Letters from Spain

Some miles from that village, we passed one of the extensive woods of ilex, which are found in many parts of Spain. In summer, the beauty of these forests is very great. Wild flowers of all kinds, myrtles, honeysuckles, cystus, &c. grow in the greatest profusion, and ornament a scene doubly delicious from the cool shade which succeeds to the glare of open and desolate plains, under a burning sun. Did not the monumental crosses, erected on every spot where a traveller has fallen by the hands of robbers, bring gloomy ideas to the mind, and keep the eye watching every turn, and scouring every thicket, without allowing it to repose on the beauties that court it on all sides; Spain would afford many a pleasant and romantic tour. Wild boars, and deer, and a few wolves, are found in these forests. Birds of all kinds, hawks, kites, vultures, storks, cranes, and bustards, are exceedingly numerous in most parts of the country. Game, especially rabbits, is so abundant in these mountains, that many people live by shooting; and though the number of dogs and ferrets probably exceeds that of houses in every village, I heard many complaints of annual depredations on the crops.

We had traversed some miles of dreary rocky ground, without a tree, and hardly any verdure to soften its aspect, when from a deep valley, formed by two barren mountains, we discovered Olbera, on the top of a third, higher than the rest, and more rugged and steep than any we had hitherto passed Both the approach and view of the town were so perfectly in character with what we knew of the inhabitants, that the idea of spending a week on that spot became gloomy and uncomfortable at that moment.

The rustic and almost savage manners of the noblesse of Olbera are unparalleled in Andalusia. Both gentlemen and peasants claim a wild independence, a liberty of misrule for their town, the existence of which betrays the real weakness which never fails to attend despotism. An Andalusian proverb desires you to “Kill your man and fly to Olbera”—Mata al hombre y vete a Olbera. A remarkable instance of the impunity with which murder is committed in that town occurred two years before our visit. The alguacil mayor, a law-officer of the first rank, was shot dead by an unknown hand, when retiring to his house from an evening tertulia. He had offended the chief of a party—for they have here their Capulets and Montagues, though I could never discover a Juliet—who was known to have formerly dispatched another man in a similar way; and no doubt existed in the town, that Lobillo had either killed the alguacil, or paid the assassin. The expectation, however, of his acquittal was as general as the belief of his guilt. To the usual dilatoriness of the judicial forms of the country, to the corruption of the scriveners or notaries who, in taking down, most artfully alter the written evidence upon which the judges ground their decision, was added the terror of Lobillo’s name and party, whose vengeance was dreaded by the witnesses. We now found him at the height of his power; and he was one of the persons examined in evidence of the noble birth and family honours of the candidate in whose behalf my friend had received the commission of his college. Lobillo is a man between fifty and sixty, with a countenance on which every evil passion is marked in indelible characters. He was, in earlier life, renowned for his forwardness in the savage rioting which to this day forms the chief amusement of the youth of this town. The fact is, that the constant use of spirits keeps many of them in a state of habitual intoxication. One cannot cross the threshold of a house at Olbera without being presented with a glass of brandy, which it would be an affront to refuse. The exploits performed at their drinking-bouts constitute the traditional chronicle of the town, and are recounted with great glee by young and old. The idea of mirth is associated by the fashionables of Olbera with a rudeness that often degenerates into downright barbarity. The sports of the field are generally terminated by a supper at one of the cortijos, or farm-houses of the gentry, where the gracioso or wit of the company, is expected to promote some practical joke when mischief is rife among the guests. The word culebra, for instance, is the signal for putting out the lights, and laying about with the first thing that comes to hand, as if trying to kill the snake, which is the pretended cause of the alarm. The stomachs of the party are, on other occasions, tried with a raw hare or kid, of which no one dares refuse to eat his share: and it is by no means uncommon to propose the alternative of losing a tooth, or paying a fine.

