THE ALHAMBRA: A SERIES OF TALES AND SKETCHES OF THE MOORS AND SPANIARDS. DEDICATION. TO DAVID WILKIE, ESQ., R.A. MY DEAR SIR-You may remember that, in the course of the rambles we once took together about some of the old cities of Spain, particularly Toledo and Seville, we frequently remarked the mixture of the Saracenic with the Gothic, remaining from the time of the Moors, and were more than once struck with incidents and scenes in the streets, that brought to mind passages in the "Arabian Nights." You then urged me to write something illustrative of these peculiarities; "something in the Haroun Alraschid style," that should have a dash of that Arabian spice which pervades every thing in Spain. I call this to mind to show you that you are, in some degree, responsible for the present work; in which I have given a few" Arabesque" sketches and tales, taken from the life, or founded on local traditions, and mostly struck off during a residence in one of the most legendary and Morisco-Spanish places of the Peninsula. I inscribe this work to you, as a memorial of the pleasant scenes we have witnessed together, in that land of adventure, and as a testimony of an esteem for your worth, which can only be exceeded by ad miration of your talents. Your friend and fellow traveller, THE AUTHOR. THE JOURNEY. 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 remembrance of one, in whom neither time nor distance will obliterate the recollection 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 in their imaginations as a soft southern region decked out with all 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, naked, sweeping plains, destitute of trees, and invariably 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 cagle 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 of Spain, and in them chiefly among the orchards and gardens which surround the habitations of man. In the exterior 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 sun-burnt; but he looks round in vain for the hand that has tilled the soil: at length he perceives some village perched on a steep hill, or rugged crag, with mouldering battlements and ruined watch-tower; 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 :n most parts of Spain, in consequence of the marauding of roving freebooters. the garniture of groves and forests, and the softer But though a great part of Spain is deficient in charms of ornamental cultivation, yet its scenery has Something of a high and lofty character to compen sate the want. It partakes something of 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 La Mancha, extending as far as the eye can reach, derive an interest from their very nakedness and immensity, and have something of the solemn grandeur of the ocean. In ranging over these boundless wastes, the eye catches sight, here and there, of a s'raggling 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 herdsmen, 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 trabucho; and, per haps, a servant on foot with a blunderbuss on his shoulder; and the most petty journey is undertaken with the preparations of a warlike enterprse. (101) 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 troops, and set off in large and wellarmed trains on appointed days, while individual 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 wanderer of the land, traversing 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 (or saddle-bags,) 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 is his pillow. His low but clear-limbed and sinewy form betokens strength; his complexion is dark and sun-alight and lead his horse up and down the steep and Durnt; his eye resolute, but quiet in its expression, except when kindled by sudden emotion; his demeanour is frank, manly, and courteous, and he never passes you without a grave salutation-" Dios guarda à usted!"-"Vay 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 down for desperate defence. But their united numbers render them secure against petty bands of marauders, and the solitary bandalero, armed to the teeth, and mounted on his Andalusian steed, hovers about them, like a pirate about a merchant convoy, without daring to make an assault. The Spanish muleteer has an inexhaustible stock of songs and ballads, with which to beguile his incessant way-faring. The airs are rude and simple, consisting of but few inflexions. 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 bandalero; 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. 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 tufts tassels, and saddle-cloths; while, as they pass by, the ever ready trabucho, slung behind their packs and saddles, gives a hint of the insecurity of the road. The ancient kingdom of Granada, into which we are 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 sun-burnt summits against a deep blue sky, yet in their rugged bosoms lie engulfed the most verdant and fertile valley, where the desert and the garden strive for mastery, and the very rock, as it were, compelled to yield the fig, the orange, and the citron, and to blossom with the myrtle and the rose. In the wild passes of these mountains, the sight of walled towns and villages built like eagles' nests among the cliffs, and surrounded by Moorish battlements, or of ruined watch-towers perched on lofty peaks, carry the mind back to the chivalrous days of Christian and Moslem warfare, and to the romantic struggle for the conquest of Granada. In traversing their lofty Sierras, the traveller is often obliged to jagged ascents and descents, resembling the broken steps of a staircase. Sometimes the road winds along dizzy precipices, without parapet to guard him from the gulfs below, and then will plunge down