The Bridle Roads of Spain ... Second edition, with illustrations

Front matter

O&ee- (rtz&mArinyA. /i, Jc?. PUBLISHSD BY q.HO^TJ_SPCfi&C0,l_Os.DOJ. THE BRIDLE ROADS OF SPAIN. BY GEORGE JOHN CAYLEY, _U THOB OF " SIE REGINALD MOH.N." Sktonb fabiticm, faitlj Illustrations. LONDON: G. BOTJTLEDGE & CO. EARRINGDON STREET; NEW YORK: 18, BEEKMAN STREET. 1856. care, DEDICATION. Love hath an idle industry : And foolish lovers fondly trace The name they love in any place ; Nor stay to think how brief may be The record of such registry. They carve sequestered woodland boles Where solitude and silence reign : They scar the hostel window-pane, To shake when any brawler trolls His ribald catch to careless souls : Or wandering where with sullen roar The vexed sea-bosom maketh moan — Deep-murmuring echo of their own — They linger in the sand to score The name they love along the shore.

And yet they know the tree shall grow, Till tortured characters forswear Their legend : glass, though marked with Shall break : they know the tide shall flow, And leave the sand as smooth as snow. DEDICATION. So, Mabed, on {be first of these Ephemeral leaves, at random ta'en From scented coppice-wolds of Spain, I trace thy name, my heart to please — And trust them to the idle breeze ! The breeze of fashion fluttering by — "Which often sports with flimsy toys, And makes a busy murmuring noise 'Mid rustling leaves that yearly die- May let them fall or make them fly. What if such foliage flew or fell — It could but last a little while : And, whether fortune frown or smile, The first of these light leaves shall tell — I care not whom — I love thee well !

Preface

TO SECOND EDITION. When you have made a mistake, generally the worst thing you can do is to enter into explanations ; and when anybody begins with saying that something is generally inexpedient, you may be sure that he is, individually, and by special exception, going to do it himself. The reader will at once perceive that the Author of these pages, having rashly published a first, is now (perhaps still more rashly) about to apologize in a second edition. His work has met with, perhaps, more than its due pro portion of literary notice, in which, as is usual, it has been praised and blamed for the same things by different critics. Under these circumstances, the Author would have been content to adopt the old expedient of accepting the praise and ignoring the blame, if there had not been one grave charge reiterated alike by reprovers and com menders (by these as " a serious blemish, which we the more regret from the many excellences," &c. ; by those as the head and front of offending) — namely, the " unscru pulous mixture of truth and fiction, which would mar a better book than," &c. VI

PREFACE.

The Author takes this opportunity of assuring the intelligent and perspicacious reader, that he had no intention whatever of misleading him. He thought that, to the intelligent reader, the book would sufficiently explain its own plan, and indicate what was truth and how much fiction by subtile lines of demarcation not intended to catch the eye and arouse the suspicions of the careless and credulous. The result was, one more illustration of the danger of too hasty and general classifications. The intelligent were not vigilant enough, and the credulous not blind enough, for the Author's purpose. The critic (whose course through the wastes of light literature is often kangaroo-like) overlooked and overleapt all the cunning countersigns intended to warn him where a toil was spread for the unwary.

When the Author steps modestly forward, in a foot note, to disen tangle the meshes and beg pardon, it is too late. The critic has taken offence, and refusing to be comforted, lays about him, tearing the flimsy fabric in pieces, like the bee in this fable by Loqman el hakim. THE SPIDER AND THE BEE. An ingenious little spider had spread her nets amid the tall rank stalks of certain weeds that grew over the remnant of a carcass. ' The lion had left it to the wolves, the wolves to the vultures, and the vultures to the flies, which last were still buzzing in countless swarms among the putrid bones. Many were already caught in the toils, when a brisk young bee came booming across the wilderness, who, when he heard the collective buzzing, mistook it for the hum of his own tribe. He at once plunged into the weed-clump to TO SECOND EDITION.

