With a Pessimist in Spain

Front matter

WITH A PESSIMIST IN SPAIN "The Pessimist looked irresistible on her Donkey." WITH A PESSIMIST IN SPAIN BY MARY F. NIXON CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY Copyright By A. C. McClurg and Company A. D. TO MY MOTHER CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGH i gibraltar, - - - ii ii tangier, ... 33 iii cadiz, the cloud city - - 5 1 iv "la maravilla," - - 65 v seville, the fair, - - 76 vi spanish dances, - - 93 vii from the torre de la vela, - 103 viii the palace of the alhambra, - il8 ix the generalife, - - - - i34 x legends by the avay, - - 151 xi cordova and la mesquita, - 164 xii to the city of the goths, - 175 xiii "toledo, built and walled among the wars of wamba's time," - 189 xiv in old madrid, - - 200 xv pictures old and new, - 215 xvi from aranjuez to segovia, - 228 xvii the escorial and avila, - 243 xviii "old towns whose history lies hid in monkish chronicle and rhyme," 262 xix "burgos, the birthplace of the cid," 279 xx all the way to zaragoza, - 302 xxi a mountain monastery, - 328 xxii the spanish genoa, - - 341 xxiii "adios, espana!" - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE 'THE PESSIMIST LOOKED IRRESISTIBLE ON HER DONKEY," ... Frontispiece THE MAIN STREET OF GIBRALTAR, - Facing 22 THE MARKET OF TANGIER, - - 40 MURILLO'S SAINT ANTHONY OF PADUA, - 80 THE ALHAMBRA, - - - 1 18 'THE WATER LAY LIKE A SILVER THREAD THROUGH THE CENTER OF THE COURT," I42 'THE FIGURE STOOD OUT AGAINST THE BLUE SKY," - 152 THE GATE OF THE SUN, TOLEDO, - - l82 THE PLAZA MAYOR, MADUID, - - 210 THE GREAT SEGOVIAN AQUEDUCT, - - 236 LAS HUELGAS, THE FAMOUS CONVENT, - 294 THE LEANING TOWER OF ZARAGOZA, - 32O MONASTERY AT MONTSERRAT, - -

Chapter I Gibraltar

HE Pessimist is my most intimate friend. I have summered and wintered her, and while she is at times depressing, still she is a very good balance for my flightiness, and she has a nice admixture of the sugar and spice of which little girls are made. I have deliberately planned many tests fear ful to so brittle a thing as feminine friendship, and the Pessimist and I have even liked the same men, without hating each other. At last I determined to make a final effort. "Pessimist," I said, "but one thing re mains. We will travel together." The Pessimist smiled her sad, sweet smile. (Sad, sweet smiles may be poetic, but poetic things are sometimes very exasperating.) ' ' We will go to Spain, ' ' I said, emphatically. "Spain!" she gasped. 1 "We '11 be captured by brigands and in quisitioned and stilettoed and vendettaed and — " "Nonsense, Pessimist!

You 're sadly mixed," I said. "Vendetta's Corsica, stiletto's Italy and the rest are relegated to the Middle Ages. We are going to the land of the Hidalgo and Low Dago. It takes nine days to get there and you land at Gibraltar," I added practically. "Nine days!" sighed the Pessimist; "I shall be sea-sick nine whole days." "You won 't be, and if you are I '11 take care of you. Moreover the ship's doctor is sure to be adorable. He always is on the North German Lloyd Line. We can sail early in March," I remarked serenely. The way to manage the Pessimist is to take a great deal for granted. "You seem to have it all arranged," she said resignedly. "Perhaps you can tell me what I am to wear as a traveling dress?" "Certainly," I replied, with that cheerful insolence which forms so large a part of my character, and to which I owe my name of Optimist.

