Things Seen in Spain — Chapter 2, The Spanish People

The character of the Spaniard, as one gradually learns to know it, not from a brief visit spent tourist fashion in hurrying from one city to another, but from living among the people, sharing their common life and entering into their spirit, is a very positive character.

And this character, though at first seemingly full of contradictions, is one of an almost curious uniformity, strongly individual, and not easy to comprehend.

A significant quality of the Spaniard is his quietness—the grave enjoyment which he retains even under the influence of strong emotion, such as we have seen in the dances and in the national pastime of the bull-fight.

His countenance will keep its accustomed gravity even whilst his mind is inflamed.

The Spaniard has what one would like to call an active languor.

On the one hand we find in his character a deeply rooted dislike, which is almost a contempt, for useful work, with, on the other hand, a reserve of untiring energy and a special aptitude for violent and emotional action.

In Spain work is not the highest aim of life.

This is the reason why time is of so much less value.

It explains the tendency to delay everything to a convenient to-morrow—that annoying _mañana_ with which the Spaniard cheerfully responds to every demand.

One of the first lessons I learnt in Spain was the unimportance of time.

We were staying in a country village off the beaten tracks of travel, and had to drive a long distance to meet the train which was to take us to Madrid.

When we arrived at the small wayside station, we found we had three hours to wait.

There was no waiting-room, no refreshments could be procured, and it was raining and very cold.

I felt angered at the discomfort and waste of time; but the Spaniards who were our companions accepted the delay with true philosophy.

They were genuinely distressed at my annoyance—the Spaniard is always courteous to the foreigner—but they did not at all share it.

They wrapped their great cloaks around them, and walked up and down the wind-driven platform for three hours, calmly indifferent.

I understood their acceptance of life on its own terms, which is the very root of the Spanish character, at once its strength and its weakness, the cause of its beauty and of its defects.

[Picture: The Cave of the Doves, “El Chorro,” between Boladilla and Malaga] A charge of cruelty is often made against this people.

But the cruelty which one meets so often, and especially in the treatment of animals, is almost always misunderstood by the stranger.

It arises from a certain hardness of fibre, which makes the Spaniard indifferent to pain.

And if he is cruel to others, the Spaniard is also cruel to himself.

I know of no people who are as little careful of personal comfort.

Stoicism may be said to be the religion of the true Spaniard.

Every form of asceticism has been practised by him, and to-day there exist brotherhoods whose members flagellate themselves with special instruments made of sharp broken glass till the blood flows, just in the same way as the _banderilleros_ prick the bulls in the ring.

The Spaniards have always shown an interest in blood and a satisfaction in shedding it.

Two centuries ago it was a common custom for lovers to scourge themselves in the streets during Holy Week, to win admiration from their mistresses.

The Spaniard still gains the approval of his women by feats of daring, and the bull-fighter is the idol of the people.

We find an expression of this insistence on pain in the Spanish pictures and sculpture.

Artists in no other country have depicted the sufferings of the Christ and the tortures of martyrs with the same delight of detail.

I recall the pictures of Zurbaran and Ribera, or those agonized images of the Christ by Juan Juni at Valladolid, in which sorrow is carried to a distortion that is almost caricature.

The Spaniard accepts these images; he clothes them with little embroidered skirts and lace petticoats with the _naïveté_ of a child; to him they are the most poignant expression of his religious emotion.

[Picture: The Limestone Quarries, Almeria] It would seem, then, that in the Spanish character there is not only an indifference to pain, but an actual delight in the emotion of suffering, which prevents an understanding of cruelty.

It is the temperament that makes the martyr and the fanatic.

I remember on one occasion some boys were torturing a young bird, which one boy held by a string tied to its leg.

I offered to buy the bird for a few _reales_.

At once it was given to me, and I set it free.

But what was the result?

In less than an hour some twenty birds had been caught, fastened to strings, and were brought to me.

No payment was asked: the birds were a gift to the foreign señora.

The boys had not understood at all that I disliked their cruelty; they thought that I had a strange fancy for captive birds.

The incident is characteristic of what the stranger will meet constantly in Spain.

Your driver will flog his mules with the butt-end of his whip—yes, beat them till they fall.

If you remonstrate, he will smile, rarely will he be angry; but never will you make him understand.

Once during a long drive I gained respite for a team of mules at the cost of a bribe of two pesetas.

I know that driver pitied my foolishness.

