ALL THE WORLD OVER

INTERESTING STORIES OF TRAVEL, THRILLING ADVENTURE AND HOME LIFE

BY

ELLA FARMAN, MRS. LUCIA CHASE BELL, FRANK H. CONVERSE, LOUISE STOCKTON, AND OTHER POPULAR AUTHORS

ON A WILD GOOSE CHASE

FULLY ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON

D. LOTHROP COMPANY

1893.

Copyright, 1892, by D. Lothrop Company. ————— All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

(Created by transcriber. Not present in original.)

ALL THE WORLD OVER

PERHAPS one of the most vivid impressions which the tourist receives upon his entrance into any Spanish city whatsoever, is of its muscular beggars—men of enormous size, with their ruffianly swaggering strength exaggerated by the national cloak. This garment is of heavy, tufted woollens, long and fringed, almost indestructable, and is frequently worn to muffle half the face; and the broad slouch hat, usually with a couple of rough feathers stuck in its band, does not tend to soften the general brigandish effect.

These beggars are licensed by the government, which must reap a goodly revenue from the disgraceful crowd, as they are numerous, and therefore they pursue their avocation in the most open manner. They will frequently follow the traveller a half-mile, especially should they find him to be ignorant of that magic formula of dismissal which is known to all Spaniards:

Pardon, for God’s sake, Brother!

This appeal is constantly on the lip of every Spanish lady. She utters it swiftly, without so much as a glance, a dozen times of a morning on her way to church, as a dozen gaunt, dirty hands are thrust in her face as she passes; and hearing it, the most persistent fellow of them all is at once silenced, and falls back.

Coming in from their kennel-homes among the ruins and the holes in the hills outside, it is the custom to make an early morning tour of the city before they take up their stations for the day at the various church and hotel doors. Each seems to be provided with “green pudding,” in his garlic pot, and he eats as he goes along, and prays as he eats, stopping in front of the great oval patio or court gates of iron lattice, which guard the mansions of the rich.

At these patio doors he makes a prodigious racket, shaking the iron rods furiously, and all the while muttering his prayers, until some one of the family appears at a gallery window. Then instantly the mutter becomes a whine, a pitiful tale is wailed forth, and alms are dolefully implored “for the love of God.” But although such mottoes as “Poverty is no Crime” are very often painted on the walls of their fine houses, the probability is that the unmoved Señorita will murmur a swift “Pardon, for God’s sake, Brother!” and retire, to soon appear again to silence another of the fraternity with the same potent formula.

However, each of the countless horde is sure to gather in centimes sufficient for the day’s cigarettes and garlic, and, in the long run, to support life to a good old age.

THE Spaniards are a nation of dancers and singers. Every Spanish child seems born with the steps, gestures, snappings and clappings of the national fandango dance, at the ends of his fingers and toes. A guitar is the universal possession, and every owner is a fine player. The solitary horseman, the traveller by rail, takes along his guitar; and in car, or at cross-roads, he is sure of dancers at the first thrilling twang. There is always a merry youth and maiden aboard ready to make acquaintance in a dance, and anywhere the whole household will troop from the cottage, the plowman will leave his team in the furrow, and the laborer drop his hoe, for a half-hour’s joyous “footing o’t.”

One of the interesting sights of Toledo is the great city fountain on Street St. Isabel, near the cathedral. It is a good place to study donkeys and their drivers, and the lower classes of the populace. The water, deliciously sweet and cool, is brought from the mountains by the old Moorish-built water-ways, and flows by faucet. There is no public system of delivery, consequently a good business falls into the hands of private water-carriers. These supply families at a franc a month. The poorer households go to and fro with their own water-jars as need calls, carrying them on their heads. They often wear a cushioned ring, fitting the head, to render the carrying of the jar an easier matter.

A picturesque article of dress among Spanish men, is the national sash, a broad woollen some four yards in length, of gay colorings. This is wound three or four times around the waist, its fringed end tucked in to hang floating, and the inevitable broad knife thrust within its folds, which also hold the daily supply of tobacco. A common sight is the sudden stop on the street, a lighting of a fresh cigarette, a loosening of the loosened sash, a twitch of the short breeches, and then a tight, snug wind-up, when the lounger moves on again.