steep and dark and dangerous declivities. Sometimes it struggles through rugged barrancos, or ravines, worn by water torrents; the obscure paths of the Contrabandista, while ever and anon, the ominous cross, the memento of robbery and murder, erected on a mound of stones at some lonely part of the road, admonishes the traveller that he is among the haunts of banditti; perhaps, at that very moment, under the eye of some lurking bandalero. Sometimes, in winding through the narrow valleys, he is startled by a hoarse bellowing, and beholds above him, on some green fold of the mountain side, a herd of fierce Andalusian bulls, destined for the combat of the arena. There is something awful in the contemplation of these terrific animals, clothed with tremendous strength, and ranging their native pastures, in untamed wildness: strangers almost to the face of man, They know no one but the solitary herdsman who attends upon them, and even he at times dares not venture to approach them. The low bellowings of these bulls, and their menacing aspect as they look down from their rocky height, give additional wildness to the savage scenery around. I have been betrayed unconsciously into a longer disquisition than I had intended on the several features of Spanish travelling; but there is a romance about all the recollections of the Peninsula that is dear to the imagination. It was on the first of May that my companion and myself set forth from Seville, on our route to Granada. We had made all due preparations for the nature of our journey, which lay through mountainous regions where the roads are little better than mere mule paths, and too frequently beset by robbers. The most valuable part of our luggage had been forwarded by the arrieros; we retained merely clothing and necessaries for the journey, and money for the expenses of the road, with a sufficient surplus of the latter to satisfy the expectations of robbers, should we be assailed, and to save ourselves from the rough treatment that awaits the too wary and emptyhanded traveller. A couple of stout hired steeds were provided for ourselves, and a third for our scanty luggage, and for the conveyance of a sturdy Biscayan lad of about twenty years of age, who was to guide us through the perplexed mazes of the mountain roads, to take care of our horses, to act occasionally as our valet, and at all times as our guard; for he had a formidable trabucho, or carbine, to defend us from rateros, or solitary footpads, about which weapon he made much vain-glorious boast, though, to the dis credit of his generalship, I must say, that it generally | little amorous ditties with an expressive leer at the hung unloaded behind his saddle. He was, however, women, with whom he was evidently a favourite a taithful, cheery, kind-hearted creature, full of saws and proverbs as that miracle of squires, the renowned Sancho himself, whose name we bestowed upon him; and, like a true Spaniard, though treated by us with companionable familiarity, he never for a moment in his utmost hilarity, outstripped the bounds of respectful decorum. He afterwards danced a fandango with a buxom Andalusian damsel, to the great delight of the spectators. But none of the females present could compare with mine host's pretty daughter Josefa, who had slipped away and made her toilette for the occasion, and had adorned her head with roses; and also distinguished herself in a bolero with a handsome young dragoon. We had ordered our host to let wine and refreshments circulate freely among the company, yet, though there was a motley assemblage of soldiers, muleteers and villagers, no one exceeded the bounds of sober enjoyment. The scene was a study for a painter: the picturesque group of dancers; the troopers in their half military dresses, the peasantry wrapped in their brown cloaks, nor must I omit to mention the old meagre Alguazil in a short black cloak, who took no notice of any thing going on, but sat in a corner diligently writing by the dim light of a huge copper lamp that might have figured in the days of Don Quixote. Thus equipped and attended, we set out on our journey with a genuine disposition to be pleased: with such a disposition, what a country is Spain for a traveller, where the most miserable inn is as full of adventure as an enchanted castle, and every meal is in itself an achievement! Let others repine at the lack of turnpike roads and sumptuous hotels, and all the elaborate comforts of a country cultivated into tameness and common-place, but give me the rude mountain scramble, the roving haphazard way-faring, the frank, hospitable, though half wild manners, that give such a true game flavour to romantic Spain ! Our first evening's entertainment had a relish of the kind. We arrived after sunset at a little town I am not writing a regular narratie, and do not among the hills, after a fatiguing journey over a pretend to give the varied events of several days' wide houseless plain, where we had been repeatedly rambling over hill and dale, and moor and moundrenched with showers. In the inn were quartered tain. We travelled in true contrabandista style, taka party of Miguelistas, who were patrolling the coun- ing every thing, rough and smooth, as we found it, try in pursuit of robbers. The appearance of for- and mingling with all classes and conditions in a eigners like ourselves was unusual in this remote kind of vagabond companionship. It is the true town. Mine host with two or three old gossipping way to travel in Spain. Knowing the scanty larders comrades in brown cloaks studied our passports in of the inns, and the naked tracts of country the trava corner of the posada, while an Alguazil took notes eller has often to traverse, we had taken care, on by the dim light