"You '11 travel in your tweed suit and take a silk waist and three print shirts. We are going to see sights and not to carry luggage. Our entire paraphernalia will consist of two GIBRALTAR. 13 hand-bags, two umbrellas, one Kodak and ourselves." "Have your own way about it," said the Pessimist solemnly. "But, if anything hap pens to me, cholera infantum, or anything," (vaguely) "I shall never go any place with you again." "No, probably not; but nothing's going to happen, certainly not cholera infantum." (The Pessimist is usually truthful, and she says she 's thirty-eight. I think she 's for gotten the first five years of her life, but as I was n't there until twenty years afterward, I never remind her of them.) Thus it was settled that we go to Spain ; and go we did. Over the events of the voyage let us draw a veil.

The Pessimist assures me that the table was excellent. She sampled it after the fifth day, and she also relaxed her pessimism suffi ciently to say that there were pleasant people on board. I cannot dispute the fact with her. I was not on board, and there were no pleasant peo ple in our cabin. There were two fiends for a part of the time and a wretched atom of humanity for long days and nights of torture. Suffice it to say that I did not fulfill my promise to take care of the Pessimist. Fortunately for Europeans who depend largely upon travelers for their existence, one always reaches port a few hours before com mitting suicide. On the morning of the tenth day I was able to sit up and notice things, and went on deck to find we had sailed by the Azores in the night, that Cape Saint Vincent was long passed, and Gibraltar a surety by four in the afternoon.

I found, also, that the Pessimist was engaged in studying the guide book. This is something I never permit. If information is desired I prefer to have my traveling companion receive it in a diluted form after it has filtered through the sieve of my cerebrum. If she reads the Murray or Badecker her self, she is likely to get it into her precious head that there is one particular thing she wants to see, and there is no rest for the weary until she has seen it. "Gibraltar is a rocky promontory three miles long and three-fourths of a mile wide, and its northern portion stretches to the prov ince of Andalusia," read the Pessimist solemnly. "There are fifteen thousand inhabi tants, consisting of Spaniards, Arabs, Jews, and English. The Bay of Gibraltar contains a great deal of fine shipping. The straits are fifteen miles wide and — " "Pessimist," I interrupted, "do you mean GIBRALTAR. 15 to say that you intend to read that guide book in preference to talking to me ?

I am surprised at you. Why do you care to know all those stupid details?" "I wish to know everything," she replied, stretching out her hands embracingly. I took advantage of this gesture to possess myself of the guide-book, remarking: "Very well, then, I will give you a few items of interest: "The Barbary ape is a small and very fes tive animal who disports himself in the crags and peaks of Gibraltar. He is not found anywhere else in Spain. As he is not am phibious he must have come over from the Barbary States by means of an underground passage beneath the straits." "That's very interesting," said the Pessi mist. "I mean to see a Barbary ape." I gasped in despair. It served me right for insisting on having my own way. I knew my friend well enough to feel sure that no one could induce her to leave Gibraltar until she had seen an ape.

Unless I could secure an organ-grinder's monkey to pose as the only original Barbary ape, I was lost. "They are seldom seen by strangers, being of a shy and retiring disposition," I said hastily. Then, to my delight, a timely inter ruption occurred. The day had been cloudy and a heavy fog obscured the way, but suddenly the sun burst through a bank of clouds, and without a moment's warning the great rock seemed to spring at us with such a bound as to almost make me jump back. At first I saw only a huge, dark mass, rear ing its haughty head even above the clouds which drifted across its rocky sides like dis solving snow-banks. Then — as we drew nearer and nearer, the clouds disappeared entirely, things began to assume form and comeliness, and what had seemed a shapeless mass assumed the bold outline of the well known mountain.

The green patches on its sides proved to be trees, stone-pines, aloes, and rough cacti, and below this, as the last shimmering cloud raised its wings like a great white dove and floated heavenward, I saw the town, the won derful, many-hued, strange, fascinating town of Gibraltar. There was the moss-grown ruin of the old Moorish castle, built by Abu-Abul-Hajes in 725 A.D. Gibraltar is supposed to take its name from Tarik, the "one-eyed Berber" who took it in 711, Gebel-Tarik, or Hill of Tarik being the derivation. Below there were houses set on the hillside one above another like stair steps, their flat GIBRALTAR. 17 roofs in soft shades of terra-cotta tiling, their walls painted in warm hues of blue, pink, lavender, rose, tawny brown, and cream, with lattices and vines and a bewildering variety of color.

