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28 chapters
LONDON
LONDON
We had tasted of Spain before ever we had crossed her frontiers. Indeed, perhaps Spain is the easiest country to obtain samples from without the fatigue of travelling. The Spaniard carries his atmosphere with him: wherever he goes he re-creates in his immediate surroundings more than a hint of his national existence. The Englishman abroad may be English—more brutally and uncompromisingly English than the Spaniard is Spanish—yet he does not carry England with him. He does not, that is, re-create
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JESUS PEREZ
JESUS PEREZ
Jesus Perez took us to Spain in spirit while we were still in Paris. We were off to Spain to paint, that being the normal course of our lives, but in addition Jan had formed a fixed resolution that happen what might he was not coming home without having bought a good Spanish guitar by the best guitar-maker he could find, while I wished to buy a Spanish lute. Arias and Ramirez, the two best modern luthiers in Madrid, both had recently died; we had, however, the address of the widow of Ramirez, wh
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THE FRONTIER
THE FRONTIER
I wonder what Charlemagne would have done if one had whisked him down from Paris to the Spanish Frontier in something under twenty hours? Probably the hero would have been paralysed with terror during the journey and would have revenged himself upon the magician by means of a little stake party. But what would have been magic and miracle to Charlemagne remains in one's mind as a jumble—the interior of a second-class carriage; antimacassars; an adolescent who ate lusciously a basket of peaches, t
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MEDINA DEL CAMPO
MEDINA DEL CAMPO
If civilization were without a flaw, the happy civilized traveller could pass through and circumambulate a foreign country yet never come into closer contact with the inhabitants than that transmitted through a Cook's interpreter. So that if you want to learn anything about a country, either you must put a sprag into the wheels of this civilization or you must let Opportunity do it for you. Opportunity is a very complaisant goddess: give her an inch and the ell at least is offered to you. She sm
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AVILA
AVILA
Borrow has a description of an inn in Galicia in which a whole family occupies but one bedroom while the servant sleeps across the door. Our bedroom in the Hôtel del Jardin was quite large enough for any family other than, perhaps, a French Canadian, which sometimes runs, we have heard, into twenties and thirties. The walls were painted a pinky-mauve stucco, decorated with a broad olive-green ribbon of colour making a complete oblong or frame on each wall about eighteen inches within the edges o
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MADRID
MADRID
Madrid Station was the usual dark barn into which the trains ran and where they rested, as the diligences rest beneath the barn of the coaching inn. One descended the steps of the carriage into gloom; found a dim porter whom one would never recognize again; made one's way amongst the towering, sniffling black Pargantua of locomotives; was fought for by an excited mob of cabmen, amongst whom one remained passive until a cabman dowered with more character than his fellows had managed to attract on
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A HOT NIGHT
A HOT NIGHT
( This Chapter should be omitted by Prudes ) The expense of an omnibus is not necessary to the experienced traveller. A Spanish friend took us to a bureau of town porters in Madrid, and we gave instructions to a dark-faced man in a shabby uniform, who promised to see all our baggage to the station in good time for the evening train to Murcia. Señor Don Mateo Bartolommeo was the name of the porter, for he gave us his visiting card, on which was his professional and private address, and a deep bla
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MURCIA—FIRST IMPRESSIONS
MURCIA—FIRST IMPRESSIONS
One has a right to expect that the station which is the finish of a long and tiring journey should be both a terminus and have a quality all of its own. Our egoism makes it seem at that moment the most important place in the world. But Murcia (pronounced locally Mouthia) had only a big ugly barn of a station like many through which we had already passed, and even lacked a Precia Fijo jewellery shop. All we could see of the town, on emerging, was a few houses and a line of small trees which appea
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MURCIA—SETTLING DOWN
MURCIA—SETTLING DOWN
By the time we left the hotel, which we did on the second day, the maid had reviewed her decision as to the state of our mentality. Receiving her tips she shook our hands warmly, asked where we were going and said that she would without fail call upon us. The tatterdemalion bootblack at the hotel door, who could never quite make up his mind whether he were bootblack or lottery-ticket seller—neglecting each business in favour of the other—helped us with our luggage. He also on receipt of a tip in
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MURCIA—BLAS
MURCIA—BLAS