The relations of the young man whose pedigree was to be examined by my friend, made it a point to entertain us, by rotation, every night with a dance. At these parties there was no music but a guitar, and some male and female voices. Two or four couples stood up for seguidillas, a national dance, not unlike the fandango, which was, not long since, modified into the bolero, by a dancing-master of that name, a native of the province of Murcia, from which it was originally called Seguidillas Murcianas. The dancers, rattling their castanets, move at the sound of a single voice, which sings couplets of four verses, with a burthen of three, accompanied by musical chords that, combining the six strings of the guitar into harmony, are incessantly struck with the nails of the right hand. The singers relieve each other, every one using different words to the same tune. The subject of these popular compositions, of which a copious, though not very elegant collection is preserved in the memory of the lower classes, is love; and they are generally appropriate to the sex of the singers.

The illumination of the room consisted of a candíl—a rude lamp of cast-iron, hung up by a hook on an upright piece of wood fixed on a three-footed stool, the whole of plain deal. Some of the ladies wore their mantillas crossed upon the chin so as to conceal their features. A woman in this garb is called tapada; and the practice of that disguise, which was very common under the Austrian dynasty, is still preserved by a few females in some of our country-towns. I have seen them at Osuna and El Arahal, covered from head to foot with a black woollen veil falling on both sides of the face, and crossed so closely before it that nothing could be perceived but the gleaming of the right eye placed just behind the aperture. Our old dramatic writers found in the tapadas an inexhaustible resource for their plots. As the laws of honour protected a veiled lady from the intrusions of curiosity, jealousy was thus perpetually mocked by the very objects that were the main source of its alarms.

My introduction, at the first evening-party, to one of the ladies of Olbera, will give you an idea of the etiquette of that town. A young gentleman, the acknowledged gracioso of the upper ranks, a character which in those parts must unite that of first bully to support it; had from the day of our arrival taken us under his patronage, and engaged to do for us the honours of the place. His only faults were, drinking like a fish, and being as quarrelsome as a bull-dog; au reste, he was a kind-hearted soul, and would serve a friend the whole length of the broad-sword, which, according to the good old fashion, he constantly carried under the left arm, concealed by the large foldings of his cloak. At the dances, he was master of the ceremonies, and, as such, he introduced us to the company. We had not yet seated ourselves, when Don Juan de la Rosa—such was our patron’s name—surprised me with the question, which of the present ladies I preferred to sit by. Thinking it was a jest, I made a suitable answer; but I soon found he was serious. As it was not for me to innovate, or break through the laudable customs of Olbera, no other cause remained for hesitation but the difficulty of the choice. Difficult it was indeed; not, however from the balanced influence of contending beauty, but the formidable host of either coy or grinning faces, which nearly filled one side of the room. To take my post by one of the rustic nymphs, and thus engage to keep up a regular flirtation for the evening, was more, I confess, than my courage allowed me. Reversing, therefore, the maxim which attributes increased horrors to things unknown, I begged to be introduced to a tapada who sat in a corner, provided a young man of the town, who was at that moment speaking with her, had not a paramount claim to the place. The word was scarcely spoken, when my friend, Don Juan, advanced with a bold step, and, addressing his townsman with the liberty of an established gracioso, declared it was not fit for a clown to take that place, instead of the stranger. The young man, who happened to be a near relation of the lady, gave up his chair very good-humouredly, and I was glad to find that the airiness and superior elegance of shape, which led me to the choice, had directed me to a gentlewoman. My veiled talking partner was highly amused—I will not say flattered—with what she chose to call my blunder, and, pretending to be old and ugly, brought into full play all my Spanish gallantry. The evening was passed less heavily than I dreaded; and during our stay at Olbera we gave a decided preference to the lady of whom I had, thus strangely, declared myself the cortejo pro tempore. She was a native of Malaga, whom her husband, an officer on half-pay, had induced to reside in his native town, which she most cordially detested. Perhaps you wish to know the reason of her disguise at the dance. Moved by a similar curiosity, I ventured to make the inquiry, when I learned that, for want of time to dress, she had availed herself of the custom of the country, which makes the mantilla a species of dishabille fit for an evening party.

