garlic, lettuces, and cucumbers, all of which require careful 
 and constant watering. On a patch apart he grows the 
 garbanzos which have learnt to thrive on a dry soil. Beyond 
 this vegetable garden — around which a few fruit-trees are 
 scattered — we come to a small olivar or olive orchard con- 
 taining a score of gnarled veterans whose produce in a good 
 year is quite remarkable. The age of the trees would 
 suggest that they were supplying Doquiera with olives in 
 the far-off days when Christopher Columbus was explaining 
 his hopes, in vain, to Ferdinand and Isabella, and doubtless 
 it is only antiquity that has robbed the fruit of most of its 
 15 
 
226 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 quality. When the fruit is ripe Tio Paco takes it to a friend 
 who has an olive press, and in payment of his friend's services 
 leaves an agreed measure of the oil behind. The olives from 
 which the oil has been extracted are given to the pig, and 
 any surplus goes on to the land as manure. If Tio Paco 
 should grow wheat under his olive-trees, he takes the harvest 
 to the miller who grinds it for him on similar terms to those 
 exacted by the owner of the oil press, and the flour then 
 goes to the baker who keeps back a certain proportion in 
 return for his task of turning the bulk into loaves. It will 
 be seen that money does not often change hands in Doquiera. 
 Beyond the olivar is the vina (vineyard) looking of course 
 to the south. The vines are very old, and straggle over the 
 ground in fashion that would shock a Frenchman from 
 the Midi, but it must be remembered that the dreaded 
 phylloxera has never acquired a strong foothold in Spain, 
 and although the opinion is fairly general both in France 
 and Germany that the Spaniard entrusts his vineyards to 
 Providence, the belief is not altogether well founded, or it is 
 at least founded upon incomplete knowledge. To be sure, 
 the cura blesses Tio Paco's vineyard every year, and for 
 anything the writer knows to the contrary, this blessing may 
 avail to keep the phylloxera away. But our friend is aware 
 that if he wishes to handle one hundred and fifty pesetas 
 and face the tax-gatherer with confidence, he must leave 
 nothing to luck or even to the good services of the cura. 
 All through the day at critical seasons of the year he labours 
 among his vines, and if he cannot treat them in strictly 
 modern fashion or give them the chemical dressing so 
 necessary in Germany and France, the wine is no worse on 
 this account. In the last-named countries the ravages of 
 the phylloxera have weakened the vines to such an extent 
 that these dressings are absolutely necessary. 
 
LIFE IN THE COUNTRY-SIDE 227 
 
 Tio Paco has both red and white grapes in his vineyard, 
 the former supremely sour, the latter delightfully sweet. 
 When vintage approaches Tio Paco's neighbours come to 
 his assistance and he goes to theirs. Each man knows that 
 it would be impossible to harvest the grapes unaided, and 
 although our friend has been the father of twelve children 
 only five survive, and of these only one — Paquito — is old 
 enough to help in the fields. Sometimes Tio Paco hires 
 a little assistance, and two or three women may be seen 
 labouring in his vina. But no money changes hands : he 
 pays for their services with some corn or wine or oil which 
 will serve perhaps to replenish the store of a family that can 
 only hope to face the winter with the aid of occasions like 
 these. 
 
 If you go very carefully through our friend's huerta^ you 
 will find in some unfrequented corner one or two tobacco 
 plants whose white flowers are obliging enough to lose the 
 greater part of their insistence under the blaze of light that 
 falls upon them. It may be doubted whether in any year 
 Tio Paco can collect as much as a quarter of a pound of 
 tobacco from this secret storehouse. He knows too that if 
 one of the guarda monies were to see the tobacco plants 
 there would be trouble, associated with a considerable fine 
 if not with imprisonment. But Tio Paco is a sportsman 
 and a sufficiently good Spaniard to hate the Government. 
 So the tobacco plants persist, and year after year the 
 worthy man smokes a few cigarettes of his own making, 
 or even gives a small handful to the guarda inonte who, 
 being a civil man, not averse from the good things of life, 
 accepts it with a smile that speaks volumes. 
 
 We must turn aside for a moment to say a few kindly 
 words about Tio Paco's friend, the guarda monte, and ex- 
 plain why he happens to exist. Beyond the area of the 
 
228 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 cultivated land the country belongs to the Government. 
 On the mountain-sides clad with oak and pine up to the 
 point at which the ilex-trees begin, there is plenty of valu- 
 able timber, and there are partridges and rabbits. The last 
 named may be shot in due season by those who have a 
 licence, and it is the guarda monte's business, in theory at 
 least, to see that the close season is observed and that every 
 sportsman has taken out a licence. The guarda must also 
 see that trees are not cut down, and his task is the more 
 responsible one because the village folk are so careless. 
 They have quite a bad memory for close seasons ; they 
 really have no money to pay for licences. Then again 
 there are times when they are short of fuel and are apt to 
 forget that some useful tree within easy distance of the 
 huerta is Government property. On other occasions there 
 will be a great demand for fish, and somebody may have a 
 little bit of explosive that will save all need for a long trial 
 of the angler's skill. It is not difficult to see that the con- 
 tingencies likely to arise provide ample occupation for the 
 two guarda monies attached to the district who really work 
 very hard for their very small pay. 
 
 Spain is essentially a land of concessions. The guarda 
 mantes must justify their existence but have no occasion to 
 be too brutal in the exercise of their office. They must be 
 diplomatic too, else how are they to deal with their old 
 friend the cura^ who was never known to purchase a game 
 licence but who never goes walking without his gunstick 
 and does not take count of the season when his good ama 
 tells him that the pot is crying aloud for a partridge or a 
 rabbit ? The guarda monte cannot take official cognizance 
 of any irregularities, but he may drop a friendly word to the 
 cura to say that on the morrow, or the day following, his 
 duties will take him in a certain direction, and the cura is 
 
LIFE IN THE COUNTRY-SIDE 229 
 
 quick enough to gather that it is quite safe to go in 
 another. In the same way the guarda monte would not 
 tolerate the existence of a tobacco plantation on any huerta, 
 but if a man likes to grow two or three modest tobacco 
 plants in some retired spot, the guarda monte will make a 
 few cigarettes out of part of the produce, and console him- 
 self, if consolation be necessary, with the pleasant thought 
 that it will be all the same a hundred years hence. Many 
 of the guarda monies in remote Spanish villages, of which 
 Doquiera is a tithe, are friends of the poor. They have 
 intimate knowledge of the bitterness of the struggle for life, 
 and if a hungry man should help himself to a rabbit or 
 partridge out of season and without a licence, it is more 
 than likely that nothing will be said unless the words take 
 the form of a hint to be more careful in future. If, on the 
 other hand, men who have no excuse for poverty raid the 
 Government lands, the guarda monte will prove a very tough 
 customer. For he carries a carbine, has the right to use it at 
 discretion, and finds the weight of a weapon that is seldom 
 used very trying to his arm and his patience. It must not 
 be imagined that the authorities in Madrid are altogether 
 in ignorance of the conditions prevailing on the country- 
 side, or that they would alter them very materially if they 
 could. To live and let live is the Government policy in 
 dealing with the village folk who endure poverty so cheer- 
 fully and give little or no trouble to the authorities. If 
 they were political agitators their lot in life would be 
 altogether harder. 
 
 Returning to Tio Paco's huerta for a last look round, we 
 shall find that he has a small plantation of well-tended 
 fig-trees which yield an abundance of fine fruit in due season. 
 By the time the figs are fully ripe, the pigs that have been 
 allowed to roam at will over the mountain-side, where the 
 
230 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 goats are also grazing, are being brought in for fattening 
 against the great day of Todos los Santos, and the ravages 
 of dysentery and infantile cholera are checked to some very 
 small extent by the practice of giving the bulk of the un- 
 sound fruit to the pigs. The rest of his harvest is dried by 
 Tio Paco who disposes of the store to the grocer in ex- 
 change for sugar, chocolate and salt, and the grocer in 
 his turn packs the figs carefully to send them to some 
 big city where they will command a ready sale. It will be 
 seen that with the exception of the wine no part of Tio 
 Paco's produce is paid for in cash, and it may be in a 
 very good year Tio Paco will barter one tinaja of wine 
 in the village, and by so doing both parties to the bargain 
 will avoid the consumo, which is only levied on goods bought 
 and sold in the ordinary way of business. There is little 
 occasion to wonder that Tio Paco, for all his hard work 
 and relative prosperity, never becomes a rich man. Year 
 in, year out he labours, but it must be a prosperous year 
 indeed in which he can carry fifty pesetas to the grocer for 
 investment against the night that comes wherein no man 
 may work. He tells you over a cigarette and a copa de 
 aguardiente how he has worked his land for four and twenty 
 years, and he confesses that he is well satisfied with the 
 result of his labours. Doquiera regards him as one of the 
 prosperous, speaks of him as though he were a capitalist, 
 and yet it is unlikely that out of the produce of nearly 
 a quarter century of labour Tio Paco has saved as much 
 as twenty pounds. Happily for Doquiera this is wealth. 
 Not many a Spanish village of such dimensions can boast 
 a labourer who has put by as much, and this small fortune 
 has only been amassed by dint of hard labour all day and 
 nearly every day throughout the year. 
 
 Night comes in fascinating guise to Doquiera which 
 
LIFE IN THE COUNTRY-SIDE 231 
 
 knows little light save that of oil lamps and stars. The 
 village is not given to dissipation, the hours spent in the 
 fields are too long and too arduous, the hour of rising too 
 small and the cost of oil too large. The crudest of crude 
 olive oil, the kind of thing that Tio Paco extracts from his 
 time-worn olivar^ serves to feed the lamps which shine fit- 
 fully from the huts of the labourers, and the reek of the 
 oil does not add to the attraction of the living-room. The 
 cafe and the taberna boast nothing better than smoky 
 lights, and this religious dimness may account for the fact 
 that patrons leave so soon. Even at the less busy season 
 of the year, when all Doquiera has gone to bed, the 
 sereno keeps watch and ward over the guiltless streets. 
 He is a very old man and carries a horn lantern in one 
 hand and a spear in the other. An agile lad of fourteen 
 could deprive him of both, but in all the years of his ill- 
 paid duty he can recall no exciting moment, save when a 
 volume of smoke issuing from the taberna warned him 
 that something had caught fire. For many months after- 
 wards his promptitude was acknowledged in copitas de 
 aguardiente^ and since that time Doquiera has slept peace- 
 fully, conscious that no evil can approach its dwellings. 
 The peaceful sleeping can only be acquired with some 
 difficulty and patience by the visitors of Doquiera, because 
 it is part of the serends duty to record the passing of the 
 night and take upon himself the labours of the meteoro- 
 logical office. It is also seemly for him to start the 
 recitals with which he shatters the silence of the night- 
 hour by an invocation to the Virgin. Ave Maria Santhima, 
 Las doce son^y serena. The cry lingers in our ears long 
 after time and place have combined to remove it and 
 brings Spain back as surely as the call of the flower-sellers 
 or the scent of the market-place, or the sight of the road to 
 
232 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 the -Plaza de Toros on a Sunday afternoon. These return 
 to us in the mirage of dreams and wake us with a sense 
 of regret to the truth that we are not in Spain. In all 
 Doquiera nothing emphasizes the old-world life and mood 
 so definitely as the serends cry. 
 
 There is one other cry, almost as old-fashioned as the 
 serends^ far less agreeable to hear, and having its origin in 
 some forgotten century. This is a cry in which all the 
 youth of the village join eagerly when it is announced that 
 some widow, instead of resting content with the memory 
 of the beloved departed, has decided to take to herself a 
 second husband. Doquiera would not excite itself if one 
 of its few widowers were to take the risk of a second wife, 
 but when the proprietress of the estanco decided not so very 
 long ago to change her state (gossips said she did no more 
 than regulate it), Doquiera was wildly excited. The good 
 widow gave up a comfortable little position to marry her 
 querido — none other than th^forastero to whose farm refer- 
 ence was made on an earlier page. She was quite popular 
 in the village, but the whole sentiment of rural Spain is 
 opposed to the marriage of widows, perhaps because men, 
 being in a minority, the number of spinsters must be 
 thereby increased. On the night when Dofia Dolores was 
 re-wedded, Doquiera's youth armed with tin cans, kettles, 
 whistles, and every noise-producing instrument they could 
 think of, serenaded \h^ forasterd s farm a little way beyond 
 the village, and shouted extremely ribald verses taught by the 
 local rhyme-maker and sung to a jota. All this procedure 
 associated with the cencerrada is strictly sin malicia^ i.e. 
 harmless, and though the /orastero and the buxom lady of 
 his choice were doubtless considerably disturbed and not a 
 little vexed, they were wise enough to take no offence at 
 the interruption. In fact, before the score or more of village 
 
LIFE IN THE COUNTRY-SIDE 233 
 
 roysterers had sung their indecent rhymes half a dozen times 
 over, the forasterd s head-man Pablo made his way from the 
 kitchen with a big pitcher of wine which was handed round 
 to the serenaders and thegudrdia civil vjho had accompanied 
 them in the interests of law and order. The little timely 
 gift changed the whole mood of the company ; the offensive 
 verses were dropped, thejota resumed its proper words, the 
 only shouts were those of ^// (bravo !), and the small company 
 straggled back under the stars to mud huts and well-earned 
 repose. 
 
 Another form of serenade practised in Doquiera, and of 
 course in every Spanish village, is the Christmas carol. For 
 a few nights before Christmas little children go from house 
 to house singing to the tune of some familiar Jota lines 
 associated with the Story of the Nativity. He must be 
 poor indeed who cannot spare a trifle for these young sere- 
 naders, and though money is very scarce in Doquiera, sweets 
 and fruit are always given, and the babies, to whom such 
 luxuries come rarely, look forward throughout the year to 
 the nights when their simple songs will be welcomed by 
 those who in some respects are childlike as themselves. 
 Kindness to children in Spain is as universal as cruelty to 
 animals. 
 
 We must be leaving Doquiera soon now, but before 
 following the road elsewhere it is only right to mention the 
 great rural procession of the year, taken at the time of the 
 feria^ to bring to Doquiera the effigy of the local virgin, " la 
 de la Sangre," from her resting-place in the old convent 
 that stands five miles away on a spur of the sierra. To 
 bring the saint to the church all Doquiera takes holiday, 
 and rambles slowly at its ease over the dry sandy ways 
 leading to the hills. The occasion is almost a picnic : the 
 men carry their botUy the women's baskets are filled with 
 
234 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 tortillas and fruit. All work on the huerta is suspended, 
 and Doquiera seems to be left in charge of the few decrepit 
 old folk who are unfit to take the journey. In his heart of 
 hearts it may be that Doquiera's santo padre feels that his 
 fourteen stone of weight distributed over a height of five 
 feet five inches was never intended for a ten-mile journey, 
 but he makes the best of it, and tramps along happily, 
 like Falstafif of old, "larding the lean earth as he walks 
 along '\ When he reaches the last huerta on the path 
 — that of his affluent friend the forastero, he asks for a 
 mule ; it is his annual request and is always granted, and 
 for the rest of the day his fatigue is forgotten. He has 
 been seen on the way back, when the mule has been restored 
 to its master, moving rather unsteadily before the effigy of 
 the Virgin, but it will be remembered that King David 
 himself danced before the ark, and it may be that the 
 padre cura does no more than seek to imitate the historic 
 example. Let us remember too that the day has been hot 
 and the journey long, and that every bota has been offered 
 to the santo padre whose thirst is inexhaustible. After all it 
 is an annual holiday, and if the worthy little man needs a 
 friendly arm or two to help him up the hill leading into 
 Doquiera, there is no lack of aid, and men say with satis- 
 faction that their cura is human like themselves and con- 
 sequently liable to err. 
 
 The procession is always attended by the guardia civile 
 and though the effigy is carried by men, it is the women 
 whose state of ecstasy is remarkable. The most of them 
 are united in a sisterhood that works during the year to 
 make a new and splendid cloak for the Virgen de la Sangre. 
 Dofia Serafina, from the casa senorial^ is the moving spirit 
 of this sisterhood ; all her wasted womanhood seems to be 
 stimulated by the occasion, and she turns an indulgent eye 
 
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LIFE IN THE COUNTRY-SIDE 235 
 
 upon the accompanying spirit of revelry in which she takes 
 no part Although the whole journey does not cover more 
 than ten miles, evening has arrived before the last stragglers 
 join the procession outside the village and the effigy reaches 
 the Plaza de la Constitucion to an accompaniment of lanterns 
 and torches, past the pig-strewn, malodorous alleys and 
 little by-ways in which late fowls and inquisitive goats 
 manage to get in everybody's way, though perhaps the 
 fault is not altogether theirs. With all befitting solemnity 
 the effigy is carried to the front of the high altar. Doquiera's 
 best candles are lighted to do honour to the occasion, and 
 the effigy rests in peace until the following morning brings 
 the hour of the official procession. For nine days following 
 the state procession a service is held in her honour every 
 afternoon and then she is carried back again to her convent. 
 No universal holiday marks the return journey. The men 
 of Doquiera remember that they must work for the right 
 to live, and they leave to their women-folk the honour of 
 accompanying their santo padre and \}s\q, guardia civil. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 LOTTERIES IN SPAIN 
 
 BEFORE you have been very long in Madrid, your first 
 slumbers may be disturbed one night just before 
 twelve o'clock by one of the city's most significant street 
 cries. 
 
 " Sale mafiana ! '' cries some hoarse voice under your 
 window if you chance to sleep in a room that looks out 
 over the street and not over the patio ; " Mafiana sale " — 
 with the last syllable long-drawn out, as if the crier wished 
 to stretch it into the coming day — " quien quiere la suerte? " 
 
 (The draw takes place to-morrow. Who's looking for 
 luck ?) 
 
 The voice passes slowly down a street, wholly silent to 
 its appeal. 
 
 " Tengo el gordo " (I hold the lucky number) ; the solitary 
 voice is making its closing appeal, and the tone is one that 
 does not suggest much association with good luck. 
 
 These last words are just audible as you turn back to 
 your pillow with an uneasy feeling that you and fortune 
 have come together for a moment like ships that pass in the 
 night, and that the blind lady is moving perhaps for all time 
 beyond your ken. But do not despair. Yet another ten 
 days and the same quavering cry shall seek, this time in 
 vain, to summon you to complete wakefulness. You will 
 reflect that if the poor crier of the roadway really held the 
 
 336 
 
LOTTERIES IN SPAIN 237 
 
 prize, he would be comfortably in bed as you are, and 
 would not be crying through the blind night for one to rid 
 him of the burden of his riches. If you were to say as much 
 to him, meeting him in the street and noting his lean, im- 
 poverished appearance and the rags that cling to him, 
 seemingly more by accident than design, I do not think he 
 would argue with you ; he would merely shuffle off flat-footed 
 over ithe hard pavement, and the long-drawn call, ** Sale 
 mafiana ! Tengo el gordo ! " would baffle you as surely as 
 it consoles him. Who knows ? May not to-morrow's sorteo 
 hold for him the good fortune that so many years have 
 denied ; may not the stone that you have rejected become 
 the headstone of the corner ? Are there not stories current 
 throughout the length and the breadth of Spain of men who, 
 in the last hours of the night before the sorteo^ have bought 
 a tenth of a ticket, or perhaps two-tenths, from one of these 
 shadowy, poverty-stricken ambulantes who has vanished into 
 the night leaving them rich beyond the dreams of avarice ? 
 Is not the choice of a ticket hedged round with more super- 
 stition than the choice of a number on the green baize 
 playing-ground of Monte Carlo's salle de jeu ? Every 
 Spaniard knows that there are certain ambulantes who " carry 
 luck " — generally at the expense of some physical defor- 
 mity ; they have paid for their capacity as Wotan paid 
 for worldly wisdom with the loss of one eye, though in this 
 connexion there are some who are heard to say that this 
 was just Wotan's story, and that some domestic disagree- 
 ment with his angry wife must have been the real cause 
 of his loss. 
 
 The lottery system has eaten into the heart of Spain. In 
 all probability it arose through the State recognition that 
 private lotteries were a source of immense profit to those 
 associated with them. They pandered to the gambling 
 
238 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 spirit that is inherent in man, while, handled with care and 
 honesty, they promised a very considerable addition to State 
 revenues. To-day Spain holds thirty-six lotteries in the 
 year ; the tickets are issued in Madrid and sent broadcast 
 into the country ; the sorteo is held in the capital, in the 
 Casa de la Moneda or Mint, and the drawings are entrusted 
 to some child from the Orphan Asylum ^ who may generally 
 rely upon the life patronage of the fortunate ticket-holder 
 who draws a first prize, or to a handsome gift if the prize 
 be shared by many competitors. Numbers, corresponding 
 to each lottery ticket, are printed on little white balls and 
 thrown into a huge wire cage which revolves rapidly. In 
 the presence of the Board of Administration and other 
 officials who are on the platform, and of a large body of the 
 general public in the hall, the numbers are drawn and tele- 
 graphed all over Spain. Those Englishmen who look askance 
 at the lottery and rejoice to think that we have nothing of 
 the kind in England, would do well to remember that the 
 " Extra Special Edition " with its tipsters' selections and 
 latest news from Newmarket and other racing centres finds 
 no counterpart in Spain, so that our superiority to our 
 neighbours is more apparent than real. The lottery im- 
 poverishes the country, but it may be doubted whether it 
 does so quite as cruelly as horse-racing impoverishes a con- 
 siderable class in England, and the large profits made by the 
 State which taxes all prizes to the extent of ten per cent, go 
 to the reduction of taxation. Moreover, every ticket-holder 
 has a fair chance, from the beggar in the gutter who owns 
 the tenth part of the tenth part of a thirty peseta ticket — 
 costing him threepence — to the rich banker who has taken 
 several tickets costing a thousand pesetas a piece in the 
 
 ^ The Blue-coat boys used to draw at the Guildhall lottery in the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
LOTTERIES IN SPAIN 239 
 
 great lottery of Navidad (Christmas), which is drawn for 
 annually in December. 
 
