Going to Jericho; or, Sketches of travel in Spain and the East

Front matter

OR,

IX

SPAIN AND THE EAST.

Preface

The memory of the literary mind runneth not to the time, when it was not customary for a book to be prefaced with a Preface. Hence the following, by way of an apology — for it would ill become a beginner in book-making to run counter to so time-honored an observance. Perhaps to apologize for having traveled at all would be quite as proper as to seek excuse for writing of those travels ; but having spent my own time and my own money, none but my own posterity have a right to complain, and as I am not vain enough to think my book will be read by posterity at all, I will trust to the future that both sins shall be forgiven, or, at least, forgotten ; besides we are apt to regard as of little weight those offenses of which everybody is guilty, and find an apology in the universality of their commission.

In this age of travels and book-making, therefore, I may well hope to find immunity from every kind of

PRE FA GE.

censure, except criticism. Criticism I hope to receive, I would wish it to be good-natured and friendly, but would rather have my book abused than not noticed, as I should be unhappy, indeed, to think it beneath contempt.

Having consulted my conscience, my pocket, and my publisher, and finding myself at ease in the various relations, I have determined, since my journeyings have ended, to produce this book of travels from the hastily written letters to a San Francisco daily journal. As I have not drawn upon my memory for my wit, nor my fancy for my facts, I trust my readers will not be too scrupulously exacting in requiring point to the one or unfailing reliability in the other. I claim credit for no deeper research than the examination of the hand-books written for the benefit of travelers in the countries treated of. Mistakes of fact, when they occur, are not my own, but must be laid at the door of John Murray, Esq., of London.

I have endeavored to be truthful and to represent what I saw of the world as I saw it, and to comment on what I saw from my own stand-point. If I did not look with absolute veneration upon all ancient things simply because they were ancient, and did

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sometimes question the verity of well-authenticated traditions, it is rather the fault of an education that has been practical to the fullest extent of the American idea, and an education that demands proofs to sustain averments.

The two years' holiday spent in my travels abroad had been fairly earned by the daily toil of many years in the ^ead-mill of my profession, and in the active pursuit of business in California, where, it is truly said, with our excitement and extravagant haste we burn the taper at both ends and are ever fanning it to a blaze. Then I had a right to travel.

Now as to the book-making part : this was, as I have said, an after-thought; in fact, the result of a harmless wager. I had been thinking of the multitude of stupid books that had been written. I reflected with anguish upon the number of such that I had waded through. I wondered what became of them when they got old. I thought how few were comfortably shelved upon some hospitable library : how few earned for themselves independence in old age ; how many who had fond parents, and who started in life with good prospects, yet came to grief. I had seen books of the very best morals hanging around country

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inns, lying about railroad depots for a chance notice ; some were dragging out lingering lives in country farm-houses, some 'toiling for a bare existence in circulating libraries. I had seen them old, dilapidated, and seedy, on the shelves of book stores, growing dusty with age and disuse. And as I moralized, I reflected that some very indifferent books got on very well in the world ; when gold-leaved and illustrated, well dressed in fancy bindings, they might be found upon center-tables in the very best society ; and that some very stupid and seemingly very trashy works were held in great esteem.

One day after my return, engaged thus musing, I asked my friend if he thought there could be a manuscript written so utterly worthless that nobody would publish it. No, he did not think there could, because if no one else would, the author would publish it himself. On reflection he admitted that he thought he might name a case where no publisher could be found rash and adventurous enough to make the experiment ; and when pressed to name the exceptional case, he layed the wager of wine in dozens that I could never get my travels into a book unless I paid for it myself.

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The result, dear reader, is before you : I have won my wager. The leading publishing-house of the Pacific, whose name may be found on the title-page, is the adventurous firm, to put in print these hasty notes of travel in interesting foreign lands. If they afford you the pleasure in their perusal, that I experienced in traversing the countries of Columbus and Cortez, and in wandering through the lands of Desert and Palm, that margin the great sea of Rome, I shall be more than content, and we shall meet and part in the great journey of life with only pleasant remembrances.

San Francisco, January 16, 1868.

