dreamy atmosphere dulls the senses and fills the imagination with the images of past ages. And if one is of a poetical turn of mind he may take almost any room or tower and weave around it a story full of love and intrigue such as any novelist might revel in. Beautiful sultanas would undoubtedly peer down from the arched balconies and bewitch us with their sparkling black eyes; and cannot one fancy Maria Padilla and her daily life in this network of lace and gold? Was she as beautiful as poetry and romance would have us believe, and did the old Pedro treat her so disdainfully after winning her youthful heart? How could it have been thus, and what an old wretch he must have been, anyway! Thus does fancy rush to our aid as we walk slowly through her deserted gardens and halls.
When we first entered Spain, I said to myself: Now it will be possible to find such tobacco as would have made the mind of Sydney Smith wild with envy. The mistake was very quickly discovered; but still, desiring to see the manner of persons who concocted such vile weeds and having always heard that the Andalusian damsels were such as might delight the eye of an artist, we spent an hour at the immense Fabrica de Tobacos with its twenty-eight patios and its corps of five thousand girls. If I remember aright, one crosses an old bridge spanning a moat and enters at last a building that might once have been a palace. A moat for protection, thought we? “ Ah, no, ” answers the matron, “ you are at liberty to run away with any beauty whom you chose to pick out. But they might possibly give you a great deal of trouble, those black-eyed damsels. ” “ The moat is to prevent smuggling out tobacco, ” she adds.
I have heard people rave over the beauty of these girls, but I could not join in with them. The heat is oppressive, the odor is terrible, the girls have removed every article of clothing possible except their veils of modesty, which are very thin at best, and they sit at their tables with voluptuous abandon hard to find in any other place. A few of them are old women, some married who bring with them their babies whom they rock alternately with rolling their cigars.
I think I shall not enjoy a cigar this evening, I soliloquize, for the scene is not reassuring. Cigarettes are better here.
The roguish-looking faces glance up as we pass, a set of beautiful teeth gleam as they pass a joke about the Americans, and one can never swear that he did not see many a sly wink, which gave every indication of deviltries innumerable. One is not impressed with their modesty at least, and I cannot think that their purity was equal even to their good looks.
Our companion, who was well up in Spanish small-talk, kept up a running fire, which they seemed to enjoy, and as their day’s work was almost up we saw them pass out by the hundred. “Ah, Señor, a pesata for a dance, ” they cried! “ What! you would dance in the street.? ”
“Why not, is it a bargain? ” they cried, as they drew up their skirts displaying very dirty ankles, and began a fandando with a twist of the body.
“Enough, enough, Señorita, ʼʼ for a dozen had started to dance, and would have danced us pocket poor in half a minute.
Seville is not the purest city of Spain, and these poor girls know little of good morals. A student of human nature would go into an elaborate treatise on the cause of their evils, the voluptuous influence of the climate, and the herding together of these thousands, where the tide of morality is constantly on the ebb, and where the men seem to have nothing to do but to allow their evil passions full play. Look not, then, too hardly on their faults, but rather be thankful that we are not placed in such a country and amongst such surroundings.
You ask why the youth of Spain do not work as in our country? Ask them and they will shrug their shoulders and ask what there is to do. Industries are well-nigh dead, business is confined to the few who cater to the traveller, and the hot blood of the Spaniards leads them naturally to a life of pleasure rather than of work. How they all live, Heaven only knows, we could never exactly work it out ourselves.
On returning home one must not forget the Barber of Seville! Poor Figaro, he gets much more attention being dead than he probably ever got when alive. His house is pointed out, but be sure you take into your gaze at least six houses, so you may be sure to have seen the house. What a pity he could not have found the elixir of life so that he might have enriched himself by the shekels of a host of people who walk down the Calle de Francos, stop opposite the small door, look in their guide-books with delicate earnestness, look again, sigh, expect to see “ tonsorial artist ” over the lintel, and go away with the pleasant assurance that they have seen the home of the famed Figaro.
An incident at the hotel goes to show the relations existing between master and servant in Spain. I had bought a guitar, and coming out from dinner into the beautiful patio spoke to one of the attendants asking if he played the instrument.
“ Oh yes, Señor, ” he replied, with pardonable pride, “ every Spaniard plays the guitar. ”
So he sat down and quickly tuning it, ran his fingers over the strings in a peculiar minor key, and gradually swayed backwards and forwards to the swinging melody. Hardly had he commenced, when all the attendants, the master of the house and his family gathered around, shouting bravo, bravo, as they chimed in and sang a lot of Spanish melodies. Then they started a dance, and inside of ten minutes the owner of the house was pirouetting up and down with his servants, laughing and shouting and imitating the movements of the
castanets. And this continued for a half-hour as we smoked our cigarettes and sipped our coffee.
“ Ah, what a beautiful instrument, ” sighed the attendant, “ but I cannot stay longer as I must hurry in to wash my dishes, ” and in a moment he was elbow deep in soap-suds. Fancy it, from music to soap-suds!
A ludicrous incident occurred in Seville when I attempted to take a bath. That the Spaniards practically never bathe must be a fact.