 The lottery is popular in Spain. The newspapers stimu- 
 late the interest in it to a very considerable extent by tell- 
 ing with amplest detail the full story of the fortunate few. 
 When the Christmas lottery is drawn, reporters and photo- 
 graphers hurry from the great cities — if hurry be a permis- 
 sible term when used in connexion with Spanish trains — to 
 seek the fortunate winner of the first prize who may live 
 somewhere at the back of beyond. His photograph adorns 
 or disfigures every newspaper ; the remotest details of his 
 home-life, the food he eats, the clothes he wears, the political 
 doctrines he favours — each and all are matters of intense 
 public interest, and for the time at least no happening of 
 wide-world importance has an equal interest for Spain. 
 
 The three monthly lotteries vary considerably in the price 
 of the ticket. The most expensive is the hundred peseta 
 ticket for which the prizes are drawn on the tenth of the 
 month ; this is subscribed to very largely by the upper 
 classes. The first prize in this lottery is worth three hundred 
 thousand pesetas (twelve thousand pounds). On the twen- 
 tieth or twenty-first of the month, the fifty peseta lottery 
 reaches the sorteo and the first prize is worth two hundred 
 thousand pesetas. On the thirtieth or thirty-first, the very 
 popular thirty peseta lottery is drawn, and the first prize wins 
 a hundred and fifty thousand pesetas. From all these sums, 
 which do not of course represent all the prizes in each 
 lottery, the Government takes its ten per cent tax, which the 
 winner can well afford to spare. The system of prize-giving 
 is conceived on a very generous scale, and hundreds of prizes 
 accompany each drawing, so that the ultimate profit to the 
 State is very considerable. In addition to these profits the 
 State can safely reckon upon a certain number of unclaimed 
 
240 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 prizes. Some tickets have been destroyed or lost or for- 
 gotten and the smaller prizes cannot be claimed after a 
 twelvemonth. Big prizes are always payable without re- 
 striction in point of time, but some very large amounts have 
 never found a claimant, and the official lists are only 
 published between the drawing of one lottery and the 
 drawing of the next. When we remember the vast number 
 of illiterate in Spain, the fact that prizes are sometimes un- 
 claimed ceases to be surprising. 
 
 Every ticket, whether it cost a hundred, fifty, or thirty 
 pesetas, or whether it be issued in the annual Christmas 
 lottery, and cost a thousand pesetas (when the first prize is 
 worth five million pesetas, or one hundred and eighty thou- 
 sand pounds, after taxation), is divided into ten equal parts 
 called decimos, and this division is extremely popular, for it 
 enables those who have not enough money to buy a whole 
 ticket, to purchase a tenth at an issuing office. This tenth 
 he can share with as many friends as he cares to invite, and 
 it is no uncommon thing for the big prize to find its ulti- 
 mate division among fifty or more subscribers to the lucky 
 number. For example, among the middle classes one man 
 may purchase a decimo of a ticket in the Christmas lottery 
 and admit nine friends to share it with him, and if he should 
 have drawn the winning number, they will all draw two 
 thousand pounds apiece, less Government tax, for their out- 
 lay often pesetas. Among the very poor the decimo of the 
 cheap monthly lottery, which costs three pesetas, may be 
 divided among a dozen who will pay a real, and for this 
 real, if their luck be in, they will draw forty-five pounds net, 
 more than they can earn by two years' hard labour on the 
 land. Small wonder then that the lottery is popular, and 
 that the enthusiasts tend to forget how small their chance 
 of success really is. 
 
LOTTERIES IN SPAIN 241 
 
 It IS a point not only of honour but of practical impor- 
 tance to pay for the share of a decimo as soon as it is taken. 
 For if a man sell an interest or interests in his decimo to 
 friends who do not pay up before the sorteo^ and his ticket 
 draws a winning number, he is entitled by the custom of the 
 country to refuse to acknowledge a transaction that was 
 never completed. As the lottery is surrounded by the 
 quaintest and grossest superstition of every conceivable 
 kind, few people make any delay in paying for their share, 
 because to do' so is to destroy the ticket's luck. Many of 
 the superstitions hinted at may be seen in working order on 
 any day in Spain. Thus, if a man should see a woman refuse 
 a ticket offered by an ambulante in the street, he may know 
 in his own mind that she has refused a winning number, 
 and promptly buy what she has rejected with an amazing 
 confidence that experience is powerless to reduce. The 
 converse may hold good, and a woman may hasten to buy 
 the ticket that a man has rejected. Certain ambulantes are 
 said to bring luck and can sell tickets very freely. Others 
 have their lucky hours or lucky days, and can do a thriving 
 business when they come round. Certain people have lucky 
 numbers or lucky days, or think they have — which is almost 
 as satisfactory ; others have their systems, as elaborate, as 
 carefully worked out, and as futile as those of the profes- 
 sional gambler at any hell of European repute where bacca- 
 rat, roulette, and trente-et-quarente enjoy the protection of 
 some shabby little State or country. The most popular 
 system of lottery gambling consists in taking a certain series 
 of numbers year after year in the belief that sooner or later 
 the hand of the orphan schoolboy must move in their direc- 
 tion. And the odd, half-pathetic aspect of this mania is 
 seen when you meet some elderly clerk or Government 
 employe who, for thirty years or more, has followed blind 
 16 
 
242 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 fortune along the line of his own principles without being 
 rewarded by a solitary smile, and who yet goes three times 
 a month to the issuing office to spend the money he can so 
 ill spare, with the firm conviction that the next drawing 
 will find him with the decimo of the coveted gordo (literally, 
 the fat one). 
 
 Cynics have said the lottery is the one branch of Spanish 
 administration that is conducted honestly. Without going 
 as far as this, it may be acknowledged that, as far as the 
 Government and the Bank of Spain are concerned, the 
 business of the lottery is cleverly and skilfully handled on 
 thoroughly practical lines. A certain number of shopkeepers 
 throughout the country are specially licensed to sell lottery 
 tickets. They may not carry on any other business in this 
 shop, and they receive a small salary and a tiny commis- 
 sion on the sale of tickets. Tickets bearing the same num- 
 ber are issued to them every time, so that the buyers who 
 wish to obtain a ticket in a certain series know where to go 
 for it. Inside the shop the prizes which have been drawn 
 from tickets sold there are recorded on the wall, and as the 
 list lengthens patronage increases. These shops must render 
 the strictest account to the Government, and are entrusted 
 with the payment over the counter of small prizes gained 
 by lottery tickets in their charge; for the big ones, the 
 winner goes to the Bank of Spain or to one of its branches 
 in the provinces. At a certain stated time before the sorteoy 
 every unsold ticket must be returned to the administration 
 in Madrid, or to the local offices in provincial districts or the 
 numbers of the unsold tickets telegraphed to head-quarters. 
 It has happened time out of mind that among these tickets 
 returned has been the one drawn on the following day for 
 the biggest prize. For all tickets not returned the expende- 
 dor — as the shopkeeper is called — is responsible to the 
 
LOTTERIES IN SPAIN 243 
 
 Government ; he it is who sends the ragged ambulante on 
 the grounds with a certain number of decimos each bearing 
 the stamp of the shop where it was issued, and the result of 
 the ambulante' s labours depend very largely upon his luck. 
 His regular remuneration is a tiny commission that cannot 
 possibly suffice to keep body and soul together ; but if he 
 should have the good luck to sell a winning decimo, he may 
 reasonably expect to receive a handsome tip from his cus- 
 tomer. Some of these men have been so fortunate in the 
 sale of their decimos that they have quite a following — ^just 
 as the shops from which fortunate numbers are issued, are 
 regarded with special favour and receive an ever-increasing 
 amount of public support. 
 
 Curiously enough the revival of prosperity in Spain has 
 not benefited the lottery system, and one hears that the 
 number of unsold tickets, particularly those in the cheaper 
 lotteries, increases steadily, so that the profit to the State 
 would be considerably reduced if it did not become auto- 
 matically a leading shareholder in its own gamble, and draw 
 a certain proportion of the prizes. On the other hand, the 
 sale of lottery tickets abroad has increased very consider- 
 ably, although Cuba and the Philippines, which used to ab- 
 sorb so many, are no longer in the hands of Spain. Spain's 
 increasing commerce has brought to the country a large 
 number of foreigners who have heard of the lottery for the 
 first time and have surrendered to its dubious attractions, and 
 to-day there is a very brisk business in the sale of the higher- 
 priced lottery tickets to foreign countries, and the adminis- 
 tration finds it profitable to advertise its big lotteries abroad. 
 It would not surprise many close observers of Spanish life 
 if the thirty and fifty peseta lotteries are abandoned in a few 
 years by the Spanish Government and another loteria de 
 lujo {de luxe) is added to the Loteria de Navidad. 
 
244 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Although the administration is quite incorruptible in its 
 dealing with the lottery, certain systems of swindling in 
 connexion with it are not unknown, and chief among these 
 is the custom among certain unscrupulous people of selling 
 more shares of their tickets than the tickets possess. For 
 example, a rogue who purchases a whole ticket may sell 
 countless shares of a decimo until the whole ticket has 
 yielded him twice or thrice its face value. He may con- 
 tinue to do this for a long time with comparative impunity, 
 trusting in the heavy odds that stand between him and a 
 prize. Should he be so unfortunate as to gain a little in 
 one of the sorteos, he may find it advisable to pay up cheer- 
 fully, but if the crowning disaster of a big prize should fall 
 his way, his only chance of safety lies in quick presentation 
 of his ticket at the bank, where all tickets are recognized 
 without inquiry, and a prompt departure to fresh fields of 
 less onerous activity. There are plenty of people in Spain 
 to-day who can tell sad stories of winnings that should have 
 come their way but were intercepted by some cunning rogue, 
 who, let us hope, has given a part of his profits to the build- 
 ing of an altar in the church of the village of his nativity. 
 It may go hard with him else in the world to come. 
 
 It would be easy to fill a volume, to say nothing of a 
 chapter, with stories of the sudden fortune that the lottery 
 has brought to the poorest of the poor. They may be read 
 throughout the year in the Spanish press, and when el sorteo 
 de Navidad comes round the old legends or histories of the 
 fortunes it has bestowed are brought to light in much the 
 same way as our turf historian recalls the incidents and 
 sensations of past Derby days. The press does much for 
 the lottery in Spain, and its stories of sudden wealth serve 
 to allure simple country-folk, servant girls, shopkeepers 
 assistants, small civil servants and others to the expendeduriay 
 
LOTTERIES IN SPAIN 245 
 
 as the will-o'-the-wisp lures the night-stricken sportsman on 
 the Albufera of Valencia, where he has waited too long for 
 his last shot at the wild duck, and finds that the darkness 
 has fallen on him unawares. Perhaps the simile could be 
 justified even if it were extended, the Albufera then becom- 
 ing the dangerous land of speculation, the jack o* lanterns 
 the newspaper stories, and the ducks that rise almost un- 
 seen and pass right out of ken with a triumphant quack and 
 a great flutter of wings are the premios grandes y menores — 
 larger and lesser prizes, while the ammunition that blazes 
 uselessly in their wake stands for the hard-earned savings 
 of the foolish fellow who left high road and hedgerows 
 where his cartridge would at least have served to bring a 
 cony to the pot. 
 
 " Mafiana sale ! " 
 
 The cry still rises unbidden to the ear as these lines are 
 written a thousand miles from Spain. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 SPANISH INTERNAL POLICY 
 
 THE administration of Spain, although it is extremely 
 faulty judged from our national standpoint, is really 
 well thought out, and enables the nation's business to be 
 carried on with no small measure of success. In the old 
 days when Spain was a world-empire it was the policy of 
 her rulers to encourage emigration in every possible way ; 
 to this line of policy we must in fairness attribute many of 
 the restrictions upon industrial activity that are only now 
 being modified or removed under the new conditions which 
 have obtained since Spain lost the last of her important 
 colonial possessions. If the administration were quite as 
 effete and corrupt as it is said to be, the industrial revival 
 of the past few years could never have been brought about ; 
 and now that commerce and the manufacturing industries 
 are in a thriving condition, and a very wealthy middle class 
 is springing up, old laws and customs are losing their sanc- 
 tity, the ruling classes are being forced, however reluctantly, 
 into line with the spirit of the time, and are even entering 
 into commercial undertakings. But the fact that Madrid is 
 comparatively isolated from the rest of Spain makes the 
 regeneration of the governing system a slow and laborious 
 undertaking, although there is more activity in the Gov- 
 ernment offices in this year of grace than there has been 
 
 246 
 
SPANISH INTERNAL POLICY 247 
 
 at any time since Alfonso XII restored the monarchy to 
 Spain. Spaniards are awakening to the consciousness of 
 the richness of their own territory and to a certain healthy 
 jeabusy of the foreigners who have for some years past 
 been quietly and profitably exploiting them. In short, 
 Spaniards are now beginning to take a part in Spain's 
 wealth, and the number of rich people has increased to such 
 a remarkable extent in the past few years, that in certain 
 social aspects Madrid may vie with the Paris and London 
 of to-day. 
 
 All national administration is centralized in Madrid. It 
 is possible to trace the political work of the village cacique 
 through his provincial town and the seat of local govern- 
 ment in the province, to its proper government bureau in the 
 capital, and if Parliament and the Senate are mere platforms 
 for unmeaning eloquence, while the real government of the 
 country moves almost independent of them, this phenomenon 
 is not limited to Spain. We have something strangely like 
 it in the immediate neighbourhood of the River Thames — 
 the opposition to the party in power, be it Unionist or 
 Liberal, is my authority for the suggestion. 
 
 In the art of taxing the public thei Spanish administration 
 has nothing to learn from anybody ; it could teach our own 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer much that he has yet to learn. 
 Taxation is direct and indirect, the direct variety being 
 divided under twelve heads, each very direct indeed. Spain 
 has her tax on land and land values, on areas of cultivation, 
 on live stock, on manufactures, on all other business, on 
 mines and mining properties as well as on the export of 
 minerals, on nobility and titles, on individuals as individuals, 
 on State salaries, on all deeds and documents referring to 
 the transfer of property or the bequest of money or valuables. 
 Another tax is levied under the head of Royal Rights 
 
248 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 {derechos reales). The only tax named above that re- 
 quires any explanation is that upon individuals. It is 
 called the cedula personal, and is a triumph of Spanish /h- 
 genuity . Until you have your cedula personal you are unable 
 to transact any business of a documentary nature in Spain. 
 Indeed, before you can sign a paper before the notary 
 public, or receive a letter that has been registered to you 
 at the post office, or take a flat, or, in short, become a 
 party to any contract, your cedula personal must be pro- 
 duced—you really have no legal existence without it. Its 
 price varies according to your social status, and this is 
 estimated — if you do not belong to the nobility — by the rent 
 you pay or the money you are alleged to earn. The lowest 
 class pays a nominal tax of fifty centimes, and by special 
 exemption — a polite euphemism for State favour — the 
 Church and the military are rated at the lowest scale, so 
 that his Grace the Archbishop of Toledo and the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief (next to the king) of Spain's military forces 
 need pay no more than their washer-woman. The scale 
 rises gradually until at last it reaches the high estate of the 
 Spanish grandee and the royal family whose sangre azul 
 costs them over a hundred pesetas a year. Now, if Spanish 
 administrators were foolish, unimaginative folk, they would 
 not think of adding anything to the cedula personal 
 But the municipality has nudged the elbow of the State 
 and demanded to know why it should be left out of a good 
 thing, and the State not being able to answer this imperti- 
 nent question, has obligingly added to every cedula personal 
 a 40 per cent tax for the benefit of the municipality. This 
 is the municipal levy for Madrid ; in provincial centres it 
 is smaller. Cunning Spaniards who have a home in the 
 country, coupled with a business in a town, are very careful 
 to take their cedula personal from their local alcaldia, and 
 
SPANISH INTERNAL POLICY 249 
 
 in this way they are enabled to leave the municipality to 
 look after itself ; but those who follow this line must walk 
 warily, for the municipal tax, like the cedula itself, is farmed 
 out by the Government in the larger cities, presumably in 
 order to save the expense of administration and pensions, 
 and the farmers are men after whose harvesting none may 
 hope to glean. 
 
 All honour to Spanish administration ! The cedula 
 personal was a happy thought. The municipal addition 
 was statecraft in the highest, but the genius of the country 
 has evolved an addition to the impost. When the Spanish- 
 American War broke out and found the exchequer empty, 
 new taxes called for prompt imposition, and an additional 
 10 per cent upon the cedula personal was levied without 
 delay. The war has passed but the tax remains, and so 
 we see that for the right to be yourself in Spain you must 
 pay a triple impost. If your wife should have any business 
 negotiations, or has even presented you with offspring, 
 her cedula personal must go with yours when the child is 
 registered, or the registration officer would not be satisfied 
 of your wife's existence. Facts are things of which he will 
 take no cognizance, it is the cedula personal that he wants, 
 and he will not be civil until he gets it. Happily women 
 pay no more than archbishops and distinguished generals — 
 a recognition of women's rights and privileges that may, 
 for all we know, prove the starting-point of a woman 
 suffrage movement in Spain, while it provides the sex at 
 the lowest possible rate with the serious grievance of 
 taxation without representation. 
 
 We have omitted from direct taxation all reference to 
 the lottery which plays such an important part in Spain's 
 national life, for the lottery is at best a substitute for 
 taxation, inasmuch as it yields a large income to the State. 
 
250 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 This would need to be collected from other sources if the 
 people did not respond to the Government's annual thirty- 
 six applications for subscriptions. 
 
 Blue blood is taxed in Spain, so is the mere red plebeian 
 fluid that courses through the veins of those who receive a 
 patent of nobility for services rendered or alleged to have 
 been rendered. Titled Spain contributes over fifty pounds 
 a day to the national exchequer. 
 
 Turning from direct to indirect taxation, we find another 
 series of examples of Spanish administrative genius, and 
 the way in which the Government rides the public in this 
 matter reminds the writer of the fashion in which the 
 Moor best rides his spirited stallion. His bit consists of an 
 iron spike which presses against the roof of the horse's 
 mouth, and is so powerful and painful in its application 
 that the strongest and most fiery animal can be pulled back 
 on his haunches with comparatively small effort. When 
 the Moor rides he holds the reins sufficiently tight to en- 
 able him to feel his horse's mouth all the time, and remind 
 his charge that his master is upon him. The impuestos in- 
 directos are the spiked bit that a paternal Spanish Govern- 
 ment puts into the mouth of the noble animal it guides 
 over the primrosed path of dalliance. The noble horseman 
 whose blood is as blue as the heavens above can remind 
 the less noble animal of his presence and keep him going 
 as long as he has strength to move. 
 
 Leaving metaphors behind us and getting down to the 
 solid ground of facts, we find that the indirect taxation of 
 which every Spaniard complains so bitterly comes under 
 six heads. The first is customs {aduanas\ and these of 
 course are very heavy, for Spain is a protected country. 
 Experience has taught Spaniards, and even foreigners who 
 venture into Spain, that custom-house officials are men 
 
SPANISH INTERNAL POLICY 251 
 
 like themselves, and we have heard of instances in which 
 goods have passed the aduanas without rendering to 
 Caesar the full amount that Caesar would have been justified 
 in claiming. Smuggling, too, is a pleasant, profitable, and 
 highly exciting pastime, and is carried on with energy and 
 distinction by families who have the hereditary capacity to 
 get the better of the custom-house people. Sometimes, 
 both on coast and frontier, the guns go off and the 
 smuggler's family must wear a little crape or burn a few 
 inexpensive candles for the soul's repose of some pro- 
 mising gentleman cut off in the midst of his career. But 
 happily the appeal to fire-arms is the very last resort, and 
 one has heard — though the statement is given with timidity 
 — that pieces of paper bearing the imprint of the Bank of 
 Spain are potent in afflicting with temporary blindness 
 some of those who are in charge of His Most Catholic 
 Majesty's Customs. 
 
