OF THE U N I VLRS ITY or ILLINOIS 914 . 6 L83sk 186b The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. T Tni \7 AfCi C\T T11inr\ic T iV^fofT/ wiliVCioltjr \JL xiiilLKJio X^lUlaiy 'r?1 L161— O-1096 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/sketchesinspainfOOIoma Zdmburgii:, PatlisKea "by A & C . Black SKETCHES IN SPAIN SKETCHES IN SPAIN FROM NATURE, ART AND LIFE BY JOHN LOMAS SECOND EDITION EDINBURGH: ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 1888 All rights reserved. CONTENTS. Introduction .... I I. San Sebastian and Azpeitia 14 II. Burgos and Valladolid 31 III. Zamora and Salamanca 51 IV. AVILA 71 V. Madrid ..... 87 VI. Segovia ..... . 104 VII. La Granja and El Escorial . 119 VIII. Toledo . 135 IX. C6RD0BA ..... . 166 X. Sevilla ..... . 178 XI. Jerez and Cadiz .... . 218 XII. Gibraltar and Tangiers . 231 XIII. Granada ..... . 253 XIV. Jativa and Valencia . . 304 XV. Tarragona . 319 XVI. Barcelona . 332 XVII. MONTSERRAT TO L^RIDA . 349 XVIII. ZaRAGOZA AND TUDELA . . 365 XIX. Bilbao to Oviedo . 380 XX. Leon and Santiago . 396 ERRATA. Page 41, line 10, ' she ' should he * he.' ,, 14, 'thank Heaven ' s^o?*ZfZ 6c ' after all.' 159, 9, 'Haifa century' should he 'Four centuries.' 187, 11, ' crossing' 5^owZcZ &e ' Crossing.' „ ,, 16, ' altar ' should he followed hy a semicolon instead of a comma. 189, last bar of last line -jf ^ should he ,, 194, line 3, end of first bar, ^^p^P- should he ,, 277, last line, 'brilliancy of glaze' should he 'soft brilliancy of glaze. ' ,, 316, line 12, ' Audencia' should he 'Audiencia.' ,, 338, ,, 2, ' churches, two for the clergy, and one for the people,' should he * churches in one, two for the clergy, and a third for the people. ' INTEODUCTIOK One of our foremost Continental guide-books, pro- fessedly corrected up to suminer of 1884, sums up its general remarks upon Spain and Spanish travelling in the following terms : — " Passports are required . . . Paper is not easily changed. Even with gold a re- duction of 5 per cent must be submitted to ; that is, you will get only nineteen pesetas for a napoleon, and only twenty-four for a sovereign. Do not expect the com- forts of a Swiss or French hotel ; be content with plain food ; wines are poor and dear. . . . Almost everything is dear, and people will take advantage of you if they can." These things were doubtless true fifteen or twenty years ago, but it is a pity that travellers should be misled by such statements nowadays. And it is a greater pity that there should still linger — as there does linger — a certain class of tourists, who, imbued before- hand with such notions as are here set forth, go far to endow with an actual existence the ghosts of which they are taught to stand in fear. These are citizens of some particular little country first, and everything else B 2 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. afterwards. They refuse to understand that a passport is asked for at postes restantes chiefly in their own interest, and not in any way from a desire to persecute. They conceive that a simple assurance as to name and country ought to have some magic 'open sesame' in it. They are indignant because their own particular gold coins are not known everywhere, and, where they are known, have no special charm. They exhibit in all their ways — and especially in their bearing — a living exposition of the parable of the rich man who was a Pharisee, and, making no secret of their conviction that those who surround them are bent upon fleecing them, naturally get paid off occasionally by their own standard. They seem unable to appreciate what is good in religious beliefs other than their owm, and so take a sort of fierce pleasure in showing a contempt for forms and ceremonies and sacred spots which even their own Church honours. And all this, too, in the midst of a nation where an hour's unprejudiced observation should show them that ceremonials of every grade are much more thought of than in their own slightly careless country, and where a few grains of brotherly feeling should teach them, in all matters non-essential, to accom- modate themselves to the flow of life and thought around them. These are old acquaintances. I have seen them, often, departing over the frontier, metaphorically shaking the dust from off their feet, and vowing that, if they are only vouchsafed an unhurt subsidence into the well- INTRODUCTION. 3 lined arm-chairs at home, nothing shall tempt them again to stray in quest of novel experiences. But I am thankful to believe that it is a type that is dying, if slowly, the death ; that there is a daily increasing number of those who, nature's gentlemen, able — ay ! eager — to fix upon the good and beautiful that are everywhere, and to endure the evil that usually overlies them, cherish a loving appreciation of bright and well-spent days in a sunny and goodly land, and of the numberless acts of courtesy and brotherhood which have done much to smooth hard paths ; who go their ways from Spain with regret, and return with a keen pleasure. All such, and all those readers who are willing to qualify themselves for the journey by a little doffing of self, pride, and national prejudice, and by a sufficient desire to study reverently a country and a people that have undergone, probably, greater vicissitudes than any other country and people upon the earth, I would invite to accompany me upon a ramble over the chief places of interest in the Peninsula. Let us be careful as to season and route — points too often neglected. We will enter the country by Irun, at the close of October ; proceed by way of Burgos, Yalla- dolid, and all the district of Old Castile to Madrid ; from thence to Sevilla and the south for winter ; back by way of the Mediterranean coast in early spring ; and home again by way of Zaragoza, Asturias and Leon before the hot early summer sets in. In this way we shall have the clear rich autumn days for the plain, when 4 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. the colouring of its old cities is at its best, and when there is no heat, no wind, no dust ; we shall face the treacherous climate of Madrid when it is just cold enough to encourage wraps and caution ; we shall have the indescribably lovely southern winter, with its golden distances, deep blue sky, and crisp air ; we shall see the Mediterranean coast — Valencia, Tarragona, Barcelona, Monserrat — in all the beauty of spring ; and shall be able to take Oviedo, Leon, and Santiago before the freshness and verdure of the north-west have given way to a summer sun, and when they are not dominated by the cold mists and rains of autumn and winter. As for preparation — it will not be necessary to provide aught more than for any other long journey; except, perhaps, a little extra amount of patience, and, being English folk, an unusual stock of simpatia — as the Spaniard beautifully puts it — and politeness. For in nearly all our wanderings every needful comfort will be met with, and, where something may be lacking, there will be shown such an amount of goodwill and help- fulness, such honesty, and such laborious striving to make up for defects, that the want will only deserve a laugh. As for the sinews of war — which need not be one whit stronger than would be required for a trip of equal duration in Switzerland — they should be in circular notes, or cheques, or bank notes, certainly not in either English or French gold, wliich is only unmanageable and not liked. Good paper, changed into Spanish INTRODUCTION. 5 gold or notes in tlie great commercial centres, will always command par, and very often a substantial premium. And now, before we set out, and with the aid of some former experience and knowledge, let us endeavour to form some definite conception of the state and pro- spects — the being and the to be — of the people in the midst of whom we have elected to dwell for some months. It may quicken sympathy, help understand- ing, correct misconception, and, in all these ways, be not only useful, but enormously enhance the pleasure of the journey. There can be no doubt as to Spain forming one of the great questions and interesting problems of the day. English and German papers are continually proclaiming the fact, and usually painting the situation in rosy hues ; statesmen are cherishing ideas of commercial treaties, and relations of closer friendship and wider import; merchants are turning eager and inquiring eyes upon the comparatively untried ground ; and speculators are fondly hoping that they have at last discovered, after many lean years, an El Dorado that shall not prove barren or unfruitful. The colouring is by no means false, but is so general, and is laid on so thickly, that it obscures the sober tints that should prevail here and there. Not that the state- ments made as to the increased prosperity of the country are erroneous. It is perfectly true that she is blessed with a constitutional, liberal and enlightened monarch ; 6 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. that her natural resources — unrivalled, probably, in any other land — are being gradually and surely developed ; that liberal institutions, schemes and laws are being set on foot and promulgated ; that the floating debt is being reduced by very considerable strides, and the general finances — though by an arrangement decidedly unfair to the foreign creditor, in view of the prosperous future dangled before him — brought into manageable condition ; finally, that the figures which speak of home and foreign trade are rapidly approaching respectable proportions. All this is being said — and said truly. And there is much more of good that might be set forth, but is over- looked. Not only is the tyranny of priestcraft felt to be a burden, in an indefinite sort of fashion, but the country is making notable efforts to be freed from it, — as witness the introduction of lay schools, the agitation upon the subjects of civil marriage and divorce, and the welcome which is being accorded in certain districts to Protestant efforts at proselytism. In view of the time-honoured ultramontanism of the nation too, and with the Great Inquisition only just receding into history, it is refreshing to find the Government not only repeatedly declining to take up the cudgels on behalf of Popedom,* but actually apologising to the Italian Government, when the ill- * E.g. when pressed to do so by certain members of the Cortes Avith reference to the popular emeute at the removal of the remains of Pio Nono, when it strengthened its refusal by vigorously reproving the Archbishop of Toledo for the pastoral wherein he called upon Spain to interfere. INTRODUCTION. 7 advised zeal of some servant of the Church has produced a state of friction between the two courts. Then the Spanish is pre-eminently a sober nation — sober past con- ception in the north — the vice of drunkenness being, comparatively speaking, unknown ; and finally, among the lower classes at any rate, there is an almost incredible amount of honesty, thrift, and industry. It is a pleasure to be able to chronicle these things, for which due credit is not often given. And yet, notwithstanding all hopeful symptoms of returning health, too sanguine a view of the situation — too sanguine for the purposes of to-day — is being taken in many influential quarters. The great future will come, but not just yet — not without many backward steps and slippings, many pronunciamientos, changes of dynasty, and even forms of government. Spain is finding many friends, and she is deserving them. But she has an inveterate enemy, and she will find it at home — in her sons and daughters. A volume might easily be written upon the various and striking forms of evil underlying the social and political life of the country, some the result of ignorance, some of superstition, some of natural, some of national qualities. But perhaps all may be focussed into four words : — the Spaniard has no faith in, or respect for, his fellows ; no faith in, or respect for, his Government ; no true faith in, or respect for, his religion ; and he has an unbounded and blind faith in himself. His faith in himself leads immediately to supreme 8 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. care for self, and hence to an overwhelming objection to make the personal sacrifices which must be made before his country can do or become the great things to which she aspires. It very often blinds him to the fact that honesty and liberality are the best policy in the long run, and it always makes him averse to forego some- thing to-day that he may reap the more to-morrow. It makes him callous to the feelings and sufferings of others — heedless of the fact that such self-concentration rebounds upon himself — and strengthens all natural aversion to receive such ideas as that there may be more joy in bearing, doing, suffering, in the hard search after knowledge and truth, than in any merely animal indulgence. And then, going hand in hand, as it must ever do, with the lack of faith in those around him, this spirit of selfishness makes the Spaniard ignore the value of the 'long pull, and the strong pull and the pull all together,' which alone will crown the regeneration of his country. So Cataluna comes to look to Catalonian interests solely, careless of the fact that she only forms part of Spain ; the Basque provinces distrust and hate the ways and projects of the south, and party interest holds para- mount sway in high places. And down into private life go these same two all-pervading principles, making a healthy social life an impossibility, bringing in a supreme indifference to foreign ways and the course of events in the outside world, hindering due appreciation of the fact that the education of the country is in the INTRODUCTION. 9 hands of those who substitute church lore, and the futile gropings of the dead antique, for the invigorating light and ever advancing knowledge of the day, and con- demning to the lowest possible standard the woman's influence and the woman's life. Which last is of prime importance, if the Spain of to-morrow is to be higher than the Spain of to-day — the sons better than the fathers. In no country would one so willingly see the question of woman's rights agitated. With all the perfectly natural extravagances which the agitation brings in its train, and all its necessarily accompanying temptations to assume duties, and enter upon careers for which a woman is unfitted, it pos- sesses the one unfailingly good feature of recognising the deep truth that without responsibility, trust — trial and suffering, if need be — a nature, be it of man or woman, is so cumbered by the deadening ways of ordinary existence that it cannot be or do anything great or noble. The Spanish woman is but the doll and play- thing of the man — save in the lower grades of life, when she is his helpmate as a beast of burden — and never has she the opportunity of overcoming a natural predilection for an evil or useless existence, or creating a work and mission for herself. Of the lack of faith in the Church one has abundant evidence in every religious ceremony — nay, in every street. Eoman Catholicism at its best affects the dangerous extreme of form and ceremony — dangerous as tending to choke all true devotional feeling, and lO SKETCHES IN SPAIN. inner life ; but when the grievous burdens, always heavy to be borne, are bound down by a clergy who are, as a rule, unworthy of their office, it is not to be wondered at if no amount of effort can produce a loving or thoughtful adherence. What would an Englishman think, if, as he walked along the streets, he saw at every corner cartoons representing the ministers of his religion actively engaged in every unbridled course of indulgence into which poor human nature is apt to be drawn ? And what would be his feelings towards his Church if he could not but acknowledge that the representations fell, if anything, short of the truth? The fault, however, does not rest so much with the Church as with the State. So long as sees are kept vacant in order to save the appertaining salaries ; so long as high officials are liable to be deprived of the half — in some cases three- quarters — of their always insufficient emoluments ; so long as the pay of the common priests is barely enough to keep body and soul together, it must not be wondered at if those who enter the Church are not models of refinement, learning and enlightenment. It may seem an unduly strong assertion to say that Spain is a land without religion, when one sees the numberless churches crowded by seemingly devout worshippers; but, if the true character of the short-lived devotion, and the irreverent conduct of those who are engaged in the holy offices be noted, and if, furthermore, the private life of the people be gauged, the verdict will be found not far from the truth. Forms and ceremonies that INTRODUCTION. II have little effect in church, and none at all outside, may indeed overshadow every act of life — as they do — but there is nought but the show — no substance. And then there is the absence of faith in, and respect for, the existing forms of government. This deserves a paragraph, because the outside world does not under- stand the terrible task — the perfectly Augean stable — which an honest rule has to-day to face. Indeed, Spaniards themselves entirely fail to appreciate it ; and so, looking at the apparent paucity of result, and because the ranks of adverse critics are always largely reinforced by self-seeking malcontents, the almost universal cry is, ' Oh, for some better form ! oh, for some stronger hand ! ' It is, and has been from time immemorial, the established order of things that all minor officials and servants shall be underpaid, and even that the miser- ably insufficient salaries shall be withheld at will — or subject to discount ; thereby opening at once the widest possible door to peculation and corruption. The unequal administration of justice — the ease with which impunity can be obtained if one possesses influence, and the rigour with which a delinquency is pursued if no interest intervenes — is an openly accepted fact. The very highest offices are in no sort freed from this universal taint of corruption. It is admitted on all hands that the Government never loses an election — if it is important that it should be won. Putting aside all unauthenticated stories of ' men in the moon,' and extraordinary finds of money, etc., the fact stands out 12 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. clearly enough that such neat little tricks as the mani- pulation of clocks, tampering with urns, wholesale intimidation and retail imprisonment of electors, falsification of registers, voting of dead men — nay, if need be, the suspension of a possibly refractory ayuntamiento, or corporation — form a reserve force for the authorities if the battle seems to hang in the balance. The thing is patent inasmuch as it is not denied, the only complete answer, when a charge is preferred, being the well-worn and time-honoured * tu quoque! Thus, in the debates in the Cortes upon the elections, an opposition chief impugns the conduct of the Government in a certain district, detailing a long list of manifest illegalities committed by the authorities, and finishing by saying, " But we all know that when the Government wishes to protect a friend they exclude neither the dead nor the absent, and so it has happened that Seiior X. has obtained a greater number of votes than there are electors in the district and the responsible minister replies, " I have so much passing through my hands that I really cannot recollect all the details brought before me, but, at any rate, Sio Senoria should not be the one to speak of these things, seeing that they have ever formed, and will ever form, part of the tactics of his own party when in power." A widespread distrust of the powers that be, is not, then, to be marvelled at ; nor yet the Spaniard's profound contempt for the farce of a popular representation at which he is made to assist, and his creed that the only INTRODUCTION. 13 road to the ear of a paternal Government, and the most feasible method of obtaining a redressing of his wrongs, is by an appeal to force — or its show. Only he ought to recognise, and to second, the endeavours of a right-hearted sovereign and his very small band of like-minded followers, to put a period to the almost endless reign of confusion and self-seeking. For the only foundation is upon the units. And slowly — very slowly — he is appreciating, and is helping. The leaven of good is already working, and it is a leaven that works even more surely in a State than in an individual. But, like many ancient build- ings, the house of selfishness, ignorance and corruption is so firmly cemented together that it is even harder to raze than to erect. By nothing short of a miracle could there be brought about in a few days, or a few years — as some seem to expect — that national sub- mission to principles of truth, justice and enlighten- ment, that re- organisation of institution and life, that wide embracing of liberal views, and that winning of universal respect, which will entitle Spain to her coveted position as one of the great powers of Europe. I. SA^ SEBASTIAN AND AZPEITIA. It will be well, passing the frontier at Irun, and instead of plunging on towards Burgos or Madrid, to turn aside for a couple of quiet days at the half-French, half - Spanish, and altogether enjoyable little town of San Sebastian. It is hardly fair to face a new people and new experiences with one's temper put out, and one's dignity ruffled, by the necessarily annoying pro- cess of passing through the custom-house at Irun ; nor yet with one's notions of cleanliness and order in a state of rebellious ferment at the change from French to Spanish life and ways. That would be to approach grand old Burgos with a blurring cloud of prejudice — the unthinkingly harsh judgment which is prejudice — before one's eyes, and we should not be really in a fit frame of mind for dispassionate observation until heed- less, lazy, sunny Andalucia had wooed us into a happier — a more pitiful — sympathy with the life around us. But let a warm tribute of grateful appreciation be paid to the enormous improvements at Irun — improve- ments which deserve a public notice they have hitherto not received. Formerly the whole arrangement — SAN SEBASTIAN AND AZPEITIA. 15 station, buffet, douane and process — was a perfected type of the -usual Continental dinginess, discomfort and liaiUeur. Now the traveller is welcomed — actually welcomed — to a bright and commodious erection of brick, iron and glass that would satisfy the require- ments of any upstart manufacturing or seaside town in England, anxious to obtain trade or visitors upon credit. There is no disorder ; the buffet is well served, and the custom-house ofi&cial who puts on spotless gloves before he presumes to turn over one's portmanteau — does he sport clean gloves for every train? — is as honest and agreeable an individual as his post will allow. San Sebastian is something more than a convenient resting-place, or preparation for the altogether lower platform of life which one must face in Spain. With its well-built streets and shady 'plazas, where the birds still sing among the tamarisks, and the geranium and heliotrope are blooming into November, with its quaint bit of old town, and its bright double beach, upon which roll in unbroken line the magnificent billows of the Atlantic — billows indeed, carrying themselves majestic- ally to the moment when they curl over to their death — the grumpiest of travellers must acknowledge its claim to be beautiful, and a place to be desired. It would surely be difficult to find a lovelier saunter than the Paseo de las Curas, winding round the Monte Orgullo, that can tell such a tale of British prowess seventy years ago. Let real Spanish sunlight come glinting through the trees, lie hot on the white horse- i6 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. shoe of glistening sand that runs round to Santa Clara, light up the blue waves that dash fiercely, even upon ever so still a day, against the rocks below us, or the emerald- green speck of La Isla, and make sleepy the old walls of La Mota that frown out on the world 400 feet above — and it would be hard to say what is lacking to make a perfect picture. If anything, perhaps that touch of home life which the English soul must always have in order to be quite content. Well, here it is — though not perhaps in the shape of life — on the grassy slope under the castle : — Sacred to the Memory Of poor Court, Who fell under his colours In the battle of Ayete, 5th May 1836. Beauty and Friendship Truly mourn him. That same love of home and home virtues has wrought much for the English, but it does stand sorely in their way when they come to compose epitaphs ! Why Beauty and Friendship, as the double goal of a soldier's life ? So cry continually the enemies of the order to which " poor Court " belonged. But he would not have fallen under his colours, unless something better could have been recorded of him. Just one more of the many walks around San Sebastian, though away now from the trees and flowers that can make even late autumn look perfectly lovely SAN SEBASTIAN AND AZPEITIA. 17 upon El Orgullo. And yet not far away at first, for, after passing the fine granite bridge over the Urumea, just below the station, the bare — slightly dismal — high- road may be abandoned, and the shady Paseo de Ategor- rita taken for a mile or so. Then there is only a bit of uninteresting, stone-walled road to be traversed to the crest of the hill, and such a double panorama will be secured as must dwell long in one's memory. Down away in front Los Pasajes nestles white upon its inland sea, in the encircling arms of the great brown mountains which shut in the landscape right and left, and finally trend away to the general Pyrenean chain ; and then, turning round, one gets an even lovelier peep at San Sebastian, with the long, bare outline of Santa Clara in the background bending down over the sea as if it would meet the steep wooded height of El Orgullo that rises to the right out of the little bay. The walk may be continued on to Los Pasajes and the Bidasoa, and back to San Sebastian by the cliffs where the old castle of Santa Isabel guards the narrow cleft that lets in the waters of the Atlantic, but it is only for the sake of the double view that we have come up here. Beyond there lie too tempting records and scenes of beauty, that must be left if we would not weary. Two walks. — And now just two churches. To find them we must leave the new open plazas, and strike oft' from the prettily laid out Alameda, with its picturesque groups of loungers, down the narrow old streets that lie under the hill. Dingy enough are these streets in c i8 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. iSTovember, in good sooth, with their uneven lines of barrack-like houses that seem almost to meet overhead, but cool and pleasant in summer, and at all times full of interesting life and bits of flashing colour. What blessings Southern light and Southern love of finery are ! Else the ways would be too terribly repulsive. And the churches are dingy too, though by no means so dingy as the ordinary type of Spanish church. French lightsomeness, and the universal craving to see and be seen, have not yet quite abdicated their potent reign, and we may enter without stumbling over straying chairs, or falling foul of some black-robed kneeling penitent. There are two churches within a few minutes' walk of one another — Santa Maria and San Vicente. Santa Maria, the principal church of San Sebastian, is by no means the most interesting. The entrance is by the apsidal porch on the south side, painfully overloaded with decoration, and surmounted by two rather elegant towers that owe a good deal more to the blackness that comes of strong sea air and winter storms than to age or virtue. The interior is very striking, at first sight, by reason of noble proportions, but it is fearfully spoiled by the obtrusive side altars, and by the mongrel char- acter of its capitals. Nave and side aisles are well groined throughout, and lit only by the high clerestory windows. The coro is, as usual, in a stone gallery pro- jecting far into the nave from the west end, and the dis- proportionately shallow apse is nearly blocked up by the huge overgilt retablo that may indeed hide a great SAN SEBASTIAN AND AZPEITIA. 19 expanse of otherwise naked, unpiercecl wall, but is in itself a sufficient eyesore. The organ is poor, and badly played, the chanting atrocious. Upon the whole, there is not much to be got by lingering in Santa Maria, our first great Spanish church. San Vicente is better, in every respect. At the western extremity is a very noteworthy and fine open porch, with some curious evidences of an older, fourteenth-century foundation, and the interior would really be very satisfy- ing, from its graceful lines and impressively simple work, if only the abominable and all-pervading coat of buff- wash could be got rid of. The design is similar to that of Santa Maria — nave and side aisles, transepts and apse, coro in a western gallery. The immensely lofty octagonal pillars of the nave, of the severest possible type, and the groining of the roof, are decidedly good. The apse, too, is deeper than that of Santa Maria, with a retablo of dim and subdued colouring, the lines of which are well in keeping with the view down the nave. Eather notable, in fact, is this retablo — a good piece of carving in walnut wood — and particularly effective when dimly lit up by a few twinkling lights during celebration of vespers. A somewhat similar piece of work — a Holy Family, in high relief — forms the retablo of the chapel heading the south aisle, and deserves something more than a passing glance. The misa cantada here is very much above the Spanish average, gone through with greater reverence both on the part of priests and people than usually obtains, and boasting of some really fine 20 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. part and solo singing that no amount of injudicious organ-playing can quite spoil. The obtrusive accom- paniment is all the greater pity, because the organ is a very good Cavaille-CoU, and worth able treatment. It may be noted here, at the outset, that no effort need ever be made in Spain to hear church music. Except upon exceedingly rare and festival occasions, the land is even more barren of decent performances than Italy itself. This is no random assertion proceeding merely from individual tastes, or from prejudice in the direction of solemn Anglican forms as opposed to the florid Italian school, but is the outcome of such universally recognised and broad canons as those of pitch, time, tune, and modulation, and of careful observation of the almost unfailing outrages committed thereupon. There is some consolation in the fact that uncomfortably early risings, and general disturbances of the even tenor of one's ways, need never be submitted to, howsoever attractive the church programmes may appear upon paper. So much for San Sebastian, which one must ever leave with regret, even with Burgos and all other glories looming in the distance. The scenery up the fruitful Urumea valley has a wonderfully English look about it. It is just suffi- ciently wooded, and dotted with white villages, comfortable -looking country houses, and picturesque old churches. Presently, however, it becomes much grander, and infinitely lovely. The train seems to crawl up the endless and interlacing chains of moun- SAN SEBASTIAN AND AZPEITIA. 21 tains — the last spurs of the Pyrenees — which crumple up the face of nature in every direction, and which, for the most part beautifully wooded, run up into undefined and indefinable peaks, around which the autumnal mists wreathe in fantastic and ever- shifting forms. Home-like Hernani, the unwonted stage of a British disaster in arms ; Andoain, with its huge Eomanesque church cro^vning a knoll close to the rail- way ; Tolosa, with its rushing streams, its paper-mills, and busy bustling life, are all passed, and still there seems no end to the veritable hill-country over which one creeps. 'Crawl,' 'creep' — these are always the words for railway travelling in Spain. It is well to fall back early upon that reserve stock of patience w^hich was to form an essential part of the baggage, and strive to extract, from the slow progression through new scenes and experiences, that pleasure which always lies in wait for the appreciative soul escaped from the absorb- ing whirl and worry of strong northern existence. So, if a halt is called at some wayside station for an odd tw^enty or twenty-five minutes, for no apparent purpose or reason, instead of getting out of temper over the delay, let us get out of the train, look curiously at the new faces, costumes and customs that surround us, and inhale luxuriously the soft, balmy, sunlit air which comes fresh and fresh down the mountain slopes. There is a great deal in the life that is not pretty — in what life is there not ? Perhaps in Spain more than in any 22 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. other country — Spain, where there is not quite the ex- cuse of ignorance or barbarism — there are ways opposed to one's preconceived notions of order and cleanliness which are offensive. But there is always counter- balancing amusement, or interest, or instruction to be had. There is a bullock -cart now coming along the road, its wee-ness and emptiness in beautiful contrast to the huge fulness of the oxen on either side of the shaft, who plod along just as slowly as they can put one foot before another. Their driver, in short rusty black velveteen breeches, white shirt, blue faja, and red cap, not nearly so sensible -looking as his beasts, and yet with a pleasant twinkle in his dark eye, walks about ten paces ahead of his team, turning round every few moments to point his long wand at the foreheads of the oxen, and utter a sharp arre, arr6, with not a shadow of effect. The whole is a perfect study, typical, too, of the life of the country — the disproportion between the means and the end, the absence of any apparent purpose save that of an easeful existence, the unheed- ing of ill success in spasmodic efforts at reform. And the military element is represented, of course. By favourable specimens too, in the shape of a couple of the far-famed civil guards who are coming striding along to the station in admirable contrast with all the slow life around. One meets these men everywhere — at every station, on every highroad, in every village — and always in pairs. Soldiers and yet not quite soldiers, policemen and something more, they are a SAN SEBASTIAN AND AZPEITIA. 23 sore burden to the country — a necessary consequence of evil government — and yet one cannot help admiring and liking them. Their fine physique, soldierly bear- ing, and known perfection of morale always come to impart a pleasant sense of order, and of the omnipotence of authority, when one is beginning to be disheartened or disgusted by seemingly hopeless carelessness and confusion. But Tolosa and all the grand mountain country that lies to the immediate south are passed ; Ormaistegui, too, with its ancient palace and notable viaduct. And now the huge Eomanesque church of Zumarraga comes in view — Zumarraga, with its recollections of a man than whom, all self-effacing as he was, the world has probably seen few greater, before whose name and in- fluence obeisance has been made for over three hun- dred years ; and who here fittingly learned in his soldier youth that disregard of difficulty, and that perfect sub- mission to authority, that have ever been the keystones of an undying system. It is but a short six miles up the valley to Ignatius Loyola's home and convent, and to pass them by would be to miss one of the many unappreciated gems of Spanish travel. Only a short six miles, but of what exquisite loveli- ness ! — loveliness of a sort with which Spain is not usually credited. The diligence road hugs discreetly the course of the rapid Urola, shut in on both sides by the Asturian ramifications of the Pyrenees. So closely do these grip road and river, and so tortuous is the course, 24 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. that it seems at every turn as if there can be no egress ; and one has to cling to the faith that the water will find its outlet, and that, somehow, the road will be able to bear it company. Every now and then the river is spanned by picturesque high-backed bridges, that appear to be of no particular utility — save to enhance the beauty of the scenery — since only the barest signs of life or civilisation are visible, and the few houses that do put in a claim to notice are so perched up on inaccessible peaks that such inconsiderable trifles as bridges seem of no avail. Presently softer and more sylvan scenery comes in. The mountains retire, signs of active life appear, and the diligence rattles and dashes through the little town of Azcoitia. For, however slowly one may be dragged along" the lonely road, the driver of a Spanish diligence, like his English brother now nearly defunct, will always valorously uphold the dignity of his order by a cleverly executed career through the haunts of critical mankind. Beyond Azcoitia stretch a couple of miles of level road, through the rich valley of Loyola — past the very door of the convent — and then a final halt is made in the tiny town of Azpeitia, and at the door of the Fonda de Arteche. It is but a rough lodging, by no means equal to its reputation, but sufficiently comfortable for a day or two, and welcome to weary bones that have been rattled over roads that make one marvel where the coach-springs were made that can stand the daily ordeal. A very pleasantly situated little place is this time- SAN SEBASTIAN AND AZPEITIA. 25 worn Azpeitia, on the turbulent Urola and surrounded by glorious hill-slopes, some bare and rocky, some well clothed and shining golden in their autumn colouring. A busy, thriving spot, too, with four or five thousand souls ready to give the lie to the sweeping assertion that Spanish dejar que hacer rules in all Spanish life and ways ; and yet with records, on every side, of a respectable old age that might be ample excuse for idleness and alms -craving. An hour or two may very well be spent in sauntering through its arcaded market-square, and spelling over the histories set forth in its quaint old houses and dim churches — records and relics of a yesterday that the Azpeitia of to-day cares refreshingly little about. No idlers or beggars here to lie in wait for the unwary traveller, with their noisy ciceroneship. He may linger undisturbed over his first view of a true Moorish facade ; over the carved armarios of the iKtrroqida, with their quaintly -wrought brass furniture ; over the grotesque, four hundred years old tomb to good Bishop Zurbano — which, after all, may have some efficacy in making happy mothers — or the font wherein San Ignacio himself was dipped, and which, like so many other precious things in Spain, suffered harsh treatment at the hands of unneighbourly France seventy years ago, and bade a long adieu to its fine silver casing. At every corner there is something to reward an inquisitive spirit; and, luckily, most of the somethings have to be diligently sought for, and so enjoyed all the more. 26 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. But it is the house and convent of San Ignacio that have brought us to Azpeitia. To reach them the way towards Zumarraga must be taken again for about a mile. They are not difficult to find, standing out as they do the most conspicuous objects of the country side, and their first near view will not disappoint the most exacting soul. Approaching along the Azpeitia road, the long bare line of the unfinished southern wing is partially veiled by a mass of autumn-tinted foliage, over which rises the really superb dome of the church, backed by a long undulating stretch of coppice-covered mountain. In the foreground, between the road and convent, the Urola rushes along, dancing blue in the sunlight, and spanned by a graceful two-arched bridge, overrun with ivy and all sorts of subtle greenery. It is fortunate that the surrounding landscape is so fine as to draw the mind away from the somewhat paltry obtrusiveness of the buildings themselves. One pauses again involuntarily on the steps of the church to look back upon the lovely valley, with the shadows flitting over Isarraiz and Araunza, and so is prepared to face with softened judgment the efforts of latter-day archi- tects to cover up poverty of conception with gilding and tinsel. Yet there is a certain effectiveness about the pile, begotten of sheer vastness. The imposing flight of steps leading up to the main entrance, the great circular portico, and huge dome of a church, with its dim black marble basement, may all be allowed a distinct note of SAN SEBASTIAN AND AZPEITIA. 