VII look for flowers, and became entangled in the cobwebs. These he was indignantly demolishing, when the spider thus accosted him : — " Oh vagrant son of the hive — an evil hour hath borne thee hither ! wherefore did'st thou not stay to observe that these be base weeds barren of honey, and these slender toils woven for foolish flies ! Now, thou hast rent my poor web, and set free my legitimate prey, while thy blustering outcries have alarmed the frivolous race on which I make my living, so that now, on thy departure, I may mend my broken nets in vain." But the bee answered — " Out upon thee, mother of snares ! Let this warn thee not to catch bees any more ; and be thankful thou hast escaped my sting." " Had I meant to catch bees," she replied, " I would have spun my nets of stronger line, and spread them among flowers.

I trusted to the wisdom of bees for my safety, as I did to the folly of flies for my subsistence." So the bee flew away in great dudgeon ; and when the spider had mended her web, the flies (who would never have found it out for themselves) were aware of the danger, and left the spider to starve. This fable is, of course, no more to be found in the original Arabic than the " Cronica de los Sultanes de Granada, por el Sabio Abou Kizeb" (father of lies), p. 182. The Author, being very much in the position of an unfortunate wit, who has made an elaborate joke which a prosaic company, taking it (as the French say) " at the foot of the letter," are inclined to consider a perversion of facts, will now, with the best grace he can, relinquish his unsuccessful

PREFACE.

attempt at pleasantry, in the hope of rescuing, at least, his impeached veracity. Entertaining what he believes to be a very common opinion, that the books of readable travel offered to the public were usually more indebted to the embroidering needle of fiction than the loom and shuttle of fact ; and giving the British public credit for a general curiosity about manufactures of all sorts, the Author conceived the idea of writing a book of ordinarily accurate modern travel, which should expose to the reader the process by which such books are generated, and the relative proportion of truth and fiction which they contain. He proposed to show how a seed of suggestion, picked up by the way side, germinated in the note-book, and finally expanded in printed leaves of florid narrative. Man is a practical animal, with a few romantic aspirations which affect his thoughts much more than his actions.

The romance of every man's life consists, not half so much in what he does or has done, as in what he thinks of doing, or thinks he might have done. We were two gentlemen of letters travelling through Spain, and our original plan was to write two parallel streams of narrative, in which the companion of the present Author was to tell what we did ; and the present Author himself relate, as verisimilarly as possible, what we thought of doing and thought we might have done. If this plan had been carried into effect, it might have proved a curiosity to the loungers of literature behind the scenes ; but what would the public in front of the footlights have thought of Siamese-twin Authors flatly contradicting one another in parallel columns ? TO SECOND EDITION. IX The fabulist would practically have had no chance at all.

But the veracious collaborateur was prevented by circumstances from appearing. The decorating artist, being thus left alone, at first thought of writing both the plain and adorned himself, and setting them side by side. But the crooked cannot run evenly with the straight. He found that he could not write fiction so entertaining that it would bear constant contradiction, and he compromised the matter by taking the main line of truth for his general narrative, and indulging in occasional diversions, which (set off by the confession of his being an embellishing Author, with occa sional hints and inuendoes not conspicuous enough to frighten the careless skimmer) he hoped would be at once perceived and understood by the critic as illustrations of his modified original scheme. It appears he was mistaken.

His manner of relating real and imaginary events is accused by the reviewers as so uniform, that they were unsuspiciously led at first to believe several cock-and-bull stories, which the Author a few pages subsequent confesses to be such ; and they are afterwards led to disbelieve other stories which they cannot satisfac torily make out whether he means to vouch for or discredit. The real mistake was not having made a general prefatory confession (which nobody would have read), a fault he is now rectifying in the second edition, by a candid avowal which will, at any rate, ease his literary conscience ; and if, as he hopes, no one reads it before reading the book, it will do no harm. Towards this desirable end he has made his preface rather long and tedious ; and is now about to hide his confessions in the midst of an interminable paragraph. X

PREFACE.

