THE journey from Cordova to Malaga lasts from six in the morning till five in the afternoon. You are, of course, aroused at four and carried off to the station at five; so that you are really on the way much longer. But the scenery of Andalusia is so varied and beautiful that you are almost sorry when the train reaches its destination.

Beautiful Andalusia! so quaintly called by a lover of it, “the sweetest morsel of the Peninsula.” Who can forget or over-praise its voluptuous southern sky, its rich brown plains, its glistening white villages peeping amid groves of the cistus, the ilex, and the cork-tree, its green slopes crowned with Moorish towers and palaces, its delicious climate, its trickling streams, its sweet-smelling flowers?

The railway is new and carries one through a most astounding bit of country. After passing leagues of olive orchards, we found ourselves suddenly in a wholly different world. First came range after range of cold grey mountains, then perpendicular columns of limestone of gigantic size, evidently thrown up by volcanic action. These rocks and their counterparts have been admirably drawn by Gustave DorÉ in his splendid Don Quixote, and are quite awful in their height and barrenness.

The train went at a snail’s pace right through the heart of the gorge, and during this part of the journey, most of the passengers got out and walked! I suppose the line was not quite safe, and indeed the soil is so light and sulphurous that it seems impossible ever to make it so. We kept our seats, however. What a slow journey it was! Sometimes we hardly seemed to move at all, and kept stopping at little signal stations so long that we read and wrote letters, worked, and sketched, as if at home in our own drawing-room.

The guards were most civil, as usual, and did their best to explain matters to us. The railway would go quickly enough by-and-by, they said, but the road was a difficult one to work, &c., &c. MaÑana, maÑana (to-morrow), everything will go quickly to-morrow, is the usual cry.

The villages of Andalusia are very picturesque, and remind you of the west of England, only here the foliage is richer, the skies are of a deeper blue, the landscape is wilder and more varied. Here the white cottages glisten, not amid groves of beech, elm, and willow, but amid the orange-tree, the ilex, and the olive; whilst the uncultivated plains, instead of being purple with heath and golden with gorse, are barren and sunburnt as the face of a gipsy, save where thickets of the cistus and the cork-tree break the dreary sameness.

But there is more than a fancied resemblance between the home of the Andalusian peasant and the Devonshire labourer. The walls of his cottage are constructed after precisely the same fashion, and of precisely the same materials—that primitive, cheap, durable mixture of earth and reeds, which, when whitewashed, tones down into a beautiful cream colour, surpassing the richest marble for softness and mellowness of tint. In beautiful Andalusia, “the poor cottager contents himself with cob for his walls, and thatch for his covering;” as quaintly says an old English writer, and what in England is called cob, with all its varieties of concrete cob, dry cob, rad and dab, &c., is only another variety of the tapia, or mud wall of the Arab and Moro-Andalusian. Of concrete cob indeed, that is, a mixture of lime, rough sand, pebbles, earth, and reeds rammed into cases, are formed not only the noble walls of Cordova and Granada, but the Moorish watch-towers or atalayas, that so grandly rise along the southern sea-coast. We might, if we were so disposed, trace this economical and excellent masonry down to Cain, the builder of the first city—at least, so says a learned authority on the subject.[8] And guided by the finger-mark of learned authorities, we might follow its progress from east to west; for the simple art of cob-building links the cities and civilizations of the ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians with those of the Devonshire peasant, the Andalusian, and the Moor of Barbary, of to-day. No one who travels through the south of Spain will fail to observe the picturesque aspect of its villages; and I have gone out of my way to notice this feature in them, because any relationship in the arts is interesting to a traveller. He will find traces of cob alike in India, in Mexico, in Greece, and in Italy; but nowhere is the original architecture of the Phoenicians more noteworthily copied than in the sunny plains of Andalusia.

After traversing this wilderness of limestone run mad, we glided into a warmer and lovelier zone. We fancied ourselves in Algeria. There were golden plumes of palm-trees waving against a deep blue sky; orange and lemon groves at the foot of bluer hills; hedges of aloe and wild cactus by the roadside; flowers and sunshine and sweetness everywhere. It was Sunday, too, and pretty it was to see the handsome Andalusian peasants in their gay dresses alight and descend at the different stations, with orange-branches, bearing golden fruit and glossy leaf, in their hands. Wherever we stopped there came Murillo-like children to the door, bringing glasses of fresh water, saying, “Agua fresca, agua fresca.”