 In connexion with the aduanas the writer remembers an 
 experience in the early nineties when, still in his teens, he 
 went to Spain for a holiday. At Gibraltar he picked up a 
 cargo boat going to Malaga and became friendly with the 
 first mate, who showed him two boxes, each containing a 
 hundred splendid cigars, that he had brought from London 
 to a friend in Malaga who was a connoisseur and could not 
 buy decent tobacco in that pleasant seaport. 
 
 ** I had a little trouble with the customs at Malaga last 
 year," said the mate, " and the dogs watched as if I were a 
 rat. But if I can't get these cigars past them, I'll give up 
 seafaring and sell cats' meat." 
 
 Anxious to see how it was done, I waited in the docks 
 at Malaga all through a summer's day. The mate must 
 have made nearly a dozen journeys to and from the town, 
 and every time he passed the customs officers they 
 
252 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 challenged him, dug inquisitive fingers into his garments 
 and expressed rude and regrettable suspicions of his bona- 
 fides. He, dressed in his best clothes, and wearing a big 
 bowler hat that he raised with the utmost deference every 
 time he passed the angry officials, pursued the even tenor 
 of his way until sundown. The boat was detained all 
 night in Malaga, and we met at a cafe shortly after 
 dinner. 
 
 '* What about the cigars?" I asked the mate. 
 
 *'A11 delivered," he said, "and not one broken. See 
 here.'' 
 
 And he handed me the hat that he had raised so cere- 
 moniously to the officers in charge of the customs. It was 
 filled with the most ingenious contrivance of wire clips, 
 each of which would hold a cigar quite firmly. 
 
 " It's held other things as well as cigars in its time," 
 remarked the mate, " and this old hat of mine is only 
 
 one of a bagful of tricks. I don't come out in that old " 
 
 here he spoke disrespectfully of the good ship lying in the 
 harbour, "for my health, or for what I get for being 
 mate." 
 
 One can only hope that this was a solitary instance 
 and that no other British seaman has ever been guilty of 
 ignoring the impuesto indirecto. I wonder if that one has 
 now retired from business and if these lines will ever meet 
 his eye ? 
 
 The second indirect tax is upon food-stufifs, and is avoided 
 in many Spanish villages by a system of exchange. It is 
 a State tax imposed upon the municipality according to the 
 number of its inhabitants. Home-made sugar, made from 
 cane in Andalusia and from beet in the north, is heavily 
 taxed. All loading and unloading at the ports is accom- 
 panied by a tribute to the Government ; railway passengers 
 
SPANISH INTERNAL POLICY 253 
 
 have an indirect tax as well as the direct tax levied during 
 the war and never remitted, while theatres and places of 
 amusement are under a similar contribution to the State. 
 Every paper that a citizen of Spain must fill in for the pur- 
 pose of making any application to the State in any of its 
 branches must bear a Government stamp which varies in 
 amount according to the importance of the business or the 
 estimated capacity of the person who fills it in, to satisfy 
 the hungry soul of the administration. ' If an application, 
 whether for an appointment or an examination or a certi- 
 ficate or a legal document should not be worded in strict 
 accordance with the established formula, the Spanish citizen 
 enjoys the privilege of writing it over again and paying a 
 second time. The one surprising fact to the stranger who 
 does not know his Spain is that any Minister of Finance 
 should be compelled to proclaim a deficit instead of a sur- 
 plus as the result of a year's devotion to the great game of 
 national administration. It is only when the State pension 
 list has been examined and discussed that the conditions 
 can be properly accounted for. 
 
 In Spain the clases pasivas is a national scandal of the 
 first magnitude. Despite the comparative poverty of the 
 country, the pension in Spain is as common as the decora- 
 tion in France. Everybody who has served the State and 
 loses his job through diverse reasons, is entitled to a pension, 
 and as the administration of the pensions is either very 
 careless or else very corrupt, thousands of pounds are paid 
 away annually to those whose claims are, to say the least, 
 shadowy even in Spain. Various small sinecures are in the 
 gift of high officials, and it is no uncommon thing to find 
 an inferior but remunerative little office given to somebody 
 who not only has no acquaintance with the work involved, 
 but has never striven to form any. There is no occasion 
 
254 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 to write in this place of pensions or offices bestowed on men 
 whose wives are personce gratissimce in certain State offices, 
 for this is a scandal that has been heard of in other countries 
 where it is much more common than in Spain and is not 
 discussed. But the pension system has eaten so deeply 
 into the vitals of the country that until quite recently all 
 members of the Cabinet were entitled to pensions as soon 
 as they resigned their portfolios, and it was not an unusual 
 thing for a scratch ministry to be convened to see some 
 unpopular act of legislation passed, and then to resign, leav- 
 ing it safely on the statute book. Now this scandal has 
 been reduced, if not abolished, and a portfolio does not 
 carry a pension unless it has been held for a year. But it 
 is not the large pensions that deplete the national treasury, 
 it is the countless small ones. Loyalty to party in Spain 
 is a marketable commodity, and politics is a trade, as it is in 
 all the Latin countries, and the only outstanding difference 
 is that the other Governments are better able to pay the 
 price of it. An honourable exception to the general rule 
 of pensions and pay is to be found in the case of members 
 of both Houses of Legislature in Spain, neither senators 
 nor deputies receiving anything from the State save a few 
 privileges, including a limited free pass on the railways, free 
 postage, and simple refreshments in the Cortes and Senate — 
 the latter being, however, a House Order relieved from State 
 interference. In the case of the deputies this refreshment 
 is limited to sugar-water {agua y azucarrilld) and in the 
 case of senators to beef-tea {caldd). 
 
 In this country the profits on one of the finest postal 
 systems in the world amount to over a hundred thousand 
 pounds a week. In Spain, one of the worst postal 
 systems in Europe yields little or nothing at all, and the 
 system of free postage is the more to be deplored because 
 
SPANISH INTERNAL POLICY 255 
 
 it IS associated with a large number of abuses. If you have 
 a friend in the Senate or the Congreso, you need pay no 
 postage ; your friend is ^^ a man like any other man/' you 
 are another, so you send your correspondence to him, he 
 takes it to the Cortes, and the Government carries or loses 
 it, without charge. Even the deputies and senators who are 
 so disobliging as to refuse this timely assistance to friends 
 outside the Cortes have no scruples in using their position 
 to cover all their private and business correspondence, al- 
 though, in theory at least, free postage is reserved for letters 
 dealing with affairs of State. Of course it is a little difficult 
 for a man to decide where State interests end and personal 
 interests begin. Probably he argues that his presence is 
 necessary in the Cortes if the regeneration of Spain is to 
 become an accomplished fact, while, unless his business affairs 
 are carried on along the lines of the most rigid economy, it 
 will be impossible for him to shed the light of his presence 
 and vast intelligence upon the House. Perhaps he doesn't 
 stop to argue with himself, but is quite content to post his 
 letters. 
 
 Spain is ruled to-day under the terms of the Constitution 
 of 1876, formed when the last flame of republican rule 
 spluttered and went out The country is divided into more 
 than four hundred electoral districts, each of which sends 
 its diputado to the Cortes. The limit of the parliamentary 
 term is five years, but this has seldom if ever^been reached. 
 Elections are not very genuine affairs in Spain, and all 
 appeals against the results must be made to the Senate and 
 the Chamber of Deputies {actus graves)^ and not, as in this 
 country, to the Law Court. A deputy is immune from ar- 
 rest, and action only lies against him for criminal offences, 
 and such action must be tried by the Supreme Court, whose 
 delays are proverbial. Contested elections are few because 
 
2S6 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 the result of the deliberation of free and independent elec- 
 tors is intelligently foreseen in the high and secret places 
 of Madrid. In other words, Government and Opposition 
 agree between themselves upon most of the vital questions 
 in connexion with a forthcoming election, and certain 
 seats are reserved for certain men in consideration of past 
 or future services or even present influence. This system 
 of private arrangement avails to keep a large number of 
 Republicans from the Cortes, and some of the many enemies 
 of Sefior Maura, the late premier, have been heard to declare 
 that he is a very unskilled political organiser, because in the 
 days when he was Minister of the Interior and had the hand- 
 ling of the elections, he was so careless that the Madrile- 
 ftos were enabled to return no fewer than eight Republi- 
 cans to Cortes. Had the elections been handled properly, 
 that is to say, on Spanish lines, such a scandal could never 
 have taken place. Happily for the peace of mind of 
 governing circles, Sefior Maura has been much more careful 
 since then, and as far as the Castiles are concerned, people 
 who are neither Liberal nor Conservative may clamour in 
 vain for entry to the stately building in the Carrera de San 
 Jeronimo. 
 
 The senators number 360 in all. Of these, under the 
 Constitution of 1876, one-half are either hereditary senators 
 or life-holders of the seat, and include sons of the King, 
 archbishops, the captain-generals, the Lord High Admiral 
 of Spain, and certain grandees. The other 180, whose 
 election like that of deputies is for a period not exceeding 
 five years, are sent to the Senate House by certain State 
 corporations, including of course the universities and the 
 academies. 
 
 So far we have discussed senators and deputies and 
 others of high degree, but in order to understand civil 
 
SPANISH INTERNAL POLICY 257 
 
 government in Spain, it is necessary to start not at the 
 top, where conditions are common to nearly all civilized 
 countries, but from the bottom, where Spain's individu- 
 ality is most clearly discernible. For the village is the 
 unit of government, possesses its own privileges — though 
 in ever-diminishing quantity — and points the way along 
 the rough and thorny path that leads to distinction — or 
 oblivion. 
 
 Every hamlet numbering up to 800 inhabitants appoints its 
 ov^n junta^ which disposes of purely local affairs and is re- 
 sponsible to the ayuntamiento or local governing body of 
 the village within whose superior jurisdiction it falls. A 
 village includes all the immediately surrounding hamlets, 
 and as long as the total population does not exceed 6000 
 the ayuntamiento may elect its own mayor or alcalde^ 
 who must be one of themselves, and holds his office for 
 one year. The alcalde is directly responsible to the pro- 
 vincial governor {gobernador provincial)^ who is at the head 
 of his province, and the secretary of the ayuntamiento is 
 responsible to the provincial commission for local admini- 
 stration. Every province in Spain is divided according 
 to its size and importance, and for purposes of election, into 
 so many districts. Each district is composed of one or two 
 sessional divisions, and elects four deputies to serve on the 
 provincial deputation which holds its office for four years 
 and meets once a month. The provincial commission, to 
 which every municipality within the province is responsible, 
 is selected from the diputacion provincial by the members 
 themselves, who elect one-quarter of their number to serve 
 for each year. In this manner every member of the dipu- 
 tacion provincial has served on the provincial commission 
 before his four years of office has expired. The same divi- 
 17 
 
258 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 sion that elects four provincial deputies elects one member 
 of parliament. Very large cities are divided into wards or 
 boroughs {barrios\ each of which has its mayor, while for 
 the whole town there is a functionary whose office corre- 
 sponds to that of our lord mayor. Every appointment to 
 the mayoralty, in towns or villages whose population ex- 
 ceeds 6000, is made by Madrid from among the members 
 of the ayuntamiento. The one exception is Madrid, whose 
 Lord Mayor, appointed by the King, need not have been 
 an alderman — this being one of the many instances to be 
 met in Spain of the royal prerogative. 
 
 The provincial governor, to whom the alcalde himself is 
 responsible, holds his appointment from the Cabinet. If 
 there is trouble in the province, civil war, uprising against the 
 Government or series of anarchist outrages, a state of siege 
 may be declared by the supreme authorities in Madrid, and 
 the rule of the province passes at once from the hands of 
 the civil governor to those of the military governor, who 
 suspends all constitutional decrees and guarantees and in- 
 stitutes a court martial in place of the civil courts, so that 
 insurrection must be very powerful if it is to thrive. Should 
 an insurrection spread, it has to encounter not only the force 
 of the province in which it starts, but the effective organiza- 
 tion of the military district of which that province is a part. 
 Spain is divided into fourteen of these military districts, each 
 of which is under the direction of a Captain-General whose 
 head-quarters are situated in the chief city within his mili- 
 tary jurisdiction. 
 
 The division of Spain into provinces was the outcome of 
 an attempt by the ruling powers to combat the destructive 
 spirit of regionalism and to deliver the reins of power over 
 to the hands of Madrid. The attempt failed utterly, for 
 
SPANISH INTERNAL POLICY 259 
 
 Spain IS no less regional to-day than it was long centuries 
 ago, but the failure is more limited than might appear. 
 As far as the centralization of Government is concerned, the 
 plan has met with complete success. Nothing could be 
 more fatal to local aspirations than the power possessed 
 and exercised by Madrid of naming the alcalde of every 
 municipality that has more than 6000 inhabitants. We 
 see that just as soon as power begins to bud it is nipped. 
 The ayuntamiento^ the provincial commission and all the 
 machinery for electoral purposes are really in the hands of 
 the governing class in Madrid ; so it is quite easy to realize 
 how election results can be predicated with sufficient cer- 
 tainty to enable rival politicians to agree about the divisions 
 of the spoils of office. The Cabinet directs the provincial 
 governor; the provincial governor influences the councils 
 of the provincial deputies ; the deputies bring their influence 
 to bear upon the ayuntamientos ; the ayuntamientos control 
 the juntas of the little hamlets that are just beginning to 
 speak the language of a restricted franchise. Independence 
 has little more than a limited existence, but some semblance 
 of it is allowed to appear from time to time because it is 
 held to serve as a safety-valve. For all practical purposes 
 there is no check upon Government by the Madrid minority 
 unless it puts forward some extremely unpopular measure 
 that proves sufficient to rouse the most lethargic citizens 
 to indignation. 
 
 Spain is divided into forty-nine provinces, ranging in size 
 from Badajoz with its 22,000 square kilometres down to 
 Guipuzcoa which has less than 2000, and in point of 
 population from Barcelona which holds wellnigh 1,000,000 
 inhabitants to Alava with less than 1 00,000. Save in the 
 cases of the Basque Provinces and of Navarre, the capital 
 
26o HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 gives its name to the province. The country is like a fertile 
 farm that is cultivated diligently by hard-working men who, 
 when the harvest is gathered, hand it over to somebody 
 else. In this case Madrid is the somebody else, and its 
 accounts will never be audited. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 SIDE-LIGHTS ON POLITICS IN SPAIN 
 
 WE know nothing of what goes on in the heavens 
 above, but as far as the earth beneath and a part 
 of the waters under the earth are concerned, we may rest 
 well assured that there can be nothing so stimulating to 
 the sense of humour as Spanish politics — to those who 
 look on from the outside. For the poor wretch whose only 
 appearance in this comedy is made when he walks on and 
 puts his hand in his pocket, the case is altogether different. 
 But the most ill-used Spaniard, having something in him of 
 the Orient, knows in his heart of hearts that if he had the 
 good luck to climb into power, he would follow faithfully 
 the example of those whose hand is so heavy upon him. 
 
 I remember meeting once in the Haha Province of 
 Morocco a countryman who was driving a donkey loaded 
 with salt. In return for my civil salutation he expressed 
 the pious wish that I, my parents and my children might 
 burn for all time in a place that is not generally men- 
 tioned among the polite. Asked why he reviled a stranger 
 in this fashion, the worthy salt-seller gave an effective ex- 
 planation. 
 
 ** I am a poor man," he said, ** to whom Allah has 
 denied influence. My Basha takes my little money and 
 drives me to work in his fields without payment, or sends 
 me to the town for salt. But I can do none of the things 
 
 261 
 
262 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 I suffer to anybody, for it is written in my book of life that 
 I must herd with the weak. If I were strong I would cut 
 many throats ; I would carry off money and women and 
 corn, but being poor I can do no more than curse." 
 
 And, as though to prove that he made up in fluency 
 what he lacked in wealth, the good man continued to curse 
 me as long as I was within hearing. 
 
 This spirit of fatalism, universal in Morocco, is hardly 
 less marked in Spain. Few Spaniards are perfectly recon- 
 ciled to their government, but the most dangerous discontent 
 is manifested by those who know that Fortune herself can 
 hardly turn her wheel in such a way as to place them 
 among the governing classes. There are Spanish cynics 
 who declare that our own much-vaunted system of popular 
 representation is no better than their own. They point 
 out that while the leading political parties in Spain meet 
 amicably to divide the spoils of office, the Englishman is 
 sent to a constituency by some political federation to whose 
 expenses he must contribute liberally, and that he retains 
 the coveted title of M.P. just so long as he consents to re- 
 spond to the various forms of blackmail practised by his con- 
 stituents. I do not put this forward as a true statement of 
 our own case, but merely as a picture of British political 
 rectitude seen through eyes that though foreign born are 
 undeniably shrewd and keen. Unhappily the gods seldom 
 give to others the power of seeing us as we see ourselves. 
 
 Spanish politics may be described as a form of business 
 conducted on lines that are at once commercial and feudal. 
 It takes no count, save in speech, of Spain's political needs ; 
 it has no morals and one of its fundamental principles is 
 **the devil take the hindmost ". On the platform, in the 
 Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate, you may hear fre- 
 quent expositions of the best moral principles in the world, 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS ON POLITICS IN SPAIN 263 
 
 delivered with an eloquence that is not rivalled by the 
 publicists of any civilized country. There never was such 
 eloquence as Spanish eloquence; it would bring tears 
 to the eyes of Sancho Panza's mule. When the Span- 
 ish orators speak, you feel that their finger is upon 
 the nation's pulse, that, when nobody is looking, they 
 shed tears of blood on account of their country's sor- 
 rows ; that sleepless nights and strenuous days are 
 given wholly to the regeneration of their beloved father- 
 land. So much then for their speech, their actions are 
 quite another matter. It does not follow that they are 
 dishonest men, or that they would not be honest if they 
 could, but it is quite beyond doubt that they could not be 
 honest if they would. They do not create conditions, they 
 merely respond to them. 
 
 The national wealth of Spain may be compared to a 
 banquet to which the ruling classes have given themselves 
 an invitation. The rulers of the country are no more than 
 toastmasters who use their splendid voices to announce 
 the subject that claims public attention. The people who 
 provide the banquet are divided against themselves and 
 hate one another even more than they hate those who sit 
 in the high places at the feast. Those who cook the food 
 and those who bring it to table, together with those who 
 clear the half-empty dishes when they have been removed 
 from the banqueting hall, are concerned chiefly, if not 
 altogether, with their own chances of being able to put 
 something into their mouths or baskets in the intervals of 
 protesting that they have no greater desire than to serve those 
 whose labours provide the feast, and no higher ambition 
 than to give them every satisfaction. So Dives revels all 
 day and every day, and the crumbs that fall from his table 
 do not go to Lazarus who toils in the fields or starves in 
 
264 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 the shadow of the city walls, but become the perquisites of 
 the flunkeys round the table and the menials in the kitchen. 
 
 Properly to understand the causes which have brought 
 this condition about, and threaten even in these progressive 
 days to make it enduring, we must turn to the conditions 
 of local government in Spain and consider the career of 
 the men who carry it on, and to this end must invite the 
 cacique, with all the respect due to such an exalted per- 
 sonage, to come to the dissecting table and submit to our 
 courteous application of the scalpel. 
 
 The cacique, the origin of whose title is Mexican and 
 means head of a tribe, corresponds roughly to the American 
 " boss," but the cacique's position is not publicly recognized 
 by the Government. In most cases he is a very shrewd 
 business man, quite unencumbered by education, prejudices 
 or scruples ; the leading, most ambitious, and most pros- 
 perous citizen of a small town or large village. In a country 
 where energy is rare he is extremely energetic ; in a town 
 where most people live for pleasure he lives for profit ; 
 among folk who are fairly simple he is the most notorious 
 vivo, using the curious term in its native sense of low-class 
 diplomatist. In the intervals of turning men to profitable 
 account, he studies their every weakness ; he knows a man's 
 foibles as well as he knows his place of business ; he con- 
 ciliates Mother Church at every turn and is one of the chief 
 supporters of Black Pope and White. While weaker men 
 dream away their lives in the cafes, he is serving them that 
 they may serve him, and the rate of interest he secures for 
 his labour would make a money-lender envious. 
 
 The cacique is, of course, a large employer of labour, and 
 he has a natural instinct for combining men for political ends. 
 In the high places of Madrid the politicians look to the 
 cacique in town and country to do all their spade work : he 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS ON POLITICS IN SP.AIN 265 
 
 must prepare the soil, he must plant the seed, he must have 
 his share of the harvest, while those alone who have helped 
 in his local labours will be permitted to glean the fields over 
 which the reaping machines have passed. Mother Church 
 herself is among the gleaners. This arrangement, for all 
 that it ignores the rank and file and creates a privileged 
 class and many small lucrative appointments, works most 
 effectively from the practical standpoint of the Spanish 
 Government. The cacique may act on lines that the Govern- 
 ment indicates but does not care publicly to follow. All 
 men who have anything, combine to keep it ; abuses acquire 
 a quality of permanence ; sinecures become valuable in fashion 
 that secures them from all fear of abolition, and in order 
 that no great spirit of reform may arise to offer effective 
 opposition to abuses, the political parties in Madrid, Liberal 
 and Conservative, unite themselves in a common bond of 
 loyalty to the ruling house, though at certain seasons the 
 name of Government changes. 
 