Yet, let there be no mistake, the Spaniard is not without the tenderer emotions of humanity.

And, after all one has heard of Spanish cruelty, it is interesting to note the signs of gentleness and kindness that meet one in many unexpected ways.

I have never seen any other people so friendly with one another.

The home life of the people, be they rich or poor, is charming, with a standard of kindness that compares favourably with that of other countries.

Domestic crimes are comparatively infrequent.

The Spaniard is known for his considerate love for children, and the relations between parents and children are universally happy.

In no country does less stigma fall upon a child who is born out of wedlock.

One of the strongest impressions I gained during my stay in the Peninsula was the happiness of the charming children.

It is noteworthy that the first hospital for the insane was established in the country of the bull-ring.

The practice of allowing counsel to poor persons in criminal cases is of much older origin than in our own country.

The pest of beggars is another witness to this softness in their character; the Spaniard feels that it is inhuman to refuse alms.

[Picture: A Gipsy house at Coria] It is when the Spaniard comes into personal relationships that his real native kindness appears.

For his friend he is ready to sacrifice his life—a quality which Strabo notes as belonging to the ancient Iberians.

You will often meet with a curious mingling of cruelty and kindness in the same individual.

I recall a characteristic incident.

An artist friend was sketching in a small town in the province of Old Castile, and upon one occasion was greatly annoyed by a lad who threw sand upon the wet canvas, thereby showing, I suppose, his hostility to the foreigner, whose actions he did not understand and therefore disliked.

The artist, rather than contend with his rudeness, left the spot and returned home.

By mistake a small purse-bag was left behind.

The boy found it, and followed with it to the hotel.

What a change!

There was no rudeness now; instead, a real pleasure in rendering a service.

Smiling and bowing, the persecutor of half an hour before returned the purse with the fine Spanish courtesy, refusing to receive any reward.

It is these seemingly contradictory impulses that puzzle the stranger in estimating the Spanish character.

But the truth is, that the deep-rooted conservatism of the race has kept alive in the Spaniard of to-day the qualities that belong to primitive peoples.

Mr. Havelock Ellis, the English writer who has best understood the Spanish spirit, says truly: “The Spaniard is, and remains to-day, in the best sense of the word, a savage.

” The Spanish nature is elemental, and responds to all the emotions that touch the elemental passions: love, religion, war—these are the emotions that stir life into action.

Much of what is characteristic of the life of the people may be studied in the _Feria_, the great spring festival, which is held at Seville each year in the middle of April.

From all parts of Spain people flock to the southern city, and for three days at this national picnic they make holiday together.

In the Prado de San Sebastian streets of wooden pavilions, or _casetas_, have been erected, consisting mainly of one room, which is furnished with chairs, a piano, and beautiful flowers.

Here on each day the families of Seville assemble in their own _caseta_, and pass the joyous hours in receiving guests, dancing, guitar-playing, and singing.

One side of the _caseta_ is entirely open, so that all can see the company within.

The women and the older men sit upon the chairs;

the _majos_, in faultless costume, stand about, each smoking his cigarette; the children, brilliant, fascinating little people, play in front.

Some of the women, and many children, are dressed in the old Andalusian costume, with black lace over bright yellow silk; all the women wear _mantillas_ upon their hair.

Fans are fluttering everywhere;

there is a soft tinkling of guitars.

Dark eyes flash upon you, and red lips part in smiles as you stand and look within.

It is a family party, carried out with a publicity that seems strange to us, but is perfectly natural to the Spaniard.

At the _Feria_ everyone is accepted as a friend.

Someone clicks a pair of castanets, and a beautiful girl gets up to dance the _seguidilla_, that most graceful dance which every Andalusian child is taught.

The effect on the company is magical.

How animated they are!

every face is smiling.

Their chairs are drawn in a circle around the dancer, whom they applaud with rhythmic clapping.

It is the _seguidilla_, with its gracious memories, which gives life to the _Feria_.

In another part of the fair the Gitanas have their tents.

All the women from Triana and the Macarena are here, amusing themselves simply and quietly with a joyous decorum.

Some of the Gitana women are remarkably handsome; all have superb hair, and the gay colours of their dresses give brightness to the scene.

There is dancing here, too, the _flamenco_ dances, with slow movements and passionate suggestion of love, and the noise of the constant clapping of the spectators.

