By the time we left the hotel, which we did on the second day, the maid had reviewed her decision as to the state of our mentality. Receiving her tips she shook our hands warmly, asked where we were going and said that she would without fail call upon us. The tatterdemalion bootblack at the hotel door, who could never quite make up his mind whether he were bootblack or lottery-ticket seller—neglecting each business in favour of the other—helped us with our luggage. He also on receipt of a tip inquired our future address and assured us that he would call upon us. The driver of the tartana told us that he would look us up one day to see how we were getting on; and another visit was promised by a ragged lounger whom we called in to aid us in getting our luggage upstairs.

"Spain," we said, "seems to be a sociable country."

Don Antonio was waiting for us at his house, which was but a few doors away from our own. He introduced us to his wife, a buxom, jolly woman of about twenty-five; his sister, tall, elegant and dark, perhaps the most complete type of Spanish woman we had yet met; and his brother-in-law. Don Thomas, for such was the brother-in-law's name, was able to speak a portion of the American language, and often by his imperfect knowledge he would deepen our ignorance of what others were saying in Spanish.

Don Antonio had a small box factory. His house was two-storied, as were most of the houses in the Paseo. On the ground floor the front room, or entrada, was filled with wood, wood-working benches, and stacks of unfinished boxes; the kitchen behind was not exempt from business, for here Antonio made up his glues and pastes, while the whole top story was occupied by girls who covered the crude shells of the boxes with velvet and looking-glass and papier mÂchÉ adornments. Antonio and his wife were crowded into two small rooms, a bedroom in the front alongside of the entrada and a dining-room at the back parallel with the kitchen.

Our planks were ready for us, but Antonio refused to be paid for them. He said that when we had finished with them he could make boxes out of them. We spent the afternoon in our flat unpacking and arranging the plank bed. The mattress was not broad enough to cover the planks which we put down, but we managed to find a padded sofa-covering which, laid alongside of the mattress, supplemented the inefficient breadth. As we had met neither mosquitoes nor net in the hotel, we left the mosquito-net in the trunk.

In the evening Luis Garay called for us. He led us through a maze of darkened streets, at one time skirting the tall, over-decorated rococo front of the cathedral, and brought us to a large doorway within which was a smaller door. Two sharp raps and the door swung wide mechanically, though a long rope tied to the latch and looping its way upstairs showed how it had been opened. Up wide white stone stairs we went, watched by an old, old man hanging over the balcony of the second floor. Luis said no word to him, nor he to Luis.

The chief keynote of Spanish interiors is whiteness. The room into which we came was white, and out of it was another white room set with dining-tables and decorated with a huge white filter. This was "Elias," where we could dine excellently for the sum of one peseta fifty centimos apiece.

Elias himself looked like a cheery monk painted by Dendy Sadler. Clad in a long white overall, he stood in the midst of his snowy tables and greeted us merrily.

Luis went away, having said good night, for he had an engagement. We ate omelet, beefsteak and fried potatoes, finishing with a plate of fruit, fixed by the multiple stare of the young men dining there. I was the only woman at Elias while we dined there, for Spanish women are home clinging folk, and even to the cafÉs they never go in large numbers.

As the young men finished their meals, they went out. Each one as he passed through the door bowed and said something. It sounded like "Dobro Vetche," but "Dobro Vetche" is Serbian for good evening. We could not make out what the words were, so, as the Serbian seemed to be appropriate, we boldly answered it in return. Later on we discovered that they said "Buen Aproveche" with the first part of the sentence slurred over by habit. It means "May it do you good," and the customary sentence to say to any one who is dining. The correct answer is "Gracias."

We left Elias' very satisfied with our cheap discovery. Jan, who generally has a good head for locality, engaged to find his way back without a guide. But he turned the wrong way out of Elias' door. We wandered amongst deep darkened streets till suddenly we came out into one as narrow as the others, but laid with flat pavements, instead of rugged cobbles, and blazing with light. Through this we ran the gauntlet of Murcia. The street was crowded with hotels and cafÉs, both sides being lined with tables at which the evening drinkers were sitting. The street itself was filled with a flux and reflux of the youth and beauty, the "Hooventud, Bellitza and Looho,"[7] of the town.