27 admiration. And over the rest we may hasten, for deeper interests than any of art await ns beyond. The house adjoins the church on the north side. Over the modest portal is written — "Aqui nacio S. Ignacio en 1491 Aqui visitado por S. Pedro y la S. S. Virgen Se entrego a Dios en 1521." His birth and his second birth. "What the building was like three hundred years ago it is impossible to say, inasmuch as it is now little else than a series of chapels. It must, however, have been a substantial enough casa solar — a palazzo in Italy — with noble staircases, and large, though excessively low, rooms. Indeed it must have been something more — almost a fortress — judging from the massiveness of the granite walls, and the cannon slits which adorn the basement. Two or three broad flights of stairs lead up to a grand sola, the heavily -timbered ceiling of which is panelled in relief with scenes from the saint's life. Here, upon the right-hand wall as we enter, we may see Loyola's portrait as a handsome young soldier, and at the opposite end of the room stands the altar which is the focus of the veneration of devotees. For on this spot lay San Ignacio in 1521 — then no saint — for long weary days, recovering from sore wounds received at the siege of Pamplona. Thirty years of age, and a soldier in stirring times, the hours naturally hung 28 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. heavily upon liis hands. Even reading was better than doing nothing, and though the household was a God- fearing one, and eschewed the light literature for which he craved, in the Lives of the Saints there might be novelty and distraction. Novelty there was, truly, for Ignacio Loyola, and enlightenment too. And then Saint Peter and the Blessed Virgin came and visited him, and — se entregd d Dios, and to God's work. To the left of this sala- chapel are two dwelling- rooms, distressingly altered from their ancient selves indeed, but full of interesting relics. The first, larger apartment was Ignacio's sitting-room, and beyond — a mere alcove — his bedroom. Here are all sorts of curious old things — the canopy of his bed, his faja, or girdle, cleverly worked into an IHS., ancient mirrors, and, better than aught else, letters of Ignacio himself, of Francisco de Borja and Pedro Pabro (' El Beato '), first companions of the Order of Jesus. To the slightly sceptical, and all too careless heretic, however, the rooms below these, on the first floor, are richest in interest. Here, in the first grand sala, is the striking mask of San Francisco, and, a few steps to the left, the oratory of the Loyola family, preserved, amidst all other painful re-arrangements of the house, exactly as it was when little Ignacio was taught by his mother to bend his knee to a God whom, in after life, he was to serve so zealously. The smallest, rudest of little chapels it is, with its shattered altar and quaint old family portraits, and perhaps owes to its seeming SAN SEBASTIAN AND AZPEITIA. 29 insignificance its immunity from decoration and trans- formation. Any way, it is full of touching associations, and has, moreover, one perfect gem, in the shape of a delicate old panel of the ' Annunciation,' now forming the centre of the retablo, but of old in the bedchamber of Dona Isabel 'La Catolica,' who presented it to a sister-in-law of Ignacio upon her marriage. One can- not be sufficiently thankful that this corner has not been deemed worthy of the gorgeous altar and retablo — with the first finger of the saint by way of a pretty relic ! — which adorn the grander sola above. Of the neighbouring convent little need be said ; except that, so far from its being closed (as is stated in the rare books of travel or guidance which bestow a line and a half to a spot so full of historical and religious moment), it never more vigorously pursued its avocation of preparing and sending forth recruits of the Jesuit Order. Founded by Dona Mariana of Austria in 1681 — in which year the Loyola family made over their neighbouring possessions, with the house itself, to the Order — the college has to-day a staff of twelve fathers, besides a rector, and provides home and training for something over one hundred students. The buildings shut in the ' Santa Casa ' on the north, as the church does on the south, and for perfection of ordering and arrangement are well worth a visit. The staircase, library, refectory, and ante-refectory are really faultless specimens of conventual or collegiate building, and many of the paintings — the portraits of the cardinals of 30 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. the Order, in the refectory, of Fathers Mariana, Snarez, Sanchez, Lugo of Toledo, and others, in the library, and, notably, a picture -portrait of Eibera's in one of the corridors — are of very high merit. But after the Santa Casa one has little care for these things. II. BURGOS AND VALLADOLID. The afternoon up-train from Zumarraga is admirably timed for the traveller, just catching light enough for the grand scenery as far as Alsasua, and then taking him in merciful darkness over the tame Castilian plain. Except that one misses the grand gorge of Pancorbo. It is really worth while to sleep at Miranda — where there is a comfortable hotel, and a fine church to visit betimes in the morning — just for the sake of doing Pancorbo by daylight. The pass is entered almost immediately after leaving the junction, and simply baffles description. The road winds over, under, and round infinite masses of rock, piled up — crystallised, as it were — to mountain height, twisted into all fantastic shapes, and destitute of every vestige of greenery. Circling troops of birds aloft, and the rushing torrent of Oroncillo below, are the only signs of life, an old ruined castle now, or anon a church, seeming to mark rather the impotence, than the conquering, abiding presence of man. It is Nature in one of her grandest moods. The general notion one gets of Burgos from books is 32 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. that it is a dismal old place, with a remarkable cathedral, to which one is in duty bound to pay court for a few hours m passant. ISTothing can be further from the truth for any soul above luxury and insouciance. With its glorious vega, its bright clean streets — rendered still brighter by the prevalence of pretty double windows — its odd -shaped and arcaded Plaza Mayor, peopled by picturesque groups of peasantry, and its lovely, shady promenades, Burgos looks the present cheerily in the face, and, even if it had no cathedral church at all, would be a place to linger in and love. The cathedral, indeed, is, at first sight, most disappointing. ' Vexing ' would be perhaps the better word to use, for, while it is apparent at the outset that there is an infinite amount of detail, both in exterior and interior, that will abund- antly repay examination, one's good intentions are thwarted, and artistic sensibilities outraged, first by the configuration of the ground, the surrounding mean buildings, and the poor west front, and then by the ab- solutely damning goto, the mixture of architectural styles, and the all-pervading over-decoration of the interior. But it is a building one cannot grasp in an hour — or a day. The best plan is to walk round and through it, just taking in general outlines, and then, after seeing something more of Burgos — getting into closer relation- ship with the wonderful old life and art of the place — to return to a careful study of what is, after all, one of the noblest specimens of Gothic work upon the face of the earth. BURGOS AND VALLADOLID. 33 So, as at San Sebastian, let us take a couple of walks ; they shall be pleasant enough, and full enough of interest. And first let us go along the narrow wind- ing street leading right away from the western front of the cathedral. The old church we pass almost immedi- ately, to the right, is Saint Agueda, or Gadea, a notable place of resort for religious Burgalese long before Fer- dinand El Santo and Bishop Maurice thought of their 'Santa Maria la Mayor.' It is one of the ancient sanctuaries wherein purgation by adjuration was wont to be made. Here Eodrigo Diaz — more ' commonly known as the Cid — made Alfonso VI. take oath that he was innocent of the murder of his brother Sanchez, before the nobles of Leon and Castile would do him homage. The building is now under restoration — in merciful hands, let us hope — and so cannot be fairly studied. There are, however, some fine monuments peeping here and there through the masses of scaffold- ing, and there is a quaintly-carved retablo in the domed side chapel to the left of the high altar, with a fiery inscription on the wall reviling the ^Hnfiel Miisul- ■manr Proceeding onwards, up the Calle Alta, we come to a spot of special antiquarian interest. First there is the arch raised by Philip II. in honour of Fernan Gonzalez, first Count of Castile, founder, in some sort, of the Castilian throne, by shaking off the yoke of Leon, and rival of the Cid himself in the admira- tion and homage of the old romancistas. We may D 34 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. see this hero's sword presently, preserved in state at Sevilla, and bearing the proud inscription — " Soy la octava maravilla. En cortar moras gargantas Non sabre decir cuantas. — Mas se que gane a Sevilla." A hundred yards farther on three particularly ugly columns mark the site of the house where the Cid was born, in 1026. And then there is something better than any mere memorial, there is a bit of the life itself, in the imperishable line of old wall and arched gateway. It is worth while pausing for a moment when we have passed under the wall, and descended the steps leading towards San Pedro del Fuente, to look back and note how jealously, with what magnificent art and work- manship, the old city guarded its approaches and privileges. And now, crossing the prettily laid out gardens of La Isla, with their great clumps of pampas grass, that would make the soul of an English gardener small with envy, and skirting the shady parterre that shuts in the Hospital del Eey, we approach a long low line of build- ings which have been conspicuously in view all the way from San Pedro — the far-famed convent and church of Las Huelgas, the ' pleasure-grounds ' of the Cistercians. " Not much of pleasure-ground now ! " is the inward comment, as one crosses the desolate village that still clings around the walls, and enters through one of the old Norman arches that have so long since finished their BURGOS AND VALLADOLID. 35 work. But all the external wreck and forlornness only make an admirable foil for the lovely interior, of purest Gothic. The transepts, transept chapels, and apsidal chancel are alone to be visited ; — the nave, or coro de las hermanas, is rigorously cut off by a close iron grating. But these are so perfect in their harmonious and severely simple lines and exquisite detail, that one does not seem to miss much. And every stone seems to have its story. In the blocked -up north aisle are interred thirteen kings and Infantes ; in the correspond- ing aisle on the south an almost equal number of queens and Infantes. Looking through the reja into the coro de las hermanas — where, probably, the white-robed sisters will be chanting their dirge-Like office — one is faced by the tombs of the founders, Alfonso VIII. and his wife Eleanor, daughter of our Henry II. To the left of these lie Dona Blanca and the Queen Costanza ; to the right the two Berenguelas, mother and daughter of San Ferdinand ; and at the extreme west end the Dona Ana of Austria whose handiwork we met with a short while ago at Azpeitia. A wonderful history has the place — of royal pomp in life and death. Tor many a generation the first convent in the land, its head possessed rights and privileges second only to that of the queen, and was herself usually of royal blood. Even now, nearly deserted, and shorn of most of its ancient wealth and all its most coveted privileges, none but noble ladies may enter it, and all must bring a fitting dowry. The 36 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. grand entrance to the convent, with its winding stair- case for the nuns, and a special, bricked-iip royal door- way, is at the western end of the church ; while, run- ning along the north side, there is a fine pointed cloister, reached from the transept porch — which is itself a thing of perfect beauty — ^by a covered passage, with odd fourteenth-century tombs ranged against the walls. Eeturning to the city by the more direct way past the railway station, one gets the finest view of the cathedral, from the open bit of ground in front of the college. The west towers, the lantern, and the tower of the Condestable Chapel are caught from here just in due order, each beautiful in itself, and the three making up an almost faultless group. Some just conception, too, can be formed of the vast size of the pile, which is impossible in its immediate vicinity because of the poor buildings which cling around it. Finally there is sufficient distance to destroy the somewhat fantastic, unrestful effect of what must be confessed to be the over-elaboration of the exterior. Our second walk will be a longer one, and we must start betimes. If too long — fourteen miles or so over roughish country — it can be done on horseback, but a carriage is hardly to be thought of, out of con- sideration for tender bones. Crossing the Arlanzon at the Espolon Nuevo, or by the bridge of Santa Maria, our way lies along the lovely Quinta, with its long avenues of trees now golden in the autumn sunshine. Then a sharp turn to the right, over the railway, half BURGOS AND VALLADOLID. yj a mile of the rather dull road which skirts the liuerta of some Madrid magnate, and, at the crest of the hill, the long line of the church of La Cartuja de Miraflores rises before us. There is nothing particularly inviting about the exterior. The bare line of side aisle, the poor buttresses, the round-headed lower windows contrasting unpleasantly with the Gothic lights of the clerestory, and the altogether paltry west front are very repelling after Las Huelgas. Juan de Colonia can show us in- finitely finer work elsewhere. But the west doorway, with its huge lions upholding the regulation arms of Castile and Leon on the one side, and Arao'on on the other, is better, and the interior is beautiful, and full of beautiful things. It has the odd Carthusian arrange- ment of three divisions ; the outer western one for the people, divided by a wrought- iron screen from the centre, or coro de los legos (lay brethren), and this again from the sacrarium and coro de los hermanos. In both the centre and eastern divisions we may find works of rare merit. There are the stalls, with their rich con- tinuous canopy, the fifteenth-century stained glass, the exquisite walnut-wood throne of the celebrant, and the elaborately-carved retablo of Gil de Siloe and Diego de la Cruz — both notable workers of the latter half of the fifteenth century, who have left their marks behind them in many corners of fair Burgos. But far surpassing all else in merit and interest, arresting one's attention immediately upon passing into the eastern coro, are the alabaster monuments to Juan 11. 38 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. and his wife Isabel of Portugal, and their son the Infante Alonso, The former occupies nearly the whole of the space in front of the high altar, and is just as magnificent a specimen of workmanship as can be met with. It is in the peculiar form of two squares, one laid diagonally upon the other. The recumbent figures of the king and queen, wrought with infinite delicacy and purity, lie under rich canopies — the former holding a sceptre, the latter a book. Eound the sides are a great variety of figures and foliage sculptured in high and low relief, together with the inevitable royal arms, and, in the panels, Abraham, Joseph, Samson, Esdras, Jeremiah, Daniel, Esther, and the virtues — Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Courage {Fortaleza), Tem- perance and Piety. The monument of the Infante occupies a niche in the north wall, close by the tomb of his parents. It consists of a figure of the prince, in high relief, kneeling at a prie-Dieu, underneath an ogee gabled arch edged with a most delicate and lace-like fringe of vine foliage. Around are figures of the apostles, and ' in the centre of the gable an ' Annunciation.' There are many other points in this church deserving notice, — the wonderfully lifelike figure of San Bruno, for example, in the chapel opening out of the north wall from the cow de los legos, and some old paintings upon wood. Also parts of the convent itself — notably the cloisters, with their prettily-groined roof, some good windows, and the bit of passage that is the sole remnant BURGOS AND VALLADOLID. 39 of the royal palace which stood here prior to a.d. 1440 or so. But we must resume our way, if San Pedro de Cardena is to be reached by mid -day, and the walk back over the vega as the sun is setting duly enjoyed. Dull — unredeemably dull — is this great plain of Castile for a railway journey. But to put under one's feet it is just delicious, with its short crisp turf, its exhilarating air, its clearly -defined distances, its un- dulating sweeps of hillside that remind one of Sussex Downs, and the ever-changing lights and shadows that move across it. And then the flocks of sheep, with their tinkling bells, the birds not yet hushed by winter, the little groups of shepherds with their fluttering manias and picturesque broad-brimmed hats, and their hearty " Vaya listed con Dios, cahallero ! " give just the con- trasting life and cheerfulness that one wants. Eight away across the plain, due south-east, up the hillside and through the long stretch of stiff oak coppice, lies the road — if road it may be called. Then half an hour's dull plod over a stony desert, and the huge, bare, brown convent of San Pedro de Cardena rises up among the yellow poplars. ISTot a beautiful place, by any means. One cannot help wondering why the Cid should have such a desire to be brought across these barren wastes — as brought he was, a stiffened upright corpse, upon his beloved steed Babieca — to sleep his last sleep in such a dreary spot. Was it sheer bravado, or love of home, or hatred of the Moors ? Perhaps all three combined. But if love 40 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. of borne, he paid home a poor compliment by choosing out Cardena. Any way, here he lies, or rather here is his monument, his empty tomb ; for he himself and his loved and faithful Ximena have been carried off these forty years to glorify the new upholstery of Burgos Town Hall. And here is his epitaph, simple, graphic, and truthful — " Belliger, invictus, famosus marte triumpliis, Clauditur hoc tumulo magnus Didaci Kodericus." Around his tomb, and in a peace denied to himself, rest his son, his daughters, and many others his friends and warriors. And here rest too — rest save when the anniversary of their massacre rouses them to make a solemn protest against their murderers — the bodies of two hundred holy men martyred by the Moors a century and a half before the Cid came home. Of the original foundations, dating back to the sixth century — the first Benedictine colony in Spain — nought remains now save the two arches of the passage leading from the cloisters. The pantheon of the Cid is a twelfth- century addition, and all the rest of the great ungainly pile is a glorious monument to the defunct art of the eighteenth century. The place has been closed since 1836, save when, a couple of years ago, an enterprising band of French Trappists invaded its solitudes, and tried to find the home that was forbidden them in their own country. But even in Spain one cannot live on nothing, and so after a few months the great courtyard was left BURGOS AND VALLADOLID. 41 again to the undisturbed dominion of grass and rank greenery. We have one more visit to pay before turning our faces Burgos-ways. Deep under the old archway near the chapel, with no mark or monument, and yet with undying fame, lies another friend of the Cid, who was at his bedside when he died, who bore him all the way from Valencia here, and concerning whom the Cid commanded, " "When ye bury Babieca, dig deep, for it would be a sin if she was eaten by dogs who hath trampled under feet so many dogs of Moors." People say that Cardena is not worth seeing. Per- haps not — the monastery, that is to say — as a thing of beauty. But, thank Heaven ! life is not all art, and in a place like Burgos it is especially good to get away for a few hours from anything so cabined and cribbed as art must ever be. There are records of right worthy lives here, and the walk is worth the labour for its own sake. If it w^as good coming in the brilliant morning light, it is even finer to walk back as the sun is going down, and the towers and pinnacles of Burgos begin to stand out black against the horizon. Sunset over such a scene as this is so peculiarly eloquent of satisfaction and peace. In cold northern regions His Majesty of the day seems to rush out of sight, and cover himself up in mist and smudge, as if he had something to be ashamed of, or as if he hated and was weary of all he had been looking upon ; and then a chill deadening gray comes up and shrouds everything. But here he departs slowly. 42 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. reluctantly, leaving a long -lined train of light behind him. It is all brilliant and yet delicate 'painting — no heavy clouds to daub and make gross, no wind to harry and ruffle. And then, as the flaky lines of fire die out in the west, there comes into ever-deepening evidence the broad band of violet that edges the eastern horizon, melting through varied hues of rose to amber, and finally into the black-blue vault overhead. And the light seems only transformed, not gone. Just a peep into two churches, and another walk through the cathedral before we bid farewell to Burgos. And first, turning sharply up the hill to the right after leaving the west door of the cathedral, to San Esteban. St. Stephen's Church was being built at the same time as the earlier portions of the great cathedral were being set up, and stands at the foot of the gravelly hill that, with all its squalid nakedness and insignifi- cance, was able to give El Lor Wellington a disagreeable repulse in 1812. It is full of interest, and of pure Gothic beauty too, from its splendid western doorway, through the delicately-wrought stone pulpit that stands against one of the pillars of the nave, down — or rather up, for the cow in most of these old Spanish churches is in a western gallery — to the lovely little lectern in the choir. It would be difficult to put a more delicately beautiful study before one than the view from the steps of the high altar, with one's back to the hideous gilt retablo, and looking down the nave away to the cleverly- ordered west end — that pons asinorum of ecclesiastical BURGOS AND VALLADOLID. 43 designers — with its exquisite plateresque gallery, and fine rose window. I^'ot so beautiful perhaps, but more interesting, is San Gil, the quaint fourteenth — perhaps thirteenth — century church one sees from the sacristy window of San Esteban, lying a little farther away from the cathedral. It is the attraction of its interest — its dead life — that brings us here, for from end to end it is full of the most wondrous old monuments, effigies, and monumental stones. 'Ghastly/ some folk call them; — especially ghastly the alabaster hands and feet on a black ground- work of marble which we find in the side chapel of the south aisle, again before the altar at the east end of the same aisle, and in the Capilla Mayor. 'Stupid,' say others, and most people 'rude.' But surely they are most impressive and beautiful possessions for a church to have — only somewhat less desirable than a noble army of living members. They make so much more potent an appeal to one than the ordinary flat stone, with a careful record of virtues, duration of life, and family pedigree. They have the impress of living thought upon them, as if they were the outcome of the best knowledge and aspirations of the dead — or of their friends who are also dead ; while they seem to set forth, through all their absurd conventionality and perhaps rudeness of design, the quiet strength, purity and virtue which one would fain think were objects of desire and striving, even while one knows that the stormy lives of those old days were driven so far in other directions. 44 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. And now, if all this time we have been going again and again at leisure moments through the cathedral, learning to appreciate its really glorious beauty, and look over — or through — its comparatively small defects, we may take up in detail just one or two of its special points of interest before we set out for Yalladolid. And first, let it be noted that the finest view of the exterior — the finest near view — is that of the facade of the south transept, with its effective flight of steps leading up to its very noble doorway, and with its delicate rose window and rich open screen surmounting all. In the upper part of the doorway Christ is represented en- throned, surrounded by the four beasts and four evan- gelists, and with the twelve apostles at His feet. Below are figures of saints and prophets, and on the archivolts angels and kings — the latter with various musical instruments. Entering by this south transept door, and turning immediately to the right, through a pointed doorway sculptured with infinite power and beauty, one passes into the cloisters. These, no doubt, have been very fine in their time, but their efiect, both from below and above — mounting to their upper story — is quite spoiled by the odious filling in of the delicate windows. Open- ing out on the east is the old sacristy, a very grand room for its architectural details, and more valuable still for all it contains. It is hung round with por- traits of all the bishops who have ever held sway over Burgos — a very noteworthy array of men indeed. To BURGOS AND VALLADOLID. 45 the left on entering hangs an evidently characteristic likeness of Bishop Pablo, who held the see for twenty years — from a.d. 1415 to a.d. 1435. A Jew was this Bishop Pablo, and a native of Burgos — a married man with a family of sons and daughters. When he was forty years of age he became a renegade from the faith of his fathers, obtained a dissolution of his marriage — though his wife seems to have kept up friendly relations with him, and lies buried at his side in San Pablo hard by — was ordained priest, and eventually became bishop. His son Alonso was bishop after him, and it is chiefly with him that our interest for the moment lies. For he brought from Bale a very wonderful set of vestments, a sight of which must somehow be secured. They are over four hundred years old, and are withal almost as fresh looking — quite as beautiful — as ever, in their ex- quisite embroidering of gold upon a ground of dark mulberry-coloured velvet. There are other vestments here, even more gorgeous, but none to approach these twenty ca])as of Bishop Alonso's. With a glance at the ^ala Capitular, at its lovely Moorish ceiling, and — for Domenichino El Greco — wonderfully fine ' Crucifixion,' at the ante-sala too, with its strange Cofre del Cid and its fine Brussels tapestries, let us obtain admittance — not always an easy task — to the chapel of the Condestable, which lies at the extreme east of the church. Not always an easy task because the chapel is still private property — of the Duca de Prias, descendant of the original founders — and Senor 46 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. Pampliega, from whom we have to get the key, is about as uncertain as the wind. The chapel was designed and built for Don Pedro Fernandez de Velasco, hereditary Constable of Castile, by the same Juan de Colonia of whose workmanship we have already seen a not very favourable specimen at La Cartuja de Miraflores, and to whom also are due the western towers and spires of the cathedral. Irregularly octagon in plan — for it is square at the east end — vast to an almost seeming in- finity in its loftiness, with arching and vaulting of the most perfect grace and finish, this chapel would be well worth many a poring over for the simple sake of its architectural details ; but beyond that it is such a store- house of artistic gems as can rarely be met with. The famous tomb of the Constable and his wife has, indeed, been perhaps over-praised aiming, as it does at a realism that must always fail by being too ambitious. And the great bed of red porphyry lying alongside of, and origin- ally intended for the reception of the recumbent figures, detracts very much from the beauty of all its surround- ings. But the two side altars, the great retablo by Juan de Borgona, Andino's re^a, the old Flemish paintings, and a set of wonderfully -embroidered Gothic and Eenaissance altar - fronts, are entirely satisfactory. So is the carved door leading into the quaint little sacristy at the south-east angle of the chapel; so, too, are the priceless pieces of church -plate, and the ancient chasubles and dalmaticas over which the good Pampliega will wax amusingly enthusiastic if BURGOS AND VALLADOLID. 47 his visitors show any sign of real interest in such things. Fourteen chapels there are clustered round this won- derful old pile. None so fine indeed as the Condestable, but each with some peculiar merit or interest of its own, and each containing artistic or historic treasures that cry- out, ' Come and look at me ! ' There is La Presentacion with its fine Eenaissance work, with Borgona's admir- able monument to Canon Lerma, and Sebastian del Piombo's Virgin and Child. There is the Sanctisimo Cristo, with its wonder-working crucifix, carved, se dice, by Nicodemus, its quaint monuments, and its Descent from the Cross, by Eibera. Santa Ana, too, with its fifteenth-century retablo, its tombs of Canon Fernando Diez Pelayo — perhaps the very finest in the cathedral — and Bishop Acuna, and its Virgin of Andrea del Sarto. To come and see such a place as this for an hour or so, as is the way with five travellers out of six, is a sheer absurdity. And so with all the rest of Burgos — with its old buildings and patios confronting one at all sorts of odd corners, and eloquent of a past grandeur that no care- lessness or squalor of to-day can choke down. A month would not suffice to make it all one's own, nor six months bring any pall. All of which is infinitely more than can be said of Valladolid. Save that it is a place one ought to visit, as the ancient capital of Spain, and so assuredly pos- sessed of much historic import and life, it might very 48 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. well be passed by altogether. Its public walks and promenades — speaking generally — are a delusion and a dusty snare ; its streets and houses boast of all the disadvantages of modern toiling and worryful ways, and none of their painfully-won advantages ; its cathedral is an abomination, only to be walked through for the sake of getting a good idea of size, and such of its old buildings as are really worth examination are either jealously guarded or hideously defaced. An exception may be made in regard to promenades in favour of the Plaza Mayor — the first playground of the Great Inquisition — than which no 'plaza can re- count a bloodier, sadder past, or look with more smiling face upon its bright and picturesque life of to-day. And there is a notable corner, with a notable sur- rounding of buildings, which deserves more than a trivial mention. Divio g down from the cathedral past Santa Maria I'Antigua — surely a greatly overrated church — and mounting any of the tortuous streets leading north, one is pretty safe to land in the open space in front of San Pablo, and — if a stranger — to stand agape at its wonderful fayade. Very wonderful indeed is this famous facade, with its numberless statues, its armorial bearings and intricate tracery. But it is so much too much. There is none of the sub- stance and restfulness of true art about it. If it were not thought the correct thing to admire it — the first question an educated Spaniard puts to one, in discours- ing upon artistic matters is, " Have you seen the San BURGOS AND VALLADOLID. 49 Pablo fagade at Valladolid ?" — or if it did not take by storm the somewhat careless fancy of ordinary sight- seers, the world would hear less of it. There is far better food for study in the really lovely patio of San Gregorio, just behind, for those who are fond of clever manipulation. But there are other interests for us here. This same college of San Gregorio was a foundation of Cardinal Ximenez, and once a great power in the land. And the large heavy building behind again is the Casa del Sol, some time the residence of the Count de Gondoniar, Spanish ambassador to the court of our first James. Then, as one stands in front of San Pablo, and looks across the plaza, the house at the left-hand corner, with the quaint angle window, is where the most religious and barbarian Philip II. first saw the light, upon the 21st of May 1527. The house is now the property of the Marquis de Pombo, and has a pretty old patio — only rather too spick and span — and some fine salas. Twenty-one years before that a great man is being borne up the wide street leading past that corner palace, from his own modest home a little lower down, just opposite La Magdalena. For Christopher Columbus has gone to discover a second New World, and will not again mix with the gay throng on the fashionable Plaza de San Pablo. The church was in its halcyon days then, for one Torquemada, the adored of all good Catholics, had occupied a cell in the monastery sixty or seventy years before, and, becoming a cardinal after a E 50 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. while, had rebuilt the old place at his own expense, just at the time when, having fairly entered upon the great work of his life — the extirpation of Protestantism — he was burning heretics in the Plaza Mayor. What memories cling around the spot ! What a veritable " epoch-making " bit of the earth it has been ! And how altered now ! The church, indeed, has been restored, and garnished anew — some sixteen years ago — and, if in the old days it was at all like its facade, is perhaps more comely now, with its finely- groined roof and unadorned massiveness, than in times gone by. Better worth a visit, too, than some of the sought-after " bits " of the lower town. But its glory, like that of Valladolid, has departed. ; III. ZAMORA AND SALAMANCA. Medina pel Campo, one of Spain's greatest railway junctions, presents in more ways than one the ne plus ultra of travelling and management. Hence diverge lines north, south, east and west — to France, to Madrid, to Segovia, Zamora and Salamanca — but it is a junc- tion of trains that do not meet until the traveller's patience is utterly worn out ; nor does the place itself afford a shred of compensation for the unconscionable delay to which he is subjected. It is the dullest, most melancholy spot imaginable, unredeemed by any con- siderable record of past days or achievement. There is nothing to be seen but the sixteenth- century Gothic St. Antholin, and the great bare castle of La Mota — where Isabella la Catolica died — and there is no inn or resting- place worthy of the title. Why indeed Salamanca and Zamora should possess railway communication with the world, if the traffic can support only one train per day, and if it has to start at the unearthly hour of 5 a.m., it is rather difficult to see. The forty or fifty miles that intervene between the two places and the junction would be got over almost as 52 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. speedily, and much less vexatiously, in a well-appointed diligence ; an hour might then be given to the interest- ing old city of Toro, with its really magnificent Colegiata, and the palace of the Marquis of Santa Cruz, and one would be saved from many incontinent speculations upon the doings of the officials at the Zamora and Sala- manca termini between the hours of 9 A.M. and 6 p.m. Zamora, save for the ecclesiologist, possesses but slight importance. He, however, ought to visit it, being content, for the sake of its curious monuments, to brave the most uncomfortable night and day he will in all probability be called upon to pass in Spain. And, if he has a care beyond architectural or monu- mental interest, he will find something more about the old place. Its situation, and the views of the surround- ing landscape which are to be obtained from its rocky eminence, are both striking and beautiful. The city covers the crest of a long, tongue-shaped hill almost girdled by the lordly Douro, and approached on the south side by a picturesque old bridge of sixteen finely- pointed arches. Just at the tongue's tip rises the mosque -like cathedral, cresting and dominating and dwarfing the town, even as the latter seems to dominate the flat surrounding country. Zamora, 'la Men cercada,' the old Ocellum Dueri — calyx of theDouro — has a history dating from time almost without date. In later days, from its commanding position, it was ever a coveted spot during the endless wars that raged around it from the seventh to the tenth ZAMORA AND SALAMANCA. 53 century, taken and retaken by Moor and Christian, added finally to the Crown of Castile and Leon by the Cid some twenty -seven years before his death, and entrusted presently to the episcopal jurisdiction of his faithful follower and confessor Geronimo. This Gero- nimo, or Geronimo Visquio, was a Frenchman, a native of Perigord, and to some very strongly developed war- like characteristics — which we might expect to find in a devoted follower of the Cid — would seem to have joined an equal ardour in ecclesiastical building, with, naturally, a predilection for French forms. He had already commenced his great cathedral, the Vieja, at Salamanca, and no sooner had he well entered upon his functions in the resuscitated see of Zamora than he set about endowing the little city with a like worthy Mother church. And both here and at Salamanca, as will be seen presently, he did right good work, though at Zamora the hand of time, and the more cruel hand of the unappre- ciative restorer, have gone far to destroy all perfection. The cathedral consists of nave, side aisles, apsidal capilla mayor, and shallow transepts, with a domed lantern over the crossing. The nave, transepts, and cimhorio, with the Eomanesque steeple at the north-west angle, are the only portions of the old foundation left. All the rest — the choir, cloisters, chapels, and hideous north entrance — is either restoration or late addition. Small in actual dimension, the interior is remarkably satisfactory from its fineness of proportion, and simple, 54 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. massive work. The coro is placed in the usual blocking- up position west of the crossing, but considerable pains seem to have been taken, by lightening the west screen with two graceful elliptical doorways, and enriching it with very delicate and good work, to make this always unsightly element as unobjectionable as possible. Per- haps the most beautiful point of all is the noble treat- ment of the central dome. The common faults of flatness, baldness, poverty of design, and ill-judged admission of light, are one and all perfectly overcome by the arcaded stage introduced below, by the exquisite dormer win- dows on the cardinal sides, and the richly-worked angle turrets that give at once needed strength and relief. The chapels at the west end, all late additions, con- tain some sufficiently noteworthy objects. In that of San Juan is a most curious tomb of one of the early canons, Juan de Grado. More curious, perhaps, than beautiful ; for, while the recumbent figure of the canon is thoroughly excellent, the richly-decorated canopy, and the genealogical tree of the Blessed Virgin, with effigies of various royal personages, betray that leaning to heraldic design and over -elaboration of work which invaded and spoiled so much good work in Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the next chapel to the north — del Cardenal — there is an exceedingly fine retablo by Gallegos, painted towards the close of the fifteenth century, and representing, in its six divisions, the baptism and crucifixion of our Lord, the death of St. John, the descent of the Virgin to San Ildefonso and ZAMORA AND SALAMANCA. 55 his endowment with the miraculous chasuble, the dis- covery of the remains of the Toledan saint Leocadia, and their adoration. In the sacristy opening out of this chapel are some curious old paintings — half-length figures of the apostles, some battlefields, interesting for detail and costume, and full too of power, and, finally, a very sweet and dignified Virgin and Child. Some of the interior fittings of this noble church well repay careful study, chiefly perhaps the silleria of the Coro, The thirty-eight half-length figures of Old Testament worthies carved upon the panels of the lower range of stalls, with scrolls in their hands connecting them with New Testament history, if somewhat rude in execution, and not true to character, are nevertheless most interesting as an example of careful, high-souled art, and as affording an insight into the ingenious and scholarly research of the times. Of finer design and finish are the full-length figures of bishops, saints, and martyrs on the panels of the upper stalls. The lectern hard by, the delicately - wrought iron pulpits at the north-west and south-west angles of the Capilla Mayor, and the fine fifteenth-century rejas, too, are hardly less notable. It is not the least pleasant feature of Zamora Cathedral that one's quiet investigations may be pur- sued without being disturbed by any ear - torturing musical performance. Both mass and vespers are carefully and reverently sung, and the organ accom- paniment, though of course of the usual florid style so 56 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. opposed to English ideas, is really good — is organ- playing. The exterior is very nearly thoroughly bad. The exterior of most Spanish cathedrals is poor — bald — ^but this is positively repelling in its patchwork of styles and handicraft. Only the grand Eomanesque tower is worth looking at, and the rich fagade of the south transept. The latter is entirely satisfactory. It consists of a fine Eomanesque doorway, with three bold jamb-shafts carrying a four-ordered arch, which, for simple, mass- ive, and withal delicate treatment, is almost unique. At the sides are two smaller, blank doorways, with good sculpturing in archivolt and tympanum, and over all runs a bold arcade of five recessed arches. There is little else to detain one in Zamora, excepting always the old Templars' Church of La Magdalena, now unused, and fast falling into disrepair. The exterior, of ornate Eomanesque work, is perhaps the best part of the interesting old building. The general effect of the bare interior, after the beautiful south portal, the fine rose window, and the promising eastern apses, can hardly fail to be disappointing. But there is a good stone pulpit against the north wall, very elegantly poised upon a single pedestal, and there are two remarkable chapels at the entrance to the chancel, in the form of canopied tombs, with fine carving and moulding of the columns which enclose them. And, above all, there is a strange piece of thirteenth-century work near the aforementioned pulpit — the tomb of some unknown Marquesa. It ZAMORA AND SALAMANCA. 