Spain the Home of Romance—The Conservatism of the People—Spain the most Democratic of Countries—The Tradition of Chivalry—The Cid—Spain the Connecting Link between Europe and Africa—The Place of the Moor in the Country To-day—The Gardens of Granada—The Bull-fight: its National Importance—Spanish Dancing.

Coming into Spain by any of the chief portals—at Port Bou, at Algeciras, or at Irun—one finds oneself in a totally new country. You cast much behind you as you come, for instance, from France; you will be impressed by a certain strangeness of aspect far different from all you have learnt to expect in other countries. You will feel transplanted back into another world. It is as if Spain had sat aside waiting, indifferent and proud, while elsewhere life has rushed onwards.

The conservatism of Spain may be gathered from the old impressions we find in the pages of writers describing the people and the country of more than a century ago, which are still true in so much as they refer to what is essential in the national spirit, and to the survival of the customs of mediÆval Europe. “I regard the Spanish people,” says Stendhal, “as the living representatives of the Middle Ages.”

A Busy Street Leading to the Market, Valencia

Spain is still the home of the romance which belonged to an age that has passed. And although the more flourishing Spanish towns are nowadays full of animation—factories are springing up and signs of commercial activity are not wanting—this new movement of progress has not destroyed this romance. The Spain which Cervantes immortalized still lives. We may still take Don Quixote and Sancho Panza as typical figures, whom you may see any day in the towns of Castile or walking on the roads of La Mancha. These are the types that have remained unchanged.

And herein rests the fascination of Spain—this conservatism which has lasted into an age of hurrying progress. It is a fascination that everyone will not feel, but for those whom it touches the glamour is more permanent and irresistible than that of any other country I know.

Many details of life, and especially in the smaller towns still unvisited by the tourist, remind us of a past that other countries have left behind. The serenos, or night watchmen, with long hooded cloaks, tipped staves, and lanterns, are familiar figures in every town. In the country the shepherd is seen, wrapped in his coloured blanket, leaning on his tall staff in the midst of his flock. The wandering palmer with his cockle-shell, known to the England of Chaucer, may still be met in Spain.

You realize how far you are from the present when you enter a Spanish town. You pass under a Moorish gateway, dark and imposing, with a suggestion of savage strength in its gaunt yellow masonry that carries memories of battles that have been fought. Here you wait for the consumos to examine your luggage, which, if they doubt your honesty, they will probe with their long steel prong. The dull jangle from the bells of your straining mules gives an unaccustomed sound as you drive upwards, for almost every Spanish town is set upon a hill.

If the town is small, the posada where you seek for lodging will have a wineshop below. You will see a crowd of wild-looking men, with great cloaks and sombreros pulled low upon their foreheads, seated at a rude table. They are taking wine from the bota, the long-spouted leather bottle from which only the Spaniard has the skill to drink. Thoughts of brigands will crowd your mind. But you need have no fear; these are simple townsmen. Savage looks and this strange, wild appearance cover the simple friendliness of the child. The excited conversation will cease as you enter. Most likely you will hear the word “FrancÉses” muttered by one and another, for in Spain every foreigner is first taken to be French. You answer, “No, InglÉses.” At once an atmosphere of friendliness springs up, and an exchange of greetings will be made. No one will take any further notice of you. It is not the custom of the Spanish landlord to force his attentions upon his guests. He is constitutionally incapable of the obsequious fussiness that belongs to commercial hospitality. You will be accepted as one of the family, and the friendly trustfulness that is one characteristic of the fine Spanish courtesy will soon cause the foreign caballero to feel at home.

Spain is still the most democratic of countries. Every Spaniard expects as a matter of right to be treated as an equal. It is significant that the title SeÑor is given alike to God and to a beggar. Your host at the posada will sit down with you to meals, and his son, who waits upon you, will slap you on the back with easy friendliness as he makes plans for your enjoyment. These familiar and intimate relationships, which once were common in every country, are found to-day nowhere so universally practised as in Spain. Each Spaniard that you meet gives the greeting which commends you to God. And no native ever eats in company without first uttering the customary gusta, an invitation to share in the repast, which is a survival, most probably, of the belief of primitive peoples in the evil eye that poisons the food of those who eat alone.