[Picture: Interior of the same house at Coria] On the outskirts, in the open space of the Prado, are flocks of sheep and goats, and droves of bullocks, horses, mules, and donkeys, tended by picturesque herdsmen and muleteers in the dress of the several provinces.

_Caballeros_ ride their horses up and down to show off their points.

The vendors haggle and chaffer with the buyers, for all the animals are for sale; but all is good-natured, there is no quarrelling.

At intervals there are little _ventas_, or refreshment booths, where the people buy a _refresco_.

Families are camping and picnicking on the grass.

Others are seated on chairs arranged in a circle around the couple who rise to dance.

At a little distance there are swings for the children.

The noise is great—the Spaniards delight in loud sounds—concertinas and barrel-organs, the sounds from the castanets of the dancers, and the loud clapping of hands, mingling with the cries of the _aguadores_ and the vendors of shell-fish and chestnuts.

Here, too, everyone is happy; but you will not see one drunken or quarrelsome person; among all the people there is a friendly, good-natured content.

“Seville,” it has been said, “lights up for a _fiesta_ as a face lights up with a smile.

” And evening is the time at which the _Feria_ looks its best.

The great iron tower in the centre of the park is brilliantly illuminated, and the avenues of _casetas_, radiating in every direction, are softly lighted with thousands of fairy lights, electric lamps, and Chinese lanterns; in each a different scheme of colour prevails.

The soft warm air is fragrant with the scent of the blossoming orange-trees.

In each _caseta_ there is a dancer, and from the open doors eager faces look out upon the passers-by.

The sound of castanets and guitars is heard in every direction.

The broad walks are filled with people, an unending stream, slowly walking up and down.

This is the true Spain, idle, joyous, brilliant, happily content, making the very most of life with the fine acceptance that is the gift of the Sevillians.

It is this spirit which the Spaniards have brought into their religion—the understanding that joy is a part of worship.

And although Seville is not a religious city as Toledo and Valencia are, it is here that the splendid ceremonies of the Church are carried out with more detail and spectacular appeal than in any city in Spain.

The Sevillians have made the ritual of their religion a part of their life’s enjoyment.

Nothing shows this better than the strange mediæval custom of the _Seises_, the sacred dances which take place in the cathedral on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and on that of Corpus Christi.

The sixteen _seises_, or choristers, dance in front of the high-altar, using castanets and singing in the most charming and graceful minuet fashion.

It is perfectly dignified, perfectly religious, and the young dancers perform without a suspicion of levity.

There is something specially characteristic of the Spaniards’ attitude towards religion in thus making dancing a part of the sacred ritual of the Church.

Just as the bull-fight is carried out as a solemn ceremony, so dancing, the people’s strongest passion, finds its place in the service of the house of God.

To the stranger it is an astonishing ceremony, a witness to the pagan element that lives so persistently in the Spaniard—the cause of those sharp contrasts that surprise us in his character.

All Spain gathers in Seville to take part in the great festival, which is held during the _Semana Santa_, the Holy Week of Easter.

It is the people’s holiday as truly as is the _Feria_; both are “holy days.

” [Picture: A Village “Pasos.

”] The most characteristic of the ceremonies are the religious processions, which take place on each day during the week, and all day long on Good Friday.

At Granada and many other towns the Church processions have been given up; but at Seville the custom remains unchanged from the Middle Ages.

The whole city is given up to the _pasos_, vehicular traffic is stopped, all business ceases.

Everyone, from the Archbishop and the _Alcalde_ downwards, assembles in the public squares, where seats are erected, in the streets, or in the balconies and windows of the houses, to witness the performance.

It is an amazing sight, this multitude gathered to watch the procession of an image!

But the Spaniards give themselves up to it with simple abandonment.

Nothing seen in Spain will give so true an impression of the part that religion takes in the life of the people.

The stranger will feel himself carried back at least three centuries.

The _pasos_, which are carried in these processions, consist of a single sacred figure, or a group of figures illustrating a scene from the Passion.

Many of the statues have real beauty; they are the work of Montañés, the seventeenth-century sculptor, whose polychrome carvings express so perfectly the Spanish religious spirit.

Borne by twenty-five invisible carriers, at an extremely slow pace, the sacred groups pass through the streets of the city.

Each _paso_ is followed by the members of the _cofradia_, or brotherhood, to whom the statue belongs.

They are dressed in the costume of their Order, the long gown, usually of white cloth, with the peaked cowl covering the head.

