DON QUIXOTE’S first thought, after having determined to ride forth into Spain, was to get a horse; his second was to secure a squire; and as the narrative of his journey is still an excellent guide-book for modern travellers, his example is not to be slighted. A good Sancho Panza will on the whole be found to be a more constant comfort to a knight-errant than even a Dulcinea. To secure a really good servant is of the utmost consequence to all who make out-of-the-way excursions in the Peninsula; for, as in the East, he becomes often not only cook, but interpreter and companion to his master. It is therefore of great importance to get a person with whom a man can ramble over these wild scenes. The so doing ends, on the part of the attendant, in an almost canine friendship; and the Spaniard, when the tour is done, is broken-hearted, and ready to leave his home, horse, ass, and wife, to follow his master, like a dog, to the world’s-end. Nine times out of ten it is the master’s fault if he has bad servants: tel maÎtre tel valet. Al amo imprudente, el mozo negligente. He must begin at once, and exact the performance of their duty; the only way to get them to do anything is, as the Duke said, to “frighten them,” to “take a decided line.” It is very difficult to make them see the importance of detail and of doing exactly what they are told, which they will always endeavour to shirk when they can; their task must be clearly pointed out to them at starting, and the earliest and smallest infractions, either in commission or omission, at once and seriously noticed, the moral victory is soon gained. The example of the masters, if they be active and orderly, is the best lesson to servants; mucho sabe el rato, pero mas el gato; the rats are well enough, but the cats are better. Achilles, Patroclus, and the Homeric heroes, were their own cooks; and many a man who, like Lord Blayney, may not be a hero, will be none the worse for following the epical example, in a Spanish venta: at all events a good servant, who is up to his work, and will work, is indeed a jewel; and on these, as on other occasions, he deserves to be well treated. Those who make themselves honey are eaten by flies—quien se hace miel, le comen las moscas; while no rat ever ventures to jest with the cat’s son; con hijo de gato, no se burlan los ratones. The great thing is to make them get up early, and learn the value of time, which the groom cannot tie with his halter, tiempo y hora, no se ata con soga: while a cook who oversleeps himself not only misses his mass, but his meat, quien se levanta tarde, ni oye misa, ni compra carne. If (which is soon found out) the servants seem not likely to answer, the sooner they are changed the better; it is loss of time and soap, and he who is good for nothing in his own village will not be worth more either in Seville or elsewhere, so says the proverb.

The principal defects of Spanish servants and of the lower classes of Spaniards are much the same, and faults of race. As a mass, they are apt to indulge in habits of procrastination, waste, improvidence, and untidiness. They are unmechanical and obstinate, easily beaten by difficulties, which their first feeling is to raise, and their next to succumb to; they give the thing up at once. They have no idea indeed of grappling with anything that requires much trouble, or of doing anything as it ought to be done, or even of doing the same thing in the same way—accident and the impulse of the moment set them going. They are very unmechanical, obstinate, and prejudiced; ignorant of their own ignorance and incurious as Orientals; partly from pride, self-opinion, and idleness, they seldom will ask questions for information from others, which implies an inferiority of knowledge, and still more seldom will take an answer, unless it be such a one as they desire; their own wishes, opinions, and wants are their guides, and self the centre of their gravity, not those of their employers. As a Spaniard’s yes, when you beg a favour, generally means no, so they cannot or will not understand that your no is really a negative when they come petitioning to be idle; at the same time a great change for the better comes over them when they are taken out of the city on a rambling tour. The nomad life excites them into active serviceable fellows; in fact the uncertain harum-scarum nomad existence is exactly what suits these descendants of the Arab; they cannot bear the steady sustained routine of a well-managed household; they abhor confinement; hence the difficulty of getting Spaniards to garrison fortresses or to man ships of war, from whence there is no escape.