57 needed, indeed, thirteenth-century devotion, strong in its simplicity, to carry out worthily the somewhat ambitious representation of a dear departed lying in bed, while the soul is carried up to heaven by angels. And it is perhaps as well here that inevitable rudeness of work- manship, and a not-to-be-misunderstood undercurrent of power and religious fervour, place the main subject above the region of criticism. The rest of the work — the twisted shafts, and the carving of the capitals and canopy — is not at all rude, but shows very remarkably how much can be done upon absurdly limited ground. La Magdalena stands back in the main street running up from the eastern gate of the city to the cathedral. Almost opposite, and also standing back a little from the road, is the cruelly-restored church of San Ildefonso, called also San Pedro, from the crown and keys over the northern entrance. It is chiefly remarkable for the enormous width of its vaulted span, and for the recessed chamber over the high altar, wherein are deposited the much venerated remains of San Ildefonso and San Atilaon. One is not left in much doubt as to their whereabouts, for over the arch, in letters of blazing gold upon a blue ground, runs the inscription — Aqiui se elevaron los cuerpos dc S. Ildefonso y S. Atilaon a 2Q de Mayo 1496." And now, if there is an hour or so to spare before the evening train elects to crawl back to Medina del Campo, coming out of San Pedro we may descend to the river- side, peeping into the two fine Eomanesque churches of 58 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. Santa Maria de la Horta and San Leonardo. Passing from thence by the picturesque bridge, and the shallows over which the spread-out Douro rushes impetuously onward to the sea, we may turn aside for a few moments into diminutive San Claudio — the oldest church of the city, and yet without its walls — and admire its solid single nave, its quaintly-carved capitals and ohaci, and its choice collection of human skulls and crossbones. And then the hill must be faced again, by the ruined palace of Dona Urraca, Saint Ferdinand's ill-fated daughter, and by the rose-planted Paseo of San Martin, to the Plaza Mayor, with its seemingly always wrangling — but only in seeming — groups of brightly -dressed peasantry, and its pretty tower of San Vicente standing out clear and purely cut against the darkening blue sky. And so back to the " Mugbiest " of junctions, and a refreshing wait of five hours, before the early and only train starts to accomplish in another five hours the forty -two miles that intervene between Medina del Campo and Salamanca. Salamanca is a disappointing place, and yet one that should on no account be missed, however difficult to com- pass. Disappointing, because, while its first appearance is as imposing as fine buildings and noble situation can make it, one becomes hour by hour more and more sick of inferior, meretricious art -work, and of the fearful squalor and ruin of the whole city. There are only three things that unfailingly please and satisfy one, ZAMORA AND SALAMANCA. 59 the Catedral Vieja, the Plaza Mayor, and the unwonted excellence of ' La Burgalesa.' Not that Salamanca does not abound in beautiful and interesting bits and records. Undoubtedly it does. A week may very well be spent in wandering up and down its narrow, tortuous, ill-paved lanes, and in and out of its multitude of grandiose buildings. But it will be a week of humiliation and sorrow rather than delight, and chiefly of profitable contemplation of faults. It is well that the three refuges are always open; — the old cathedral for glorious, uncorrupted art, the Plaza Mayor for interest and beguilement, and ' La Burgalesa ' for creature comforts, and honest, simple Spanish sociability and kindness. What a past the old place has had ! Dominated — generally ravaged — by Eomans, Goths, Moors, Spaniards, and finally by neighbourly French, who half ruined the city seventy years ago, every successive master has left his footmarks behind him, and Salamanca lies to-day as one spent by the storms that have devastated her. As far back as the beginning of the thirteenth century the first seat of Spanish learning was here, and, under the special patronage of that Alonso El Sabio, who, like our own King James L, never said a foolish thing or did a wise one, students flocked to the colleges from all parts of the civilised world. In the fourteenth century over 10,000 names were upon the books of the university, while the city was of such importance that she repre- sented in Cortes 500 other towns and 1400 villages. 6o SKETCHES IN SPAIN. Then came the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that were to all the rest of Europe pre-eminently the time of awakening — of grasping hold of truth, power, light — but to Spain, in her invulnerable pride and fanaticism, one long blight. And the life ebbed away slowly but surely from her great literary centre. By the close of the fifteenth century Salamanca could boast of but 5000 students, and, though she held her own during the next two hundred years, the numbers fell to 2594 as the highest total of the eighteenth century, while the devastating wars of the early days of the nineteenth finally sealed her ruin. By 1812 the number of students had dwindled to 35, and though, under enlightened government, the total is now about 600, the sun of Salamanca has probably set for ever, owing to the rivalry of the provincial colleges — whose degrees are of equal value to those of the mother university — and to the withdrawal of revenues and endowments by a needy Imperial Government. And so, with the exception of the University proper, the Jesuitas, and the Irish College, all the splendid groups of buildings that were once the home of the world's best science are either devoted to other purposes, or going straight to rack and ruin. The first -named forms naturally the great attraction of Salamanca. It consists of a great mass of Eenaissance and plateresque buildings, lying to the north-west of the cathedral, and forming one side of the plaza, but with its finer facade in the Calle de Libreros behind. The decorative work ZAMORA AND SALAMANCA. 6i of this famous facade — late fifteenth century — is certainly most wonderful, though far too elaborate and given over to the vice of heraldry to be really satisfactory. The ingenious and far-fetched inscription is worth repro- ducing — 01 PacnXeh rfj iyKVKXoTrecBela avrrj tol<; Pa(TiXev(TL (the kings to the university, this to the kings). The first patio, or 'quad,' is decidedly poor, though picturesque enough when enlivened by groups of students pacing up and down between their lecture- hours, or passing from class-room to class-room. At the south side of this patio, however, there is one of the finest Eenaissance staircases conceivable, second only to the grand flight in the Vera Cruz Hospital at Toledo. It leads to the upper story of the range of buildings — particularly to the great university library — and, splendid as it is, must yield the palm of beauty to the portal of the library itself, so appropriately set off by the rich artesonado ceiling of the corridor. Within this portal there is something better than goldsmith's work. The library is a really admirable one containing some 80,000 volumes, and 1200 iiicunaUes and MSS., many of them of priceless value. There is the Lihro de las Mugcres cdehres del Antiguo y Nuevo Testamento, by Alvaro de Luna, Juan the Second's great minister, the Wolsey of the fifteenth century ; a Hebrew Bible of the same period, interleaved and annotated by Padre Ciruelo, some time Catedrdtico of the university ; a Vulgate of the thirteenth century, with the most ex- quisite initial letters; a Breviary of the fourteenth 62 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. century ; the absurd old Lihros de la Providencia ; a fifteenth -century MS. translation of Seneca's works; Varias ohras ineditas de Alfonso Ortiz, abogado de los Reyes Catdlicos, con appuntos acirca de la muerte del Principe don Juan, 1496 ; Aristophanes's Comedias, 1498. All these and a host of others, together with numerous chained MSS., ancient letters, and records of all sorts, are willingly shown to an inquiring visitor who has the fortune to insinuate himself into the good graces of the pleasant chief librarian. The noble reading-room, ab- solutely free to all comers, is not the least gratifying part of this right royal establishment, and bears testi- mony to the quickened life of the university. The chapel, in the corridor close by, is worth a visit, though sadly modernised. For there is a very lovely fourteenth -century sagrario, with delicate piedra de avatar columns, to be seen here, and an authentic letter from St. Ferdinand, dated April 7, 1280. Then, in a recess on the south side, there is an urn containing the precious remains of the Fray Luis whose statue occupies the place of honour in the plaza outside, and concerning whom we shall meet with a strange record down below, in the patio. Both here, too, and in the neighbouring salas, the curious may inspect a wonderful amount of gorgeousness in the way of marble floors and embroidered benches, rich curtains, and delicately-carved furniture. So much so that it is a positive relief to descend from the succession of magnificent things to the cell -like class-rooms of the older university buildings. Cell-like ZAMORA AND SALAMANCA. 63 indeed, and all the more so from sharp contrast ; but good work was done in these dingy places, in company with bare boards and whitewash. Here is the " Deciamos ayer!' the old lecture-room of the Fray Luis de Leon, whose writings we may have come across in the library, and whose ashes rest in the chapel above. The good brother was a notable man of his day, a foremost pro- fessor in the university when it was still a Mecca to the learned world, and a man, too, who had strong convictions concerning the iniquities of some of the ' powers that were/ and did not hesitate to use strong language in denouncing them. Naturally he was enor- mously beloved by all his following, and when, after being imprisoned for sixteen years by the Great Inqui- sition, he resumed his work in the schools, all Salamanca flocked to hear him, with the morbid expectation of fire from heaven being called down upon the heads of his persecutors. But Fray Luis was not a man of that small stamp. He ascended the rostrum — that same rickety old pulpit, now standing against the wall — from which, sixteen years before, he had been dragged off to prison, looked round quietly upon his eager audience, and, beginning Deciamos ayer " — " we were saying yesterday " — proceeded with the old interrupted lecture as if he had merely been called out of the room for a few minutes, and had been obliged to defer a portion of his remarks till the following day. It is but a step from these old class-rooms to the New Cathedral, but, in one sense, just about as long a 64 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. step as could be taken. Most sore indeed are the revul- sions of feeling caused by this wonderful erection. At first sight one is amazed at the infinite delicacy of some of its florid Gothic and Kenaissance work — for example, in the sculptures about the great west and north door- ways. Then, as one walks round the exterior, the unfailingly poor carrying out of great ideas, the bung- ling of fine lines, and the trumpery character of the ornamentation administer a severe blow to all really artistic notions, with a final result of perfect nausea and unchristian feeling when one lands down upon the open plaza in front of San Esteban — from whence alone a good view westwards can be obtained — and looks up at the great staring square east end, and bald, mill-like windows. Presently one enters by the west door, and is in- finitely impressed and solemnised by the splendid pro- portions of the interior, the grace and harmony of its lines, and the unity of its Gothic style. Impressed, too, by the excellence of some of the detail — the fine stained glass, for example, and the delicate lace- work of the double plateresque gallery that runs round in front of the windows. And thenceforward there is nought but disappointment in store. Nearly all the detail is just about as bad as it could be, from the blue-and-gold capitals, and the rosette-studded roof, down to such boasted pieces of gingerbread as the Camilla Borada, with its lovely array of little sinners on gilt pedestals, picked out in blue and gold. One is constantly haunted. ZAMORA AND SALAMANCA. 65 too, by the lack of vista round the east end, in just the grand church — grand in conception, and grand in the lavish sums of money poured out upon it — that, per- haps above all others in Spain, would have repaid this piece of foresight. Finally, the side chapels fail to fulfil their promise of interesting and beautiful things, and the services are as excruciating as they are persistent, overridden by an organist who declines for a moment to lose sight of the fact that he has almost unlimited free reed power at his command. Upon the whole, Salamanca Great Cathedral must be pronounced ipar excellence the barren fig-tree of the country. There is a degree of savage delight to be obtained by turning into the Capilla del Carmen at the east end — where, by the way, are the remains of the Bishop Geronimo whose work we have already met with at Zamora — and look- ing at the sublimely ugly and rude crucifix which used to be carried at the Cid's side in battle. The way in which the figure upon the cross is turning up its nose at all the tawdriness around it, and wrapping itself up in complacent contemplation of a great past, is simply inimitable. But what a legitimate and comforting relief to go half-way along the south aisle, and turn down the broad flight of steps into that grandest monument of this same Bishop Geronimo, his Catedral Vieja ! It is a sudden transition from unrest to peace, from a wrangle with self-assertive weakness into the commanding, quieten- ing presence of silent omnipotence. Small in actual F 66 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. dimensions, simply noble in plan and proportion, instinct with truest art down to the smallest detail, the Old Cathedral of Salamanca is very nearly outside the pale of either praise or carping criticism. In it the student of historical record or human vicissitude on the one hand, of artful design or delicate loving handicraft on the other, may spend hour after hour, and day after day, with ever -increasing satisfaction and healthful experience. Beyond the main general effect of this noble work, and a study of its broader details, some careful notice should be taken of its accessories, which are both beautiful in themselves and full of touching record. Eirst, there is the great fourteenth -century retablo, fitted to, instead of disfiguring or concealing, the lines of the nave and the curve of the apse, and panelled with fifty-five scriptural subjects, devotional in treatment, sober and rich in colouring. The delicate architectural framework surrounding each panel is only a shade less noteworthy than the subject-matter itself. Then, turn- ing aside into the chapel to the right of the apse, one is faced by a tiny old organ, still in occasional use, of the rudest possible construction, but with a remarkably fine 'Assumption' upon its gilded and carved front, the figures being full of life and vigour, l^o less worthy of study are the tombs surrounding the south transept, and in the cloister opening out of it. The cloister itself is modernised to a regrettable extent, but there is some good old work left in it yet, and its chapels mostly ZAMORA AND SALAMANCA. 67 retain their ancient features. In the first on the left, the Capilla de Talavera — an oddly-constructed square room with octagonal roof and Moorish dome — the time-honoured Muzarabic ritual is still occasionally performed. This Muzarabic, or ' mixed with the Arabic/ service, not at all interesting from a musical point of view, is nevertheless a very wonderful echo of the old days, and the old struggles between Christian and Moor. Its home and history, however, are not here, but in the Cathedral and Zocodover of Toledo. There it was that the people wrung from their conquerors the permission to use their ancient ritual unmolested, and there it bears a daily testimony to a noble tolerance, and faithful observance of pledges, to which the Christian Church has ever so miserably failed to attain. Next to the Capilla Mozarabe is the chapel of Santa Barbara, built by Bishop Juan Lucero about the middle of the fourteenth century. Here, up to 1842, was held the Convocation Day of Salamanca University ; and in this dismallest of cells the student who was about to ' dispute ' in the schools was shut up for twenty-four hours, with a sentinel at the door, to think out his sub- ject in cold blood ! Turning out of Santa Barbara, and keeping to the left, we come, first, upon the old Sala Capitular, with its quaint and lovely furniture, and especially the old sillas used in the Councils — from which, among many other evil dicta, was pronounced null and void the marriage of Pedro the Cruel with the ill-fated Blanche 68 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. of Bourbon — and then npon the Bala de Consilios y Canto, rich in very delicate Gothic work. And then comes what is generally held to be the gem of all, the Chapel of San Bartolome — very much over-praised, surely. There are some fine points about it, no doubt ; but it is too diminutive for its ambitious design — its square west end and eastern apse, and its cathedral-like roof. The tombs of the Anaya family, too, by which the chapel is literally occupied, are only obtrusive, and hardly worthy of notice. Save one — one that is awful in its solemnity. In a dark corner lie Costanza de Anaya, in simple nun's dress, and her husband Gutierrez de Monray. Nothing can be more impressive than the very presence of death stamped upon these wonderful effigies. Standing here one loses sight of everything trivial or objectionable in the surroundings, and can even turn and look with equanimity at the horrible monument to the lady's brother, the archiepiscopal founder of the chapel, which takes up something more than the place of honour in front of the high altar. The lady's hr other, be it noted, not son, as the guide- books say. Close by the Catedral Vieja, not three minutes' walk in an easterly direction, stands the better known church of San Est^ban, noteworthy alike for its faults and its excellencies. The great western portal is a fine speci- men of the decorative artist's work, and there is no lack of life in the manifold figures wherewith it is enriched. The interior of the church too, as seen from ZAMORA AND SALAMANCA. 69 under the dark elliptical western arch, with the strong light cunningly concentrated eastwards, is most im- pressive and dignified. Particularly if one happens to go in during some musical performance and appreciates the wonderful sonority of the building, — sonority, with- out echo, so good that even voices out of tune, and a harmonium badly played can have a strange, sweet, ad captandum effect. But presently the over -elaboration and over-decoration of the place pall dreadfully — especi- ally the great Churrigueresque retablos, though about these hovers the pretty tradition that their blazing gold was a grateful offering made by one Christopher Colum- bus, the firstfruits of his New World discoveries. His memory, too, lends interest to the neighbouring convent and cloisters, for here he made his home from 1484 to 1486, when he was fighting for royal patronage of his schemes, and received the support and countenance of the Salamanca Dominicans. There is little else to be seen in Salamanca — let the books say what they will. Nothing, that is to say, but a few vexatiously isolated things. There is Eibera's wonderfully lovely Concepcion in the otherwise dis- appointing church of the Agustinas Eecoletas.* There are the fair portal and choir roof of Santi Spiritu — an establishment of the third Order of Santiago, and refuge for noble women whose husbands were ab- * Beyond all comparison the finest example in Spain of tins usually- forbidding master. In its soft and tender beauty it is altogether un- like Ribera. 70 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. sent upon their country's service. There is the little Eomanesque church of San Marcos ; the Casa de las Conchas, with its delicate rejas and wonderful, shell- studded fa9ade ; and the Casa Salinas, with the gallery of its patio supported upon bold and finely-carved pro- jecting figures of the Italian school. And there is always the picturesque Plaza Mayor. It is really absurd how one comes back to this central bit of Salamanca life with pleasure and relief. There is nothing about it distinctively worthy of praise, and yet altogether it forms about as pleasant a promenade as can be found anywhere. The perfection of its shape, the warm creamy tint of its uniform houses, its broad, comfortable pavement — an inexpressible relief to feet tortured by the simply diabolical paving of the streets — its unfailing greenery and flowers, and its picturesque groups of happy animated country folk and students, altogether make it a sort of hoine — a place of comfort and relaxation — that is as welcome as it is needed. IV. A VILA. It is well known liow intensely difficult, how almost impossible, it is for a denizen of the busy world, sur- rounded by all the lightfulness and certain knowledge which fence him in from the dominion of prejudice, passion, and, alas ! faith, to arrive at any real sympathy with the past, or with the lives and purposes of some of those old reformers of the world to whom he owes a great and unrecognised debt. It is a wonderful help, if one wishes to attain to such an experience, to sojourn for a while in some place where the wheels of progress move so slowly that yesterday is only just receding into twilight, and both its lights and its shadows are still clearly determinable. Such places are not difficult to find in Spain, and perhaps none answer the purpose better than Avila, the home of the at any rate saint -like Teresa, Spain's lady patroness, and the home too, even now, of just some such admixture of dense ignorance of the world and world-wide learning, of brutality and gentleness, of carelessness of life and supremest selfishness, as in the old times tended to personify ideas and idealise 72 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. persons to a degree hardly comprehensible nowa- days. The approach to, and appearance of the city, con- trary to the usual run of Spanish towns, are strikingly grand — strikingly in accord, too, with its history and characteristics. Before any sign of habitation comes in sight the railway runs, mile after mile, through a wilderness of granite blocks — sometimes bare, some- times covered up with small ilex coppice — that look like the city of a titanic dead. Here and there mass- ive stone crosses speak of the religious fervour that for so long found a fitting home among these vast wastes, and then with a sharp turn of the road the city itself — the highest point of all this wind-swept plain — suddenly frowns upon the traveller from behind its strangely forbidding and yet perfect ramparts. Hard stern life, armed fear, separatedness from all of beauty, graciousness, and luxury — these seem to form the atmosphere of this strange district. And it is an atmosphere that rather thickens than clears as we drive under the massive walls, skirt the east end of the cathe- dral — itself a stronghold, and forming one of the old city towers — and jolt up and down the narrow crooked streets, in seemingly unending quest of the one decent inn. The Avila of to-day is manifestly very much the Avila of 750 years ago, when Eamon of Burgundy had just completed its circumvallation, and the quaint half- church, half-fortress of San Salvador — or sucli portion of it as had then been erected — was newly dedicated A VILA. 73 to that Prince of Peace with whose reign the grim old city had so very little to do. The ' Dos de Mayo ' — formerly, in brighter days for the traveller, when it was kept by an Englishman, the Hotel del Ingles — lies within a stone's throw of the cathedral, and right opposite the great western entrance and very noble principal faQade. In natural order, there- fore, the cathedral claims our first attention. And, it must be confessed, does not worthily repay it. One understands, at the first glance around, that there is a vast amount of good detail to be studied; but, at the same time, the assortment of brown and red tints, the hideous velvet draperies — contrasting so oddly with the flat clerestory and its bald six-light windows — and some poor patchwork restoration about the west end, impart an unpleasant sickly flavour to the building. And so, all through this undoubtedly splendid church, blemishes tread on the heels of excellencies to a degree only surpassed perhaps in the world-venerated cathe- dral of Sevilla. There is really hardly a corner where one is not almost as much repelled as attracted. The gem of the whole is the skilful treatment of the east end, where wonderful strength is so happily wedded to exquisite grace, and the sturdy old chevet, with its solid, fortress -like exterior, endowed with as delicate, fine, and rich an interior as one could dream of. And yet here, turning away from the satisfying vista of the double aisle round the apse, one is confronted by work in the chapels opening out north and south, 74 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. as poor as the rest is praiseworthy. Anything worse than the chapel of San Segundo, with its dreadful baldachin, and the shrine wherein are preserved the bones of the saint, it would be difficult to meet with. Of similarly unequal merit are the monuments and fittings of the church. Two exceedingly pretty wrought- iron pulpits — wrought as only skilful hands, three hun- dred years ago could work — stand at the angles of the Capilla Mayor and Crossing ; and close to that on the south side is a very beautiful Eenaissance monument — an alabaster altar — to San Segundo, contrasting refresh- ingly, in its pure and true workmanship, with the dread- ful surroundings of his tomb. And then there is an exactly corresponding monument upon the north side, to Santa Catalina, just as devoid of art in design and work as that to San Segundo is brimful of it. There is a very w^onderful work of Juan de Borgona's here — the great retablo. Not altogether of his, how- ever, although he usually gets the lion's share of the credit for it, for with him were associated Pedro Berru- guete and Santos Cruz. The solitary figures of Saints Peter and Paul, with the four evangelists and four doctors of the church, which occupy the lowest stage, are full of life and vigorous conception. The more ambitious compositions above — first, the Annunciation, Nativity, Transfiguration, Adoration of the Magi, and the Presentation in the Temple, and then the Scourging, the Agony in the Garden, the Crucifixion, the Descent A VILA. 75 into Hades, and the Resurrection — are not nearly so satisfactory. Avila is endowed with several churches besides San Salvador — the cathedral — which repay careful study. Above all, San Vicente. This church stands just out- side the gate of the same name, upon the road to the station, and is at once one of the oldest foundations of the city, and one of the most beautiful legacies of the Eomanesque period in the world. There is a certain charm at the outset, from the traditions hanging over its erection. San Vicente was put to death at the beginning of the fourth century, by command of the Emperor Dacian, because he had desecrated an altar of Jupiter. His body and those of two companions who were martyred with him were left to the vultures upon the scene of execution. Presently there passed by a rich Jew, who, beginning to mock at the three corpses, was promptly attacked by a serpent which issued from a hole hard by. Thereupon he vowed that, if he escaped, he would build a church to the martyrs' God. The vow was of course heard, and over the rock and serpent's hole — still to be seen in the crypt below the Capilla Mayor — arose the first church of San Vicente. As a matter of fact, not simply tradition, this same serpent's hole was used for centuries as a place of adjuration, it being supposed that the long-lived snake would bite any one who, putting his hand into the hole, swore falsely. The old church has of course long since disappeared. 76 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. The present edifice dates mainly from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, though there are many portions of both earlier and later work. It is of the usual cruciform plan, with nave and side aisles — each ending in a well- proportioned apse — transepts, and raised lantern over the Crossing. The work throughout is almost beyond praise ; to do anything like justice to it within narrow limits would be impossible. But three remarkable points may be noticed: — the admirable way, in both exterior and interior treatment, in which the difficulties arising from a sloping site are met ; the noble west end, which, with its grandly lofty double porch, and double portal, seems to solve perfectly that problem of how to make a west end solemn, elegant, and at the same time useful, against which architects to-day so vainly tilt ; and the curious open cloister, which is carried along the southern wall to a point, unfortunately, a little beyond the western porch. These open cloisters, usually bear- ing distinct evidence of being later additions, form a very peculiar — upon the whole very praiseworthy — feature in the architectural work of north-western Spain. They are to be met with at Valladolid (Santa Maria I'Antigua), at Burgos, and especially at Segovia, where they are comparatively common, and in excellent pre- servation. But it is difficult to bestow even a passing word upon this lovely church without referring to the very remarkable thirteenth -century monument to the three martyrs which stands to the right of the crossing. A VILA. 77 Eemarkable both for excellence of workmanship and carelessly-allowed predominance of fault, the exquisite inner shrine being painfully covered up by the poor, late baldachin. Eemarkable above all else, alike of wise and foolish work, for the perfectly glorious life — the inconceivable intensity of expression — embodied in the subjects descriptive of the martyrdom which are set forth upon the panels of the shrine. It is not too much to say that a loving study of one or two of these wonderful representations — real representations, how- ever rude they may be when judged by some of the finicky, merely academical rules of a weakened art — is worth more than a whole day's ordinary sight-seeing. When one is weary of poring over subjects in holes and corners it is a very pleasant relaxation to take a quiet walk round the city walls, turning aside here and there to glance at the continually-recurring monuments of art and bygone life which are to be met with. For, while Avila herself is so hidden behind her huge defences that comparatively little of the outlying country can be seen by the sojourner within her walls, it is a strange fact that most of her great buildings and points of interest lie without. It is well to start betimes, because, contrary to Spanish custom, nearly all the churches close about 9.30 A.M. The best point of departure is by the south- eastern gate, opening upon the Plaza del Mercado. A busy scene indeed is this plaza upon market-day. Picturesque costume is not so striking a feature in 78 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. Spain as it is usually supposed to be, but no charge of this sort can be laid at the door of Avila. The men are wrapped up in voluminous ca'pas — which, like charity, cover a multitude of underlying sins — and sport round beaver hats, of most absurd dimensions, or bright- coloured gorras. But the women are the finest. The correct thing is to have one's sober- coloured gown lined with bright red or green flannel. This is then thrown back over the head — not quite covering up, however, a brilliant kerchief head-dress — so as to present a magnificent and unimpeded view of a gamboge- coloured petticoat, and a pair of blue or purple stock- ings. It is very dreadful, indeed, to find the ' hush ' of the London belle attaining to universal acceptation, and enormous development ; but it has here at least the unwonted merit of acting as a fine block for gorgeous colouring. And let it be gratefully noted that, as in other Castilian cities so in Avila, there is an absence of the dialects which sometimes so sorely oppress and trouble the stranger who has laboured to qualify himself in pure Spanish. The speech is a little rapid indeed — a little clipped too — but the veriest street imp may be readily understood or questioned. At the extremity of the plaza stands the Eomanesque San Pedro, exhibiting, both in design and execution, much of the same grasp and conscientiousness already noticed in San Vicente. The work is coarser, however, and the extraordinary massiveness of every portion A VILA. 79 of the building gives it an unpleasantly cramped character. Proceeding now along the crest of the hill, and turning gradually to the left, we come upon three of Santa Teresa's foundations for women — 'Las Madres,' ' Las Gordillas,' and, nearer the station, ' Santa Ana.' A sharp descent of the northern slope leads, then, past the huge ruined Franciscan convent to the celebrated nunnery of. the ' Encarnacion,' where, in November 1534, and at twenty years of age, the infinitely venerated saint took the veil, and from whence came at once her greatest comfort and greatest afflictions. It is a sufficiently wretched pile of buildings now, the chapel decked out with all that gilt and stucco can do, and the adjoining courtyard — a wilderness of untidy gravel and weed — presenting an eloquent exposition of its inscription, ''Sic transit gloria rtiundir Lrom this point a very fine view is obtained of the long line of city walls, clinging closely to the sharp undulations of the hillside, and bristling with their still formidable- looking circular towers. Four hundred and twenty years ago there was enacted here one of the strangest scenes which history furnishes. Henry IV. had, by a course of unbridled licentiousness and folly, driven into rebellion a large section of his nobles, who, headed by Carillo, Archbishop of Toledo, and Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Yillena, determined to put the king's youthful brother Alonso upon the throne. The in- surgents met here, before the walls of Avila, and 8o SKETCHES IN SPAIN. proceeded, as a first act of defiance, to a mock deposition of their sovereign. A great platform was erected, and upon a gorgeous throne in the midst was set an effigy of Henry, clad in all his royal robes. A herald then declared seriatim all the charges preferred against him, winding up by demanding his dethronement. Here- upon Carillo advanced, and deprived the king of his crown. The Marquis of Villena followed suit with the sceptre ; and then the image, after being stripped of its robes of state, was delivered over to the tender mercies of the soldiery and rabble townsfolk, who trampled it under foot and finally tore it limb from limb. Alonso, who was at the time only eleven years of age, was now carried forward upon a shield by the nobles, amid enthusiastic cries of "Long live Alonso, King of Castile !" and seated upon the empty throne. The oath of allegiance was duly administered to the grandees, the people pressed forward to kiss the royal hand, and the heralds, with a great flourish of trumpets, proclaimed the formal accession of the new monarch to the crown. , Proceeding now up the gentle slope leading to the north-west angle of the city, the uninteresting Campo Santo is left to the right; and just at the corner, over- hanging the rapid little river, there stands the tiny church of San Segundo. It is worth seeing, not only for the sake of its thoroughly good Eomanesque detail, but also for the very fine monument to the patron-saint — too good for Berruguete, to whom it is ascribed — A VILA. 8i which occupies a somewhat odd position just within the chancel- rails. The coffin lies underneath, with some relics within, but the body of the bishop-saint rests, as we have seen, in the cathedral. The church owes its foundation to the able combination of "fortiter in re " with suaviter in mocW in San Segundo's character, marking the spot where he did to death a certain recalcitrant Moor, by pushing him over from the neigh- bouring tower. The view from the door of this little church, across the river, bridge, and uprising opposite slope, is very fine. Eight in front, some five hundred yards along the Salamanca road, stands a canopied cross, the Cruz de Cuatro Posies, which marks the spot where Santa Teresa bade farewell to her beloved Avila when she went forth, in 1567, to found her first convent at Medina del Campo. Without crossing the river, the road may now be taken under the walls, and past the ruined San Isidoro — the oldest church in Avila, and still showing remains of excellent work. A few minutes' climb brings us to the Puerta de La Santa Casa, the south-western gate of the city, and from here an exceedingly pretty alameda, or garden, stretches away past the Puerta del Eastro — the southern gate — to the south-east corner of the city, and so takes us back again into the Plaza del Mercado. The views from this promenade, over the great brown vega, the silvery river, and the far off Sierra de Avila, are grand in the extreme. The large building just below G 82 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. the Puerta de La Santa Casa is the hospital. Farther off, at the outside of the fringe of houses, lies San Nicolas ; away to the left, Santiago, while the isolated mass of gray building to the eastward is the great convent and church of Santo Tomas — of which more anon. To see this promenade and landscape at their best, however, it should be visited when a full moon is throwing the shadows into brilliant black relief, lighting up the white houses and little plaza that lie on the slope, and sleeping on the gray churches and the outlying plain. This same Santo Tomas calls for an excursion to itself, and something more than a glance in passing. The convent, which has lately been restored and handed over for seminarial purposes to the Domini- cans, is one of the many foundations of the Eeyes Catolicos, and has a peculiar interest attaching to it from having been the educational home of their idol- ised son, Prince Juan, and a favoured residence of Ferdinand and Isabella themselves. Founded at the instance of the arch -Inquisitor Torquemada, it was fitting that this house should be the birthplace of the infinitely great, and as infinitely small scheme of blot- ting out Protestantism in blood. Grimly fitting, too, that when everything which wealth, power and love could do had been lavished upon Prince Juan, in order to make him in all ways a king of men, their Most Imperial Humanities, who had dealt out such abound- ing measure of life and death to others, should here be A VILA. 83 awfully taught that the stage on which they could stmt was, after all, small to nothingness. For the marble monument in front of the high altar of the chapel is not only a touchingly beautiful memorial to a touchingly beautiful young life, but it marks, too, the burial-place of hopes and labours than which the world has seen few greater, or seemingly more omnipotent. It is inexpressibly good that this monument, the pro- duct of a day when a care for nothing but elaboration had already begun to spell disaster to art, should be found so thoroughly pure and fine. Which, by the way, marks off one of the special values of Avila as a place of usefullest study. It would be well for all those who cavil at Gothic work to observe truly the conception and much of the detail of the cathedral ; for those who can only see rudeness of execution in the Romanesque to come and ponder over the ability of that martyr's tomb in San Vicente to tell its tale ; or for him who has set his affections upon the antique, and denies to Renaissance work all but aca- demic correctness, to stand before this monument to Prince Juan in Santo Tomas, and confess that it is as fine and cunning in design and true sentiment as it is delicate and perfect in workmanship. It is, too, a noble church. The view down the fine single nave, from the western gallery, with the delicate groining contrasting strongly with the dark stone-work below, is very imposing. Better still perhaps is the view from the east end, when the afternoon light is 84 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. coming through the great rose window in front, bring- ing into strong relief the exquisitely carved oak- work of the choir, and throwing into a deeper shade than is its wont the dark, elliptical arch below. Diving into the heart of the city one comes here and there upon many other interesting churches. There is San Juan, in the Plaza de la Constitucion, the baptismal place of Santa Teresa ; there is the strange dodecagonal chapel of Mosen Eubi, with the misshapen stone boars, the tor OS de, guisando, just outside, over the meaning and destination of which so much ingenious speculation has been expended. Wonderful old houses too — Onate and Polentinos, or the quaint battlemented house at the corner of the square where the Post Office is, with its characteristic coat -of- arms over the gateway, and the two stone heralds that are just delicious in their conceit and life likeness. " Petrus Avila et Maria Corduhensis uxor, MDXLi " runs the entirely suitable inscription. And, finally, there is the Santa Casa itself, with the all-pervading memories of Avila's great saint. To find her birthplace we must seek the south-west gate of the city. Just inside lies a plaza of considerable size, bounded on the west side by the wandering old palace of the Duquesa de la Eoca, with its grass -grown patio and fine old stone staircase, on the east by the low whitewashed Institute, and on the north by a hideous whitened church, with an interior resplendent in blue and gilt which one would thankfully go a long way round not to be obliged to look at. And yet it is worth A VILA. 85 braving^ the terrible surroundinj^s wherewith a blind devotion has endowed the spot, for the sake of visiting the birthplace of one who, for good or evil — and cer- tainly more for good than evil — has left broad foot- marks behind her in the world. ''En esta Capilla nacid Nra Serdfica Madre Santa Teresa cle Jesus, Doctor a mistica. A 2S de Marzo ano de 1515." So declares the inscription in a small room opening out of the north transept of the church. In 1515 this was no vilely ornamented cayilla, but a simple apart- ment in the house of Don Alfonso Sanchez de Cepeda, a citizen of Avila, and occupying an honoured position in his native place. There is small need to repeat the oft-told tale of the strange life of Teresa de Jesus, of her childlike graciousness and fervent devotion, her in- numerable visions and exalted mysticism, her supremely patient work and final triumphing. But the memory of a woman who, in a ceaseless fight of forty -seven years, conquered self, conquered suffering, conquered persecution, and conquered time, is worth lingering over for a moment. The secret aUke of her patience and success may best be told in some of her own words — words which, beyond all reasonable doubt, were a far more faithful mirror of her inner life than the manifold mystic declarations to which her devotees cling. — "I esteem it a greater grace," she wrote, " to pass one day in humble obedience, putting forth sighs to God from a contrite and afflicted heart, than to spend days in 86 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. prayer. . . . Lengthy prayers will not raise a soul when she is rather called to obedience." And again, " I can- not ask of our Lord, or even desire, rest, because I see that He lived altogether in labours. Which I beseech Him to give me likewise, bestowing upon me, first, grace to sustain them." And, finally, " I have learned this by experience, that the true remedy against falling is to lean on the cross, and to trust in Him who was fastened to it." Y. MADRID. AviLA, in point of actual distance, is some twenty leagues from Madrid ; in point of time, five hours ; in life, a century. It is the strangest instantaneous trans- formation, hringing with it at once a sense of confusion and of home-coming, to pass from the sluggish, unlovely ways of the former — rendered sluggish and unlovely by the persistent lingering of the olden time with all its works — into the brilliant, eager, well-ordered life of the capital. And, inasmuch as one speedily loses the sense of being dazzled or confused, the remainder of home- coming is very pleasant. Altogether, Madrid must be pronounced a badly used place. It is infinitely better than its reputation. Granted that it owes its origin — or, more correctly speaking, its evolution out of a village — to the gross selfishness of a gouty monarch ; granted that its climate is treacherous, its surroundings uninteresting, and its river a mockery — what then ? So have most cities been built under the influence of a delusion, or self-interest ; so are the immediate surroundings of nine great towns out of ten uninteresting ; so are most climates inimical 88 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. to careless folk ; and as for tlie river — one never thinks about it. If it does less good than some other big ditches, it also does less harm. If brilliant life, propped up by all the thousand-and-one artificial aids which brilliant life nowadays requires ; if fine promenades, drives, streets, shops, houses, and crowds of well-dressed pleasure-seekers are allowed their current value, then Madrid must be placed high up indeed in the scale of European capitals. And although, apart from its grand Museo, the city possesses comparatively little to interest the mere student of art or ancient record, yet for him whose sympathies are with to-day's weal and woe there are here subjects and experiences of the deepest significance. For in Madrid, as in no other great European capital, the life- blood of the country beats to its truest pulse. Ordin- arily it is not fair to judge of the spirit or real condition of a nation by the mixed and diluted life of its greatest cities — hlas^e when it happens to be neither diluted nor mixed. But Madrid, with all its foreign ways and ac- cessories, is altogether Spanish, and it has, moreover, a peculiar claim to be taken as a standpoint for observation, because, in the country districts, the widespread ignor- ance and superstition, and the laissez-faire, spirit which causes the masses to be swayed now by the emissaries of one party, now of another, make all gauging false and unreliable. And what does one find in Madrid ? To a painful degree — painful because in the light and MADRID. 