At the end of these beautiful Eastern pictures came Malaga, a large, white, dusty town, with a quiet blue sea at its feet, and above and around it the most wonderfully-coloured hills, purple, rose-colour, violet, blood-red, rainbow-hued in the sunset and colourless never.

We found Malaga, in spite of its delicious climate, its bright sea, its gorgeous hills, and its Eastern gardens, a disagreeable place. The streets always smelt of fish,—raw fish, cooked fish, fresh fish, dried fish, stale fish. The common people are dirty and unpleasant, a mongrel race, half-gipsy, half-bandit, with an evil look. The pavements are filthy, and all the time of our stay a sirocco was blowing, so that we were choked with dust wherever we went.

We stayed here several days nevertheless; and though we never liked Malaga, could not fail to be enchanted with the oriental look of the place. Just outside of the town were lovely gardens full of roses and geraniums in blossom, and here and there clusters of palms overspreading white-domed Moorish algibe, or wells; whilst we drove for miles along a road hedged in by the beautiful African reed, so like gigantic corn, that is golden in the sunshine and black as the cypress at twilight.

The colouring of the mountains is most delicious, and in part makes up for the fishiness and filthiness of the streets. A ray of the setting sun turns the whole wild sierra into a pageantry of pink, deepest violet, crimson, and amber, and makes you long to be an artist in order to transfix the wonderful scene. Mountain and palm, city and tower and sea, seen through the medium of so rare an atmosphere, might well tempt an artist to linger here.

The English Consul was very kind to us, and from him we learned a good deal that was interesting about the place. He took us to the Protestant Cemetery—a beautifully kept garden covering a hill by the sea-side, from whence we had a lovely view. It is a sweet spot; the graves lie in clusters around the chapel, and are half hidden by all kinds of tropic trees and flowers, the graceful pepper-tree, the orange, the lemon, the palmetto, the cistus, the lily; whilst above them stretch sunny slopes, newly planted with the vine and the fig. The soil is very red in colour and full of iron, which accounts for the beauty and the fertility of the landscape everywhere. I believe that for this boon of a burial-place, alike English and foreign Protestants are solely indebted to the father of the present Consul. Protestantism is an obnoxious weed in Catholic Spain, and all those unfortunate Protestants who died at Malaga before our Consul’s intervention, were buried like dogs in holes dug along the sea-shore. Now, no matter what a man’s faith and nation may be, if shut out of the Spanish burial-ground, he finds a resting-place here.

What gave us as much pleasure as anything in Malaga, was the sight of some orphanages, founded by a young, rich, and beautiful Spanish widow lady, who, having lost her husband and children by sudden deaths, devotes all her time and money to charitable works. The schools are under the direction of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, and the letter of introduction we carried with us procured ready admittance. The Sisters who received us had beautiful faces, a little sad perhaps, but expressive of the utmost peace and piety. One was a girl of twenty, and she had the sweetest eyes, brown, soft, and shy, with a child’s complexion, all pink and white, and a child’s rosy mouth—though not a child’s gaiety.

“But you are a Frenchwoman, ma soeur,” we said; “and you too!” we added, turning to the elder sister. “How is this? Are there not Spanish women enough to work for their own poor and fatherless?”

The elder sister shook her head.

“There are plenty of good Spanish women devoted to charity,” she answered, “but they seem wanting in energy and the love of organisation. They are content to serve, but have no desire to act and to travel. Now, we go to the uttermost ends of the earth and like it.”

“Yes; you see plenty of the world, ma soeur, you are always busy on good works. It is an enviable lot.”

She smiled, part pleased, part sad.

“We are content if we can do a little in the service of the Virgin and the blessed Saviour; but, alas! how little!”

“Do not say that, ma soeur. We who stand outside the Church are made better for your example of self-denial and benevolence.”

“Ah! you are Protestants, of course. Many come here to see the children at work.”