As for what we call a well-appointed servants’ hall, the case is hopeless in Spanish field or city, and is equally so whether the life be above or below stairs. In the house of the middle or highest classes this is particularly shown in everything that regards gastronomics, which are the tests and touchstones of good service. In truth, the Spaniard, accustomed to his own desultory, free and easy, impromptu, scrambling style of dining, is constrained by the order and discipline, the pomp and ceremony, and serious importance of a well-regulated dinner, and their observance of forms extends only to persons, not to things: even the grandee has only a thin European polish spread over his Gotho-Bedouin dining table; he lives and eats surrounded by an humble clique, in his huge ill-furnished barrack-house, without any elegance, luxury, or even comfort, according to sound trans-pyrenean notions: few indeed are the kitchens which possess a cordon bleu, and fewer are the masters who really like an orthodox entrÉe, one unpolluted with the heresies of garlic and red pepper: again, whenever their cookery attempts to be foreign, as in their other imitations, it ends in being a flavourless copy; but few things are ever done in Spain in real style, which implies forethought and expense; everything is a make-shift; the noble master reposes his affairs on an unjust steward, and dozes away life on this bed of roses, somnolescent over business and awake only to intrigue; his numerous ill-conditioned, ill-appointed servants have no idea of discipline or subordination; you never can calculate on their laying even the table-cloth, as they prefer idling in the church or market to doing their duty, and would rather starve, dance, and sleep out of place and independently, than feast and earn their wages by fair work; nor has the employer any redress, for if he dismisses them he will only get just such another set, or even worse.

In our own Spanish household, the instant dinner and siesta were over, the cook with his kitchen-man, the valet with the footman invariably stripped off their working apparel—liveries are almost unheard of—donned their comical velvet embroidered hats, their sky-blue waistcoats, and scarlet sashes, and were off with a guitar to some scene of song and love-making, leaving their master alone in his glory to moralize on the uncertainty of human concerns and the faithlessness of mankind.

What can’t be cured must be endured. To resume, therefore, the character of these Spanish servants; they are very loquacious, and highly credulous, as often is the case with those given to romancing, which they, and especially the Andalucians, are to a large degree; and, in fact, it is the only remaining romance in Spain, as far as the natives are concerned. As they have an especial good opinion of themselves, they are touchy, sensitive, jealous, and thin-skinned, and easily affronted whenever their imperfections are pointed out; their disposition is very sanguine and inflammable; they are always hoping that what they eagerly desire will come to pass without any great exertion on their parts; they love to stand still with their arms folded, while other men put their shoulders to the wheel. Their lively imagination is very apt to carry them away into extremes for good or evil, when they act on the moment like children, and having gratified the humour of the impulse relapse into their ordinary tranquillity, which is that of a slumbering volcano. On the other hand, they are full of excellent and redeeming good qualities; they are free from caprice, are hardy, patient, cheerful, good-humoured, sharp-witted, and intelligent: they are honest, faithful, and trustworthy; sober, and unaddicted to mean, vulgar vices; they have a bold, manly bearing, and will follow well wherever they are well led, being the raw material of as good soldiers as are in the world; they are loyal and religious at heart, and full of natural tact, mother-wit, and innate good manners. In general, a firm, quiet, courteous, and somewhat reserved manner is the most effective. Whenever duties are to be performed, let them see that you are not to be trifled with. The coolness of a determined Englishman’s manner, when in earnest, is what few foreigners can withstand. Grimace and gesticulation, sound and fury, bluster, petulance, and impertinence fume and fret in vain against it, as the sprays and foam of the “French lake” do against the unmoved and immoveable rock of Gibraltar. An Englishman, without being over-familiar, may venture on a far greater degree of unbending in his intercourse with his Spanish dependants than he can dare to do with those he has in England. It is the custom of the country; they are used to it, and their heads are not turned by it, nor do they ever forget their relative positions. The Spaniards treat their servants very much like the ancient Romans or the modern Moors; they are more their vernÆ, their domestic slaves: it is the absolute authority of the father combined with the kindness. Servants do not often change their masters in Spain: their relation and duties are so clearly defined, that the latter runs no risk of compromising himself or his dignity by his familiarity, which can be laid down or taken up at his own pleasure; whereas the scorn, contempt, and distance with which the said courteous Don would treat a roturier who presumed to be intimate, baffle description. In England no man dares to be intimate with his footman; for supposing even such absurd fancy entered his brain, his footman is his equal in the eye of man-made law, God having created them utterly unequal in all his gifts, whether of rank, wealth, form, or intellect. Conventional barriers accordingly must be erected in self-defence: and social barriers are more difficult to be passed than walls of brass, more impossible to be repealed than the whole statutes at large. No master in Spain, and still less a foreigner, should ever descend to personal abuse, sneers, or violence. A blow is never to be washed out except in blood, and Spanish revenge descends to the third and fourth generation; and whatever these backward Spaniards have to learn from foreigners, it is not the duty of revenge, nor how to perform it. There should be no threatenings in vain, but whenever the opportunity occurs for punishment, let it be done quietly and effectively, and the fault once punished should not be needlessly ripped up again; Spaniards are sufficiently unforgiving, and hoarders-up of unrevenged grievances require to be reminded. A kind and uniform behaviour, a showing consideration to them, in a manner which implies that you are accustomed to it, and expect it to be shown to you, keeps most things in their right places. Temper and patience are the great requisites in the master, especially when he speaks the language imperfectly. He must not think Spaniards stupid because they cannot guess the meaning of his unknown tongue. Nothing again is gained by fidgeting and overdoing, and however early you may get up, daybreak will not take place the sooner: no por mucho madrugar, amanece mas temprano. Let well alone: be not zealous overmuch: be occasionally both blind and deaf: shut the door, and the devil passes by: keep honey in mouth and an eye to your cash: miel en boca y guarda la bolsa. Still how much less expenditure is necessary in Spain than in performing the commonest excursion in England!—and yet many who submit to their own countrymen’s extortions are furious at what they imagine is an especial cheating of them, quasi Englishmen, abroad: this outrageous economy, with which some are afflicted, is penny wise and pound foolish: pay, pay therefore with both hands. The traveller must remember that he gains caste, gets brevet rank in Spain—that he is taken for a grandee incog., and ranks with their nobility; he must pay for these luxuries: how small after all will be the additional per centage on his general expenditure, and how well bestowed is the excess, in keeping the temper good, and the capability of enjoying unruffled a tour, which only is performed once in a life! No wise man who goes into Spain for amusement will plunge into this guerrilla, this constant petty warfare, about sixpences. Let the traveller be true to himself; hold his tongue; avoid bad company, quien hace su cama con perros, se levanta con pulgas, those who sleep with dogs get up with fleas; and make room for bulls and fools, al loco y toro da le corro, and he may see Spain agreeably, and, as Catullus said to Veranius, who made the tour many centuries ago, may on his return amuse his friends and “old mother:”—