Although one of the noted things about the Moorish houses was the attention paid to the baths, the Spanish houses are destitute of such luxury. I asked the boy-ofall-work where the bath-room was located.
“The bath-room, Señor, there is none! ”
“Well, what do you do? ” I asked.
“ Why, we never bathe, Señor. ʼʼ
I looked at him more closely and concluded that he had spoken the truth. His outer habiliments were washed once a month or so, himself never.
Then I tackled my waiter at the table, asking him if there wasn’t any place in the house where I could get under water.
“No Señor, ” he answered, “not here, but you may go down to the river and take a plunge at night. ”
Then I asked the little fellow who put the shine upon our shoes if he couldn’t help me out. But he said that he bathed in the fountain in the court, very early, before people were up.
Thank Heaven, I thought, the boot-black bathes, and I am bound to have a bath if I have to steal down in the night and wallow in the basin of the big fountain.
But I bethought myself of the landlord himself, and so went to find him.
“We will send up a pitcher of hot water, ” he said, “and that will be sufficient. ”
“ Not much, ” I replied, “ I want a bath, a regular soak, so to speak, and am bound to have it. ”
“ When do you want it? ” he asked.
“Right away, ” I said, “if you can give me one at all. ” But he shook his head and said, “ in an hour or two. ”
So I waited and waited, until at last a low rumbling noise was heard that seemed to permeate the whole building. This kept growing louder and louder, and was emphasized by a bump and a thud that made me wonder what it all meant. But after a few minutes I heard voices, and grunts and swear-words came thick and fast, as three men knocked at the door. I opened it and what do you suppose it was?
Upon my word, an iron tub six feet long, put on a little wheel-car, and steaming away with water hot enough to remove freckles bodily.
“ Well, I swear, ” I exclaimed, “ if you Spaniards are not the biggest fools that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting? ”
They couldn’t understand my compliment, but commenced wheeling this steaming tub into the room, and I doubt not echoing my own exclamation. But I got my bath anyway — after waiting an hour for the thing to cool down — and was probably the first bather that has had the courage to order such a thing for years.
There was once a man in Seville who bore the voluminous name of Fadrique de Rebera, a Marquis of Tarifa, and withal a godly man. At least he had never killed his man, did not carry a dirk in his belt, and was known to have made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1520 and ever after referred to this trip when he was desirous of offsetting any little irregularities of his life. He had been greatly struck with the residence known as the House of Pilate, and on his return set about reproducing the house as he remembered it, and although his name has been forgotten, the house still remains and retains the name of the Casa de Pilatus. One enters under an archway of no pretentiousness whatever, passes through a yard, then through a loggia into the central patio, not unlike many Spanish houses, but in the style of the Moors, with interlaced windows, and several beautiful wrought-iron rejas. I sketched one of these grilles as we passed; it was surrounded by a mass of foliage and the good people had formed a bed of potted plants under the window. When we came to examine
When we first entered Spain, I said to myself: Now it will be possible to find such tobacco as would have made the mind of Sydney Smith wild with envy. The mistake was very quickly discovered; but still, desiring to see the manner of persons who concocted such vile weeds and having always heard that the Andalusian damsels were such as might delight the eye of an artist, we spent an hour at the immense Fabrica de Tobacos with its twenty-eight patios and its corps of five thousand girls. If I remember aright, one crosses an old bridge spanning a moat and enters at last a building that might once have been a palace. A moat for protection, thought we? “ Ah, no, ” answers the matron, “ you are at liberty to run away with any beauty whom you chose to pick out. But they might possibly give you a great deal of trouble, those black-eyed damsels. ” “ The moat is to prevent smuggling out tobacco, ” she adds.
I have heard people rave over the beauty of these girls, but I could not join in with them. The heat is oppressive, the odor is terrible, the girls have removed every article of clothing possible except their veils of modesty, which are very thin at best, and they sit at their tables with voluptuous abandon hard to find in any other place. A few of them are old women, some married who bring with them their babies whom they rock alternately with rolling their cigars.
I think I shall not enjoy a cigar this evening, I soliloquize, for the scene is not reassuring. Cigarettes are better here.
The roguish-looking faces glance up as we pass, a set of beautiful teeth gleam as they pass a joke about the Americans, and one can never swear that he did not see many a sly wink, which gave every indication of deviltries innumerable. One is not impressed with their modesty at least, and I cannot think that their purity was equal even to their good looks.
Our companion, who was well up in Spanish small-talk, kept up a running fire, which they seemed to enjoy, and as their day’s work was almost up we saw them pass out by the hundred. “Ah, Señor, a pesata for a dance, ” they cried! “ What! you would dance in the street.? ”
“Why not, is it a bargain? ” they cried, as they drew up their skirts displaying very dirty ankles, and began a fandando with a twist of the body.
“Enough, enough, Señorita, ʼʼ for a dozen had started to dance, and would have danced us pocket poor in half a minute.
Seville is not the purest city of Spain, and these poor girls know little of good morals. A student of human nature would go into an elaborate treatise on the cause of their evils, the voluptuous influence of the climate, and the herding together of these thousands, where the tide of morality is constantly on the ebb, and where the men seem to have nothing to do but to allow their evil passions full play. Look not, then, too hardly on their faults, but rather be thankful that we are not placed in such a country and amongst such surroundings.
