Part 10 — RAIL AND SADDLE IN SPAIN

RAIL AND SADDLE IN SPAIN.⁠[16]

The proceedings of the bankruptcy courts occasionally make public painful cases, in which long-suffering parents have been compelled to cut adrift incorrigible prodigals. In vain have the generous “governors” and affectionate mothers bled themselves, pelican-wise, to supply the cravings of extravagant youth; in vain have they compounded with Jews, satisfied tailors, paid long accounts for London-made port and indigenous champagne, met bills of whose “value received” twenty per cent had been given in cash, the remainder in green spectacles, paving stones, and stuffed birds. There is a limit to human patience, a bottom even to paternal pockets; indulgence becomes imbecility when impudence is added to insolvency, and at last further aid and countenance are withheld. The spendthrift grumbler sulks, swears he is the most ill-used of mortals, and is finally lodged in a sponging-house or enlisted in a dragoon regiment. Such appears to us to be the present relative position of England and Spain. For nearly half a century John Bull has been “better than a mother” to the cashless, helpless, graceless Spaniards. He has fought their battles, filled their treasury, helped them to constitutions, assisted them with advice, which they have sometimes been too proud to take, at others too silly to profit by. The seed thus sown has produced an abundant harvest of ingratitude. We have acted the part of Aunt Cli to the scape-grace, Jonathan Jefferson, and we have met the same reward. The Spaniard has used us, and now he abuses us.

Has the day really dawned upon which English capitalists are to be proof against Spanish swindlers? We almost, although with difficulty—for there is no more gullible animal than your capitalist on the look-out for an investment, with his pockets stuffed with cash, and consols at par—believe that it has. Spain can hardly credit the fact, and is rabid at the apprehension. The fright has driven her from her propriety. She proscribes our newspapers, forbids us to bury our dead, and vents mysterious but awful menaces in the columns of the respectable Madrid journal, whose editor is the Spanish Home Secretary, its purveyor of funds the Spanish Queen-mother. A nameless something, we have lately been repeatedly assured by the España, is to be done, if the English press continue its denunciations of Spanish schemes and roguery; and the same journal wrote wrathfully and ominously when a warning was given to the British public that, if they chose to intrust their money to Peninsular speculators and peculators, they must look to themselves alone, and not to their government, for aid in recovering it. “Spain,” then wrote the Rianzares journal, “will know how to vindicate her honour, as on former occasions.” If this means anything beyond an ebullition of petulant spleen, it probably refers to the brief notice to quit given to Sir Henry Bulwer. Lord Howden had better look to himself, and keep his portmanteau packed, for he is evidently exposed to receive his passport at any moment, because his stubborn ungrateful countrymen decline making further advances upon such flimsy security as Spanish bonds—as depreciated and worthless a pledge as Spanish honour.

The whole history of Spain’s transactions with her foreign creditors may be made plain, in few lines, to the meanest capacity. Spain owed a large sum of money, and a good deal of interest upon it. She went to her creditors and said, “I am at war, troops must be paid, my treasury is empty; I want some more money. I am fighting for freedom from an odious tyranny; you, free men, cannot but sympathise with me; lend me the cash. We will add the amount to what I already owe you; capitalise the over-due coupons, the whole will make a nice round sum, upon which I bind myself regularly to pay the interest.” Spain has always been seductive and smooth-tongued; her fine, sonorous, knightly language—the sole remnant of chivalry she has retained—inspires confidence by its high-sounding phrases and noble expressions. The creditors believed her assurances, and, in an incautious hour, parted with their money, a portion of which was duly applied to the first one or two dividends, and then payment again stopped, and was not resumed. Years passed on, the war terminated, Spain was at peace and comparatively prosperous, her revenue largely increased, notwithstanding the absurd tariffs that grievously restricted her exports; still no effort was made to remove from the national character the stigma of ingratitude and insolvency. At last, when it was supposed that the creditors, weary of waiting, would accept almost anything for the sake of a settlement—when, it has been said and believed by many, a considerable amount of bonds had been bought for Spanish government account, at the wretched price to which the government’s refusal of payment had sunk them in the market—a disgraceful compromise was offered, and finally forced upon the creditors, who could not help themselves, and who looked in vain, whilst thus swindled, for efficient advocacy and support, to those Whig statesmen and fervent admirers of constitutional government in the Peninsula, whose smiling approval and countenance had been given to the transfer of good English money to faithless Spanish pockets. The results are known to the world, and may be briefly summed up. The same people who, in the Peninsular war, did their utmost to rob British troops of their laurels, claiming, to this very day, the glory of victories in which not a battalion of their bisoños figured, except in the rear, or to be routed; and insinuating, upon occasion, that Wellington’s army was a sort of auxiliary corps to their own heroic legions—repaid our military intervention and enormous pecuniary aid in their subsequent civil discords, by betraying us for an Orleanist alliance, grossly insulting our government in the person of its ambassador, and insolently snapping their fingers in the face of the British holder of Spanish bonds. We have no desire to resuscitate defunct questions; but certain it is, that many very sensible people—whom, as they are not members of the Peace Society, there is no reason to consider particularly belligerent or disposed to “crumple up” countries on light grounds—throughout England, and especially in the city of London, are of opinion that, upon more than one occasion during the last six years, the imposing force which in 1851 menaced for a doubtful claim the paltry capital of a petty state, would have been better employed off Cadiz, in insisting on an equitable adjustment of the very large debt rightfully and unquestionably owing to thousands of British subjects. This, of course, is a mere ignorant, common-sense view of the case; we have no doubt it could be quickly demonstrated from Vattel, and other great authorities, that common sense is the only good quality it possesses, and that it is utterly opposed to wise statesmanship and international law. Meanwhile, however, like the Count in the Nozze, the creditor dances to Figaro’s fiddle; Spanish ministers and financiers, who, but the other day, had scarcely a dollar to pay for a dinner, are as rich as Rothschild; Spanish dowager-queens hoard millions upon millions, and are prepared with princely dowries for their numerous progeny by handsome guardsmen; but the poor, long-suffering Spanish bondholder, defrauded of his due, and cut down to a fraction per cent, vegetates in penury, or inquires the way to the Union.