The Puerta Visagra Antigua, Toledo

The snobbery that has arisen out of modern progress is unknown to the Spanish man and woman. Business is not here the highest aim of life. The Spaniard still feels true what Ganivet made Hernan Cortes say: “The grandest enterprises are those in which money has no part, and the cost falls entirely on the brain and heart.” The hustling, besmirching spirit of commercialism is absent from the Spanish character; and for this reason, although Spain belongs to the past, the country, to those who have eyes to see, will seem to belong also to the future.

El Mitayo Cid Campeador, as the old chronicles affectionately call the Spanish hero, with his democratic manners, his rough-and-ready justice, and his acts at once ideal and yet practical in achievement, is the supreme representative of chivalry. Valour and virtue, the qualities peculiarly identified with the Spanish romantic spirit, were his. His energy in warfare, his power in love, his childlike religious faith, and his fearlessness in facing pain and also death, are characteristics that belong to all the men who have made Spain great.

Spain was the land of the sword, and the business of the true Spaniard was war. And this love of action, strange as it may seem to those accustomed to think of the lazy Spaniard, is a very real trait in the Spanish character. But the action must be connected with romance. It has nothing at all to do with the idea of working for the gain of money which belongs to the “getting on” spirit of modern civilization. The Spaniard works as the child works, for joy, and not for gain.

Living in Spain, you come to understand that this land is really the connecting link between Europe and Africa. Both in his physical traits and in his character, the Spaniard shows his relation to the North African type—“the child of a European father by an Abyssinian mother” he has been called. This is true. Lithe and vigorous, with long-shaped heads and rich pigmentation of skin—the type is clearly seen in the pictures of Murillo and Zurbaran, and with a more vivid expression in the portraits of El Greco—the Spaniard has more points of contact with the Eastern than with the Western races. Seldom indeed is he entirely a European.

But it is among the women that the resemblance stands out most clearly. There are women with dark long African faces. You will see them among the flamencas of Seville, or in the gipsy quarter of the Camino del Sacro Monte at Granada—women with slow, sinuous movements, which you notice best when you see them dance, and wonderful eyes that flash a slow fire, quite unforgettable in their strange beauty.

In dress we still find the Oriental love of bright and violent colours. The elegant Manilla shawls and the mantilla, which give such special distinction to the women of Spain, are modifications of the Eastern veil. The elaborately dressed hair, built up with combs, with the rose or carnation giving a note of colour, has also a very ancient origin. Then, the men in some districts still retain the fashion of loose, baggy trousers such as women wear in the East.

We see the Moorish influence in the Oriental seclusion of the houses, with the barred windows and high gates, often studded with bosses, seeming to forbid an entrance. The Spaniard still constructs his house as the Moors built their houses, around the inner court, or patio, those gardens of colour and rest, sometimes quite hidden from the passer-by, as at Toledo; sometimes visible through an openwork iron gateway, like the gay patios of Seville. Each house still has its buzon, and is fronted with a zaguÁn, or vestibule of wood.

In every department of Spanish life we meet with this persistence of the Moorish influence. This need not surprise us.

The coming of the Moors into Spain was a civilizing expedition more than a conquest. It was the Orient entering Europe. The invaders—for the most part Berbers with a few Arabs—were a race of young and vigorous culture, of such astonishing and rapid growth that, although in Africa they had hardly emerged from savagery, in Spain they manifested a truly wonderful receptivity, and absorbed and developed the best elements they found in the life of the country.

Pastimes of the Gitanos in the Camino Del Sacre Monte, Granada

In two years the Moors became masters, and under their dominion, from the eighth to the fifteenth century, the most elevated and opulent civilization flourished. All the arts, sciences, industries, inventions, and culture, of the old civilization budded out into fresh discoveries of creative energy. Religious toleration came with them, and was lost with them. The spirit of chivalry arose among the Moors, and was afterwards appropriated by the Christian warriors of the North. A Moorish knight was in every respect like a Spanish knight. It was religion alone that divided them—one called on the name of Allah, the other on that of Christ.

We must remember that the primitive Iberians of Spain were themselves of Berber stock, and this affinity in racial origin explains the peaceful amalgamation of the conquerors with the conquered. Afterwards by the constant mingling of their bloods the Moors and the old Spaniards became one. The Moor gave to the Spaniard and he took from him, and they contributed to the same work of national civilization.