We now made the round of the school-rooms and ateliers, where we found children divided according to age. The little ones, from three to five, were seated on tiers of benches, as in our infant-schools, and were at lessons under the superintendence of a sweet-looking young woman, also a native of France. The system seemed admirable. The teacher held up a letter, and instantaneously every little hand waved, and every little mouth opened to say, “I see an A,” “I see a B,” “I see a C,” and so on, till the whole alphabet had been gone through. Their little lessons in spelling and arithmetic were gone through on the same plan, every response being accompanied by a gesture. The children seemed thoroughly to enjoy the lesson, and no wonder. It was as good as a game of gymnastics to them. I am sure this system is the only desirable one to pursue with very young children, who are like young animals, always wanting to frisk about. Every one who has had anything to do with village schools knows how difficult it is for the mistress to keep the little ones still, and how they are scolded, sent to the corner, and kept over hours for sinning in this respect. But the Sisters have no troubles of this kind, and by keeping body and mind alike active no time or temper is wasted on either side.

From the infant-school we went into the class-room and ateliers of the elder girls, and examined some very beautiful needlework, thread-lace, and embroidery, some completed and ready for sale, others in process. These children are all taken from the lowest classes; their work is sold and the proceeds set apart for them till such a time as they need a dowry, or outfit for service. Each child is, therefore, laying up a little nest-egg for herself, and is, at the same time, acquiring a profitable and womanly handicraft, and, what is even more important, a good moral training.

In a town like Malaga, where the lower ranks have been leavened with the yeast of brigandage, such an influence must be invaluable. I do not remember the average number of little scholars who come daily to be fed and taught by the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, but it is a large one.

What Malaga must be in the summer-time I have no idea, not having lived in tropical climates; but whilst we were there, in the last week of November, the heat was very trying. The much-vaunted Alameda, which is really a pretty walk, was unbearable on account of the wind, and sun, and dust; and it was not till we had got a mile out of the town that the air was fresh and pure. There are some charming country-houses with gardens, around Malaga, but it is only within the last half-dozen years that the proprietors have been able to use or let them. The banditti ruled the country with a rod of iron; land was comparatively worthless; travelling unsafe. As late as 1857 murder and assassination were so common in the streets of Malaga that a resident[9] wrote home, “The country is in a miserable state. The streets are not safe for a single person late at night. Murder is not thought much more of here than pocket-picking in England.”

Later, however, government has been working with a will to put down the brigands, and with such success that purchasing land is become a profitable speculation. People may now build country-houses, plant groves, and vineyards in safety. It is a pity there is no good hotel in the suburbs, for I think few invalids could support the bad smells and heat of the town.