Another amusing sight is the picturesque beggar who seems at first glance to be hanging in effigy against the cathedral walls, so motionless will some of these fellows stand, hat slouched over the face, the brass government “license” labelling the breast, a hand extended, and, in many cases, a crest worn prominently on the ragged garments, to show that the wearer is a proud descendant of some old grandee family. To address this crested beggar by any other title than Caballero (gentleman) is a deadly insult.

AMONG the many small sights of the Plaza about Christmas time, are the sellers of zambombas, or Devil’s Fiddles. This toy, which the stranger sometime takes for a receptacle of sweet drinks to be imbibed through a hollow cane, is a favorite plaything with Spanish children. A skin is stretched over a bottomless jar; into this is fastened a stout length of sugar-cane, and lo! a zambomba. Its urchin-owner spits on his palms, rubs them smartly up and down the ridgy cane, when the skin-drum reverberates delightfully.

The fruit markets are of a primitive sort. The peasant fills his donkey-panniers with grapes, garlic, melons straw-cased and straw-handled, whatever he has ripe, and starts for town. Reaching the Plaza, in the shade of the cathedral, he spreads his cloak, rolling a rim. On this huge woollen plate he arranges his fruit, weighing it out as customers demand.

From the old Moorish casements, the traveller looks down on the most rudimentary sort of life. He sees no labor-saving machinery. Instead of huge vans loaded with compact hay bales, he beholds the donkey hay-train. The farmer binds a mountain of loose hay on each of his donkeys, lashes them together, and with a neighbor to help beat the train along, starts for market. These trains may be seen any day crooking about among the steep mountain-ways.

The student of folk-life notes the shoemakers on the Plaza at work in the open air. Formerly the sandal was universally worn, with its sole of knotted hemp, and its canvas brought up over the toe, at which point was fastened a pair of ribbons about four feet long, and these ribbons each province had its own fashion of lacing and tying. But now the conventional footgear of Paris is common, and one buys boots of the fine glossy Cordovan leather for a trifle.

The proprietors of the neighboring vineyards visit the wine shops weekly to bring full wine-skins, and take such as are emptied. These skins, often with their wool unsheared, are cured by remaining several weeks filled with wine-oil, and all seams are coated with pitch to prevent leakage. The wholesale skins hold about eight gallons, being usually those of well-grown animals. They are stoutly sewn, tied at each knee, and also at the neck, whence the wine is decanted into smaller skins by means of a tunnel.

THE beggars of Spain are a most devout class. Piety is, with them, the form under which they conduct business; a shield, and a certificate of character. They walk the streets under the protection of the patron saint of the principal church in town, and they formally demand alms of you in the name of that saint. It is Religion that solicits you—the beggar’s own personality is not at all involved; and it is thus that the proud Spanish self-respect is saved from hurt.

The tourist who has not tarried in French towns, is, at first, astonished to behold women passing to and fro upon the streets with no head covering whatever. Hats and bonnets are rarely seen upon Spanish women of the lower and middle classes. Those who are street-venders sit bareheaded all day long in their chairs on the Plaza, wholly indifferent to the great heat and blinding dazzle of the Spanish sun. About Christmas, dozens of a “stands” spring up along the Plaza. It is at that season that the gypsy girls come in with their roasters and their bags of big foreign chestnuts; and they do a thriving business, for every good Spanish child expects roast chestnuts and salt at Christmas.

Many of the mountain families about Toledo keep small flocks of sheep—flocks that, instead of dotting a green landscape with peaceful white, as in America and Northern Europe, only darken the reddish-brown soil of Spain with a restless shading of a redder and a deeper hue. These brown sheep are herded daily down on the fenceless wastes. The shepherd-boys are usually attended by shepherd-dogs so enormous in size that the traveller often mistakes them for donkeys. They are sagacious, and do most of the herding, their masters devoting themselves to the guitar, the siesta, the cigarette, and the garlic pudding.