1*

Contents

Chap. Pagb

I. Bayonne and the Border 13

n. The Maid of Burgos 21

Chapter I. Bayonne And The Border

" It is getting cold in Paris and very dull. Let us leave it." This was said to me by General C , a fellowtownsman whom I had met abroad, and with whom I had been for a month past loitering about the boulevards and public gardens of the French capital. It was in November, and the idea of finding warmer weather was a pleasant one. " Very well, where shall we go ?" I answered. " I am indifferent. I will go to Spain, to Italy, to Jericho, if you please," said the General. 4t Suppose we go to all of them in their order, beginning with Spain." " That is better ; we will do it, and start to-morrow." We soon learned that the direct route to Spain was by way of Bordeaux and Bayonne, and almost as soon as agreed upon we were seated together in a coupe of the express train, flying along upon our journey at the rate of forty miles an hour.

Of the two cities I possessed an equal degree of knowledge, which was confined to the fact that the first was famous for the exportation of red wine, -and the second for being the place where the bayonet was invented. These facts, though exceedingly slight, were, I thought, quite worthy of being paraded to the best advantage. My acquaintance with the General was but newly formed, and first impressions are important " What sort of a place is this Bordeaux?" he inquired of me as we approached it. " Bordeaux," said I, looking gravely, " is an important town in France, fronting upon the river

GOING TO JEEICEO; OR,

Garonne, which forms its harbor. In the way of works of art it possesses a large square overlooking the quay, at each corner of which stands a lofty column surmounted with emblematical devices referring to trade and commerce. One of the principal exports of Bordeaux is red wine."

He appeared considerably impressed with the extent of my learning, and when we reached the city, and I pointed out to him the river, the quay, and especially the famous columns, I found that his respect for me had visibly augmented.

" How did you know about Bordeaux?" he inquired. I looked solemn, and declared that I could not now recollect, but that I had been possessed of this information from a period so early in my life that I could not, at the time, say bow I had acquired it. It is always well to conceal the sources from which we derive our knowledge. It helps the idea that we possess a great fund back of what we are at the time exhibiting, and also keeps down the discreditable suspicion that we obtained any portion of our education by irregular means. The fact was, that I had learned all I knew of Bordeaux from pictorial labels of that city on claret bottles. When we reached Bayonne, I found my companion to be quite content to receive from me the interesting circumstance connected with the improvement in engines of war, without my stating how I became possessed of the historical fact. First impressions of earthly scenes may not be the most correct, but they are certainly the most vivid and the most lasting. Mental photography is instantaneous. The mental sketch of a city, of a river, of a field, remains as first seen while the memory lasts. A later visit to the same spot takes its own place in the mind, and stamps its own peculiar impression. And that faint and pleasing gleam — always identical and special to the scene recalled, that for a moment flashes the old place upon the recollection, and is

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gone, however we may straggle to retain it — is as likely to visit us at the antipodes as in plain view of the spot that originally gave it birth.

A story is told, by one of the Irish humorists of our own time, of a Cockney who visited the Green Isle of the Ocean for the purpose of purchasing an encumbered estate as a shooting property. The gentleman in possession was opposed to the sale, and laid a scheme to prevent it. The Londoner arrived at night, and was invited to dinner by the gentleman whose improvident habits had brought the domain into the market. The dining and drinking lasted till near morning, leaving the Englishman in such condition that he was carried to bed, where he remained till nightfall. He was then called by his host, who informed him that it was time to get up, and that the party were about to visit the preserves to shoot pheasants before breakfast. A gun was placed in the hands of the stupefied Cockney, and for a couple of hours the air rang with the reports of fire-arms. Pheasants innumerable were placed in his hands as the trophies of his marksmanship, and he was applauded as the best shot in the party. Then all returned to dinner, which, under the name of breakfast, was kept up all night, followed by the Cockney's being carried to bed drunk in the morning. This was continued for three days — shooting, eating, and drinking all night, and sleeping all day — until at last the stranger, upon being again called out to shoot before breakfast, declined to do so, and going on board his vessel, sailed away from the country, averring that the people were hospitable, that the liquor was good, and the game plenty, but that it was too dark in Irelaud for a permanent residence.

Almost my sole recollection of Bayonne is connected with its darkness.

It had been raining through the day, and at eight o'clock at night, when we arrived, a thick November fog enveloped the town, the harbor, and the circumjacent hills. The street-lamps made a faint effort to declare their existence, but the struggle was quite an unequal one.

The mist rolled in over thern so completely that an occasional luminous body floating past us in mid air, as we rattled along in the omnibus, and looking more like a paper balloon lying-to in a fog than any thing else, was all that we could see of the corporation lights of Bayonne. It is still a mystery to me how coachmen can without accident drive about so dark a city; but this one did, and brought us safely to the hotel.