89 under the influence of the best life and education the land can give, and of everyday intercourse with other cultivated nations — that very same mistrusting of the powers of State and Church, that absence of real, help- ful citizenship, that love of display arising from self- complacency, which we set down at the outset as keynotes of Spanish life. It is a terrible thing that it should be so — for a nation upon which rests to a remarkable degree the responsibility of possible and necessary development. Of family and social life there is little ; of intelligent interest in art and literature next to nothing ; of loyalty and reverence none. In a newly-awakened enthusiasm for a possibly great nation you speak, perhaps, to some cultivated and seemingly high-minded Madrilenian about his monarch, probably in terms of the sincerest admiration and commendation. The sooner Alfonso packs up his traps and goes, the better ! " is the rough reply. You comment upon the acknowledged corrup- tion that prevails, and speak hopefully of some little progress that is being made in the direction of cleansing. Promptly there comes the comforting assurance that it is all illusory — all useless — unless preceded by a change of government. Change ! change ! change ! It is the one universal cry. And just because, in the magic shuffling of the cards, there is a chance of some particu- lar and private enterprise turning up trumps, or of somebody else's trump card disappearing. And all the time the brilliant life and the courtly 90 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. magnificence whicli form such a potent weapon in the hands of the court's enemies roll on undisturbed. . . . Knowing all the heart-sinking and disappointment, the selfishness and callous indifference to to-morrow which lurk beneath, it is impossible to delight in it. No ; — it is not quite home-coming, after all ! It is a relief to turn into the quiet Museo. That is home, at any rate — a veritable home of art. It is all in such deliciously small compass, all so well ordered, all so good. One has not to walk miles before attaining to favourite spots, or to stare over acres of unresponsive canvas before lighting upon familiar faces, — or even to command one's temper against officialism, or jostling. All is in a few rooms, and that by exclusion of the bad rather than through poverty. The excellence, too, is so refreshingly its own — of Spain, Spanish. Beyond even the somewhat similar excelling of our National Gallery. One approaches the collection, aware, perhaps, of the fact that there is a grievous absence of representatives of the early Italian and German schools, and under the impression that he has already abundantly studied Yelazquez and Murillo elsewhere. And then all sense of lacking, even as all com- placent resting in former experiences, is delightfully lost in the wonderful revelation of what the real Velazquez was, of a fresh power in Murillo, and of a whole host of hitherto unknown and yet veritable masters, from sixteenth-century Antonio Moro, Coello, and Pantoja de la Cruz, through Pacheco, Eibera (with, after all, his MADRID. 91 only too lifelike representations of what old days and old saints were), Zurbaran and Alonso Cano, down tO' Yaldes Leal, or the Goya and Lopez of but a generation ago. Above all, that astonishing apparition of Velazquez. The idea usually afloat about him is that he was a man who painted a few stiff gloomy figures, dressed in stiff gloomy costumes, in a stiff gloomy style. But here he comes before us as a perfect fadU "princess in nearly every walk — not only in portrait-painting but in char- acter and animal studies, in landscape, in historical sub- jects — trying all, and doing all well. His portraits, of course, all the world knows something of, without, how- ever, realising how accurately and powerfully he repro- duced the very men and women among whom he lived. But who is prepared for his almost superhuman studies of character — the El Primo, El Nino de Vallecas, El Bobo de Coria, or Don Sebastian de Mora ? Or the power of composition, the clever gradation of tone in light and shadow, and the masterly delineation of accessories in Zas Meninas, Los Borrachos, La Bendicion de Breda, Las Hilanderas, or the Vista de la Calle de la Beina en Aranjitez ? One cannot help regretting keenly that this greatest of Spanish artists, so many-sided in his powers, led so busy a life — fortunate courtier as he was — that he had but short hours left for his work, and often failed to finish even what he had begun. For he would never have palled upon one as Eubens and Murillo do. It is an 92 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. heretical species of comfort — nevertheless a comfort — to be called upon to face in the Madrid Museo only some twenty-five particularly fleshy studies of Eubens. And even these are not set in the usual nauseating stream, but broken up with the most glorious Titians, Tintorettos, Eaphaels, Guidos, and Paul Veroneses. To say nothing of Murillo, who appeals to the student here in quite a refreshingly new light. There is not a solitary example of his impossibly sinless and confiding beggar boys, but he stands forth in his Virgins, Conceptions, Saints and Crucifixions as the great religious painter that he essentially was, devout in purpose and idea, tender and true in execution. It is often asserted that Murillo can only be appre- ciated in Sevilla — his native city — and it is an assertion that leads to a good deal of disappointment. His Caridad and Museo pictures there are certainly very grand, but surely he himself would be content to be judged by his two great Conceptions, his Adoratio7i of the Shepherds, his JSfinos de la Concha, his Virgen del Rosario of the Madrid gallery, and the El Tinoso, with its two great companion paintings, in the neigh- bouring Academia of San Fernando. These show, as well as can be shown, both his perfections and shortcomings : — his sunshiny luminosity, lacking depth ; his slavery to — not quite mastery of — colour ; his pretty conceptions of characters divine and human, which he lacked power either to raise to heaven or to make incarnate. MADRID. 93 This Academia of Sau Fernando — the Academy of Fine Arts — in the Calle Alcala must on no account be neglected. Besides the three masterpieces of Murillo just named, there are a capital Crucifixion by Alonso Cano, a characteristic Eubens, some good Eiberas and Ziirbarans, and some sketches of Goya's which deserve more attention than they are in the habit of receiving. And then upstairs there is a quite excellent museum of natural history, with a fine collection of minerals and precious stones, and a zoological department that is certainly the finest in Spain. In order fully to appreciate some of the exquisite detail painting in the Museo, notably in many of Velazquez's pictures, a visit should be paid to the Armeria Eeal, close by the royal palace, and a remnant of the old Alcazar. It possesses probably the very finest collection of armour in the world, a collection that is not only a perfect epitome of the history of the science of attack and defence, but is full likewise of touching record and suggestion. So much so that, although one may come here simply as a lover of the curious, or as an amateur of armour, or intent upon searching for just the particular panoplies represented with such wonderful effect by Spanish painters, all such ideas merge into speculations and reminiscences concerning the terrible Past that rises up in the grimmest seeming of reality as soon as the thres- hold of this Hall of the Dead is crossed ; — a past that engulfs the best and the worst that Spain has ever been 94 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. or done. To what figures in history does the wand of Fancy point ? Here they all are. Here is Charles V., most iron -hearted of warriors, in the very suit of mail which he wore at the battle of Muhlberg, when he was so worn by years and sickness that he had to be lifted upon his horse. Here are his camp utensils — not very luxurious, i' faith ! — and here the litter in which he had finally to be carried. Here too, close at hand, is the Elector John of Saxony, his prisoner upon the same field of Muhlberg ; and here the tools and habits of his wonderful son, Felipe Segundo, whose stamp is on the Spanish people to this day, and whose image and work- ing overshadow their ways beyond those of any other ruler. Here are Don Jaime El Conquistador, Christo- pher Columbus, Pizarro, Isabel la Catolica — the "gentle" Isabel — Don Pedro El Cruel, Fernan Cortes, Guzman El Bueno, 'El Gran Capitan' and the ill-fated Eey Chico. It is a great and strange host ! As many mornings, then, as can be spared for the Museo ; an hour or two in the Academia and the Armeria Eeal ; a stroll through the Puerta del Sol, the Alcala, the Park, and the Salon del Prado — where stands the great obelisk of the "Dos de Mayo," erected in memory of the Murat massacre of 1808, which, in its consequences, ought to have for ever cemented a friend- ship between England and Spain ; a peep into the dismal Convent de Atocha, San Isidro el Eeal, the gaudy San Andres, and San Francisco revelling in all the pride of gorgeous apparel and the prospect of an MADRID. 95 on-coming catliedralship. And then — the resources of Madrid are at an end. Unless one cares to see a bull-fight. It is really a sort of duty, even if it is no pleasure. Andalucia, in- deed, is supposed to be the headquarters of the gentle craft of tauromachy, but a promising corrida in Madrid, with all its royal and representative accompaniments, is not to be neglected if it comes opportunely in the way. The fights are supposed only to take place between April and October, but any excuse is snatched at during the "off" months to sanction the coveted amusement. Nor will any amount of cutting north-easter be enough to prevent every place being taken, even when a holetin de somhra (ticket for a place in the shade) is not an article to be particularly sought for. It is a memorable experience — the streams of ex- cited and eager folk all making their way to one place, stirred as nought but the prospect of blood can stir them, with the surging of the ever-increasing wave around the walls and barriers of the grim cruel-looking charnel- house. And then to stand and look down upon the seething crowd of some fourteen thousand souls around and beneath one's ])alco, all so absurdly of one mind and desire, from the elegantly-dressed dames and cavaliers of the upper tiers away down to the sloping rows of benches set apart for those who perhaps have had to pawn their shirt to be here, and to the outer fringe of real aficionados who love to be close to the scene of action. 96 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. ' Seething ' is the only word that describes the normal condition of a Spanish crowd, for, however many-headed it may be, there is none of the British boiling over. One reason for this is not far to seek. If the scene were taking place at home, it would be easy to pick out some score or two of hopelessly drunken heroes, and there would be many more in a courageous state of defiance of law and order. But the Spaniard drinks but little, and, when he does drink, " droons the miller" effectually. So the rough horseplay of an English crowd-in-waiting makes no appearance, a few harmless flights of fancy being sufficient outlet for all exuberant spirit. Perhaps a lady inadvertently permits a gloved hand to appear upon the edge of a palco, and immediately some watchful individual below raises the cry, which swells into a mild roar, and refuses to be hushed until the fair senora takes off the coveted adorn- ment and tosses it, with its fellow, to the forest of out- stretched hands beneath. There is a few moments' scuffle, a few unfortunates discover that they are not made of india-rubber, and the temporary excitement dies out. Or our old acquaintance with the white coat makes his appearance, and is greeted with demon- strations of wrath and personal hatred which recall to one's recollection young Oxford in his Commemoration frame of mind. But, with all these little episodes, the order and patience of the huge assembly are wonderful, as it awaits the longed-for advent of the appointed hour. But now the president has entered his palco, and, MADRID. 97 with a punctuaKty only observed when it is of no very particular consequence, the signal is given, and forth comes the cuadrilla. Apart from a certain not-to-be- got-rid-of feeling of tawdriness, this opening ceremony is pretty, and very fairly effective. The procession is headed by two cahalleros, solemn - looking individuals in black velvet, bestriding black steeds, and calling to mind irresistibly the ghost -scene in Don Giovanni. Then come the two esjpadas, the heroes of the day, in yellow and violet, and gold and green costumes respect- ively ; after them, half a dozen picadores, with their round felt hats, short cloaks, and long leathern leggings plated with steel; then eight handerilleros — with the solve -saliente and jpunterillero — sporting bright silk sashes, short breeches, and variously- coloured hose ; and, finally, four or five attendants, leading the horses which are to drag off the carcases from the arena, and which are all bedecked in plumes and rich trappings. The procession moves slowly across the ring, salutes the president, and breaks up. The espadas retire ; the picadors indulge in a preliminary canter, or already begin to take up their positions at various points of the barrier ; the banderilleros go in quest of their red cloths and other paraphernalia, and the horses are led away through the picadors' entrance. The two caballeros, or alguacils, are left behind. Again they salute the presi- dent, who throws down the key of the toril, or bulls' den. A few moments more, and the first bull dashes into the arena. The real business of the day has begun. H 98 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. For some minutes the huge animal appears bewil- dered, and rushes aimlessly here and there, scattering his tormentors in every direction, and making them vault the barrier with a precipitancy that no knowledge of the advisability of the action can rob of its comicality. He then makes for some one of the picadors, who, with blindfolded horses, have been standing awaiting the onslaught, or still engaged in the difficult task of put- ting a little life into their wretched steeds. The bull comes on with lowered head, and the picador endeavours, with his long pike, to turn his assailant aside. Perhaps he succeeds, inflicting a wound as the buU grazes by that sends the blood streaming down the poor brute's side. But the next picador is not so fortunate, or not so skilful, and here the bull gets to close quarters, his horn into the horse's flank. There is a peculiar little digging operation, a momentary unheaving, and down go both horse and man — to all appearance liors de combat. The shouts of the excited spectators testify that this is a critical moment. The flying squadron of chuloSj who have been hovering around the principal combatants, immediately draw away the bull, as he stands for one short moment embarrassed by his own work of destruction, and the attendants rush to the rescue of the fallen picador. As he lies perfectly still the uninitiated onlooker conceives that he has fallen underneath his horse, and is crushed. But no — in nine cases out of ten he cleverly manages to extricate him- self even as he is falling, but is so encumbered by his MADRID. 99 heavy accoutrements that he cannot rise unassisted. Surely there is a special Providence which watches over picadors, as over drunken men and children ! The poor horse is in far worse plight. Not much Providence for him — or much care 1 If he can be made, by any method of coercion or persuasion, to stand upright, no motives of humanity, or even decency, forbid his being once more pressed into active service. The whole of this portion of the corrida is inconceivably revolting and horrible, as many as six or eight horses often being slaughtered by a single bull. But all the picadors have had their turn ; or perhaps it is intimated that the popular thirst for blood has been satiated for a while. The president gives the signal — to the inexpressible relief of any beholder who possesses two grains of humanity — and the picadors retire. The banderilleros now come forward. Their work consists in sticking into the broad shoulders of the bull three or four pairs of ornamented darts — handerillas — about two feet long, of curious device and fashion, and often of considerable value. In this operation great skill, agility and daring are required, and the play is really pretty. The banderiUero to whose turn it comes to put in his pair of darts stands in front of the bull, and raises his arms as high as possible over his head — " defying " his foe, as it is called. Then he walks slowly forward, the bull makes a little rush, and the man, swerving slightly to one side, pins in his banderillas simultaneously. If both go well home lOO SKETCHES IN SPAIN. there is a merited burst of applause, in which it is really difficult to help joining ; if there is any bungling, and especially if the man loses his nerve, or shows any sign of shirking the attack of the bull, he is unmerci- fully hooted. As the banderilleros warm to their work, and are roused by the excitement of the people, they vie with one another in performing feats of agility and coolness. One awaits the bull seated calmly in a chair, banderillas in hand, jumping lightly up as the horns of the animal graze by, and manipulating his darts in an unerring way that seems almost impossible. Another, judging his distances with wonderful nicety, leaps cleanly over the brute's lowered head. A third seizes hold of the lashing tail, swings himself along the bull's side, and plants himself for one moment right between the curved horns. N"or is the agility all on one side. There is a loud shout — the bull has leaped the barrier, to the mixed dismay and disgust of the fringe of spectators and attend- ants lining the passage. They flee in all directions, mostly jumping over into the arena, because they know that the passage-way is too narrow to allow their enemy to turn round and follow them. He is simply caged, and has no choice but to trot heavily round till he comes to a cleverly contrived door, which, swinging back, at once stops his onward progress and turns him back into the ring, followed by the jeers and hootings of the crowd. But even in this, the only at all pleasant part of the MADRID. lOI performance, there must crop up the never really satis- fied cruelty of the people. There is a cry of " Fnego ! Fuego I " and the banderilleros are forthwith provided with firework banderillas — half- squib, half- cracker — which, hissing and exploding in the poor beast's side, certainly spell the ne plus ultra of fiendishness. Once more the signal sounds, and the chief espada comes forward, greeted with rapturous applause. To him appertains the finale of the strange scene. Armed with a short Toledo blade, and a red cloth, he walks forward to the bull with all the nervous finely- strung action of a practised athlete, or fencer. A curious and most im- pressive hush falls upon the hitherto raging multitude, now intent as one thought upon watching every move- ment of the great man. He knows his clienUle too well to proceed hurriedly to extremities. First he must play his victim in all approved fashion. By this time the bull is becoming decidedly exhausted, and its movements are evidently laboured. Still it makes head against its enemy, who, aided by his band of satellites, resorts to every method of irritation and punishment. Presently he stops short, within a couple of feet or so of, and face to face with the seemingly fascinated animal. Every nerve of the man's body quivers with the absolute constraint and concentrated action that hold him. A moment more and the sword is buried deep in the brute's neck, between the shoulders. The position has been well chosen, the arm skilful and strong, and the one blow finishes the spectacle. The bull 102 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. staggers, crashes down on its knees, and falls heavily to the ground. The espada, leaving to an attendant the work of administering another cowp de grace, if necessary, turns on his heel and walks composedly towards the president's box, greeted with deafening cheers, and rewarded, among a shower of other tributes, with a magnificent bouquet of flowers. A most strange conjunction it seems. That butchery — those flowers ! Now all is over. The band strikes up ; the horses are brought in, harnessed to the carcases that lie upon the arena, and driven off at a gallop ; the sand is raked over the streams and pools of blood; much-needed watering-carts make their appearance, and lay the dust, and then all is ready for bull number two. Six animals form the usual programme, but a seventh, a toro de gracia, is nearly always added. The fourth and fifth are commonly the best — the fiercest and strongest — affording the most diversion, and giving the most trouble. It is intensely difficult, even when one tries to look at the matter from a Spanish point of view, divesting oneself of all insular prejudice and sentiment, to see what valid defence of bull-fighting can be set up. The brutal horrors of some portions of the scene defy descrip- tion, while the degrading immorality of the whole is patent throughout. And there is withal surprisingly little that is brave, or even clever. Indeed, prepared beforehand for the natural feelings of disgust that must be aroused, the predominant sensation is one of dis- MADRID. 103 appointment. There is not much even of the gorgeous display that might fairly be expected ; where ornament is used it is laid on with too unsparing a hand, so spoiling all artful effect, and there is a descent into tawdriness that is quite painful. Then the horses are about as far removed as can be imagined from the "noble steeds" that one connects with the idea of Spain ; while the arrangements for ensuring the safety of the principal performers are so carefully studied that even the excitement of danger is reduced to a minimum, being chiefly aroused by the always imminent horror of the picadors falling beneath their horses, and being crushed. Besides the play of the banderillero, the only really admirable element of the whole is the skill with which the bull is drawn away to any part that his tormentors wish, and, by this means, the readiness with which a comrade is relieved when he [is hard pressed. It is a pleasure to be able to mark that, while the bull- fight retains its hold upon the masses, while new plazas are being erected in all directions, and while the newspapers chronicle the doings of the espadas as of the upper ten, the diversion is steadily losing the favour of the fair sex. The average Spanish woman now lifts up her voice against it, and in many plazas she is only conspicuous by her absence. VT. I SEGOVIA. Upon the whole, perhaps the sweetest morsel about Spanish ways is the number of pleasant surprises which they provide. After a dreary journey over a dead country the traveller resigns himself to some destined and dreary-looking town, in the chill expectation of finding nothing but an experience as barren and hard as his surroundings ; and in place thereof there await him cheeriness and hospitality and good companionship, with pleasant shade and greenery, and the refreshing of busy, laughing life. So, in search of records and products of art, one turns hopelessly aside, perchance, to prowl round some ruinous-looking collection of mud hovels, or the even greater sterility of a gaudily-decorated, latter-day church. And, lo and behold ! there rise up unlooked-for — and so all the more welcome — apparitions of good old work such as these degenerate times have unfitted themselves for — some lovely picture, image, or monument. And so, too, in the matter of scenery. Who, judging from immediately foregoing experiences, would expect the Urola district, the glorious Pancorbo or Hoyo SEGOVIA. 105 Gorges, or the alpine iN'ava Cerrada — the road that rather separates La Granja and Segovia from the rest of the world than leads thereto ? This Nava Cerrada especially, after what one comes to regard as the established order of the Madrid surroundings, and after the dismal plain of Old Castile. There is some intimation, certainly, of what is in store, when from afar one sees the Guadarrama range looming into sight ; but then the Segovia diligence crawls so slowly, first along the mile or two of flat road leading from Villalba, and then up the bare slopes of rugged hillside, that resignation for the six mortal hours that have yet to be got over is the only frame of mind to be cultivated. And then, just as the summit of the Nava is touched, the whole scene changes as by magic. On the right rises the magnificent Penalara, 8500 feet ; on the left a chain of pine-clad mountains even grander in their long sweep ; while in front the road is literally engulfed in the dark woods that lie out like a sea as far as the eye can reach. JSTor is it a momentary vision of good things. All the way down to La Granja the road is indescribably beautiful — a noble piece of engineering to boot — and if the six miles between La Granja and Segovia are flat and comparatively uninteresting, they come only as a pleasant soothing after the strain alike to body and mind of the downward rush from the Puerto. Segovia is one of the few Spanish cities that look io6 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. their best as one approaches them. After that dull two hours from La Granja, over country from which every- thing fine save repose seems to be flitting away east- wards, a sharp corner is suddenly turned, and at once there bursts upon the view a rocky gorge, spanned by Trajan's aerial, fairy -like aqueduct ; beyond, the city, crouching upon the great ridge that rises sheer up in front, with its fringe of crumbling gray wall and battle- mented tower, and all this again in a setting of green trees and the rich Eresma vale. The entrance to the town, too, is very impressive — the drive right under the huge aqueduct, with the accompanying thought of how it has lived and laboured there, so to speak, for fifteen hundred years, and will perhaps live and labour for another fifteen hundred. And then the ascent of the picturesque street, that winds up, under archway and nodding roof, past plazas lying red in the afternoon glow, and ancient houses with wonderful facades and windows, into the Plaza Mayor, that crowns the hill and is itself crowned by the grim mass of the cathedral striding across its whole western extremity. But then in the morning light, when one sets earnestly about sight-seeing, a great deal of overnight gilt incontinently disappears. Segovia has been looked at in its best — its better than best — and now begins to take the inevitable lower place. Fine bits there are indeed ; — in the narrow valleys that embrace the city on either side, about the Alcazar, and here and there among the clusters of interesting buildings. But the valleys are SEGOVIA. quickly gone over, and tlie promising-looking buildings are so ruined by time, or — more surely — by hateful modernisation, that the predominant feelings they inspire are of sorrow and indignation. Then that standard of creature comfort by which we, perhaps insensibly, rule and measure so much of our appreciation of the good and beautiful, is at a very low point in Segovia ; added to which there is a gruesome squalor to be faced, and a gruesome street life, which do not tend to make one either fond or proud of one's kind. Nevertheless, for the antiquary, or ecclesiologist, there is here abundant payment for all of fatigue and loss of comfort which may have to be submitted to. His first impulse will probably be to do homage to the oft-described ' Puente del Diablo ' — a foremost member of the large family to which his Satanic majesty stands sponsor, built by him in order to find favour in the eyes of a fair Segovian maiden, and paid for with characteristic womanly requiting. It is beyond all doubt a magnificent piece of workmanship, with its tier above tier of finely- pitched arches of granite blocks, set without cement or lime, and possessed apparently of the secret of perpetual youth. And yet, divesting one's judgment of all senti- mental bias — such as the pleasantly good state of repair, the picturesqueness and yet subordination of the sur- rounding scenery, or the meanness of the hovels that cluster round it and help enormously to set it off — it must be confessed that this bridge is inferior to the noble aqueducts of the Pont du Gard, Tarragona, or io8 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. Alcantara, lacking something of the grand proportions, solidity, and simplicity which make these so supremely satisfying. But before going so far afield as the Puente there is the cathedral, in the Plaza itself, specially interesting as being one of the latest Gothic erections of the country, and well deserving of study for its own sake. In many respects a manifest reproduction of the Catedral Nueva at Salamanca, and by the same architect, this great church is in every way superior to its proto- type. It may have been that here Gil de Hontanon was not tied and bound by other folks' plans, or that, after ten or twelve years' deeper study of the new Eenaissance styles, he had convinced himself that the old paths were better. Be that as it may, we have the same pure Gothic lines and fine proportions already noted in Salamanca, without the trumpery decoration and laboured elaboration of the earlier essay. We have, moreover, a very good chevet in place of the bald, square, eastern termination which at Salamanca effect- ually spoils the vista down the nave and side aisles, with just enough of fair stained glass to enrich and solemnize the whole. Defects there are, of course — defects incident to the period when the church was built, and bad work perpetrated by would-be improvers a hundred and fifty years ago ; but, upon the whole, and approaching it with no very exalted idea of early sixteenth-century ways, Segovia Cathedral is very satisfying, and leaves one with pleasant reminiscences. SEGOVIA. The cloisters formed part of an original foundation, which stood near the Alcazar ; but they harmonise won- derfully well with the newer work upon which they have been grafted. Indeed it would be difficult to say with what they would not go well, so pretty and graceful they are ; lofty too, with plain quadripartite groining, and lit by great pointed windows of eight lights, with very fair tracery in the heads. There are two or three monu- mental stones here not to be passed by carelessly. First, just at the entrance from the south aisle of the church, there is the tomb of Juan Gil de Hontanon himself, the architect of this cathedral — dying, however, when the work was only well begun — and the master mind that, with all its erring, did noble things in divers other parts of Spain. ISTot far along the aisle is the resting-place of the little Don Pedro, son of Henry II., who was killed by a fall from one of the windows of the neigh- bouring Alcazar. And then, just at the north angle of the cloister, there is about the most curious and catholic record to be found, surely, anywhere — curious and catholic alike in naivete, sentiment, charity, and work- manship. Eather high up upon the wall there is a rude picture, which is only decipherable after a process of careful study, aided by some previous knowledge of the event set forth. And below there is written — "Aqui esta sepultada la debota Mari Saltos con quien Dios obro este milagro en la Fonzisla Fijo su vida en la otra iglesia acabo siis Dias como Catolica Cristiana Ano de 1237." no SKETCHES IN SPAIN. The terseness of " la otra iglesia" and indeed of all the record of an eventful life, is simply delicious, "^ste milagro " which God worked, refers, of course, to the rough design above. This Maria del Salto, or Maria of the Leap, was a Jewess, and, it is to be feared, a sinner. At any rate there were, some seven hundred years ago, a great many credulous people who believed it of her — perhaps all the more readily because of her race — and they proceeded to the extremity of throwing her down from the great cliff, upon the bank of the Eresma, which was the ordained Tarpeian rock of Segovia. Fortunately for her, [however — but it is a fact which goes to confirm her imputed lightness of character — Maria was not true to her faith, and so, as she was being pushed over, she appealed, not to the God of her fathers, but to the infinitely more placable Blessed Yirgin, who thereupon made her visible appearance, and, accompanying her newly-found daughter in her dreadful tumble, landed her unhurt upon the stones below. So Maria became a Christian — a " devota " to boot. And when they finished their glorious new cathedral, towards the close of the sixteenth century, they gave her the honour of a great re-interment in this cloister ; and to this day she com- mands a wondrous amount of reverence — nay, absolute worship — in the chapel down by the stream which marks the site where the miracle was wrought. It will be a pleasant walk, and a pleasant change too, after poring over the exacting details of the cathe- SEGOVIA. Ill dral, to follow up for a little the steps of the lucky penitent. It will take us at once through some of the most charming scenery of which the old city can boast, and some of its most interesting records. Let us leave the cathedral by the great western door, turning round for a moment to glance at the miserably bald facade, and the poor Eenaissance work of most of the exterior. The winding street on the right hand will take us now through the pretty plaza of Alfonso XII., past the old church of San Andres, with its fine tower and portal, and finally into the great tree-planted space that forms the tip of the strange tongue of rock upon which Segovia is perched. What magnificent views, north and south, over green valley, rushing water, and outlying brown vega ! And yet one hardly stays a moment to enjoy them, for there is something beyond the plaza — beyond even the tongue's tip. For, shutting it in on the west, yet separated from it by a deep natural moat, there rises up the magnificent line of the ancient Alcazar, which bids fair now, thanks to judicious restoration, to be pre- served, and something more than just preserved, from the ruin that had fallen upon it. It is the fashion of writers upon Spain to pass over this typical old Castilian palace — half- palace, half- fortress — with some mere mention of it as a " shell," or " a piece of crumbling wall," evidently never taking the trouble to find out what it really is. Even if it were but a shell, it would be entirely worth visiting ; but the 112 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. fact is, that there is not only a very complete and very beautiful exterior, but also a rich mine of loveliness and interest within, which will amply repay an hour's poring over. First there is the grandly solid faQade, with its quaint, corbelled-out turrets and window canopies ; its despising of all uniformity and regularity, and yet, some- how, its perfect harmony of line and proportion; its rugged moat, and delicate lace-like diapering of plaster decoration. Immediately behind, as one crosses the narrow bridge and enters below the keep, is the great two-storied patio, with salas opening out on either side, and, at the far end, the massive principal staircase. The upper portions of the palace were wantonly destroyed by fire thirty years ago, but from the lower apartments one can get an excellent notion of the original plan and proportions of the old castle, and repeople it with the life and images of the past. The Sala del Trono is perhaps the finest room, measuring 105 feet, or there- abouts, by 30, with a delicate renacimiento frieze, and, on the patio side, pretty two -light round-headed windows. The lights in the north wall are much blurred and destroyed, but the balconies are there, and from them, as from all the windows upon this side of the castle, the most superb views may be obtained, first over the straight, sheer descent of some 200 feet into the valley, then over the Eresma as it rushes to its meeting with the Clamores, and away across the green belt of trees up to the rocky hillside, and the great plain that stretches away into the blue distance. SEGOVIA. 