These, in round terms, and stripped of unnecessary details, are the facts of the case—facts that defy refutation; these are the disreputable circumstances under which Spain, having, as the Orientals say, made her face white—that is to say, having acted as her own commissioner of bankrupts, and whitewashed herself upon the most favourable terms—once more, with unblushing effrontery, presents herself in the character of a borrower. The pretext this time is a different one; the ingenious Peninsula has got “a new dodge.” Formerly the guineas were handed over to the sound of martial music and clashing arms, amidst cries of “Down with the Inquisition!” and “Viva la constitution!” Now it is the clink of the hammer we hear, and a vivid panorama unfolds itself before us. It is of the nature of a dissolving view. In the first instance we behold a rich and fertile country, a land flowing with milk and honey, or, better still, teeming with corn, and wine, and oil. But its prosperity is crippled for want of communications. Behold yonder shirtless and miserable peasant, issuing from his filthy tumble-down habitation! Abundance surrounds him; wine is more plentiful with him than water; not all the efforts of himself and family, aided by the pigs and by that sedate-looking jackass, suffice to consume a fourth part of the delicious fruit produced by his orchard, with so little painstaking on his part. How gladly would he exchange a cart-load of wine and fruit for a shirt to interpose between his tawny skin and his garments of coarse woollen cloth, for a light linen jacket, for cool neat dresses for his wife and daughters, for a few of those articles of furniture which the poorest English cottage possesses, but in which his dwelling is so lamentably deficient! But how can he do this? His neighbours are either as well supplied as himself with the produce of the soil, or they have neither money to buy it with, nor goods to barter for it. For leagues and leagues around, there is neither town nor village in whose overstocked market his commodities would find a sale, or have more than a nominal value. True, at the coast there are people waiting, red-haired barbarians from foreign parts, addicted to strong drinks and plum-puddings, and perfectly willing to take his wine and raisins, and to give him, in return, clothing suited to his climate, crockery for his kitchen, a better knife to prune his vines, and an implement of tillage somewhat superior to that extraordinary antediluvian plough, which in England would be put under a glass case, and exhibited as an Aztec curiosity. He has heard that there are such people, and bethinks him how he can convey to them his fruit and wine-skins. It is very far from his hamlet to the nearest camino réal, and in the interval there is no road much better than a bridle-path. Carriers there are none; of canals he has never heard; he looks at his jackass, but the burro sagaciously shakes his ears, as if to decline so distant a journey. So the poor peasant leans upon his spade, and wipes away a tear, in the midst of his useless abundance; pours out upon the ground the wine of last year, to make room for the better vintage of this one, and purchases, at an exorbitant price, of the contrabandista, the smuggled manufactures, whose original cost has been quadrupled by the danger and difficulty of their introduction, and by the long journey on mule-back from the coast.

This affecting picture now melts away, the scene changes—we have all witnessed the sort of thing at the Polytechnic, and those who have not will find something very like it in most Spanish railway prospectuses—and we are transported into a country where on all sides is to be traced the gratifying progress of industry, commerce, and prosperity. “’Tis Spain, but slothful Spain no more!” All is bustle and movement. Busy towns, improving villages, a thriving peasantry, sharp misery disappearing, comfort and civilisation rapidly advancing. The secret of the change, the charm that has wrought it, is to be found in one word, and that word is Railway. Diverging from la corte, from that capital of the civilised world, the court par excellence, by Spaniards never sufficiently to be lauded—from sandy, treeless, waterless Madrid, in summer a furnace, in winter an ice-house—long iron lines extend in all directions, to every frontier, throwing out branches right and left as they proceed, and finally joining other lines which run parallel to the sea-board. That which gold—when it flowed, in a broad continuous stream, from a newly-discovered continent—was powerless permanently to bring about in the prosperity of Spain, is now effected and assured by the ruder agency of iron. The very nature of the Spaniard is transformed; he is no longer indolent and procrastinating, but active and prompt; the most go-ahead Yankee might take a lesson from him. He has abolished his suicidal tariff, and is applying himself, heart and soul, to the amelioration of that which must long constitute his country’s true wealth—the olive and vine, the corn-field and orchard, the fleece and the silkworm. The stimulus has spread throughout the land, and is felt by all classes. The peasant, whom we lately beheld hungry and half naked in the midst of abundance, is now a prosperous farmer, and annually sends coastwards many a good cask of wine and case of fruit. The contrabandista has turned stoker; and the lazzaroni lad whom we saw, in the last picture, crouched in the shadow of a crumbling wall, and pursuing entomological researches in the interior of his tattered vest, is hardly to be recognised in that active chap, in a glazed cap and uniform jacket, who is hard at work greasing the wheels of the locomotives.

It is impossible to deny the immense superiority of the latter over the former of these two pictures. The pre-railroad one is sketched from life; the post-railroad is the offspring of the imagination of a Spanish railway projector. The former might be signed, “Truth,” the latter, “Salamanca.” The artists, it will be noticed, are of very opposite schools.