Each brother carries a lighted candle.

Companies of acolytes, white and scarlet robed, swing censers and chant anthems.

A line of gendarmes, in capes of vivid red, march in advance to clear the way.

Women clad in white walk beside them;

barefooted, they are fulfilling a vow.

The sacred figures, and especially the Virgin, to whom the chivalrous Spaniard has always rendered his homage, are vested in rich gowns of silk and velvet, enriched with jewels of such great price that a soldier with drawn sword walks on guard behind.

The platforms on which the statues rest are thickset with lighted tapers and laden with flowers.

[Picture: A rope and matting factory, Seville] The slow procession proceeds through the densely crowded streets and squares to the accompaniment of solemn music, with which mingle the _vivas_ and _bravas_ of the spectators.

Before the doors of the City Hall there is a pause to greet the _Alcalde_, who rises from his velvet chair.

Then the procession passes onwards through the reverent, bare-headed crowd to the cathedral.

The women, black-robed and with black _mantillas_, in the balconies, where rows of lamps and candles burn, rise in reverence.

One and another sings an ardent petition, with eyes fastened on the sacred figure.

Now a young girl presses forward in the crowd with a gift of marigolds, which are placed at the Virgin’s feet.

There is a completeness and simplicity in the worship, the great crowd, rich and poor, women and men, all moved by one strong emotion.

And the spell of the strange scene penetrates the spirit; one forgets its pagan, mediæval childishness; one begins to understand how these outward symbols have had power to hold the faith of the people.

The cathedral is the chief centre of all the ceremonies; and the vast edifice—Santa Maria is the largest Gothic church in the world—which is not too vast for its part in the great functions, is seen best on these days of festival.

The gold and silver plate, all the splendid Church treasures—silver candelabra beyond counting, jewelled censers, chalices, and crosses, golden keys and diamond stars, Arfe’s rich and delicate monstrance—have been laid out by the side of the great altar.

Crimson drapings cover the walls; the priests wear their _terno celeste_, vestments of blue and gold.

The great doors are wide open, and all day long the people come and go in endless procession, as the pageants of the _pasos_ arrive and then depart.

The Mass, with its elaborate ritual, is sung to the Spanish music of Eslava; the Sacrament is borne in priestly procession.

Each day has its special function.

On Palm Sunday is the consecration of the palms and olive branches; on Maundy Thursday the typical Spanish ceremony of the washing of feet takes place; on Good Friday there is the Passion Sermon; and on Saturday the _Cirio Pascual_, the great candle, 25 feet high and 770–880 pounds in weight, is consecrated.

[Picture: Sacristy of the Convent of the Cartuja, Granada] All the days the cathedral is filled with relays upon relays of worshippers: some kneel upon the bare stones, one by one or in groups together; some stand; others sit on the chairs they have brought with them.

The black dresses and _mantillas_ of the women mingle with the bright colours of the peasants who have come from the country districts.

There is something social, well-nigh domestic, in the scene.

In the intervals between their devotions the women chatter loudly together and use their fans; children play about as if in their own homes; even dogs and cats are there, quite unmolested.

The Spaniard is wholly at home in his church, which to him is so much a part of the world and his daily life that he can talk, eat, sleep, and transact business, there.

As the week advances an indescribable emotion grows, which culminates on the Saturday, when, at ten o’clock in the morning, the Veil of the Temple is rent in twain.

The great purple curtain, which has hung in front of Roldan’s beautiful Christ upon the Cross, is sharply drawn by hidden cords.

The signal is given; all the bells of the city ring out joyously, the great organ peals forth jubilees of victory, _Gloria in Excelsis_ soars out in choral chants.

It is the moment of supreme emotion.

The multitude falls upon its knees before the great symbol of the accomplished Passion.

This is the end of the Holy Week ceremonies.

The women put off their black, and now appear in white lace _mantillas_ and dresses predominantly white.

In the afternoon the children’s festival of the lambs takes place.

Then on Easter Sunday the bull-fight is celebrated.

CHAPTER III—TOWN LIFE IN SPAIN

Toledo, the Type of the Spanish City—Its Architectural Monuments—The Intermingling of Arab and Christian Art—Granada—The Alhambra—Cordova—The Great Mosque—Seville, the City of Pleasure—The Special Character of the Streets—The _Cafés_ and Shops—The Typical Andalusian—The Parks—The _Sevillanas_—Spanish Courtship—The Houses of Seville—The _Patios_—The Home-life of the Sevillians—Spanish Hospitality.