113 Westward of the Sala del Trono lies the Sala de los Eeyes, from one of the windows of which the unfor- tunate little Pedro, Henry II.'s son, whose tomb is in the cathedral cloister, was let fall by his attendant, and dashed to pieces upon the cruel-looking rocks below. Next comes the Sala del Cordon, with its St. Francis' rope, put up — as the attendant will gravely declare — to commemorate the judgment that fell from heaven upon Alonso El Sabio when he was rash enough to entertain unsound views on the subject of the sun revolving round the earth. And so we may go on through room after room, through the chapel with its remains of delicate groining, up bewildering numbers of staircases and turrets — finally up over the great keep itself — getting from every point most ravishing panoramas of the surrounding country, and coming everywhere upon delicate bits of work, and odd memorials of bygone days. It would be better not to come to Segovia at all, than, coming, to miss its ancient Alcazar. It is a steepish piece of road from here, passing under the old Puerta Castellana, down into the Eresma valley, but it must not be shirked. Almost at the foot of the hill, taking the road for a few hundred yards westward, ' we come upon the waters' meet, the junction of the Eresma and Clamores, the noise of which may have been in our ears for some time past. Then, returning eastwards, we may look at some records of our Jewess ; — a chapel, where, behind an appalling reja, is preserved I 114 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. and shown the image of the particular Virgin who saved her, the cypress that marks the spot where the leap came to so happy an end, and the great beetling crag that towers above all, and is called to this day — from the horrid following of birds of prey that used to circle around it — 'La Pena Grajera.' A few minutes' walk along the road brings us to a cross carretera leading up the rocky hill to the left. This we must follow, both for the sake of examining the wonderful old Vera Cruz — a very early thirteenth-century Templar's Church, built by Honorius 11. in imitation of the Holy Sepulchre — and of obtaining an imposing view of the grand Alcazar, that frowns down from the crest of the opposite hill. It is rather a difficult operation getting into La Vera Cruz, but the trouble of bothering the architect of the ayuntamiento for the key will be well repaid by a view of the interior. With its curious twelve-sided nave, and inner chamber of two stories — the upper one a chapel, the lower the supposed sepulchre — its fine and consistent Eomanesque work, and the clever way in which an ambitious and original idea is treated, this old Templars' sanctuary is a quaint and valuable monument of the devotional spirit, and honest, good workmanship of the early Church. Of a very different sort is its beautiful neighbour, El Parral, reached by a few minutes' walk across the fields. Time was when this barren hillside was so green and lovely that it gave rise to the saying, " Las huertas SEGOVIA. 115 del Parral jparaiso terrenalJ' And it seems somehow fitting that, as the great convent that was for so many centuries its glory has been utterly ruined and cast down, this huerta should have exchanged its smiling gladness for the sombre garb of mourning and desola- tion that is now so positively painful to the vision. There is no need to linger in the convent buildings. They are nothing but a collection of blackened and crumbling walls, columns and patios. The church, however — thanks chiefly to the little sisterhood of Concepcionistas who have here sought a refuge from the fate that overtook them at Santa Isabel up in the city — has been able to make some stand against the inroads of time and neglect. And it is veritably lovely. Of the purest Gothic, simple and noble, there is here and there just enough of delicate decoration to relieve without burdening. There are no windows at the west end, and the dim- ness is rendered all the more impressive by the deep stone vaulting that carries the coro. Then a flood of light is thrown on the crossing, the transept, and apse, by six graceful lancet windows — a particularly happy effect of which the Segovian architects seem to have been very fond, and of which San Esteban presents a notable example. With all the grievous desolation and ruin that meet the eye at every point, there is something so pure, so sweet, so dignified about this church that he must be hard of soul who can pace its floor unmoved. And ii6 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. there is a sort of anti-climax. For, far away at the east end, on either side of the high altar, and at first unnoticed, there are what seem to be the spirits of the place, the kneeling figures of Juan, Marques de Villena, and Maria his wife, beautifully designed, as beautifully wrought, and in rare harmony with their beautiful surroundings. After coming face to face with these one cares for no more detail. It is a trite enough saying that there is but a step between life and death, and that to-day treads hard upon the heels of yesterday. Turning out of El Parral there is a remarkable exemplification of the substratum of truth which underlies such an assertion. One moment all is desolation, ruin, and sad record, and then in a step we are in the bright Alameda, with its clear rush- ing stream at our feet, and in the midst of a hive of laughing, chattering workers who form a perfect study of picturesque costume, and busy life. A few moments to look at them, and then the way may be taken along the Alameda, and round by the aqueduct home. Or we may cross the little bridge below the convent, and face the steep ascent opposite, taking a look by the way into the Dominican Santa Cruz — a debased copy of El Parral — and then into the nobler San Esteban, whose fine thirteenth-century tower, with its alternate arcades of round and pointed arches, has been a con- spicuous beacon all the way up the valley. Eich and varied as are the scenery and interest to be found upon the banks of the Eresma, there are SEGOVIA. 117 perhaps better things in tlie southern valley. Leaving the great plaza by the Calle Eeal, one conies almost immediately upon the church and Franciscan nunnery of Corpus Christi, a converted Jewish synagogue, and showing some remarkably pure Moorish work — horse- shoe arches, elaborate and deep capitals, arabesques in the spandrels, a roof with coupled tie beams, and a cusped arcading, by way of triforium, carried along just below. The plan of the church has been, of course, considerably modified, but the detail is most interesting, as showing the pre-eminent skill of the Moors in the use of material, and particularly in their treatment of plaster, carving it with knife or chisel as if it were pure stone. Farther along the street, upon the opposite side, a pause must be made before the church of San Martin. It is only the exterior that has to be noticed, for the meddling hand of the moderniser has been at work within, and has left nothing but a couple of old tombs and an excellent record of poor invention. But all along the southern and western facades — to be traced, too, upon the north — runs the most perfect example extant of the open cloistering arrangement which we have seen elsewhere, finer even than that of San Esteban, or of the neighbouring San Millan. Very honest and good thirteenth -century work indeed is this cloister, with an effect heightened rather than spoiled by the great porch that breaks into it on the west. Whatever was the origin of these corredores — provision for coolness, ii8 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. or shelter, or consultation, or a mere whim — there cannot be two opinions as to their fitness and beauty, nor yet as to the excellent work which nearly always characterises them. Just beyond the grotesque Casa de los Picos, with its curiously- embossed facade, a side path should be taken leading down the hill by the aqueduct. At the foot lies all the particularly squalid portion of Segovia, full, nevertheless, of interesting types and life. From here a sharp turn to the right, and a quarter of an hour's walk, bring us to San Millan, one of the finest Eoman- esque remains in the Peninsula; — remains, because, while the thirteenth-century exterior is comparatively untouched, the interior has been ruthlessly pulled about, and very nearly spoiled. And then up to the Calvario beyond, and back to the city plaza by the winding elm- planted walk that hugs the hillside, all is beauty and picturesqueness, with grand views of the aqueduct and the far -spreading vega, of the rugged city, and the noble pile that stands out black against the evening sky. We have to pass the east end of the cathedral on our way home, and, if the doors are not yet shut, may do well to pace again the fast-darkening aisles, and get a wonderful notion of the majesty and solemnity which, after all, and under certain favouring circumstances, lie latent in Gothic as in no other work. VII. LA GRANJA AND EL ESCORIAL. A SHAKP contrasting everywhere ! — Avila to Madrid, Madrid to Segovia, and now Segovia to La Granja, royalty's lightsome holiday residence. At every turn a suddenly-twisted kaleidoscope of scenery, experience, and life. I^ot, indeed, that La Granja, in all its spick-and- span mushroomhood, can be called exactly gay, or even bright. The place seems somehow oppressed by the grimness of its two neighbours — Segovia with its records of a quite faded glory, and El Escorial with its yawning niches ready to receive the occupant of the San Ildefonso palace when his brief summer and autumn have fled. And yet it is a lovely spot. Some sketch has already been made of its surroundings — at the foot of the Guadarrama range, with the snowy Penalara towering above apparently endless sweeps of pine forest. But its own special beauties, its fresh running waters, its leafy avenues, its grass and flowers, are even more grateful to the traveller over the ordinary waste places of Spain. La Granja — the Grange, or farm — was formerly one of the outlying properties of the monks of El Parral, I20 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. and was bouglit from them by Philip Y., who, nothing if not French, spent here untold (and unpaid) sums of money in trying to graft Versailles' lightsomeness upon the most solemnly grand scenery. Naturally, he only succeeded in producing a somewhat ridiculous abortion. Anything less inviting than the pretentious and weak- kneed array of domes and pinnacles which crush down the little palace, with the long avenue of bald outbuild- ing and ill-kept grass and walk which leads up to it from the highroad, cannot be imagined. Fortunately, however, the worst is got over at the outset. Once past the squalid entrance, and under the walls of the central Colegiata, with the great Casa de los Canonigos on the left, and the palace for distinguished visitors on the right, appearances are more imposing — more befitting royalty. The views all around, too, over mountain, forest, and plain, are so glorious that one incontinently loses sight of all the human builder's meretricious and insignificant handiwork. Then within the house there is neither squalor nor pretentiousness — not even the impotent grandeur which is apt to mark a palace for its own — but simply pleasant homeliness and unostenta- tious luxury. The finest suites of apartments are those facing the gardens and mountains, the original palace built by Philip V. The northern portions are modern, and irredeemably poor. It is a delightfully easy visit to pay. There is no- thing to be particularly looked out for — or particularly looked at — from the gorgeous chapel with which one LA GRANJA AND EL ESCORLAL. 121 starts, to the little door by which final access is gained to the gardens ; but it is very pleasant to stroll along with the garrulous old cicerone, to listen to all his prattlings about the doings of the royal family when it really is a family, and to note everywhere evidences of an actual, warm life. And then, when one's expecta- tions have all been disarmed by a quickly-realised sense of the thorough homeliness of the place, it is especially good to come here and there upon really exquisite bits ; — real works of art in the way of hangings and old inlaid furniture, or such perfected scenes of luxury as the little tent-like boudoir with plaited drapery of blue and yellow satin, the bathroom with its marble fount- ains and cleverly-arranged flower cascade, and the two wonderful salas upon the ground -floor, entirely lined with the richest marbles. The gardens are very beautiful, though, of course, stiff to the last degree in their unvaried arrangement of straight-ruled walk and avenue, their mathematically- grouped statues and fountains. They are refreshingly well kept too — for Spain — green at all seasons of the year, while, thanks to a certain magnificence of concep- tion, their most grotesque whims hardly ever degenerate into the ridiculous. To understand what can be done in the way of water- decoration, one really ought to make a pilgrimage here when the fountains are playing. It is not so much the unrivalled volume of the delivery that is noteworthy — a volume that seems to increase each moment as one gazes at it — nor yet the immense 122 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. height attained to, but rather the infinite delicacy and variety of form and treatment. It is in every sense of the word ^f^oX^Y- decoration, and in some of the finer groups, such as the Banos de Diana and the Fuente de las Eanas, has been carried out with an art beyond all praise. The histories which linger here are neither great nor creditable, as may be inferred from the significant obtuseness of the attendants when asked awkward questions. They may be summed up as the record of one hundred years of such royal debauchery as the world has never witnessed since the declining days of Eome. The founder, Philip V., whose tomb may be seen in a chapel of the Colegiata, was a weak copy of the Second of his name, and, mistrusting every one around him, became naturally the tool of the designing few — more especially of his ambitious and unscrupu- lous wife, Elizabeth Farnese. And he was but a type of that Bourbon dynasty which, through all his suc- cession — the infantile Louis, the imbecile Charles IV., the brutal, treacherous, profligate Ferdinand VIL, and Francis the incapable — has done pretty nearly every- thing that princely sinning could do, to widen into one all-engulfing chasm the ' little rift ' which had already been made by the mistaken policy of Carlos Quinto and Felipe Segundo. The elevation of La Granja above the sea — some 3800 feet — together with the vicinity of a great snow range, renders it of course an uninviting winter resort ; LA GRAN/A AND EL ESCORIAL. 123 but during spring, summer, and autumn it is a very charming spot, and by no means receives the attention it deserves. There is excellent accommodation in the village, the climate is delicious, the rambles over the flat country and the mountains are full of loveliness and interest, while the palace and grounds are certainly more worthy of a careful acquaintanceship than any other Spanish royal demesne. Than the neighbouring and better known Escorial, for example, which lies about twenty miles over the hills. A place, this, only to be known in order to be hated. Every one visits it, and nine out of ten go away expressing sorrow at having wasted any time upon it. Herein, however, El Escorial shares the fate of many notable spots of the Peninsula. Travellers do not find what they expect — the goodliness of nature or art upon which they seem ever to insist when away from home — and disappointment blinds them to what there really is. The sooner it is understood that the Escorial will only present the ordinary sightseer with one bit of prettiness, and half a dozen pieces of goodliness, the better it will be for all concerned. Then it will have a chance of being estimated at its true worth, and the spirit of the place, its associations, and the strange part it has played in Spanish life and death — especially death — for over three hundred years, will be duly appreciated. And certainly the grumble at expenditure of time is inexcusable, inasmuch as the visit only entails the loss of a few hours, and no turning out of the beaten track. 124 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. It may be made a separate day's excursion from Madrid, or from La Granja ; but the simplest plan is to stop at El Escorial station m route from the north, and resume the journey to Madrid at 5 p.m. This allows time for breakfast at the well-ordered ' Miranda ' hotel, close by the palace-gates ; it secures the necessary morning light for the church and pictures, and leaves the afternoon free for a pleasant stroll through the oak coppice, and down to the Casita del Infante — Charles lY.'s toy- house. Ordering our visit thus, we may be supposed to be entering the palace by about 9.30 to 10 a.m. The first great patio, 'de los Eeyes,' may be hurried through. There is nothing admirable in it — not even the rude statues of the kings of Judah which stare down from the fagade of the church, and which are recorded to have been all carved out of one block of granite. And im- mediately behind there comes the grandest thing, the only really grand thing, of the whole palace — the church. It need not be studied for its detail — Herrera had not a notion of detail in church architecture — but it is vast, severe, and solemn. It conveys exactly the idea which English people attach to the word 'temple,' a place wherein the majesty of the Invisible dwarfs everything human. Eor a few minutes only will we stand to look around, for at this hour high mass is being celebrated, and we shall have both opportunity and reason presently for pacing the length and breadth of the building. More- LA GRANJA AND EL ESCORIAL. 125 over, this is just the time for seeing Claudio Coello's greatest painting,. La Santa Forma, in a good light. It forms the retablo in the fine sacristy leading out of the church at the south-east corner, and, as a piece of portraiture, composition, and colouring, is altogether worthy of study, and of Spain's perhaps last great painter. The picture represents Charles II. and his court worshipping a certain holy wafer, which, when trampled under foot by Dutch heretics in the year 1525, forthwith gave evidence of the Divine Presence by bleeding at three rents caused in it. The holy relic itself — the Forma — is kept behind the picture, and is exhibited twice a year to the faithful, the retablo being lowered through the floor. There are many other precious things in this sacristy — the doors on the right and left of the altar, rich in tortoise-shell, bronze and gold, the lovely mirrors over the armarios, and some good figures of El Greco's. But the Eizi- Coello painting surpasses all else alike in interest and merit. Close at hand is the Panteon, the burial-place of nearly all the kings and queens of Spain since the great Carlos Quinto, in whose memory the Escorial was built. It is placed exactly underneath the high altar — so that the celebrant may stand daily over the ashes of the monkish founder, Felipe Segundo — and, through a whim of Philip's son, is absurdly at variance with all else in the palace. A rigidly severe simplicity is the genius of the whole pile, save, forsooth, in this the very house 126 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. of death, where everything is ordered by a spirit of foolish and inopportune ostentation. So small it is, too, after one's preconceived notions about it. Just a little octagon, 35 feet in diameter, and the same in height, lined with richly -polished marbles, which are crumbling away with a strange decomposition. The whole available wall-space is occupied by a series of niches, in which stand black sarcophagi, all exactly alike, mostly occupied, but some — those of the ex-Queen Isabella and Don Alfonso — grimly awaiting the living. Only kings and the mothers of kings are admitted to the sacred circle, and for three hundred years the rendezvous has been kept faithfully with but three exceptions. Ferdinand and Isabella — the Eeyes Catolicos — sleep at their beloved Granada, and the Bourbon Philip V. and his wife lie, as we have seen, at La Granja. It is not a nice spot — desirous as some of its occupants are recorded to have been of spending their leisure hours in it before their final entrance — and yet one cannot help entertaining savage objections to some of the ex- clusions which Spanish etiquette has ordained. There is the gentle Mercedes, for example, the late queen, who certainly deserved a niche among the honoured dead, one would say, and who must, nevertheless, lie apart, in the great cold church above. Coming up again from the Panteon, with eyes more accustomed to the darkness and the strange way, we may notice the beautiful jaspers of the staircase, the portrait of a monk who miraculously stopped a LA GRAN/A AND EL ESCORIAL. 127 dangerous flow of water beneath the foundations, and the inscription over the portal, " ^^"atura occidit, exaltat Spes." Half-way up, too, there is the sealed door of the horrible Pudridero, wherein are a host of Infantes and unhonoured, barren queen -consorts, and which forms sometimes a temporary resting-place of the bodies destined for interment below. And now, if the high mass is over, there are some objects of interest to be visited in the church. There is the gorgeous high altar and retablo of Milanese Trezzo, with the kneeling figures of Charles V., Philip II., and their families — reliable portraits, and valuable too from their details of costume. Only three of Philip's wives are here, the despised English Mary being omitted. Charles occupies the post of honour on the gospel side ; Philip kneels over the little room, on the south side of the Capilla Mayor, where he died, and into which we may presently look. Not far off, in the north-east corner of the church, there is the small chapel where the ill-fated Mercedes lies under her touchingly simple monument. The plain gold cross at her feet, an offering of the English residents in Madrid, and the fresh wreaths of flowers, bear pleasant testimony to the love borne her by the people. One would have liked to have found her below, in the Panteon, certainly, but then she has been mercifully spared the Pudridero. There is not much else to be seen in the nave, except the very fine figures of saints by Navarrette El Mudo (the Dumb) which decorate the 128 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. great columns, and which, as Lopez de Vega said, " spoke for their painter " : — " No quiso el ciel que hablase, Porque, con mi entendimiento, Diese mayor sentimiento A las cosas que pintase ; Y tanta vida les di Con el pincel singular, Que, como no pude hablar, Hice que hablasen por mi." All the rest — frescoes, fittings, and relics — have been overrated. ISTot so, however, the coro and ante-coro, placed, as usual, in the west galleries. The view of the church from up here is quite sublime, and there are some fine choral books and choir -furniture to be seen — to say nothing of Luca Giordano's ceiling, very wonderful, and very characteristic of 'Fa-presto! The choral books form perhaps the finest collection in the country, 218 in number, most of them dating from the sixteenth century, and exquisitely illuminated. And then, just in the dimmest corner, is the stall where the master builder of the place, the dark -minded Felipe, used to sit daily to hear mass, slipping in unobserved from his cell through the tiny private door close by. We may pass out by this same way to the great library, and Solas Capitular es, noticing, just as we turn into the passage, Benvenuto Cellini's celebrated crucifix of white marble. This masterpiece, designed originally for the church of LA GRAN/A AND EL ESCORIAL. 129 Santa Maria Novella at Florence, was very highly prized by Cellini, who worked upon it, as he himself writes, "with that careful love which so precious an image merits." In consequence of misunderstandings with the authorities of Santa Maria Novella the artist determined to reserve it for his own tomb, but presently was induced to part with it for the sum of fifteen hundred ducats to the Duke of Tuscany, by whom, twelve years later, it was bestowed upon the art-and- relic-loving Philip II. It is a very delicate piece of work- manship, though somewhat overwrought, and lacking breadth of conception ; and it is remarkable, moreover, as having inaugurated the hateful reign of petticoated Christs. Eor Philip, in an acute fit of prudishness, one day placed his handkerchief over the loins of the figure, failing, we will hope, to appreciate all the ills which he thereby bound upon a too servile humanity. The Escorial has long since lost its finest pictures, but the three little Salas Capitulares still contain some really good things, much of their effect, however, being spoiled by the conformation of the rooms, and a bad light. There are one or two good Tintorettos, Eiberas, and Navarettes, an admirable Last Supper of Titian's, and, best of all, a grand Velazquez — Jacob receiving from his Sons the Coat of his lost Joseph. From hence to the library, the last of the half-dozen " goodly " things promised in the Escorial proper. Even the ordinary superficial sight -seer cannot fail to be impressed here, while to the extraordinary traveller — to K 130 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. him who travels in search of such treasure — there is offered a store of literary wealth which will well repay the taking out of a special permit for studying purposes. A good deal of needless sneering has been indulged in at the seemingly ostentatious display of the faces of the books instead of the edges. The arrangement, however, has simply been adopted in order to preserve the actual MSS., by facilitating reference to the printed copies. Down the long room there runs the usual array of interesting rarities in show-cases. There are the devo- ciondrios of Isabel la Catolica, Carlos Quinto, Felipe Tercero, and the Dona Marguerita; a Yirgil of the fifteenth century and a psalter of the thirteenth, an Alcoran dated 1594, a Vigilanus of the tenth century, and, most curious of all perhaps, the far-famed eleventh- century Codice de Oro, or the four Gospels written in letters of gold, and consuming about eighteen pounds weight of the precious metal. Everything so far has been of one type, savouring rather of the convent than of the palace, and in some respects infinitely forbidding. It is impossible to imagine a warm life peopling these great cold corridors, or anything like human passions stirring within the cell-like rooms. The very gardens upon which we may have looked out from time to time seem oppressed by the dead formality which overshadows them. But there is a real palace side of the picture, to which half an hour may be devoted. Indeed, there are two royal residences, each of a very distinct type. There is the LA GRANJA AND EL ESCORIAL. 131 founder's own palace, and the founder's palace as con- verted by Charles III. The latter hardly merits description. A frightfully dull set of rooms, originally whitewashed, and boasting only of a faience, dado by way of adornment, one can- not help wishing here, as in the Panteon, that Philip's wishes and ideas concerning this world had been more duly respected. But, after a couple of hundred years of uneventful life, the place was taken in hand by Charles III., and under his rule, and that of his successor, a marvellous transformation was effected. The walls were hung with tapestries from the Santa Barbara factory at Madrid, worked after designs by Teniers and Goya, and the whole suite of apartments was refurnished in the gaudily weak style of a century ago, with the natural result of making dulness hideous, at an untold expense. But Philip's own sanctum is more satisfactory. Access is gained to it from the upper palace by an appalUng length of cold, vaulted passage. There are but two rooms. The first looks out upon the Patio de Los Evangelistas, and contains a few rude chairs, an ivory Descent from the Cross, a globe, and a strange relic of Carlos Quinto, in the shape of an old piece of tapestry. Here for fourteen years sat and plotted the being who almost realised his boast of governing two worlds from the foot of a mountain, and with two inches of paper. And if these four whitewashed walls could tell out the experiences that the fourteen years 132 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. brouglit in as net result of all that plotting — all the disappointment, all the remorse, all the unconquerable efforts of will — they would make us surely more gentle than we usually are in our judgment of the man — yes ! inscrutable barbarian as he was. The inner room is the small apartment already noted from the church, looking directly upon the Altar Mayor and the kneeling figures of Charles V. and his family. Here the king sat during the celebration of mass, when he was not in his place among the monks up in the coro ; and here he died, upon the 13th of September 1598, clasping the same crucifix which had been his father's consolation during his last hours, and attended by his favourite children — Philip, who succeeded him, and Clara Eugenia, daughter of the " Queen of Peace and Goodness," whose portrait by Sancho Coello and Gonzalez will have become familiar to us in the Museo. His policy had been a wrong one, and he knew it at his death — knew that he had brought a memory of unloving upon himself, and a legacy of dismemberment upon his nation, even while he had worked so hard to establish his dynasty, and to consolidate his huge pos- sessions. He had been wondrously patient, self-denying, careful ; neither depressed by evil fortune, nor carried away by fair winds ; shrewd and far-seeing in the choice and management of his servants, and a prince whose ears were ever open to the cry of the distressed. And yet the end was nought but darkness and disappoint- ment. Por Philip II. was born and bred in the school LA GRAN /A AND EL E SCO RIAL. 133 of dissimulation, and so all men distrusted him : lie was the slave of a too powerful will, and so fell into all the thousand pitfalls prepared for unaided judgment : he was a man without bowels of compassion, and so his very children shrank from him : he was a fanatic in religion, and thereby shut against himself the doors of heavenly consolation which he laboured so mightily to close to such as ventured to differ from him in faith. It is pleasant to escape from the oppression of this ungainly convent, and seek out the Silla del Eey, the little rocky eminence from which the king used to overlook the slowly rising building. The Paseo de las Arenitas must be taken, running past the western, or church, facade. There is a right kingly road from here — kingly in comparison with most Spanish carreteras — which leads first over soft grass land, and then winds up for a mile or so through a stretch of very fine oak coppice. This is a favourite resort of the Escorialites and Madrilenians upon summer evenings, and then presents quite a gay scene. At all seasons, however, it is pretty — the one really pretty feature in the whole landscape. At the top some boulders lie strewn about upon the hillside, and, by means of a series of roughly - hewn steps, we may climb to three rude sillas, or chairs, formed in the surface of one of the great rocks. There is not, fortunately, a very good view of the Escorial from here, but quite enough to fill one's mind with a never-to-be- forgotten vision of the exceeding ugliness of the build- ing, with its cold, gray, prison-house aspect, its hard and 134 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. ungraceful lines, and its eleven thousand factory-like little windows. And all the rest is splendid — the luxuriant foreground, the sweep of the purple sierra, and the vast brown plain that, from here, looks only reposeful, and neither barren nor savage. Philip could have inspected his work better from the steep ridge just behind the village, but it is a blessing that for once a softer spirit of self-indulgence seized him. For his Silla yields a delightful antidote to the day's gloom which he inflicts upon visitors to his old Geronymite home. VIII. TOLEDO. A CITY which never had rest until it entered into the tomb. Not just that quasi-toxnh — that species of purga- torial Hades — into which all great cities and nations seem, for their sins, to have to descend for a while, re- taining, however, such a spark of being that, like the olive tree blighted by a severe wintry blast, and cut down that it may shoot forth again in six or seven years' time, they come forth and take up once more the running of life. No ; — utterly wearied and swept was Toledo by the successive waves of strife, rapine, and misfortune that for generations rolled over her with unpitying fierceness ; so swept, so blighted, that when the end came it was for her an end indeed. Blighted, but not destroyed. There, is the old Toledo yet, simply fossilised — a theatre with the actors gone and the scenery left. But the curtain will never be drawn up again, or the music recommence. Eome may play the wanton with each succeeding age, and deck herself out in obedience to every passing fashion, but Toledo- ? She is at least faithful to the dead 136 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. Past. The liveliest imagination cannot picture her as a creature of to-day, a receptive pupil of nineteenth- century science and improvement. And so she keeps \ her old ways : — her old tongue, thank Heaven ! knowing j nothing of the mixed dialects and slang that mark off j progress ; her old narrow streets and solid buildings, j that are so beautifully fitted for defence, intrigue, aiid ^ shelter, and would spell ruin to any enterprising com- pany that should attempt to adapt them to the require- . ments of the new life that has come into the world. So she has been poked at — twice — by inquisitive, bust- ' | ling railroads, without the slightest electrifying result. \ So she retains her old 86ko, and will have nought to ' do with the correct Flaza de la Constitmion, her old j stern inconveniences, and her old traditions. And so j — strangest of all the outcomes of fossilisation — you j may hear the old superstitious religion talked over j with just the old habits of thought ; and, if you put any question relating to the beings and doings of the j outside world, probably the only reply will be a sigh, | and shake of the head, with a resigned "Ah, Senor, no s4 decir d Vd." A badly used, a misunderstood city. And, as in the ; case of most badly used and misunderstood organisms, ] the fault lies first with herself. As folk say nowadays, ' she does not " show herself friendly." Ah well ! per- ■ haps there is a little too much show in the friendliness \ of the present generation, framing a friendlikeness that ' is a shockingly false presentment. And poor old ; TOLEDO. 137 swept Toledo and Show have very little to do with one another. Still it is a fact, and in some ways a misfortune. She neither welcomes the coming nor speeds the parting guest, — unless she happens to know him, and like him. Therefore the majority of that great army of martyrs who, for some occult reason of vanity or novelty-seeking, come to " do " Spain, without caring to appreciate what is good and beautiful, or, being able to grumble in decent Castilian at what is bad, keep the grandest — the most characteristic — of the ancient cities of the Peninsula at arm's length ; while the majority of the thoughtful few who are attracted to it just run down from Madrid by the early morning train, and return in time for dinner. To the first, of course, Toledo is a sealed book ; and to the second she is not much else. What can a man learn, in half a day, of a city that presents him with a perfected epitome of the principal arts, religions, and race -lives which have dominated the world during the last two thousand years ? If he is possessed of more than the average amount of conscientiousness he studies his handbooks diligently all the way down, and pumps into his brain a wonderful account of how the Eoman succeeded the Jew, and the Goth the Koman ; how the Goth was thrust forth by the Moor, and the Moor, when his day was accomplished, gave way to the late, re-formed Spaniard; how the city, which was generally an empire and world to itself, had pretty nearly filled up its volume before England 138 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. had begun to write anything upon the pages of history but infantile wailings ; and how each of these succeed- ing races has left its marks and monuments behind it for his careful inspection in six hours ! He realises something of the hopelessness of his task, and rather wishes himself back at Madrid. Still he sticks manfully to his resolution, engages a parrot- like guide the moment he arrives — even foregoes lunch, perhaps — and works away in heat and dust and a verily strange land till the welcome hour of four o'clock — the hour of dismissal — arrives. "With what result? If he is asked in six months' time what Toledo is like, and if he is honest, he will reply, "Toledo? — Ah, let me see — oh, it is a place where there is a splendid cathedral, and an old Alcazar, but I have only a dim notion of it. You see there are so many splendid cathedrals and old Alcazars in Spain, and I had so little time at my disposal, that I get a little mixed among them all." That is not the way to see the place. Let a week at least be devoted to it, even if it means some hard living and discomfort, or the omission of some other points in an already too long programme. Let guide- books, as far as possible, be put away — only used for purposes of necessary reference — and with them let us put away the idea of mastering every name and fact we may come across. Let us take a few slices of history, not as a medicine, nor yet as a mere jumble of dates and appellations, but as the doings and sayings TOLEDO. 39 and hours of flesli-and-blood folks who have been our fellows and leaders ; and even cultivate a weak regard for tales and traditions which, if not very true, have nevertheless a considerable grain of truth in them — if not true as traditions, are magnificently true as parables, and altogether good to know. At the end we shall not have seen everything — of course — not all even that might have been brought be- fore us ; but what will have been seen will be under- stood, and will dwell in heart and mind for a very long day. And, best of all — better than any amount of mere dry knowledge — there may be a product of re- verent and right method of treading other old world ways, and a widened sympathy with the human nature that, with its vices and virtues, its ignorance and its struggling after light, has furnished the world for us, and is, after all, (horrible thought !) on about the same level to-day in Eegent Street as in the grim old Calle del Comercio, or in the days when the infamies of a Don Eoderick let in the tide of Moorish invasion upon his devoted country. Toledo presents exceptional opportunities for weaving epoch with epoch, cause with effect, fact with tradition, because, comparatively speaking, so little has been destroyed or renovated ; and so the records and links that bind all together stand out, still, in a way that is impossible in cities which have been born again, and where a green new life has overgrown and choked out the old. I40 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. The cathedral may very well be made a sort of daily starting-point for an hour or so, taking it section by section, and along with other buildings its companions or offshoots. Tor the attempt to grasp in any hasty or wholesale fashion this the iglesia primada of Spain — and surely, upon safer evidence than a possible authori- sation of the blessed Virgin, of the world ! — leaves one at the same time confused by, and unable to appreciate its grandeur. And not only is a slow process of assimilation always advisable for those who are un- accustomed at home to find greatness of conception combined with rich and excellent detail, but it is especially necessary in the case of Toledo Cathedral, which has none of the ad captandum effect of many of the great Continental churches, but yet will grow upon one more than these. It is enough at a first visit to try and comprehend the plan and really lordly dimensions of the building as a whole ; to take a stand here and there and allow the eye simply to travel from column to column, vault to vault, line to line, and realise that, rich and perfect as every portion evidently is at the barest glance, the fabric itself — the mere shell — is astonishingly grand in both proportion and scale. ISTor is it just the vastness and scope of conception that recommend themselves presently to the appreciative soul. ISTo less touching — especially in a building which has passed through so many hands, alike in shaping, perfecting, and preserving — are the restful unity of style, the noble devotion of purpose, the fitness and yet sim- TOLEDO. plicity of every department and arrangement. It is fortunate — if not a result of rare and precious thought- fulness — that, owing to the immense width of the five aisles, the size of the people's nave, and the comparatively low trascoro, there is but little to impede a general view of the noble interior, and so the eye can wander with almost perfect satisfaction over nave, choir and transept, and round the cunningly-contrived double aisles of the chevet. It is all beautifully simple in outline, and yet abundantly fitted to every need of ritual ; all massive and strong, yet infinitely delicate in treatment, and enriched, without being for a moment overburdened, by subtlest ornamentation. The identity of the prime architect is shrouded in some mystery. It is only certain that there have been architects and masters many, and almost as many minds ; that there was a church here from the earliest Christian eras — let us try to believe that the Blessed Virgin did really worship here during her lifetime ; that for some three centuries — from the beginning of the thirteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth — the present building was being slowly raised and perfected, and perhaps beautified during yet another hundred years; that it has been alternately mosque and Christian temple ; and that, withal, it presents no appreciable contradictions, but is as typically vigorous and pure in its glorious thirteenth-century Gothic, as it is unspoiled by any sentiment save of religious devotion and purpose. The noting of points such as these, with a walk round 142 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. tlie in-no-way-remarkable exterior — an exterior which forms, in its mixed and debased styles, a wonderful con- trast to all the rest — will very amply fill up a before- breakfast visit. And then some buildings of the same Christian character may be studied — San Juan de los Eeyes, for example, which stands on the western skirt of the city, overlooking the river just where it is spanned by the bridge of San Martin, and the dreary cigarrales beyond. ' Los Eeyes ' were of course those most Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, to whom the church owes its foundation as a thank-offering for their victory at Toro over the Portuguese upholder of Dona Juana's pretensions to the crown of Castile. In one respect San Juan is very unlike the cathedral. The latter is neither known nor appreciated, while this much-boasted piece of florid Gothic by no means comes up to either its promise or its repute. The exterior is bald to repulsiveness, and is anything but relieved by its barbaric adornment of chains taken from the Christian captives found in Granada, and by Covarubbias' over- elaborated portal. The interior is extremely impressive at first sight — simple and pure as El Parral at Segovia — until one walks forward, and finds it debased by the egoistical display of heraldic devices which per- sistently spoiled so much good late fifteenth and early sixteenth century work. The cloisters, lying to the south, and now the Museo de la Provincia, are very much better — that is to say, are untouched — and have, moreover, a very pretty natural adornment in the way TOLEDO. 