 For many years, when Alfonso XIII was a minor, a 
 compact known as the Facto del Pardo existed between 
 Sefior Sagasta, the Liberal Premier, who to his honour, be 
 it said, lived and died a poor man, and Canovas del Castillo, 
 together with his successor, Sefior Silvela, the Conservative 
 Premiers. A regular rotation of the ruling parties was 
 secured by the Pacto del Pardo which was directed against 
 Carlists and Republicans. Suddenly a strange thing hap- 
 pened. Don Carlos, who then passed most of his time in 
 Venice, where his splendid physique and fine boarhound were 
 the admiration of the promenaders on the Piazza de San Marco, 
 was '*got at" by Mother Church. He promised to retire 
 from active competition for the throne of Spain on condition 
 that the Liberal Party should undertake to promote no 
 measures inimical to the interests of Rome. This arrange- 
 
266 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 ment was never published to the world, but was communicated 
 to the writer by one of Sefior Sagasta's best informed political 
 opponents. With it the fear of Carlism disappeared and 
 the Government soon found that the fear of Republicanism 
 could be disregarded, because the intense spirit of region- 
 alism that besets Spain limited the movement to Catalonia 
 and a few prosperous commercial centres elsewhere. One 
 of the consequences of the changed conditions followed 
 closely upon the deaths of Sefior Sagasta and Silvela. The 
 Pact was broken up, and to-day the good feeling between the 
 Conservatives and Liberals exists no longer, though they are 
 still united to support a regime that is bound to provide one 
 or the other with cakes and ale in plenty. There is a saying 
 in this country that when thieves fall out, honest men come 
 by their own, but it will be dangerous for Spain to hope 
 for too much from the new conditions. Nor must it be 
 supposed that the Republican camp is the shrine of all 
 political virtues ; indeed those who are asked to support 
 republican propaganda have an uneasy feeling that scorpions 
 may be substituted for the whips with which their leading 
 politicians scourge them to-day. 
 
 The cacique has profited by the new development in 
 politics. A few years ago his influence was directed from 
 Madrid ; he was told when the country was about to change 
 its political coat and wear the colours of Liberalism instead 
 of those of Conservatism, or vice-versa. It was his business 
 to obey instructions, and had he disobeyed them a power 
 stronger than his own would have promptly put him down. 
 Nowadays he has a larger measure of independence and can 
 take a larger share of the harvest already referred to. He 
 can even impose conditions, though if he be a clever man 
 — and where is the cacique who is not ? — he will see to it 
 that they are not too onerous. But onerous or light, they 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS ON POLITICS IN SPAIN 267 
 
 will not require much examination to show a very definite 
 local profit to the man who has put them forward. This is 
 indeed the golden age of the cacique. 
 
 Even this brief hint at the political conditions prevailing 
 in Spain to-day must suffice to show how far the country 
 stands removed from political regeneration : every deputy 
 (sometimes the cacique himself goes to the Plaza de las 
 Cortes) has his local abuses to maintain, every senator is in 
 the same plight ; he pays for his promotion with compliance. 
 As Gilbert wrote in one of his earlier musical comedies : — 
 
 It is patent to the mob 
 That his being made a nob 
 Was effected by a job — 
 And a good job too. 
 
 Going a little higher in the social scale, it will be seen 
 that the Government, by whatever title it may please to call 
 itself, is perfectly powerless to do anything more than talk 
 eloquently about reforms. It dare not attempt to carry out 
 any. The late Sefior Silvela accomplished the most un- 
 popular act of his life when some years after the Spanish- 
 American War he made a tour of Spain's naval stations 
 and removed from the active list and pay sheets of the 
 Treasury thousands of sailors, both officers and men, who 
 had no ships, and consequently could render no service. 
 For years the vessels that lay rotting full fathoms deep 
 under the Caribbean Sea were still rated on the effective 
 list of Spain, and the poor remains of their crew, from flag- 
 captains down to stokers, were drawing full service money 
 from an impoverished exchequer. The most un-Spanish 
 proceeding of checking a glaring abuse was of course only 
 undertaken a few months before it was time for Sefior 
 Sagasta to resume the reins of Government, when doubtless 
 his supporters waxed eloquent about the troubles that beset 
 
268 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Spain's gallant sailors, and attributed them to the corruption 
 of an effete Conservative administration. Had there been 
 any risk of Carlist or Republican troubles, we may be sure 
 that no measure so drastic would have ever passed beyond 
 the public platform, if indeed it had succeeded in reaching 
 that place of national eloquence. 
 
 While on the one hand these years have been described 
 as the golden age of the cacique, it must be admitted that 
 it is no longer in his country's power to bestow upon him 
 the richest of all rewards known, rather euphemistically, as 
 a Foreign Appointment. In days of old when Spain's 
 power over Cuba and the Philippines was undisputed, the 
 cacique who had deserved well of his country was sent 
 ultra mar to the Antilles and instructed to look after him- 
 self No questions were asked, save by a few foolish 
 Republicans whose role in life it is to trouble a paternal 
 Government with embarrassing queries, and if they were 
 asked, a few outbursts of official eloquence redolent of the 
 highest principles known to mankind, sufficed to silence 
 the bore who strove to waste the time of the Cortes and 
 hinder the regeneration of the country upon which the 
 great heart of legislation is set. The cacique troubled him- 
 self not at all. According to his lights he , remunerated 
 himself for the sorrow of absence from his beloved country, 
 and if he made haste to become rich, it was because he 
 knew that the span of life is brief and that other caciques 
 were clamouring for his job. If his conscience were 
 troubled — and the conscience of a cacique is of the most 
 elastic variety known to man — he had but to make a few 
 offerings to the local Virgin of his far-off Spanish home, 
 thereby assuring to himself the proud title of hijo predilecto^ 
 while, if he cared to go to the expense of an altar, there 
 would be no question of purgatory for him. Indeed half a 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS ON POLITICS IN SPAIN 269 
 
 dozen altars would render his whole family immune and 
 enable them to enjoy in perpetuity the rich fruit of his — 
 let us be charitable and call them— little faults. 
 
 Eheu fugaces ! Times have changed and the American 
 hustler sits uncomfortably upon the slippery surface of the 
 pearl of the Antilles and works harder for his profits than 
 any of the hijos predilectos who preceded him. Nowadays 
 the cacique must lower his proud looks when his gaze is 
 directed seawards. Did he go to the Philippines to-day he 
 would be no more than a tourist in a strange land, and would 
 become one of the sun-helmeted guide-book-holding children 
 of Cook, who like the first raven sent from the Ark by 
 Noah wander over the face of the earth finding no rest 
 for the soles of their feet. So the cacique remembers that 
 he is a son of Spain and leaves foreign countries to take 
 care of themselves and survive the loss of his administrative 
 genius as best they can. To do them justice, they are 
 making a fairly successful effort. 
 
 But the cacique does not lack rich rewards. His paths 
 still drop fatness. When his native town is no longer big 
 enough to hold him, he is appointed Governor of a Province, 
 and to an energetic, thrifty man of affairs who never lets 
 his left hand see what his right hand appropriates, there is 
 much balm in Gilead, wherever that delectable place may 
 be situate. The provincial governor is responsible only to 
 Madrid and to his conscience — this last being, as we have 
 seen, a comparatively negligible quantity. He has not 
 served a long apprenticeship for nothing. Hitherto he has 
 been content to superintend the public weal of one town ; 
 now his care is devoted to many. Hitherto he has had 
 to conciliate small men ; now he conciliates caciques, mak- 
 ing his interests their interests after due consideration and 
 amendment, and always bearing in mind that the Govern- 
 
270 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 ment is the origin of all earthly honour and emolument. 
 In this fashion, as can easily be seen, the system that obtains 
 in the village obtains in the province, and the caciques have 
 absolute discretion over all minor political appointments 
 within their considerable but undefined jurisdiction. The 
 alcalde and his deputy who are not walking in the right 
 path — the right path is the cacique's — can be removed at 
 discretion, by which is meant that great discretion is used 
 in their removal, the cacique's hand being felt but not seen. 
 Below the mayor and deputy mayor there are dozens of minor 
 officials earning a small incompetence that enables them to 
 live without the intolerable necessity of working hard. It 
 is their business to do the cacique's work — the alternative 
 being the unthinkable one of working for themselves. So 
 the cacique progresses and his influence grows like a snow- 
 ball rolled by enthusiastic schoolboys over a snowclad field, 
 and when it has reached truly formidable dimensions the 
 cacique is ready for translation, — he blossoms. A grateful 
 country offers him a title just as in old days his native town 
 offered him a banquet. He paid for the one, he has paid 
 for the other. If he be a very great cacique indeed, with 
 a goodly number of pocket deputies at his command, he 
 may even enter the Cabinet ; and in this connexion it may be 
 remarked that a prominent member of the Cabinet in Spain 
 last year was a cacique. Doubtless His Excellency could 
 if he would vouch for the truth of what has been set down 
 here. But it would be wrong to approach such an exalted 
 statesman, busy, even out of office, as all his predecessors 
 have been, with the task of regenerating Spain. Sefior 
 Montero Rios, **the old man of Galicia," and sometime 
 Premier of the country, was another cacique. 
 
 Sometimes the cacique having inspected his bank balance 
 — Spaniards seldom invest their money, they leave the banks 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS ON POLITICS IN SPAIN 271 
 
 to take charge of it — becomes suddenly aware of the vanity 
 of riches and his love for the intellectual life. He realizes 
 that though politics have been his care and self-interest, his 
 guiding star, he is, " at the ripe red of his heart," an '* artista 
 de cuerpa entero," and in order that his light may shine he 
 becomes an Academician. This is easy in Spain, almost as 
 easy as it is to enter the ranks of the titled, which must not 
 be confused with the peerage, an institution that lies beyond 
 even the cacique's reach. But if the claims of politics are 
 still paramount, if he believe that the regeneration of Spain 
 depends upon his efforts and cannot persuade the Cabinet 
 that his services are indispensable, he is reduced to founding 
 a party of his own, one of the minorias so beloved of the 
 Spaniard. His tame deputies rally to the play and, armed 
 with sword of eloquence, the cacique storms the heights of 
 Government well aware that even if he fall wounded, his 
 enemies in the gates will find him a good nursing home. 
 If the odds be too hopeless, one little minoria suddenly sees 
 that another little minoria is also bent upon Spanish re- 
 generation ; the two unite, a third joins them, the babbling 
 rivulets become a mighty stream, a powerful cross-current 
 in the muddy stream of Spanish politics. The united 
 strength of the pocket deputies is reinforced by a subsidized 
 newspaper that breathes forth fire and blood and eloquence 
 in daily editions. The new party arrives, and Spain's 
 highest destinies would be at once accomplished but for the 
 fact that the caciques cannot agree upon the division of the 
 spoils, and the forces that would have brought about the 
 millennium ^* in this regard their current turn awry, and lose 
 the name of action ". 
 
 So the wheel of Spanish politics revolves, the despair 
 of the strenuous few, the laughing-stock of the multitude 
 that sees so much of the humorous side of life, even when 
 
272 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 that humour is associated with troubles that affect it nearly. 
 At long intervals there is some small measure of progress 
 to be recorded. A political party, hard pressed for popu- 
 larity, reforms some abuse, sacrificing a minority to a 
 majority. But such occasions are rare. Nor is it easy for 
 the optimist to see any signs of an era of honest govern- 
 ment. That Spain has honest men and patriots in plenty 
 is recognized even by those whose knowledge of the country 
 IS very slight, but one and all must move in a vicious circle, 
 they cannot rise above their own time, and they cannot gain 
 place without the sacrifice of some measure of principles 
 and convictions. The rule of the Church in every sphere 
 of life and the divided councils of regionalism are too much 
 for Spain, and Spaniards are left to shrug their shoulders, 
 light their cigarettes, and be grateful for small mercies. 
 Happily for them, their temperament is not altogether un- 
 suited to their Government, and it may be that the slow 
 spread of education and the development of outside in- 
 fluences may lead in the course of years to a settlement 
 of the differences that make united action wellnigh im- 
 possible to-day. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 LITERATURE IN SPAIN 
 
 STUDENTS of the literary history of Spain testify to-day 
 to a Renaissance. The multiplication of books in 
 other countries, facilities for translation, the interest and 
 importance of world news, the greater facilities for obtaining 
 it, developments of colour and other printing, an improve- 
 ment in the format of books and a reduction of their cost — 
 all these things have had a very marked effect upon literature 
 in Spain. At the same time the tendency of this art-form, 
 as of all others in the country, is singularly simple and 
 free from offence. Such demand as exists for what is 
 cheap and sensational is supplied through the medium of 
 translations from the English and the French. Modern ideas 
 have been associated in Spain with traditional sympathies 
 and forms, so that Spanish literature is no less regional 
 than Spanish music or cooking, and the leading writers of 
 the country, with the notable exceptions of Echegaray and 
 Galdos, are quite content to interpret the life of their district 
 in terms of letters. Naturally enough their books circulate 
 throughout the country because the Spaniard is well pleased 
 to view the life of regions other than his own through the 
 medium of any art-form, if only to reinforce his belief that 
 every region save his wallows in ignorance and absurdity. 
 This is well, for no Galician author would write of Anda- 
 lusia, nor would the Valencian novelist think of setting 
 i8 273 
 
2^4 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 his story in the Sierras of Castile. In the heart of 
 every Spaniard there is no Spain ; there is a collection 
 of provinces of which one alone deserves to be taken 
 seriously. 
 
 For many years of the nineteenth century Madrid was 
 the centre of Spain's literary life. It had gone to the 
 capital from the precincts of Salamanca and Alcala as these 
 great university cities fell slowly from their high estate. 
 The centralizing policy of the Government, bringing to the 
 capital all the mental activity of the country, enabled the 
 wind-swept city of the Guaderrama plateau to maintain its 
 pre-eminence until commercial activity woke Barcelona to 
 a prosperous life. A literary revival came to the East of 
 Spain in the wake of the commercial revival. People grew 
 rich, earned leisure, and developed the will to read ; to-day 
 the city of Barcelona is a formidable rival to Madrid. 
 Indeed, the capital only maintains its position because it is 
 the distributing centre for all Spain. The Catalans have 
 far more use for books than the Castilians. 
 
 The literary revival in Catalonia is emphatically regional. 
 It stands for the keen wish of that part of the country, to 
 become a separate republic, or to share the fortunes of the 
 great republic across the Pyrenees, and so marked is the 
 antipathy to the Castiles that the Catalan authors prefer to 
 write in the dialect of their province rather than to use the 
 beautiful language of the Madrilefio. Some of them have 
 achieved so much distinction beyond their own borders 
 that their works have been translated from Catalan into 
 the Castilian Spanish and have been printed in Madrid for 
 the benefit of all Spain. Among such authors of merit are 
 the late poet Guimera, whose "Terra Baixa" has even been 
 translated into English, and Santiago Rusifiol, the leading 
 light of modern Catalonia. It must be recognized that 
 
LITERATURE IN SPAIN 275 
 
 Catalan literature stands outside Spanish literature. It is 
 something with characteristics of its own, that can only be 
 appreciated and understood by those who have the Catalan 
 spirit and a knowledge of the Provencal language. For 
 the rest of the world it is caviare. The sister province of 
 Valencia bears a striking likeness to Catalonia in matters 
 of literary interest. The Valencian also speaks the " Langue 
 de Provence " ; many circumstances combine to divorce his 
 interests from those of the rest of Spain, and there is a 
 distinct feeling for books in the province. But Valencia 
 is small ; the men who write for her could not hope to find 
 a living from the proceeds of works written in the Provencal 
 dialect, and consequently they are compelled to fall back 
 upon the Castilian Spanish which some of them write very 
 beautifully. In spite of her small size Valencia has contri- 
 buted not a little to the artistic honour of modern Spain. 
 Sorolla the painter, Benlliure the sculptor, and Blanco Ibafiez 
 the novelist, are all Valencian, and have carried the repu- 
 tation of their province beyond the boundaries of Spain. 
 Valencia is noted for its printing work and the fine quality 
 of the reproductions that illustrate books, and indeed it may 
 be regarded as the third best publishing centre of Spain, 
 Madrid and Barcelona taking a first and second place. 
 The only other provinces that have a distinct dialect, and 
 keep very close to it, are Galicia and the Basque Provinces ; 
 of these the latter has no literature, while the former has 
 a purely local literature, and only the leaders of its literary 
 movement, like Sefiora Dofia Emilia Pardo Bazdn, have 
 such a following as makes the use of Castilian Spanish 
 inevitable. 
 
 When one considers the prominence of the "Langue 
 de Provence'' in Catalonia and Valencia, it becomes 
 easy to understand the cry for separation that rises from 
 
276 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Eastern Spain and strives in vain to reach the ear of 
 Madrid. 
 
 The writer pauses, conscious that his knowledge of de- 
 tails of modern Spanish literature is woefully incomplete. 
 It would be easy to generalize to the end of the chapter, 
 but this would be a little unfair to the reader. So he has 
 gone to his friend Charles Rudy, who came so gallantly to 
 his aid when problems of pig presented their unsurmount- 
 able difficulties in the chapter on cooking, and once again 
 Mr. Rudy has come to the rescue and taken the particular 
 burden from shoulders ill-equipped to carry it. Let him 
 finish this chapter. 
 
 " The regional spirit in art and literature necessarily re- 
 flects the local psychology of the inhabitants. Novels are, 
 therefore, almost exclusively psychological, but not scienti- 
 fically so as are those of the Frenchman Paul Bourget. On 
 the contrary, they are character studies within reach of the 
 average understanding : the portrayal of a simple character 
 under given circumstances. The result is a healthy unam- 
 bitious portrait in sober colours quite without the nerve- 
 racking sensational plots and counter-plots that are to the 
 English reader as breath to life. As often as not the prin- 
 cipal character is the protagonist of an idea, either political 
 or social. But the book is never Zolaesque in form, for the 
 Spaniard is too great a lover of sunshine and of life un- 
 adulterated by intellectual problems to have the hero of his 
 book modelled after an idea. In other words, the thesis 
 must not create the protagonist. The obvious result is that 
 the moral influence of the book loses in value, but, on the 
 other hand, it is much truer to life. The main thread of 
 action is broken at times, it ambles through the pages from 
 right to left as did Rozinante through the country that Don 
 Quixote invaded. Side scenes like booths at a show break 
 
LITERATURE IN SPAIN 277 
 
 into the plot, disturbing its unity, even detracting a little 
 from its value, but they are painted in bold strokes of the 
 pen, they reek of regionalism, and they are so true to 
 life — life with a grain of dry humour peculiar to Spain — 
 that those whose literary palates have not been hardened by 
 highly-seasoned dishes will delight in the simple fare placed 
 before them by the Spanish novelist. 
 
 " Taking the above as the general analysis of the Iberian 
 novel of to-day, we can see at a glance that the political and 
 social problems of the hour are treated in a much more 
 popular way than would be the case were they spread out 
 on a scientific dissecting table. They are more genial, and the 
 puppets of the author's creation are free in their movements. 
 They come and go at will, they say sensible things — or 
 foolish things which they believe are sensible — and they are 
 subservient to no thesis. Should the author be a social or 
 political reformer, he will clearly have his say in the words 
 of his hero or heroine, and the stronger his political and 
 social ideas, the stronger will be the reflection in the mouth 
 of the protagonist. But the general plan of the book will 
 not, as a rule, be marred by this circumstance, for the 
 Spaniard has yet to learn that German art has invented a 
 leitmotif, that it is the fashion to bring this out in strong 
 relief at the expense of all true-to-life portraiture, and that 
 the ideal work of art would be one where there would only 
 be a leitmotif and not a superfluous word, not a word that 
 might remind us that in life there is no leitmotif, only a 
 lot of trifling little motives, apparently without cause or 
 efl'ect, without either a sensational birth or a protracted 
 death. 
 
 " From the foregoing it can easily be seen that, as a 
 general rule, there are no striking Spanish novels founded 
 on a central theme. Sefiores Blasco Ibanez and Pio Baroja 
 
278 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 have penned, it is true, what might be called revolutionary 
 novels, the former in his * La Catedral,' the latter in * La 
 Lucha \ But even in these works the ambiente or setting of 
 the work follows the general rules of Spanish fiction as indi- 
 cated above. When, on the other hand, we come to analyse 
 the works of Jose Maria Pereda — this master died a few years 
 ago — of Emilia Pardo Bazdn, of Jacinto Octavio Pic6n, 
 Arturo Reyes, Palacio Valdes, and others of equal calibre, 
 we find that the social or political thesis is relegated to a 
 distant and indistinct background. It is there, neverthe- 
 less, but it teaches its lesson without effort, naturally, per- 
 haps bitterly and sarcastically, but with a quaint humour 
 that is Spain's above most nations. This has perhaps its 
 explanation in the spirit of Oriental fatalism as pronounced 
 in Spain to-day as it was when the Moors possessed 
 Andalusia. 
 