Ganivet has said truly that those who deny the Moorish influence show themselves unable to comprehend the Spanish character. The Moorish dominion ended, passing almost as swiftly as it came. But the spirit of their exquisite civilization, perhaps the most exquisite that the world has yet seen, moulded their Christian conquerors into its likeness. And penetrating the Spanish character, and the daily life and habits of the people, this influence remains; indeed, it is not overstating the truth to say that to-day the pulse of the land still beats with Moorish life.

It is in the gardens of Spain that the stranger will find best the reflection of the Moorish spirit. The Moors made their cities places of gardens and waters. The very names that they gave to their pleasure places speak of joy. “The Meadow of Murmuring Waters,” “The Garden of the Water-wheel”—what magic lingers in the suggestion of the words!

Many of these old gardens have perished. Cordova has lost all except its Orange Court and the old garden of the ruined AlcÁzar. In Seville the parks are new. But in Granada the gardens have triumphed over the devastations of the Christians; and it is one of the exquisite surprises of the place to come suddenly on some fragment of a delicious garden where the Moorish tradition lives almost undisturbed.

Walls and Towers of the Alhambra, on the banks of the Darro, Granada

There are few cities, even in Spain, that hold so many gardens. There is the Alameda of the Alhambra, the green garden which lies around the Moorish citadel; the paseos on the banks of the Genil, planted with trees and cooled by fountains, the pleasure-grounds of the people; and the JardÍn de los Adarves, on the south terrace of the Alhambra hill, a trellised retreat, with climbing vines and flowers, and splendid view of Vega and distant snow-capped hills. Everyone will find in these gardens something that makes special appeal to him.

But the most exquisite haunt even among the gardens of Granada is the Generalife—the summer palace of the Moorish Princes, at the foot of the Cerro de Sol, and to the east of the Alhambra hill. Here you have the charm of small and perfect gardens laid out in terraces, with great clipped cypresses, myrtles, and orange-trees, and the glow of flowers, with that of the delicate Moorish architecture, of richly coloured tiles and rare inscriptions. And everywhere is the joyous sound of flowing water; the fountains are always playing, and water runs in channels made of inverted tiles placed on the top of the balustrades. One of the charms of Moorish life was the love of pure water.

An old legend says that the name Generalife in Arabic signifies the “house of love, of dancing, and of pleasure,” and, further, that it was built by one Omar, a passionate lover of music, that he might retire here and entirely give himself up to that amusement. The story is probably untrue, and the name, as the chronicles state, is a corruption of the Arabic “Djennat-al^’-Arif,” which means “the garden of Arif.” But romance so often is more beautiful than fact. One likes to think that this exquisite palace and gardens were designed as a place wherein a man could give his soul to music.

“Charming place! Thy garden is embellished with flowers which repose upon their stalks and exhale the sweetest perfumes; fresh air agitates the orange-trees and spreads abroad the sweet odour of its blossoms. I hear voluptuous music joined to the rustling of the leaves of thy grove. Everything around is harmonious, green, and flowering.”

Such is part of the inscription upon the arcades of the Garden of the Pond, and how perfectly the rich imagery of the words conveys the charm of the garden! The Generalife has kept more than any place in Spain its Moorish character, combining in its palace and garden, in spite of decay and alterations, much of that full suggestion of all beautiful things that was their gift.

In Spain dancing is something more than an amusement; it is a serious art closely connected with religious ritual, which expresses, perhaps as nothing else does, if we except the bull-fight, the true spirit of the people. The dances are Eastern in their origin; they are dramas of love, and especially those of the Gitanas, who have adopted and kept living the ancient dances of the country.

Seville, the joyous southern capital, is the city that has given its own spirit to the most beautiful of the Spanish dances. Granada and Malaga are also centres of dancing, and sometimes good performances may be witnessed at Madrid. But the best cafÉs cantantes, where the true Spanish dancers perform, are hidden in back streets where the foreigner does not readily find them. These dances are national ceremonies and belong to the people, and are far different from the dances, often quite modern in character, that are given at the popular cafÉs. The varieties are numerous, and the names are often confusing. Many dances date back far into antiquity, while almost all owe their special character to Arabic influences.