143 of creepers. But one's interest in San J uan is short- lived, and centres chiefly in the records to be met with of the ambitious Cardinal Ximenez — more correctly Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros — who here spent such portion of his busy unrestful life as could be spared from the slightly varied tasks of keeping princely con- sciences, conquering and converting the Moors, founding religious orders and universities, preserving something like peace amidst the turbulent nobles of a too proud court, and anon preparing his great Complutensian bible. Eeturning in his later, leisure hours, what strange thoughts the man must have had of the early days he had passed here, when the church was being finished, and when, a young novice, he had dreamed of bidding adieu to a world that was then distasteful to him, and devoting himself solely to a life of contempla- tion and prayer ! There is another and very peculiar phase of Christian art to be examined here, after having noted how and why the Moorish influences which were everywhere dominant during a great portion of the time when the cathedral was being built and perfected, were zealously, and with strange completeness, kept at bay by the Christian workers thereon. There is a series of buildings in which Saracenic models were designedly, and with the happiest results, allowed to leaven and modify Gothic forms. The best examples are presented by the churches of Santa Leocadia, Santo Tome, San Eoman, and San Pedro Martir. 144 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. Beyond their Moresque character, chiefly visible now in their steeples, there is not much good work left in any of these buildings, so mercilessly have they been treated by the unsympathetic hands of modern renovation. But such original bits as can be picked out here and there are very lovely ; the mixture of styles is most note- worthy, and in nearly every case there are adjuncts of history or association to interest the inquiring visitor. Santa Leocadia lies just without the walls, at the foot of the slope leading down from the Puerta del Cambron, and so only a few minutes' walk from San Juan de los Eeyes. This old basilica, or some portion of it at any rate, dates back as far as the fourth century, when Saint Leocadia, one of. Toledo's tutelars, was martyred hard by, at the command of the emperor Dacian. Altered and adorned in the seventh century by the Archbishop Eladio, it became a favourite place of interment of the Gothic kings and notables of the day ; — among others of the great San Ildefonso, who received within its walls one of the manifold marks of favour which Heaven vouchsafed to him, in the shape of a visit from Saint Leocadia herself, who came to convey to him the ex- pression of the Blessed Virgin's gratitude for his devotion to her cause. The prelate was celebrating mass at the time, before King Eecesvinto, and had the presence of mind to cut off a piece of the heavenly messenger's robe, still to be seen in the relicario of the cathedral. The church goes now more commonly by the name of Cristo de la Vega, from the odd crucifix which stands upon TOLEDO. 145 the higli altar, about which float endless miraculous stories. There is another of these real-haired and ghastly Christs in a chapel at the end of the north aisle of San Pedro Martir; and here may be studied too, besides some interesting architectural details, a most remarkable array of ancient tombs — of the beautiful, " malograda " Dona Maria Orozco {malograda because, a notable beauty, she was cut off at the age of twenty-one), of Don Pedro de Ayala, mayor-domo to Philip II., and of various members of the Ayala family. The church itself is completely spoiled, but its Moresque tower is in ex- cellent preservation, and of great value. Finer still, however, because of its better proportions, is the steeple of the neighbouring church of San Eoman. This was probably one of the half-dozen mosques secured to the Moors for their worship by Alonso VI. when, at the close of the eleventh century, the city was once more handed over to the Spanish rule. The tower dates only from the rebuilding of the edifice by Esteban de Illan, who lived in the Casa de Mesa close by, and who was honoured after death in rather a singular manner, by immortalization upon the roof of the en- trance to San Ildefonso's chapel in the cathedral. How extraordinarily rich, alike in art and historical association are these chokingly narrow streets ! As we come out of San Roman there stands almost opposite the exquisitely-sculptured plateresque portal of the convent of San Clemente ; a few steps down the street to the left L 146 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. is the hospital attached to San Pedro Martir — formerly the conventual buildings — with its noble patio and double tier of balustraded galleries, the original cloisters of the church. Just on the other side of San Clemente is the Plazuela de Padilla, with its tales of the Comuneros * and their misguided patriotism. In front of San Eoman, too, is the already-mentioned Casa de Mesa, with its delicate and still perfect arabesques, and its quaint mixture of Gothic and Moorish design, while on all sides there are the grand old Toledan houses, each with its distinctive and characteristic merit — here a wonderfully wrought and artistic garnishing of iron- work, there a patio, tempting in its quiet coolness, or bright with flowers and greenery. All this within the radius of a stone's cast, and no solitary sample of the treasures which the ancient city can produce. And so again to the cathedral, for a study of its chapels, in all their wonderful beauty of detail and interesting record. The Capilla Mayor, the work of * Comuneros, from the Comu7iidades, or towns, of Castile. The rebellion set on foot by these men aimed rather at securing a charter of civil and religions privilege than at simply resisting — as is some- times stated — the heavy taxation imposed by Charles V. in order to carry on his wars in Italy and the Low Countries. Juan de Padilla, the leader, was the scion of a very good Toledan family, and some time military governor of Zaragoza. The movement was crushed on the field of Villalar, 23d April 1521, where Padilla was taken prisoner, and where also he was beheaded upon the following day. His noble wife. Dona Maria de Pacheco, who figures largely in Spanish romances, tried to revive the cause after her husband's death, and succeeded in holding Toledo for some months against the royalist troops. Finally, however, she was forced to flee into Poitugal, where she died in 1522. TOLEDO. 147 Archbishop Tenorio and Cardinal Ximenez, is, as it ought to be, the most noteworthy. There is here a striking example of how this great church has been perfected in the most piecemeal manner, and yet — rare fortune ! — nearly always been improved by altera- tion. Originally — indeed up to the time of Ferdinand and Isabella — the capilla mayor occupied the place of the present Crossing, and behind it was the chapel of the Eeyes Viejos, with the tombs of its founder, Sancho El Bravo, Alonso YII., Sancho El Deseado, the Infante Don Pedro (son of Alonso XI.), Sancho Capelo King of Portugal, and other illustrious mortals. Ximenez, of whose ecclesiastical building propensities we have already seen something, obtained permission from King Ferdinand to throw this chapel into the plan of the cathedral proper, and carried out his bold improvement with perfectly happy results. The old thirteenth- century work of the apse, spoiled now to some extent by the hideous Churriguerresque work on the east side, made a fit setting for all the glorious gems of art with which the sanctum sanctorum was adorned, the rich and yet sober Gothic retablo, the exquisite mosaic pavement with its jasper steps, Villalpando's superb reja, and the bronze plateresque pulpits which stand at the north-west and south-west angles. The main pro- portions of the cathedral, too, must have been enor- mously improved by the addition, while the long array of mighty dead left undisturbed around the altar, and a still mightier array of embalmed memories, bestowed 148 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. an ever fresh sacredness upon the spot. Ximenez himself, the master spirit of the place, does not rest here, but his greater contemporary — almost patron — Mendoza, Tertius Eex with, or rather ruler over, Ferdinand and Isabella, lies on the gospel side. When one thinks of the lives of these men — men such as Tenorio, Mendoza, Ximenez, Alvaro de Luna, or their successor and imitator Porto Carrero, whose proudly servile epitaph of " liic jacet pulvis, cinis et nihil " arrests attention in the aisle close by, one ceases to be surprised at the so-called ingratitude of their masters that made the ups and downs in their ways that we wot of, and only marvels at the patience with which their yoke was borne, or how the land could hold any two of them at the same time. Alvaro de Luna, the great Constable of Castile, and chief minister of Juan II., has his own chapel of Santiago, on the south-east of the capilla mayor. A most lovely place it is, of good fifteenth - century Gothic. The alabaster monuments of the founders are grievously mutilated, but are still very fine, and in admirable keeping with the design of the chapel. Like many other great folk the constable and his wife had prepared their final resting-places during the lifetime of the former, in the shape of delicately- wrought bronze tombs, but, when disgrace overtook the proud family, these were broken up, and event- ually converted by Yillalpando into the two pulpits which have been noticed above — a transformation for TOLEDO. 49 which, thanks to Villalpando, one cannot be altogether sorry. The master of Don Alvaro, Juan II., lies, as we have seen, in the Cartuja de Miraflores, near Burgos, but he has his record here, too, in the beautiful Capilla de los Eeyes Nuevos, the entrance to which is close by El Condestable. But the show is endless. There is the elaborate Capilla de San Ildefonso, behind the high altar, the richest of all the chapels — as becomes the memory of the holy man to whose special favour with the Virgin Toledo owes her primacy. There are the neighbouring sacristies and Sala Capitular, endowed with pictures by Borgona, Tristan, Bassano, and Bellini, and a bewilder- ing array of church -plate and holy relics — Alonso Cano's exquisite image of St. Francis, too, and Arfe's famous Gothic ciistodia. There is the chapel of Santa Lucia, too often passed by, and yet most delicate in its pretty Gothic lines and strangely admixed decoration of Moorish arabesque. Notable too, for the sake of its associations, is the Muzarabic chapel near the great western entrance, where the ritual which kept the Christian faith alive through the long centuries of Moorish domination is still performed each morning, and where are some frescoes by Borgona, interesting for detail of costume. And, behind all these chapels and sanctuaries, there yet remain to be seen the Coro, with all its fine sculpture, decoration, and furniture ; the revered Senora SKETCHES IN SPAIN, del Sagrario — queen of the cathedral ; the tabernacle of San Ildefonso, where the Virgin herself descended to invest the saint with a chasuble, as he was praying; the library ; the glorious fifteenth- century stained glass, and the sunshiny cloisters with Bayeu and Maella's frescoes * And then — one may have got a fair insight into just one section of Christian work and life in Toledo. The remarkable middle period, when a leavening of Moorish forms was resorted to, is by no means covered by the two or three churches already referred to ; while there is a long post-Gothic time, as marked in the changed Alcazar, or Mendoza's Hospital of Santa Cruz — the great staircase of which, by the way, is one of the finest Eenaissance bits extant. And it may be doubted if the Christian was the most noteworthy character in the ancient city's drama. Perhaps even the Jew, in his usual unobtrusive fashion, has played here a more conspicuous, certainly a more tragic, part. Contemned and persecuted by every suc- cessive master-race, never, like these, coming to the front, and yet possessed of a longer life than any, at home in his Juderia — now so desolate and waste — in his synagogues of Santa Maria la Blanca and El Transito, about the churches of Cristo de la Luz and Santiago del Arrabal, * There are some very fine bells here, one so big that it is com- monly said that fifteen cobblers could sit at once within it and draw out their threads. This monster is badly cracked, and the tale goes on that Saint Peter caused the damage one day by throwing down his keys upon it, when it had beguiled him into thinking that its mellow tones came up from his own church in Kome. TOLEDO. the cloisters of the cathedral, the old Soko, and the council-chambers of Pagan, Christian, and Mahomedan ruler alike, he has written his record of fourteen cen- turies of faith, suffering, and fanaticism in characters, alas ! of blood. It is a picture neither lovely nor great, but it is one upon which it is good to look. It is customary to take some notice, more or less careful, of the well-recognised, the absolutely-labelled, Jewish haunts and quarters, but it is with an eye chiefly to their architectural and other details, and these are so consistently Moorish — the outcome of Moorish design, and Moorish handiwork — that the preoccupied or unthoughtful mind is rather led away from, than drawn out towards any care for the old life echoes which linger around them, and appeal to the heedful ear. And how few ever dream of tracing the footsteps of the Jew in the darker bypaths which he was compelled to tread, and where the main issues of his days were decided ! Let us go in quest of one such record — one out of many — and see how far the search may lead us in imagination. In the extreme north of the city, close by the old Puerta de Visagra, there stands the not very noticeable church of Santiago. It was perhaps Alonso VI., after he entered Toledo in triumph in 1085, who built the original Santiago and, then perhaps Sancho Capelo, whose tomb forms one of the group around the high altar of the cathedral, rebuilt it, towards the end of the thirteenth century. Now it is a poor specimen of the mixed 152 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. Gothic and Moorish work which is so common in Toledo, and whatever merit it once possessed has heen pretty well destroyed by late artists in plaster and whitewash. With these matters, fortunately, we have at the moment nothing to do. But there is here a very remarkable piece of furniture, in the shape of a pulpit, of good design, and wrought with much excellent Moorish and Gothic detail, built against one of the pillars of the nave in such a curious way that it seems quite inac- cessible, and one is a good deal puzzled to know how the preacher can ever get inside. But it has been used, nevertheless, with the direst effect, and you may still see, within, the image of a man, with crucifix in one hand, and the other raised towards heaven, who in the year of grace 1405 held multitudes spellbound here by the power of his oratory. Were there any Jews present ? one is tempted to wonder. Probably, for they seem rather to have affected Christian assem- blies in those days, and San Vicente Ferrer was a famous preacher, and their avowed enemy. His theme was the well-worn one of how the accursed Israelite had dared to put sacrilegious hands upon God Himself, had tortured Him, and had brought desolation upon our Blessed Mother. Then there was the lament that such a race, whom God had cursed and driven away, and upon whom He could only look with abhorrence, should be tolerated, and allowed to grow fat and proud, in so sacred a spot as Toledo — a city beloved of the Virgin, and where she had deigned to set her feet — with the TOLEDO. 53 inevitable seqiiitur that whoever smote a Jew in person or possessions did a God-service. It was an old tale^ and an enticing one, inasmuch as it opened up an easy road not only to the favour of Heaven but also to the enjoyment of rapine, and murder, and lust, and divers other equally religious impulses and emotions. And so the plea that the Jews of Toledo were descended from a tribe which had refused to vote for the death of Christ was lost sight of. That was a belief only to be cherished when Christians wanted money, and felt obliged to resort to moral suasion in order to get it. And Toledo's streets ran once more with Jewish blood, the holy emissary of the Prince of Peace himself directing the crusade, while, greatest desolation of all to faithful Jewish hearts, their beloved sanctuary was taken away from them, and converted into a house for the Nazarene impostor. The saddest thing about our visit to Santiago is that one is compelled to speak of these matters as " an old tale," and a drama enacted " once more." It was but the culmination of such a series of cruel persecutions — for eight dreary terrible centuries, with perhaps a little alleviation under Moorish rule — as no other record in the world can show. Sisebutus in the seventh century had inaugurated the system of compulsory Christian baptism. Fifty years later Wamba — the " good " King Wamba — had tried to stamp out Judaism by wholesale expulsion of its professors. Egica promptly followed with an edict that the Jews should be regarded as 154 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. slaves, and their children brought up as Christians ; while Alfonso VI., by his fmro of Sepiilveda, which declared that the Christian who killed a Jew should receive one hundred maravedis, while the Jew who killed a Christian should be put to death, and his goods con- fiscated, opened the door to all the torrent of popular hatred, and popular thirst for blood, and popular greed which swept backwards and forwards over the country for nearly four centuries, lashed to its highest point by the preaching of San Vicente and his fellows, and only subsiding when Ferdinand and Isabella's famous edict of 1492 rewarded their faithful Israelitish subjects for assistance at a critical hour of need, by expelling their 170,000 families finally from home and country. It is easy to sum up these things in a dozen lines, but how conjure up the faintest conception of the sufferings and patience of this people — of the fear and desolation that must have held alternate sway over their now deserted Juderia, their blasted synagogues and congregations ? How spell out the horror of such figures as forty-seven wholesale slaughterings, burnings, and ravishings in four hundred years, or of twenty-seven such scenes enacted within the short space of from 1321 to 1391 ? How characterise the meanness of the excuses put forth from time to time to initiate or palliate the reign of lust and rapine — meanness that could sanction the desecrating of the cathedral cloisters (themselves the direct outcome of robbery from the Jews) by the setting forth of such a wretched fabrication as the TOLEDO. 155 crucifixion of the boy Juan Passamonte ? And how not tread the Toledan Jew's ways with pity and reverence, and leave them with a softened feeling towards all faithful and persecuted souls, of whom he surely is the chief? But before either Christian or Jew stands the Mahomedan. He it is who has left behind him the broadest and wholesomest mark. Alike in handiwork and history his ways are pleasanter far to follow up than those of any of his collaborators in the old romance, and infinitely less easy to err in. So much so, that, though the purely Moorish bits may be confined to the Cristo de la Luz, Las Tornerias, the Jewish synagogues, one or two of the old gates, some few houses, and portions of the walls, yet one leaves Toledo with a not-to-be-got- rid-of impression that it is the second great monument in Spain of Moorish domination, and that it is, to this day, rather an Eastern than a Western city — the home of the Arab rather than of the Spaniard. It is not hard to see why this should be so, or even why no amount of familiarity with the place is able to dispel the notion. For there is an altogether remarkable and significant amount of Moorish work here — an un- justifiable amount, one might almost say. Much of the product of provision for their own needs is alas ! destroyed, but the Arab designers and artificers were so much the more skilful that, as has been already hinted, the Jews employed them in preference to workers of their own race. Then the Christians, for long after the re-conquest 156 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. — indeed "until the adoption of the later Trench and Eenaissance styles — seem to have been unable to devote time, talent, or ingenuity to aught save warring and intrigue. And so it came to pass that they, too, adopted the current and easy plan of having recourse to Moorish workmen, who, with fine art-cosmopolitanism, did not shrink from grafting upon their own distinctive types some of the Gothic forms to which they were com- mended, or to which they felt drawn out. From these sources comes the strange prevalence of the Moresque in the domestic architecture of Toledo ; — the huge outer door with its carefully-wrought iron garnishings, and the square tiled inner courtyard, with wooden or granite pillars supporting an overhead gallery (sometimes open, sometimes covered in) upon which the dwelling-rooms give, and to which access is gained by a happily con- cealed staircase. The little list of absolutely Moorish remains, too, given above, affords distinct and valuable — if not very pure — representatives of each of the three periods into which Saracenic art in Spain may be roughly divided. In Cristo de la Luz there is the early Arab-Byzantine style, of which perhaps the best example in the country is the mosque of Cordoba. That is to say, it is the pro- duct of a time when the sciences (and especially the science of mathematics) were yet comparatively un- developed in the East, or, at any rate, were jealously guarded by the lettered few, and when there was just a clinging to some old traditions, modified by a servile TOLEDO. 157 imitation of Greek, Latin, and Persian forms — flowers, and leaves, and azulejo or mosaic decoration — and ac- companied by a not very laudable recourse to already prepared material, as evidenced by some incongruous collections of pillars, friezes, and capitals. But presently there came a season of blessed security and rest, when the conquerors could turn their attention to the manifold questions inducing and proceeding from material and social progress. Then their art struck out a new path for itself. The seed already planted in the far East took root in Spanish soil, and there were pro- duced all those infinite and ever fresh varieties of decora- tion which may truly be called arabesque — the geo- metrical combining and curving of lines in relief or open work, and the cunning use of inscriptions — all wrought out with a skill and honesty which astonish and baffle the carefuUest worker to-day. This, the transition period, may be studied in Santa Maria la Blanca and the Casa de Mesa. And finally there came a time which the purist must look upon as one of decline, though the majority of folk profess to find in it the highest perfection, when mag- nificence passed into the luxury of phantasy and excess of ornamentation, when the hdveda became infinitely intricate in its multiplication and crossing, and when the stalactite decoration and honeycombed cornice were added. The experiences of Toledo were perhaps too stern and sad for there to be any really good examples of this style here, but it may nevertheless be traced in 158 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. the synagogue *Del Transito' and in the Taller del Moro, near the cathedral. That these types are not unadulterated may have arisen, easily enough, from the fact that they partook more of the character of transplanted specimens than the southern erections, and so were more leavened by the already existing forms alongside of which they sprang up ; and also from their being in each case late in date for the respective periods to which they belong. There is another side, however, to all this work of inquiry — another region to be explored. To all the carefully - preserved remains, and to all the facts of history which are writ so large that " he who runs may read," the ordinarily conscientious traveller is fairly attentive. That which he habitually passes over, from lack of time, or lack of heedfulness, and that which at once explains much that is repelling in the grim old streets of Toledo, and endears them to the careful, the tarrying soul, is all the world of ^^^iwritten history — not to call it by any scornful name — the nearly destroyed record, which has even to-day a definite and uniquely potent influence over the Toledan mind and life. Such histories, that is to say, as linger about some of the cathedral chapels, and the old Zocodover ; about the San Martin bridge, and the rocks that frown down from the southern bank upon the turbid hurrying waters of the dark Tagus ; about Cristo de la Vega, too, and Cristo de la Luz — that most dainty and fairy-like of Arab sanctuaries. Every one knows how that, some TOLEDO. 159 eight hundred years ago, the Cid's noble Babieca — the mystic King Arthur of warriors' steeds — unearthed here, at Cristo de la Luz, the crucifix still to be seen over the altar, which had been hidden away during the long Moorish usurpation, and before which the Inz — the lamp — had been kept unfailingly alight. But every one does not know that this was no isolated instance of the image's divine potency. This crucified Christ has often saved himself as well as others. Half a century before the Cid's name became a power in the land, one Abisain, a Jew, had introduced himself, in a moment of religious frenzy, into the little Christian temple in the dim evening light, when all was quiet ; had cast down and trampled upon this ef&gy of the despised Nazarene ; had pierced its side with a dagger, and, hurrying it away to his house in the Plaza de Valdecaleros, had tossed it upon a dung- hill. But he had not noticed in the darkness that the wounds he had inflicted forthwith bled, and so left a tell-tale track along the streets which brought swift retribution upon his own head, and a glorious restoration to his victim. Or there is the Cueva de Hercules. How few care to turn over the pages of its strange history, though it has been alike the birthplace and the nursery of so much traditional life! To the sight -seer come down from Madrid for the day it means — if he bestows a thought upon it — that if there is nothing better for him to look at he can go home. But to the average inhabitant of Toledo it means — in some more or less i6o SKETCHES IN SPAIN. defined and acknowledged sort — that the world is ruled by a dual divinity of Fate and Direct Eetribution, and that therefore, as it is useless to attempt to alter what has been prepared and ordained, the best thing to do is to submit as quietly as possible to the inevitable, and seize upon such good and pleasant morsels as the passing moment puts in one's way. All such notions as the power of a man over his own destiny, or the operation of natural causes — the survival of the fittest, or the overthrow of a race or kingdom by the simple process of inherent defect — are either unrecognised by him, or not deemed sufficient to account for the •catastrophes which every now and then occur in the social system. This is putting the matter rather coarsely, no doubt. If questioned closely on the subject the said average citizen would probably declare his entire freedom from superstitious ways, and a firm faith in the operation and powers of the Blessed Virgin, or in some particular patron saint out of the many newly-discovered fetishes. But the older, simpler, and in some respects far grander religion forms none the less the true undercurrent of his thoughts and life, and any such of its special temples as the Cueva de Hercules is to be shunned on a dark night as carefully as a churchyard by the average English disbeliever in spiritualism. But what, perhaps the reader will ask, is this wonderful Cueva de Hercules ? It was not always a Cueva, and much less had it aught to do with the TOLEDO. i6i church which now guards its entrance. From the days only to be conveniently reckoned by 'generations,' it was a forbidding, uninhabited spot, which no sun could gladden, and upon which Nature herself seemed to turn her back. And here was situated the enchanted tower of the great King Hercules, a man — if indeed he might be reckoned a man — who was mighty and wise beyond all men who had ever lived, and who had foreseen that the kingdom of the Goths would be ruined by that ruler who should be base enough to prefer the satisfy- ing of his own lusts and pride to the welfare of his subjects. And so he had built this palace of jaspers and richly -coloured marbles, and, himself sealing up the door, had ordained, before his unaccountable dis- appearance from the earth, that each successive monarch should add another seal within a few days of his accession to the throne, and should sacredly forbear from searching out the mysteries of the building. And age after age his bidding was religiously fulfilled. It was aftirmed, naturally, and presently accepted as an article of faith, that there was a sort of heaven of riches and pleasure within the shining tower, of which its precious stones were an emblem ; but still its secrets were respected, and some unseen power seemed to watch over the kingdom of the Goths. Until there arose a king, Eoderick the ill-fated and ill-natured, who cared nothing for any custom, religion, or right, nor suffered these things to stand between his lusts and himself. How he prosecuted his M SKETCHES IN SPAIN. determination to ransack the Enchanted Palace, and what awful confirmation he met therein of the gloomy prophecies wherewith King Hercules had backed up his behest ; how, as he was now grasping at the goodly things he had come upon, they turned to veriest ashes, and how, as he and his companions fled terror-stricken from the scene, a tongue of fire darted out of the lurid blackness that had gathered arcund them, and the whole edifice crashed down into a heap of half-buried ruins, is all well known to those who are willing to sit at tradition's feet. And what followed has been made matter of history, though the irreverent scribes thereof nowhere give due prominence to the exact fulfilling of King Hercules' ordaining, and the retributive punishment of Don Eoderick's unhallowed defying of the supernatural. The Arab hosts speedily made their appearance in the south ; swiftly they over-ran Anda- lucia, scattering the puny force which Teodomiro, the Gothic viceroy, opposed to them, destroyed King Eoderick and the flower of Toledan chivalry at the Guadalete, and — so sure their avenging onsweep — within two years the whole of Spain lay bleeding at their feet. And so the Palacio Encantado became the Cueva de Hercules — the mighty palace a blackened hole encum- TOLEDO. bered with ruins. And then began a new phase of its history. The dire evils which had been chained up within it, and then, when let loose upon the'country by a sacrilegious hand, had rent the fabric in their issuing, had only added fresh colouring to the awe with which the inhabitants of Toledo had ever regarded the spot ; while, from the entry of Don Eoderick and his com- panions, there had come to be noised abroad confirmation of the old idea that endless treasures were shut up herein, and that the rough, misshapen den was even now the abode of beauteous sirens, who ever and anon wooed the passer-by to his destruction. So the place came to be called " Placer con pesar" a devil's treasure- house, where a rash mortal who sought to obtain good by unhallowed means might become rich and happy in haste to repent at leisure. It was whispered that, when the melancholy Angelus bade farewell to the dying day, there might be seen restless, vaporous forms flitting for a moment out from the horrible grinning mouth of the cavern, and then passing from sight ; — like the strange bluish shapes which scared and benighted wayfarers see flashing forth now and again from behind the tomb- stones of cemeteries, and which every one knows to be those who have perished in mortal sin, and are allowed to revisit the earth again to seek for prayers and penance. And, naturally, there were not wanting those who declared that these appearances were all imagination, and that as the pesar for King Eod crick's crimes — of SKETCHES IN SPAIN. whicli this affair of the Enchanted Palace was the culmination — had already been undergone by the country, it only needed sufficient courage on the part of some spirited mortal to face whatsoever of terror might still lurk around the threshold of the Cueva, in order to enjoy to the full the placer which lay behind — and the riches. True, there had been strange disap- pearances of those who, from curiosity, greed, or unwari- ness, had ventured near the place by night ; but that only proved that it was in very fact a paradise that lay embosomed in the earth, so sweet, so perfect, that those who had once attained thereto did not care to revisit a blasted, down-fallen world. One thing, however, was beyond all doubt — that there was something very awful and supernatural about the spot. For, almost in our own day, when everything is so enlightened and certain that it is absurd to suppose that any mere superstition can stand the tests brought against it, the Cardinal Archbishop Siliceo had been compelled, by the most terrible warnings, to desist from a scheme which he had aired for searching out whatever of god or devil lay here enshrined. Here was a promising source and nurturing for popular beliefs and superstitions. It could not but come to pass that there should grow out of it a long list of the Cueva's victims, — of unhappy wiglits who have sought within the unhallowed precincts a prompt and royal road to wealth, or to the satisfying of love, or of vengeance, and who have found instead a mysterious TOLEDO. 165 but no less certain fate which was all the more im- pressive for its half revealing. Perhaps some time we may come back to the spot, and unravel some of these histories and influences at our leisure. Now, however, we must turn our faces southward. IX. cOrdoba. If for any reason La Granja and El Escorial have been passed by — and the former is far too often left out of the traveller's programme — Aranjuez ought to be visited as a sort of duty^ in order to understand a certain facet of Spanish life and custom, and to see what can be done in the way of a stiff reproduction of Nature, and a glorious violation of the usually recog- nised canons of art. Sometime, in the days when it was praised by Calderon and Garcilaso, and painted by Velazquez, when it was a royal residence in something more than name, and when its long avenues and shady bowers were bright with groups of gaily-dressed courtiers, or brighter with the laughter of children, Aranjuez must have been pretty enough. Even now it would be quite tolerable — indeed, in some respects admirable — if only there was a decent veiling of its poor imitation of bad Erench forms, or if its ugliness were relieved by love. As matters stand, however, there is not sufficient expenditure of care or money to sweep up the dead leaves of autumn, or check the growth of summer weeds, and so the scene is mournful and depressing to the last degree. CORDOBA. 167 In any case it must not be allowed to come between Toledo and Andalucia. For, with the " imperial city " of the Castiles, nineteenth-century Western life, whether spick-and-span as in the capital, or frowsy and un- kempt as in some of the capital's offshoots, has been put far from us, and will hardly be recognised again until Barcelona is reached. This is no mere conceit. The traveller who has spent a week in Toledo, who has made there good use of his time, and is willing, now, to enter unreservedly into all the new experiences which await him in the South, will find that he has just gone through a desirable sort of apprenticeship, and is fitted to comprehend readily, and to enjoy, a life and surroundings which will prove to be made up of all the pleasanter characteristics of Toledo's ways, dressed up in bright and cheerful garb. And it is well to make the transition by this means easy and relief-ful — to have a sobering, in some sort sombre, foretaste of what is in store — because, usually, one entertains such an absurdly exalted idea of Anda- lucian experiences. Ever-blue skies, glorious sunshine falling through fruit-laden orange-groves, marble colon- nades and courtyards, with cooling fountains plashing out scented waters, sylphlike forms that leave behind them just an impression of white floating robes and a pair of lustrous black eyes — that is the sort of picture which fancy generally limns, and the sort of thing even now to be met with in books aspiring to the mentorship of travellers. Of course there is a substratum of truth SKETCHES IN SPAIN. in such descriptions. These delightful morsels of love - liness exist. But they have to be looked for behind grim walls, and under a not-to-be-lost-sight-of veil of squalor and grossness which jars terribly upon the susceptible nerves of a refined northerner fresh from the ways of a too luxurious civilisation. Get into the joyous, contented spirit of the life that recks nothing of a few discomforts, trials, and inconveniences ; approach it footsore from the roughness, or oppressed by the dull sadness of some of the gray, stricken cities of the plains, and then the most brightly-tinged anticipations will be at least satisfied, if not fulfilled. Else what is really good and profitable and restful will be covered up, or hidden away, and, as one continually finds when ex- changing experiences with fellow-travellers, the outcome will be a disappointment which increases with every onward step, and a spirit of reviling which is chiefly potent in irritating itself. The scenery which supervenes upon the wastes of La Mancha is really very beautiful, though a thing mi generis — and that an unexpected kind. There is enor- mous fertility on all sides, but it is understood rather than expressed. Overhead, even in winter, there is an unblinking, blazing sun, that draws a blue mist over the horizon. The earth is brown, and devoid of any pleasantness of covering save here and there an oasis of orange or lemon trees. There is almost worse than no water, for the occasional riachuclo which trickles among the stones deep down in the baked mmUa, or the broad, CORDOBA. undoubted river which rolls sluggishly along between low flat banks of mud, are rather eyesores than a relief, and seem utterly unable to fringe even their own ways with verdure. And yet there is the notion of richness and plenty everywhere — in the far-reaching slopes of olive plantation, in the evident fact that each foot of earth is diligently cultivated and wrought to good purpose, in the huge sprawling hedges of aloe and prickly pear, brightened with gloriously-coloured wild flowers, which appeal to one as old friends with strangely new faces, and in the perfected garden which heralds the approach to the more important stopping -places. It may not all seem beautiful at the moment, but there is something about it of rest and joyousness and satis- faction, which, with the more definite delights of vivid colouring and indescribably pure air, dwells in the recollection when one has passed far away, and creates a longing to see it all again. Cordoba is absurdly unlike what it ought to be. One of the most ancient of cities, and abounding, too, in records of all the races that have made it, fought for it, and dwelt in it during the last two thousand years, it should be very picturesque, very dilapidated, very grim, and full of artistic treasures. These last, however, have almost entirely disappeared; and, for the rest, it is just as bright and clear and ordinary as an unenterprising and happy people, the clearest sky perhaps in Europe, and the most immaculate and pervading whitewash can make it. They say that a thousand years ago there I70 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. were upwards of a million inhabitants here, three hun- dred mosques, nine hundred baths, and six hundred fondas. It may have been so, but there is oddly little evidence of any such greatness. The report reminds one irresistibly of the two million men of King Agrican's army whom Orlando killed, according to Don Quijote, with his own hand. But, if the city that was the suc- cessful rival of Bagdad and Damascus as a seat of learn- ing, and the centre of European civilisation, has been reduced to the size and rank of an overgrown village, there is some consolation to be derived from the fact that everything one has to see has thereby been brought within the narrowest possible limits. For the treading of Cordoba's pavements is an operation something be- tween dancing the tight-rope, walking on eggs, and tip- toeing stakes of iron. The more important thorough- fares can boast of a flaQjsfed side-walk, indeed, but it is so narrow that an ordinarily voluminous caixt, or a priest's gown, takes up the whole of it, and so the polite foreigner is only compelled to dance and dodge all the more by what might otherwise be his salvation. To catch Cordoba awake it is necessary to get up very early in the morning — the earlier the better — and saunter through the Plaza de la Corredera and adjoining streets. If one has before only known the sleepy, de- serted town of high day, refusing utterly to acknowledge ordinary working hours, and so making travellers and guide-books speak of her as a city of the dead, the scene now will be simply unrecognisable. However other CORDOBA. 