The first idea of the scheme of the work arose from the scene in the water-colour shop (p. 5), The first instance of pure invention is the Legend of Beaucaire (p. 11). Then there is that terrible catastrophe of the slaughtered robber, which is true up to the point of hearing the pistol report in the dehesa, and the Author's imagination accounting for the report (p. 82). "Still the shot had to be accounted for. Has your imagination prepared you for something dreadful ? Mine had! Something like what follows." Observe, only something like, and all those italics to put the wary reader on his guard. In the original draught this letter was followed by a postscript, exposing the many points of extreme improbability which the most casual reader must detect in the story, and explaining the fact, which was thus : — In his sudden pursuit of the ponies, the Author had carried away all the pipe-lights.

The redoubtable brigand-slayer Harry was exercising his matchless prowess in blank cartridge practice at the end of his cigar, which he succeeded in lighting at the expense of his companion's vivid apprehensions. This postscript was suppressed from bibliopolical motives, against the Author's better judgment, and the hint that, after all, it might not be really true (vol. I. p. 214, 1st edition), was slipped in afterwards, a sop to conscience, and as bank-notes are sent by surreptitious penitents to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The story of Joshua (p. 141), who had cheated one of the faithful in the sale of a bewitched donkey, is an invention; though it is true that we found the prison, following a fair daughter of Israel carrying relief to her father. Of course, the Lady Jane in muleteer's costume is an imaginary sketch : it TO SECOND EDITION.

XI arose from a conversation on the possibility of travelling, as we were doing, in married life. The beggar on assback was a real man, and the Author did earnestly advocate robbing him, but could not persuade his companion to enlist in the undertaking. The only other acknowledged fabrication is the monomaniac planter of onions and lath crosses at Coca. But there are a number of what might seem, to the careless reader, to be narrations, which are, in fact, nothing more than suggestions of what might have happened. The extra vagant buccaneering expedition (p. 129) ; the imaginary imprisonment (p. 168) ; and the theoretical robbery of two British clergymen, all related as what might have happened, are surely not to be quoted against the work as clumsy attempts to deceive, throwing discredit by implication on all the rest of it, which, with the palpable and self-evident exceptions specified, is strictly faithful to the fact.

In conclusion, the Author hopes and trusts that, after this full and minute, though not improbably or undesignedly tedious account of exceptional instances, his word may be taken for the strict, literal, and unvarnished truth of the remainder. THE BRIDLE KOADS OF SPAIN.

Chapter I

On Thursday, October 16th, of the year of the Great Exhibition, I embarked at the Waterloo station, where I booked myself through to Paris for two-and-twenty shillings. The carriage was full of foreigners. Opposite me was a young German, by a curious coincidence, also on the way to Spain. He was going by Lishon, and I by Barcelona. I hegged him to call on me as he passed through Seville in the winter ; but, separating at Southampton for our several packets, we forgot to exchange names. At Southampton — which we reached about midnight — we were rattled down in an omnibus to the pier. Here we had to pay harbour dues, amounting to twopence each individual, and a penny each package. A Frenchman who had been a fortnight in London, and had not an atom of luggage, made great outcries at having to pay his twopence.

" Mais c'est infame ! Comment deux pence — puisque je v PERFIDE ALBION. n'ai point de bagages — absolument rien ! 'Cre coquin de pays oii Ton fait tout payer, meine les choses qui n' existent pas, 'cristie !" I explained to him that it was for himself, not any " effets suppositifs; " and consoled him with the reflection that the most Spartanesque traveller must at least carry a body about with him ; and it ought not to vex his spirit having to pay twopence for so important a vehicle, for, after all, twopence was not a heavy ad valorem duty. I met him again on deck. He was a hard-featured, weather-beaten man. One of his eyes opened wider than the other, with a ludicrous, half-fierce, half-bewildered expression. His shirt was curiously dirtjr, even by the light of the fusee with which he Ut a cigarette I made for him to calm his nerves.