 " But if the traditions of the Cid have not been locked 
 up in the tombs of the past (as the Spaniards are in the habit 
 of saying), and the model given to posterity by Cervantes is 
 still all-powerful in the land of Don Quixote and Sancho 
 Panza, it must not be denied that a new spirit is penetrating 
 into the most eastern part of Western Europe. French 
 adultery has not been able to play the same role in the litera- 
 ture of Spain as in that of Paris, but the tendency certainly 
 is to give morals a looser bridle than heretofore. As an ex- 
 ample of this, for Spain's exotic movement, it is only neces- 
 sary to refer to Sefior Trigo and the school he has been able 
 to form. He and his remind us of the works of Willy and 
 Prevost beside whom Mrs. Gwynn pales her ineffectual fires. 
 As for the sensational, characterized by our modern Anglo- 
 Saxon literature where detectives and criminals are the 
 heroes of society, and the revolver goes off at short intervals, 
 it has not been able as yet to convince the good hidalgo. 
 
LITERATURE IN SPAIN 279 
 
 But even here Spanish literature is becoming modernized, 
 and the movement of Engh'sh imitation hails from Barce- 
 lona. This city's geographical position would seem to in- 
 dicate it as the point where French influence should pene- 
 trate the most readily into the Iberian Peninsula ; and it is 
 so, but at the same time the modern industrial and intel- 
 lectual development of the capital of Catalonia has marked 
 it out as the centre of all new movements, be they Anglo- 
 Saxon or French. And strange to say, it is in the serial 
 stories of newspapers, magazines, etc., that the sensational 
 element predominates — -and I say strange, because these 
 serials are destined for the masses, and it is here that the 
 taste for the truly Spanish genius as described above ought 
 to be the strongest. Evidently it is not so, and the masses 
 find more entertainment in reading an impossible detective 
 story than in perusing the humour of a classical Spanish 
 novel. Times are changing, and foreign influences will 
 sooner or later model Spanish literature on a European 
 and not Iberian pattern. 
 
 " If, and in consequence of traditions, the modern Spanish 
 novel has nothing of truly Spanish origin to recommend it 
 to those who delight in fiction as a nerve tonic and not as 
 a simple work of art, practically the same will have to be 
 said of the Spanish short story, and yet it is in these that 
 the Spaniards excel. They have nothing to learn from 
 either Poe or Maupassant ; in newspapers, magazines, and 
 in books they possess the most varied collection of short 
 stories to be found in any literature. Yet here again the 
 national Iberian characteristic of excessive reality is pre- 
 dominant. And I say reality and not realism designedly, 
 for the former is true to life, contains its romance and its 
 pathos, its humour and sentimentality, its ideal hopes and 
 base ambitions, whereas the latter restricts its endeavours 
 
28o HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 to the portrayal of the gross, the common and, as often as 
 not, the filthy. Thus in the Spanish short story we have 
 trozos de vida — snatches of life — that are gems of quiet 
 unpresuming reality, that say nothing, preach nothing, and 
 have no more aim than that of interesting the average 
 reader a moment with the account of some homely scene 
 in one of the many localities that go to make up the 
 Spanish kingdom. It is by reading these short stories by 
 a Clarin — unhappily dead already — an Azorin or some such 
 master of Castilian prose that we learn to understand 
 the leading characteristics of the Spanish people and their 
 mode of living. 
 
 *^ But modern Spanish novels and short stories have their 
 faults as well as their virtues. They are due more to the 
 topic chosen than to the artist's temperament perhaps, or 
 — and this is the more likely case — they are produced by 
 the social lethargy so pronounced in Spain to-day. In 
 other words, the artist portrays a somnolent, inactive, 
 sleepy, almost degenerate, fatalistic state of society, and 
 consequently the work created lacks action and energy, is 
 despondent, even pessimistic, mystic without being pathetic, 
 melodramatic without being romantic. Exceptions are Perez 
 Galdos, author of * Episodios Nacionales,' and Echegaray 
 whose ' Gran Galeote ' was recently staged in England. 
 But the above-named faults will doubtless be eradicated 
 shortly from Spanish literature, thanks to the country's 
 rather Pyrrhic victory over the Moors. The Rifif triumphs 
 will serve to wake up Spain from the lethargy into which 
 she fell after the Spanish-American War, and when the 
 people have awakened to a new national life, the men who 
 portray them will find new qualities to describe. For the 
 Spaniard in all his art manifestations is a profound portrait 
 painter for whom psychological happenings and their set- 
 
LITERATURE IN SPAIN 281 
 
 ting form a picture or series of pictures to be set down al 
 vivo on paper or canvas. Velasquez, Murillo, Cervantes, 
 Quevedo — they were all portrait painters, each after his 
 own fashion. 
 
 " Since the death of the masters of romanticism — Becquer, 
 Zorilla, Campoamor, and Balaguer — poetry has flourished 
 much like a plant grown in a dark cellar. Luis de Arce, 
 in his ^ Sursum Corda,' invites his countrymen to awaken to 
 a new life, but even in so doing he is himself as inert and 
 somnolent as the people he advises. The result is cold, 
 unfeeling, academical work ; and really Arce was through 
 his life an academician without the strength of a Gongora 
 to create a new path for himself, however bad it might be. 
 
 " Two living poets need mentioning, one because he is 
 typically Spanish, the other because of his prolific pen. 
 The latter is Salvador Rueda, much appreciated for the 
 ease and beauty of his language, the other is the less- 
 known, but far deeper poet, Vicente Vera, the Burns of 
 Murcia, his native province, and one whose lyre trembles 
 with the innermost feelings of the common people, their 
 joys and sufferings. 
 
 " I forgot to mention, when speaking of Pereda the nove- 
 list, that other novelist, also dead, and in life not a lesser 
 light, the diplomat Juan Valera. His ^ Pepita Jimenez' is 
 one of those rare books that have been translated into 
 almost all languages and that will live. As stylist Valera 
 was what the Spaniards call castizo or classic ; he led the 
 van of those writers wishing to abandon the romantic for 
 the real. 
 
 ^* Having thus summarily disposed of the leading writers 
 — those whose names have been omitted are also leading 
 writers, but in a work of this scope they must perforce 
 excuse silence — we will turn to those other wielders of the 
 
282 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 pen, namely, the journalists. Some of these are great 
 writers, others great politicians, most of them admirable 
 men. Names like Joaquin Dicenta, Luis Morote, and 
 Mariano de Cavia will live in Spanish literature — the first 
 on account of his sketches and dramas, the second for the 
 admirable precision of his political studies, which will be 
 taken as a model for future journalists, just as Macaulay was 
 taken as a model for us in our youth, and the third for his 
 incomparable crSnicas in the * Imparcial \ These little 
 daily sketches of a column or a half in length, of the most 
 biting sarcasm, humour, and worldly wisdom, are, as far as 
 I am aware, unique, not to be compared with the work of 
 any other Spaniard since the days of Quevedo, master of 
 irony. 
 
 " As regards the economic side of the literary question in 
 Spain, it can be said to be worse — at least no better — than 
 in any other civilized country. For Spanish conditions the 
 leading writers are enabled to make more than an average 
 living out of their pen, though when compared with the 
 fortunes amassed by some of our authors these sums 
 appear insignificant. But apart from the chosen few who 
 have understood how to form a strong trust with a view to 
 protect their own interests-— the law of self-preservation — 
 and to hinder young authors from becoming popular, there 
 are the many who are not chosen, and for these writing is 
 no longer an art but a tiresome, unremunerative drudgery 
 which only ambition can nourish or enliven. That there 
 are prospects of a Renaissance in this direction has been 
 stated so often, that unconsciously we are reminded of the 
 fable of the man and the wolf, and when at last it does 
 come, few people, even Spaniards, will be willing to believe 
 in its arrival. Of the trusts mentioned above, the most 
 powerful, because the least conscientious, is the Sociedad de 
 
LITERATURE IN SPAIN 283 
 
 Autores, whose control of the Spanish stage is unquestioned. 
 Most authors are members of this society whose directors 
 are the most distinguished among them, and it is these 
 directors, veritable literary caciques or * bosses,' who con- 
 trol the market in their own interests and against those of 
 the remaining members whose membership is a sinecure 
 and whose rights are limited to the payment of an annual 
 subscription. 
 
 " But if the thorns in the path of the younger generation 
 of Spanish authors are more numerous than the roses, both 
 as regards advancement and retribution, it must not be 
 forgotten that these young men will, when they get the 
 chance a few years hence, act in like fashion towards the 
 future generation. In the long run then, the evil state 
 of affairs in Spain needs no improvement. The greater 
 number of papers, periodicals, magazines, and reviews, as 
 well as the Renaissance of learning that is slowly raising its 
 head in the Iberian Peninsula, will certainly give more work 
 to the ambitious author, but it must be remembered that 
 the number of ambitious young authors increases likewise, 
 so that the proportion is little varied. The common herds 
 have not learnt yet to look upon literature as a necessity of 
 life — in this they resemble the common herds throughout 
 Christendom, only that, in comparison with the intelectuales , 
 they are more numerous in Spain than elsewhere — and the 
 result is that the Spanish author's public is limited. Were 
 education to figure on the programme of politicians and 
 not only on the lips of would-be reformers, the benefits to 
 be gleaned by authors would be enormous ; but perhaps it 
 is just as well for the uneducated to remain uneducated, for 
 thanks to illiteracy, caciquismo can flourish under Sefior 
 Maura or his temporary successor's dictatorship, and the 
 Church profit thereby. Far be it from anybody to wish to 
 
284 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 mar the harmony or disturb the Church-State peace of 
 Spain in order to benefit the fine arts. 
 
 " Of the institutions that have done the most — all in their 
 power — to further the taste for literature and the arts in 
 modern Spain, must be reckoned the Ateneos, of which 
 the Madrid Ateneo is certainly a model. Lectures, prizes, 
 and musical evenings are among the attractions which these 
 literary clubs can offer; they possess, moreover, useful 
 libraries containing all modern Spanish books, most French 
 and very few English ones. The newspaper rooms are 
 quite cosmopolitan ; politics are debarred from the pro- 
 gramme, but politics are the leading theme discussed. Ad- 
 vanced ideas, either Spanish or foreign, find their first home 
 in the Ateneos, and more than once, in hours of national 
 tyranny, have the doors been closed by a careful Govern- 
 ment. But, everything said, the usefulness of the Ateneos 
 cannot be denied by any but the most narrow-minded Jesuits, 
 and certain it is that the present artistic lethargy would be 
 far deeper than it is were it not for the Madrid Ateneo, 
 branches of which have been founded in Barcelona, Seville, 
 and elsewhere. 
 
 " Second to these Ateneos are the various Circulos de 
 Bellas Artes, of which mention has been made elsewhere. 
 They exist in most localities of any importance, and are the 
 leading factors in keeping alive the spirit of regionalism. 
 They foster the fine arts — local fine arts — and do their ut- 
 most to save from oblivion the fast-expiring remnants of 
 folk-lore, whether musical, lyrical, or graphic. 
 
 " Opposed to these, and as useless as they are useful, is 
 that exotic institution called the Academia Real Espaftola. 
 Its existence is a negation, its arrogance abusive, and its 
 practical value an illusion. Yet it serves its purpose, namely, 
 to remind ambitious authors that they can never aspire to 
 
LITERATURE IN SPAIN 285 
 
 a seat among the immortals unless they exchange their 
 pen for a private secretary's post in some Ministry where 
 they can bow down and worship not Apollo but Zeus. 
 Apart from this, the least said about the Academy the 
 better." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 SPANISH LAW COURTS AND THEIR 
 JURISDICTION 
 
 THE basis of Spain's legal administration is undoubtedly 
 XhQjuzgado municipal, whose chief (Juez municipal) 
 may be said to correspond to our justice of the peace. 
 Down to a few years ago the alcalde was placed upon the 
 Commission of the Peace upon election to the mayoralty, 
 but Spain's more recent policy has been to reduce the 
 influence of the alcalde, and to this end the functions have 
 been divided. In this connexion it is interesting to re- 
 member that the alcalde is merely the cadi of Moslem 
 lands, where, in accordance with Islamic conventions, the 
 civil and judicial functions are united in one administrator. 
 Under the new dispensation in Spain ^Q,juez municipal or 
 justice of the peace, if the term be admissible, is one of a 
 company that numbers nearly ten thousand. Each holds 
 his appointment from the president of one or other of the 
 fifteen audiencias territoriales into which Spain is divided 
 for the better administration of the law. An audiencia 
 territorial corresponds in many ways with our circuit. 
 From three to five judges, who hold their appointment 
 from Madrid, are in charge of these courts, and to the 
 member who is appointed president is granted the privilege 
 and responsibility of placing eligible citizens within the 
 limits of his audiencia upon the Commission of the Peace. 
 Above the little local courts are some five hundred courts 
 
 286 
 
LAW COURTS AND THEIR JURISDICTION 287 
 
 of session, of which one or two, according to the population, 
 form an electoral district. The judges are appointed from 
 Madrid, nominally by the king, but in reality by the 
 Minister of Justice acting on the advice of political organ- 
 izers, and they hold their office for life, the only change 
 in their condition taking the pleasant form of promotion. 
 Above these courts of first instance come the audiencias 
 territoriales, to which reference has already been made, and 
 from these we reach the highest legal assembly in the 
 country, the Tribunal Supremo, from which there is no 
 appeal. 
 
 To the audiencias territoriales, audiencias criminates or 
 criminal courts are attached, and to fifteen of the former 
 there are no fewer than eighty of the latter— a proportion 
 suggesting in most emphatic fashion that civil procedure is 
 of comparatively small importance in Spain. The country 
 holds sixteen State prisons for men, besides one for women, 
 and two model prisons {carcel modeld) at Madrid, one for 
 each sex. Very serious offences that do not involve the 
 death penalty are punished with a sentence of chains or 
 perpetual imprisonment {cadenas perpetuas or condena\ and 
 criminals are sent to the country's penal settlements which 
 are on the North African coast, and include the Zaffarin 
 Islands, Ceuta and Melilla. These presidios, as they are 
 called, are under the control of a military governor who is 
 responsible only to Madrid. 
 
 The condition of these prisons on the Spanish territory 
 in Morocco is very 1 far from satisfactory. The administra^ 
 tion is very lax, official salaries are poorly paid, and men 
 are constantly "escaping" from the mainland presidios 
 when they reach Tetuan or Tangier, and being representa- 
 tives of the lowest criminal class, they make their presence 
 felt. It happens all too frequently that some outrage for 
 
288 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 which the Moors are held responsible, can be traced by 
 those who are well informed to Spanish refugees from the 
 presidios. 
 
 The writer had occasion to visit one of Spain's penal 
 settlements a few years ago in the interests of a great daily 
 paper, and finding an old soldier in charge of a little casa 
 de huespedesy asked him to explain why there were so many 
 cases of prison-breaking. It was impossible to leave the 
 presidio by the port, for nobody was allowed to land with- 
 out a signed order brought from the comandante of a big 
 town on the Spanish mainland, and nobody was allowed 
 to embark without a similar permit from the governor of 
 the presidio. The old soldier explained that the matter 
 was quite simple. All official salaries were small and some 
 were in arrears. To make up their deficits, the prison 
 authorities were in the habit of releasing men who gave no 
 trouble and could pay a little bit for their liberty by the aid 
 of friends at home. I suggested that the risks were pos- 
 sibly greater than the profits, and was then advised that the 
 latter were not so small as they might appear. For in 
 every case of a release the name of the prisoner remained 
 on the book, and the Spanish Government continued to 
 make allowance for his rations ! 
 
 In Spain all judicial offices carry a salary even though it 
 be but a small one. The gentleman who corresponds to 
 our justice of the peace draws pay and pension, though 
 each is insignificant. The judges of the five hundred higher 
 courts receive something in the neighbourhood of two hun- 
 dred pounds a year, a sum upon which a man may live in 
 comfort in Spain. The President of the Supreme Tribunal, 
 the highest paid official on the Spanish bench, receives 
 about twelve hundred a year, less than a quarter of the 
 salary paid to any English judge of the High Court. 
 
LAW COURTS AND THEIR JURISDICTION 289 
 
 Owing to the poor pay and to the curious overiapping of 
 electoral and judicial functions, there is rather more law 
 than justice. Spanish jurists declare that the Spanish codes, 
 both civil and criminal, are among the best in the world, 
 but so intricate that a really skilled lawyer can twist and 
 turn them in any direction, while the judge is so bound by 
 precedent that he has no initiative left, and must do many 
 things that are quite repugnant both to equity and to 
 common sense. 
 
 In Spain a justice of the peace wears a small silver 
 medallion attached to a black cord hung around the neck 
 and reaching to the breast. Higher judges wear a passable 
 imitation of the old Roman toga and a medal over that. In 
 addition to this they display a large silver badge attached to 
 a broad ribbon going from the shoulder to the waist, like the 
 ribbon of some of our higher orders at home. The President 
 of the Supreme Tribunal wears a small chain of office on 
 ordinary occasions and a large one on high-days and holi- 
 days. Neither judge nor barrister disfigures his head with 
 horse-hair after the fashion of this country, but their many- 
 sided hats are very picturesque and becoming. 
 
 The study and the practice of the law are very popular 
 in Spain, and a large proportion of the students to be met 
 in the ten university towns of Spain are devoting their time 
 — in theory at least — to the study of law. With the general 
 public the law is not so popular, and the terms in which 
 lawyers are referred to are seldom those of endearment. 
 Take our own law's delay, multiply it by three, decorate it 
 with countless papers, each bearing a Government stamp 
 that the litigant must pay for, reduce the chances of an 
 equitable decision by a half, and you will arrive at a 
 formula that will express the nature of a Spanish law-suit. 
 The initial popularity of the law among those who practise 
 19 
 
290 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 it is undoubtedly due in Spain to the ease with which the 
 examinations for a degree may be passed. The legal degree 
 is easier than any other, and as some university degree is 
 necessary before a man can receive any one of the higher 
 Government appointments that are competitive, the most of 
 those who enter for one of the oposiciones arm themselves 
 with a degree of Doctor of Laws. In Spain stewards, 
 land agents, surveyors, architects, managing directors of 
 companies, financiers, even bull-fighters, are to be found 
 among those who hold the title of doctor en derecho, 
 Spanish lawyers are as fortunate in the matter of official 
 holidays as the rest of their brethren in other countries. 
 The long vacation begins in the middle of July and comes 
 to an end in mid-September, when the Minister of Justice 
 and Grace — this latter term referring to his ecclesiastical 
 office — delivers an eloquent speech in which he tells the 
 story of what he is pleased to regard as legal progress in 
 conjunction with the national regeneration to which he of 
 course devotes his entire life. About the same time the 
 Minister of Education, reopening the session in Madrid 
 University, holds forth in similar strain, and the speeches of 
 these regenerators make excellent reading, until custom 
 has staled their infinite variety. 
 
 In the Congreso or House of Deputies, nearly every 
 other member seems to be a lawyer. Even if he does not 
 practise he will be found to hold the legal degree. So 
 many men regard the doctor en derecho as a stepping-stone 
 to higher things, and such indeed it proves to the most of 
 them. Some of Spain's most distinguished Ministers have 
 been practising barristers, the ex-premier, Seftor Maura, 
 sometime cacique of a Mallorcan village, and one of the 
 most remarkable in Spain to-day, had a splendid practice at 
 the bar when he was summoned to the ministry. On re- 
 
LAW COURTS AND THEIR JURISDICTION 291 
 
 ceiving his appointment, under the terms of which he could 
 no longer practise in the court, Sefior Maura advised his 
 clients to transfer their allegiance to his great political op- 
 ponent, the Republican deputy, Sefior Salmeron, who died 
 recently. After Sefior Maura, Salmeron was perhaps the 
 most eloquent advocate in the country, while as far as legal 
 knowledge was concerned he was indisputably the greatest 
 lawyer in Spain. But in spite of his gifts, it was a little 
 curious to see the leader of the Republican party, an ex-pre- 
 sident of the forgotten Spanish Republic, and the implacable 
 political opponent of Sefior Maura, entrusted with briefs in- 
 tended for the latter. 
 
 There is an Academy of Jurisprudence which delivers 
 lectures, awards prizes, and is in theory an altogether honour- 
 able assembly to which only the law students may aspire. 
 In practice, however, the straight and narrow way is neither 
 straight nor narrow, and if a man with influence or im- 
 pudence, or the two in happy combination, wishes to be- 
 come a member of this or any other Spanish academy, 
 there is really nothing in the way of an effective obstacle 
 to his progress. Certain honours are so easily obtainable 
 in Spain that the term honour threatens to become a mis- 
 nomer. 
 