Spain is the true home of the guitar. Only in Spain is the guitar—the most complete of solo instruments—heard in its true perfection. But even in Spain the cult of the guitar is dying out. Nowadays, at marriages, births or christenings the guitar is no longer inevitable, for the cheap German piano and the gramophone are ousting the national instrument. Jan had become enamoured of the guitar in Paris, some small progress he had made with the help of a friend; but one cannot get the true spirit of
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MURCIA—THE ALPAGATA SHOP
MURCIA—THE ALPAGATA SHOP
Save upon feast days, and with the exception of the nobility, who are few, and of the merchants, who have to be worldly commonplace, alpagatas, or string-soled shoes, are the footwear of the Spanish nation. If you dodge the big towns you may go for days and never see a boot. The agricultural labourer, the artisan, the beggar, the soldier, the engine-driver, the porters all wear either the alpagata or, in the summer, its cooler brother, the string-soled sandal. In Spain boots are not meant for re
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MURCIA—BRAVO TORO
MURCIA—BRAVO TORO
Along cool colonnades of raw-coloured brick, up a staircase arched with concrete, and out through a sort of concrete culvert which spouted humanity, we came into the huge round amphitheatre of the bullring. Owing to Spanish dilatoriness, we were later than we had intended, and in consequence were unable to get seats within the coveted shadow which lay over half the great enclosure; but, thank goodness, the sky was mottled with clouds which tempered both the heat and the glare of the Spanish afte
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AN EXCURSION
AN EXCURSION
Murcia was very hot, very dusty and very sultry. We did not mind mere heat—though Spanish midsummer heat was not the best of pick-me-ups for the influenza—dust we could outlive, but the sultriness of the Murcian valley was beyond our physique. This flat valley, which is ten miles wide between abrupt mountains, is irrigated over the whole of its breadth and is one of the richest agricultural parts of Spain. The evaporation of the water makes the heat of Murcia damp; the summer in addition was clo
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VERDOLAY—HOUSEKEEPING
VERDOLAY—HOUSEKEEPING
The house in Verdolay had five large rooms, stone-floored, and was unfurnished. We decided to borrow all our friend's kitchen furniture, to wit, a table, three chairs, water-vessels, etc., and we bought for ourselves a large frying-pan. But the bed was a problem. Our friend's bed looked too good to knock about, so at last we determined on the planks which we had already, and four packing-cases on which to lay the planks. Antonio, always eager to help us, promised to find the packing-cases and to
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VERDOLAY—SKETCHING IN SPAIN
VERDOLAY—SKETCHING IN SPAIN
Sketching in Spain has inconveniences. In the summer the heat makes it imperative that the painter should be up with the dawn, for between eleven a.m. and four p.m. the heat and the brilliance of the light impose too great a strain on the eyes and the endurance. Under any circumstances we were almost forced to rise with the sun, for Milk and Vegetables both called before six. Verdolay was an excellent spot at which to begin an acquaintance with Spanish scenery. There was a great variety of subje
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VERDOLAY—CONENI
VERDOLAY—CONENI
The peasant who came every morning with his daughter and donkey-cart full of vegetables and fruit at the dawn was rather like a genial bird of prey in features. This type is typically Spanish. There was something of the condor about him, though one can scarcely picture a condor with his welcoming smile or his kindly nature. He began with a fixed idea of our practical dumbness and deafness to the Spanish language. He was, we learned later, an exquisite dancer. We have heard tell of a well-known m
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VERDOLAY—THE INHABITANTS
VERDOLAY—THE INHABITANTS
The little village of Verdolay was not a characteristic Spanish village, it was a watering-place. One came into it along the dusty road between banks on which grew the spiky aloe shrubs, behind which spread the spaced olive groves with trees drawn up into demure lines, amongst the grey foliage of which could be seen the red painted corrugated roofs of the French Silk Company. The village scrambled up a terraced hill. The lower edge was a line of orange-vermilion one-storied houses faced with a s
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VERDOLAY—THE DANCE AT CONENI'S
VERDOLAY—THE DANCE AT CONENI'S
We had been looking forward to the dance which Coneni had promised us. Spanish music had become with us a hobby, and the dancing which goes with it had excited our imagination. Antonio's sister had led us to believe that wonderful dancing was to be found in the Murcian huertas, and the vague hints of gay times al campo stirred us up to eager anticipation. On Sunday afternoon at about four o'clock we set off, Jan carrying the big white guitar in its case. The cicadas were making their accustomed
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MURCIA—THE LAUD
MURCIA—THE LAUD
During our month in Verdolay we had not quite cut off communication with Murcia. Luis and his friend Flores had come out to lunch with us, bringing with them a slab of odoriferous dried fish which they said was excellent in salads. On this occasion many families in Verdolay had offered to cook our dinner for us, Encarnacion's mother, the shopping woman, the woman who brought the water and La Merchora were the principal competitors; and the dinner was finally cooked out in the open in La Merchora