In the intervals of the dance we were sometimes treated with dramatic scenes, of which the dialogue is composed on the spot by the actors. This amusement is not uncommon in country-towns. It is known by the name of juegos—a word literally answering to plays. The actors are in the habit of performing together, and consequently do not find it difficult to go through their parts without much hesitation. Men in women’s clothes act the female characters. The truth is, that far from being surprised at the backwardness of the ladies to join actively in the amusement, the wit and humour of the juegos is such, that one only wonders how any modest woman can be present at the performance.

One night the dance was interrupted by the hoarse voice of our worthy friend Don Juan, who happened to be in the kitchen on a visit to a favourite jar of brandy. The ladies, though possessed of strong nerves, shewed evident symptoms of alarm; and we all hurried out of the room, anxious to ascertain the cause of the threatening tones we had heard. Upon our coming to the hall, we found the doughty hero standing at a window with a cocked gun in his hands, sending forth a volley of oaths, and protesting he would shoot the first man who approached his door. The assault, however, which he had thus gallantly repulsed, being now over, he soon became cool enough to inform us of the circumstances. Two or three individuals of the adverse party, who were taking their nightly rounds under the windows of their mistresses, hearing the revel at Rosa’s house, were tempted to interrupt it by just setting fire to the door of the entrance-hall. The house might, in a short time, have been in flames, but for the unquenchable thirst of the owner, which so seasonably drew him from the back to the front of the building.

We were once retiring home at break of day, when Don Juan, who never quitted us, insisted upon our being introduced at that moment to one of two brothers of the name of Ribera, who had, the evening before, arrived from his farm. Remonstrance was in vain: Don Juan crossed the street, and “the wicket opening with a latch,” in primitive simplicity, we beheld one of the most renowned braggadocios of Olbera lying in bed, with a gun by his side. Ribera, so unceremoniously disturbed, could not help greeting the visitors in rather rough language; but he was soon appeased, on perceiving that we were strangers. He sat up in his bed, and handed to me a tumbler of brandy, just filled from the ever-present green jar, that stood within his reach upon a deal table. The life I was leading had given me a severe cough, and the muzzle of Ribera’s gun close to my head would scarcely have alarmed me more than the brim-full rummer with which I was threatened. A terrible fit of coughing, however, came to my assistance; and Don Juan interposing in my favour, I was allowed to lay down the glass.

The facetiousness of the two Riberas is greatly admired in their town. These loving brothers had, on a certain occasion, gone to bed at their cortijo (farm), forgetting to put out the candíl, or lamp, hung up at the opposite end of the hall. The first who had retired urged that it was incumbent on him who sat up latest, to have left every thing in proper order; but the offender was too lazy to quit his bed, and a long contest ensued. After much, and probably not very temperate disputing, a bright thought seemed to have crossed the younger brother. And so it was indeed; for stopping short in the argument, he grasped the gun, which, as usual, stood by his bed-side, took a sure aim, and put an end both to the dispute and its subject, by shooting down the candíl. The humour of this potent conclusion was universally applauded at Olbera. I have been assured that the same extinguisher is still, occasionally, resorted to by the brothers; and a gun heard in the night, infallibly reminds the inhabitants, of the Riberas’ lamp.26

LETTER VI

Seville, – 1801.