A Glimpse of Granada from the walls of the Generalife

The bolero is the most aristocratic dance. “What majesty, what decorum, what distinction!” cried Valera, speaking of the dances of Ruiz and his daughter Conchita. It is danced by a man and a woman, and is a kind of drama between them; both use castanets. It is a slow dance of deliberate grace and fascination. The jota is danced by a woman alone. This dance, too, is a love drama of intense passion, but always decorous, always beautiful. Both these dances are native to Andalusia, the province of Spanish dancing. Outside of Andalusia, the most famous dance is the Aragonese jota. This is danced by a man and a woman, and the castanets are used. But the drama is different, the movements are quicker and less varied, and there is great vivacity. It seems a kind of combat between the two dancers; it is more a drama of battle than a drama of love.

But the most typical of all Spanish dancing is the flamenco dance of the Gitanas, which you will see best at Seville; it is the most primitive and the most African of all. A group of performers sit in a semicircle upon a small stage. The spectators all take their part by a rhythmic clapping of hands and stamping feet. One of the performers—generally a man—plays the guitar and sings an accompanying song. A dancer rises suddenly, spontaneously, as if seized by the passion of the music. She wears a long dress, usually of white, and a beautiful Manilla shawl is folded on her shoulders. How can one describe the dance which is so unlike all other dances? It is not a dance of the feet; every part of the body plays its share in the performance: the swaying figure, the beckoning hands, the glittering smiles that come and go in the dark eyes—all contribute. The dancer is alive to her fingertips, and every expressive movement has the Spanish simplicity of emphasis. At first the movement is slow, then faster, and now increases and rises to a passion of intensity. And all the time the spectators are actively participating, their emotion rising with the dancer’s emotion; their rhythmic clapping and beating of feet grows louder as the drama proceeds, and cries of long-drawn-out oles stimulate the dancer. The dance ends as unexpectedly as it began: a pause comes, and the swaying body is still, as if languor had followed on strong emotion. There is silence; the dancer goes back to her seat. Then the singer starts a new song, the clapping is taken up again, another dancer comes forward, and a new drama is acted.

A group of dancers at the “Feria,” Seville

The foreigner who would understand Spain must see these dances; then he will come to know yet another characteristic of the people—their love of strong, quite elemental sensation. It is this that so often makes them seem cruel to us.

This delight of the Spaniard in all emotions that make sharp appeal to the senses explains the existence of the bull-fight, the national sport, which is so much a part of the life of the people that, although to-day there is a widespread movement to repress, or at least to mitigate, its cruelty, it seems unlikely that its real attraction will cease.

It is impossible not to condemn the bull-fight; its cruelty cannot be denied. It is brutal, as the most cultivated Spaniards themselves admit. And yet there are certain facts that the stranger must remember before he condemns. The bull-fight, like the dance, is a solemn ritual rather than an amusement. The combats take place on Sunday, while the most famous form part of the ceremonies of Holy Week. Part of the proceeds are devoted to some religious object—a charity or other holy work. Almost all the great bull-rings have a chapel where the fighters first prepare themselves in prayer and partake of the Holy Eucharist. To the foreigner it may seem that this union of religion and bull-fighting is incongruous, but to most Spaniards it does not appear so.

The bull-fight is the Spaniard’s strongest, most characteristic intoxication. The poor man will sell his shirt to buy a ticket for the bull-ring. They are a profoundly serious people, but every incident connected with their national sport arouses them into vivid life. I remember on one occasion, when travelling in Andalusia in an open third-class railway carriage, the train passed a vacada, or training-place of bulls to be used in the ring. The effect was magical. These quiet, sombre people sprang upon the seats, some leaned far out of the windows; they gesticulated, they waved their sombreros, they called the names of the bulls, they cheered, they shouted. Never had I seen the decorous Spaniard so strongly moved.

The toreros are the idols of the Spanish people. You will see them best at Seville, in their faultless tight majo costumes and frilled shirts, fastened with diamond studs, and diamond rings on the fingers of their faultless hands, and with their pigtail fastened upon the top of their heads. There is something splendidly attractive in their perfect bodily equipoise, with every muscle trained to faultless precision. The toreros have in the highest degree strength, agility, and grace. Even women have been toreros and Madame Dieulafoy tells of one DoÑa, Maria de Gaucin, who left her convent to become a torero; then, after gaining renown throughout Spain for her exploits in the bull-ring, returned to the practices of religion. Only in Spain would such division of a life be thought perfectly natural, perfectly seemly.