He approved of the Exhibition, and said he had occupied himself in it going " ga et la pour voir ce quit y avait de curieux ; car le pays n'est pas amusant." He could not speak a word of English, and had the impression that everybody wanted to cheat him. There is a theory wherein the wisdom of our ancestors is supposed to dwell, that much virtue lies between the sheets of a bed, and that at all hazards travellers should undress before they attempt to sleep. To me it would appear that there is neither comfort nor amusement iu the taking off and putting on of garments (unless these functions are intercalated by a satisfactory means of general ablution, which on a steamer is not the case), but much the contrary. Again, where the beds are coffins, and the sheets about the breadth and texture of long-towelling, there is a diffil.VOCOON IN A BERTn. 3 culty in keeping the narrow strip of bedclothes balanced on one's knees and shoulders.

The coarse sheets, especially, show a strong constitutional tendency to revert to their proper destination, converting themselves into tightly twisted cables, and writhing themselves round their victim, who, if he be a person of classical imagination, dreams he is a childless Laocoon in a cold climate, and wakes up at once stifled and chilled. The prejudice against sleeping dressed has doubtless come down to us, by tradition, from days when dress was much tighter and more uncomfortable than in these loose and easy days of long waistcoats and tweed shooting jackets. Having made these reflections, I took off my shoes, but toned the straps of my trousers to prevent them ruckling up, put my feet into the sleeves of my great-coat, whose skirts I turned up over my knees, spread my plaid over all, and went to sleep.

Chapter II

Friday, October 17. It was a fine sunshiny morning. We got into Havre at a quarter to ten. I immediately went ashore and breakfasted, leaving my portmanto to its fate. Returning from breakfast in about half an hour, my port manto was still on the deck, unmoved and immovable. I told the douaniers that I must have my matte, for I was B A DETRUNCATION. going off by the eleven o'clock train. They shrugged their shoulders and said it was impossible. The luggage would not be looked over till two o'clock— that it was not their fault if the boat came too late to catch the train. Knowing that the most formidable of French impossibilities are always routable by a charge of cavalry, I got a boat, and succeeded — not without a considerable amount of personal exertion and blustering — in getting my portmanto on shore before the departure of the eleven o'clock train — too late, however, to be registered ; and I was hur ried into my carriage with some misgivings, though the porter said he would put it in.

I was aware that in France nothing can be done without the greatest amount of absurd and useless formality, and that they are always determined to protect you, whether you think the risk worth the incon venience of the remedy or not ; but it seemed too monstrous that they should separate a man from his luggage, merely because the registry had closed. When, in the front rank of an anxious crowd, I rushed to those awful folding portals whereover is written distribu tion de bagages (but where should be written, lasciate ogni speranza, voi che non hegistrate), I waited there with agonizing sensations, and saw, through the grating, trunk after trunk, and valise after valise, and every other sort of luggnge, borne in ou the shoulders of brawny and blousy porters. It came not. I made my complaint.

It would come by the next train, five in the morning. I signed my name in a book — sighed, aud sallied forth. It was about six. The night was sidling fast. I had intended to go direct to the Lyons railway, and take up A BRUSH WITH THE ENEMY. 5 my night's quarters at some neighbouring hostel. That was now impossible, so I put into the Hotel de Normandie, close to the station — hired an apartment — rolled up my great-coat, with the revolver and three rouleaux of nine Napoleons each, put up in separate fingers cut off an old glove, in its pockets — stuffed the bundle into a closet, locked the door, and went forth into the night, bearing with me the key of my arsenal, treasury, and wardrobe. I dined — called on a friend in the Boulevard des Italiens, and asked him where I could get water-colours.

Following his directions, I went to the Place de la Bourse. I was some time selecting my paints and brushes. The shopman, a smart young democrat, seemed to take no interest whatever in selling his wares. Probably he was the prodigal son of the establishment, with a fixed income. He seemed, " not to put too fine a point on it," intensely bored, and ever and anon would ejaculate, ..... .._., " Oh, mon Dieu, est-il possible ! " At last I finished my selection of paints, and began to try the points of the brushes. This overcame his last detachment of patience, and he said, — " Oh ciel ! les pinceaux ne sont pas long a choisir ! ! ! " " II me parait que je vous ennuie ?" " Un peu, vraiment ! " " Comrae ce n'est que pour vous distraire, monsieur, dans vos moments de loisir que j'achete ces objets, et comme il m'est parfaitement indifferent qu'ils soient bien ou mal choisis, je continuerai avec deliberation l'accomplissement de mon affaire."