The question of Spanish railways is to be contemplated and examined under two distinct points of view. First, as regards their probable effects upon the state of the country, its trade, prosperity, &c.; secondly, with respect to the prospect of profit, and chances of repayment of those foreigners who may be induced to embark in any of the numerous schemes propounded. The first of these two points may be succinctly disposed of. “The general poverty of Spain is very great,” wrote a good authority on the subject in 1845.⁠[17] Since then eight years have elapsed, years of peace and of a tranquillity almost uninterrupted; yet, within the last few weeks, we have been assured by recent travellers in the country, and by Spaniards—who cannot deny the wretched condition they deplore and feel ashamed of, but are impotent to improve—that Spanish poverty and misery are in no degree diminished. The want of means of communication must be reckoned, if not amongst the causes of that unfortunate state of things, at least amongst the obstacles to its removal. And there can be no reasonable doubt that the establishment of an extensive system of railroads would be productive of great improvement and advantage to Spain. These would not be so rapidly manifest as in more populous and industrious countries, and amongst a more energetic race. Years might be required to do what months have accomplished elsewhere. But ultimately the irresistible power of the greatest invention of this century must make itself felt. “Nothing,” says an accomplished English lady, and intelligent observer of Spain, of whose interesting work, the result of three years’ travel and sojourn in that country, we shall presently speak, “could tend more to improve Spain than the establishment of great main lines of railway.” Whilst agreeing in this respect with Lady Louisa Tenison, we think it desirable to extend our investigation a little farther than she has done, and to examine the probable position of the persons who may be induced to advance money for the construction of those important arteries.

The mountainous character of Spain has been frequently and justly urged as a great, if not an insuperable, obstacle to the formation of long lines of railroad in that country. Ford, in his usual lively and satirical strain, long ago denounced these as impossible of construction.⁠[18] The subject, however, is too serious to be jocularly dismissed in a couple of amusing pages. We readily admit the extreme difficulty and expense of tunnelling “mighty cloud-capped sierras which are solid masses of hard stone;” but a little perseverance and investigation sometimes enables one to turn a difficulty which he could not hope to level, and we have been assured by practical Englishmen, whose attention has been particularly directed to the subject, that, in some of the most formidable of Peninsular mountain-chains, research brings to light defiles through which a moderate amount of labour would enable the locomotive to wind or incline its way. Then long tracts of level in the interior of the country offer some compensation for costly work in mountain districts; and, upon the whole, and at a proximate compensation, Spanish railroads would probably not be so expensive in construction as has been believed and affirmed by many. The most costly and difficult of all would be the Northern Line, about which such a stir has lately been made, which has caused such agitation and convulsions in the Spanish Cabinet, and led to such unpleasant exposure of the greedy manœuvres and reckless cupidity of the Rianzares gang, and of that very slippery gentleman, Señor Salamanca. The Northern Line (two hundred and fifty miles long, as now projected) would have to make its way through two tremendous mountain barriers—the Somosierra range and that continuation of the Pyrenees which extends through the whole of the north of Spain to Cape Finisterre. Whoever is acquainted with the Basque provinces knows that they are little else than one mass or agglomeration of mountains, through which any railway must pass that is to communicate with Bayonne. As a set-off to this, it is urged that, in the Castilian plains, there would be little else to do than to lay down the sleepers and rails. In railway matters it is not easy to see how impossibilities are to be compensated, consistently with the completeness of a line; and certainly, in the words of Ford, “any tunnels which ever perforate those ranges will reduce that at Box to the delving of the poor mole.” The projected Northern Company has contracted (rather prematurely) with Mr Salamanca, to make the line for about six millions sterling, or £24,000 a-mile; but little dependence will be placed, by sane persons, upon Spanish estimates, contracts, and contractors; and meanwhile, pending the sanction by the Cortes of the royal decree authorising the line, the project is a mere bubble, a château en Espagne, as the French say.

Supposing, however, the Cortes to be bullied, tricked, or wheedled out of their consent, the mountains bored, the tunnels made, the line opened—all for the stipulated six millions—what are the probabilities of a return to the shareholders in this precious speculation? In the first place, it must be observed that the Spanish government, which has just fobbed off its creditors with a shilling or two in the pound, proposes, with that honourable consistency and good faith that habitually characterises it in all financial and most other matters, to guarantee to the shareholders in this and several other extensive railways six per cent interest on the capital advanced. It is the old story. The capitalist gets the first dividend or two (paid out of his own money, of course), and then, when all calls are paid up, the Spanish treasury sports its oak, and the finance minister of the day, looking lugubriously through the vasistas, posts up “no effects.” The shareholder perhaps consoles himself with the reflection that in a year or two the line will be open; and that then, when the proceeds of a lucrative traffic pour in, there can be no pretext of inability to pay, and he will get both dividend and arrears. To satisfy him as to his prospects, we shall quote two highly competent authorities⁠—

“Speculators will do well to reflect that Spain is a land which never yet has been able to construct or support even a sufficient number of common roads or canals for her poor and passive commerce and circulation. The distances are far too great, and the traffic far too small, to call yet for the rail. The outlay will be on an inverse ratio to the remuneration; for the one will be enormous and the other paltry. The Spaniard, a creature of routine and foe to innovations, is not a locomotive animal;—local, and a fixture by nature, he hates moving like a Turk, and has a particular horror of being hurried.”—Ford, p. 799.

Thus far the Handbook man. We turn to an interesting and important letter on the subject of Spanish railroads in the journal whose untimely revelations have procured it the hard sentence of exclusion from Spain.