of a lamp. The passports were in starting, to have the alforjas, or saddle-bags, of our foreign languages, and perplexed them, but our Squire well stocked with cold provisions, and his Squire Sancho assisted them in their studies, and beta, or leathern bottle, which was of portly dimenmagnified our importance with the grandiloquence sions, filled to the neck with choice Valdepenas wine. of a Spaniard. In the mean time the magnificent As this was a munition for our campaign more imdistribution of a few cigars had won the hearts of portant than even his trabucho, we exhorted him to all around us. In a little while the whole commu- have an eye to it, and I will do him the justice to say nity seemed put in agitation to make us welcome. that his namesake, the trencher-loving Sancho himThe Corregidor himself waited upon us, and a great self, could not excel him as a provident purveyor. rush-bottomed armed chair was ostentatiously bol- Though the alforjas and beta were repeatedly and stered into our room by our landlady, for the accom- vigorously assailed throughout the journey, they apmodation of that important personage. The com-peared to have a miraculous property of being never mander of the patrol took supper with us: a surly, empty; for our vigilant Squire took care to sack talking, laughing, swaggering Andaluz, who had every thing that remained from our evening repasts made a campaign in South America, and recounted at the inns, to supply our next day's luncheon. his exploits in love and war with much pomp of praise and vehemence of gesticulation, and mysterious rolling of the eye. He told us he had a list of all the robbers in the country, and meant to ferret But every mother's son of them; he offered us at the same time some of his soldiers as an escort. "One is enough to protect you, Signors; the robbers know me, and know my men; the sight of one is enough to spread terror through a whole sierra." We thanked him for his offer, but assured him, in his own strain, that with the protection of our redoubtable Squire Sancho, we were not afraid of all the ladrones of Andalusia, What luxurious noontide repasts have we made on the green sward by the side of a brook or fountain under a shady tree, and then what delicious siestas on our cloaks spread out on the herbage! Our We paused one day at noon, for a repast of the kind. It was in a pleasant little green meadow, surrounded by hills covered with olive trees. cloaks were spread on the grass under an elm tree, by the side of a babbling rivulet: our horses were tethered where they might crop the herbage, and Sancho produced his alforjas with an air of triumph. They contained the contributions of four days' journeying, but had been signally enriched by the forWhile we were supping with our Andalusian aging of the previous evening, in a plenteous inn at friend, we heard the notes of a guitar and the click Antequera. Our Squire drew forth the heterogeneof castanets, and presently, a chorus of voices, sing-ous contents one by one, and they seemed to have ing a popular air. In fact, mine host had gathered no end. First came forth a shoulder of roasted kid, together the amateur singers and musicians and the very little the worse for wear, then an entire parrustic belles of the neighbourhood, and on going|tridge, then a great morsel of salted codfish wrapped forth, the court-yard of the inn presented a scene in paper, then the residue of a ham, then the half of of true Spanish festivity. We took our seats with a pullet, together with several rolls of bread and a mine host and hostess and the commander of the rabble route of oranges, figs, raisins, and walnuts. patrol, under the archway of the court. The guitar His beta also had been recruited with some excelpassed from hand to hand, but a jovial shoemaker lent wine of Malaga. At every fresh apparition from was the Orpheus of the place. He was a pleasant his larder, he could enjoy our ludicrous surprise, looking fellow with huge black whiskers and a rogu- throwing himself back on the grass and shouting ish eye. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows; with laughter. be touched the guitar with masterly skill, and sang | Nothing pleased this simple-hearted varlet more than to be compared, for his devotion to the trencher, to the renowned squire of Don Quixote. He was well versed in the history of the Den, and, like most of the common people of Spain, he firmly believed it to be a true history. "All that, however, happened a long time ago, Signor," said he to me, one day, with an inquiring look. "A very long time," was the reply. I dare say, more than a thousand years?"--still looking dubiously. "I dare say? not less." The squire was satisfied. my he, "with shame greater than my hunger, for heart was yet too proud. I came to a river with high banks and deep rapid current, and felt tempted to throw myself in ; what should such an old worthless wretched man as I live for! But, when I was on the brink of the current, I thought on the blessed Virgin, and turned away. I travelled on until I saw a country-seat, at a little distance from the road, and entered the outer gate of the court-yard. The door was shut, but there were two young signoras at a window. I approached, and begged: Perdona usted per Dios hermano!' (excuse us, brother, for God's sake!) and the window closed. I crept out of the court-yard; but hunger overcame me, and my heart gave way. I thought my hour was at hand. So I laid myself down at the gate, commended my self to the holy Virgin, and covered my head to die. In a little while afterwards, the master of the house came home. Seeing me lying at his gate, he uncovered my head, had pity on my gray hairs, took me into his house and gave me food. So, Signors, you