The porter took our carpet-bags, and told us that the train for the Spanish frontier would leave on the following morning at four o'clock. We were disappointed at this, for we were desirous of seeing something of the place.

The legend of the bayonet had made Bayonne especially interesting to the General.

But we wanted to get on to Spain.

At last we resolved to " do " the town that night and go on in the morning.

True it was dark, and to the darkness was added a fog that could be felt, but the idea at least was not without novelty.

" What is to be seen in this city ?" we inquired of the porter. "The fortifications and the cathedral," he answered : and to examine these interesting monuments of art we immediately issued from our hotel.

I can not describe the cathedral of Bayonne with any considerable degree of accuracy. I took no notes. It was too dark to do so. I am therefore thrown back upon recollection merely. Depending upon that uncertain authority, I can say that it is of doubtful architecture and vague proportions. That it looks solid enough for the first five and twenty feet from the ground, but above that

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point it seems to become uncertain in shape and changeable in style. In fact it appears to sway about in the air like some huge architectural monster, or swelling, as if inflated with gas, and then sinking away into the surrounding darkness.

Images of saints and holy persons adorn the lower part of the jambs of the great door, and carved figures, one above another, continue as the wall ascends, but the character of saintliness diminishes with the altitude, and as they enter the hanging fog of Bayonne the distortion is increased till leering monsters start from the walls and wriggle and twist themselves more like demons than saints and angels, now reaching down as if to snatch at the wayfarer, now floating away into the impenetrable mist, or swinging about in the confines dividing the realms of vision from total darkness.

We hear footsteps drawing near. A luminous spot in the fog approaches and passes by. It is a good citizen, equipped with a lantern, and going to his home. Another comes from the opposite direction and wends his mysterious way, and more and more citizens with lanterns move through the darkness. But we stand beneath the portal, and these little currents in the great ocean of life float past the eddy in which we are waiting, all unconscious how distant the sources and how divergent the channels which, for the moment, have approached so closely.

We pass around to the side, and look up at the great rose window. But it too partakes of all the unsteadiness of the architecture of Bayonne.

The fog whirls along and the round window becomes oval, then one side is gone and a twisting crescent alone remains. A dozen apostles, gigantic and blessed, all in stone, stand along the wall, looking solemn as a petit jury. I would not like to say how many cubits they are in stature. It would be easier to measure the degree of their sanctity.

GOIXG TO JERICHO; OB,

But while standing beneath the window, with the fog rolling over them, we think of a picture of Jacob's Vision, the great window being the opening in the heavens above where beatific visions are beheld.

We turn from the cathedral and wend our way along the fortifications. They are affected in like manner with all Bayonnese structures. At times they appear low and easily surmounted, but a moment after the walls of Rhodes are not more impregnable.

The old porter stares as we pass into the hotel ; it is such a queer time to go sight-seeing. " Let us be called in the morning at half-past three, and secure two places in the omnibus for the station." The bowing guardian promises faithfully that we shall not be forgotten, and we retire.

A sharp knock at my door, and the announcement that the omnibus was waiting outside, called me out of bed. I did not quite believe that I had been asleep. No one was up in the house as we passed out except the porter who had called us. We found Bayonne even darker than the evening before. Not so much as a coach lamp showed us our way to the vehicle which stood awaiting us. We crawled in, and found it already nearly filled with people sitting in silence.

Their ages, their sex, their nationality, even their color, was shrouded in the impenetrable darkness of Bayonne. Arriving at the station half asleep, we made our way into a carriage, and into the remotest corner of it, to doze away the two long hours which should bring us to daylight and the Spanish frontier.

I was brought to consciousness by hearing a loud yawn. It proceeded from a priest who sat next me. Daylight had come, and the train was driving along the seabeach.

On our right lay the Bay of Biscay, across which was already drifting the wall of fog which the night before had helped to make Bayonne so dark.

SKETCHES OF TRAVEL.

After taking a look at the sea and the winding coastline, 1 turned about to examine our fellow-travelers.

They were the same who had come with us in the omnibus. A French priest, with black gown and broad felt hat turned up at three sides ; a young woman with an English face ; and a stout gentleman, with a Spanish air ; lastly the General, who still snored in his corner.

I called to him, for at that moment we were passing the station of Biarritz, and it was something even to see the place where so many political events are conceived, so many state tricks invented, as at this the favorite summer retreat of Napoleon III.