171 market-places may have been scornfully or carelessly passed by, this one must on no account be missed. For in the bustling play enacted here each morning between six and nine o'clock, there is to be gained a first insight into the quickness and force of the Sonthern character, and into the quaint customs of oddly mixed, and as oddly unleavened races — customs which one has per- haps only read of in books, and imagined to belong to days long since gone by. And there are piles of strange fruits and flowers too, glorious in colour, form and pro- fusion, wdiich it is a shame only to admire when they are set forth upon the table. A winding street — all the streets are most bewilder- ing in their winding — leads down from these open-air markets to the handsome promenade formed upon the northern bank of the Guadalquivir. This stoj)S short, however, most unfortunately, some distance from the Eoman-Moorish Puente Viejo, and so we must make a dStoiir to the right — back into the silent white old streets — in order to reach the central attraction of Cor- doba, the Great Mezquita and its dependencies. It may seem heretical to couple the mosque in this w^ay with anything else. But, after all that the visitor has heard and read about this wondrous Arab temple, it will be strange if it does not w^oefully disappoint him, and stranger still if he does not find great store of in- terest and beauty in its surroundings. There is the bridge itself — the Puente Viejo — one of the earliest records of the Moor in Spain, built upon old Pioman 172 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. foundations very soon after Don Eoderick's discomfiture at the Guadalete, and preceding Abd-el-Rhaman's mosque by a good seventy years. The heavy Doric gateway which guards the entrance to the town from the bridge is a characteristic piece of Herrera's genius, and if the reliefs upon it are by Torrigiano, they are in no way worthy of the man who wrought the San Geronimo in the Sevilla Museo, or Henry VII.'s sepulchre in Westminster Abbey. Still newer and poorer is the churrigueresque Triunfo column close by, with its figure of the angel Eaphael, the city's tutelar, as he appeared to the painter-priest Eoelas three hundred years ago, saying : — " Yo te jnro por Jesu Cristo crucificado Que soy Eafael angel, a qiiien Dios tieiie piiesto Por guarda de esta ciudad." The view from this corner is most superb. In front lies the full sweep of the Guadalquivir, with the isthmus of irregular arches which spans it, and the green plain upon the other side. Below the bridge some ruins of a Moorish mill jut clear out into the water, and farther to the right — inland — are the walls of the old and new Alcazars, with their delicate fringing of green and gold orange trees. Behind rise up the dark battlements of the mosque, ugly and stern indeed in themselves, but relieved by a feathery date-palm here and there, and the vista of dazzlingly white streets. Over all the glorious blue of a Cordoban sky lights up and colours everything. CORDOBA. 73 And then, after a couple of minutes' walk up the road, and stopping to admire the exquisitely-sculptured Plateresque portal of the Foundling Hospital, one turns aside through an insignificant opening in the massive wall, and that perfectest of visions, the Patio de los i^aranjos — court of orange trees — bursts upon the view, with the creamy delicate belfry-tower, rival of Sevilla's Giralda, rising up on the left above the dark shining foliage and flame-coloured fruit. All of which is really pleasanter to behold than the Mezquita itself, the central figure of the whole picture. A marvellous building is this mosque, no doubt — and unique. It is huge too, fairy -like withal, lovely in detail, wonderful in the inconceivable perspective of its avenues of columns, and there is about it an air of Eastern gorgeousness. In fact, it is anything you please except just what it should be as a great religious house — imposing. Now and then, in some corner, when the view is contracted, and when a group of kneeling black-robed penitents induces a much-needed dwarfing of humanity, there may be formed some notion of what the place was in its better days. After its second enlargement, that is to say, when the Mihrab * had just been added, and the Patio de los Naranjos finished; when there was as yet no need of windows, but all these avenues of delicate columns within opened straight * Mihrab = 'place inhabited by the Spirit of God' — so the holy spot, to which the Moslems turned in prayer, and where the sacred books were kept. 174 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. upon the even more lovely, and exactly corresponding avenues of orange trees without ; before Almanzor had conferred unwieldiness by adding the eight eastern naves; before an obtrusive Eenaissance cathedral had been thrust down in the centre, and when, in place of the present bald, mean vaulting, there was fine artesonado work of sweet -smelling woods. Now, however, when the place has been thus shorn of all beauty of propor- tion, shorn, too, of the old rites, and the old life, it is grievously hard to get over the idea that one is in an exaggerated crypt. Of curious and beautiful detail there is of course no lack. The thousand columns — once 1419 — w^hich support the roof, naturally claim the first attention, and provide an ever -fresh field of study and speculation. They are of differing styles, dimensions, substances and colours ; were brought here from various centres of the old civilised world — Carthage, Constantinople, Alex- andria, Nimes, Narbonne, Tarragona, etc. ; and form perhaps the most remarkable instance to be found of how the Arabs, in their earlier architectural efforts, relied upon the already -shaped material of other countries. Some there are, too, of marble from the Sierra Morena, from Loja and Cadiz, with capitals of Corinthian order wrought with stiff leaf foliage, in imitation of those brought from afar, and indicating the already-budding artfulness of the Hispano-Arab workmen. And there are most precious specimens of arabesque work, such as the decoration of the Holy of Holies (the CORDOBA. 175 sanctuary, or Cecct) and of the opposite Malisitmh, or seat of the khalif. The former consists of three chapels, all rich in arabesque and mosaic, but the two outer ones, where the sacred vessels were kept, yielding in elaboration and gorgeousness to the central KihlaJi, with its delicate heptagon al shrine and shell-like roof. Here was preserved the Mimhar — perhaps pulpit — of sandal and ebony woods inlaid with ivory and mother- of-pearl, and, within this, the sacred Koran transcribed by Othman, and stained with his blood. The Mahsurah is a grandly-decorated chamber facing the Mihrab, and raised some four feet from the ground. The cupola roof is very similar in character to that of the sanctuary, but the walls are covered with the later stucco orna- mentation of the thirteenth century — such work as we find prevailing in the Alhambra. On the western side of this Capilla de Villaviciosa, as it is now called, they are uncovering a very lovely chapel, remarkably similar to the Mahsurah, only upon the level of the flooring of the mosque. Very probably this formed one of three chapels corresponding with those of the Mihrab, ere it was turned into the plainly stuccoed Capilla Mayor of the first Christian church — the portion of the mosque which was devoted to purposes of Christian worship before the present hideous sixteenth - century erection was perpetrated. The earlier cathedral may still be traced in its entirety ; and it is noteworthy that, while it left many disfiguring touches behind it, there was shown in its designing a respect for the main conform a- 176 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. tion of the mosque which might have read a lesson to the later and more ambitions Christian innovators. How the great Mezquita of Cordoba was built — the offspring of a sudden desire on the part of Abd-el- Ehaman I. to counteract the attractions of Mecca, and outvie the temples of the newly-conquered land ; how he purchased the old Christian basilica for his site, and pushed on his work with such ardour that the amaz- ingly short space of ten years saw it concluded — though he himself was cut off when the shell was yet incom- plete — is an old tale. It is difficult, however, to resist reproducing the graphic portrayal of a Christian, priest-ridden community as looked at from the Maho- medan point of view, to be unearthed from the Arab legends concerning the great kaliph's plans and direc- tions for his new temple. " Let us raise to Allah," he said, "an Aljama which shall surpass the Temple of Jerusalem itself. Let us build the western Kaaba upon the very site of a Christian sanctuary, which we will destroy, so that we may set forth how the Cross shall fall and become abased before the true Prophet. Allah will never give the power of the world unto those who make themselves the slaves of drink and lustfulness while they preach penitence and the joys of chastity, and enrich themselves at the expense of others while tliey extol poverty. For these the sad and silent cloister; for us the crystalline fountain and the shady grove; for them the hard and unenlightened life of dungeon-like strongholds ; for us the sweetness of social CORDOBA. 177 intercourse and scientific culture. For them, intoler- ance and tyranny; for us, a ruler who is our father. For them, a people lying in the darkness of ignorance ; for us, an instruction as widespread and free as our religion. Eor them, the wilderness, celibacy, and the doom of the false martyr; for us, plenty, love, brother- hood, and eternal joy." X. SEVILLA. Although an entrance is made at Cordoba into the charmed region of Andalucian life, one only meets there with the hard, the in some sort poverty-stricken side of it. There is its brightness, its insouciance and origin- ality — something of its colour, picturesqneness, and gmcia, too, with much of its record — but nothing of its brilliant garb or luxury. Not until Sevilla is approached does one encounter the majo and all his ways. But then it is the very land of the dandy, both in person and spirit, which opens out before us. !N"o longer must one frequent the churches, monasteries, or markets in order to gain an insight into the people's character, or the people's life. These are either deserted, or handed over to the perfunctory souls. One must saunter upon the ;paseo, or mix with the throng in the cafe, casino, or theatre, or walk with special wideawaked- ness the Amor de Dios, the Sierpes, the Francos, or Cuna, the very roadways of which are turned into broad footpaths for the eager, handsomely - dressed crowd of fldneurs, who prove that the well-worn old sarcasm, SE VILLA. 179 " Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ip)sce," was only libellous through its exclusiveness. Fortunately, the paseos and favourite plazas of Sevilla are very charming — notably Las Delicias, with its over- arching acacia trees and bright bordering of garden, or the Plaza Nueva, second best of all Spain's plazas, only surpassed by Salamanca's great square, and perhaps even more attractive than its rival in its Oriental garnishing of date-palms, and its splendid colour con- trasts. And there are other pleasant aspects of one's idle hours here. As everybody save the foreign sight- seer and the beggar seems to be well dressed and happy, so do all go their ways in perfect order and decorum. Whatever we may know about ugly and degrading sights and scenes round corners, during the small hours of the night, or in the home, there is nothing to be met with in ordinary experiences but ever -smiling courtesy and unsoiled prettiness. " A holiday humour too good to last !" one is tempted to cry. But no ; — it is the same to-morrow, and the next day, through genial sunshine and bitter east wind, political calm or revolu- tion, prosperity or the frowns of fortune. And if we come back to visit Andalucia's queen next year she will greet us with the same comeliness of both perverted and unperverted nature. But perhaps the most delicious of all Sevillian bits are the peeps into the patios of the houses, which the quieter streets afford. Anything more exquisite after its kind — more perfectly ordered, delicately arranged, and i8o SKETCHES IN SPAIN. beautifully kept up — than the court of a Sevillian gentleman's residence cannot be imagined, and the poorer classes follow suit with marvellous success and unanimity. There is no great outer door as at Toledo, but cunningly-wrought and fairy-like iron gates, which only serve to set off an enticing picture of marble pavement, colonnade and fountain, in a framing of palmitos, bananas and lemon trees, with here and there a coquettishly- perched cage of singing birds. In no other place is there so great a temptation to become the inquisitive prier into the domestic ways of one's fellows. So far all is sweet and pleasant — all well in keeping, too, with expectation and desire. But then, if the traveller happens to be burdened with tastes or knowledge which require other food than laughter and prettiness, and if — as is very likely — he has come down from the north with the oft-repeated assurance sounding in his ears that he must wait till he gets to Sevilla in order to see anything really great or precious in art- work, he will be faced at every turn by the cruellest disappointment. It is astonishing — only explicable by the supposition that the natives are influenced by the superficial opinion of the average tourist — how persistently even the cultivated Spaniard will refer to Sevilla as the home of all that is fine in both Christian and Moorish work. And the astonishment is only increased by the thought of the unequalled store of good and beautiful things which the land possesses in other quarters, and of which he at least SE VILLA. i8i — the said Spaniard — might be expected to have some appreciation. The fact is that, apart from a few good paintings, there is no work here which will bear analysis. In the far-famed cathedral, the Alcazar, and the Casa de Pilatos — the three buildings which will probably be put forward in order to support the alleged value of Sevilla as a point of architectural study — there is any amount of acl captanclum effect, and much frag- mentary excellence. But there is neither harmony nor consistency of style ; there is a lack of the honesty and grasp which underlie all true art, and late additions or restorations have in each case wrought infinite mischief. It is absurd to compare such bungling as one finds here with the pure, conscientious, and noble work at Granada, Toledo, Burgos, Leon, Santiago, or Tarragona. And so in all the divers paths of art, literature, and antiquarian record — in church, salon, and library, as upon the paseo — the way to enjoy Sevilla is to forget the past, to put away criticism, and to give oneself up to the spirit that cares for no prize save the gratification of the moment's impulse and fancy. In which spirit let us cross the bright Plaza Nueva, and enter the great cathedral, only pausing for a mo- ment outside to note that the platform, or gradas, upon which it stands, with the enclosing pillars brought from the Eoman ruins of Italica, formed in mediaeval times a place of refuge, where the criminal, or unfortunate, might shelter himself under the unassailable juris- diction of the Church ; while in later days, before the l82 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. erection of the neighbouring Lonja, they were the recognised haunt of the Sevillian merchants and bill- brokers. The first view of the interior is one of the supreme moments of a lifetime. The glory and majesty of it are almost terrible. ISTo other building, surely, is so fortun- ate as this in what may be called its presence. Nave, side aisles, and lateral chapels, all of singularly happy proportions, a vista of massive and yet graceful columns, a rightly dim religious light, gloriously -rich stained glass, and an all-prevailing notion of venerable age — such is the sum of one's first impressions. "Then the place fulfils its mission," some may exclaim. So far as the ordinary visitor is concerned, certainly. For he will not care to get beyond first im- pressions, and the cathedrals of Sevilla and Cordoba will probably be the only sacred buildings in Spain of which he will keep alive any definite recollection. But it is a pity that it should be so — a pity that so gorgeous a piece of work as this, the motto of which from its first shadowing out upon paper has been Grandeza, should not be able to do more than impress, and perhaps awe, careless souls. Beyond some effects of proportion, light, colour and piecemeal excellence, there is nothing here of the subtle teaching and pure exampling of the Salamanca 'Vieja,' Toledo, or Tarragona. The term " fortunate " may have seemed just now to be an oppro- brious one wherewith to describe so impressive a build- ing, but it is really the only just epithet. Age after age SE VILLA. 183 a great band of glorifiers of self through self's handiwork have been employed here in producing what they determined should be a world's marvel, and, thanks to the rare combination of lavish magnificence of idea with a particularly adjusted light, they have turned out what passes current through most hands as pure gold. That there has been but little sacredness of purpose, and none of that greatness of conception which can at once grasp the completed whole, and design each individual part, is shown by the absence of anything like consistency of style, and the blemishes which wait everywhere upon excellence — the ugly, square, east end, the debased groining, the insignificant plinths, the bald windows, their careless head tracery, and an exterior which is simply beneath criticism. But we are forgetting the spirit in which we were to come here. Before destroying the effect of the first vision by such details as these, it will be well to turn aside and look at some of the really glorious works of art which make the cathedral a veritable museum. Here are Murillo's St. Anthony of Padua, and the Angel de la Guarda, types of effective church decoration, even looking at it merely from the garnishing point of view, and making one more than ever grieve over the sus- picion with which the Anglican Church regards the artist-painter. The Angel de la Guarda, close to the great western door, is perhaps the better known of the two, both by description and reproduction, but the San Antonio, in the Capilla de la Pila, is by far the finer SKETCHES IN SPAIN. The saint kneels in his cell, stretching out his arms towards the Saviour, who, in the form of a little child, floating in light which emanates from Himself, and attended by angels and cherubs, is coming down in answer to His servant's earnest prayer. In conception and composition, drawing and colouring, this superb picture is unexceptionable, while the smallest acces- sories are painted with wonderful care. And although there is something of the inevitable Murillo prettiness about the infant Christ, there is at the same time an un- wonted dignity and protecting power — a fine divinity — while the kneeling figure is quite living in its expression of yearning dependency and trustfulness. There is a double interest attaching to the painting now, for in November 1874 the figure of St. Anthony was cut out, and taken away. About two months afterwards a German artist in New York informed the Spanish consul that he believed the missing portion had been offered to him, for some ridiculously small sum. This, upon examination, proved to be the case, and, thanks to the prompt action of the authorities, and the skill of the chief restorer of the Madrid Museo, the rehabilitated picture was hanging again in its place within another seven months, the work of restoration being so admirably carried out that it is difficult, save by the closest inspec- tion, to discover any mark of damage. Sevilla's great artist is represented here by many other admirable examples — notably by one of his best Conceptions, a St. Ferdinand, and the Justa and Eiifina, SE VILLA. 185 in the oval Sala Capitular — but the two pictures of El Angel and San Antonio are not only far beyond all the rest in value, but stand out like giants among the other art treasures of the cathedral. And yet there is a long array of good things — a fine Nativity by Luis de Varga, the Generacion of the same painter, Campana's famous but overpraised Deposition, at the foot of which Murillo wished to be buried, some wonderfully good frescoes by Pablo de Cespedes, and a host of less remarkable but still noticeable works by Pacheco, Zurbaran, El Greco, and Goya. In church - plate and vestments Seville is richer than any other of the Spanish cathedrals, except perhaps Burgos. The silver altars, the endless silver and bronze candelabras — one so colossal that it needs twenty men to carry it into the church — Arfe's gloriously rich and delicate monstrance, the jewelled censers, chalices, and crosses, the golden keys and diamond stars, are splendid to satiety. But the crowning glory of the cathedral is its fifteenth and sixteenth century stained glass, especially that of the upper windows of the nave, the transepts, and east end. The lower windows are filled in with the poor design and colouring of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and thereby receive quite an unnecessary accenting of their grave architectural de- fects, but those upper lights, though belonging to a period when the disfiguring canopy had assumed its most gigantic proportions, are models of splendid colour- ing, and of that didactic purpose which is so often lost SKETCHES IN SPAIN. sight of in glass decoration. It can hardly escape note here, how impossible it is to appreciate the value of this sort of work without really caring to study it with the help of a field or opera glass ; — how windows which one might pass by as mere examples of the massing of fine colours, will stand revealed presently as full of life in conception and design, in purpose and power. It is almost invidious to make any selection from such a store as lies before us, but perhaps the finest examples are the Assumption of the Virgin over the south-west door, the Conversion of St. Paul in the Santiago chapel, the Entry into Jerusalem over the ' Lagarto ' doorway, and its vis-a-vis, the Cleansing of the Temjple. The time to understand the extraordinary beauty of this old glass * is just as the evening is closing in, and the vast cathedral is becoming shrouded in the gloom of twilight. Watching then, as the shadows spread around, it will be seen that while the later, poor colours turn indistinct and gray, and then become suddenly quite blank, the older pieces only deepen and glow the more. To secure a perfect arrangement of all circum- stances for a process of this sort, one should choose a winter's afternoon when there is some solemn ceremony to follow vespers — say such an occasion as the Feast of St. Cecilia, or, better still, the Christmas Seixes — when a stand must be taken before the high altar for a good half-hour or so in the dusk, if one wishes to secure a * With the designing of whicii Espinosa, upon doubtful authority, credits Raphael, Titian, and Michael Angelo. SE VILLA. 187 good place, and when there is the subtle contagion of a surrounding and only dimly visible humanity spell- bound by expectancy. The darkness has perhaps already begun to creep round the capitals of the palm- like columns, and to draw out overhead its mysterious veil of depth and infinity. Presently the noiseless, black-robed figures which are ever flitting hither and thither over the pavement become blurred and indis- tinct, and there is a sudden awakening to the conscious- ness that the small ring of worshippers which the daylight left around the crossing has grown into a great sea of heads and shadowy forms. And all this time the watery blues and reds of the lower line of windows have first become ashen, and then weakly died out, before the gathering gloom of the side aisles and the soft brilliancy of the lights around the altar, while the grand old models above seem to look down upon the scene with ever-increasing vividness and life. How the deepened, only glorified, violet and crimson here give up the ghost one never seems to know, for long before it comes to that the solemn roll of Jorge Bosch's organ — one of the very few organs in Spain that have any solemnity of tone about them, or that are pro- perly handled — has burst upon the ear, and all other thoughts are lost in the strange and weird scene that is fulfilling a spot in the blackness with phantasy and sound. These Seixes are experiences never to be passed by, or forgotten. The raison d'etre of the whole thing is i88 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. dancing — so persistently and manifestly dancing, that it is difficult to believe that the funcion had its origin in any Christian symbolism whatsoever, and one turns with relief to the legend that a spectacle of this kind was just the most effective temptation which a liberally- minded prelate could devise, in order to induce the worldly Sevillian folk to come to church on certain solemn occasions. Be that as it may, at five o'clock every afternoon during the octaves of the Immaculate Conception and Corpus, ten seixes or choristers (music, dancing, funcion, and performers are alike indiscrimi- nately called " Seixes ") dance and sing in the most charming and graceful old-minuet fashion in front of the high altar, dressed in the style of pages of the seven- teenth century, in striped blue and white, or red and white, silk jackets and breeches, white silk stockings, and ' beef-eater ' hats with long trailing feathers. The costume and the slightly mundane Castanet accompani- ment — into which the little performers put their whole souls — strike one, perhaps, as out of keeping with the sacredness of the edifice ; otherwise the whole affair is carried out with so much decorum and earnestness that it is not half so strange or repulsive as it might be deemed. Two sets of words and music are selected for each octave, and are used upon alternate evenings. It is impossible to procure anything like accurate copies, the reproduction or sale of the music being jealously guarded against by the Chapter, whose property it is. SEVILLA. The only plan, therefore, is to take it down from ear, and bribe the little seixes themselves to furnish the words. One set runs as follows : — Salve OVir-gen mas puray masbel - la, que la An- rora y que el as-tro del di - - a ! Hija y madre y es - po - sa Ma- I90 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. Vir-gen ! Sal-ve 0 Vir-gen ! -I Sal-ve O Vir-gen ! Sal-ve O Vir-gen ! Hija y Madre y es - posa tu Ma - ri • - a, y las =1= i puer - tas de Dios Ori - en - tal ! Salve O Vir - gen ! Sal-ve O I .. .. - . -ti^ V Sal-ve O Vir-gen ! Vir-gen_! ^ -j^^ 1 ^ ^ m-w^rrr.^ la ^ ^- -T— 1 — ^ V.S. _j- - ■ u air EstriviUo. SE VILLA, 193 ^M— i -r f- ist time.: * 2nd time. .g. :j: j. .^j. -i- i Finis. i Repeat tlie Estrivillo for another verse, and tlien V.S. to Copla.s. COPLAS. Andante, con expressions :ti— i 5 Si :g^ nn — tit ■ Nor-te H 1— «| 1 1 ^ kI h-"— ^— ^1 — ^—\ \ ^ J fijo en el mar pro-ce - lo - so, nos li - l)er-ta.s del da - ro nau- 194 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. Ira - gio. Ar-ca san-ta que fuis - te pre - sa - - gio — de sa- lud y de vida al iiior - tal. Turqiie a ti nielsil-bidoes- to - so, del so - Leibio aqui- Ion sere - sis - te, ni del co-ci-to im-puro a-cre - cis - te id un iiio-nien-tociisuim-mun-do ran- dal. Hal - - - Icn - - - tan - - - do. -g- -ff- ^=*:^=Jfe ^ r : ^1,-1 — 1<* ^ ^ 1 Repeat one verse of Estrivillo. SE VILLA. 195 It is tempting to linger over the services in this cathedral, for they are exceptionally good — good even down to the daily matins and vespers. The best fiincion of the year, perhaps, is the midnight Misa del Gallo (Mass of the Cockcrow) on Christmas Eve. The huge building is thronged then with the devoutest of congre- gations, and the flood of light from the giant silver candelabra before the high altar brings into dazzling relief the gorgeousness of the ritual, with the glory of its furnishing, and throws all the rest into a most impress- ive gloom and blackness. And the effect produced is in all ways legitimate. The carol-singing away in the semi-obscurity of the organ-gallery — with its quaint background of drum, castanet, triangle and subdued organ accompaniment — the jubilant outburst of the Gloria in Excelsis, the prostration before the altar in the Credo, with all the other solemnising adjuncts of the scene and service, leave behind them impressions which must linger long in the memory. At the extreme north-west of the church, in the dark passage called 'El Lagarto,'* are some curious remains of the old mosque of Yacub Yusuf, which stood here at the time of the re-conquest, and was the Christian cathedral until the fifteenth century, when it was X)ulled down to make room for its great successor. Without lies the Moorish Patio de los Naranjos — not so fine as that at Cordoba — with its ancient fountains * From the crocodile which hangs in it, a present from the Sultan of Egypt to Alonso El Sabio. 196 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. where the faithful performed their ablutions, the un- used and somewhat uninteresting Columbina library, and the rich, mudejar Puerta del Perdon. It is a shame — ^yet a natural result of the tone of Sevilla's life and conversation — that the library should thus fail to fulfil its mission, for it has had great ad- vantages, and still possesses valuable works. Among the MSS. here may be seen some authentic notes of Christopher Columbus upon his voyages, and other interesting pieces of his handwriting ; also the large collection of books belonging to his son Pernando, and bequeatlied to the canons as the nucleus of the library. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the patio is a relic of mediaeval days, in the shape of a rough stone pulpit placed against the eastern wall, from which some of Spain's finest preachers — San Vicente Perrer, San Francisco de Borja, Fernando de Contr^ras, Juan de Avila, and others — have declaimed to the great congregations which we can easily picture grouped around the old fountain, and under the orange trees. Passing out of the Patio de los Naranjos upon the north side, and turning to the right, we may begin the round of a most notable series of buildings — a series which makes this corner of Sevilla, in spite of its ugliness, valuable beyond all other spots in the city. The road should first be crossed in order to get a good near view of the massive and yet delicate Giralda tower, which is even more to Sevilla than Giotto's SE VILLA. 197 Campanile is to Florence, or that of St. Mark's to Venice. Long before the traveller reaches the city the Giralda seems to beckon him onwards to his promised land ; during all his peregrinations through the intri- cate streets and lanes it is his trusted guide, always ready to serve him, soaring as it does far above all surroundings ; it is a thing of unfailing beauty and interest as day by day he passes and repasses it, or wanders about its precincts ; it tells him, even afar off, how the day moves on, and how the night; and it dwells in his thoughts the fairest memory of his so- journings in the queen of the Southern cities. IS'or does its value lie merely in any region of senti- ment. At the lower portion, at least, one cannot look too carefully. It is the purest piece of Moorish work in the province, and one of the purest pieces in the country. Preceding the great Granada examples by some four centuries, it shows both in construction and decoration, though it belongs strictly to what we have called the second period of Moorish art, the worthiest possible infancy of nearly all the forms which were, later on, to be carried to such an inconceivable height of luxury and phantasy. Here is the cusped and pointed arch, the brickwork diapering and orna- mentation, the ajimez window, the foreshadowing of the arabesque, and even a notion of the stalactite roof. There is really everything except the scroll-work ; for here, too, might have been seen the azulejo decoration, and the burnished cupola, before Fernando Euiz — 198 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. nearly four hundred years after the tower was finished — set up his inadequate, and withal vainglorious, belfry. Twice, at least, must the ascent of the Giralda be made. By moonlight, in order to look out upon the panorama of gleaming white houses and silvered groves, threaded in all directions by lines of twinkling lights, upon the broad Guadalquivir too, and the solemnly dark plain beyond; and again about three o'clock in the afternoon, when the repiqu^ is rung, at the conclusion of vespers. An easier method of ascent than the broad, gently-inclined, well-lit ramps which lead up to the belfry-stage, cannot be desired ; and at each turn one gets the most charming vistas through the cleverly-designed double windows, which formed a favourite and altogether praiseworthy device of Moorish architects. The centre of the tower is divided into sleeping-rooms for the ringers, of whom there is quite a goodly array. There is a well-known society of guitarrists — the only good one in Se villa — of which these ringers form the main body, and which meets for practice in one of the lower apartments of the tower. Here, by dint of a little politeness and good fellowship, the peculiar guitar-playing of the South may be heard to perfection. It is very quaint — evidently very Eastern — in its wild rhythm, cadence, and echoes, at first a little harsh and repelling to ears trained to sweeter and more elaborate music, but presently, if correct in pitch, and properly instinct with fire and energy, strangely fascinating. SE VILLA. 199 The archbishop's palace, wliich stands over against the Giralda, is in no way remarkable ; but at the oppo- site corner of the plaza there is a building which rivals even the cathedral and belfry-tower in repute and in- terest — the famous Alcazar. Greater far in reputation than intrinsic worth. Like tlie Mother church, it forms a sort of sightseers' goal ; and it shares equally in the good fortune of so entirely satisfying the requirements of superficial observers, that it is esteemed a kind of heresy to take exception to its noble rank as a typical piece of Moorish work. Yet it is just a great house, of southern and some- what ancient construction — say the fifteenth century — with a number of square rooms and courts, arranged and decorated after Arab models as far as was possible in the case of a building designed to fulfil the require- ments of Western civilisation. ISTothing else. Of course, if the courts and towers of the Alhambra have not been seen — or are not to be compassed — there will be found here an infinity of fresh loveliness in design and colour- ing, together wdth a vast amount of detail which will repay study. But even then it must all be looked upon as an exceedingly clever reproduction of beautiful and artful forms, not as their best possible setting forth, or type. There are dark winding passages — evidently dic- tated by the exigencies of the work — but they yield none of the delicate surprises which form so great a charm of the old Moorish monuments. There is any amount of rich decoration and Moresque detail; but 200 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. never the notion of the luxury and voluptuousness of Eastern life, or a suggestion of its thou sand -and -one adjuncts. There are, here and there, indubitable traces of the original, eleventh -century Alcazar of Yacub Yusuf ; but there is nothing either distinctive or pre- cious about them, and the rest is a record rather of Christian than Arab ways. Pedro the Cruel first toolc the building in hand, and almost entirely reconstructed it. To him tlie Alcazar owes its best portions, and to his life and intrigues its most cherished interest. Then came the weak and art-loving Juan II., who restored some of the chief apartments — notably Las Munecas — and the Eeyes Catolicos, who added the chapel, and some prettily-decorated rooms upon the second floor. Fifty or sixty years later the place became unfor- tunately a favourite residence of Carlos Quinto, who brought here liis beautiful and passionately-loved Isabel of Portugal It was then that the greater portion of the Eenaissance additions were made, and the gardens laid out. To Charles's successor are due the in- congruously-placed portraits of Spanish kings in the Hall of Ambassadors, and the Sala called by his name. The palace now came to its zenith in point of size and magnificence, reaching right away down to the river- bank, and including the old Prada de Plata and the still -existing Torre del Oro. That was during the seventeenth century. Then, for a hundred years or more, the world used Spain and her rulers badly, and the pet royal residence fell into grievous disrepair. It SE VILLA. 20I was reduced to something like its original limits, and an occasional coat of whitewash was the only token of care bestowed upon it. Thirty years ago the ex-queen Isabella II. determined to restore the place to at least a semblance of its ancient estate, and to her efforts it owes its present order and re-glorification. It win be readily seen that it is next to impossible for a building which has undergone vicissitudes such as these to pose as a pure specimen of Moorish art ; — even if one fails to appreciate exactly all the inconsistencies of style with which it abounds. And it would be equally impossible for it not to have been endowed with many beautiful bits of isolated work by the loving hands which have laboured upon it. The two finest portions are, undoubtedly, the faqade of the great patio, and the separated building called the Sala de las Justicias, from a tradition that here Pedro the Cruel sat to administer j ustice, after the style of his Arab predecessors. The heavy central portal of the former, in its cusped and pointed arches, ajimez and pilastered windows, and delicate arabesques — even in its Gothic inscription — betrays a very particular care for Saracenic forms, and was prob- ably just a copy of portions of the Alhambra. The Sala de las Justicias is very small — only 31 feet square — but is even more exquisite in its perfect preservation of Arab traditions. Notwithstanding all that is confidently stated as to its erection by Don Pedro, one cannot help suspecting, from its position, its purity, and its evidences of both age and 202 S/k ETCHES IN SPAIN. neglect, that this chamber formed a portion of the original Alcazar. And after this everything bears the stamp of new- ness, and a certain crude brilliancy. Exactly behind Don Pedro's satisfactory fa9ade is the Cuarto del Apeadero, the latest addition to the Alcazar, built by Philip V., a hun- dred and fifty years ago, for his own particular inhabiting. Here, as in many other salas, there is some admir- able reproduction of coloured plaster decoration, and a very fine artesonado ceiling. The adjoining miniature Patio de las Munecas, and larger court of Las Doncellas, are perhaps the gems of the quasi-'MooYi^]! work. !N"ot only are they very lovely in their lace -like stucco ornamentation, their arabesques and inscriptions,* but they yield, too, some of the cleverly-calculated vistas of * The inscriptions of the Alcazar pale in value before those of really Arab work, through their ignorantly imperfect execution, their mutila- tion at the hand of the restorer, and their necessary adaptation to Christian phraseology. The following are samples : — "Only God is conqueror." "Praise God for His benefits." ' ' Glory to the lord our Sultan. " "The eternal glory for Allah ; the unending rule for Allah." "Lasting salvation." " Blessing." " This palace is alone in its prosperous good fortune." "Glory to our lord the Sultan Don Pedro. May his victories be great." "God stands alone. God is eternal. He gave birth to none, uor was born, nor has He any equah" (An inscription strangely oj)posed to Christian doctrine, and probably a simple copy of some Arabic model.) "God is the only protector. In Him I trust, and to Him I will turn." "All that ye possess comes from God." SE VILLA. 