Beneath the houses was the wall, rising sternly from the wharf, and then came the water of the bay, of that indescribable blue which must be seen to be realized. With the sun glancing upon it and the whitecaps dan cing until they fell from sheer exhaustion into a watery grave, and the blues of sea and sky melting into each other in perfect loveliness, I wondered how the Straits of Gibraltar could be considered so dangerous as they are. After feasting my eyes upon all this in silent admiration I turned to look at the Pes simist, who beyond the first surprised "Oh!" had said nothing. I found her seated on her steamer-chair grasping the arms and staring with wide-open eyes and mouth at the rock. (The Pessimist's mouth is large, but fortu nately the rock is stationary, else it might have fallen in, so widely had wonder dis tended her lips).

"Well, how do you like it?" I demanded. She gave me a disgusted glance. "I do n't like it at all," she said. "One doesn't expect to like a — a mon strosity! It's one of the wonders of the world. Do you realize that the highest point, Sugar Loaf, is fourteen hundred and thirty nine feet above the sea?" And she craned her neck to get a view of the very highest pinnacle, during which process her hat fell off and a gust of wind tossed her hair into a ckeval de frise. When I had righted matters I said very meekly, (for I saw plainly that I had not rescued my friend from the guide book quickly enough and that she was not to be trifled with): "Yes, dear, but it was not the rock but the town I wanted to know how you like." Then, seeing that she began to relent a lit tle, I went on quickly: "We are to stay at the 'Calpe,' called after the old Greek name for Gibraltar.

The Phœ nicians sailed here and called it Alube, and this rock and Ceuta — that queer, dim outline across the straits — were the Pillars of Her cules. These were the western edges of the world." I had begun with quite a flow of eloquence, but my oration was cut short by the appear ance of the small boat which was to take us ashore, as our great ship dropped anchor in the bay. There was a great turmoil at the custom house, but we managed to get through in comparative peace, although eyed very sus- GIBRALTAR. 19 piciously by the officials, for women without seven trunks, a satchel, shawl-strap, band-box and bundle are unusual in these regions. The Pessimist had been very quiet, and her sweetly tranquil face with its look of deter mined disapproval had facilitated my frantic endeavors very much.

The Pessimist is one of the women whom every one takes care of, even myself. They may not like to but they do it just the same. It is this habit of allowing her self to be looked after and her plans made for her which has endeared her to me as a traveling companion. I like making the plans myself and my vanity is immensely pleased at carrying things on successfully. We went smiling up to the frowning gate, where a guard awaited us, and I was about to ask him for the pass or permit necessary to enter this walled town, when the Pessimist grabbed my arm. "What is that?" she demanded. "Is that a — a prince or the governor, or what?" I looked quickly in the direction indicated by her glance and then smiled. "No, Miss Columbia, whose foot has ne'er before been off her native heath," I an swered, as I saw the straight, military figure, his chest protruding like that of a red Shang hai.

He had gay, gold decorations upon his tight jacket, an unmistakable swagger, and a pill-box hat perched upon the side of his head over his left ear. "He 's neither prince nor nabob, but just a male animal of the species Tommy Atkins." "What 's a Tommyatkins?" she demanded with something closely resembling a sniff. I regret to say that the Pessimist frequently views the valuable information which I impart as to be taken with a grain of salt. "A Tommy Atkins," very slowly I continued, "is the name given to a private in the British army. Why? There was once a private who did something. (This is a very un usual circumstance. They generally do nothing but swagger.) I do n't know what the 'something ' was, but it was either very fine or very much the reverse. I can make up a story if you like. His name was Tommy Atkins, and since then all privates have been called thus.

With the Queen's shilling comes a nineteenth century accolade and a sort of 'I dub thee Tommy Atkins in the name of the Queen, a shilling and the British lion.' " Here I stopped for breath, and we received our permit, were forbidden to use our kodak inside the walls under pain of fine and impris onment, and were at last inside the gates of the great fortress which has for centuries been the key of the Mediterranean. GIBRALTAR. 21 The Calpe is a small but very delightful hotel built in the pretty Spanish fashion round a square marble court with palms and flowers, and a fountain splashing coolly in the center. The Pessimist had intended to rest, but when an obliging waiter told us the band played in the Alameda from five to six, she said she was not tired, at least I said she was n't, and off we started.