Irun is the frontier town on the Spanish side of the Bidassoa, and here we stopped to breakfast, to pass the custom-house, and to change trains.

The profoundest depth of Spanish statesmanship was reached when, in granting the privilege to build a railway from the French frontier to Madrid, a condition was inserted that the track should be of a different gauge from that of the line from Paris to Irun.

" This will be our chief protection," said the wise men of Queen Isabella's cabinet.

" If Ave should permit the same gauge with French roads, French soldiers direct from the Casernes of Paris would soon be down upon us. They would never stop the trains transporting troops after leaving the Bordeaux station till they were at the walls of Madrid."

The wisdom of this restriction, from a strategic point of view, is too obvious to require pointing out.

Under the present system, her Catholic Majesty's soldiers, in case of war, are quite sure to check the French at the frontier — at least while they are changing cars.

One hour sufficed to pass our baggage through the custom-house and to transfer it to a train with a width of track consistent with the independence of the Spanish nation aud the stability of her Catholic Majesty's throne,

In the mean time, we had refreshed ourselves with chocolate, made thick as oat porridge, in the Spanish style, and were soon whirling along toward San Sebastian, the capital of the province, and the chief wateringplace of northern Spain.

Chapter II. The Maid Of Burgos

In the middle of the afternoon, at a point half-way between Vitoria and Burgos, our locomotive went wrong, and the train came to a dead stop in a deserted plain. We were there an hour before we could learn what was the trouble, so reticent are railway officials. Having at last learned that the machine was disordered, we still were kept in ignorance of what steps were being taken to get on to Burgos or how long we would probably remain thus becalmed. But the Spanish passengers, of whom we had many, took the matter as of course, and all sallied forth upon the green sward, and as the evening shadows closed down upon us, gave way to all the wildness of their pleasure-loving natures. The road-side was turned into a miniature Prado. The black-eyed damsels of Spain, with their lace veils thrown back, walked up and down, ogling the cavaliers, or with them joined in a dance to the music of the guitar, which was produced in some mysterious manner. By this time I had become acquainted with the priest. I had found him to be well informed upon American, and especially upon Mexican affairs. Like all of his nation, he took a lively interest in Maximilian, and thought his mission to that unhappy country a holy one, to oppose which was but little short of being criminal. " Why do you Americans oppose the establishment in miserable Mexico of a government wise and beneficent, such as meets with the approbation of the profoundest thinkers and greatest philanthropists of Europe ?"

My answers to this question had been the subject of the day's conversation. Commencing within the sound of the surf of the Bay of Biscay, I had continued it all through the gorges of the Pyrenees, scarcely stopping at the miles of successive tunnels which pierce the summit peaks of those mountains.

But if I was eloquent upon the beauties of democracy, as developed in America, the priest was not slow to show the advantages of that paternal form of government which had wrought such wonders for his own France. When the train stopped in the fields, as I have mentioned, we walked up and down and continued the political controversy. The General, who boasts of his fealty to the Democratic party, and who understands but little French, observing the earnest tone of the conversation, surmised its purport. Taking me aside, he suggested that there was danger that I would make a Black Republican of the good priest.

The real fact was that I had been taking lessons in French at Paris for three months previous, and this was the first opportunity I had found to test my progress in that polished tongue*

Nothing was further from my mind than propagating republicanism. I was simply airing my French. This I informed the General of, and put his mind at rest. But the poor priest entered enthusiastically into the argument, without dreaming of the reason of my persistence, and from the fact that I proved a most excellent listener, I trust with a reasonable amount of satisfaction to himself.

At nine o'clock a locomotive came up from Burgos, and we steamed away for that city. Burgos is conceded to be the first town, after leaving the French frontier, where the customs of Spain in all their ancient purity are preserved. The cathedral is also understood to be one

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of the most imposing and perfect of Gothic structures in all Europe. Either one of the foregoing' facts would perhaps be sufficient to account for the stopping of all Spain-going tourists at Burgos for the first night.