Toledo, more than any other Spanish city, abounds with interesting bits and noble examples of the old Moorish architecture, for the reason that it has not been rebuilt at all, and that few of its ruins have been restored, or even retouched. Color alone has changed. The city now is of the soft hue of a withered pomegranate. Turn where you will, your eye is delighted by an ornate façade, a carved gateway with its small reticent entrance door, a window with balcony and cross-bars, and everywhere there is the horseshoe arch with its beautiful curve. The old Alcazar is standing, though occupied as a Spanish arsenal, and on the height opposite is the ruin of a fine Moorish castle.

ONE of the best “small businesses” in a Spanish city, is that of the domestic water-supply. Those dealers who have no donkeys, convey it to their customers in long wheelbarrows constructed with a frame to receive and hold several jars securely. Stone jars, with wood stopples attached with a cord, are used, the carrying-jars, being emptied into larger jars in the water-cellars. The peasants have a poetic appellation for the soft, constant drip of the water from the old aqueducts: The sigh of the Moor.

With the Spaniard, as with the American, the turkey is a special Christmas luxury. But the tempting rows of dressed fowls common to our markets and groceries, are never to be seen. As the holiday season draws very close at hand, the mountain men come down into the city, driving before them their cackling, gobbling, lustrous-feathered flocks, bestowing upon them, of course, the usual daily allowance of blows which is meted out to the patient family donkey. These poultry dealers congregate upon the Plaza, where they smoke, and chaff, and dicker, keeping their droves in place with the whip; and the buyer shares in the capture of his flying, screaming, flapping purchase, in company with all the children on the street, for the turkey market is usually great fun for the Spanish youngster.

In the cold season, one of the morning sights of a Spanish town is the preparation of the big charcoal braziers outside the gates of the fine dwelling-houses. The coals are laid and lighted, and then the servant blows them with a large grass fan until the ashes are white, when he may consider that all deadly fumes are dissipated, and that it is safe to carry it within to the room it is to warm.

Nearly all the peasants in the near vicinity of cities are market gardeners on a small scale. They cultivate small plots, and whenever any crop is ripe, they load their donkey-panniers and go into the cities, where they sell from house to house. These vegetable-panniers have enormous pockets, and are woven of coarse, dyed grasses, in stripes and patterns of gaudy blue and red. When filled, they often cover and broaden the donkey’s back to such an extent that the lazy owner, determined to ride, must sit on the very last section of backbone. Some of the streets in Toledo are so narrow that the brick or stone walls of the buildings have been hewn and hollowed out at donkey-height, to allow the loaded panniers to pass. The buyers make their bargains from the windows, a sample vegetable being handed up for inspection.

TRAVELLERS should deny themselves Spain during December, January and February. The heating apparatus of the American and the English house is unknown in Spanish dwellings—fireplace, stove, nor furnace. The peasant draws his cloak up to his nose and shivers and cowers, while the middle-class family lights a single brazier, and the household, gathering in one room, hovers over the charcoal smouldering away in its brass cage, and the cats sit and purr on the broad wooden rim. These braziers are expensive—constructed of brass and copper—and few families afford more than one, making winter comfort out of the question, as the floors, of marble or stone, never get well warmed.

With the coming of pleasant weather Spanish families usually forsake the blinded, draperied, balconied rooms of the gallery for the secluded and garden-like patio. This court is often fifty feet square, and in its enclosure there is generally a fountain; the floor is tiled with marble, there are stately tropic plants in tubs, and orange and palm-trees are growing. Should the sunshine become too fierce there are smoothly-running screens and awnings to roof the whole court in an instant. Some of the old Moorish patios contain quaint wells, dry at some seasons, but often affording water sufficient for housekeeping needs.

The water-jars come from the famous potteries of Seville, and, made of a rude red clay, are similar in hue to our plant pots. They are brought in high loads by oxen—and these pottery carts are often an enlivening feature of the dull country roads.

The water cellar is not a cellar at all, but a stone-paved room off the patio, delightfully cool and sloppy of a fiery July day, with the water-carriers unloading, and filling the array of dripping red jars with the day’s supply from the public fountain.