 Not unnaturally every manner of charge is hurled against 
 the Spanish bench ; every disappointed litigant tells stories 
 of abominable corruption ; every disappointed politician 
 accuses Ministers of using the legal training that so many 
 of them possess for the purpose of evading the spirit of the 
 law, but fair play compels impartial observers to bring in a 
 verdict of " Not Proven ". That law and justice are not 
 synonymous terms in the lower courts, where the cacique is 
 not without his influence upon the judge of the audiencia^ 
 nobody will attempt to deny. That legal decisions are 
 
292 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 sometimes known to be affected by political suggestions is 
 also indisputable, but that justice is corrupt is a conclusion 
 it would be very hard to justify. It is slow, tedious, ex- 
 pensive, and unsatisfactory, but Spain is not the only country 
 to which the same adjectives are applicable. 
 
 There is a little Spanish proverb that bids those who 
 lack bread eat cakes, and it is often used by way of consola- 
 tion to those who suffer from the law's expense or delay. 
 Perhaps it may be repeated here, for when all is said and 
 done every country has the legal system it deserves, and if 
 people would only realize the absurdity of an appeal to the 
 courts, the machinery of jurisdiction would have no choice 
 between simplification and disuse. 
 
u 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ARMS AND THE MAN 
 
 THE Spanish army and the Spanish soldier must claim 
 attention in any study of home life in Spain, for the 
 established order of political conditions owes much to both 
 — they stand between the Castiles and social upheaval. 
 Not only is the loyalty of the army an asset upon which 
 the Ruling House must depend for its continued existence, 
 but there has always been a party or section of a party in 
 high places that fears a really successful general almost as 
 much as it fears the social revolution. General Valeriano 
 Weyler, the strongest and most resolute soldier in his 
 country's service, the Kitchener of Spain, was for some 
 years credited with the power, if he but had the will, to 
 proclaim a military dictatorship. The Government relies 
 upon the army but fears it as well, and consequently when 
 Spain goes to war, the army, no matter who the nominal 
 commander may be, is directed from Madrid, to the great 
 confusion of the campaign. If the full history of the 
 Spanish-American War is ever written, the force of these 
 statements will be understood. The country has many 
 men who combine the sardonic humour that is truly Spanish 
 with the fatalism which has been imported from across the 
 Mediterranean, and the outspoken comments that pass 
 unchallenged upon the origin and conduct of recent cam- 
 paigns afford perhaps the most damning expose of the 
 
 293 
 
294 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Government system that could well be imagined. The re- 
 cent struggle in the Rifif country was associated with printed 
 comment that no paper in England would publish. 
 
 Of the Spanish soldier it is difficult for a civilian to speak 
 justly. In times of peace you notice a rather insignificant 
 soldier, generally one of an undersized, unhealthy, and un- 
 attractive class of man that is the reverse of inspiring. 
 But if you ask any unprejudiced observer who has seen the 
 Spanish soldiers in the field, you will hear them very highly 
 praised for bravery, endurance, good spirits, and other fine 
 qualities. It would seem then that " the piping times of 
 peace " are bad for the Spanish soldier, his life is more or 
 less dissipated, his discipline is lax, his requirements are 
 badly looked after, and his contempt for civilians is an 
 emotion he is at no pains to conceal. But in the field, as 
 the great Napoleon learned to his cost, many Spanish 
 soldiers are heroes, and for the veteran broken in the wars 
 there can be no sentiments save of respect and compassion. 
 For his Fatherland has little use for war's wastage, and 
 hundreds of brave fellows who have served their country 
 have returned to it broken in health and strength to find 
 themselves no better off than the beggars on the highway. 
 There is little reward for the rank and file in Spain, whether 
 they serve in the stricken field or labour at the plough, 
 theirs at best is ^* a broken day of sunshine and of showers, 
 fading to twilight and deep night at last ". 
 
 The Spaniard makes a good fighting man. He is brave. 
 Under fire he is apt to lose his temper, and gain a fury that 
 inspires him to acts of heroism. His enemies cannot boast 
 that they have seen his back. Here again we have the in- 
 stinctive spirit of individuality of the Spaniard^ and the 
 history of Spanish wars, whether civil, local, or national, are 
 a record of the doings of individuals rather than masses. 
 
ARMS AND THE MAN 295 
 
 In guerrilla warfare the Spaniard is, when ably led, a re- 
 doubtable opponent, hot-headed, and even ruthless to the 
 verge of cruelty. The Carlist struggles in the North and 
 the fighting in the Cuban swamps can supply all necessary 
 confirmation here. A check maddens the Spanish soldier ; 
 if left to himself he would as a rule know no defeat. But 
 moral encouragement is necessary for the Spaniard, and in 
 default of this tonic he is easily depressed. 
 
 The organization of the army is notjperfect ; it is doubtless 
 perfect in no land. Yet all things considered, the army is 
 perhaps the best organized of all Spain's Government 
 departments. This in itself is not saying very much, con- 
 sidering that Spanish political rule is a synonym for mal- 
 administration, but the organization of the small army 
 that the King calls his own has at least the rudiments of 
 thoroughness. Down to within a few years ago the 
 relations between the military and political castes were 
 both close and pronounced ; the army and its whole ad- 
 ministration were directly dependent on the Ministry of 
 War which was, and still is, an assembly of politicians who 
 have no practical acquaintance with service in the field. 
 Not only was this bad for the army in times of peace, it 
 was worse in times of war, and the result of a dual control 
 was that the war was generally disastrously led — and hope- 
 lessly lost. The commanding generals could take no step 
 without first consulting the political authorities at home. 
 The Cuban War was lost in this way, the subsequent debacle 
 was due to it. Now the tendency is to remove the army 
 almost completely from the influence of political incompe- 
 tents, and with this object in view, a Superior Central Staff 
 has been created under the direct supervision of the King. 
 The Ministry of War has nothing to do with this Etat 
 Majeur^ although the Minister for War is a member. It is 
 
296 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 hoped by the new arrangements to avoid recurrence in 
 future to political pronunciamientos under military control, 
 and also to enable generals in time of war to carry out 
 their own plans of action without having to be dependent 
 upon the wishes of a number of unthinking, ignorant civilian 
 officials housed in the War Office. 
 
 The life led by the Spanish soldier in times of peace is 
 simple and rustic when compared with that led by those 
 of other nations. Hygienic precautions have practically 
 no place in the barracks, they are as scarce as provisions 
 for the reasonable comfort of the men who serve. But 
 then, and this must not be forgotten, the Spaniard is not 
 degenerate or highly civilized, enough as yet to require 
 all the comforts that are regarded as necessaries with us. 
 If an Iberian boor were transplanted to a northern barracks, 
 say in France or Germany, he would certainly feel ill at 
 ease, he would think he had found luxuries. So we must 
 not be surprised to find that the Spanish soldier is not only 
 reconciled to, but really likes both the general consideration 
 and the fare that, with all due regard to economy, the 
 Spanish authorities mete out to him. Nor is it surprising 
 that after the quinto (recruit) has done five years' service in 
 the army he should not be averse from joining the Guardia 
 Civil or gendarmes, and serve another ten or twenty years 
 in their ranks. His privileges, perquisites, and authority 
 will all suffer change for the better. 
 
 The Guardia Civil is as stalwart and ruthless a body of 
 organized men as is to be found between the north and 
 south poles. Its creation was a stroke of statecraft, its 
 management is an enduring tribute to the responsible parties. 
 The members of this splendidly trained body are not police- 
 men, they are not under the control of a provincial civil 
 governor, but are under the military authorities. Their duty 
 
ARMS AND THE MAN 297 
 
 is to preserve order, and they fulfil their duty ruthlessly. 
 Well mounted, carrying excellent carbines which they know- 
 how to use with the quickness and precision of a Western 
 American, they are the sworn enemies of every disturber of 
 the public peace, and are hated by all who consider that 
 the Government then in power is playing with the rights of 
 men and women. And as all Governments Spain has had 
 within the past thirty years are bent upon so dealing with 
 the governed, it stands to reason that the guardias are 
 cordially hated by the forces which are rightfully or wrong- 
 fully opposed to constituted authority. 
 
 The corps is numerous, and the authorities are not re- 
 nowned for moral or physical bravery in time of crisis. 
 The result is that the guardias are to be seen everywhere 
 with their black, white, and yellow uniform and three-cornered 
 hats ; their resolute action and their ready weapons are easily 
 provoked. No train moves without the pareja (the term 
 applies to a couple of gendarmes, they are never to be seen 
 alone) in attendance. There is no procession without its 
 escort of guardias^ no crowd can ever assemble without 
 /being intimidated by a host of these fierce expressions of a 
 Government's fear of revolution. No bull-fight, no cock- 
 fight, no merienda^ no feria lacks its contingency oi guardias. 
 Spain is, to no small extent, ruled by them ; without them 
 dictators like ex-Premier Maura might well shiver in their 
 shoes and yet be brave men. Physically and personally 
 they are a fine set of fellows — stalwart, sturdy, and brave. 
 As a body they reflect small credit upon any country that 
 boasts of a constitution, and whose King claims to be the 
 ** first citizen, soldier, and farmer in the realm ". 
 
 The organization of the Guardia Civil as well as that of 
 the whole army is naturally centralized in Madrid, and this 
 concentration is perhaps the most powerful weapon with 
 
298 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 which the Government endeavours to combat the region- 
 alism so strong in the Iberian Peninsula. If better results 
 have not been obtained— and no small measure of success 
 has been achieved — it is due to the fact that the members 
 of the army and the Guardia Civil remain regionalists 
 to the end of their days in spite of all endeavours 
 made by the authorities to eradicate the local sentiment. 
 No body of Gallegos, Murcians, Sevillians, and Catalans 
 can possibly be united by a uniform and a set of disciplinary 
 regulations. Until a few years ago different recruiting laws 
 existed in various provinces ; these laws were remnants of 
 the prov'mcisil /ueros to conserve which the Spaniards fought 
 for the greater part of the past century. The Carlist wars 
 were, in fact, the struggle of the Basque Provinces, Navarre, 
 Aragon, and Catalonia for the regional privileges that Don 
 Carlos had sworn to preserve ; the failure of the Pretender 
 to assert his rights to the throne was characterized by the 
 centralization of power in Castile and the unification of 
 Spanish laws. It was the punishment of defeat. To-day, 
 save in the Basque Provinces, the recruiting and other laws 
 are uniform throughout Spain ; while as far as military law in 
 the Basque Provinces is concerned, it provides for the re- 
 cruiting of soldiery as in all other provinces, but the recruits 
 are not obliged to do their military service outside their own 
 province. This significant State tribute to regionalism has 
 been found indispensable. 
 
 The King has as bodyguard the Real Cuerpo de Guardias 
 Alabarderos and a squadron of the Escolta Real. The 
 uniform of the bodyguard on gala occasions is of a creamy 
 white, and in winter the officers wear white capas. 
 
 Spain is divided into sixty-eight military zones and three 
 naval zones, the latter being situate at Cadiz, Ferrol, and 
 Cartagena. Since the American War the Spanish navy 
 
ARMS AND THE MAN 299 
 
 has been unimportant, but the country's reappearance in 
 international politics since the marriage of King Alfonso, 
 has induced the Government to open an important credit 
 for the construction of a fleet to include one or two Dread- 
 noughts. British firms, in conjunction with Spanish ones, 
 are constructing the new navy in the yards of Ferrol and 
 Cartagena. 
 
 Like so many other Spanish laws, universal conscription 
 exists in name only. As a matter of fact, it is only the 
 poorer classes that have to serve, either three or two years 
 in the active and as many again in the reserve. For the 
 rich, should their sons draw a number which obliges them 
 to serve, a substitute can be bought for £60^ but this money 
 does not go to the substitute but into the hands of the 
 Government. The injustice of this procedure is only too 
 apparent, but, although each new Minister of War upon 
 whom depends the regeneration of the country's military 
 organization has a brilliant scheme for the introduction 
 of universal conscription, these schemes all come to an 
 untimely end. 
 
 The Spanish army consists nominally, and on a peace 
 footing, of 100,000 men (1907), and to this number must be 
 added no less than 11,756 ojfficers. The Guardia Civil, 
 though standing as far as organization and discipline are con- 
 cerned, under the Ministry of War, is placed really at the 
 disposal of the Home Secretary. It consists of 20,000 men, 
 and another 15,000 men are represented by the carbineers. 
 But these figures are not accurate, they are written down 
 on paper in the different Government offices. In reality, 
 the number of soldiers falls below the figures given. When 
 harvesting season comes round, for instance, it is doubtful 
 whether many more than half the prescribed number of 
 soldiers are serving under the flag. 
 
300 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Spain is divided into eight Captain-Generalships, each 
 standing for an army corps of two divisions. The seventh 
 and eighth army corps consist each only of one division, so 
 that there are in all only fourteen divisions, to which one 
 cavalry division stationed in Madrid must be added. At 
 the head of each army corps there is a " Captain-General," 
 corresponding to our Lieutenant-General. 
 
 The budgetary strength of a division is 6000 men, v/hich 
 can be increased to 16,000 in time of war. We thus obtain 
 rather less than 90,000 men in time of peace, and on paper 
 the numbers can be raised to 240,000 in time of war. The 
 figures are of course more imposing than reliable. 
 
 A division consists of two infantry brigades, a cavalry 
 regiment, two artillery regiments, and a regiment of pon- 
 toons, etc. 
 
 The infantry brigade contains two regiments to each two 
 battalions ; the cavalry regiment has four squadrons ; the 
 artillery regiment two divisions of three batteries each, each 
 battery consisting of four guns. There are in all Spain 
 552 pieces of artillery (1908). A quick-firing division is 
 being introduced, divided into two sections, each of which 
 carry two Maxim or two Hotchkiss guns. 
 
 To the above must be added three brigades of Chasseurs, 
 each brigade consisting of six battalions. 
 
 In time of peace there are 134 battalions, 58 " cuadros,'' 
 112 squadrons, 84 artillery batteries, and 52 technical com- 
 panies. In time of war these figures are raised to 308 bat- 
 talions, 168 squadrons, 84 batteries, and 70 technical 
 companies. These figures are exclusive of the soldiery 
 stationed on the Balearic and Canary Isles. 
 
 As far as Africa is concerned, the recent war and the new 
 territory acquired by Spain will seemingly induce the 
 Government to introduce reforms in their African fortresses. 
 
ARMS AND THE MAN 301 
 
 Thus we read that the present plan of the Spanish Govern- 
 ment is to increase the troops stationed at Melilla from 
 5000 to 12,000 men, and those at Ceuta from 3000 to 
 10,000 men as permanent garrisons. The North African 
 possessions will, moreover, form a Captain-Generalship of 
 their own, instead of being dependent on the Captain- 
 General of the Campo de Gibraltar. 
 
 The strength of the army in time of peace is to be raised, 
 dating from the coming year. If in the past few years it 
 numbered anything from 80,000 to 100,000 men (or less), it 
 is now to contain 126,000 men, namely : — 
 
 100,000 on the Peninsula. 
 
 4,000 on the Canary and Balearic Isles. 
 
 12,000 in Melilla. 
 
 10,000 in Ceuta. 
 
 126,000 in all. 
 
 An infantry regiment consists in Spain in time of peace 
 of 519 men and 60 officers, and a battalion of about 275 
 men. The amount of superfluous officers is enormous when 
 compared with the strength of the army. They number : 
 52 Colonels, 100 Lieutenant-Colonels, 420 Majors and 231 
 Captains. 
 
 In the field, the Spanish officer, like his men, commands 
 respect. He has individuality and bravery. No doubt there 
 is much to hope for from a Spanish army that is properly 
 equipped and handled independently by the men on the 
 spot. But it is impossible to overlook the frequent break- 
 down of commissariat that hinders a Spanish campaign, the 
 supply of shells that will not explode, clothing that will 
 neither fit nor wear, the absence of necessary stores and 
 equipments, the faulty field hospitals, the lack, in critical 
 hours, of medicines and surgical appliances. The Spaniard 
 
302 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 goes cheerfully enough to war, for he is as brave a man as 
 ever took arms in hand, but he knows his foes are not 
 limited to the men he has to fight against. There are other 
 foes he will never see, the men who draw money for feeding, 
 clothing, tending, and arming him, and who regard a war as 
 some beneficent scheme by which a kindly Providence has 
 elected to fill their capacious pockets. 
 
 Patriotism is a quality that is ill-developed in the mind 
 of the Government contractor, or it is unable to survive the 
 claims made upon him by those but for whose power he 
 would get no contracts. 
 
 Now it is time to take leave of home life in Spain, though 
 the author is profoundly conscious that the subject is by no 
 means exhausted. Only an observant Spaniard could hope 
 to do full justice to such a theme, and the ideal book would 
 be written not by one man but by several, to each of whom 
 the manners, moods, and methods of a certain district would 
 be thoroughly familiar. The Englishman's limited oppor- 
 tunities are an effective bar to finality, the most he may 
 hope to write is a tolerably comprehensive survey that to 
 some extent, however small, shall widen the boundaries of 
 existing knowledge. This at least is not difficult in writing 
 for the English-speaking public, for though Spain is to-day 
 the happy hunting-ground of thousands of British and 
 American tourists, few see more of the national life than is 
 revealed in the streets and places of public assembly. If it 
 should be urged that certain aspects of Spanish life have 
 not been treated quite seriously in the preceding pages, the 
 writer may plead in justification that he has but followed 
 the example of the most of his Spanish friends and acquain- 
 tances, who find in their sense of humour a certain antidote 
 to the pains that a retrograde and selfish Government inflicts, 
 
ARMS AND THE MAN 303 
 
 while as far as love of the country goes, he will not yield 
 to any. To him Spain is the most fascinating country in 
 Europe, and the best type of Spaniard, whether he be of 
 high or low degree, is the most fascinating companion, the 
 truest friend. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abdurrahman's fountain, Cor- 
 doba, 27-8. 
 
 Academia Real Espanola^ the^ 
 284-5. 
 
 Academy of Jurisprudence, 291. 
 
 Actors and actresses, position of, 
 in Spain, go-i. 
 
 Administration, internal, of Spain, 
 246. 
 Centralization of, 247. 
 
 Agitators, manufacture of, 195-6. 
 
 Aguardiente, 159. 
 
 Alcala de Henares, 131 ; bishop- 
 ric of, 77. 
 University, 190, 191, 192, 274. 
 
 Alcalde, the, Moorish prototype of, 
 286. 
 
 Alcoves in bedrooms, 11. 
 
 Alfonso XII, 247; second mar- 
 riage of, and the 
 Church, 47-8. 
 
 Alfonso XIII, 5, 149, 265, 297. 
 Body-guard of, 298 ; escape from 
 French bomb, 81 ; and 
 etiquette, 167 ; interest 
 in yachting, 150 ; visits 
 to England, 5. 
 
 All Saints' Day, associations of, 
 55, 65, 125. 
 
 Altamira, Senor, historian, 191. 
 
 America, war with, 4, 5, 35, 56, 
 91-2, 280, 293. 
 
 Andalusia, characteristics of, i ; 
 dances and songs of, 
 102 ; popular name of, 
 and its origin, 53 ; pro- 
 ductiveness of soilin,24. 
 
 Anti-clericals, on Church wealth, 
 
 79. 
 
 Applause, English and Spanish, 
 
 . 98. 
 
 Apricots of Toledo, 65. 
 Aragon, etc., the, jota in, loi ; 
 
 mountain holidays in, 
 
 152. 
 Arce, Luis de, poem by, 281. 
 Archbishoprics, appointment to. 
 
 Aristocrats, see also Grandees. 
 Education of, 198. 
 Village, 21 1-9. 
 Army, the, of Spain, Ch. xxiii, 
 293 et seq. 
 Conscription for, 299. 
 Commands and forces, distribu- 
 tion of, 300-1. 
 Officers of, 300, 301. 
 Organization, centralization in, 
 293, 295, 297-8, 300, 
 301. 
 Reserve, see Guardia Civil. 
 Soldiers of, 294-5, 296, 297, 30i* 
 Strength of, 299-301. 
 Arroz valenciano, recipe for, 117, 
 
 124. 
 Ayyoz viudOy 1 17-8. 
 Art and Artists, 202-6. 
 Asado (dish), goats' flesh in, 124. 
 Asturias, Prince of, birth of, eti- 
 quette at, 167. 
 Province, bagpipes of, 103. 
 Music in, loi. 
 Ateneos, the, and the Arts, 284. 
 Austro-Spanish matrimonial alli- 
 ance, ecclesiastical 
 effect of, 47-8. 
 Authors in Spain, 273 et seq,; posi- 
 tion of, 282-5. 
 
 20 
 
 305 
 
3o6 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Averrhoes, philosophy of, 190. 
 Azcarrate, professor at Madrid 
 
 University, 192. 
 Azorin, writings of, 280. 
 Azucarillo (cake), the, 165. 
 
 Bachelor travel in Spain, 153. 
 
 Bagpipes, in Spain, 103. 
 
 Balaguer, romanticism of, 281. 
 
 Balearic Isles, troops at, 301. 
 
 Baptism, 48-9. 
 
 '' Barber of Seville, The," 97- 
 
 Barcelona, art in, 202-3 ; and in- 
 dustrial art, 205-6 ; 
 commerce, 204 ; grand 
 opera, 95-7 ; literary 
 position, 274, 275, 279 ; 
 school at, for women 
 bull-fighters, 185. 
 University of, 191-2. 
 