You ask why the youth of Spain do not work as in our country? Ask them and they will shrug their shoulders and ask what there is to do. Industries are well-nigh dead, business is confined to the few who cater to the traveller, and the hot blood of the Spaniards leads them naturally to a life of pleasure rather than of work. How they all live, Heaven only knows, we could never exactly work it out ourselves.
On returning home one must not forget the Barber of Seville! Poor Figaro, he gets much more attention being dead than he probably ever got when alive. His house is pointed out, but be sure you take into your gaze at least six houses, so you may be sure to have seen the house. What a pity he could not have found the elixir of life so that he might have enriched himself by the shekels of a host of people who walk down the Calle de Francos, stop opposite the small door, look in their guide-books with delicate earnestness, look again, sigh, expect to see “ tonsorial artist ” over the lintel, and go away with the pleasant assurance that they have seen the home of the famed Figaro.
An incident at the hotel goes to show the relations existing between master and servant in Spain. I had bought a guitar, and coming out from dinner into the beautiful patio spoke to one of the attendants asking if he played the instrument.
“ Oh yes, Señor, ” he replied, with pardonable pride, “ every Spaniard plays the guitar. ”
So he sat down and quickly tuning it, ran his fingers over the strings in a peculiar minor key, and gradually swayed backwards and forwards to the swinging melody. Hardly had he commenced, when all the attendants, the master of the house and his family gathered around, shouting bravo, bravo, as they chimed in and sang a lot of Spanish melodies. Then they started a dance, and inside of ten minutes the owner of the house was pirouetting up and down with his servants, laughing and shouting and imitating the movements of the
castanets. And this continued for a half-hour as we smoked our cigarettes and sipped our coffee.
“ Ah, what a beautiful instrument, ” sighed the attendant, “ but I cannot stay longer as I must hurry in to wash my dishes, ” and in a moment he was elbow deep in soap-suds. Fancy it, from music to soap-suds!
A ludicrous incident occurred in Seville when I attempted to take a bath. That the Spaniards practically never bathe must be a fact.
Although one of the noted things about the Moorish houses was the attention paid to the baths, the Spanish houses are destitute of such luxury. I asked the boy-ofall-work where the bath-room was located.
“The bath-room, Señor, there is none! ”
“Well, what do you do? ” I asked.
“ Why, we never bathe, Señor. ʼʼ
I looked at him more closely and concluded that he had spoken the truth. His outer habiliments were washed once a month or so, himself never.
Then I tackled my waiter at the table, asking him if there wasn’t any place in the house where I could get under water.
“No Señor, ” he answered, “not here, but you may go down to the river and take a plunge at night. ”
Then I asked the little fellow who put the shine upon our shoes if he couldn’t help me out. But he said that he bathed in the fountain in the court, very early, before people were up.
Thank Heaven, I thought, the boot-black bathes, and I am bound to have a bath if I have to steal down in the night and wallow in the basin of the big fountain.
But I bethought myself of the landlord himself, and so went to find him.
“We will send up a pitcher of hot water, ” he said, “and that will be sufficient. ”
“ Not much, ” I replied, “ I want a bath, a regular soak, so to speak, and am bound to have it. ”
“ When do you want it? ” he asked.
“Right away, ” I said, “if you can give me one at all. ” But he shook his head and said, “ in an hour or two. ”
So I waited and waited, until at last a low rumbling noise was heard that seemed to permeate the whole building. This kept growing louder and louder, and was emphasized by a bump and a thud that made me wonder what it all meant. But after a few minutes I heard voices, and grunts and swear-words came thick and fast, as three men knocked at the door. I opened it and what do you suppose it was?
Upon my word, an iron tub six feet long, put on a little wheel-car, and steaming away with water hot enough to remove freckles bodily.
“ Well, I swear, ” I exclaimed, “ if you Spaniards are not the biggest fools that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting? ”
They couldn’t understand my compliment, but commenced wheeling this steaming tub into the room, and I doubt not echoing my own exclamation. But I got my bath anyway — after waiting an hour for the thing to cool down — and was probably the first bather that has had the courage to order such a thing for years.
There was once a man in Seville who bore the voluminous name of Fadrique de Rebera, a Marquis of Tarifa, and withal a godly man. At least he had never killed his man, did not carry a dirk in his belt, and was known to have made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1520 and ever after referred to this trip when he was desirous of offsetting any little irregularities of his life. He had been greatly struck with the residence known as the House of Pilate, and on his return set about reproducing the house as he remembered it, and although his name has been forgotten, the house still remains and retains the name of the Casa de Pilatus. One enters under an archway of no pretentiousness whatever, passes through a yard, then through a loggia into the central patio, not unlike many Spanish houses, but in the style of the Moors, with interlaced windows, and several beautiful wrought-iron rejas. I sketched one of these grilles as we passed; it was surrounded by a mass of foliage and the good people had formed a bed of potted plants under the window. When we came to examine