which may be thus Englished:—

Two masters should take two servants, and both should be Spaniards: all others, unless they speak the language perfectly, are nuisances. A Gallegan or Asturian makes the best groom, an Andaluz the best cook and personal attendant. Sometimes a person may be picked up who has some knowledge of languages, and who is accustomed to accompany strangers through Spain as a sort of courier. These accomplishments are very rare, and the moral qualities of the possessor often diminish in proportion as his intellect has marched; he has learnt more foreign tricks than words, and sea-port towns are not the best schools for honesty. Of these nondescripts the Hispano-Anglo, who generally has deserted from Gibraltar, is the best, because he will work, hold his tongue, and fight; a monkey would be a less inconvenience than a chattering Ibero-Gallo; one who has forgotten his national accomplishments—cooking and hairdressing, and learnt very few Spanish things, such as good temper and endurance. Whichever of the two is the sharpest should lead the way, and leave the other to bring up the rear. They should be mounted on good mules, and be provided with large panniers. One should act as the cook and valet, the other as the groom of the party; and the utensils peculiar to each department should be carried by each professor. Where only one servant is employed, one side of the pannier should be dedicated to the commissariat, and the other to the luggage; in that case the master should have a flying portmanteau, which should be sent by means of cosarios, and precede him from great town to great town, as a magazine, wardrobe, or general supply to fall back on. The servants should each have their own saddle-bag and leathern bottle, which, since the days of Sancho Panza, are part and parcel of a faithful squire, and when all are carried on an ass are quite patriarchal. “Iba Sancho Panza sobre su jumento, como un patriarca con sus alforjas y bota.”