“It cannot be too often urged that ‘Royal decrees’ have no legal force until confirmed by the Cortes, and even then, in questions of finance, they usually exceed the capabilities of the country; therefore, however strong the desire of Spain to see locomotives crossing the country, it is impossible for the finances to pay six per cent interest, even upon lines already guaranteed. If such were possible, it would be additionally disgraceful, whilst the interest on the national debt is not paid. There are many legitimate and profitable means of employing capital in Spain, independently of the delusive guarantee of ‘Royal decrees,’ or the guaranteed interest, which will be paid only so long as it suits the present temporary object of drawing forth foreign capital. Many instances could be given of the success that has attended glass, iron, lead, and other works, when established in proper localities, which give a return of 30, 40, and, I am assured, of even 50 per cent per annum, without any protection from the government. Until railways can also be established on their own intrinsic merits, relying exclusively on the traffic to remunerate the shareholders, it is not safe to attempt them, as, at the first unfavourable change in Spanish finances, the interest is sure to remain unpaid. It is very easy, as in the case of the Northern line, to make a brilliant prospectus, and trace a line upon the map, passing through numerous towns; but those who have travelled in Spain do not forget that there is not enough passenger traffic between Madrid and France to fill a diligence throughout the year. Neither Valladolid, Burgos, Vitoria, nor any of the other towns mentioned, contain a locomotive population; and, in the entire distance, until the industrious Basque provinces be approached, there is scarcely a manufacturing village.”—Paris Correspondence of the Times, 30th August 1853.

The greater part of what is here truthfully and forcibly stated is equally applicable to all long lines of railway in Spain. It is unnecessary to pile up facts, or to expend more time in demonstrating the risk, or rather the certain loss incurred by all who lend money to the thriftless, faithless Spaniard, for the carrying out of his new mania for ferro-carriles. His object is to supply himself with railroads at foreign cost. He has not the remotest intention of paying interest, when the lines are once completed; so that, if the traffic does but pay its expenses, he has the property for nothing. We do not hesitate to denounce the whole scheme of Spanish railroads as an impudent and gigantic attempt at a wholesale national swindle. The only persons who would be benefited by it, in case of its success, would be that sprightly Wizard of the North, Mr Salamanca, and a few other speculators of his kidney, Queen Christina, the Duke of Rianzares, and their particular friends and adherents.

We should be sincerely glad, for the sake of the Spanish nation, whose many good qualities we (whilst utterly condemning, contemning, and abominating their dishonest government, their intriguing licentious royal family, their greedy dishonest speculators, and their useless lazy army of empleados) highly and justly admire, to see their land lapped to-morrow in an iron network, could it be done by stroke of fairy-wand or touch of Aladdin’s lamp. But that the fifty millions sterling (we are informed that is the sum needed for the whole scheme of Spanish railway) should be filched from British pockets, into which Don Spaniard has so repeatedly, and on such various pretexts, dipped his digits—never withdrawing them empty—is what we most decidedly object to. The only lines for which there is at present room in Spain, and that are likely to give a profit to the shareholders, are short lines in the most populous and industrious districts. And these should only be gone into when they are got up by private companies, and without government intervention of any kind. The directors should be able to head their prospectus, as Paris shopkeepers head their advertisements, with the words, “Sans garantie du gouvernement.” No reliance can be placed on anything in which a Spanish government has a right to interfere: a feeling now pretty prevalent, and which has swamped, at least for the present—and we hope for a long time to come—the schemes of the Spanish Hudson. Lines like the Madrid and Aranguez, (did it belong to a company, instead of to the state), like the Barcelona and Mataro—a private line, paying a good interest—and like the proposed eighteen-mile line, connecting Cadiz, Port St Mary’s, and Xerez, are those that may safely be gone into. The last named (which is, if we are not mistaken, independent of the government) ought, with decent management and reasonable economy, to be one of the most profitable bits of railway in Europe. And it is strong evidence of the wholesome distaste at present entertained in this country for everything Spanish, that the London committee appointed to allot a portion of the shares in this certainly most promising enterprise received scarcely a single bona fide application, and were fain to abandon the idea of distributing any in England. So that there seems some hope that John Bull, who usually buys his experience dear, and who has only lately become fully convinced how very insolvent a virtue is Spanish patriotism, will not wait till he burns his fingers, to make up his mind as to the very rotten nature of Spanish railroads.

Enough upon this head. In Spanish phrase, we place ourselves at the feet of the fair authoress of the remarkably handsome volume, two lines in which have led us into the foregoing reflections, and ask her pardon for our want of gallantry in allowing our own lucubrations to take precedence of her strong claims to notice. Lady Louisa Tenison furnishes us with practical proof that, if “great lines of railroad” be a desideratum in Spain, they are by no means indispensable in order that delicately-nurtured dames should visit with safety and enjoyment the most beautiful, and some of the wildest districts of the Peninsula. The romance of travel is evidently at an end, as far as Europe is concerned, when English ladies ride through Spain for months together, encountering as few adventures as though their palfreys pranced in Hyde Park. What, not one brush with banditti, or narrow escape from ambushed assassins! Not a single midnight alarm in the lonely venta, or hand-to-hand conflict with ferocious contrabandistas, in the gloomy sierra, or on the wild despoblado? We grieve to say, not one. Persons there are who, having rambled more or less in Spain, and desiring to perpetrate a book, deem it their duty to the public, and to their publishers, to give spice to the volume by blending fiction with fact. They carefully note exaggerated tales, and polite hoaxes, put upon them by waggish muleteers, or at Madrid tables-d’hôte; embellish them to the best of their ability, and, the cookery complete, present the comical olla to British palates. Ladies and gentlemen taste, and wonder, and vow that Spain shall be the last division of the earth’s surface in which they will set foot, to be carried off to the mountains for ransom, or shot at round corners by lurking bravoes. For our part, we entertain no dislike to the gasconading class of travellers in Spain, whom we hold to be rather amusing than otherwise; and all we would beg of them is to sail under their true colours, to call their books “A Romantic Tour,” or “Imaginative Wanderings,” and so give their readers a chance of sifting the chaff from the grain. It seems an article of faith with them, that a plain, intelligent narrative of what they saw and observed will not satisfy the public; that they must invent, if they would be read. In this respect, Lady Louisa Tenison’s volume will prove them mistaken. It is an unaffected and highly interesting record of her observations on Spain and its people. Three years’ abode, and a good knowledge of the language, should surely qualify so intelligent a person as Lady Louisa evidently is, to write a book on any country free from even an approach to error. Of all countries, however, Spain is the most difficult of which to acquire a thorough knowledge. That Lady Louisa may have fallen into some slight misconceptions is very possible, and ill-conditioned critics, who prefer detecting the flies to admiring the amber, may perhaps note them; but we are acquainted with no book on Spain, by an Englishman, of which the same may not be said. Captain Widdrington (Cook) is one of the most uniformly accurate, temperate, and impartial writers on the Peninsula with whom we are acquainted; but we daresay an enemy, bent on picking holes in his coat, might catch him tripping. Even Ford, who has treated the subject more in extenso, and in greater detail, and who may be said to have daguerreotyped Spain, fixing his tints with a slight racy dash of Chili vinegar, which makes Spaniards (who, whilst concealing their thin skin under a cloak of superb indifference and disdain, are sensitive to the opinion of foreigners) smart extremely, has not altogether escaped blunders, especially when touching upon modern Spanish politics. Of the book now before us we can say, with great truth, that very few of the many upon the same subject that have appeared within the last fifteen years have given sketches of Spain and Spaniards at once so fair, so sensible, and so generous.