Toledo has kept, perhaps, more than any city in Spain its mediæval aspect, combining in its buildings of so many civilizations that here remain together; churches, convents, mosques, Gothic walls and ornaments, Moorish houses and steep passages—everywhere the Moorish design is evident—and a great Christian cathedral—much of what is most typical of the genuine Spanish civilization.

I know of no city that can give a more poignant emotion than Toledo.

A great town, set on its rough and elevated rock of granite in the midst of the blue Sierra, closely ringed by the deep brown water of the Tajo, it is like no other city in the world.

The national character, strong and aloof, passionate and brilliant, and the nation’s history, are here epitomized before you.

And coming to the city, as the stranger does, from Madrid, blatant, noisy, and modern, you will feel transplanted back into an older world.

Your first impression is of something extraordinarily austere.

You seem to have passed into silence and an almost painful absence of life.

[Picture: Bridge of Alcantara and the Alcázar, Toledo] Toledo has remained as the Moors built it, a tortuous network of cobbled alleys, as was most fitting in a city built upon rock, scorched by sun in summer, and in winter swept with icy winds.

The tall houses, rising in straight upward lines like an arrangement of flat walls, are almost all windowless on the side next to the street; where there is a window it is barred and closely latticed, and the high gates are studded with iron bosses and seem to forbid an entrance.

No sight of the tree-shaded court is given, as at Seville and Cordova.

No one appears to go in and out of these doors.

Every house has the aspect of a prison; they all look as if they had histories.

There is the same absence of bustling modern life in the streets.

In the Calle del Comercio there are shops, but the wares are simple, having an old-world air; only specially interesting is that of Alvarez, the best maker of damascene.

Even in the Zocodover, the centre of the city’s business, all is sedate.

You will see the water-carriers driving their mules up the steep streets from the _vega_, a peasant whose beast is laden with bright-coloured fruits and vegetables, or a group of goats that supply the milk for the city.

Yet often the streets seem deserted.

Only the companies of beggar children, who clamour incessantly around you with their strange cry, “Un caukie sou!

Un caukie sou!

” remind you of the life hidden in the sleeping city.

Romance lives in Toledo.

How many scenes and how many figures famous in Spain’s history are recalled to our memory here.

In no other city are there the same number of architectural monuments.

It is the chief centre of the two great elements of Spanish civilization, the Christian and the Arab, which makes it the place where the native art can best be studied.

Its cathedral and churches are furnished with the most perfect examples of the industrial arts that have been produced in the Peninsula.

El Greco, who adopted Toledo as his home, expresses in his pictures, which are one of the great possessions of the city, the Toledan spirit, which is the spirit of Spain.

The churches are the museums and picture-galleries of the city; each one has its special appeal—its precious mosaics, its ironwork, its glass windows, its cloisters, its tombs, its beautiful carvings, or its pictures.

In Toledo you understand the part that religion has taken in the history of the country.

You can hardly walk for five minutes in any direction without coming upon some church; they stand at the corner of almost every square, many are embedded between the brown walls of the houses.

Its architecture shows a curious mingling of Arab, Gothic, and Renaissance work.

Christian and Moor overlap in many buildings, while in others the art of each emerges isolated and independent.

In the great cathedral, the perfection of Gothic in Spain, we see nothing of the Moor, while in the mosque of Bel-el-pardon, now called El Cristo de la Luz, and in the ancient mosque in the Calle de las Tornarias, which has never been converted to Christian uses, and retains its original character almost unimpaired, we can with difficulty trace the Christian.

But in other buildings—the Sinagoga del Tránsito, for instance—we find the Moorish traditions persisting with the Christian.

And it is this intermingling and absorption of the Moorish civilization with the Christian that gives the real character to Toledo.

Not only in the churches that once were mosques does the passage of that great people remain, but in the houses, austere without but beautiful within, in ancient palaces, in fragments of gardens that still are places of rest, in embattled bridge and arch, in exquisite harmonies of ornament that meet you everywhere, and, more than all, we find this gracious influence in the spirit of the city itself.

Toledo is a living picture, a city in which each building is a voice that speaks the history of Spain.

In Cordova, and even in Granada, you are less sharply conscious of the Moorish influence.

