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The JourneyPart I
Part I
In the spring of 1829, the author of this work, whom curiosity had
brought into Spain, made a rambling expedition from Seville to Granada in
company with a friend, a member of the Russian Embassy at Madrid. Accident
had thrown us together from distant regions of the globe, and a similarity
of taste led us to wander together among the romantic mountains of Andalusia.
Should these pages meet his eye, wherever thrown by the duties of his station,
whether mingling in the pageantry of courts, or meditating on the truer
glories of nature, may they recall the scenes of our adventurous
companionship, and with them the recollection of one, in whom neither time nor
distance will obliterate the remembrance of his gentleness and worth.
And here, before setting forth, let me indulge in a few previous remarks
on Spanish scenery and Spanish travelling. Many are apt to picture Spain to
their imaginations as a soft southern region; decked out with the luxuriant
charms of voluptuous Italy. On the contrary, though there are exceptions in
some of the maritime provinces, yet, for the greater part, it is a stern,
melancholy country, with rugged mountains, and long sweeping plains, destitute
of trees, and indescribably silent and lonesome, partaking of the savage and
solitary character of Africa. What adds to this silence and loneliness, is the
absence of singing birds, a natural consequence of the want of groves and
hedges. The vulture and the eagle are seen wheeling about the mountain-cliffs,
and soaring over the plains, and groups of shy bustards stalk about the
heaths; but the myriads of smaller birds, which animate the whole face of
other countries, are met with in but few provinces in Spain, and in those
chiefly among the orchards and gardens which surround the habitations of man.
[Hear Habanera]
From the "Carmen Suite No. 2", the "Habanera", by Georges Bizet.
In the interior provinces the traveller occasionally traverses great
tracts cultivated with grain as far as the eye can reach, waving at times
with verdure, at other times naked and sunburnt, but he looks round in vain
for the hand that has tilled the soil. At length, he perceives some village
on a steep hill, or rugged crag, with mouldering battlements and ruined
watchtower; a strong-hold, in old times, against civil war, or Moorish
inroad; for the custom among the peasantry of congregating together for
mutual protection is still kept up in most parts of Spain, in consequence
of the maraudings of roving freebooters.
But though a great part of Spain is deficient in the garniture of groves
and forests, and the softer charms of ornamental cultivation, yet its scenery
is noble in its severity, and in unison with the attributes of its people;
and I think that I better understand the proud, hardy, frugal and abstemious
Spaniard, his manly defiance of hardships, and contempt of effeminate
indulgences, since I have seen the country he inhabits.
There is something too, in the sternly simple features of the Spanish
landscape, that impresses on the soul a feeling of sublimity. The immense
plains of the Castiles and of La Mancha, extending as far as the eye can
reach, derive an interest from their very nakedness and immensity, and
possess, in some degree, the solemn grandeur of the ocean. In ranging over
these boundless wastes, the eye catches sight here and there of a straggling
herd of cattle attended by a lonely herdsman, motionless as a statue, with his
long slender pike tapering up like a lance into the air; or, beholds a long
train of mules slowly moving along the waste like a train of camels in the
desert; or, a single horseman, armed with blunderbuss and stiletto, and
prowling over the plain. Thus the country, the habits, the very looks of the
people, have something of the Arabian character. The general insecurity of the
country is evinced in the universal use of weapons. The herdsman in the field,
the shepherd in the plain, has his musket and his knife. The wealthy villager
rarely ventures to the market-town without his trabuco, and, perhaps, a
servant on foot with a blunderbuss on his shoulder; and the most petty journey
is undertaken with the preparation of a warlike enterprise.
The dangers of the road produce also a mode of travelling, resembling,
on a diminutive scale, the caravans of the east. The arrieros, or carriers,
congregate in convoys, and set off in large and well-armed trains on appointed
days; while additional travellers swell their number, and contribute to their
strength. In this primitive way is the commerce of the country carried on.
The muleteer is the general medium of traffic, and the legitimate traverser
of the land, crossing the peninsula from the Pyrenees and the Asturias to the
Alpuxarras, the Serrania de Ronda, and even to the gates of Gibraltar. He
lives frugally and hardily: his alforjas of coarse cloth hold his scanty
stock of provisions; a leathern bottle, hanging at his saddle-bow, contains
wine or water, for a supply across barren mountains and thirsty plains; a
mule-cloth spread upon the ground is his bed at night, and his pack-saddle
his pillow. His low, but clean-limbed and sinewy form betokens strength; his
complexion is dark and sunburnt; his eye resolute, but quiet in its
expression, except when kindled by sudden emotion; his demeanor is frank,
manly, and courteous, and he never passes you without a grave salutation:
"Dios guarde a usted!" "Va usted con Dios, Caballero!" ("God guard you!"
"God be with you, Cavalier!")
As these men have often their whole fortune at stake upon the burden of
their mules, they have their weapons at hand, slung to their saddles, and
ready to be snatched out for desperate defence; but their united numbers
render them secure against petty bands of marauders, and the solitary
bandolero, armed to the teeth, and mounted on his Andalusian steed, hovers
about them, like a pirate about a merchant convoy, without daring to assault.
The Spanish muleteer has an inexhaustible stock of songs and ballads,
with which to beguile his incessant wayfaring. The airs are rude and simple,
consisting of but few inflections. These he chants forth with a loud voice,
and long, drawling cadence, seated sideways on his mule, who seems to listen
with infinite gravity, and to keep time, with his paces, to the tune. The
couplets thus chanted, are often old traditional romances about the Moors, or
some legend of a saint, or some love-ditty; or, what is still more frequent,
some ballad about a bold contrabandista, or hardy bandolero, for the smuggler
and the robber are poetical heroes among the common people of Spain. Often,
the song of the muleteer is composed at the instant, and relates to some local
scene, or some incident of the journey. This talent of singing and improvising
is frequent in Spain, and is said to have been inherited from the Moors. There
is something wildly pleasing in listening to these ditties among the rude and
lonely scenes they illustrate; accompanied, as they are, by the occasional
jingle of the mule-bell.
[Hear Chanson Du Toreador]
The Toreador Song for "Carmen Suite No. 2", by Georges Bizet.
It has a most picturesque effect also to meet a train of muleteers in
some mountain-pass. First you hear the bells of the leading mules, breaking
with their simple melody the stillness of the airy height; or, perhaps, the
voice of the muleteer admonishing some tardy or wandering animal, or chanting,
at the full stretch of his lungs, some traditionary ballad. At length you see
the mules slowly winding along the cragged defile, sometimes descending
precipitous cliffs, so as to present themselves in full relief against the
sky, sometimes toiling up the deep arid chasms below you. As they approach,
you descry their gay decorations of worsted stuffs, tassels, and
saddle-cloths, while, as they pass by, the ever-ready trabuco, slung behind
the packs and saddles, gives a hint of the insecurity of the road.
The ancient kingdom of Granada, into which we were about to penetrate,
is one of the most mountainous regions of Spain. Vast sierras, or chains of
mountains, destitute of shrub or tree, and mottled with variegated marbles
and granites, elevate their sunburnt summits against a deep-blue sky; yet in
their rugged bosoms lie ingulfed verdant and fertile valleys, where the desert
and the garden strive for mastery, and the very rock is, as it were, compelled
to yield the fig, the orange, and the citron, and to blossom with the myrtle
and the rose.
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