To see Spain, there is nothing like the saddle. Ford and Borrow have emphatically told us this, and all who have been in the country will confirm their decision. Long rides may at first be attended with some weariness of limb and loss of leather; but these soon yield to custom, and, moreover, when persons travel for pleasure, they seldom need to make forced marches. Let them select an easy-pacing Spanish horse and a commodious saddle, and be sure that, in a fine climate and over rough roads, the advantages of this mode of progress more than balance its disagreeables. Lady Louisa Tenison, during her various journeys and excursions, frequently got to horse, riding English fashion, greatly to the admiration of the natives of the more remote places she passed through. Thus she avoided the tedious confinement of galeras and other essentially Spanish and especially wearisome vehicles, and saw many things and much country which she could not possibly have got at except on horseback. No less astonished, we dare to swear, than at her riding-habit and sidesaddle, were the good people of Castile and Andalusia at the English lady’s appearing at all in the heart of their sierras, in their remote villages and unfrequented posadas. Prodigiously must they have been puzzled to conjecture her motives for quitting the comforts of Cadiz and Malaga, to endure hardship and encounter fatigue; for, as she truly says, “As to any enthusiasm about beautiful views, or undergoing any fatigue or trouble in their pursuit, such nonsensical things are classed amongst the other eccentric fancies of the very mad English. A person drawing for the mere love of art is hardly considered in his senses. I have often been asked for how much I would sell my drawings; and, when I replied that they were done merely for amusement, a smile of mingled incredulity and pity convinced me that I was considered not over wise or candid; and, upon one occasion, in the Court of the Lions, whilst copying the arabesques, some inquisitive visitors came to the conclusion that I was painting new patterns for fans!” And at Grazalema, in the sierra of Ronda—a little town plastered, as Ford says, “like a martlet’s nest on the rocky hill,” and one of the places where the inhabitants, unused to the intrusion of foreigners, thronged the streets to gaze and wonder at the amazons—the balcony on which Lady Louisa stationed herself with her sketch-book was escaladed by an adventurous youngster, bent on ascertaining the nature of her mysterious proceedings. “Nothing could be more amusing than the tone of contemptuous surprise in which he exclaimed to the crowd, ‘Nada particular; todo blanco!’ an announcement which was received by his friends with evident signs of disappointment. The excitement spread even to the upper classes in Grazalema, and I had an embassy from some young señoritas, who wished to see what I had been doing—a request I could not well comply with, for the best of reasons, that, at that early stage, there really was nothing to be seen.” However unsatisfactory to the Grazalema critic, the result of Lady Louisa’s sketches at that place has been one of the best of the charming views and characteristic illustrations, of which nearly fifty are distributed through her volume.

Most travellers in Spain, possessed of an eye and a taste for the national and characteristic, deplore the Frenchification that country has for some time past undergone, and whose progress becomes annually more rapid and apparent.

On landing, Lady Louisa Tenison was unpleasantly impressed by this—at Malaga, where she dwelt for the winter after her arrival in Andalusia. We must not wonder if some of a lady’s first observations are about a bonnet. She regrets to see this comparatively unbecoming covering creeping in—even in the south, and supplanting the graceful mantilla—Parisian fashion ousting Spanish grace. Spanish ladies ought to understand that the rich masses of their abundant hair—their opulente chevelure, as a French novelist would call it—are unfavourable to bonnet-wearing. Parisian women, upon the other hand, who have generally thin hair, offer excellent polls whereupon to perch the masterpieces of milliners. But it is quite horrible to think of a dark-eyed, olive-complexioned Andalusian maiden covering her exuberant tresses, which, when unbound, descend to her very heels, and drape her like a garment—so that she might ride, a second Godiva, unabashed through Coventry’s or Cadiz’ streets—with a rose-coloured capote, in lieu of the beautiful veil of black or white lace which, as Lady Louisa justly remarks, lends her a peculiar charm that cannot be rivalled. Then, in choice of colours, the daughters of Spain, it appears, are lamentably deficient in taste.