Gibraltar has three streets running parallel the whole length of the town, intersected once or twice by alleys, but oftener ending in a cul de sac, and starting on again, seemingly without rhyme or reason. The main street, Water-port Street, leads from the city gate straight through the town and past all the public buildings, far too pretty and home-like places to be dignified with any such high sounding titles. The houses and shops are long, low build ings nearly all with gardens, and the architecture a strange mixture of dainty Moorish lattice, cheerful Spanish patio, and English solidity. Through the main street the Pessimist and I wandered slowly, too absorbed in the sights about us for even an attempt at conversation. Here passed an English soldier in all the bravery of scarlet and gold.

There was a dark-browed Spaniard, his cloak thrown about him in picturesque folds, and there an Arab in flowing burnoose of gray — a veritable Shy lock. There are hundreds of Jews in the city notwithstanding that the Treaty of Utrecht read: "No leave shall be given under any pre tence whatever to Jews or Moors to re side or have their dwellings in the town of Gibraltar." Nevertheless, here they are with their greasy faces and unctuous smiles, and in the shops are their beautiful wares, all of which they sell to you, in consideration of the fact that you are the loveliest of your sex, for exactly half what the things are marked. And although the loveliest of her sex knows full well that the villainous old Moors are cheats and humbugs, and the wares not worth all the pesetas she cheerfully pays, still the Maltese lace, Arabian gold embroidery, inlaid boxes, and Bolero jackets are so fas cinating and so cheap compared to what they are at home that she promptly buys them all.

The Jews gloat over the Americanas, but then, let them gloat, for after all, one's only regret is that one didn't (or rather could n t) buy more. The Pessimist and I dragged our The Main Street of Gidraltar. GIBRALTAR. 23 reluctant feet past many of these shops, and in and out of the maze of wonderful sights and strange peoples, and finally, attracted by the stirring music, reached the Alameda. Up to 1 8 14 Gibraltar was one of the dirtiest towns in Europe and the most unhealthy. Then the English took it in hand, and now it is well-drained and neat. Once in ten years they have Gibraltar fever and the English sometimes find it hard to become acclimated, for the summer heat is intense, but the spring and fall are charming in this latitude, and the months of March and April are especially fine.

The Alameda is a great garden, laid out eighty years ago. And such a garden ! There is but little attempt at arrangement, no mere formal landscape gardening, where often innocent trees and shrubs are tortured into the shapes required by so-called civiliza tion. It is a wilderness of flowers, some familiar, some unknown, and all blooming in a bril liance and luxuriance hitherto undreamed of. Here were gay scarlet geranium bushes, eight feet high, their great heads fully twelve inches in diameter and each separate flower as large as a silver dollar. Over a wall clambered a heliotrope, its heavy lavender flowers in huge clusters scent ing the air, which was fragrant, too, with jas mine, orange flowers, and violets, which purpled a carpet for our hesitating feet. Pure callas, white and ghostly, were stand ing in stately rows, and over them the flaunt ing roses flirted and nodded at the demurer primroses, while the red-bud trees, in full bloom, blushed deeply at such flower pranks.

There are over four hundred native flower ing plants besides all those not indigenous to the soil. Neat walks led through this tropic fairyland, and there were grottoes and caves and rustic seats. The Pessimist sat down on one of these, under a huge lemon-verbena tree. I regarded that tree viciously. What business had it to grow tall enough to shade a stranger hos pitably from the glare of the sun? At home, I had painstakingly nursed its second cousin once removed through a whole winter of its discontent, only to have it die when it had grown a foot and a half high ! The music was playing softly in the distance, and I could hear the strains of "God Save the Queen," which translated into Yankee means, "God Bless Our Native Land." Then the band began on "Home, Sweet Home," for which I had no longings, and my native land, though very desirable as native lands go, did GIBRALTAR. 25 not seem specially so just then.