The Fonda del Norte had been so highly recommended to us that we gave it the preference. A supper of Spanish bread, Spanish ham and eggs, cooked in Spanish oil, with innumerable bottles of the red wine of Vcd de JPena, was prepared for us within ten minutes of our arrival, after which we were shown to our rooms by one of those, dark-eyed beauties for which Spain is so famous. "Buenos noches, Senores," she said, with a silvery voice, bowing low her black eyes-, concealed by long fringing lashes, and gave the General a candle. There was a queenly grace in her manner indicating noble origin. He took the light from her hand, but continued to gaze steadfastly in her face, as if trying to recall a lost recollection. Meanwhile the grease trickled down from the candle, strikiug his trousers just above the knee, and gradually forming into an oleaginous stalagmite. Even when the door was shut upon the retreating form of the maid, my friend stared abstractedly in the direction of the door, as if lost in thought.

"The young woman appears to interest you greatly," I said to him.

u Yes ; I think I have seen her before," he said, with a start.

I, too, thought the face of the young person somewhat familiar, and took the liberty of suggesting as much to him. But he did not appear to take the hint in good part, and going into his room slammed the door after him as if offended with me.

My first view of the cathedral of Burgos was from the window when I arose in the morning. In the foreground an expanse of roof, covered with red baked tiles, looking like so many acres of bisected flower-pots. In the midst of this rises up a cluster of Gothic spires resembling a grove of petrified cypress-trees.

How calm the weather must be, I thought. If there was so much as a passing breeze this brown : stone forest would sway and bend before it. I hastened down to breakfast. I found the General at the table, not eating, but gazing intently at the chamber-maid of the night before, who now assumed the character of waitress. " Do you make her out, General ? " "No !" he answered ; " bat if I could only speak her language I would try and find out where we have met before." " It is probably in some old picture of Murillo that you have met the face," said I, and we sallied forth to see the town. Burgos has been finished for more than five hundred years, and all that time no change has taken place. Its fortifications are as solid as the day Diego Porcelas built, 01* Don Pedro the Cruel performed his famous exploits before them. It looks like a sort of toy city, and fits its walls as snugly as a set of chessmen does the box in which they come from the manufactory.

All Burgos is stowed in this stone chess-box, and there is exactly room enough for it and none to spare. Like some geometrical puzzles, if the place of one piece were changed, it would require great skill to put it back again.

The houses are built close up to the cathedral and join their walls to its huge sides, so that a view of its exterior can only be had by walking to the open plazas many rods away. And the entrance is up a hill-side and through what looks to be the back yards of a whole block of hovels, where the future soldiers of Queen Isabella, now bare-legged urchins, expand their mental faculties by the fabrication of mud pies. At the door we are met by the sacristan, in robes which, in our ignorance, we take to be priestly, and are shown through the splendid structure.

The sculptor has made his mark plainly upon this church.

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Its walls literally swarm with human figures in stone. Statues loiter about the door in squads. Regiments of statues cling around the great Gothic pillars. Whole brigades of them throng the walls, the windows, jambs, and the cornices, or scale the rugged sides of the choir.

Apostles by the baker's dozen, scores of archbishops, glorious companies of popes, and holy armies of saints and martyrs, some standing upon pedestals, others crouching about in prayer, and more stretched supinely upon the earth, with hands and toes upturned, looking not only dead, but dead and turned to stone.

The paved floor, large enough to be the open fields, is spotted over with the crouched figures of the veiled daughters of Spain in earnest devotion. And so still are they, that at first we think this is some more of the sculptor's work, and that female saints in marble cover the floor in attitudes of prayer.

In a gallery hard by, and high upon the wall, is the "box of the Cid," and to this we are conducted with due solemnity.

Burgos claims an extra share of the glory of Spain's hero, for here he was born and lived, and within her walls repose his ashes. " What is the story of the box ?" we inquired of the sacristan.

With a look which plainly implied his contempt for persons ignorant of so familiar a circumstance, he told us how that worthy, at a time when the fortunes of war appeared strongly against him, had filled the box with sand, and, pretending that it contained jewels and treasures of great value, pledged it to some unbelieving Jews for six hundred marks in gold. The sacristan related to us with patriotic glee how the hero insisted that the box was not to be opened till his return from the wars. " Did he ever repay the Jews ?" I asked him. " History has not informed us upon that point," he answered with an air of indifference, plainly showing that, at least in his 2 opinion, the question was of no importance. We passed out of the church and strolled down toward the Plaza de Constitution, as the central square is called.

The houses are all built with arcades projecting over the sidewalk, and under these the gay cavaliers and black eyed senoritas stroll up and down, ogling each other, or running in and out of the little shops, making their purchases.

The Spanish costume is worn by the ladies of Burgos with the strictest care. We did not see one bonnet in the town, and of course not one establishment for the sale of millinery goods.