Leading the Blind Read online

  One could be sure, of course, that ‘the fair sex’ would not gain entry to that too spicy collection, for in Spain, ‘those ladies who have an azure tendency are more wondered at than espoused. Martial, a true Spaniard, prayed that his wife should not be doctissima; learning is thought to unsex them. The men dislike to see them read, the ladies think the act prejudicial to the brilliancy of the eyes, and hold that happiness is centred in the heart, not the head.’

  As if to get back to reality, or at least to everyday life, Ford describes the beggars of Spain who ‘know well how to appeal to every softening and religious principle. They are now an increased and increasing nuisance. The mendicant plague rivals the moskitos; they smell the blood of an Englishman: they swarm in every side; they interrupt privacy, worry the artist and antiquarian, disfigure the palace, disenchant the Alhambra, and dispel the dignity of the house of God, which they convert into a lazar-house and den of mendacity and mendicity. They are more numerous than even in the Roman, Neapolitan, and Sicilian states.’

  John Bull, ever destined to become their victim, ‘is worshipped and plundered; the Spaniard thinks him laden with ore like the asses of Arcadia, and that, in order to get on lighter, he is as ready as Lucullus to throw it away. The moment he comes in sight, the dumb will recover their speech and the lame their legs; he will be hunted by packs as a bag-fox, his pursuers are neither to be called nor whipped off. They persevere in the hopes that they may be paid a something as hush-money, in order to be got rid of; nor let any traveller ever open his mouth, which betrays that, however well put on his capa, the speaker is not a Spaniard, but a foreigner. If the pilgrim does once in despair give, the fact of the happy arrival in town of a charitable man spreads like wild-fire; all follow him the next day, just as crows do a brother-bird in whose crop they have smelt carrion at the night’s roost. None are ever content; the same beggar comes every day; his gratitude is the lively anticipation of future favours; he expects that you have granted him an annuity.’ Ford suggests certain phrases – in Spanish – on hearing which the beggar should immediately break off his importunities.

  We are seriously warned against falling ill in Spain, for whatever malady you have will be followed by another far worse should you fall into the hands of the native doctor. ‘The faculty at Madrid are little in advance of their provincial colleagues, nay, often they are more destructive, since, being practitioners at court, the heaven on earth, they are in proportion superior to the medical men of the rest of the world, of whom of course they can learn nothing. They are, however, at least a century behind the practitioners in England.’ One is reminded of the Spanish doctor in Le Sage’s Gil Blas: the more people he kills the more esteemed be becomes.

  Of all the pleasures of the Spaniard one of the most addictive is the bullfight and, on the torrid afternoon in question, everyone makes for the Plaza de Toros. ‘Nothing can exceed the gaiety and sparkle of a Spanish public going, eager and full-dressed, to the fight. They could not move faster were they running from a real one. All the streets or open spaces near the outside of the arena are a spectacle. The merry mob is everything. Their excitement under a burning sun, and their thirst for the blood of bulls, is fearful. There is no sacrifice, no denial which they will not undergo to save money for the bull-fight.’

  More than three pages are devoted to the pleasures of smoking. ‘… whether at the bull-fight, lay or clerical, wet or dry, the Spaniard during the day, sleeping excepted, solaces himself when he can with a cigar. Can it be wondered at that the Spanish population should cling to this relief from whips and scorns, and the oppressor’s wrong, and steep in sweet oblivious stupefaction, the misery of being fretted and excited by empty larders, vicious political institutions, and a very hot climate. Tobacco, this anodyne for the irritability of human reason, is, like spirituous liquors which make it drunk, a highly-taxed article in all civilised societies.’ This seems little different, in fact, to the punishing taxes of today, when we also have many nanny-minded moralists continually inveighing against the pleasures of the weed. Ford reminds us, in conclusion, that Sir Walter Raleigh, the patron of Virginia, ‘smoked a pipe just before he lost his head, which, I think, was properly done to settle his spirits’.