203 interlacing columns, arches, and alcoves in wLicli the Easterns have always revelled, and which are a salient feature of the Alhambra Palace. The columns, capitals, doors, and inlaid azulejos here deserve especial atten- tion. Some of these formed part of Yacub Yusuf's Alcazar, others were brought by Don Pedro from Toledo and Granada, and, while they give a somewhat incon- gruous effect to the whole, they are both fine and inter- esting in themselves. One is already, however, in the region of the modern innovator, who accompanies us round all the succeeding salas — the Carlos Quinto, the Maria Padilla, Felipe Segundo, and Embajadores — conferring here a bald flat ceiling, or heavy gallery, there a piece of obtrusive Kenaissance or Grseco-Ptoman work, and everywhere excess of ornamentation, colour, and egoistic device. The best thing to be done is to resign oneself to the enjoy- ment of the flood of tradition and minute detail which an accomplished guide is able to pour out at each fresh step — to try to believe that the Sala de las Doncellas was so called from its having been, under Moorish domination, a sort of girls' slave - market ; that the vexed question of the destination of its elaborate alcove is sufliciently settled by the assertion that it was here, and not in the courtyard, that Don Pedro administered justice ; that the adjoining rooms are those of the Sultan Boabdil and the Sultana (!) ; that a particular stone in the very nearly beautiful Sala de los Em- bajadores — the step leading down into the sala of 204 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. Felipe Segundo — was the spot where Don Fadrique, Grand Master of Santiago, was murdered by his brother Pedro the Cruel, and still shows its blood-staining. And then to go out and wander about the bright gardens, with their labyrinths of flower-girt walks, their glorious date-palms, bananas, orange and citron groves, and try to bring back here — as somehow one cannot do within the great show-house itself — the old life and the old scenes which at once called the place into being and became its final desolation. The other remarkable buildings of this fine group are the huge Encarnacion nunnery, the chapel of San Fernando, and the Lonja, or Exchange. The last shows what Herrera's true line was. Cathedrals, churches, great religious houses he could not do, but beyond doubt he could produce a perfectly satisfactory haunt for busi- ness folk — a temple of mammon. Would that he had never been employed on aught else ! One stumbles here upon an odd coincidence. On the steps of the Lonja — upon the cathedral side — there stands a great stone cross, around which clings exactly the same legend as that told concerning the church of ' Terra Mala ' or ' Amara ' in Milan, to the effect that it marks the spot where a greedy priest was buried alive for refusing interment to a poor parishioner. It is an admirable commentary upon the ways of tradition in general. From the Triunfo plaza it is not far to the Casa de Pilatos, the fourth great monument of olden Sevilla. SE VILLA. 205 Exception is often taken here, strangely enough, to some of the very faults which we have noticed in the Alcazar, but which are there usually either ignored or allowed. But surely one ought not to expect to find in a private dwelling, which has just been the whim and care of a few dilettanti, that unity and severity which are bound to characterise a great public, or ^'^^as^'-public, building ! The house was commenced about the year 1500 by one Don Pedro Enriquez, in the debased Saracenic style which was at that time a good deal affected by culti- vated Spaniards. Don Pedro died, however, before its completion, and the work was carried out by his son Fadrique Enriquez. This young man, like many other scions of the great houses of the day, went upon a journey to the Holy Land, and, upon his return, deter- mined to shape his hobby into some accord with Pilate's house at Jerusalem, then, as now, one of the lions of the sacred city. Accordingly we find the great reception -hall called the Prsetorium ; there is an upright column in imitation of the pillar at which Christ was scourged — a gift of Pope Pius V. ; there is the bason into which the thirty pieces of silver were counted, and even the cock that crowed thrice — in the house of Caiaphas surely, not that of Pilate ! To Don Fadrique succeeded Afan de Eibera, first Duke of Alcala, who came to be appointed to a high post at Naples, and, being a great lover of art, filled his Sevillian home with Eoman statuary and busts of the emperors, etc., some brought from Italy, some from the 2o6 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. ruins of Italica. That, under these circumstances, the work should be rather patchy, and the place partake of the character of a great curiosity shop, is not to be wondered at — or carped at. It is just a delicious, sunny old home, in which a far pleasanter afternoon may be spent, and more soothing to one's feelings, than in the boasted Alcazar. At every step there are things of extraordinary beauty and art value, from the great patio with its splendid — really inlaid — azulejos, its diapered marble pavement, its alabaster fountains, its perfect Moorish colonnades, arabesques, lattices, and ajimez windows, round to the final rich staircase, or the strip of garden, sweet in its entanglement of orange, myrtle, and box trees, and brilliant-hued creepers. Passing to and fro between the Casa de Pilatos and Las Sierpes the wayfarer will hardly fail to notice a characteristic evidence of the truth of the assertion that, if our forefathers belied their professions as readily in spirit as their great -great -grandchildren do, they were at any rate truer to the letter. The same Don Pedro — Pedro the Cruel — whose record is written at such length within the precincts of the Alcazar, was as much given to nocturnal and amorous adventures as Juan de Tenorio himself, and by no means particular as to the methods he employed to secure his ends. One night he had the evil manners to quarrel with, and kill, a Sevillian gentle- man caught serenading a lady whose favours he himself coveted, and, as the unfortunate victim was well known, the murder could not easily be hushed up. The king, SE VILLA. 207 jealous of his reputation as a latter-day Solomon, and relying upon the disguise he had adopted for his adven- ture, boldly summoned the district alcalde before him, and demanded the production of the murderer, within three days, under pain of death. Now, Don Pedro had not concealed his personality so carefully but that an old woman, who lived over against the spot where the crime had been committed, and had been attracted to the window by the noise of scuffling, had recognised him. She imparted her information to the alcalde, who prepared an effigy of the king, and presented himself at the appointed hour in the Sala de las Justicias. " Senor," he said, producing the image, " behold the murderer ! " Don Pedro, faced thus with his crime and the evidence of detection, and struck with the ingenuity of the device which had been resorted to, rewarded the clever alcalde, and condemned himself, in proxy, to death. The sentence was carried out upon the scene of the murder, and the bust which is now to be seen in a niche of a house in the Calle Cabeza del Eey Don Pedro (the whole thing bears an odd likeness to a street shrine !) is said to be the very scapegoat hung here in chains five hundred years ago, while opposite stands the house from the window of which the committal of the crime was witnessed. We saw something in the Madrid picture galleries of the powers and purposes of Murillo, and at the same time noticed that, notwithstanding all that is com- monly said to the contrary, he is therein very adequately 2o8 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. represented. Nevertheless there is a strange charm about studying him in his native place, and harbouring a special, transient enthusiasm about him as a fellow- townsman. One sees again here — in Sevilla — how pre- eminently he was a servant of the church, always working for his alma mater, unfailingly honest in his devotional feeling, and as deep in its expression as his sunshiny genius would take him. Indeed it is ungracious to breathe anything like lukewarm praise when standing before such masterpieces as the San Antonio of the cathedral, or the San Francisco of the Museo Provincial. There are here two real, living Christs, and two real, living monks. There is no lack of divinity on the one side, or of humanity upon the other. These are perhaps his best, his most powerful, pictures in Sevilla — not to say in the world ; but of course there is a very long array of his works to be found here, ranging from the varied efforts of his early, struggling days, to the grand religious subjects over which he spent the best part of his life. In the Museo alone there are over twenty examples, the finest being the St. Francis just mentioned, his own favourite of St. Thomas of Vil- lanueva distributing Alms to jpoor Mendicants at the door of his Cathedral — " my picture," as he was wont to call it — St. Anthony of Padua worshipping the Infant Saviour, and the Virgen de la Servilleta. This last is one of the most satisfactory of his manifold pourtrayals of the Virgin, and perhaps owes something of its strength to its having been the outcome of an odd SE VILLA. 209 wliim. For the tale runs that in this very Museo — then the Convent de la Merced — while Murillo was painting for the brethren, one of the servants came up, and, presenting a napldn, begged him to leave some mark upon it. The exquisite Virgen de la ServiUeta was the result — a sign-manual indeed ! Only one of all the churches and convents so richly endowed by Murillo has been permitted to retain any at all considerable remnant of its wealth. La Caridad is a small hospital and home for aged poor, situated upon the bank of the river, close to the Torre del Oro. It is managed entirely by Sisters of Charity, and deserves a visit if only to see the bright and contented faces alike of nurses and inmates, and the order, cleanli- ness, and airiness of which it is a type of many similar institutions in Spain. It owes its rebuilding and present organisation to one Miguel de Manara, a young profli- gate of the seventeenth century, who was turned from his evil courses by a vision in which he beheld his own funeral service, performed in the chapel of the original foundation upon this spot. Murillo happened to be his friend, and so, when Don Miguel determined upon the restoration and endowment of the ancient hospital of St. George, he gave the great painter ca7^te hlanche for the decoration of the chapel-walls. Of the eleven pictures which formed the original series only six remain, the rest having been carried off by the French, at the commencement of the present century. Of these six the most famous — the Fan y Feces and La Sed (the 2IO SKETCHES IN SPAIN. miracle of the loaves aud fishes, and Moses striking the rock in the desert) — are not the best, but they are hung in such a bad light that perhaps one can hardly appreciate them. Finer, by far, are two panel-pictures, >S'^. John the Baptist, and The Infant Savioicr, one upon the south, and the other upon the north wall. This last, and the San Antonio child-Christ of the cathedral, are probably the finest representations of our Lord which Murillo has left. The two remaining paintings of the series are, a rather hard Annunciation — unpleasing, too, in expression — and an illustration of the well-known legend of Granada, an angel helping San Juan de Dios to carry off the poor to his hospital. Although every one goes to La Caridad to see Murillo's pictures, it may be questioned if there is not here matter of deeper interest — one of those revelations which the traveller is continually meeting with, in Spain, of a series of great art-works, not only new to him but the product of men whose names have hardly travelled beyond the Pyrenees. Indeed of Vald^s Leal it might be said that he is a prophet without honour even in his own country. The Madrid gallery barely recognises him. Valencia and Barcelona do not know liim, — nor yet Cordoba, his native place. And, withal, he could hang paintings in this little chapel, alongside of those of his giant, fortune -favoured contemporary, without being either dwarfed or overshadowed. If he had not Murillo's facile and well-trained brush he had more invention ; he had more to say, and a more power- SE VILLA. 211 fill expression. He lias four pictures here,* of which two stand out pre-eminent — Death trampling upon the world with all its pomps and vanities, and judgment being pronounced upon the gorgeously be -robed but putrefying body of a bishop. When one looks at these two paintings it is easy to understand that it was no mere affectation, or spite, on the part of their creator to sneer at Murillo's art as " simpering," or to imagine with what calm sense of having the popular vote on his side Don Esteban would pleasantly aver that Valdes Leal was really not quite fit for decent and orderly society. There is yet another comparatively unknown and unstudied Spanish painter to be seen at his best in Sevilla, — ' El Clerigo ' Eoelas, Canon of Olivares, and the man to whom, as we have seen, the angel Eaphael appeared to announce his appointment to the office of tutelar of Cordoba. Of Eoelas, too, the Madrid gallery takes but slight notice, hanging only his huge and inferior El Aguct cU la Pena, while in the Valencia Museo he is unrepresented. Yet he is a magnificent colourist — of the Venetian school — and, if somewhat weak as a draughtsman, is nearly always noble in con- ception and composition. His Death of San Isidoro, in the church dedicated to the saint in Sevilla, is perhaps his masterpiece, though the Martyrclom of St. Andreiv in the Museo, and the Apotheosis of St. Hermenegildo in the chapel of La Sangre Hospital, are hardly less * And half a dozen very fine ones in the Museo. 212 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. fine. Eoelas was the immediate predecessor of Murillo (who is said to have bestowed great study Tipon his paintings), and one of his pupils was the almost too well-known Zurbaran, in poor specimens of whose talents Sevillian churches abound. And yet it is easy to be too hard upon Zurbaran. He was solemn, dark, exaggerated in all his ways, but, like Eibera, he perhaps appreciated the persons, characters, and surroundings of the old saints and martyrs in a way from which our refined notions nowadays shut us out. His best paint- ings are in the Museo Provincial and the University. After trying one's eyes and patience in the either hopelessly dark, or hopelessly uninteresting places where Sevilla elects to stow away her precious things, it is a pleasant relief to wander into the sunny and cheerful precincts of her one great private gallery, the Palace of San Telmo, originally a nautical college — founded by Fernando Columbus — and now the rarely-visited resi- dence of the Duke of Montpensier. It is one of those truly palatial dwelling-places of which the land can boast but very few, sufficiently luxurious without being stiff, perfectly appointed and kept up, and in the midst of gardens full of strange trees and shrubs, and bright at all seasons of the year with flowers. The visitor is introduced to the principal salas through the daintiest of patios — with some of the stately date-palms of the garden in miniature — and a small anteroom containing a great number of Eoman antiquities from the Italica ruins. In its art treasures the place is delightfully cosmopolitan. SE VILLA. 213 The Spanish schools naturally monopolise the first place, with such all-embracing names as Velazquez, Murillo, Zurbaran, Valdes Leal, El Greco, Herrera el Viejo, and Goya; but there is a very good sprinkling of foreign masters — Eubens, Van Ostade, Albert Dlirer, Johannot, Lehman, and Ary Scheffer. The well-known and often- reproduced Augustine and Monica of the last-named painter is here, and shares the post of honour in the collection with Murillo's Virgen de la faja. The groups of great pictures are interspersed here and there with rough or unfinished sketches, and family, or friendly, souvenirs (among others a drawing "par la Princesse Alexandrine Victoire, fille du Due de Kent ") ; while in every corner, set out upon tables and brackets which are themselves choice art specimens, there is an endless profusion of curiosities and articles of vertu, old musical instruments, Eoman lamps and pottery, a candelabrum by Benvenuto Cellini, etc. A sadder side of the picture is presented in the rather gorgeous chapel near the main entrance. Here is shut up the secret of the unwillingness of the Montpensier family to inhabit their lovely San Telmo. For five children lie in the little panteon below the high altar, and the shadow of their untimely death makes the San Liicar home the brighter of the two. It is by no means necessary, as we have found in Madrid, to come to Sevilla in order to see a great bull- fight, though Andalucia, with her hot-blooded inhabitants and truer holding by ancient traditions, is legitimately 214 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. regarded as the headquarters of the craft. There is one aspect of the matter, however, which can only be duly appreciated in the South — the high esteem in which the professionals are held by a very large section of society, and, as a natural consequence, the rapid way in which they accumulate wealth. Well-known espadas and banderilleros are continually pointed out to one in the streets and public places ; in such of the cafes as they affect it is very usual to allot to them a special place of distinction ; while it is evidently a pride and honour to walk by tlieir side in intimate conversation, or even to obtain from them a word of recognition. Then it is quite a common thing to read in the newspapers — in large type, as the record of an important event — some such paragraph as the following : — " Upon the 2 2d of January a large and distinguished com- pany assembled in the Church of San Lorenzo to witness the baptism of the son and heir of our esteemed diestro Don F G , the god-parents being Don M G , the well- known banderillero, and his fiancee, the daughter of Don M R . " After the religious ceremony a breakfast of fifty covers was served in the restaurant liiigo, at which the usual toasts were received with the greatest enthusiasm. At the same time quite an army of young friends of the family availed themselves of an open invitation to the house of Don F G , in the Calle , and did full justice to the lighter refreshments which were provided for their delectation. Among those who assisted at the banquet in the restaurant Inigo we noticed the following " with a long list of names. SE VILLA. 215 It would not be quite fair to leave Sevilla without some slight sketch of its surroundings. Fine scenery must never be looked for in the outskirts of a great Spanish town, where the tiresome custom-house officials hold their own, with their inevitable accompaniment of dust and noise, of lines of kicking, struggling, and gesticulating mules and men in waiting, of humble posadas and armies of beggars. At Sevilla, however, business not being the main object of very many lives, there are one or two walks in the environs which will be found both pretty and interesting, when once the dreaded fringe of dust and noisy humanity is passed. Upon the Cadiz road, some four or five miles out, there are real groves of real trees, and, beyond this, the little village of Dos Hermanas, with its white houses gleaming through a perfect sea of the dark green foliage of its orangeries, is loveliness itself. But it is still pleasanter to cross the river to the gipsy quarter of Triana, and then strike out for the long low line of hills which shuts in the horizon upon the west. Just before reaching the village of San Juan de Alfarache — the birthplace of the inimitable rascal El Picaro Guzman — a little ravine which runs up the olive slopes may be taken, and so a shortened access gained to an old convent of the third order of Franciscans which girdles the point of the Chaboya Hill. This was a Eoman settlement originally, but the massive walls which surround it are Moorish, and date from the time when Alfarache (then Hisn-al-faraj) was looked upon as 2l6 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. the most important outpost of the city. There is nothing in the convent or the church worth noticing — unless it be the miraculous font which used to fill itself with water on Holy Thursday, or the six retablo pictures of the Juan de Castillo who was chiefly remarkable for having been the master of Alonso Cano, Murillo, and Pedro de Moya ; but the views to be obtained from the low parapet out- side, over the green and brown vega and the glistening city, are indescribably fascinating. It is hard work tearing oneself away from that corner of the Chaboya. And it is only a beginning of good things. For the hour's walk which may be taken from here along the crest of the hills is just as unfailingly fine, through pleasantly-tangled thickets of olive, aloe, and low brush- wood, and with a charming panorama stretched out on both sides. At the end it is perhaps one's duty to descend from Castileja de la Cuesta — where Fernando Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, lived and died — upon the remarkably uninteresting ruins of Italica. Here there was a Eoman city, washed by the waters of the strangely fickle Guadalquivir, before Moorish Sevilla Nueva had emerged from the chrysalis state of a village. Founded by Scipio Africanus, and the birthplace of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian, it was at one period as imperial in its sumptuousness as it was proverbially imperial in its spirit and predilections. But now not a vestige is left that tells any tale of greatness. All is so worn and pulled about and defaced that even the most general identifyings partake of the fanciful. SE VILLA. 217 From hence a well-earned short cut may be made, by a pleasant path through the fields, to the Cartuja factory and the city-gates, only caring to take the dusty high- road as far as the ruined convent of San Isidoro. Not that there is much to be seen here, either, but the spot is remarkable as being the burial-place of two personages who occupy an exalted position in antiquarian record. The one is Guzman el Bueno, founder of the convent, and the other is his daughter-in-law, the Dona Urraca Osorio. The appellation of 'the Good' was conferred by King Sancho el Bravo, after the great defence of Tarifa against the Moors, towards the close of the thirteenth century, when Guzman secured final victory by a supposedly Abraham-like sacrifice of his son, refusing to accept the young life as the price of surrender. He was killed at Gaucin in the Bond a district in 1309, after thirty years of unceasing exploit in wresting his country again from the hands of the infidels. Dona Urraca was a noted beauty of her day, and one of the many victims of Don Pedro el Cruel. She was burned alive — for rejecting his amorous advances — by the grandson of the man whose kingdom her father-in-law had saved. It would seem, after all, as if the world in the good old times wagged very much in principle as it does now ! XI. JEREZ AND CADIZ. If a man wishes to disabuse his mind of the notion that he is being robbed when he is asked a high figure for a good sherry, if he would harbour only pleasant feelings when his neighbour assures him that he has bought the " same thing at half the price," or appreciate the dense ignorance of after-dinner talkers upon the subject of wine in general, let him pay a week's visit to Jerez, and follow up with some degree of real care the birth, nursing and development of a really fine Maii- zanilla or Amontillado. He will tread vineyards which were in cultivation six hundred years ago, when the land was in the occupation of the Moors. He will prob- ably bewail the little advance that has been made all these centuries in the paths of scientific process and appliance ; but that will in some sort only increase his interest in all that he sees, while he cannot fail to be duly impressed by the honest care and vigilance bestowed upon his beloved liquor. He will not only attain at last — after many years of more or less dictatorial hold- ing forth upon the subject — to some real knowledge of the differences between natural, vintage, and solera JEREZ AND CADIZ. 219 wines, or the blended tyes which alone he is likely to come across in England, but he may even store up use- ful data concerning the more intricate ways of vino dtdce, vino de color, jinos, palmas, and olorosos. He will no longer marvel at the loud and deep disputings at which he has been accustomed to assist, when he sees what an amusing variety of tastes in the directions of colour, flavour, age, and price are provided for in the vast bodegas in which he will be treated as an honoured guest. He will not be sceptical again about such prices as even £300 per butt, after he has been once made to put together the annual cost of tending an acre of vines, the loss by blight, " scud," and other similar causes, the amount of evaporation, and the percentage of failures and sourings during the four or five years of probation which a wine should undergo, and all the expenses of blending, nursing, casking and storing; while he will for ever forswear all so-called " cheap " sherries, unless he knows exactly what he is getting. He will be introduced to wines which forty, fifty, seventy, or even a hundred years have only rounded off, without destroy- ing their mellowness ; and he will gain all his schooling, not in the dark cellars of Bordeaux, but in lightsome, palatial buildings fringed by flowers and trim gardens, and innocent of all foul, vinous odour. And then Jerez has other attractions — attractions which in themselves make it well worth while at least to ordain a few hours' halt here e7i rottte for Cadiz, even if one has no special interest w^ine-ways. It is 220 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. easily done, by taking the 7 A.M. train out from Sevilla, and the evening train on to the sea. The cumbrous ways of Spanish travelling so accustom one to early startings and late arrivings, that an arrangement such as this comes to seem quite natural, while the wonder- fully clear, fresh air is a potent specific against fatigue. Perfect order and cleanliness, a brightly -coloured and brightly-sunned town, a pervading air of prosperity and contentment. Such, adding perhaps a flavouring of English habits, is the sum of one's abiding impressions of Jerez. Its buildings are not very glorious — save in the latter-day acceptance of the word. Money has been too abundant for art to thrive," is the often and incontinently springing inward comment. Thanks to the Moors there is rather a fine old Alcazar upon the charmingly Oriental Alameda — Oriental in its vivid colouring and date-palm foliage, but very un-Oriental in its spotlessness. Thanks to some good and not quite effaced early workers, there is some admirable design, and excellent Gothic detail, in the churches of San Miguel and San Dionisio. But that is all. Jerez became prosperous, and, not knowing quite what to do with its spare cash, set about defacing its public build- ings therewith. And Cayon's late seventeenth-century Colegiata is just the worst cathedral — perhaps the only thoroughly bad one — which the land can show,* an odd mixture of Churriguera and Herrera, elaborate and yet * Excepting, perhaps, tlie Catedral Nueva at Lerida. JEREZ AND CADIZ. 221 uninteresting, bald and yet over-decorated, massive only in obtruded solidity. A glance at these things, after a hasty peregrination through the bodegas, will suffice. And then the two or three hours yet to elapse before the half-past six train starts for Cadiz can be pleasantly filled up with a saunter through the pretty, orange - planted streets, over Alamedas lying hot even in the winter's sun- shine, or out for a couple of miles beyond the station to the once magnificent Cartuja monastery, now a cavalry store and Government horse-breeding establish- ment. There is something peculiarly fascinating in the quiet brightness of the scene out here. If Jerez town is a little bit English, this is not. It is Boxing Day, and drawing towards evening. At home, in London, everything is in its most thorough state of slushiness and discomfort. The fog and the rain which have been fighting one another all day are just combining their forces now to render the twilight dismal, and there stalks abroad everywhere that spirit of unhealthy excite- ment which rules all great English holidays. It is a dia de fiesta here too, and all nature seems drowsy with a sense of restfulness. It is hot as a Swiss autumn day upon the mountains, — a mountain freshness withal in the air. The onl}^ distinct sound is the whirr of the locusts as they seem to rush headlong at the long lines of aloes and prickly pears that shut in the lane ; the only distinct vision the flash of their blue and red wings, 222 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. or the undulating flight of some gorgeous butterfly* But there is a pleasant undercurrent of movement and laughter from groups of really care-less holiday folk dotted here and there over the browned grass, or wend- ing their way slowly over the country side. And then, beyond all, there is a panorama over which we may lazily feast and speculate to any extent, of far-reaching olive grounds and vineyards, with the white city lying just below us, soundless and motionless as if smothered by its gardens, its orangeries, and its veiling of blue mist. There is not much of beauty left in the old monastery, — or in such portions of it as the custodian can show. The Italian gateway, with its fluted Doric columns and well-carved statues, is interesting ; there are some good points about the now dismantled church — notably its fine proportions, and the delicate lancet windows, with their pretty engaged shafts ; while the three patios, rich in marble colonnading, have some time been very satis- factory. But the place has come to a grievous end, and its goodly things are fast crumbling away. All its charm lies in its surroundings, their spirit and associa- tion. That these are pleasant in themselves and in their outlook Jerez-ways we have seen. Turning now in the other direction, and facing the setting sun, we may catch his last rays upon the broad and sluggisli * I took the following species at Jerez on the 26th December 1883 : —P. Atalanta, P. Cardui, C. Ediisa, C. Phlseas, P. Telicanus, P. Rapffi, P. Brassicse, P Daplidice, L. Meone, and L. Megaera. — [J. L.] JEREZ AND CADIZ. 223 Guadalete as it rolls slowly along the valley at our feet, and the little eminence called El Eeal de Don Eodrigo, where, twelve hundred years ago, the last of the Gothic kings, whose footsteps we traced up for a while in Toledo, lost his crown and his life, and delivered over his country into the hands of the Moslem. It is hard enough to read any history with an un- prejudiced mind — whether it be a personal, a political, or a nation's past which we would study. The perfected gymnastic exercise, however, is an honest attempt to loose off some of the particular predilections which touch us, and bind us, most closely, and to enter into other folk's prejudices on the subject. How dearly, in our superficial knowledge, do we English people love to tell over the glorious events of the reign of that strangely miscalled "good" Queen Elizabeth, and relate how, after having thwarted Philip II.'s prosecution of his absurd claim to the English throne, we carried the war into the enemy's country, destroyed his fleets in Cadiz, or Gales', Bay, ravaged his West Indian possessions, ruined his commerce, and finally, in the year 1596, reduced him to a state of dire humiliation by be- sieging and taking Cadiz itself ! If, however, we take the trouble of opening a Spanish history, we may read how that, towards the close of the sixteenth cen- 224 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. tiiry, England, having revolted from the true, the only Church, fell upon evil times, and under a bad Govern- ment. The country was reduced to such a state of anarchy that the old marauding spirit of the Norse- men stalked abroad triumphant and unchecked. Her pirates enriched themselves by a series of contemptible and wasp-like expeditions, and the termagant usurper of the crown did not hesitate to share in the petty booty thereof. The noble Felipe Segundo, in the cause of law and order, and in assertion of his right to the English throne through his marriage with Queen Mary, and inheritance from Mary Queen of Scots, fitted out a huge armament against the pestiferous rebels, but was prevented from accomplishing his purposes by a wise and overruling Providence. Thenceforth, and for a hundred years, repeated attempts were made by the English to wound Spain, through her greatest seaport town, with the most signal ill success. Once, however — there is no doubt about that — the despised sea-kings, under cover of the night, and by means of a carefully- prepared surprise, did effect a landing, but they were promptly and ignominiously expelled, and were never able to repeat the operation. And this is the record that Cadiz keeps of the event. At the foot of the staircase leadinsj from the north transept of the cathedral to the Bishop's palace there is a great black cross, enclosed within a glass case. And underneath is written — in not remarkably good Spanish : — JEREZ AND CADIZ. 225 "AiSo de 1596 entraron los Ingleses en esta ciudad, y habi- endola saqueado, despojado de sus alliajas de oro y plata y ornamentos y despues quemadola con sus imagenes elevandose a Inglaterra ocho prebendadas prisioneros los que quedaron inmediatamente celebraron la primera misa delante de esta Cruz." * It would not appear, however, that the barbarians carried away quite all the " alhajas " from the cathedral, for the sacristan can still show some very beautiful pieces of old church-plate. It is in the Catedral ITueva that we are standing, for Cadiz boasts of, or rather possesses, two cathedrals — the poor bald 'Vieja,' which replaced the original thirteenth - century foundation, burned by "los Ingleses" in 1596, and the somewhat too brilliant 'ISTueva' of Bishop Domingo de Silos Moreno, only completed half a century ago. The fact is that Cadiz might boast more than she does of her new cathedral. For a persistently written - down building it is wonderfully and pleasantly effective. Its general design is good — a Latin cross, with nave, side aisles, slightly -recessed chapels, and a very fair apsidal east end — while the vistas obtained round and through the open Capilla Mayor, the massiveness of the pillars, and the general proportions of the church, go far to cancel the bad effect of the unsightly capitals and cornices. There is a particularly happy notion of vast- * "In the year 1596 the English effected an entry into this city. They sacked it, robbed it of its treasures and ornaments of gold and silver, burned it and its holy images, and carried oft' to England eight prebends as prisoners. Those" — i.e. the clergy — "who were left cele- brated their first mass before this holy cross." Q 226 SKETCHES IN SPAIN, ness conferred too — for surely the notion of vastness is more artistic than mere size itself — by the height of the cimlorio, and the spaciousness of the Crossing. This last is obtained by the simple expedient of setting the Coro a long way back — in the last bay but one of the nave — and so making the lines of railing connecting it with the Capilla Mayor seem a great length. A huge cathedral of the Corinthian order, completed only a generation ago, can hardly be expected to bear strict analysis, or to have escaped a fulfilment with hideous detail and garnishing ; and yet there is much here that deserves admiration, even outside of the general effect and the ritual arrangements, — works both of brush and chisel that must be passed over now without comment. It is curious to note that the cleverly-carved choir-stalls were brought from the convent of Nuestra Senora de las Cuevas at Se villa, now all defaced and defiled by being turned into a faience and porcelain manufactory. How impossible it seems that this brand-new, spot- less, and orderly city should be three or four hundred years older than old Eome — more than a thousand years older than the Christian era ! Yet such is the fact. So ancient was it in the palmy days of the Imperial City that it had to be rebuilt by that same Balbus whose uncalled-for meddling with bricks and mortar threw a shadow over some of our school-days, and by a young man called Julius Caesar, who had been sent by the Eepublic to hold office in Spain. There is not a sign of age to be met with, nor yet of the decay that we JEREZ AND CADIZ. 227 know has settled down upon the place, after a long and, upon the whole, brilliant life. There are, instead, lively and dazzlingly bright streets, shady and flower-lit alamedas and public gardens, and the most cheery and invigorating walks conceivable, right along the Apodaca and the Paseo de las Delicias — the great sea-walls that are hard put to it to resist the unceas- ing battering of Atlantic rollers. Almost at the end, on the Flanco de Capuchinos, is the old Franciscan monastery of Santa Catalina, an uninteresting and de- serted-looking pile now, but up to a comparatively late date in monkish annals a foundation possessing great influence. It was here that Queen Elizabeth's youthful favourite, Essex, fixed his headquarters, when he made the rapid descent upon the town of which we have met with some record in the cathedral, and thus the place came to be preserved from the destruction then dealt out to the other religious houses of Cadiz. And here, nearly one hundred years later — in 1682 — Murillo was completing the Marriage, of St. Catherine, which forms the centre of the retablo over the high altar of the chapel, when he fell from his scaffolding, and received his mortal injury. The painting is not very satisfactory, but it is hardly fair to judge it in its unfinished state. Cadiz loves to believe that the surrounding single figures of San Jose, San Francisco, San Miguel, and the Angel de la Guarda are also by Murillo, but they are mani- festly the work of an imitator — probably a pupil. The master, however, has another picture here, on the north 228 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. wall of the nave — Ban Francisco receiving the Stigmata — finer by far than the Santa Catalina, and there are some single figures by Zurbaran close by, which are wonderfully good for the ''Painter of the King and King of Painters." It is the uninviting spot in Spain which usually rewards the traveller ! Just behind the Paseo de las Delicias, and shut in between great barrack-like houses like a veritable town-garden, there is a little square of greenery at which one looks twice before taking the trouble to peep inside. Yet here are the Botanical Gardens of Cadiz ; and, impossible as it may at first appear, they deserve the high-sounding name. Among the many curious and valuable trees and plants which seem to be enjoying existence immensely under most unfavourable conditions, we may find the wonder- ful ' Trasparente ' tree of New Zealand (Myoporum lacteum), several notable specimens of the Bracmna Drago of India, and such an array of tree-geraniums and cactuses as it would be hard to meet with in any other public garden in Europe. There is quite a family of the dragon tree, a parent of the respectable age of five hundred years, a child of forty-seven, and an infant of ten. So there are a few things worth looking at in Cadiz after all, even if one is not just in the mood to enjoy sweet fresh air, unlimited sunshine, and picturesque quarters. Then we must not neglect to stroll, early in the morning through the great Plaza de la Libertad, the JEREZ AND CADIZ. 229 open-air market. Of all similar scenes this is the very finest, not only for its superb show of fruits and other produce, and for variety of costume and colour, but for its brilliant surroundings and its animation. There are several pleasant excursions to be made too, especially across the bay to Eota — the garden of Cadiz — and down to San Fernando and the arsenal of La Carraca. Here, at La Carraca, Essex did his greatest damage in 1596 ; and here, some eight or nine years previously, w^hen Philip II. was slowly collecting his Armada — colossal as everything he put his hand to — Drake had swooped down with his small foUowicg of thirty ships, and practically destroyed the costly labour of two years. On the way to La Carraca, taking the tiny steamer which leaves the Muelle each day at noon, a glimpse may be caught of the strange salt-manufacturing pro- cess which now forms the staple trade of the district. Large, shallow, oblong ponds, or " pans," furnished with the most quaintly inappropriate Biblical names,* are cut in the low-lying ground that skirts the bay. Into these the sea -water is admitted throughout the summer, in judiciously successive doses, by means of hatches, or sluices, and evaporated by the sun's rays. It takes all the three or four months of tropical heat — from May to * *' Jose y Maria," " El dulce nombre de Jesus," etc., and suggest- ing irresistibly to one's mind a connection with the passage referring to the ** salt of the earth." But one's sense of the ridiculous is even more strongly excited by overhauling the brands upon goods lying on the Muelle for shipment — coming, for example, across a row of barrels of salt fish called " The flower of Jesus ! " 230 SKETCHES IN SPAIN. the end of August — to obtain a respectable " crop " from a pan, so that some idea may be formed of the immense area required. During the cold months the sluices are left open, the tide washing in and out of the pans at will; and the huge pyramids of dirty but glistening crystal, that stud the plains in autumn like an army of tents, are gradually shipped away to Monte Video, the Havanas, France, and Italy, or — the salt being very pure in quality — even to England. XII. GIBRALTAR AND TANGIERS. The steamers for Gibraltar, very roomy and com- fortable if the proper line be taken, leave Cadiz early in the morning, en route from Se villa to Barcelona. The getting on board is not a pleasant operation, but in the winter time, at least, there is ample repayment, by a most glorious view of the old city as the light of morning breaks upon it. It is almost dark in the har- bour, and as we strike out from the mole in a small boat the figures upon the pier overhead loom out black and ghostly against the fast -reddening sky. Half an hour's row lands us upon the deck of the steamer, and by this time a glow" of light has come over the white indication of houses upon the hillside, wliile the still brilliant stars shine emerald green in the crimson flush. Slowly the red dissolves into a mass of green, yellow, and rosy tints, which tinge tlie more conspicuous buildings and church-towers one after another, but still leave the lower part of the town in shadow. And then, all in a moment, the sun leaps up in the east, separat- ing? all into