Murcia was very hot, very dusty and very sultry. We did not mind mere heat—though Spanish midsummer heat was not the best of pick-me-ups for the influenza—dust we could outlive, but the sultriness of the Murcian valley was beyond our physique. This flat valley, which is ten miles wide between abrupt mountains, is irrigated over the whole of its breadth and is one of the richest agricultural parts of Spain. The evaporation of the water makes the heat of Murcia damp; the summer in addition was cloudy, and the sun shining on to the clouds seemed to cook the air enclosed in the valley until the atmosphere resembled that of a glass-house for orchids. We wished to leave Murcia in spite of an affection which was growing in us for the town.

Luis met us at one o'clock on the terrace of the Reina Victoria. We had cafÉ au lait while waiting for the tartana. Luis said that the milk in the coffee was not good: he deduced preservatives. But the lean waiter stood loyally by his hotel.

"The milk is excellent, I assure you, SeÑor," he said. "My stomach is excessively delicate; the slightest thing and it is ... I assure you that I drink pints of this milk in this hotel. In fact my stomach is so delicado that I am a connoisseur in milk, es vero.[11] If the milk were bad this fatality would happen to me."

He gave a dumb-crambo exhibition of the results of bad milk on his delicate digestion; it needed no words.

With deference he then proposed a new cafÉ au lait, which Luis sipped with a judicial but unconvinced manner.

The tartana was a tight fit. It is about as large as a governess-cart inside, and we were six. Luis, Jan and myself, a monk in brown, a thin pale SeÑor who had long eyelashes and many rings, and another passenger, a world type, the result of overwork and underpay, neither smart nor slovenly, with a rough manner covering a kindly nature.

The Drive

We discovered why tartanas have bulging hoods. The vehicles roll and rock so much over the bad roads that it is necessary to make room for the passengers' heads to jerk backwards. Otherwise cerebral concussion would be the invariable result.

Luis (to the little monk): "Excuse me, but are not your clothes very hot?"

The Monk (spreading out his hands): "They are hot, but nevertheless they keep out the sun."

We come out of the town into the gardens. There are flat fields of cultivation spotted with mulberry trees, the trunks of which seem vivid purple in the afternoon light.

I make a remark in Spanish. (Jan was still at the stage of appreciative listener).

The Clerkly Man: "SeÑora, your Spanish is good for a stranger—you can pronounce the Spanish J, which is difficult for foreigners."

I: "I have learned that from speaking German; it is rather like the German ch."

A discussion on idioms at once begins. The Spaniard, though he speaks foreign languages badly, has an inextinguishable interest in the subject of tongues. If ever you are bored in Spanish company start an argument about languages. After the discussion has been going on for some while the pale SeÑor says:

"Nevertheless it is sad that the Catalans wish to root Castilian out of their country."

Luis (with some heat): "Well! why should they not? They are the hardest working and the most valuable people of Spain. Why should not they do as they like? Why should everybody not do as he likes if he hurts nobody else?"

The pale SeÑor (with frigidity): "But that is Bolshevism."

Luis (with increasing heat): "If that is Bolshevism then I do not mind being a Bolshevik."

Conversation is at an impasse. The carriage flings us to and fro for a while.

A motor-car passes us. The dust which is about six inches deep on the road is whirled up in a cloud so thick that we have to halt for a few minutes to allow it to settle, or we might have driven into the deep water-channels which edge each side of the road.

Luis (to the Clerkly Man): "My friends want to live for a while out in the mountains. Do you by any chance know of a house?"

The Clerkly Man: "I am living with my family in the monastery of Fuen Santa. There is a guest house there and habitations are to let. I will find out all about them if you wish."

The pale little SeÑor (who has apparently forgotten all about Bolshevism): There are one or two houses in my village of Verdolay. The proprietor is a friend of mine. I will inquire for you about it."

The tartana stops.

In front of a solitary house is a small wooden frame on which a few strips of dusty meat are hung. The driver buys some of this from the woman who comes out of the house.

The Driver (confidentially to the passengers): "Better get a bit of meat while you have the chance."

Nobody follows his example. The carriage bumps on.

The sun is now shining through the thin dust-laden trees which edge the road: they appear as flames of pale gold.

We mount over a bridge. A broad deep but waterless canal stretches away to right and left.

The little SeÑor: "We are now nearing Verdolay. It is still too hot for you to go hunting for a house. I shall be delighted if you will take possession of my house until the sun is cooler."

Luis: "SeÑor, I thank you very much, but we cannot do it."

The little SeÑor: "I insist—you will come?"