I closed my eyes in dreamy peace, soothed by the sights and sounds and delicious perfumes. "I am the Sleeping Beauty," I remarked sotto voce, "and I am never, never going to wake up, but I am going to sleep here for ever. ' ' " May I be allowed to remark that a gnat is biting the end of your nose and that you '11 not be a Beauty to-morrow?" said the Pessi mist in her most dampening tones. "Also that I 'm extremely hungry?" "Now, that you mention it, so am I," I answered cheerfully, and we made our way homeward with the alacrity which attends the footsteps of those who have satisfactorily seen their sights. The Pessimist and I spent three days at Gibraltar, and although in that time we saw everything that was to be seen — for it con tains very few show places compared to other cities in Spain — we were by no means ready to leave.

We were guided through the fortifications by a delightful English private, to whose splendor my companion could not grow accustomed, and whom she insisted on calling Sir. This embarrassed him extremely, for it com pelled him to raise two fingers to his pill-box hat every time she did it, besides making him generally uncomfortable. He was n't used to it, and John Bull hates anything new. . It was a hard climb to those fortifications. First a narrow street up a steep hill, then steps up, up, up ; steps cut right into the face of the rock, over two hundred of them, and then we came to a stand-still at the guard house where our permit, already obtained from the governor (for everything in Gibraltar is tied with red tape in hard knots), had to be ratified, and a guide procured. Gibraltar is sometimes called the Hill of Caves and there are natural tunnels and caves through the rock.

The most famous of these is St. Michael's cavern. This extends from a thousand feet above sea-level to several hundred feet below, where the waves can be heard dashing overhead and the air is so bad that no one has ever dared to penetrate farther. Besides the natural fortification of its almost impregnable position, Gibraltar has had everything which human ingenuity could devise expended upon it to make it the best fortified town in the world. Mines and countermines, tunnels and sen tries and signal stations — these are common sights. The great tunnels were blasted out of solid rock, and by the way, the war pris- GIBRALTAR. 27 oners were forced to work to construct them as an illustration of the irony of Fate. Within openings at set distances along the route, huge cannon which it takes twenty men to move are placed to gaze serenely upon the harbor and the neutral ground stretching between Gibraltar and Spain.

The rebound from firing these cannons is so great that the gun carriages are placed upon a sharp incline, so that after rebounding they will run back into place instead of jumping out of their hole and falling over the rock. There is a regular honey-comb all through the rock with peep-holes for the guns, but the exterior is the most innocent gray rock, covered with shrubs, aloes, fig-trees and many flowers. Visitors are allowed to go only to the last of the open galleries, and thither the Pessimist and I toiled in the charge of our private. Beyond this point no one but a British officer is allowed to go, and not he — unless in uniform. When we reached the last opening we sat down to breathe for a few moments, having neglected that in our last hard climb, and the private pointed out the different points of interest.

"There, mum, is the market and the custom 'ouse, and that 's a German man-of-war in the 'arbor. Over there where those white 'ouses begin is Spain. This we 're hon, mum, is Hengland, and that 's Spain. Linea or Linetown 's the name because it 's just on the line. That long, low strip between 's the neutral ground. It 's neither country's and is guarded by both, and neither Henglishman nor Spaniard can move a foot off his own ground without permission." It was a glorious view! Rock, town, harbor, bay and straits were all before us — the neutral ground stretching into sunny Spain, and across the blue water the dim outline of the Dark Continent. I was oppressed by so much grandeur and the Pessi mist spoke first. "When was this given to England?" Tommy Atkins smiled as broadly as his politeness and his chin-strap permitted, then said: "It wasn't hexactly given, mum.

