BY THÉOPHILE GAUTIER. With numerous Engravings. LONDON: INGRAM, COOKE, AND CO. MDCCCLIII. WANDERINGS IN SPAIN. BY THÉOPHILE GAUTIER. With numerous Engravings. LONDON:...

A few weeks ago (April, 1840), I happened, in an off-hand manner, to give utterance to the following phrase:—"I should like to go to Spain." Five or six days afterwards, my friends had suppressed the prudent "I should like," with which I had qualified my wish, and had told every one who chose to listen that I was about to undertake a trip to Spain. This positive formula was soon followed by the interrogation, "When do you set out?" while I, without thinking of the obligation under which I was pl

On leaving Bordeaux, the Landes recommence, if possible more sad, more desolate, and more gloomy than before. Heather, broom, and pinadas (pine forests), with here and there a shepherd squatted down, tending his flocks of black sheep, or a miserable hut in the style of the Indian wigwams, offer a very lugubrious and by no means diverting spectacle. No tree is seen but the pine, with the gash in it from which the resin trickles down. This large salmon-coloured wound forming a strong contrast with

At Vergara, which is the place where the treaty between Espartero and Maroto was concluded, I saw, for the first time, a Spanish priest. His appearance struck me as rather grotesque, although, thank heaven, I entertain no Voltairean ideas with regard to the clergy; but the caricature of Beaumarchais' Basile involuntarily suggested itself to my recollection. Just fancy a black cassock, with a cloak of the same colour, and to crown the whole, an immense, prodigious, phenomenal, hyperbolical, and T

On leaving the room of Juan Cuchiller, you enter another which is decorated in a very picturesque manner. The walls are wainscoted with oak and hung with red tapestry, while the ceiling is artesonado , and produces a most pleasing effect. There is a "Nativity" by Murillo, a "Conception," and a figure of "Our Saviour" in flowing robes, all exceedingly well painted. The cloisters are filled with tombs, most of which are enclosed by strong iron railings placed very close together. These tombs, all

El Correo Real in which we quitted Burgos merits a particular description. Just fancy an antediluvian vehicle, of which I should say that the model, long since discarded, could at present only be found in the fossil remains of Spain; immense bell-shaped wheels, with very thin spokes, placed considerably behind the frame, which had been painted red, somewhere about the time of Isabella the Catholic; an extravagant body, full of all sorts of crooked windows, and lined in the inside with small sati

We were obliged to wait two days. Never did two days appear so long to me, and in order to overcome my impatience, I read over more than ten times the bills posted up at the corners of the principal streets. These bills promised wonders; they announced eight bulls from the most famous pasturages; the picadores , Sevilla and Antonio Rodriguez; and the espadas , Juan Pastor, also called El Barbero , and Guillen; they wound up by prohibiting the public from throwing into the arena orange-peel or an

Whenever Madrid is mentioned, the first objects that the word suggests to our minds are the Prado and La Puerta del Sol . Since then our inclination leads us to do so, let us now proceed to the Prado, as it is the hour of the evening promenade. The Prado consists of a number of alleys and cross-alleys, with a road in the middle for carriages. It is shaded by stunted pollards, whose roots are in connexion with a little basin lined with brick, into which the water is conveyed by small canals at th

In order to proceed to the Escurial, we hired one of those fantastic vehicles, of which we have already had occasion to speak, covered with grey cupids and other ornaments in the Pompadour style, dragged by four mules, and enhanced by the presence of a zagal in a tolerable masquerading suit. The Escurial is situated about seven or eight leagues from Madrid, not far from Guadarrama, at the foot of a chain of mountains. It is impossible to imagine anything more arid and desolate than the country y

We had exhausted the curiosities of Madrid; we had seen the Palace, the Armeria , and the Buen Retiro , the Museum and the Academy of Painting, the Teatro del Principe , and the Plaza de Toros ; we had promenaded on the Prado from the fountain of Cybele to the fountain of Neptune, and we began to find the time hang somewhat heavily on our hands. Consequently, in spite of a heat of thirty degrees, [8] and all sorts of stories, sufficient to make our hair stand on end, about the insurgents and the

We were obliged to pass through Madrid again, in order to take the diligence to Granada: we could, it is true, have gone and waited for it at Aranjuez, but we should have then run the risk of finding it full; we therefore determined to return to Madrid. Our guide had taken care, the evening before, to send forward a mule, which was to wait for us halfway along the road, in order to take the place of the one we set out with; for it is doubtful whether, without this precaution, we should have been

A piece of news, well calculated to throw a whole Spanish town into a state of commotion, had suddenly been bruited about Granada, to the great delight of the aficionados . The new circus at Malaga was at last finished, after having cost the contractor five million reals. In order to inaugurate it solemnly, by exploits worthy of the palmy days of the art, the great Montes de Chielana—Montes, the first espada of Spain, the brilliant successor of Romero and Pepe Illo—had been engaged with his quad

As yet we were only acquainted with the galera on two wheels; we now had the pleasure of making a trial of one on four. An amiable vehicle of this description happened to be about starting for Cordova; it was already occupied with a Spanish family, and we helped to fill it still more. Just fancy rather a low wagon, with its sides formed of a number of wooden spokes at a considerable distance from each other, and having no bottom save a strip of spartum on which the trunks and packages are heaped

There is a Spanish proverb, very frequently quoted, on Seville: "Quien no ha visto a Sevilla No ha visto a maravilla." We confess, in all humility, that this proverb would strike us as more correct if applied to Toledo or Granada rather than to Seville, where we saw nothing particularly marvellous, unless it was the Cathedral. Seville is situated on the banks of the Guadalquiver, in a large plain, whence it derives its name of Hispalis, which, in Carthagenian, means a flat piece of ground, if we

After we had been travelling so long on horseback, on mules, in carts, and in galeras , the steamer struck us as something miraculous, in the style of the magic carpet of Fortunatus, or the staff of Abaris. The power of devouring space with the rapidity of an arrow, and that, too, without any trouble, fatigue, or jolting, while you quietly pace the deck, and see the long lines of the shore glide past you, in defiance of the caprices of wind and tide, is certainly one of the finest inventions of