The servants will each in their line look after their own affairs; the groom will take with him the things of the stable, and a small provision of corn, in order that a feed may never be wanting, on an unexpected emergency; he will always ascertain beforehand through what sort of a country each day’s journey is to be made, and make preparations accordingly. The valet will view his masters in the same light as the groom does his beasts; and he will purvey and keep in readiness all that appertains to their comfort, always remembering a moskito net—we shall presently say a word on the fly-plague of the Peninsula—with nails to knock into the walls to hang it up by, not forgetting a hammer and gimlet; common articles enough, but which are never to be got at the moment and place where they are the most wanted. He will also carry a small canteen, the smaller and more ordinary the better, as anything out of the common way attracts attention, and suggests, first, the coveting other men’s goods, and so on to assaults, batteries, robberies, and other inconveniences, which have been exploded on our roads; although F. Moryson took care to caution our ancestors “to be warie on this head, since theeves have their spies commonly in all innes, to enquire into the condition of travellers.” The manufactures of Spain are so rude and valueless that what appears to us to be the most ordinary appears to them to be the most excellent, as they have never seen anything so good. The lower orders, who eat with their fingers, think everything is gold which glitters, todo es oro lo que reluce; as, after all, it is what is on the plate that is the rub, let no wise man have such smart forks and knives as to tempt cut-throats to turn them to unnatural purposes. However, avoid all superfluous luggage, especially prejudices and foregone conclusions, for “en largo camino paja pesa,” a straw is heavy on a long journey, and the last feather breaks the horse’s back. A store of cigars, however, must always be excepted; take plenty and give them freely; it always opens a conversation well with a Spaniard, to offer him one of these little delicate marks of attention. Good snuff is acceptable to the curates and to monks (though there are none just now). English needles, thread, and pairs of scissars take no room, and are all keys to the good graces of the fair sex. There is a charm about a present, bachshish, in most European as well as Oriental countries, and still more if it is given with tact, and at the proper time; Spaniards, if unable to make any equivalent return, will always try to repay by civilities and attentions.

Every one must determine for himself whether he prefers the assistance of this servant in the kitchen or at the toilet; since it is not easy for mortal man to dress a master and a dinner, and both well at the same time, let alone two masters. A cook who runs after two hares at once catches neither. No prudent traveller on these, or on any occasions, should let another do for him what he can do for himself, and a man who waits upon himself is sure to be well waited on. If, however, a valet be absolutely necessary, the groom clearly is best left in his own chamber, the stable; he will have enough to do to curry and valet his four animals, which he knows to be good for their health, though he never scrapes off the cutaneous stucco by which his own illote carcass is Roman cemented. From long experience we have found that if the rider will get into the habit of carrying all the things requisite for his own dressing in a small separate bag, and employ the hour while the cook is getting the supper under weigh, it is wonderful how comfortably he will proceed to his puchero.

The cook should take with him a stewing-pan, and a pot or kettle for boiling water; he need not lumber himself with much batterie de cuisine; it is not much needed in the imperfect gastronomy of the Peninsula, where men eat like the beasts which perish; all sort of artillery is rather rare in Spanish kitchen or fortress; an hidalgo would as soon think of having a voltaic battery in his sitting-room as a copper one in his cuisine; most classes are equally satisfied with the Oriental earthenware ollas, pucheros, or pipkins, which are everywhere to be found, and have some peculiar sympathy with the Spanish cuisine, since a stew—be it even of a cat—never eats so well when made in a metal vessel; the great thing is to bring the raw materials,—first catch your hare. Those who have meat and money will always get a neighbour to lend them a pot. A venta is a place where the rich are sent empty away, and where the poor hungry are not filled; the whole duty of the man-cook, therefore, is to be always thinking of his commissariat; he need not trouble himself about his master’s appetite, that will seldom fail,—nay, often be a misfortune; a good appetite is not a good per se,[6] for it, even when the best, becomes a bore when there is nothing to eat; his capucho or mule hamper must be his travelling larder, cellar, and store-room; he will victual himself according to the route, and the distances from one great town to another, and always take care to start with a good provision: indeed to attend to the commissariat is, it cannot be too often repeated, the whole duty of a man cook in hungry Spain, where food has ever been the difficulty; a little foresight gives small trouble and ensures great comfort, while perils by sea and perils by land are doubled when the stomach is empty, whereas, as Sancho Panza wisely told his ass, all sorrows are alleviated by eating bread: todos los duelos, con pan son buenos, and the shrewd squire, who seldom is wrong, was right both in the matter of bread and the moral: the former is admirable. The central table-lands of Spain are perhaps the finest wheat-growing districts in the world; however rude and imperfect the cultivation—for the peasant does but scratch the earth, and seldom manures—the life-conferring sun comes to his assistance; the returns are prodigious, and the quality superexcellent; yet the growers, miserable in the midst of plenty, vegetate in cabins composed of baked mud, or in holes burrowed among the friable hillocks, in an utter ignorance of furniture, and absolute necessaries. The want of roads, canals, and means of transport prevents their exportation of produce, which from its bulk is difficult of carriage in a country where grain is removed for the most part on four-footed beasts of burden, after the oriental and patriarchal fashion of Jacob, when he sent to the granaries of Egypt. Accordingly, although there are neither sliding scales nor corn laws, and subsistence is cheap and abundant, the population decreases in number and increases in wretchedness; what boots it if corn be low-priced, if wages be still lower, as they then everywhere are and must be?