  Cigar-making seemed to be one of Spain’s main industries. ‘The cigar manufactories are the only ones in really full work. The many thousand pairs of hands employed at Seville are principally female: a good workwoman can make in a day from ten to twelve bundles, each of which contains fifty cigars; but their tongues are busier than their fingers, and more mischief is made than cigars. Very few of them are good-looking, yet these cigareras are reputed to be more impertinent than chaste, and undergo an ingeniously-minute search on leaving their work, for they sometimes carry off the filthy weed in a manner her most Catholic majesty never dreamed of.’

  Ford tells us that the Inquisition, which has so cowed and lacerated the Spanish soul, was first derived from France, and then ‘remodelled on Moorish principles, the garrote and furnace being the bowstring and fire of the Moslem, who burnt the bodies of the infidel to prevent the ashes from becoming relics. The subject of the Inquisition in Spain, however, is no laughing matter: In the changes and chances of Spain it may be re-established, and as it never forgets or forgives, it will surely revenge. No king or constitution ever permits in Spain any approach to religious toleration; the spirit of the Inquisition is alive; all abhor and brand with eternal infamy the descendants of those convicted by this tribunal; the stain is indelible, and the stigma, if once affixed on any unfortunate family, is known in every town, by the very children in the street.’

  While in Andalucia – on the way to Gibraltar – the traveller will of course visit Granada, there to wander around the Alhambra, one of the marvels of Islamic art and architecture in Spain. Concerning the depredations of foreign vandals (as opposed to the destruction carried out by the French occupiers in the Peninsular War), the 1892 edition of Murray makes the following remarks: ‘Too much cannot be said against the vulgar habit of cutting names and tearing off pieces of plaster and tiles. The guides have the strictest orders not to let travellers remain alone, and if they see them injuring in any way the building to report to the authorities immediately. The name-carving mania is all the more reprehensible when (as on the fountain basin in the Court of Lions) names of persons incapable of such pranks are deliberately forged.’

  Gibraltar itself, as a town, is said to be ‘stuffy and sea-coaly, the houses wooden and druggeted, and built on the Liverpool pattern, under a tropical climate; but transport an Englishman where you will, and like a snail, he takes his house and his habits with him. The traveller who lands by the steamer will be tormented by cads and touters, who clamorously canvass him to put up at their respective inns. They are second-rate and dear. At Griffith’s hotel is one Messias, a Jew (called Rafael in Spain), who is a capital guide both here and throughout Andalucia. The other posadas are mere punch and pot-houses, nor is the cookery or company firstrate, but the hospitality of the Rock is unbounded, and, perhaps, the endless dinnerings is the greatest change from the hungry and thirsty Spain. As there are generally five regiments in garrison, the messes are on a grand scale; more roast beef is eaten and sherry drunk than in the whole of Spain: but there is death in the pot, and the faces of “yours and ours” glow redder than their jackets; a tendency to fever and inflammation is induced by carrying the domestics and gastronomies of cool damp England to this arid and torrid “Rock”.’

  We are told that no one should omit to cross the Straits and set foot on African soil. ‘The contrast is more striking than even passing from Dover to Calais.’ At Tangiers one can put up at the house of a Scottish woman, ‘or at Joanna Correa’s; one Ben Elia also takes in travellers, for he is a Jew … obtain a soldier as an escort, and ride in twelve hours to Tetuan; lodge in the Jewish quarter. The daughters of Israel, both of Tetuan and Tangiers, are unequalled in beauty: observe their eyes, feet, and costume; they are true Rebeccas.’

 
Moving further up the coast of the Spanish peninsula, Ford has little good to say about the people. ‘The Valencians are perfidious, vindictive, sullen, and mistrustful, fickle, and treacherous. Theirs is a sort of tigre śinge character, of cruelty allied with frivolity; so blithe, so smooth, so gay, yet empty of all good; nor can their pleasantry be trusted, for, like the Devil’s good humour, it depends on their being pleased; at the least rub, they pass like the laughing hyena, into a snarl and bite: nowhere is assassination more common; they smile, and murder while they smile.’

  As for their physical appearance: ‘… they are as dusky as Moors, and have the peculiar look in their eyes of half cunning, half ferocity of the Berbers. The burning sun not only tans their complexions, but excites their nervous system; hence they are highly irritable, imaginative, superstitious, and mariolatrous; their great joys and relaxations are religious shows.’