[Picture: A street in Cordova, looking towards the Mosque] Time, the tamer of proud cities, has shadowed Granada, and to visit it is to understand the desolation of conquest.

The big hotels, placed so incongruously near to the Alhambra, the clamorous guides, the beggars—all the disagreeable conditions of a show city that trades on its past are here.

The efforts of recent years, that have developed a certain amount of industrial activity, have not lessened this impression; for modern enterprise seems strangely out of place in Granada, while the attempts to improve the old city, such as the boulevard which has been driven through its centre, have been left unfinished, with a result of added desolation.

In the air itself there seems something of decay, as the white mists from the snowy heights of the Sierra Nevada rest shroud-like upon the _vega_.

Always you seem to catch an echo of that _ultimo suspiro del Moro_.

Ruins meet you everywhere; only the gardens in Granada have kept the charm of their exquisite beauty.

But there is one possession that conquest has left to Granada.

It is to see the Alhambra that everyone comes to the city, which is but a setting to this Moorish jewel.

And in the wooded garden, which lies around the citadel, where nightingales sing, and flowers embroider the grass, and the sound of running water is always heard, Granada, with its memories of ruin, seems shut off as by a veil of quiet.

The Alhambra is the supreme pearl of Moorish art in Spain.

It is bewildering in the appeal of its strange beauty.

It is like an invocation of an Eastern sorcerer, and as you wander in its courts and halls the Thousand and One Nights seem true.

It is hardly conceivable that people lived here.

You seem to understand the brilliant dominion of the Moors in Spain.

Only people with a history like theirs could have reigned here; life lived here could but have been a romance.

The first impression you gather from the almost bewildering beauty is how any building so seemingly fragile can be so strong.

More than five centuries have passed since the Alhambra was built.

The repeated earthquakes which did so much damage to Granada, and laid in ruin the Renaissance palace of Charles V. , have been powerless to destroy this most delicate of architectural structures.

To-day the Alhambra is kept as a show-place, rejuvenated by the restorer.

But even this has not been able to dim the exquisite beauty of its courts and halls.

And all the jewelled weaving of ornaments, so difficult to grasp as being quite real, have kept much of their splendour.

It almost seems as though the common superstition were true, and that the charm of Fate does guard the Red Palace of the Moors.

Cordova suffers from the memory of a past greatness which she cannot now support.

Gautier describes the city as _le squelette blanché et calciné_.

Cordova is a city in sleep; it rests in a quiet and beautiful dream.

Here the Eastern spirit of acceptance echoes with an unsilenced voice.

And this is why the sensitive stranger will find such perfect satisfaction in the white city’s sleeping peace.

Cordova was the town that I most loved in Spain.

But the tourist goes to Cordova in haste to visit the mosque.

“Mezquita?

Mezquita?

” Each Cordovese you encounter will surmise your desire and direct you without question.

They know that this imperishable building is the one interesting lion in their city; it is to visit it that the stranger comes to Cordova.

The great mosque is a “wonder of the world,” the one perfectly satisfying building left in the city of the Khalif, the Cordova that was known as “the Bride of Andalusia.

” This Church of the Divine Wisdom is the most complete expression in building that the Moors have left in Spain, more even than the Alhambra.

It is one of the buildings that sum up the genius of a people, the experience of a race, and the teaching of a school.

In the Outer Court of Oranges, where the water of the fountains and the leafy shade of the orange-trees give delicious coolness from the blazing heart of the sun, you will find the untiring charm and dreamy peace of Oriental repose.

You will see the women of Cordova gathered around the great _almîda_ fountain with their red-brown pitchers to fill.

You will hear them chattering, telling the news of the day.

Now and then will come a sound of laughter as a youth, also with a vessel to fill, joins them.

The women will leave their pitchers and go into the mosque, one by one or in groups together, for prayer is a part of the day’s work.

Figures move slowly up and down the cloisters; they are the Canons; each will be smoking a cigarette.

Groups of beggars crouch on the low stone seats; they seem quite content in the sun.

At the hour of service a band of acolytes will come from the chancery and cross the court slowly to the mosque, making a line of scarlet.

And presently there will be a soft sound of music as the boys sing the _coplas_ in honour of the Virgin.

Yes, the Court of Oranges is the most perfect spot in Cordova, to which the stranger will come again and again.