Besides the palms and the purple hills, Malaga possesses superb vineyards. Who does not associate the very name of the place with raisins and sweet wine? And those who want to know what a Spanish vintage is, should come here in the early autumn. Wherever we went, we came in contact with mules heavily laden with boxes of raisins, of which I believe a million are exported every year; but the vintage was over, and after a week we were ready to go into Granada. Whilst we are yet in Catholic Spain (for who thinks of anything but the Moors at Granada?) let me recur to a very important subject. Of course, the passing traveller through Spain has very little opportunity of judging such important questions as the practical working of the Church. But it is a question of the deepest interest, and cannot fail to rise in an earnest mind again and again. Spain is the country of all others which Romanists will be inclined to regard as the faithful child of the only true Church. Is she indeed as faithful as tradition warrants—as love takes on credence? Alas! I fear the most devoted Catholic would not be able to say, yes. The first thing that strikes you on coming into the country is the contemptuous tone taken by all classes when speaking of the priests. What wonder, indeed? The priesthood is recruited from the lowest ranks; the priest is uneducated, ill-paid, often reputed to be immoral, always without dignity. Confessional is a dead letter. Infidelity is found among the rich; immorality among the poor. Wherever we went, we noticed the coarse, dull faces of the priests, and the irreverence of the people towards them. Of course there are exceptions, but, as a rule, the priest is held in slight esteem, whether deserving or no. “Not even the courtesy of Spaniards can make them behave decently to a priest,” says a candid and careful writer, who spent several years in Spain, and published some admirable letters on the practical working of the Church there.[10] From these letters, and my own observations, I have come to the painful conclusion that good Romanists will find Spain far from being the orthodox Utopia of their imagination. The churches are falling into ruin, the clergy are miserably paid, partly by a tax, partly by fees, a parish priest receiving about £80 a year, a beneficiado, or curate, about £40. Confessional and Communion are neglected by the young; and, where orthodoxy exists, it goes hand in hand with the deepest ignorance. Mariolatry is carried to the highest pitch, and the most absurd stories of modern miracles are believed in, and the Scriptures are a sealed book. In a little volume called the Manual of the Seminarista, is a chapter on the Scriptures which, the author states, “boys and women are not to have, because their natural simplicity is often mixed with ignorance and presumption, and leads them into heresies.” “Never shall I forget,” says the author first quoted, “the eagerness with which Don F—— borrowed my Spanish Testament when he found it was what he called puro. “We only get garbled scraps here,” he said; and he gives some most interesting and valuable letters from a Spanish priest to an English clergyman, wherein occur the following passages: “As you well know, the true and genuine gospel of Christ cannot be preached in Spain, but the gospel of the Pope, which is a very different thing indeed from that. Here there is not the Spirit, for where the Spirit is there is liberty. Our very bishops have nothing in common with the Apostles: they do not preach the Word—they do not instruct the people. All they do is for hire; they accommodate everything to their sensual conceptions and earthly desires.... The Bishop of —— has never preached the word of God, and so ignorant is he that he knows nothing except the ceremonies, and this is all that he requires in a priest. At the last synod for providing curas (priests) he forbade the theologians, as is the old custom, to test the candidates’ sufficiency by theological questions and dissertations! The Spaniards, having all these things before their eyes, laugh at the mission of the Christian priesthood, are losing their faith and morals, and sinking into atheism.... It cannot be denied that the Spaniards of the present day are generally opposed to Roman practices, and rather agree with you and me in thinking and doing than with them; such is the force of reason and truth. However, while they are giving up the errors of Romanism, they have no rule of faith and morality to embrace, and, led as by a blind impulse, each has prescribed a liberal and irregular belief for himself, which sometimes he follows and sometimes relinquishes.... Will you, then, associate yourselves together for the work of the Gospel in these regions? Will you, in your charity, lead this people to the true faith of Christ? Will you recall them from atheism or indifferentism to the Church of God? Establish evangelical missions, and support them with your pious alms. The Romanists labour night and day to propagate their errors; they send their fanatical missionaries to go round the world, and all sorts of sectaries run eagerly to the work. But ye, who profess the true faith of Christ, will ye leave a thirsty people to perish, and give them naught out of your abundance when they ask?” These extracts, short as they are, throw floods of light upon the present state of religious feeling in Spain. I remember that we saw, with some surprise, a translation of Renan’s Vie de JÉsus in a bookseller’s shop at Madrid, and heard two young men discuss it over their purchases with no few heresies expressed or implied. I suppose infidelity is a lesser crime than Protestantism in Catholic Spain. Protestantism is, in fact, entirely forbidden. Foreigners, being Protestants, are allowed to meet together for religious purposes at the office or house of their respective Consuls; but any Spaniard found among the congregation would be liable to some punishment. In 1850, the Rev. James Meyrick was assured by a canon of Cordova Cathedral that, according to the existing law of Spain, any Spaniard departing from the Romish doctrine is liable to capital punishment, though he added that he thought no government would now attempt to enforce that law. Any Protestant reading the service of the Protestant Church, excepting under the protection of his flag, would, with his congregation, be liable to fines, imprisonment, or dismissal from the country.