We came, especially I, upon them as a catastrophe. The light died out of their eyes, the smiles disappeared from their faces, mouths dropped open, fingers pointed, people grasped each other. It was similar to the moment when an elephant comes along in the village circus procession, and I was the elephant.

During our first weeks in Murcia our appearance in the streets invariably caused excitement and shrieks of laughter among young girls and gossips. If we entered a shop the children crowded in with us to listen to our attempts at Spanish. This was not done with deliberate rudeness, but was more the result of unrestrained curiosity. This attitude was not very evident when we went for strolls with Luis: the presence of a fellow-townsman seemed to have a calming influence. At last I found an effective weapon. With mock horror I stared at the feet and ankles of any young woman too malicious. Self-consciousness at once gripped her—almost invariably she hurried away to examine her shoes and wonder what was wrong with them.

Curiously enough we never became conscious of a case of incivility among the men. Even groups of lads at the difficult age which breeds larrikins in Australia were on the whole less offensive than in other countries. It seemed to us that if a Spanish woman were kind-hearted—and the majority are so—she was the most kindly and charming of women, but if of a spiteful nature she took less pains to hide or curb it than do the women of more sophisticated countries.

The narrow street which we had discovered by accident was perhaps the most disconcerting part of the town, as it was full of cafÉs, and therefore of loungers; but we often had to go there for small necessities. There we had to go for smoked glasses because of the brilliance of the sun, for a parasol, and for a hatpin. The first two objects were easily found, but the last was difficult. Hats, even in Southern Spain, are worn only by the crÈme de la crÈme for great ceremonies, and the hatpins sold by the jewellers were intended for such occasions. They were decorated affairs with huge heads of complicated workmanship set with garish stones. Probably no other woman in the town wore a hat for normal use, so we gave up the search and Jan made out of hairpins something which served.

We ran the gauntlet of the quizzing street and made our way home.

All along the streets the people had brought their chairs out of doors and were sitting on the pavements in the cool of the night. At Antonio's door we found a group of his family, almost invisible in the dark. We sat down with them. Presently Antonio said:

"I will go and fetch Don Luis, and he will play for us."

What then could be seen of Don Luis was a large nose, a check cap and a pair of gnarled hands which grasped his guitar in a capable manner. He sat down on a chair on the sidewalk and began to play.

"Curse it!" he exclaimed. "Do you know I used to play very well, but all this factory work ruins the fingers for playing. Mine are getting as stiff as if they had no joints in them."

Presently he was playing a jota and demanded that somebody should dance.

"Dance, dance!" he shouted. "Curse it! What's the good of playing if nobody dances?"

By this time most of the inhabitants of the houses near had gathered round, although almost hidden; but there were no young men. Antonio's sister danced a jota with a pretty girl. The jota is the most common of Spanish dances, as the waltz used to be with us. It has a tempo which fluctuates between three-four and two-four, the phrases being divided into two beats each or three bars of two beats each at the will of the player. The jota that evening appeared to be a very sedate kind of dance. When it was over the crowd urged us to dance something English. We asked Don Luis to play the jota again, and to it we danced a rather mad waltz which we had invented. The path upon which we danced was of dried mud, which is pounded into unusual shapes in the winter and dries in whatever shape it happens to be when the heat comes. It was full of lumps and holes, and the light was dim. In a moment we partially understood why Antonio's sister had been so sedate. But the brother-in-law informed us:

"Say," he said, "my girl can dance wonderful. But 't'aint proper, in de town. Say, you see 'er in de country. Den she hop. She kick de window in wid 'er toe. Sure. Show you one day."

Murcia is a town of about 100,000 inhabitants and is the capital of its province, but it is hardly more than an overgrown village in spite of its cathedral, its bullring, its theatre and its cinema palace. Both at Avila and at Madrid they had said to us: "Aha, you are going to the town of the beautiful women!"