  Perhaps some of this can be put down to their work in the surrounding rice-fields where ‘the sallow amphibious cultivator wrestles with fever amid an Egyptian plague of moskitos, for man appears to have been created here solely for their subsistence. The mortality in these swamps is frightful; few labourers reach the age of 60. The women are seldom prolific, but the gap is filled up by Murcians and Arrogonese, who exchange life for gold, as there is a fascination in this lucrative but fatal employment; so closely and mysteriously do the elements of production and destruction, plenty and pestilence, life and death, tread on the heels of each other.’

  The Catalans are said to be discourteous and inhospitable to foreigners, ‘whom they fear and hate. They were neither French nor Spanish, but sui generis both in language, costume, and habits; indeed the rudeness, activity, and manufacturing industry of the districts near Barcelona, are enough to warn the traveller that he is no longer in high-bred, indolent Spain.’

  Nevertheless, when you get to know them, ‘they are true, honest, honourable, and rough diamonds … Catalonians, powerfully constituted physically, are strong, sinewy, and active, patient under fatigue and privation, brave, daring, and obstinate, preferring to die rather than to yield. They form the raw material of excellent soldiers and sailors, and have always, when well commanded, proved their valour and intelligence on sea and land.’ Ford’s handbook is often as much a guide to himself as to Spain, and later guides, as we shall see, discontinued this prejudicial if not prejudiced analysis of the Spanish provincial character, apart from a few general and unexceptionable remarks which left the traveller to find things out for himself.

  In the edition of 1892, still said to have been written by Ford though it was thirty-four years after his death (though ‘revised and corrected’), the above comments on the Catalans had been much reduced, while the strictures against the Valencians had disappeared altogether.

  In the half-century after Ford’s day twelve thousand kilometres of railways were built or put under construction, ‘principally by means of French capital, and at enormous cost. They are, perhaps, the worst constructed and worst managed lines in the world, but they keep excellent time. Every train is bound to carry a first-class nonsmoking compartment, but the privilege is not commonly enjoyed without hard fighting, unless the non-smoker has already taken possession at the starting-point of the train. Railway guards, and indeed all officials except the very lowest, invariably travel first-class, and sometimes occupy nearly half the available seats in the carriages. Luggage robberies on railways are not uncommon; it is therefore better not to put valuables into the trunks which go in the van.’

  In 1892 the most convenient way to Spain was still by boat to Gilbraltar or Cádiz, though a year or two later Baedeker could tell us that the ‘quickest connection is, of course, by railway via Paris’. Regarding the time necessary to see Spain, Murray now informs us that a complete tour may be made in five months ‘by those to whom time is an important consideration’.

  A. & C. Black’s guidebook for 1892 considers three months to be enough, remarking in the preface that: ‘The improvements affected in the country during the last decade, in the directions of travelling facilities, hotel, police, and sanitary arrangements, are hardly credible. The hotels in the principal cities are now equal to those of any other country; while the complete network of well-appointed lines of railway enables the traveller to visit the finest and most interesting localities in a short space of time, with comfort and with safety.’

  Passports had been abolished in 1862, though foreigners were still liable ‘to be called upon by local Spanish authorities to declare their nationality, and object of their journey’. After assuring us of the efficiency of the post office, Black’s says, ‘Letters are never opened save during exceptional pronunciamiento moments and electioneering time. It is also a mistake to put “Esquire” after the name when receiving letters poste restante, because the Spanish clerk who searches for the letter in the rack will think that is your surname.’

  Regarding toilet facilities on the trains and at stations Murray says that some are very poor, and others ‘often mere hovels. The extreme filthiness of every place to which railway servants and passengers of every class have access in common is much to be deplored.’ Even in 1913 Baedeker said that railway stations inside Spain were still ‘very primitive. The waiting-rooms are generally closed, or unusable, or altogether lacking. Refreshment rooms are rare and poor. It is advisable, therefore, to be provided with food and wine for consumption in the railway carriage.’