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ALICANTE
ALICANTE
Our second experience in Spanish village life was to be at Jijona, a small town in the country near Alicante. Our friend had what he called a studio there, and this was at our service. Luis said that there was furniture in the studio but no cooking utensils or bed. After our packing-case bed in Verdolay, we determined to take with us nothing but a mattress and either to sleep on the floor or to buy planks locally. So we had packed our trunk with painting materials, crockery and clothes. We had a
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JIJONA—THE FIESTA
JIJONA—THE FIESTA
The only fiesta we had hitherto experienced in Spain had been a small peasant feast during an afternoon at Verdolay. We had gone to it; but finding that we as foreigners constituted the chief centre of interest, we had run away to the seclusion of our house. At the big fiesta of Jijona were so many strangers that we were almost overlooked. The family at the "Vinegar" consisted of an old bent-backed father peasant, sandalled; a mother, in black with black shawl; several sons, reaching towards mer
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JIJONA—TIA ROGER
JIJONA—TIA ROGER
Jijona lived on almond paste. All around us the grey, pallid or zebra striped mountains were terraced, and wherever enough earth could be gathered together for an almond tree to grow, there it was planted. The turron of Jijona, which is made in perfection nowhere else, is a very popular sweet meat all over Spain and even is widely appreciated in South America. In Barcelona I have been greeted by turron-selling youths who addressed me as La Valiente. On the French frontier in a little village we
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JIJONA—A DAY'S WORK
JIJONA—A DAY'S WORK
It was a toss-up which would arrive first: the sun shooting its long level rays over the mountain-top through our windows, or Tia Roger's daughter hammering on the door with the milk, warm and frothy, in a jug. Either the one or the other aroused us from our mattress on the floor—for we had dispensed quite comfortably with the complications of a bed. Possibly our night had been restless, for inadvertently I had imported a host of fleas into the house. They had come from the garden, from a small
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JIJONA—THE GOATHERDS
JIJONA—THE GOATHERDS
Murcia could be counted as unmusical, in Verdolay one heard either a gramophone of the little Señor, or the piano banged by the girls who lived in the topmost house of the village. In Jijona, on the contrary, almost every evening could be heard the sound of the guitar or of that strange Eastern singing of Spain. Young men sat on the edge of the cliff below the Saracen castle and thumped two or three chords from a guitar for half the night long. It had a delight, analogous to that which the tom-t
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MURCIA—AUTUMN IN THE PASEO DE CORVERAS
MURCIA—AUTUMN IN THE PASEO DE CORVERAS
We came back to Murcia, to our headquarters in the Paseo de Corveras, at the beginning of October. Though the town was so far south, the cold weather had well begun. In the daytime the sun seemed as fierce as ever, but the dust that had lain inches deep during the summer was now an equal depth of semi-liquid mud, and the house, without fireplaces or any means of creating artificial warmth, had in it a faint though insidious chill. Save in the hottest weather, stone or cement floors are comfortle
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LORCA
LORCA
We still had money for another three weeks, although we had been four months in Spain. The weather in Murcia was very cold; damp, chilling winds blew down the valley. We decided to go westwards, to explore Lorca, which we had heard was both fine pictorially and also which was called "the City of the Sun." On suggesting the idea to some of our Murcian friends, they advised us not to go. "It is a town of bad people," they said; "they are all gipsies." We had heard before of these towns of bad peop
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MURCIA—LAST DAYS
MURCIA—LAST DAYS
Next morning we sent Marciana to tell Jesus, the water-carrier, to bring our registered luggage from the station. After a long delay she came back saying that no luggage with a number corresponding to that of the receipt was to be found. We set off through the mud to the station, and after having suffered from some lack of courtesy on the part of one or two of the clerks we were able to convince ourselves that Jesus had spoken the truth. Our luggage, consisting of a suit-case, a rucksack and a h
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THE ROAD HOME
THE ROAD HOME
We set out on our journey home next morning. The bootmaker, who arrived at the house almost before we were dressed, came with us to the station, where he presented us with a large packet of angels-hair cakes as sustenance for the journey. This favourite Murcian delicacy, made from the inside of a gourd, has a stringy consistency and a sickly flavour. The zapatero had secured them "on tick" from the confectioner's where he was lodging. As we take leave of him, we may summarize his subsequent hist
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