Luis: "Thank you very much."

This is Spanish courtesy. A single invitation is for politeness only, like the last piece of bread and butter left for Miss Manners. A second invitation means that it is really offered.

We pass a group of houses the colour of baked bread; the most arid-looking spot we have seen as yet. The gardens come to an abrupt end. The road rises slightly, and grey-green olive foliage over gnarled trunks throw a thin lacework of shadow on the dry earth.

The tartana stops.

We all get out.

The clerkly man goes east; the priest south; we, led by the pale SeÑor, west.

We were at the entrance of a village. It spread over a mound at the foot of the higher hills. It was like a pyramid with toy houses coloured yellow, orange, green and grey upon the ledges, and all around trees like those from a child's play box. The village was fronted by a line of houses painted a deep crimson-vermilion. An iron windmill for pumping water was placed on the extreme point of the mound.

The little SeÑor showed us through the village to his house and left us in the entrada, while he went to get beer. The room was decorated with wooden "art-nouveau" chairs, oleographs and an extremely bad oil painting of a bull with banderillas shedding much blood. On a cane table was a gramophone.

The little SeÑor had shut a door made on the system of a Venetian blind to keep out the sun, and presently the lattice-work was crowded with children trying to peer in at us.

The SeÑor returned preceded by a large English setter. He drew the corks of the beer and asked us to make ourselves at home.

"The house and all that is in it is at your service," he said in the phrase of Spanish courtesy.

I was patting the dog.

"That dog," said the little SeÑor, "is a very valuable dog. It is unique in the province and possibly is unique in the south of Spain. It has a romantic history. It is bred by the monks in high Switzerland, and when the snow is deep on the mountains it goes out to hunt for lost travellers. It is the only specimen of a San Bernar' in the south of Spain."

We looked at the setter; and drank some more beer.

"That bull," went on the SeÑor, pointing to the picture, "was painted by one of the best bull painters in Spain."

We looked at the picture and again took refuge in beer. Luis, who did not know about setters, but did know about pictures, drank in sympathy.

The SeÑor wound up his gramophone.

"Do you know 'Frou-Frou'?" he inquired.

"'Frou-Frou'?" we said.

"Yes, the French Comic Opera."

"But," said Luis, "have you not by chance a disc of Spanish music? You see," he added as excuse, "the SeÑors are foreign. It interests them to hear the national music, the Flamenco."

The little SeÑor pursed his lips.

"But," he said, "it is so vulgar. Nobody wants to hear that."

He possessed, however, a disc or two which he turned on, to our delight. But before we left him he insisted that we should sit through his favourite "Frou-Frou."

We went away. The strains of "Frou-Frou" which the little SeÑor had turned on once more followed us on the still air. The setter-St. Bernard walked with us to the beginning of the hill, from whence he turned sedately homewards.

We strode upwards—past cottages of all colours, past a large rambling monastery, which, perched on the far side of the Verdolay hill, very cubic in shape, is as romantic as it is possible for a building to be; past a watercourse, above which were dwellings hollowed out of the soft rock of the mountain-side, cave dwellings, and out on to the side of the mountains lying between Murcia and Carthagena. From here we could appreciate the width, flatness and verdure of the Murcian valley in the midst of which was the town, the campanile of the cathedral soaring into the air.

Here we had our first experience of a Spanish country walk. We were all wearing alpagatas, the canvas sides of which are not exceedingly thick. The dried herbage of the hills was intermingled with all manner of prickly weeds. The vegetation protects itself in this way from being eaten by anything less leather-tongued than a goat. The results are uncomfortable for the walker. The little hairlike spines pierce the shoes and break off, remaining as a continual irritant until the shoe is removed. Even then the spines, almost microscopic in size and almost flesh colour, are often difficult to find. The same uncomfortable fate is in wait for the unwary stranger who sits down without having carefully explored the place where he is going to seat himself. Indeed the fate is worse, because the thorns thus encountered cannot with decency be extracted in a public place and the victim is condemned to a lot similar to that of the naughty schoolboy.

The sun poured the full of its summer power on to the hill-side, which reflected both heat and light with overpowering intensity. Though it was almost four o'clock in the afternoon we felt that our salamandrine limits were being put to a test. A broad white road, mounting up the hill, crossed our path and we turned into it.

"We are going to the monastery of La Luz," said Luis. "I have heard that they sometimes take visitors for short periods. It would be interesting for you to spend a fortnight in a monastery."