But the women of Murcia, with the exception of some lovely and filthy gipsies, were not unusually beautiful. They were thick-set and useful looking with muscular necks and ankles, and their eyes had a domesticated expression. Their clothes emphasized their defects. They indulged in pastel shades and frills which were used in fantastic ways. We have seen frills in spiral twisting around the frock from neck to hem, or a series of jaunty inverted frills round the hips, which gave to the wearer something of the appearance of one of those oleographs of a maiden half emerging from the calyx of a flower: or perpendicular frills which made the wearer resemble a cog-wheel.

We had ample opportunities of observing them from the windows of our house, at which we started our experimental sketches in Spain, but we had to sit back from the balcony because small crowds began to gather, and boys to shout. Antonio then said that he would take us to one of the big walled-in gardens where we could paint at our ease.

A huge gateway led into a courtyard which was completely covered by a vine pergola. The grapes hung in large bunches, though yet green. At one side of the courtyard was a low stall on which fruit and vegetables were for sale, and near an arched door a woman was washing clothes in a large basin of antique pattern. The garden was a rich mass of green. Huge trees of magnolia were covered with waxy white flowers and gave out a strong odour which scented the wide garden. Lemon trees and orange trees were ranged in rows; the lemons yellow on the trees or lying on the ground as thick as fallen apples after an autumn storm, the oranges still hard spheres of dark green. Along the edges of the paths stood up the tall palm trees with their golden clusters of unripe dates, or with their fronds tied up in a stiff spike, some mystery of palm cultivation. Fronds of palm, hacked from off the trees, lay about the ground, and we were surprised to find by experience that they possessed long, piercing and painful thorns.

We painted for several days in this small paradise, but our conscience was accusing us. We had not come to Spain to paint gardens. One day we took our courage in our hands.

"It is market day," said we; "we will go and paint the market."

Peasant carts loaded with fruit and vegetables were crowding into the town; men clad in black cottons were dragging donkeys, upon the backs of which were panniers filled with saleable provisions; women with umbrellas aloft against the sun carried baskets in their arms or heavy packages upon their hips. The market was spread in the sunlight behind the HÔtel Reina Victoria. Grain was for sale in broad, flat baskets, cheap cottons were on stalls; fruits—peaches, plums, and lemons—were mixed with tomatoes, berenginas, and red or green peppers. To one side of the market place was the fonda which had once been a monastery. This was for the travellers by road as the hotels were for travellers by rail. In a huge arched entrada carters and villagers were sitting at their ease. To one side was a kitchen in which could be seen large red earthen vessels which made one think of the last scene in "The Forty Thieves," and beyond the entrada was an open courtyard in which the high tilted road waggons were drawn up in rows.

Skirting the fonda wall I found a corner which seemed secluded, and sitting down I began to paint an old woman and her fruit stall. One by one a few people gathered behind me. Blas, the gipsy musician, came up, greeted me, and added his solid presence to the spectators. A baker came out of his shop and watched. The crowd began to increase. Soon they were pressing all round, even in front, so that I could see nothing.

"I cannot paint if I cannot see," I exclaimed to Blas.

He and the baker set themselves one on each side and hustled an opening in the crowd.

"Atras, atras!" they shouted. "En la cola, en la cola."[8]

But more and more people hurried up to see what was happening. Soon the crowd, despite the strenuous efforts of Blas and the baker, closed up again in front, and no efforts could keep an open vista.

Jan, who had been drawing in another part of the market, came up. He saw in the midst of a maelstrom of heads the extreme tip of my hat and worked his way through, to speaking distance. Brown-faced old women, with market baskets, men with turkeys hung in braces over their shoulders, young women with babies, gipsy men with tall hats and gig-whips, noisy boys, all smiling, friendly and curious, were peeping under my hat discussing the phenomenon.

We left the disappointed maelstrom, which changed its shape and followed us like a rivulet to a cafÉ, where they stood for a while gazing solemnly while we sipped iced coffee.

We then decided that sketching in the streets of Murcia was not to be thought of. Luis, to whom we confided this, said that he would find us balconies and roofs from which we could work, but we wanted to settle in some small village where we could know everybody in a day, and sketch where we liked, so Luis made arrangements to take us across the plain at the foot of the mountains to see some villages that might suit us

[7] (Spelt phonetically.) These three words, meaning youth, beauty and luxury, are used in all Spanish theatre advertisements as especial attractions of the spectacle advertised.