The finest bread in Spain is called pan de candeal, which is eaten by men in office and others in easy circumstances, as it was by the clergy. The worst bread is the pan de municion, and forms the fare of the Spanish soldier, which, being sable as a hat, coarse and hard as a brickbat, would just do to sop in the black broth of the Spartan military; indeed, the expression de municion is synonymous in the Peninsula with badness of quality, and the secondary meaning is taken from the perfection of badness which is perceptible in every thing connected with Spanish ammunition, from the knapsack to the citadel. Such bread and water, and both hardly earned, are the rations of the poor patient Spanish private; nor can he when before the enemy reckon always on even that, unless it be supplied from an ally’s commissariat.

Perhaps the best bread in Spain is made at AlcalÁ de Guadaira, near Seville, of which it is the oven, and hence the town is called the AlcalÁ of bakers. There bread may truly be said to be the soul of its existence, and samples abound everywhere: roscas, or circular-formed rusks, are hung up like garlands, and hogazas, loaves, placed on tables outside the houses. It is, indeed, as Spaniards say, Pan de Dios—the “angels’ bread of Esdras.” All classes here gain their bread by making it, and the water-mills and mule-mills are never still; women and children are busy picking out earthy particles from the grain, which get mixed from the common mode of threshing on a floor in the open air, which is at once Biblical and Homeric. At the outside of the villages, in corn-growing districts, a smooth open “threshing-floor” is prepared, with a hard surface, like a fives court: it is called the era, and is the precise Roman area. The sheaves of corn are spread out on it, and four horses yoked most classically to a low crate or harrow, composed of planks armed with flints, &c., which is called a trillo: on this the driver is seated, who urges the beasts round and round over the crushed heap. Thus the grain is shaken out of the ears and the straw triturated; the latter becomes food for horses, as the former does for men. When the heap is sufficiently bruised, it is removed and winnowed by being thrown up into the air; the light winds carry off the chaff, while the heavy corn falls to the ground. The whole operation is truly picturesque and singular. The scene is a crowded one, as many cultivators contribute to the mass and share in the labour; their wives and children cluster around, clad in strange dresses of varied colours. They are sometimes sheltered from the god of fire under boughs, reeds, and awnings, run up as if for the painter, and falling of themselves into pictures, as the lower classes of Spaniards and Italians always do. They are either eating and drinking, singing or dancing, for a guitar is never wanting. Meanwhile the fierce horses dash over the prostrate sheaves, and realise the splendid simile of Homer, who likens to them the fiery steeds of Achilles when driven over Trojan bodies. These out-of-door threshings take place of course when the weather is dry, and generally under a most terrific heat. The work is often continued at nightfall by torch-light. During the day the half-clad dusky reapers defy the sun and his rage, rejoicing rather in the heat like salamanders; it is true that their devotions to the porous water-jar are unremitting, nor is a swill at a good passenger’s bota ever rejected; all is life and action; busy hands and feet, flashing eyes, and eager screams; the light yellow chaff, which in the sun’s rays glitters like gold dust, envelopes them in a halo, which by night, when partially revealed by the fires and mingled with the torch glare, is almost supernatural, as the phantom figures, now dark in shadows, now crimsoned by the fire flash, flit to and fro in the vaporous mist. The scene never fails to rivet and enchant the stranger, who, coming from the pale north and the commonplace in-door flail, seizes at once all the novelty of such doings. Eye and ear, open and awake, become inlets of new sensations of attention and admiration, and convey to heart and mind the poetry, local colour, movement, grouping, action, and attitude. But while the cold-blooded native of leaden skies is full of fire and enthusiasm, his Spanish companion, bred and born under unshorn beams, is chilly as an icicle, indifferent as an Arab: he passes on the other side, not only not admiring, but positively ashamed; he only sees the barbarity, antiquity, and imperfect process; he is sighing for some patent machine made in Birmingham, to be put up in a closed barn after the models approved of by the Royal Agricultural Society in Cavendish Square; his bowels yearn for the appliances of civilization by which “bread stuffs” are more scientifically manipulated and manufactured, minus the poetry.