 Baroja, Pio, novelist, 277-8. 
 
 Basque Provinces, Carlism m, 
 loi ; characteristics of, 
 I ; the " Guarnica " in, 
 loi ; literature of, 275 ; 
 military laws in, 298 ; 
 music of, loi. 
 
 Baturro, the, 19. . 
 
 Bazan Sefiora Dona Emilia, lit- 
 erary leader, Basque 
 Provinces, 275, 278. 
 Becquer, romanticism of, 281. 
 Bedrooms and Beds, 10, 11-12. 
 Beef, in Spain, 132. 
 Beer-gardens, 160-1. 
 Benlliure, sculptor, of Valencia, 
 
 275- 
 Bequests to the Church, 80-1. 
 
 Biarritz, 149-5?- ^, „ 
 
 '' Bible in Spain, The, 153- 
 
 Bilbao, 150; commercial centre, 
 
 204; furniture built at, 
 
 205-6. 
 Billiards, 160. 
 
 Birthplace, Spanish attitude to, 3. 
 Biscayan villages, 151. 
 Bishoprics, 77. 
 
 Body-guard of Alfonso XIII, 298. 
 Bolero, dance, 102. 
 Bombita, bull-fighter, 180. 
 
 Borrow, George, 153. 
 Brasero, the, 12. 
 Brigand, last Spanish, 74. 
 British politics, a Spanish view 
 
 of, 262. 
 Britons, Spanish ideas on, 95. 
 Bull-fight dance, 102. 
 Bull-fighters {see also Matadors 
 and Toreadors), Caf6 
 of Cordoba, 28 ; dress, 
 29,181; earnings, 184-5; 
 images of, sold at /ma, 
 138 : superstitions of, 
 58 ; training of, 184-5. 
 Bull-fighting and Bull fights (see 
 also Bulls), 4; aspect 
 of Plaza during, 181, 
 186-7, 196. 
 Cost of, to the country, 184,188, 
 at Feria, 145-6, 212-3. 
 Future of, 187-8. 
 Methods : 
 
 Portuguese, 44-5, 180. 
 Spanish, 182 et seq. 
 Pros and cons of, 43-5. 
 Season opened at Easter, 64. S 
 Students' love of, 196. ■ 
 
 Bull-ring as concert hall, 97. 
 Bulls, farms of, 25, 180 ; breeding 
 and training of, 1S1-2 ; 
 deterioration of breed, 
 188 ; how brought to 
 the ring, 42-3, 163, 182. 
 Bunshop, the, 160. 
 " Burial of the Sardine " custom, 
 Madrid, 62-3. 
 
 Caballero, " Gigantes y Cabezu- 
 dos," folk-song by, 99. 
 Caciques, 86, 221, 247; defined, 
 264; position of, 264-71. 
 Caciquism, Ecclesiastical, 78. 
 Legal, 291. 
 Literary, 283. 
 Political, 78, 264 et seq. 
 Cadet College, Toledo, 198. 
 Cadiz and the navy, 298. 
 Cafes, Ch. xiii, I54 ^^ s%'y 
 regional, 135-6; vill- 
 age, 217-8. 
 
INDEX 
 
 307 
 
 Calderon, dramatist, 39, 94. 
 
 Campoamor, romanticism of, 281. 
 
 Campo del Este, 163. 
 
 Campo de San Fernando, Sevilla, 
 feria in, 70, 72, 75. 
 
 Canalejas, Senor, 5. 
 
 Canary Isles, troops at, 301. 
 
 Canovas del Castillo, Senor, and 
 the Pacto del Pardo, 
 265. 
 
 Carbonero, portrait painter, 204. 
 
 Carlism, 266 ; and the Church, 88. 
 
 Carlist wars, 88, 295, 298. 
 
 Carlos, Don, failure of, and its 
 results, 298 ; and the 
 Pacto del Pardo, 265-6. 
 
 " Carmen '* (opera), 37-8 ; Spanish 
 attitude to, 96. 
 
 Carmen, Virgin of, royal gifts to, 
 81. 
 
 Carmona, dancers of, 102-3. 
 
 Carnival, the, 62. 
 
 Cartagena and the navy, 298, 299. 
 
 Casa seiiorial, of Doquiera, 21 1-2. 
 
 Castelar, Senor, Professorial as- 
 pect of, 192-3. 
 
 Castile, characteristics of, i, 2, 
 36 ; industries of, 123, 
 206. 
 
 Catalonia, Catalan characteris- 
 tics, I, 2, 36. 
 Commercial development in, 
 
 outcome of, 169. 
 Future of, 169-70. 
 Literary revival in, 48 ; regional- 
 ism of, 274-5. 
 Separatism in, 169. 
 
 '^Catedral, La," by Ibafiez, re- 
 volutionary novel, 278. 
 
 Cavia, Mariano de, journalist, 282. 
 
 Cedula personal, the, tax, 248-9. 
 
 Cemeteries, 56, 163. 
 
 Central Spain, characteristics of, 
 2. 
 
 Centralization, 247, 259 ; aim of, 
 298. 
 of Military control, 293, 295, 
 297-8. 
 
 Cervantes, books by, 170 ; literary 
 influence of, 278 ; pen- 
 
 portraiture of, 281 ; and 
 Spanish chivalry, 170. 
 
 Ceuta, penal settlement at, 287 ; 
 troops at, 301. 
 
 Charles V, on Cordoba Cathedral, 
 28. 
 
 Chauffeurs, 18, 19. 
 
 Cheese, 131. 
 
 Children, characteristics of, 50. 
 Parental treatment of, 16-18, 
 
 44, 66, 136, 233. 
 Toys of, 66. 
 
 Chocolate, national beverage of 
 Spain, 133. 
 
 Christmas Eve and Christmas 
 Day, gifts and observ- 
 ances at, 65-8, 233. 
 
 Church, the, in Spain, Chs. v-vii, 
 46 et seq. 
 Court support, 80-1, 87-9. 
 Education and, 87. 
 Festivals of, Ch. vi, 61 ; great, 
 62, 65 ; provincial, 65. 
 Hierarchy of, Ch. vii, 76 et seq. 
 Influence of, from cradle to 
 grave, 48 et seq., 272. 
 Possessions and wealth of, 79 ; 
 sources of these, 80-2 ; 
 unproductiveness of,83. 
 
 Church and State, unison of, re- 
 sults, 61-2, 265-6. 
 
 ChurroSy or buhuelos, 133. 
 
 Cicadas, caged, for sale, 28. 
 
 Cigarrera, the, and Carmen, 38. 
 
 Cigars, Spanish, poor quality of, 
 217. 
 
 Circulos de Bellas Artes, 203, 284. 
 
 Cisneros, Cardinal, work of, at 
 Alcala, 190. 
 
 Cities, archiepiscopal, 76-7. 
 
 of Saints, honours paid to, and 
 feria of, 137 et seq. 
 
 Civil courts, 286-7. 
 
 Clarin, writings of, 280. 
 
 Class prejudice of grandees, 168. 
 
 Classes, varying temperament of, 
 
 36. 
 Climate and health, 12. 
 and Industry, 36-7. 
 and Political problems, 206-7. 
 
3o8 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Clubs and Club life, 135-6 ; of 
 
 students, 196. 
 Cock-fighting, 4 ; at feria^ 143-5 ; 
 
 at Sevilla, 37. 
 Codes of Justice, 289. 
 Cogida, explained, 58. 
 Colours, dominant, in Spain, 139. 
 Comedy, in Spain, 104. 
 Commercialism, rise of, 48. 
 Concessions, Spain a land of, 207, 
 
 228-9. 
 Confession, 51, 59, 81-2. 
 Confessors, private_, 81-2 ; Jesuits 
 
 as, 59, 82. 
 Confirmation, 51, 63. 
 Congreso, lawyers in^ 290. 
 Conscription, universal, in Spain, 
 
 299. 
 
 Constitution, the, of Spain, 255. 
 
 ConsufnoSy food tax, or octroi, 113. 
 
 Consumption, Spanish freedom 
 from, 124. 
 
 Cooking and Cookery, 7, 14, 49 ; 
 regionalism in, 106 et 
 seq, ; a typical meal, 
 41-2. 
 
 Copa, the (brazier), 37. 
 
 Copper kitchen utensils, Spanish 
 pride in, 13, 113-4, 
 
 Cordoba, Cathedral of, 28 ; char- 
 acteristics of, 27 et seq. ; 
 leather industry of, 206. 
 
 Corpus Christi feast, at Toledo, 65. 
 
 Corrida de gallos, in a village, 
 213-4. 
 
 Cortes, the (Parliament), de- 
 puties in, 255. 
 Elections to, 255-6, 258. 
 Members unpaid, 254. 
 Senators, 254, 256. 
 
 Court of Oranges, Cordoba, 27, 
 28. 
 
 Court, the. Church influence on, 
 and support by, 80-1, 
 
 87-9. 
 Etiquette in, 166-7. 
 Jesuit influence in, 48^ 59. 
 Courtesy, Spanish, 4, 176, 178-9. 
 Courts of Justice, varieties of, 
 286-7. 
 
 Credit, non-existent in Spain, 
 
 133- 
 
 Criminal courts, 287. 
 
 Cross, sign of, 52, 58. 
 
 Crosses, wayside, France and 
 Italy, 53. 
 
 Cruelty to animals, 28, 40, iii, 
 145, 188, 213, 214, 233. 
 
 Cuban revolt, 35, 295. 
 
 "Cuentos Morales," by Cer- 
 vantes, 170. 
 
 Culinary vessels, 13, 113-4. 
 
 Cursis, summer holidays of, 147. 
 
 Customs dues, 250-2. 
 
 Dances and Dancing, 3, 8, 9, 34, 
 
 41, 72, 102 ; national 
 
 skill in and love of, 8, 
 
 9, 97, 196 ; regionalism 
 
 in, 99. 
 Death and burial, 53-6. 
 Democratic spirit in Spain, 15, 
 
 167. 
 Deputies, 255. 
 Dialects, 274-5. 
 
 Dicenta^ Joaquin, journalist, 282. 
 Dishes, Spanish, special, 41-2 ; 
 
 details of, 1 16-21. 
 Dolores, day of, 65. 
 *^ Don Quixote," passim. 
 Doquiera, typical village, life in 
 
 and near, 208 et seq., 
 
 223 et seq. 
 " Don Giovanni," 97, 104. 
 " Don Juan Tenorio,'' play, by 
 
 Zorilla, 104. 
 Dos de Mayo festival, 64-5, 89. 
 Drama, romantic, 104. 
 Dramatists, see Calderon, Quin- 
 
 teros, the, Vega, etc. 
 Dress, national and occupational, 
 
 23, 29, 64, 181, 289. 
 Drinks, national, 133, 164-5. 
 
 Easter in Spain, 63, 64 ; at Se- 
 villa, 71-2 ; the Seises 
 dance, 34. 
 
 Eastern Spain, characteristics of, 
 I, 2, 191, 206, 274, 
 275-6. 
 
INDEX 
 
 309 
 
 aray, writer, 273, 280. 
 e, an, priests' use of, 84-5. 
 tion versus the Church, 87. 
 steel industry of, 206. 
 eco, 161 ; admired by art 
 
 students^ 202. 
 Dns, to Cortes, 255-6, 258. 
 icipal, etc., 257-8. 
 w, the, 42-3, 163, 182. 
 h ignorance of Spanish life 
 
 and thought, 3-4, 33, 
 
 41. 
 la, the, in Spanish theatres, 
 
 92-3- 
 OS NacionaleSy by Galdos, 
 
 280. 
 al, the, 13, 56, 161. 
 ^ Real, the, 298. 
 ero, matador, 36, 180 ; fate 
 
 of, 186. 
 s, landed, large size of, 82 ; 
 
 undeveloped, 168-9. 
 f or carpets, lo-ii. 
 tte, Ch. XIV, 166 et seq, 
 ye, the, 19, 58. 
 
 IG, 63. 
 
 >m of Spaniards, 262, 278, 
 
 293- . 
 's and Children, 66, 136. 
 the, Ch. XI, 137 et seq, ; in 
 
 a village, 213-4. 
 , Senor, fate of, 61. 
 , and the navy, 298, 299. 
 als of the Church, 61 et seq, 
 3 pig-food, 229-30. 
 varieties of, 132-3. 
 g, in Galician rias, 152. 
 of private houses, lo-ii. 
 and Fauna, 25, 31, 40, 65, 
 
 210. 
 , the, of Students, 199-200. 
 r girls, iio-ii. 
 irs, 164 ; cry of, 165. 
 ongs and dances, 7, 102, 
 
 103-4. 
 the, features of, 154. 
 prices of, 109 ; taxes of, 113, 
 
 252-3- 
 -mothers, 15-17. 
 
 France, Law of Association in, 47, 
 Fruit, in Spanish markets, 11 1-2. 
 Funerals, 55. 
 
 Galdos, Perez, writer, 148, 273, 
 280. 
 
 Galicia, dialect in, 275. 
 Music in, loi, 103. 
 Rias of, 151, 152. 
 
 Gallegada, of Galicia, loi. 
 
 Galleries of houses, 10. 
 
 Game in Spain, 151. 
 
 Games, 159, 160, 161, 218-9. 
 
 Ganadero, the, or bull-farmer, 25, 
 181. 
 
 Garlic soup, 130-1. 
 
 Gazpacho, 116 ; recipe for, 120. 
 
 German influence in Spain, 160-1. 
 
 Gibraltar, Campo de, Spanish 
 military command, 301. 
 
 "Gigantes y Cabezudos," folk- 
 song, by Caballero, 99. 
 
 Gipsies, position of, and charac- 
 teristics, 9, 73, 140. 
 Sevillan quarter, inhabited by, 
 
 35, 72, 73- 
 Giralda Tower, Sevilla, 36, 70. 
 Girls, love-making days and ways, 
 
 10, 170-1. 
 Goats and Goats' flesh, 123, 124, 
 177. 
 
 Milk, uses of, 123-4. 
 Good Friday observance, 63, 64. 
 G6ngora, 281. 
 
 Governesses, English, in Spain, 18. 
 Government, the, of Spain : — 
 
 Basis of, 255. 
 
 Characteristics, 302. 
 
 Cortes, see that head. 
 
 Posts under, competition for, 
 
 195- 
 Spanish attitude to, 262. 
 
 Goya, pictures by, 20, 63, 70, 152 ; 
 the Dos de Mayo com- 
 memorated by, 64, 89 ; 
 Spanish types pre- 
 served by, 100. 
 
 Granada, Gipsy head-quarters, 9. 
 Patio de los Leones in, 161. 
 
 Granadinos dance, the, 102. 
 
310 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Grandees, characteristics of, 
 167-8 ; confessors of, 
 81-2 ; feria hospitality 
 of, at Sevilla, 75 ; love 
 of etiquette of, 166-7 ; 
 titles of, 175. 
 
 Grand opera in Spain, 95-7. 
 
 " Gran Galeote," by Echegaray, 
 280. 
 
 Granja, La, 150. 
 
 ** Gran Via, La," play, 98. 
 
 Graves, visits to, on All Saints' 
 Day, 55-6, 65. 
 
 Great Britain and Spain, political 
 relations between, 4, 5. 
 
 Guadalajara, honey of, 131. 
 
 Guadalquivir, meaning of, 27. 
 
 Guadelupe, Monastery of, Zur- 
 baran pictures at, story 
 of, 57-8. 
 
 Guaderrama, wind from, risks 
 from^ 13. 
 
 Guardia Civil, the, 21, 57, 87, 
 211 ; administration 
 of, 299 ; organization 
 and functions, etc., 
 of, 296-8; strength of, 
 
 299. 
 Guarda monies^ the, 227-9. 
 " Guarnica," sacred tree of the 
 
 Basques, loi. 
 Guerra, Rafael (Guerrita), famous 
 
 bull-fighter, 29, 36, 180; 
 
 income earned by, 184. 
 Guimera, Catalan poet, *^ Terra 
 
 Baixa" by, 274. 
 Guiso, goats' flesh in, 124. 
 Guitarrero, the, 41-2. 
 Guzman family of Doquiera, 
 
 212-3, 319, 234. 
 
 Hamlets, self-government of, 257. 
 
 Hams, Spanish, 129 ; given at 
 Christmas, 67. 
 
 Hat-trick, new version of, 252. 
 
 Hierarchy of the Church, Ch. vii, 
 76 et seq. 
 Popular with the masses, 79. 
 
 Hippodrome, Madrid, Art exhibi- 
 tion at, 203. 
 
 Holidays, summer, in Spain, 
 Ch. XII, 147 et seq. 
 Regionalism in, 149. 
 Holy Week, 63-4, in Sevilla, 69-75. 
 Home, the, Church influences in 
 and on, 49, 59. 
 Men's love for, 136. 
 Traditions, customs, etc., in, 6. 
 in Villages, 220-1. 
 Honey, of Guadalajara, 131. 
 Horse - thieves, and dealers, 
 
 gipsies as, 9, 73, 140. 
 Hospitality, Spanish, 176 et seq, ; 
 Moorish influence seen 
 in, 176. 
 Hotels (see also Inns), in Sevilla, 
 
 33- 
 Housekeepers and their methods, 
 
 14, 108 et seq. 
 Houses, architecture and plan 
 
 of, 6 et seq, ; internal 
 
 arrangements of, 8, 
 
 10-13. 
 Huerta, a typical, 225 et seq. 
 Humour, characteristic, of the 
 
 Spaniard, 83, 104, 277, 
 
 ^78, 293, 302. 
 Husbands, characteristics of, in 
 
 Spain, 136, 214. 
 
 Iba^ez, Blanco, Valencian novel- 
 ist, 275, 277-8. 
 
 Ibsen drama, the, in Spain, 95. 
 
 Ilustre Fregona, by Cervantes, 
 156. 
 
 Images of Saints (and bull- 
 fighters) sold at feria, 
 
 138. 
 
 " Imparcial," the, de Cavia's 
 cronicas in, 282. 
 
 Industrial arts, advance in, 205-6. 
 
 Infant mortality, 15, 17, 18, 224. 
 
 Inns, wayside, 29-30. 
 
 Inquisition, the, at Sevilla, 33. 
 
 Intelectuales, and Ibsen's plays, 95 ; 
 and Spanish cookery, 
 201. 
 
 Jesuits, the, in Spain, 88. 
 Founder's village, 100. 
 
INDEX 
 
 311 
 
 Jesuits (contd,)^ influence of, in 
 
 Court, Cabinet, and 
 
 Community, 48, 59, 60. 
 
 Vicario General of, 77 ; and his 
 
 power, 82. 
 
 Jewels in Churches, 80-1. 
 
 Jota, dance, g, loi, 102. 
 
 Journalists, Spanish, 282. 
 
 Judges, 286 et seq. ; salaries of, 
 288-9. 
 
 Juez municipal, parallels to^ and 
 functions of, 206. 
 
 Junta, hamlet local authority, 257. 
 
 jurisprudence, Academy of, 291. 
 
 Justice in Spanish law courts^ 
 291-2. 
 
 Justices of the Peace, 286, 289. 
 
 Juzgado municipal, the, 286. 
 
 Kids, skin and flesh of, uses of, 
 
 123, 177. 
 King of the Gipsies, home of, 9. 
 » Kindness to Children, Spanish 
 characteristic, 18, 66, 
 
 136, 233. 
 Kitchen, the, in Spain, Ch. x, 
 106 et seq, ; equipment 
 of, 13, 1 13-4- 
 
 Lagarto I cry of, import of, 
 
 58. 
 
 Landed estates, size of, 82 ; de- 
 velopment of, grandee 
 obstruction of, 168-9. 
 
 Landless men, in Spain, live stock 
 of, 224. 
 
 Landowners, peasants as, 223-4 
 et seq. 
 
 La Mancha, associations of, 119 ; 
 goat rearing in, 123. 
 
 Latifundio, definition of, risks 
 from, 82, 83, 89. 
 
 Law, study and practice of, pop- 
 ularity of, in Spain, 
 289-90. 
 
 Law of Associations, Spanish 
 failure to enforce, 47. 
 
 Law Courts, Spanish, and their 
 jurisdiction, Ch. xxii, 
 286 et seq. 
 
 Law-suits in Spain, 289. 
 
 Lawyers, multiplicity of, in Spain, 
 290. 
 
 Leather industry, 206. 
 
 Legal degree, easily obtainable, 
 290. 
 
 Lent, observances connected 
 with, 62-3. 
 
 Liberalism, rise of, 48. 
 
 ** Lidia, La," bull-fighters' paper, 
 32. 
 
 Literature in Spain, present day 
 renaissance of, 273 et 
 seq. 
 
 Lovers and their ways in Spain, 
 10, 170-1. 
 
 Lotteries {see also Government 
 posts), 196, 197, 236 et 
 seq., 249-50. 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius, 100. 
 
 ** Lucha, La," by Baroja, revolu- 
 tionary novel, 278. 
 
 Lung affections, winter winds in- 
 ducing, 12, 13. 
 
