Southern Spain

CADIZ was the prettiest of all the towns of Spain, thought Byron. I would rather say that she was the most beautiful. She rises out of the sea-the boundless salt ocean that stretches from pole to pole-and the crests of the waves which lick her feet are not whiter than her walls. And these by day are bathed in liquid gold, for the sun seems to linger here ere he says good-night to Europe. By night the city gleams like washed silver, and her sheen is more magical than that of the dark yet phosphorescent water. Of sun and sea, light and air, is Cadiz compounded.

She is the Gateway of the West, not sultry and southern, but salt and windy and dazzling white. It is thus she appears to you, especially when you come to her over the sea-that sea which hereabouts has so often been splashed with British blood. How often the pale yellow cliffs of Spain to the southward, and those of the lovely shore of Algarve to the north, have reverberated with the booming of the cannon; how often the strand has been littered with dead men, whose gaping wounds the kindly ocean had washed clean! Browning's lines recur to the memory:

"Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the north-west died away,

Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay."

For you can see the lighthouse on Cape Trafalgar, and the Bay of Cadiz itself has been the scene of some of England's most glorious and desperate feats of arms. There is little stirring now in the wide harbour, where the ships ride lazily at anchor, and their crews crowd to the bulwarks and exchange pleasantries with your boatman as he pulls you towards the quay. And so you step on shore, and enter the fair city.

It looks so fresh and fragrant that you would not think it ancient. But Cadiz is the first-born city of Spain, probably the first foothold of civilization on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. It marks a new and tremendously important step forward in the world's progress. After Heaven knows how many attempts and false starts, the Ph?nicians dared what no people of the ancient world had dared before. The Pillars of Hercules were regarded as the western boundary of the world: beyond was nothingness. And one day, with the east wind filling his sails and fear in the hearts of his crew, some forgotten Columbus of Sidon or of Tyre passed through the strait, and turning northward, beached his little galley on the peninsula where we stand. Civilization-arts and letters, commerce and social life, and all that makes life dear to modern men-had burst the narrow limits of the Middle Sea, and first hoisted its flag o'er Cadiz.

The thought is not uninspiring. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the first keel that ever ploughed the Atlantic grazed this strand. It is likely enough that the fleets of lost Atlantis, if that mystical isle possessed a ship, resorted hither, for the copper and precious metals of Tarshish. What voyages have begun from this port, from the little Ph?nician craft setting forth in quest of the Tin Islands of the far north, to brave Cervera leading out his squadron to its preordained doom!

"It may be that the gulfs shall wash us down,

It may be we shall touch the happy isles."

And careless of fate, all these dauntless sailors have adventured forth into the deep.

In after years, the Ph?nicians and Carthaginians had settlements here, and built great ugly palaces overlooking the sea and the estuaries. With their curling black beards I seem to see them, robed in the real Tyrian purple, reclining on their terraces even as their forefathers are shown in that strange picture in our National Gallery, "The Eve of the Deluge."

Their deluge was the Roman Invasion, when, in a good hour for humanity, Latin superseded Semitic civilization, and the cruel gods of Sidon bowed before the young and beautiful gods of Rome. Gades or Gaddir-I give it its two oldest names-did not suffer by its change of masters. Its mart was crowded, its merchants known from Britain to the Fortunate Isles, from Lusitania to Arabia. Much wealth engendered luxury. Life in Gades was feverish and distempered. The people had not forgotten the worship of Astarte, and the Gaditane dancing-girls proved themselves worthy daughters of the goddess. When the gods were dethroned the sensual city pined; and under the austere yoke of Islam it languished and all but faded away. It is interesting to note that its Moslem inhabitants were drawn from the old race of Philistines, some of whose gods had probably been worshipped here in the Punic days.

When Seville fell, the port continued subject to the Almohade Emir of Fez. Alfonso the Learned subdued it without difficulty in 1262, and filled it with colonists from the north coast of Spain, from such places as Santander and Laredo. But the Philistine taint in two senses was never eradicated; Cadiz remained ever financial and commercial, and cared nothing for art. Her brightest and blackest days followed the discovery of America, when she soon eclipsed Seville as the mart for the produce of the New Indies. Her wealth, not once but many times, wellnigh proved her downfall. Threatened again and again by the Barbary corsairs, she saw a far more terrible foe before her walls in 1587, in the person of Sir Francis Drake, who inflicted incalculable injury on her shipping. Worse was to come nine years later, when the English, under the command of the Earl of Essex, scaled the walls, sacked the city from end to end, slaughtered the inhabitants, profaned the churches and burnt the public buildings, and sailed away with enormous booty. Yet so quickly did Cadiz recover from this terrific catastrophe, that she again tempted the cupidity of our countrymen in 1625. But this time the Dons were well prepared and gave our fleet so warm a reception that we were compelled to retire with heavy loss.