My residence in this town, after visiting Olbera, was short and unpleasant. The yellow-fever, which had some months before appeared at Cadiz, began to show itself in our large suburb of Triana, on the other side of the Guadalquivir. As no measures were taken to prevent communication with Cadiz, it is supposed that the infection was brought by some of the numerous seafaring people that inhabit the vicinity of the river. The progress of the malady was slow at first, and confined to one side of the street where it began. Meetings of all the physicians were convened by the chief magistrates, who, though extremely arbitrary in matters of daily occurrence, are, in Spain, very timid and dilatory on any extraordinary emergency. Unconscious of the impending danger, the people flocked to these meetings to amuse themselves at the expense of our doctors, who are notoriously quarrelsome and abusive when pitted against each other. A few of the most enlightened among them ventured to declare that the fever was infectious; but their voice was drowned in the clamour of a large majority who wished to indulge the stupid confidence of the inhabitants. The disease in the mean time crossed the river; and following the direction of the street where it originally appeared at Triana—now quite overrun by the infection—began its ravages within the ancient walls of our town. It was already high time to take alarm, and symptoms of it were shewn by the chief authorities. Their measures, however, cannot fail to strike you as perfectly original. No separation of the infected from the healthy part of the town: no arrangement for confining and relieving the sick poor. The governor who, by such means, had succeeded in stopping the progress of the fever would have been called to account for the severity of his measures, and his success against the infection turned into a demonstration that it never existed. Anxious, therefore, to avoid every questionable step in circumstances of such magnitude, the civil authorities wisely resolved to make an application to the archbishop and chapter, for the solemn prayers called Rogativas, which are used in times of public affliction. This request being granted without delay, the Rogativa was performed at the cathedral for nine consecutive days, after sunset.

The gloom of that magnificent temple, scarcely broken by the light of six candles on the high altar, and the glimmering of the lamps in the aisles, combined with the deep and plaintive tones of forty singers chanting the penitential psalms, impressed the throng of supplicants with the strongest feelings, which superstition can graft upon fear and distress.

When the people observed the infection making a rapid progress in many parts of the town, notwithstanding the due performance of the usual prayers, they began to cast about for a more effectual method of obtaining supernatural assistance. It was early suggested by many of the elderly inhabitants, that a fragment of the true Cross, or Lignum Crucis, one of the most valuable relics possessed by the cathedral of Seville, should be exhibited from the lofty tower called Giralda; for they still remembered, when, at the view of that miraculous splinter, myriads of locusts which threatened destruction to the neighbouring fields, rose like a thick cloud, and conveyed themselves away, probably to some infidel country. The Lignum Crucis, it was firmly believed, would, in like manner, purify the atmosphere, and put an end to the infection. Others, however, without any disparagement to the holy relic, had turned their eyes to a large wooden crucifix, formerly in great repute, and now shamefully neglected, on one of the minor altars of the Austin Friars, without the gates of the town. The effectual aid given by that crucifix in the plague of 1649 was upon record. This wonderful image had, it seems, stopped the infection, just when one half of the population of Seville had been swept away; thus evidently saving the other half from the same fate. On this ground, and by a most natural analogy, the hope was very general, that a timely exhibition of the crucifix through the streets, would give instant relief to the town.27