“The gaudy colours which now prevail have destroyed the elegance that always accompanies black, in which alone, some years since, a lady could appear in public. No further proof of this is required than to see the same people at church, where black is still considered indispensable, and on the Alameda with red dresses and yellow shawls, or some colours equally gaudy, and combined with as little regard to taste. The love of brilliant and showy colours appears a ruling passion in the present day, and offers a singular contrast to the fashion of twenty years ago, when a lady who should have ventured into the street dressed in anything but black, would have been mobbed and insulted by the people.”—(Castile and Andalucia, p. 8–9.)

And at Seville, we grieve to learn, “the fan is rapidly giving way to the parasol.” Surely the monkeys on Gibraltar rock are not more imitative than the charming Sevillanas and Malagueñas. The men, too, have laid aside the graceful and dignified capa, to adopt that most odious and abortive invention—dreamed by some puny French tailor after a heavy supper—the paletot! How is it that Spaniards, who boast of their Españolismo, who consider it an insult to be called Afrancesados, and who scorn their northern neighbours as gavachos, scruple not eagerly to adopt every French mode? Colbert once said that the fashions were to France what the mines of Peru were to Spain. They have since been proved to be a much more durable and valuable possession. Potosi is lost to Spain; but France still keeps, and is likely long to retain, the monopoly of frippery and finery, and Andalusian ladies, albeit no rich galleons now bear the treasures of another hemisphere into the port of Cadiz, find the wherewithal to become tributary to Parisian bonnet-makers. At Seville, however, Lady Louisa was glad to observe few bonnets—few enough to attract notice when seen, and to enhance, by the contrast, the beauty of the mantilla. Her first visit to the theatre, at Malaga, confirmed an impression she had taken up on landing, that Spanish beauty has been exaggerated by poets, painters, and travellers—three classes of persons to whom license in that respect is generally accorded. “My first disappointment was the almost total absence of beauty amongst the Spanish women.... They have magnificent eyes, beautiful hair, and generally fine teeth; but more than that cannot be said by those who are content to give an honest and candid opinion.” The admissions are liberal; and the three things named, if they do not constitute beauty, at any rate go a very long way towards it. But let us visit the Malaga theatre.

“All the best people were there, but only two or three very pretty faces were to be seen in the boxes. The pit, divided into seats, each having its own number, is wholly appropriated to gentlemen. When first we arrived, the Alcalde, or one of the Ayuntamiento, always presided in the centre over the royal box; but this practice has been discontinued lately, and the audience may now indulge in applause or disapprobation unrestrained.... One of the pieces which had the greatest run was a Spanish comic opera, called the ‘Tio Caniytas,’ which has taken immensely the last two years. An unhappy Englishman is the hero of the play; and his endeavours to cultivate the society of a youthful gipsy, in order to acquire with more facility the Gitano language, afford the Spaniards a good opportunity of turning our countrymen into ridicule; and he is victimised, in turn, by the old uncle and by the lover of his dark instructress. There are some very pretty airs introduced, and a characteristic dance called the Vito.”

Let the reader here turn to page 183 for an extremely spirited sketch of this gipsy dance, and for an equally graphic prose description of its peculiarities. Then return to the Malaga theatre, to look on and laugh at “a piece called the Mercado de Londres, (the London Market), brought out whilst we were there, and illustrating the adventures of a Spaniard in London. The incidents were not very flattering to our national pride, as the story turned on the interesting subject of a man selling his wife—an event which they seem to think of common occurrence in Soberbia Albion.”