  To depart from the railway routes still meant travelling by ‘the odious diligence’, with distances measured in leagues which, ‘especially in the wilder and mountainous districts, are calculated more by guesswork than measurement’.

  Black says, ‘Pedestrianism is unknown in Spain, with the exception of such areas as Asturias, Galicia, and the Pyrenees.’ Bicycle tours were, however, possible in many districts favoured by long stretches of excellent roads. Volume Three of The Cyclists Touring Road Book of 1887 has a section on Spain for those of its 25,000 members who might wish to go there, and in the introduction it tells them: ‘As far as there is any rule of the road, it is the opposite to that which obtains in England.’ Baedeker for 1913 says that, for cyclists, ‘Riding is practically impossible in summer on account of the heat; and the endless monotony of the Castilian plateau makes cycling very wearisome.’

  ‘Since the introduction of the railway system,’ Murray explains, ‘there has been a marked development in the construction of highroads also; thus, whilst the total length of roads existing in Spain in 1855 was only 5920 English miles, it may be calculated that more than double that number are at the present time open. But even this amount is quite disproportionate to the wants of a country like Spain.’

  As a cyclist or a pedestrian you would find it difficult to procure good topographical maps of the country. Baedeker in 1908 says, with rare humour: ‘Of the Spanish Topographical Map in 1080 sheets, on a scale of 1:50,000, projected in 1875, only 125 sheets have appeared, dealing merely with the centre of the Peninsula. At this rate a century must elapse before the completion of the work.’

  Motoring was coming into vogue before the First World War, but Spain ‘cannot be recommended, chiefly on account of the inferiority of the roads, though those in the northern part of the country, as well as those around Madrid, are very fair’.

  Regarding money, Baedeker reminds us: ‘Every shop-counter is provided with a stone slab for the testing of silver coins, and the traveller also should learn to know their true ring, as false coins are by no means uncommon. A handful of change should never be taken without examination, since even railway officials will sometimes try to take advantage of the unsuspecting stranger by passing base money mingled with the good.’

  There was no longer much fear of brigands, though Baedeker’s notes on law and order are worth reading. ‘Public Security in the towns of Spain is on the same level as in most other parts of Europe. For excursions into the interior, especially in S. Spain, it is advisable to make previous inquiries at the barracks of the genda
rmes as to the safety of the route. Isolated cases of highway robbery still occur at intervals. The Guardia Civil is a select body of fine and thoroughly trustworthy men, in whom the stranger may place implicit confidence. On the other hand it is seldom advisable to call in the help of the ordinary police. In the case of a riot or other popular disturbance, the stranger should get out of the way as quickly as possible, as the careful policemen, in order to prevent the escape of the guilty, are apt to arrest anyone they can lay their hands on.’

  Begging, as the national pest of Spain, seemed little altered from Ford’s day. The Baedeker of 1913 tells us that: ‘Beggars accost the stranger on the streets, follow him into shops, cafés, and hotels, and sit in swarms at all church-doors. In S. Spain they even besiege the railway ticket-offices and the passing trains at wayside stations.’

  In the section on ‘Intercourse with the People’ we are told that in educated circles, ‘the stranger is at first apt to be carried away by the lively, cheerful, and obliging tone of society, by the charming spontaneity of manner, and by the somewhat exaggerated politeness of the people he meets. He should, however … above all refrain from expressing an opinion on religious or political questions. The national pride of the Spaniard and his ignorance of foreign conditions render a collision in such cases almost inevitable.’

  We are told that, on the other hand, the Spaniard of the lower classes ‘is not devoid of national pride, but he possesses much more common sense and a much healthier dislike of humbug than his so-called superiors. The tactful stranger will not find it difficult to get in touch with him. Two points, however, must be carefully remembered. In the first place it is necessary to maintain a certain courtesy of manner towards even the humblest individual, who always expects to be treated as a “caballero”. In the second place the traveller, while maintaining his rights with quiet decision, should avoid all rudeness or roughness, which simply serves to excite the inflammable passions of the uneducated Spaniard. Common intercourse in Spain is marked by a degree of liberty and equality which the American will find easier to understand than the European.’