[Picture: Puerta Del Perdón (Gate of Pardon) the Mosque, Cordova] And when you go into the mosque itself, you will pass out of the colonnades of orange-trees into colonnades of stone.

Before you, around you, everywhere, a forest of columns; and the canopy of curves above you, formed by the double rows of crossed fantastic arches, will seem like the interlacing branches of great trees.

You will remember those enchanted forests you dreamed of as a child.

In truth, the architecture of the mosque is like a living thing.

The light, entering from above, plays upon the arches, causing the red stones to gleam like fire; it frets the thousand columns with moving patterns; it catches the glass mosaics in jewelled brilliance, and makes a soft shining upon the marble pavement, in which, as you look up and down, you see the long arcades reflected until the distance dies away, mysterious and apparently unending.

[Picture: The Queen’s Chamber, Alhambra, Granada] But words cannot describe this wonderful temple.

The Moorish houses of prayer will bring you a sense of joy: there is nothing of the mystic suggestion of a Gothic cathedral—that of Seville, for instance; your spirit is freed, not awed.

The mosque was to the Moor this world as well as the next.

Here is the message of a race who understood the fulness of living so well that they knew how to be joyously at home with their God;

and you realize more fully this lesson that the Moors gave to Spain, which finds its expression to-day in the Spaniard’s happy familiarity with his God.

The stranger will now be ready to understand the special atmosphere of Seville, for it is this frank acceptance of joy as the gold thread of life which gives the southern city its charm.

It is not shadowed with memory like sleeping Cordova, nor is it overburdened with heroic monuments like Toledo; there are no ruins such as give sadness to Granada; it is still a living city whose blood is pulsing with the joy of life lived in the sunshine.

The buildings for which the city is famous all have this aspect of joy—the Moorish Tower of Gold; the Alcázar, with its flower-crowded gardens; the Giralda Tower, which is so old, and yet in its glittering whiteness looks so new.

There is a joyousness in these buildings that I have never seen in the buildings of any other city.

Then, Seville is alive commercially, and from its wharves among the orange-trees which line the banks of its rivers vessels carry away its wine, its oil, and its oranges.

Seville has no rival among the cities of Spain.

The old saying is still true: “To him whom God loves He gives a home in Seville.

” In Seville you are happy without seeking to be so, and when the stranger has learnt this he has learnt the secret of the _Sevillanos_.

Seville has the aspect of a city given up to a holiday humour; and if I wished to describe the special quality of her happy people, I should say that they understood perfectly the difficult art of loafing.

You must be happy to loaf successfully; that is why Northern people find it so difficult.

But not even the Venetians loaf as well as the _Sevillanos_.

Go to the Calle de las Sierpes, that narrow, animated street, the centre of Seville’s joyous life; it is different from other streets; its gay shops, with the double row of irregular, close-drawn windows that make a sinuous line of light—certainly it is like a serpent.

All day and far into the night people saunter up and down its pavements or sit in one of the many _cafés_, which are always filled with crowds of unoccupied persons.

You will seem to be watching a stage play.

It is here that you will see best the _majos_, or dandies of Seville; in springtime there is sure to be a _matador_ strolling about in splendid costume, and women in _mantillas_ saunter to and fro with their slow, graceful walk.

In the _cafés_ you will have an opportunity of studying the typical Andalusian.

He wears a short coat and very tight trousers of a light colour, and a felt hat with a broad, flat brim.

He is always clean-shaven, and his hair is cut very short.

These men are often handsome, and have a striking expression of strength; the faces, dignified and always humorous, often resemble a comic actor.

They are an affectionate and friendly company, and their conversation echoes with a deafening buzz.

Notice the way in which they smoke their cigarettes, and at intervals drink their _refrescos_ or sip from their small glasses of _aguardiente_.

Their enjoyment is so Spanish, so epicurean.

And women in the street fan themselves in the same way.

All these people are happy in the frank acceptance of life as it is.

Inside the shops, which have doors wide open to the street, groups of women sit to buy fans and _mantillas_.

Making purchases is a delightful game, in which all Spanish women excel.

They smile, and chatter, and use their fans, bargaining with delicious grace, while the salesman, cigarette in hand, shrugs his shoulders and gesticulates.

“But the _mantilla_ is dear, señor.

” He throws out his hands in protest.

“No, señorita; I am giving it away at ten _pesetas_.

” “Is the quality good?

” and she raises her eyebrows in bewitching incredulity.

“As good as God’s blessing.