The belief that in England men frequently sell their wives, and that such sale and transfer are perfectly legal and binding upon the three persons implicated in the transaction, is prevalent in various Continental countries, and is rather strengthened than destroyed by the indignant logic with which simple-hearted Englishmen are apt to combat it. Even if they thereby succeed in dissipating the absurd notion (which is not often the case), the foreigner, for the most part, affects to abide in his conviction, in order to tease the John Bull. Less civilised or less prosperous nations are delighted to find or fancy a stain on the scutcheon of one whose superiority they cannot but feel, although they may not admit it. The only way to treat them in such cases—particularly Spaniards, who are very satirical, and quick at hitting upon a “raw”—is to out-herod them at once, to gallop far a-head of their ridiculous assumptions, and assure them that if they go to England, they will find, upon every market-day and market-place, rows of women tethered and ticketed for sale. They soon discover that they are made game of, and end by discrediting that which they at first were inclined to believe. But we shall quit the theatre, and step across with Lady Louisa Tenison to the Protestant cemetery. “It is beautifully situated on the slope of the hills just below the fortress, and was a great boon obtained by the late Mr Mark, British Consul at Malaga. The intolerance of the Spanish nation in not allowing followers of any religion but their own to receive Christian burial in their country, is indeed disgraceful. At Cadiz, Malaga, and still more recently at Madrid, exceptions have been made; but everywhere else in Spain none but Catholics can be buried in consecrated ground.” The manner in which the exception at Madrid was made has lately been the subject of so much comment and discussion, that not much remains to be said about it. The intolerance, that Lady Louisa justly stigmatises as disgraceful, is to be laid at the door of the Spanish government, rather than at that of the nation, and perhaps is to be imputed less to the ministry of the day than to certain occult monkish influences. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that the present prime minister of Spain, General Lersundi, who began his military career twenty years ago as a private volunteer in the ranting, roaring, hard-fighting, loud-swearing corps of Chapelgorris—fellows who would as soon have robbed a church as a larder, and from whose hands few convents (or nuns either) that ever came in their way escaped unscathed—can approve or sympathise with the ridiculous stipulations, worthy of Spain’s blackest days of bigotry, which he was compelled to annex to his permission of Protestant interments at Madrid. But he was doubtless compelled to yield to the combined weight of the priest and the palace. How is the virtuous Isabella to obtain pardon for her peccadilloes, for the péchés mignons to which she is infamously addicted, if she does not atone for them by a double dose of piety, and, above all, by proving herself the “Most Catholic” of queens, and saving her capital from the scandal of witnessing the sober ceremonial of a Protestant funeral? The unchristianlike uncharitableness that is breathed by almost every line of General Lersundi’s well-known letter to Lord Howden, must, we are convinced, be disapproved by numbers of Spaniards, and by all enlightened Roman Catholics, whatsoever their nation. Early in the sixteenth century, when France had but recently emerged from the semi-barbarism and bloody religious persecutions of the middle ages, a French sovereign, Louis XIII., published an edict forbidding his Catholic subjects to apply to the Huguenots the offensive name of heretics. The Reformed Church had its places of worship, its cemeteries—everything, in short, which is refused to it two hundred and forty years later, upon the soil of that Spain which may be said, without exaggeration, to owe its very existence as an independent state to Protestant blood and treasure. In Spain, Protestants are still heretics and outcasts—ay, in the mouths of many, Judios, (Jews), included through ignorant bigotry with those despised children of Israel whom, notwithstanding their accursed descent, Spanish governments are often very glad to have recourse to, and to flatter and make much of, when pinched for coin, and anxious for an advance on quicksilver mines or Cuban revenue. For Spanish ministers are of that family of saucy dogs who do not scruple to eat unclean puddings, and profess a most Vespasianic indifference to the source of gold, so long as they get it into their hands; for, as the Spanish proverb says, money is always orthodox. And let us see what says, on this head, witty and hard-hitting Master Ford, who is always worth listening to, whether he be discoursing of Spain or gibbeting the addle-brained absurdities of an Urquhart. He bids us “visit, by all means, the Protestant burial-ground (the same of which Lady Louisa Tenison has just spoken), not because it is a pleasant ‘traveller’s bourn,’ but because it was the first permitted, in our time, for the repose of heretical carcases, which used to be buried in the sea-sands, like dead dogs, and beyond the low-water mark; and even this concession offended orthodox fishermen, who feared that the soles might become infected; but the Malagueños, even to the priest, never exhibited any repugnance to the dollars of the living Lutheran Briton, for el dinero es muy catolico. This cemetery, which lies outside the town to the east, was obtained and laid out by our friend Mr Mark, father of the present consul, who planted and enclosed the ground, and with great tact placed a cross over the portal, to the amazement of the natives, who exclaimed, ‘Con que estos Herejes gastan cruces!’ (“So, then, these heretics use crosses!”) (Handbook for Spain, p. 354.) Con que, we quit the subject, sincerely wishing, with the Christian charity that characterises us, that the authors, whosoever they be, of the recent ordinances respecting the burial of Protestants at Madrid, may never come to be buried either in the sea-sands, or at a cross-road, nor be smuggled to their graves, as it appears Englishmen are to be who have the ill-luck to give up the ghost within the precincts of “la corte.” And we return to Lady Louisa Tenison, from whom we have again been unconsciously wandering—certainly a most unjustifiable want of taste on our part. We re-open her book at a passage which makes us laugh outright—réir a carcajadas. “Spain,” says her ladyship, “wants means of developing her resources, under the guidance of a wise and honest government.” Truly, that does she, but where are we to look for the government in question? And if she got it, by a miracle, could one reasonably expect her to keep it? Judging from the past, assuredly not. One honest government, in our own day, Spain has had—when Espartero was regent. Its capacity was, perhaps, not equal to its probity; at any rate, the nation would not endure it; and its members have relapsed into private life, no richer—a rare fact to find in the annals of Spanish cabinets—than when they took office. Wisdom and honesty are indeed an uncommon combination in the land beyond the Pyrenees. Until some modern Diogenes succeeds, after long wandering lantern in hand over Spanish hill and valley, in discovering them united, we may look in vain for such a government as that which Lady Louisa Tenison, for Spain’s sake, desires to behold.

We will not close this paper without giving a longer exemplification than we as yet have done of the agreeable tone and style of the authoress of Castile and Andalucia. We select an amusing sketch of the Spanish court.

“The whole style of everything connected with the court in Spain is on a scale of great magnificence, as far as outward appearance is concerned. The palace is beautifully furnished; and the hall of the ambassadors, or the throne-room, as we should call it, is gorgeous. The drawing-rooms held by the Queen are called ‘Besa Manos,’ as all Spaniards kiss hands every time they visit the sovereign, and not only on presentation, as with us. They are held of an afternoon, the gentlemen’s Besa-manos concluding before that of the ladies begins. Foreigners are more generally presented at a private audience, and Spaniards themselves prefer it. The drawing-room is rather a fatiguing undertaking for the Queen; for, after the general circle has dispersed, all the members of the household, down to the lowest dependant in the palace, are admitted to kiss her hand. The balls are on a scale of great magnificence; and, although the Queen’s ardour for dancing has somewhat abated, she is still passionately fond of it, and keeps it up till four or five in the morning, her partners finding that the qualification of dancing well is a greater recommendation than rank or station.

“She has now grown immensely stout; and, with the most good-natured face in the world, has certainly nothing to boast of in elegance of manner or dignity of deportment. She looks what she is—most thoroughly kind-hearted, liking to enjoy herself, and hating all form and etiquette; extremely charitable, but always acting on the impulse of the moment, obeying her own will in all things, instead of being guided by any fixed principles of action. She dispenses money with a lavish hand, whilst her finances are not, by any means, in a flourishing condition. Her hours are not much adapted to business-like habits; she seldom gets up till four or five o’clock in the afternoon, and retires to rest about the same hour in the morning. She has one most inconvenient fault for a queen, being always two or three hours behind time. If she fixes a Besa-manos at two o’clock, she comes in about five; if she has a dinner party announced at seven, it is nine or ten before she enters the room; and, if she goes in state to the theatre, and the performances are announced for eight, her Majesty makes her appearance about ten.”