The old town of Ronda

The bull-fight was established in Spain in the eleventh or twelfth century, and is of Moorish origin. The bull would also seem to have come first from Africa. But the spectacular and ceremonial character of the contest is certainly adapted from the Roman combats, the influence of which had survived among the old Spaniards.

Every Spanish town has its Plaza de Toros. Here, and especially at Seville during the Easter festival, you will see all the population of the place, a motley crowd of men and women. SeÑoras in white lace mantillas and white dresses, and their cavaliers, the gay Sevillanos, side by side with the gente flamenca and the cigarreras in lovely shawls, their hair elaborately arranged, with a white flower showing against its blackness; for the bull-fight is a democratic institution, where the greatest foregather with the people. The patience of the vast crowd is perfect as they await the advent of the appointed hour. All are animated with a suppressed seriousness, the prelude to violent emotion which is so characteristic of the Spaniard.

The entire performance is carried out with an elaborate ceremony of detail which the stranger often finds difficult to appreciate. The President enters his palco. Then follows the paseo de la cuadrilla, the processional entrance of the bull-fighters, grave, handsome men, in their beautiful and varied costumes of yellow and violet, gold and green, or whatever the chosen colours may be. The procession moves slowly across the ring; there is no haste. Each one in turn gravely and with perfect grace salutes the President, who then throws down the key of the bulls’ den, the toril. In a few moments the first bull rushes into the arena. The combat has begun.

The fight is divided into three acts. In the Suerte de Picar, the first, the picadores, dressed in round felt hats, short cloaks, and long leggings of plaited steel, and mounted on blindfolded horses, in turn receive the charge of the bull, thrusting him aside with their long pikes. Sometimes they come to close quarters, a picador is thrown, his horse is wounded, or perhaps killed. The shouts of the now excited crowd show that this is the critical moment. The picador rises quickly, another horse is brought, while the chulos divert the attention of the bull by dexterous waving of their brightly coloured cloaks. When the bull is sufficiently wearied—for this is the object of the first act in the drama—the President gives a signal, and the picadores retire.

The Falls of the GuadalevÍn, the Great Gorge and New Bridge, Ronda

The banderilleros take their place. This is the Suerte de Banderillear, the second act, the object of which is to inflame the bull. The banderilleros place the barbed darts, or banderillas, in the shoulders of the bull. Each is about 2 feet long, of curious device, and ornamented with long coloured streamers. It is the most exciting part of the combat. The utmost skill, agility, and daring, are needed to plant the darts. There must be no bungling, no second of hesitation. It is now that the excitement of the spectators is really aroused, for a sense of solemnity is given by the possible presence of death. A banderillero may be seen to seize hold of the lashing tail, swing himself along the beast’s side, and plant his dart between its horns. It is done with surprising skill, with delight, and with passion; and the applause of the spectators swells to a great roar, which refuses to be silenced.

The last act is the Suerte de Matar. The chief espada comes into the ring; to him belongs the honour of the death. First he approaches the President, and solemnly dedicates to him the slaying of the bull. He is armed with a short Toledan blade and the muleta, a small red cloth. Calmly he walks towards the bull. And now a silence falls upon the hitherto raging crowd. It is the moment of pause, of silent waiting for the most violent emotion of all. First he plays with the now infuriated and wearied beast. There is still no hurrying. The Spaniard wishes always to gain the very utmost out of his sensations. The bull is teased by the waving of the red cloth, and in this way is made to take the proper position for the death-blow. The espada watches his moment; then, with unerring decision, he buries the blade in the bull’s neck between the shoulders, and walks slowly to the President’s box, with absolute composure and a dignity that is almost defiant. Deafening cheers greet him, rewards and costly tributes are thrown, and he is presented with a great bouquet of flowers. How Spanish is this ending, which rewards the slayer with flowers!

It is over; the ring is cleared, sand is raked over the pools of blood, a new bull is driven forward, again the drama begins. Six times the scene is re-acted, and a seventh bull, a toro de gracia, is added at the first bull-fight of the year.

Spanish Dancers, Seville

In this repetition of emotions, this delight in heaping up sensations, we have a very real revelation of the Spanish temperament. And this explains the devotion of the people to the bull-fight. When we come to estimate the Spanish character, we shall find that the Spaniard has the qualities which belong to all primitive people. The sentiment of sympathy with suffering is essentially a modern one. The Spaniard is still the Moor, his ancestor. He is cruel because he is indifferent to pain, his own or another’s.