 Madrid, art at (modern), 202-3. 
 Ateneo of, 284. 
 Carnival at, 62. 
 Cemetery at, 56. 
 Centre of administration, civil 
 and military, 76, 246, 
 247, 292, 295, 297-8. 
 Cost of living at, 198-9. 
 Defects of, 13. 
 Dos de Mayo festival connected 
 
 with, 64-5, 89. 
 Grand opera at, 95-7. 
 Literary position of, 274. <wi 
 
 Picture exhibition at, 203. 
 Plain, round, depopulation of, 
 
 206. 
 Political capital, 76. 
 Prisons at, model, 287. 
 University, 191, 192. 
 
 characteristics of, 192-3. 
 medical education at, 193. 
 Magistrates, 286, 289. 
 Mail trains, 25. 
 
 Malaga, grape harvest at, 39 ; 
 holidays in, 152. 
 
312 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Manners, Spanish, excellence of, 
 
 176. 
 Mantilla, the, occasions of wear- 
 ing, 64, 173. 
 Manufacturing districts, priests 
 
 difficulties in, 86. 
 Maria Christina, Queen Dowager, 
 
 47-8 ; and the Church, 
 
 81. 
 '* Mariucha," play by Galdos, 148. 
 Markets and marketing, 108-9, 
 
 112-3. 
 Marriage, civil and ecclesiastical, 
 
 51-2. 
 Customs and etiquette of, 168, 
 
 170-4. 
 Regionalism in, 106-7, i?^' 
 Masses for the dead, 55. 
 
 Novenas and special, 56. 
 M2Li3idors (see also Bull-fighters and 
 
 under Names), famous, 
 
 180, 186 ; costume of, 
 
 181, 186 ; earnings and 
 training of, 184-5. 
 
 Maura, Senor, 60, 256 ; and the 
 
 Church, 86-7 ; and the 
 
 Guardia Civil, 297 ; 
 
 legal success of, 290-1 ; 
 
 and literature, 283. 
 Mayors, appointment of, 258. 
 Mazzantini, D. Luis, matador, 
 
 after-career of, 180 ; 
 
 income of, as matador, 
 
 184. 
 Meal, Spanish, typical, 41-2. 
 Meat-balls^ 131-2. 
 Melilla, penal settlement at, 287 ; 
 
 troops at, 301. 
 Melons, custom concerning, 112. 
 Merienda, the, mid-day meal, and 
 
 picnic, 120, 121, 177. 
 Military administration, see Army. 
 Districts and zones, 258, 298-9. 
 Montjuich, 190. 
 Monuments, sculptural, cultus for, 
 
 56-7. 
 Moorish architecture in Spain, 
 domestic, 6, 11. 
 Equestrianism, a parallel to, 
 250. 
 
 Moorish influences traceable in 
 Spain {see also Fatal- 
 ism), 6, II, 17, 27, 40, 
 41, loi, 165, 176 etseq,f 
 262, 278, 286, 293. 
 
 Moors, the, victories over, bishop- 
 rics in memory of, 77. 
 
 Morals of youths, 51. 
 
 Morocco, caravansarai of, and 
 
 Spanish fonda, 154 ; 
 
 saints' shrines in, 137. 
 
 Spanish, prisoners in, 287, 288. 
 
 Morote, Luis, journalist, 282. 
 
 Mostoles, Alcalde of, 3, 211. 
 
 Mothers and Children, 16, 17, 18. 
 
 Motors and roads, 18, 19. 
 
 Mountain holidays, in Aragon 
 and Navarre, 152. 
 
 Municipal self-government, 257, 
 258-9. 
 
 Music, Spanish love of, 97 ; of 
 Zarzuela, 99; regional- 
 ism in, 100. 
 
 Murcia, Vera, the Burns of, 
 281. 
 
 Murillo, Bartolommeo Esteban, 
 genius of, 34 ; paint- 
 ing attributed to, and 
 actually by, 31 ; por- 
 traiture by, 281 ; 
 sneered at, by stu- 
 dents, 202. 
 
 Name-days, 15, 177-8. 
 
 Names, Christian, restriction on 
 
 choice of, 49. 
 Napoleon I, 89 ; and the Alcalde 
 
 of Mostoles, 3, 211. 
 National airs, 7, 99. 
 Dishes, 107, 130-4. 
 Drinks, 159, 164. 
 Navarre, Carlism in, loi ; moun- 
 tain holidays in, 152. 
 Navy, Spanish, abuses in, Silvela's 
 action, 267. 
 Ships in building for, 299. 
 Zones of, 298. 
 NavidadeSj described, 66. 
 New Year observances, 62. 
 Nicknames, 176. 
 
INDEX 
 
 313 
 
 Nobles {see also Grandees), in 
 poverty, 148. 
 
 Noria, the, 6. 
 
 North Africa, Spanish military ar- 
 rangements for, 300-1 ; 
 penal settlements and 
 prisons in, 287-8. 
 
 Northern Spain, characteristics 
 of, 100. 
 Death and its concomitants in, 
 
 53-5. 
 Industrial arts in, 206. 
 Patio, the, in, 7, 8. 
 Priests in, rural, 83-5. 
 Novels, modern Spanish, Charles 
 
 Rudy on, 276. 
 NovillaSy corrida de^ Sitferia, 145. 
 
 Oil, in cookery, 114-5, 122, 163. 
 Olive culture, peasant, 225-6. 
 Olla podrida, national dish, 
 Northern Spain, 116^ 
 
 Oviedo University, 191. 
 
 Pacto del Pardo, the, 265-6. 
 
 Pageantry in Spain, 68. 
 
 Painters (see also Names), past, 
 202 ; and present, 204. 
 
 Palm Sunday ceremonies, 63. 
 
 F 3implon a., feria of, 138. 
 
 Pantheon, the, of Spain, 56. 
 
 Parties in Spain, 254, 255-6, 262, 
 265, 266, 271, 272. 
 
 Pastry and Pastry-cooks, excel- 
 lence of, 49, 114, 116, 
 161, 178. 
 
 *' Patio, El," play by the brothers 
 Quintero, 8. 
 
 Patio, the, and its uses, 6-9. 
 
 Patriotism, local, intensity of, 
 
 53- 
 
 Peasant landowners and cultiva- 
 tion, 223-4, 224 et seq. 
 
 Pedrell, '' Los Pirineos "(trilogy) 
 
 by, 96. 
 " Peerage, members of, as distinct 
 from titled persons,27i. 
 
 Pelota, game of, 218-9. 
 
 Pensions, 253-4. 
 
 ^* Pepita Jimenez," by Valera, a 
 
 classic, 281. 
 Pepper trees, 210. 
 Pereda, Jose Maria, v^ritings of, 
 
 278, 281. 
 '' Perro Chico, El," play, 100. 
 Philip II and the Escorial, 13, 
 Picture-restoring, Spanish love 
 
 of, 204-5. 
 Picture shows, 203. 
 Pictures, holy, in private houses, 
 
 Pic6n, Jacinto Octavio, writings 
 of, 278. 
 
 Pigs, rearing, killing, and uses of, 
 25, 123, 124-5, 228, 
 229-30; Charles Rudy 
 on, 126 et seq. 
 
 Pilar church, Saragossa, jewels 
 of the Virgin at, 81. 
 
 *' Pirineos, Los," trilogy by Ped- 
 rell, 96. 
 
 Pisto, 116 ; how made, 119-20. 
 
 Plays, see also Theatre, and under 
 Titles. 
 Applause, and criticism at, 
 
 98-9, 197. 
 Classes of, 92, 105. 
 Production and mounting of, 
 
 93-4- 
 Plaza, or Campo San Fernando, 
 
 Seviila, in feria-time, 
 
 35; in war-time, 35, 
 
 36. 
 
 Plaza de Toros (see also Bull- 
 fights, etc.), Ch= XV, 
 180 et seq. 
 
 Plaza, the, of a village, 210. 
 
 Poetry, modern Spanish, 274, 281. 
 
 Politeness {see also Courtesy), 
 176 ; formulae of, 178-9. 
 
 Political control of, and depend- 
 ence on, the army in 
 Spain, 293, 295-6. 
 
 Politics, Spanish, Ch. xxi, 261 
 et seq. 
 
 Poor, the, hospitality shown by, 
 in Spain, 179. 
 
 Portraiture, strength in, of Spani- 
 ards, 204, 280-1. 
 
314 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Portugal, Bull-fighting in, 44-5, 
 
 180. 
 Law of Associations enforced 
 
 in, 47. 
 Portugalete, 147, 150. 
 Posada^ the, 155-7. 
 Postal service in Spain, ^54-5. 
 Pole gallegOy 116, 119; recipe for, 
 
 118. 
 Poultry market, the, cruelty in, 
 
 III. 
 Pradilla, portrait painter, 204. 
 Priests, parish, two types of, 77-8. 
 
 Rural, 83-6, 152, 212. 
 Prisons in Spain and in Morocco, 
 
 287, 288. 
 Processions of the Church, 60, 
 
 61-2, 68 et seq, ; rural, 
 
 233-5. 
 
 Professors at Universities, 194, 
 196. 
 
 Proven9al language, used in 
 Catalonia and Valen- 
 cia, 275; consequences, 
 276. 
 
 Provinces, 258 ; number and re- 
 spective size of, 259 ; 
 self-government of, 
 
 257-9. 
 Puchero, recipe for, 116-7. 
 Punishments^ legal, 287. 
 
 QuEVEDO, writer, irony of, 282; 
 pen-portraiture of, 281. 
 Quintero, brothers, play by, 8. 
 
 Railways, railway officials and 
 journeys by rail, 19, 
 20 et seq,, 139-40. 
 
 Ramo santo, popular idea as to, 63. 
 
 Real Cuerpo de Guardias Alabar- 
 deros, 298. 
 
 Regionalism, instances of, 1-3, 47, 
 53. 64-5, 98, 99, 106-21, 
 135-6, 149, i52-3» 162-3, 
 172-3, 210-11, 221, 258- 
 9, 273, 274, 276, 277. 
 Centralization against, 297-8. 
 Exceptions and limits to, 94, 
 104, 165. 
 
 RejUy the, 10, 21 1-2. 
 
 Religion, interwoven with history 
 and life, in Spain, 46-7. 
 
 Renaissance, in Spain of learn- 
 ing? 283 ; of literature, 
 
 273. 
 Representation of the people in 
 
 the Cortes, 255-6. 
 Republic, Spanish, effect on the 
 
 Church, 78, 80 ; fall of, 
 
 192. 
 Republicanism, 266 ; aspirations 
 
 of, 206-7 ; exponents in 
 
 the Cortes, 256. 
 Restaurants, Ch. xiii, 154 et seq,y 
 
 162 et seq. 
 Reverte, bull-fighter, 180 ; wealth 
 
 accrued by, 184. 
 Reyes, Arturo, writings of, 278. 
 Rias, the, of Galicia, 151, 152. 
 Riff war, 280 ; Spanish comments 
 
 on, 294. 
 Rios, Senor Montero, 270. 
 Roads, badness of, 19. 
 Rooms, private, coolness of, 11. 
 Royal family, honorific addresses 
 
 in, 175-6. 
 Rudy, Charles, on literature in 
 
 Spain, 276 et seq, 
 on Pigs and their uses, 126 et 
 
 seq, 
 Rueda, Salvador, poet, 281. 
 Rusinol, Santiago, leading light 
 
 in modern Catalonia, 
 
 274. 
 
 Sagasta, Senor, 266 ; and the 
 Church, 80 ; and the 
 Pacto del Pardo, 265. 
 
 Sainetes (plays), nature of, 105. 
 
 St. Telmo, grounds of, 35. 
 
 SS. Justina and Rustina, of Se- 
 villa, 71. 
 
 Saints in Morocco, shrines of, 137. 
 in Spain, number of, 136-7. 
 
 Salamanca University, past and 
 present, 190-1, 192, 274. 
 
 Salisbury, late Marquis of, on size 
 of private estates in 
 Spain, 82. 
 
INDEX 
 
 31S 
 
 Salmeron, Professor, 192, 291 ; 
 and Church posses- 
 sions, 79. 
 
 Sancho Panza, modern parallels 
 to, 14. 
 
 San Perm in, feria of, 138. 
 
 San Lorenzo, day of, 65. 
 
 San Lorenzo cemetery, Madrid,56. 
 
 San Sebastian (watering - place), 
 
 147? i49» 150. 
 Santiago de Compostela, patron 
 
 Saint of Spain, 137 ; 
 
 day of, 65. 
 University of, 193. 
 Saragossa, Church jewels at, 81 ; 
 
 University of, 193. 
 Sarasate, and the feria of Pamp- 
 lona, 138. 
 School and schoolmaster, in a 
 
 village, 215-6. 
 Sculpture, Spanish, 205. 
 Seises, dance of the, 34-5. 
 Senators, 254, 256. 
 Separatist yearnings of Eastern 
 
 Spain, 206-7, 275-6. 
 Serene (watchman), town, 30-1 ; 
 
 village, 231. 
 Servants and employers, 7, 13-17, 
 
 134- 
 Sevilla, Cathedral of, 33, 173 ; 
 dances in, 34-5 ; ver- 
 gers of, 34. 
 Characteristics of, 27-9, 32 et seq. 
 Climate at, 37, 75. 
 Cock-pit at, 145. 
 Famous jewel at, 81. 
 Gipsy quarter of, 35. 
 Holy Week at, 69-75. 
 Inquisition at, 33. 
 Matadors of, 180-1. 
 Railway routes to, 24-5. 
 Tobacco factory at, 37 ; em- 
 ployees of, 38. 
 University of, 198. 
 Walks at, 35. 
 Sevillana, dance, 9, 102. 
 Shakespeare, plays of, in Spain, 95. 
 Short story, the, in Spain, 279-80. 
 Sociedad de Autores, control by, 
 of Spanish stage, 282-3. 
 
 Soldiers, Spanish, 35-6 ; Ch. xxiii,. 
 
 293 et seq, 
 Sorolla, painter, 204, 275. 
 Southern Spain, characteristics, 
 of, I, 22. 
 Murillo's models found in, 34. 
 Patios in, 8. 
 Rural priests in, 84-5. 
 Sierpes (street), Sevilla, 32, 33. 
 Sierra de Gredos, goat-pastures: 
 
 on, 123. 
 Sierra Morena, 27. 
 Silvela, Senor, 266 ; and the Navy, 
 267 ; and the Pacto 
 del Pardo, 265. 
 Sinecures, 253. 
 
 Spain, see Northern, Southern, etc^. 
 see also Provinces, and 
 Regionalism. 
 Constitution of, 255. 
 Fascination of, 5, 303. 
 Government of, 195, 262, 302. 
 Spanish characteristics {see also^ 
 Cruelty to Animals, 
 Fatalism, Humour,. 
 Kindness to Children, 
 etc), 14, 15, 66, 91, 97, 
 100, 104, 134, 136, 140, 
 141, 145, 158-9, 166, 
 167, 170-1, 176, 178-9, 
 224, 262, 278, 293, 294,. 
 295, 301, 302. 
 Ideas about Britons, 4. 
 Sponsors at weddings, 172-3. 
 Stage, the, in Spain, 39, 90 et 
 
 seq., 283. 
 Stamps, see Taxation. 
 State Control of Spanish Universi- 
 ties, effects of, 192, 194. 
 Lotteries in Spain,237,242,243-4.^ 
 Steel industry, decay of, 206. 
 Stoves, kitchen, 13, 14. 
 Street-cries, 58, 165, 231-2. 
 Students, Ch. xvi, 189 et seq, 
 of Art, 201-3. 
 
 Characteristics, 189, 196 et seq, 
 of Law, 289. 
 
 Life of, learning, results, 195-6 ;, 
 lighter side of, 196 
 et seq. 
 
:3i6 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN 
 
 Studio, The, influence of, in Spain, 
 
 205. 
 Superstition, instances of, 17, 19, 
 
 47, 57. 241- 
 ^' Sursum Corda," poem by de 
 
 Arce, 281. 
 Sweetmeats, local, 131, 141. 
 
 Taberna, the, 159, 215. 
 Table setting and utensils, 120. 
 Tancredo, Don, bravado of, 187. 
 Tango dance, 102. 
 Taxation and Taxes, i, 2, 91-2, 
 113, 193-4, 195, 206, 
 247, 250-2, 253- 
 Teatro Espanol, the, 94. 
 Teatro Lirico, Madrid, 96. 
 '* Terra Baixa," poem in Catalan, 
 
 by Guimera, 274. 
 Theatre, the, in Spain, Ch. vni, 
 
 90 et seq., 197. 
 Titles, easily obtained, 271. 
 
 honorifics, etc., etiquette of, 
 174-6. 
 Tobacco-growing, illicit, 227. 
 Tobacconists, widows as, 217. 
 Toledo, apricots of, 65. 
 
 Cadet College at, 198. 
 
 Cardinal Archbishop of, 76. 
 
 Cervantes at, 156. 
 
 Church jewels at, 81. 
 
 Corpus Christi festival at, 85. 
 
 Ecclesiastical headquarters at, 
 
 76. 
 
 Steel industry gone from, 206. 
 Torero, funeral of, 55. 
 Tortillas, how made, 130. 
 Tower, the, of Gold, Sevilla, 35. 
 Town-hall, village, 210-11. 
 Toys, 66_, 138-9. 
 Tradesmen and Customers^ 108-9, 
 
 134-5. 
 Trains and railway travel, 19, 20 
 
 et seq,, 139-40. 
 Tree, sacred, Basque Provinces, 
 
 lOI. 
 
 Tren botijo, 74. 
 
 Triana, the, at Sevilla, 35, 72. 
 
 Tribunal Supremo, the, 287^ 288. 
 
 Trigo, Senor, literary school 
 
 formed by, 278. 
 Turkeys, prices of, 67. 
 Turon, the^ of Valencia, 131. 
 
 Universities, Spanish, classes 
 frequenting, 198. 
 
 Education at, cost of, and con- 
 sequences, 193, 194-6. 
 
 Past glories and present posi- 
 tion of, 190, 191 et seq. 
 
 Regulations at, 193-4. 
 
 Valdes, Palacio, writings of, 278. 
 Valencia, art and literature in, 
 
 275. 
 Carnival in, 62. 
 Characteristics of, i. 
 Church in, popular attitude to, 
 
 86-7. 
 Turon of, 131. 
 Valera, Juan, diplomat and novel- 
 ist, 281. 
 Vega, Lope de la, 39, 94 ; per- 
 fector of sainetes, 105. 
 Ventas, and Ventorillos, 29-30, 39, 
 
 157. 
 
 Vera, Vicente, poet, 281. 
 
 Velasquez, 161 ; beloved of stud- 
 ents, 202 ; portraiture 
 by, 281. 
 
 Vicar, the, in Spain, 77. 
 
 Vicario General^ the, of the Jesuits, 
 77, 82. 
 
 Victoria Eugenie, Queen-Consort, 
 Spain, 5, 150; and 
 court etiquette, 167 ; 
 objection of, to bull- 
 fights, 188. 
 
 Village {see Doquiera), features 
 of, 209-21 ; financial 
 position of, 209 ; life in, 
 Ch. XVII, 208 et seq. ; 
 self-government in, 
 
 257-8. 
 Vine-dresser, home of, 220-1. 
 Vineyards, and wine, 226-7. 
 Virgen de la Sangre, procession 
 
 of, 233-5. 
 
INDEX 
 
 317 
 
 Virgin, the, local worship and 
 shrines of, 53, 65, 81. 
 Visitors, entertainment oJF, 8-9. 
 Visiting cards, 174. 
 Visits, etiquette of, 176-7. 
 Viveros, see Restaurants. 
 
 Wagner, Spanish attitude to, 96. 
 
 Water, national drink of Spani- 
 ards, 164. 
 Mode of drinking, 165. 
 
 Wealth of the Church, 79, 80-4. 
 National, Spanish, 263. 
 
 Wedding customs, 172-3. 
 
 Well, Moorish, Sevilla, 40. 
 
 Western Spain, characteristics of, 
 2. 
 
 Weyler, General Valeriano, power 
 of, 293. 
 
 Widows, military, as tobaccon- 
 ists, 217 ; re-marriage 
 of, 232-3. i 
 
 Wines, 115 ; manufacture of, 22i« 
 Winter, and warming methods, 
 
 12, 13, 37. 
 Witchcraft, regionalism in, 58-9. 
 Women, bull-fighters, 185. 
 Field workers, 224. 
 Religious attitude of, 49, 52. 
 Wood-carving, 205. 
 Working-class life in villages^ 
 219-21. 
 
 Zaffarin Islands, penal settle- 
 ment at, 287. 
 
 ZarandeOf the, 102. 
 
 Zarzuela, the, 4, 72-3 ; features of, 
 and regionalism in, 98- 
 loi ; music of, 103-4 5 
 nature of, 38-9. 
 
 Zorilla, play by, 104 ; romanti- 
 cism of, 28. 
 
 Zurbaran, pictures by, story of^ 
 
 57- 
 
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