You might say, was taken in the year 1704." "I know about that, Pessimist," I said glibly. I love to talk and had been quiet a good while. "Gibraltar has belonged to all sorts of peo ple, and they say has never been taken except by treachery. Besieged alternately by Chris tians and Moors, it was finally wrested from the Moslems in 1462. "In 1704 a force of English and Dutch, under Sir George Rooke besieged it, and GIBRALTAR. 29 although there was a garrison of only eighty men, they killed two hundred and seventy-six English before they finally surrendered. "Rooke had been fighting for Charles, Arch- Duke of Austria, but the British government forgot this interesting fact and attached Gibraltar to their own Empire, neglecting to reward in any way the man who gained it for them." The private had listened, much edified, and as I stopped, too indignant at the thought of poor Rooke's unremembered services to talk, he remarked sententiously : "Hingland requires hevery man to do 'is duty, miss!

Do you 'appen to know about the great siege?" "Yes, indeed," I said. "The one which lasted from 1779 to 1783. The Spaniards made a last effort to wrest the rock from the English. The besiegers had an army of forty thousand, while the English had only seven thousand men. They held out against assault and storm and starvation for four long years. The his tory of that siege would fill a book, and Gen eral Elliott is one of the heroes of all ages. There are few springs in Gibraltar and the water supply threatened to fail, for they had only rain water to depend upon, and the sea sons were unusually dry ; but the splendid fellows held out and at last a treaty ended the war of which the struggle at Gibraltar was only a unit." "It was a big fight, mum," said Tommy, with some of that pride in his nation which makes even the commonest private a bulwark of safety to the British Empire.

"Do you like being here?" I asked him, as we descended the stairway in the rock. "Oh, yes, miss," he answered cheerfully. "You see it 's this way, mum. A private gets a shillin' a day an' rations, and Gibraltar ain 't such a bad billet. Much better than Hindia with the dirty niggers." "What are 'rations ' and what do you do with your shilling a day?" demanded the Pessimist. "Rations means food, mum; a pound of meat and a pound of bread, and some vegetables hevery day. We 'ave to pay four pence a day for mess, mum, where our food is cooked, you know, and we buys our own pipe-clay and boot-blackin' and it leaves us about three-pence a day for tobacco and — well, and sweeties, mum," with an irresistible twinkle in his eye. This way of designating his pot of ale was entirely too much for even the Pessimist's gravity and she gave our festive Tommy a large fee to add to his puny "shillin' a day" GIBRALTAR. 31 as we descended from the fortifications to finish our sight-seeing.

There was not much left. The Cathedral, — a poor specimen of imitation Moorish architecture, — the old Franciscan convent now used as a government house, and the fine hospital at Rosia are the main objects of interest. We drove across the neutral ground guarded on one side by a stern British soldier and on the other by a picturesque Spaniard in cloak and cocked hat. Linea is a squalid, dirty place, full of brown children, dogs and low gray houses, once white. It is not picturesque, and there is an adver tisement of the Singer sewing machine on the first Spanish house. We drove back just in time to avoid remain ing outside the gates all night, as no one is allowed to enter the sacred walls of Gibraltar after sundown. We wandered a little about the streets teeming with varied human life, and therein lies the main charm of Gibraltar; not in picture galleries, nor monuments, nor churches, nor buildings, but in the strange commingling of old world and new, English civilization and Arab picturesqueness, and in the fact that it seems to unlock the Orient to our wondering eyes.

"Well, Pessimist," I said that night; "what do you think of Gibraltar?" "I think," she replied with the decisiveness which marks her fiat, "that the British Lion grabbed a pretty big bone and held on to it. It is likely to spoil and be very much in his way, but it 's too big to bury, and he would n't give it back to the Spaniards for anything."

Chapter II Tangier

ROM out the corner of my eye I looked at the Pessimist and saw that she was uncommonly low in her mind. We were en route for Tangier, and it rained dismally, dripping into the small cabin of the Ghib al Tarik, which was crowded with passen gers of every variety. We were to reach Tan gier in a few moments, and I saw plainly that if I was to rouse the Pessimist from her trance of disgust I must be quick about it. Really, I could n't altogether blame her, for the passage was rough, the cabin stuffy, the decks slippery, and our fellow-travelers anything but agree able. We had not been ill, but other people had, and altogether we were uncomfortable. Even my enthusiasm was dampened. I made a hasty visit to the door and returning, remarked, "We're almost there!" No response. "It looks as if it would clear," I hazarded.