The road climbed up beneath high black cliffs. The other side of the valley was coloured orange and red upon which the sun was shining with all its force. The side of the hill was dotted with aloes, some having upright flower stems fifteen feet high in the air, around the flowers of which the bees were swarming in harmonious halos. A stately stone pine overshadowed a medley of old buildings which sprang from the top of a precipice out of which sprouted the weird branches of the prickly pear cactus. The road circled round the foot of this cliff, and still mounted till, making a full semicircle, it brought us on to a platform. On one side of the flat space was an open cistern into which led a pipe. From the pipe a deliberate trickle of water fell. Two women and two men sat about this pipe slowly filling their amphoras of Grecian form, while donkeys waited patiently in the background bearing panniers for the water-vessels on their backs. On the other side of the platform the monastery showed a high wall with a large gate leading into a courtyard from which arose the face of the church, painted a Cambridge blue.

We could find no bell. The water-carriers shouted instructions to us. The bell clanged with an empty sound, as though echoing through miles of untenanted corridors. We rang again. No response. We rang three or four times before we heard the sound of shuffling steps. A peep-hole, shaped like a cross, opened and an eye examined us. The door swung slowly open, revealing a small obsequious man dressed in peasant costume. Through passages we came into a cloister which was built around a small courtyard full of flowers. In the middle of the courtyard was a high statue of the Virgin. It was framed and almost hidden by a creeper which offered to it a tribute of gorgeous purple bell-shaped flowers. At the foot of the figure was stretched a large cat. A strange thought came to me that the cat did not bother itself about the Virgin other than as something which threw a grateful shadow.

The apologetic little peasant monk, who had let us in was evidently an underling. He murmured something about Brother Juan and went away.

Brother Juan came groaning along the corridor with rheumatic steps. He had a tiny head and large-framed body; dressed in peasant's clothes, white shirt, black cummerbund, short knee trousers, long white drawers to the ankle and sandals on bare feet. He was rather like a dear old gardener who has been in the family for years, and who has supported the teasings of generations of children. Age and a sweet nature had carved his face with horizontal wrinkles of kindliness; rheumatism and pain had crossed these with downward seams of depression.

Luis introduced the object of our visit. Brother Juan doubtingly shook his head. They did have visitors, yes, but those were always well-known to the monastery. Introductions would be necessary. But, in any circumstance, the Father Superior was in Murcia at the moment, and nothing could be done without him.

I, made conceited by the praise of the clerkly man in the carriage, then tried to charm Brother Juan by a series of apposite remarks in my most careful Spanish.

Brother Juan scratched his head.

"Doubtless, what the SeÑora says is very interesting." He raised his hands and eyes in pantomimed dismay. "But, oh, these languages! I can't understand a word!"

Brother Juan, groaning with rheumatism, led us to the gate. By some means an old woman dressed in black had joined us. As Juan was taking his leave of us his eyes suddenly lit up with a merry twinkle.

"If you will excuse me," he said to Luis, "it would be better, when you see the Father Superior, if the woman would dress rather less indecently. You see, we are monks and are not used to it."

We went down the hill accompanied by the old woman in black, who was chuckling at Brother Juan's last remark.

"If only the woman would ... he ... he ... we are monks and aren't used to it ... ho ... ho."

I was surprised. It had not seemed to me that I was indecent. I was wearing an ordinary English midsummer walking dress. Luis said:

"I think it was the opening at your neck that worried him. You see we haven't really taken up the open neck in Murcia as yet."

Directed by the old woman, we scrambled down steep paths to the bottom of the orange-coloured ravine, and up the other side past the aloes; we went through an olive grove, and again up a steep zigzag road to the second monastery. Here lived the clerkly man, but we did not know his name. This monastery began with a terra-cotta-coloured Gothic church with three tall towers and a cupola of blue glazed tiles, and rambled on up the ridge of a long hill to end in a tall building which looked like an overgrown Turkish bath. A grey building with a huge entrance door was pointed out as the pension of the monastery. We wandered into a large courtyard and to us came a fat priest wearing a biretta. He was courteous but firm.

"We have no room," he said.

But we remembered that the clerkly one had said that there was room. I suppose again my dress was the real objection.

We went back towards the village of the little SeÑor. On our way we again crossed the dusty road which led to La Luz. A carriage was driving along it. In the carriage were two priests. Luis said:

"There probably goes the Father Superior. Shall we ask him now?"

After a moment's hesitation we turned and strode up the hill. We had to walk fast to catch the carriage, but at last the driver, perceiving that we were following him, halted.

"No," said one of the priests, "we are not the Superior of La Luz. Indeed, at this moment he is behind you. There."