see that we should always put confidence in the protection of the Virgin." As we were making our repast above described, and diverting ourselves with the simple drollery of our squire, a solitary beggar approached us, who had almost the look of a pilgrim. He was evidently very old, with a gray beard, and supported himself on a staff, yet age had no borne him down; he was tall and erect, and had the wreck of a fine form. He wore a round Andalusian hat, a sheepskin jacket, and leathern breeches, gaiters, and sandals. His dress, though old and patched, was decent, his demeanour manly, and he addressed us with that grave The old man was on his way to his native place courtesy that is to be remarked in the lowest Span- Archidona, which was close by the summit of a iard. We were in a favourable mood for such a vis- steep and rugged mountain. He pointed to the ru itor, and in a freak of capricious charity gave him ins of its old Moorish castle. That castle, he said, some silver, a loaf of fine wheaten bread, and a gob- was inhabited by a Moorish king at the time of the let of our choice wine of Malaga. He received them wars of Granada. Queen Isabella invaded it with a thankfully, but without any grovelling tribute of grat-great army, but the king looked down from his casitude. Tasting the wine, he held it up to the light, with a slight beam of surprise in his eye; then quaffing it off at a draught: "It is many years," said he, "since I have tasted such wine. It is a cordial to an old man's heart." Then looking at the beautiful wheaten loaf: "Bendita sea tal pan!" (blessed be such bread!) So saying, he put it in his wallet. We urged him to eat it on the spot. "No. Signors," replied he, "the wine I had to drink, or leave; but the bread I must take home to share with my family." Our man Sancho sought our eye, and reading permission there, gave the old man some of the ample fragments of our repast; on condition, however, that he should sit down and make a meal. He accordingly took his seat at some little distance from us, and began to eat, slowly, and with a sobriety and decorum that would have become a hidalgo. There was altogether a measured manner and a quiet selfpossession about the old man that made me think he had seen better days; his language, too, though simple, had occasionally something picturesque and almost poetical in the phraseology. I set him down for some broken-down cavalier. I was mistaken, it was nothing but the innate courtesy of a Spaniard, and the poetical turn of thought and language often to be found in the lowest classes of this clear-witted people. For fifty years, he told us, he had been a shepherd, but now he was out of employ, and destitute. "When I was a young man," said he, "nothing could harm or trouble me. I was always well, always gay; but now I am seventy-nine years of age, and a beggar, and my heart begins to fail me." Still he was not a regular mendicant, it was not until recently that want had driven him to this degradation, and he gave a touching picture of the struggle between hunger and pride, when abject destitution first came upon him. He was returning from Malaga, without money; he had not tasted food for some time, and was crossing one of the great plains of Spain, where there were but few habitations. When almost dead with hunger, he applied at the door of a venta, or country inn. "Perdona usted per Dios hermano!" (excuse us, brother, for God's sake!) was the reply ;-the usual mode in Spain of refusing a beggar. "I turned away," said tle among the clouds, and laughed her to scorn. Upon this, the Virgin appeared to the queen, and guided her and her army up a mysterious path of the mountain, which had never before been known. When the Moor saw her coming, he was astonished, and springing with his horse from a precipice, was dashed to pieces. The marks of his horse's hoofs, said the old man, are to be seen on the margin of the rock to this day. And see, Signors, yonder is the road by which the queen and her army mounted; you see it like a riband up the mountain side; but the miracle is, that, though it can be seen at a distance, when you come near, it disappears. The ideal road to which he pointed, was evidently a sandy ravine of the mountain, which looked narrow and defined at a distance, but became broad and indistinct on an approach. As the old man's heart warmed with wine and wassail, he went on to tell us a story of the buried treasure left under the earth by the Moorish king. His own house was next to the foundations of the castle. The curate and notary dreamt three times of the treasure, and went to work at the place pointed out in their dreams. His own son-inlaw heard the sound of their pick-axes and spades at night. What they found nobody knows; they became suddenly rich, but kept their own secret. Thus the old man had once been next door to fortune, but was doomed never to get under the same roof. I have remarked that the stories of treasure buried by the Moors, which prevail throughout Spain, are most current among the poorest people. It is thus kind nature consoles with shadows for the lack of substantials. The thirsty man dreams of fountains and roaring streams, the hungry man of ideal banquets, and the poor man of heaps of hidden gold; nothing certainly is more magnificent than the imagination of a beggar. The last travelling sketch which I shall give is a curious scene at the little city of Loxa. This was a famous belligerent frontier post, in the time of the Moors, and repulsed Ferdinand from its walls. It was the strong-hold of old Ali Atar, the father-in-law of Boabdil, when that fiery veteran sallied forth with his son-in-law, on that disastrous inroad, that ended in the death of the chieftain, and the capture of the |