Both these schemes were so sound and rational, that the chief authorities, unwilling to shew an undue partiality to either, wisely determined to combine them into one great lustration. A day was, accordingly, fixed for a solemn procession to conduct the crucifix from the convent to the cathedral, and to ascend the tower for the purpose of blessing the four cardinal winds with the Lignum Crucis. On that day, the chapter of the cathedral, attended by the civil governor, the judges, the inquisitors, and the town corporation, repaired to the convent of Saint Augustin, and, having placed the crucifix upon a moveable stage covered with a magnificent canopy, walked before it with lighted candles in their hands, while the singers, in a mournful strain, repeated the names of the saints contained in the Catholic litany, innumerable voices joining, after every invocation in the accustomed response—Ora pro nobis. Arrived at the cathedral, the image was exposed to public adoration within the presbytery, or space reserved for the ministering clergy, near the high altar. After this the dean, attended by the chapter, the inferior ministers of the church, and the singers, moved in solemn procession towards the entrance of the tower, and, in the same order ascended the five-and-twenty inclined planes, which afford a broad and commodious access to the open belfry of that magnificent structure. The worship paid to any fragment of the true Cross is next in degree to that which is due to the consecrated host. On the view of the priest in his robes at one of the four central arches of the majestic steeple, the multitude, who had crowded to the neighbourhood of the cathedral from all parts of the city, fell upon their knees, their eyes streaming with tears: tears, indeed, which that unusual sight would have drawn from the weak and superstitious on any other occasion, but which, in the present affliction, the stoutest heart could hardly repress. An accidental circumstance heightened the impressiveness of the scene. The day, one of the hottest of an Andalusian summer, had been overcast with electric clouds. The priest had scarcely begun to make the sign of the cross with the golden vase which contains the Lignum Crucis, when one of the tremendous thunderstorms, so awful in southern climates, burst upon the trembling multitude. A few considered this phenomenon as a proof that the public prayers were heard, and looked upon the lightning as the instrument which was to disperse the cause of the infection. But the greatest number read in the frowns of the sky the unappeased anger of Heaven, which doomed them to drain the bitter cup that was already at their lips. Alas! they were not deceived. That doom had been sealed when Providence allowed ignorance and superstition to fix their dwelling among us; and the evils which my countrymen feared from a preternatural interposition of the avenging powers above, were ready to arise as the natural consequences of the means they themselves had employed to avert them. The immense concourse from all parts of the town had, probably, condensed into a focus the scattered seeds of infection. The heat, the fatigue, the anxiety of a whole day spent in this striking, though absurd, religious ceremony, had the most visible and fatal effect on the public health. Eight and forty hours after the procession, the complaint had left but few houses unvisited. The deaths increased in a tenfold proportion, and at the end of two or three weeks the daily number was from two to three hundred.

Providence spared me and my best friend by the most unforeseen combination of circumstances. Though suffering under an obstinate ague, Leandro—so he is called at our private club—had determined not to quit his college, at the head of which he was placed for that year. His family, on the other hand, had for some time resided at Alcalá de Guadaíra, a village beautifully situated within twelve miles of Seville. Alarmed at the state of the town, and unwilling to leave my friend to perish, either by the infection, or the neglect to which the general consternation exposed an invalid, I prevailed upon him to join his family, and attended him thither. This was but a few days before the religious ceremony which I have described from the narrative of eye-witnesses. It was my intention to have returned to Seville; but the danger was now so imminent, that it would have been madness to encounter it without necessity. Thus a visit which I meant for a week, was inevitably prolonged to six months.

For you, however, who love detail in the description of this hitherto little known country, my time was not spent in vain. Yet I must begin by a fact which will be of more interest to my old friend, Doctor –, than yourself.

Alcalá de Guadaíra is a town containing a population of two thousand inhabitants, and standing on a high hilly spot to the northeast of Seville. The greatest part of the bread consumed in this city comes daily from Alcalá, where the abundant and placid stream of the Guadaíra, facilitates the construction of water-mills. Many of the inhabitants being bakers, and having no market but Seville, were under the necessity of repairing thither during the infection. It is not with us as in England, where every tradesman practically knows the advantages of the division of labour, and is at liberty, to consult his own convenience in the sale of his articles. The bakers, the butchers, the gardeners, and the farmers, are here obliged to sell in separate markets, where they generally spend the whole day waiting for customers. Owing to this regulation of the police, about sixty men, and double that number of mules, leave Alcalá every day with the dawn, and stand till the evening in two rows, inclosed with iron railings, at the Plaza del Pan. The constant communication with the people from all parts of the town, and so long an exposure to the atmosphere of an infected place, might have been supposed powerful enough to communicate the disease. We, certainly, were in daily apprehension of its appearance at Alcalá. So little, however, can we calculate the effects of unknown causes, that of the people that thus braved the contagion, only one, who passed the night in Seville, caught the disease and died. All the others, no less than the rest of the village, continued to enjoy the usual degree of health, which, probably owing to its airy situation, is excellent at all times.