Every Spanish peasant wears a knife in his sash. These knives are usually about eighteen inches long, with a broad, sharp, murderous blade. The handles are of tortoise or ivory, often carved richly, or inlaid with figures of the Virgin, the Saviour, or the crucifix. The knife is kept open by a curious little wheel, between blade and handle, and is used indiscriminately, to slice a melon or lay bare a quarrelsome neighbor’s heart.

SEVILLE is celebrated for its oranges and its pottery. Nearly the whole Spanish supply of water-jars comes from this city; and the outlying country is agreeably dotted with orange orchards, as olive oases enliven the vicinity of Cordova. The export of the fruit is a considerable business. The most delicious orange in the world may be bought in the streets of Seville for a cent, and the ordinary rate for the ordinary fruit is four for a cent. In the Christmas season large and selected oranges are sold in the outdoor booths. They are carefully brought, and temptingly hung in nets, along with melons cased in straw, fine bunches of garlic, chestnuts, assorted lengths of sugar-cane, tambourines, zambombas, and such other sweet and noisy objects as delight the Spanish youngster.

The decorative plant of Spain is the aloe—truly decorative, with its base of long, dark, clear-cut, sword-like leaves, its tall slender trunk often rising twenty feet high, and its broad candelabras of crimson blooms.

A picturesque industry of Seville is the spinning of the green rope so much used by Spanish farmers. It is manufactured from the coarse pampas grass of the plains, and the operation is a very leisurely and social one, requiring three persons: one to feed the wheel, one to turn it, and a third to receive the twisted rope.

Plowing, in Spain, is still a very rude performance. The primitive plow of the Garden of Eden era is yet in use—a sharp crotch of a tree, crudely shod, however, with iron.

An indispensable article of peasants’ costume for both men and women, should an absence of even two hours be contemplated, is the alforja, or peasant’s bag. This, in idea, is similar to the donkey-pannier—a long, stout, woollen strip thickly tufted with bunches of red and blue wool, with a bag at either end, and is worn slung over the shoulder. The pockets of the alforja invariably contain, one a pot of garlic, or green pudding, the other a wine skin.

The mouths of some wine-skins are fitted with a bottomless wooden saucer, and are lifted to the lips for drinking; but the preferable and national style is to catch the stream with the skin held aloft and away at arm’s-length.

A CENTRAL point of interest for visitors to Seville is the Cathedral. Its tower, known as the Giralda, is one of the most celebrated examples of sacred Moorish architecture. It was erected in an early century, and was considered very ancient when the Spaniards, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, built upon it the fine Cathedral. In the interior, the Tribuna de la Puorta Mayor is much visited for its lofty and beautiful sunlight effects, and there are several precious Murillos. The ascent of the Giralda is usually made by tourists—an agreeable variety in European climbing, as there are no stairs, the whole progress being by an easy series of inclined planes of brick masonry. Queen Isabella, not long ago, made the entire ascent and return upon horseback. From the summit, one views the whole of Seville, with its dark-green rim of orange gardens, set in the great flat barrens that stretch out towards Cadiz. A comic sight usual at the foot of the tower, significant as a sign of the complete contempt in which the Catholic

Spaniard holds all things Moslem and Moorish, is that of a goat belonging to one of the custodians, tethered from morning till night to a fine old Muezzin bell.

Another noted building is the Tower of Gold, on the banks of the Guadalquiver, opposite the Gypsy quarter. Tourists visit it to get the fine architectural effect of the Cathedral, also for its view of the Bull Ring. It stands on the site of the old Inquisition, where hosts of Moorish captives were tortured.

The Alcazar, always visited, is an ancient Moorish palace, and is considered, in point of elegance, second to only the Alhambra. It is now set aside by the government as the residence of the Queen-mother Isabella.

San Telmo is also much visited. It is the palace of the Duc de Montpensier, known throughout Spain as “the orange man.” He owns numerous orange orchards, and lavishes much time and money on his plantations and hothouses.

Another point of curiosity is known as the House of Pilate. It is said to be an exact reproduction of the celebrated House of Pilate in Jerusalem. It is remarkable for some exquisite tiles, and it bears many interesting inscriptions.

Seville presents an odd aspect to the stranger between the hours of three and six P. M. During this hot interval the streets and shops are deserted, everybody, even to the beggars, being under cover and asleep.