To return, however, to dry bread, after this new digression, and all those who have ever been in Spain, or have ever written on Spanish things, must feel how difficult it is to keep regularly on the road without turning aside at every moment, now to cull a wild flower, now to pick up a sparkling spar. This corn, so beaten, is very carefully ground, and in La Mancha in those charming windmills, which, perched on eminences to catch the air, look to this day, with their outstretched arms, like Quixotic giants; the flour is passed through several hoppers, in order to secure its fineness. The dough is most carefully kneaded, worked, and re-worked, as is done by our biscuit-makers; hence the close-grained, caky, somewhat heavy consistency of the crumb, whereas, according to Pliny, the Romans esteemed Spanish bread on account of its lightness.

The Spanish loaf has not that mysterious sympathy with butter and cheese as it has in our verdurous Old England, probably because in these torrid regions pasture is rare, butter bad, and cheese worse, albeit they suited the iron digestion of Sancho, who knew of nothing better: none, however, who have ever tasted Stilton or Parmesan will join in his eulogies of Castilian queso, the poorness of which will be estimated by the distinguished consideration in which a round cannon-ball Dutch cheese is held throughout the Peninsula. The traveller, nevertheless, should take one of them, for bad is here the best, in many other things besides these: he will always carry some good loaves with it, for in the damper mountain districts the daily bread of the natives is made of rye, Indian corn, and the inferior cerealia. Bread is the staff of the Spanish traveller’s life, who, having added raw garlic, not salt, to it, then journeys on with security, con pan y ajo crudo se anda seguro. Again, a loaf never weighs one down, nor is ever in the way; as Æsop, the prototype of Sancho, well knew. La hogaza no embaraza.

Having secured his bread, the cook in preparing supper should make enough for the next day’s lunch, las once, the eleven o’clock meal, as the Spaniards translate meridie, twelve or mid-day, whence the correct word for luncheon is derived, merienda merendar. Wherever good dishes are cut up there are good leavings, “donde buenas ollas quebran, buenos cascos quedan;” and nothing can be more Cervantic than the occasional al fresco halt, when no better place of accommodation is to be met with. As the sun gets high, and man and beast hungry and weary, wherever a tempting shady spot with running water occurs, the party draws aside from the high road, like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; a retired and concealed place is chosen, the luggage is removed from the animals, the hampers which lard the lean soil are unpacked, the table-cloth is spread on the grass, the botas are laid in the water to cool their contents; then out with the provision, cold partridge or turkey, sliced ham or chorizo—simple cates, but which are eaten with an appetite and relish for which aldermen would pay hundreds. They are followed, should grapes be wanting, with a soothing cigar, and a sweet slumber on earth’s freshest, softest lap. In such wild banquets Spain surpasses the Boulevards. Alas! that such hours should be bright and winged as sunbeams! Such is Peninsular country fare. The olla, on which the rider may restore exhausted nature, is only to be studied in larger towns; and dining, of which this is the foundation in Spain, is such a great resource to travellers, and Spanish cookery, again, is so Oriental, classical, and singular, let alone its vital importance, that the subject will properly demand a chapter to itself.