What innumerable mute maledictions must courtiers, cooks, and managers heap upon her unpunctual Majesty of Spain. Punctuality, it has been said, is the politeness of the great. In sovereigns, it is both politic and a duty. How great a contrast between the slip-shod, lie-abed practices of the Spanish Queen, and the early-rising, well regulated, active habits of our own royal family.

“The interior arrangement of the palace at Madrid would rather excite surprise in the minds of those accustomed to the regularity of the English Court. Isabel Segunda generally dines alone, and the ladies-in-waiting never reside in the palace, only going when specially summoned. The Queen and her husband are now apparently on good terms. He is a most insignificant-looking little man; the expression of his countenance, however, is not unpleasing, but his figure is mean and awkward—a counterpart, in this respect, of his father, the Infante Don Francisco de Paula.

“The court circle is completed by the Queen-Mother, whose former beauty has now disappeared, as she has grown very stout; but she possesses still the same fascinating voice, the same bewitching manner, and the same syren smile, which make all who speak to her bow before the irresistible charm which she knows so well how to exercise. Queen Christina might have worked an immense amount of good for this unhappy country, had she devoted her talents and energies to the improvement of the nation; had she exerted her powerful influence in a good and noble cause, how much might she not have accomplished! but instead of earning a reputation which would have called forth the admiration of posterity, she preferred sacrificing the interests of the kingdom for the sake of gratifying her own inordinate love of wealth, and has, in fact, proved merely worthy of the family from which she sprang.”

The account of the Queen of Spain’s habits derives particular pungency from the fact of its being derived from the writer’s personal observations. Of course Lady Louisa Tenison could but skim the surface; minutely to investigate and describe the manner of life of Isabella, would require a far bolder and more unblushing pen than it would beseem an English lady to handle. The remarks on Queen Christina are exceedingly just. No queen ever had a finer opportunity of benefiting her country, making herself adored by her people, and immortalising her name. Her popularity was once great, her talents are undeniable, her powers of fascination, the influence she acquires over all who come in contact with her, are precisely such as have above been told. Popular as the representative of anti-Carlism and of constitutionalism, she might have made herself beloved for her own sake. A large majority of the Spanish nation—which has ever been noted for its loyalty and monarchical predilections—asked no better than to esteem and respect her, and not to look upon her as a mere necessity, a sort of pis-aller, imposed upon Spain by circumstances, and accepted because anything appeared better than the vacillating, priest-ridden Carlos, and the tyranny he aimed at restoring. But it was soon discovered that, whilst professing to combat absolutism, and to represent liberal principles, Maria Christina was at heart an absolutist and a tyrant, that all her political tendencies were retrograde, and that she was utterly selfish, degradingly sensual, and unboundedly covetous. And, to her shame be it spoken, she brought up her child to be no better than herself. The opprobrious epithet shouted at the mother by the Carlist guerillas, during the civil war, was muttered by the Madrileños, but a very few years later, as often as the daughter showed herself in the streets of her capital—and with equal truth. The gross irregularities of Isabella are, at this moment, as notorious in her capital and throughout Spain as anything of the kind possibly can be. Christina, having now considerably passed her prime, has taken up, “for a good old gentlemanly vice,” with avarice. She has a numerous family by Mr Muñoz, for which she cannot hope, unless she dowers them very richly, to obtain such brilliant alliances as her ambition aspires to. So she speculates, accumulates, and hoards; and there is no saying to what exorbitant figure her fortune has by this time attained.

When such bright examples are set by royal personages, it is truly wonderful that any morality or honesty remains in Spain. The quantity is not large, and it must not be sought amongst the statesmen of the country.

“One or two instances, out of a thousand, may show the manner in which ministerial influence is exerted. In Pinos de la Valle, in the province of Granada, the Alcalde, whose office it is to preside over the elections, was suspended by the Governor as being adverse to the Government candidate; and a claim against the town of two hundred pounds was remitted, in consideration of the ministerial candidate being returned. In the town of Orgiba, in the same province, a fine of like amount was imposed, and a further one threatened, should the ministerial candidate not be returned; and, as if this were insufficient, the Alcalde was suspended, the second Alcalde was put aside, and a friend of the candidate named to conduct the voting, although a criminal suit was actually pending against him. It may be asked how a government can be allowed to exercise so shameful and baneful an influence? The discussion is a wide and difficult one; but one predominating cause may be found in that insatiable rage for government employment which pervades Spain. It is essentially a nation of two classes—‘empleados,’ or persons holding offices, dependent on the Government for their very bread, and ‘pretendientes,’ or seekers after place. Had Le Sage written in the middle of the nineteenth, instead of at the commencement of the eighteenth century, he could not have depicted the system more to the life. Public employment is the primary resource of every needy man who can read and write, as well as of thousands who cannot; the very doorkeepers and porters, who encumber the public offices, being legion.”

There is no gainsaying this. The empleomania, the rage for place, is at the bottom of much of Spain’s misery and degradation. It reduces numerous classes, which, in other countries, apply themselves industriously and profitably to professions, arts, and trades, to the mean condition for whose designation Spaniards employ two contemptuous and expressive words, whose satirical force can hardly be rendered in English—ojalateros and pordioseros, wishers and beggars.

Lady Louisa Tenison’s illustrations prove her as skilful with the pencil as she is pleasant with the pen, and materially enhance the attractions of her book. There is novelty in her choice of subjects, taste and artistical feeling in the manner of their treatment. The mechanical getting up of the work reflects credit on all concerned; and, as for Mr Bentley’s binding, it is so brilliant that we were almost afraid to touch it, and have been obliged to cover it whilst reviewing, lest our critical judgment should go astray after the gilding.

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