This speech acted, of course, as a declaration of war. Amid much violence and undiplomatic language, I with- I stick to mt colours. drew the golden ambassador I held in my hand ready to drop into his capital. He, on the other hand, undid my parcel and put each particular paint in its place, under the glass counter, with a flourish ; making an extra flourish with the vermilion — I suppose by way of expressing his political preference for that hue. Thus I should have lost my only chance of being able to make any water-colour drawings in Spain (for there are no materials to be bought in the country, says the infallible Mr. Ford), had I spoken as I have written. Instead of this, at the point where he delivered himself ef the apophthegm " that paint-brushes were not things that took long to choose," I reflected that the poor young man was probably in love, or had a headache, or an appoint ment, or had been recently reproved by his parents.

There fore, though I composed the little speech in my head, and had it ready in case my patience should happen to give way, I managed to keep it to myself, and went on with a specious calmness choosing my brushes, and at length, paying my money, departed in peace ; I doubt not with the young man's blessing. Nay, also with his alms, for in his haste to be rid of me, I think he gave me about a franc too much change. However, out of pity for his weariness, and as the paints were quite dear enough as it was, I did not trouble him with restoring it. I now wandered about, and travelled a considerable dis tance, attempting to steer by the stars ; but, though in former days I used to know the quartier between the Seine aud the Boulevard pretty well, after about an hour I came unexpectedly on the Place de la Bourse agaiu.

SATURN AT A DISCOUNT. 7 There was a man with a great telescope planted on the pavement. "Approchez-vous, messieurs! Saturne avec son anneau! vingt-ciuq centimes ! " I had a look at the dull old grandfather of the planets trudging his weary round through space, with his broad baldrick slanting across his shoulder. A cold bath at the Bains Chinois took the day's dust off me on my way home to the hotel, where I straitfy charged the concierge to call me betimes.

Chapter III

Saturday, October 18. At a little before six I went over the way to the station. The stars were shining. Orion was high in the southern heaven, and bright-eyed Sirius hunting at his heel. The Twins were almost in the zenith, and the moon within her own breadth of Mars. I was just in time to see my lost one pulled out of the luggage-van ; and, after surmounting several impossibilities, I set off in a citadine for the Lyons railway-station. Dawn was grizzling the beard of night (by the way, night is classically an old woman • but what of that, since some old women have beards ?) as I mounted my vehicle : and as my jaded and superannuated cart-horse stumbled along the Boulevard, broad streaks of light rose horizentally, as if Phœbus was drawing up his Venetian blinds. STATIONARY AND THE BOOK-TRADE.

At last he put his head out of his window ; and the first of his beams fell on the brazen mountebank who cuts his continual caper and blows his own trumpet on the column of the Bastille. Having deposited my luggage at the foot of a wood column, and having taken advice of the railway authorities as to the train to go by, I found I had just three hours and three-quarters to get my breakfast in. It was during the long blank interval which succeeded my meal that I be thought me of a certain little book, seven inches by four — prepared paper — lead point. I sought my portmanto at the foot of the pillar, brought the volume back to the Cafe du Chemin de Fer de Lyon, and began this history of my travels. I began it in the hope it might be an amusement to my self, and a safety-valve for the observations I am accus tomed to pour into the ears of my travelling companion, when I have one.

But it proved more trouble to write than I expected, and, on looking over, seemed deplorably dull. Let us hope it will look rather better in print. Moreover, I found an agreeable and instructive fellow passenger in Major Rawlinson, the arrow-headed character. He almost persuaded me to become an Assyrian, and go out to Bagdad instead of Seville, which, if I had done, the reader should have had an abstruse treatise on THE VNIFORM CVNEIFORM; OB, ALL THE ALPHABETS OF THE WORLD FROM THE ARROWHEAD. By RANDOM SHOTT, F.R.S. RHONE AND SAONE. 9 instead of this transpicuous volume, which those that run may read. The recital of my exceedingly ordinary and unimportant adventures has therefore slumbered for a few days. The railway took us as far as Chalons, whence the Saone steamer carried us forward and placed us to the debit of the city of Lyons.