He pointed out an old man in the costume of a peasant, who, bent with age, was toiling up the hill aided by his staff. The Father Superior was still some distance away. Hastily, with a brooch, we pinned my blouse up close around my throat.

The Father Superior had the face of one designed to be an ascetic, but his expression was inscrutable. He was very suave. He felt honoured, he said, by the request of the SeÑors, but there was no room. Now Brother Juan had said that there was room.

Luis tried to urge the matter: he instanced our Red Cross work in Serbia. The Father Superior said it was very praiseworthy of us, but ... and bowing unfelt regrets he left us.

We went back to our little SeÑor.

He found for us a woman with the usual pound's weight of keys and conducted us to two bright red houses. Both were one story in height, but one was for three months' tenancy only. We decided to take the other. It was occupied to its limits by a Spanish family, so we took but the most cursory of glances into it. Then, our business settled, we said au revoir to the little SeÑor, who in Spanish fashion offered us his services whenever they should be needed.

We walked down a road and, in a short while, came to the village of Alverca. This was the first typical Spanish village we had passed through. It was long, stretched on the edge between the bare mountain and the fertile valley. The houses were low, one-storied for the most part, and the dust was all-prevalent. In the dusty street boys were playing football, which in Spain seems to be a summer game. In the middle of the village was a shop, which advertised itself as a Tobacco Agency, for tobacco is a Spanish government monopoly and can be sold only in licensed places. We went in to get a drink and to ask if by chance they had some tobacco, for all the while we were in Spain there was a famine of tobacco.

The inside of the shop was a curious mixture of the modern and of the very ancient. At one end of the counter was a modern brass beer machine, with carbonic acid gas cylinder—which gives to the tepid beer an extra fizz—pressure gauge and lead-lined sink. At the other end of the shop were huge jars four feet high, and nine or ten feet in circumference; amphoras of pale porous unglazed pottery, direct successors of the Grecian vase; small drinking pots of clay with short spouts for water or of glass with long spouts for wine, the latter in shape not unlike the brass drinking-vessels of Benares. Pendent from the ceiling hung candles two or three feet in length, for devotional purposes, and side by side with the candles were festooned strings of orange-coloured, highly flavoured sausages, which appeared very ominous. Some day one felt that one would be tempted by a Spanish friend to eat one of these sausages, and the fear of the experiment was always within us. Wine of a deep ruby tinged with brown filled a large glass barrel; wine which could be bought for one halfpenny a glass.

Inside the shop, leaning against the zinc bar, were two tramps; the one swart with three days' beard on his chin, dressed in a blue jean smock and soiled yellow velveteen trousers; the other leaner, more pallid, furtive: in spite of the heat of the day he was covered with a large black cloak.

They at once offered us their glasses of wine.

"Gracias. Buen aproveche," said we in customary refusal. They offered cigarettes to Jan and Luis. These, by courtesy, had to be accepted.

While we were drinking our tepid beer—fizzed up with the carbonic acid gas—Jan asked for and bought a box of matches. The Spanish matches, very bad, a government monopoly, are packed in a small cardboard box. This box is quite difficult to open. Whichever way you push it, like the well-known trick matchbox, the inside part seems to have two bottoms and no opening. The impatient traveller usually tears the box to pieces trying to get at the forty matches which are inside.

Jan asked for tobacco.

"There is not," sighed the fat woman.

Outside the shop the two tramps were waiting for us. The swart one peered quickly from left to right.

"We have tobacco," he said in a hoarse whisper. He snapped his fingers at his companion, who produced from beneath the cloak, furtively, a square orange packet.

"Good tobacco from Gibraltar," growled "Swart"; "will you buy?"

"No," said Luis.

The pallid man slid the tobacco beneath the cloak again. The two slouched off through the dust.

"That would be tobacco at each end and cabbage or other refuse in the middle," said Luis.

We turned towards the setting sun.

Murcia has a tramway system. Blue cars run all over the town and reach out into the country at several spots. We came to the terminus in this direction at Palma, on the road to Carthagena. The people of the village crowded about us in curiosity; but by this time we were becoming used to a publicity which is, as a rule, only reserved for Royalty.

As the tram carried us home—with several halts due to failure of the electrical supply—we noticed through an open door a delightful interior, decorated with the huge water-jars—on a raised step—with which beautiful specimens of old Spanish pottery were arranged.

The village of the little SeÑor had pleased us so much that we made arrangements to move out there as soon as possible; for the heat of Murcia was now unbearable and we were in consequence on the verge of being really ill