A few years ago it was necessary to have a certificate of confession before holding any office under the government, and the certificates were bought and sold for tenpence! Of course the greatest ignorance exists regarding the Scriptures. People confound the legends of modern times with the sacred history, and have as much faith in the one as the other. Every one has read Borrow’s extraordinary adventures in Spain, and will recall the story of the Alcalde, who after discoursing learnedly about Bentham, Lope de Vega, and Plato, took up the New Testament and asked, “What book is this?” Upon Borrow answering him he said, “Ha, ha! how very singular!—yes, I remember. I have heard that the English highly prize this eccentric book. How very singular that the countrymen of the great Bentham should set any value upon that old monkish book!” Mariolatry is carried to the same excess one sees in Italy. Ford, in his Gatherings, gives a striking instance of this in describing the execution of the robber Veneno. “The criminal exclaimed Viva la religion! Viva el rey! Viva el nombre de Jesus! All of which met no echo from those who heard him. His dying cry was, Viva la Virgen Santisima! At these words the devotion to the goddess of Spain broke forth in one general acclamation, Viva la Santisima!”

In the reign of Charles III., 1759-1780, a law was enacted, requiring a declaration upon oath of a firm belief in the Immaculate Conception, from everybody taking his degree at the university, or being admitted into any corporation, civil or religious, or even into a mechanic’s guild. The Virgin’s altars, images, robes and jewels, are gorgeous beyond description. At her name both priest and congregation made reverence. It is to her altars that the people flock. It is she who is represented as the guide and ruler of the Church, and the intercessor between God and man. To her are addressed most of the hymns and prayers by which indulgences are obtained. There is one hymn in a little book of prayers called the Novena, the repetition of which will procure more indulgence than a year of rigorous penances. This indulgence clears you from penance, or the indefinite consequences of neglected penance in purgatory; and if by a certain number of litanies, rosaries, and hymns, so much indulgence is gained, who would fast or otherwise do penance?

One cannot but lament this state of things, and equally lamentable is the condition of the priests and the position of the priesthood. There are, doubtless, many good and devout men in their ranks, but, as a body, they have lost caste and influence. When the friars were all ejected from the monasteries, they were weighed in the balance and found wanting; and friars and priests alike suffer still from a tide of antagonistic opinion. “No one knows, and no one will know until a revolution takes place,” said a Spaniard to me, “how the priests are disliked.” We ourselves noticed on several occasions a very low type of face among the priests with whom we came in contact, and their appearance is slatternly and often dirty in the extreme. These circumstances are easily accounted for when one reads of the way in which the army of the church is recruited. Most of the ejected friars were sons of peasants; and such a prejudice exists against taking holy orders, that very few parents of any social standing care to dedicate their sons to a profession so poor and so despised. It is true that a begging student of Salamanca may become a bishop, but that is the exceptionable case, the usual fate of a Spanish priest is to end his days a parish cura with an income of £40 a-year. I am sorry to say that the moral character of the clergy stands low.

It is pleasant to turn from such unsatisfactory prospects to the Sisters and their good works. Their predecessors had also their share of suffering. At the same time that the Government turned out the friars, many rich convents were confiscated too. There were three at Malaga that shared this fate. The nuns had entered with a dowry of from £120 to £400, which the abbess had spent on lands. They were living in the utmost comfort, each with her own apartments and servant. On a sudden, all was taken, and they were thrust out of their paradise as naked and helpless as Adam and Eve. Most of them had no home to go to, and gladly procured the humblest employment; some, it is said, perished of want. The worst of all was that the tide of public feeling had set so strongly against them, that they suffered torments of fear. No wonder that the priests were hated, for the memory of the Inquisition was still fresh, but the poor nuns had led harmless lives, often charitable ones, nursing the sick, and teaching the ignorant.[11]

There is no doubt that the ill-judged favour of royalty does more than anything else to fan the flames of popular dislike towards both priest and nun. Who is the PÈre Claret, the Queen’s confessor? An adventurer, who has been alternately soldier, ecclesiastic, author, missionary, and who formerly gained a certain notoriety for having written a coarse book. Who is the Soeur Patrocinio, abbess of the convent of St. Pascual d’Aranjuez? An intriguing impostor, once condemned by the public tribunal for having pretended to the miraculous possession of the Stigmata, or wounds of Christ.

Alas! I think every impartial traveller in Catholic Spain must conclude his observations in the words of Pugin:—“Pleasant meadows, happy peasants, all holy monks, all holy priests, holy everybody. Such charity and such unity where every man was a Catholic. I once believed in this Utopia myself, but when tested by stern facts, it all melts away like a dream.”