In Lyons they did not take me, like Lord Chatham, " to see where the Rhone and the Saone, different as they are, meet at last." And if they had, it would have been of little use, as we arrived in the dusk of evening, and went away by the early twilight of dawn. I could see, however, that Lyons was a very remarkable town ; and as we ran rapidly along the deep gorge by which the Saone enters the city, where houses with bright windows seemed perched among the dark masses of rock, the bell of our steamboat, which kept ringing incessantly, awoke a garrulous society of shifting echoes. The Rhone below Lyons begins to grow gradually from picturesque to striking, and from that to sublime. The hills become larger and ruggeder, and their grey rocks are clothed with the bronzed and tawny verdure of autumnal-tinted vineyards.

Valence, Rochemaure, and Viviers are striking places; the Cote-d'Or, Ventou, &c, are respectable mountains ; and further down the real Alps themselves, which I had never seen before, lifted their snowy summits far away to the left. It seems to me a much finer river than the Rhine. We performed our voyage in a lean, gaunt, sheet-iron mammoth, 420 feet long, gorged with boxes, and barrels, and bales of all sizes and shapes. We were ill-accommo- MARSEILLES. dated, and charged dear. This great river-serpent dragged its slow length along to Avignon, where we dined, but saw little of the place, except the Saracenic-looking walls, and the coup d'œil from the train. The railway carried us in three or four hours to Marseilles, where Major R. was just in time to start for his caliphate in Bagdad by the Con stantinople steamer.

Chapter IV

Perpignan, October 28. Marseilles is a polyphylic, cosmopolitan, picturesque seaport, varied with every costume, and smelling of every thing in the world, but especially garlic. Having nothing on earth to do, I went and sat on the endmost post of the pier at the left jaw of the square basin, to enjoy the beauty of the weather, and admire the bright blue waters of the Mediterranean, as the sunlit sails scudded over it hither and thither. This is the first time I have seen it. We are aware its shores are empires. There were a good many fruit-stalls along the quays, and I ate a few dozen figs, which did not at all spoil my appetite for dinner ; after which I wrote letters home, and made up my mind not to go to Barcelona by steamboat. On the morrow, at noon, I set off for Perpignan, taking my place, as I supposed, all the way.

But I was swindled by the administrates — a most amiable, civil man, — who gave me a Corsican contraband cigar. TARASCON AND BEAUCAIRF. I had to retrace my trams on the railway as far as Tarascon, which is more than half-way back to Avignon. At Tarascon there was an interval of a mile or two in omnibuses, and we crossed the Rhone by a suspension bridge. Tarascon has a fine old castle, now used as a prison. On the opposite bank is Beaucaire, with its rival fortress. In the days of Bertrand du Guesclin, the respective lords of these strongholds were at deadly feud. Olivier de Beaucaire, a sly old fox, succeeded at last in entrapping the gay young baron of Tarascon ; and, while he kept him a prisoner, and continual boats were crossing and re-crossing the Rhone with negotiations for the exor bitant ransom demanded, the captive managed to captivate the heart of Mademoiselle Beaucaire.

She, of course, let him out by an underground passage. They were married ; their heir inherited both baronies ; and the castle of Beau caire fell into premature decay. I wonder whether the prisoners of the period at Tarascon make love to the jailer's daughter. Old Francois de Rastaignac, from whom I have this legend, adds : " Entre ces beaulx chasteaulx il y avoit aultrefoys une rude chayne ; et on faisoit force octroyes, ostant maintes soys les meilleurs barrycqs de ce bon vin du Cost, d'or, que tant aymaient les pyeux prestres d' Avignon." * I found his quaint old chronicle on a book stall in Narbonne, and might have bought it for two francs and a half, if it had not been too bulky a folio to carry all through the Peninsula and back. * " Between these fair castles there was of old a stout chain, and they exercised a considerable tallage, abstracting often the best barrels of that good wine of Cote d'Or, which the pious priests of Avignon so loved."