The city attained its zenith of opulence in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, when it had become almost the exclusive entrep?t for the traffic between Southern Europe and the Americas. Numerous royal privileges and concessions secured it almost a monopoly of the trade. But no one organ can hope to escape an infection attacking the whole system. Spain in the eighteenth century was dying from that commonest of national diseases-dry-rot. Yet as late as 1770 Adam Smith did not hesitate to say that the merchants of London had not yet the wealth to compete with those of Cadiz, and a few years later the value of the bullion landed at its quays was estimated at 125 millions sterling.

Yet it was this bloated, purse-proud city, strangely enough, that proved the ark of refuge for Spain when the innumerable hosts of Napoleon swarmed over the land. Here were preserved the insignia of national independence, and here, amid the thunder of guns and in the lap of the ocean, was born the New and Free Spain. Cadiz proved a second Covadonga. The focus of the constitutional movement, she was savagely assailed by the Absolutists and their French allies. The defence of Trocadero, on the other side of the bay, against the forces of the Duc d'Angoulême popularized the name of the place throughout Europe. The pages of Balzac abound in allusions to that mischievous and futile attempt of the Government of the Restoration to rivet on Spaniards fetters that no Frenchman would wear. Then came a French invasion of another sort, of the Romanticists-of De Musset and Gautier, and the long-haired followers of Byron.

It has often seemed to me that every city belongs to one particular age. This being a fancy contrary to fact, I will put it this way-that in every city there is always some one period of human history more readily recoverable than any other. This may not be the period which has left its mark most conspicuously on the physiognomy of the place; more probably it will be determined by your own preconceptions, derived from study or chance reading. John Addington Symonds observed that an island near Venice, the name of which I have forgotten, immediately recalled to him not the great days of the Republic with which it had an historical connection, but the later and decadent days of bag-wig and hair powder. At Cadiz I could have wished to think of the Ph?nicians, thus hardily adventuring into the wide ocean; or of Drake and his gentlemen adventurers, "bound wrist to bar, all for red iniquity"; but instead I fancied myself back in the 'thirties of last century, and thought of De Musset and his "Andalouse" and his lovely Spanish girls. Is it possible that Andalusia in those days of our grandfathers was the Andalusia of the Romanticists? At Cadiz, I beguiled myself into believing so-why, I cannot explain. Perhaps it was due to the unexpected appearance of a native-a distinctively Andalusian-costume in the streets. Nowhere else in Spain is the mantilla more conspicuous or more gorgeous. A French writer gives a selection of toilettes worn at a Corrida de toros, which, as I never assisted at one of these functions in Cadiz, I repeat: "All pink, coral necklace, white lace mantilla, big bunches of carnations in the hair and corsage; a blond head seen beneath a transparent mantilla, like a frail spider's web, red corsage and white gown; coral ear-rings, with bunches of roses; all black, with a white mantilla; all white, with a black mantilla; pale green gown with a blue bolero and white roses; shawl draped, brocaded, with a wealth of carnations in the hair; black dress and mantilla, violets in the hair; gold coloured shawl, embroidered with red roses, comb like a tiara set with bright-hued flowers," etc., etc. With confections such as these dazzling the eyes, it is no wonder that I began to see visions of gentlemen in black silk tights, dark green frock coats, and snowy white cravats, stammering Castilian with a Parisian accent.

It would be hard, too, to keep the mind fixed on remoter and more heroic ages, for Cadiz is singularly destitute of antiquities. The descendants of the Philistines could not be expected to respect ancient monuments! But what they spared our freebooter ancestors burned. The old Cathedral, built in the thirteenth century, was almost totally consumed by the flames. When I say that the new building dates from 1720, I fear that your interest in it will expire. But it is at least imposing; and the choir stalls are very fine. Then there is the Capuchin Convent, where Murillo met his death by falling from a scaffolding while painting the picture of the Espousals of St. Catherine. Another picture by the same master may be seen in this church-St. Francis receiving the Stigmata. The little Academia de Bellas Artes contains some admirable specimens of the work of Zurbaran, brought from the Charterhouse of Jerez.

These are the only sights in the tourists' agent's acceptation of the word, and it is likely enough that you will think three hours devoted to the city amply sufficient. Yet its situation at the end of a narrow spit like that at the entrance to the Suez Canal-in mid-sea as it were-its associations, and its brightness and cleanliness, make it for some the most charming of Spanish towns. Crenellated walls enclose it on all sides, the space between them and the water's edge being devoted to quays, promenades, and gardens. There are forts at the extremity of the peninsula-the Isla de Leon, as it is called. The streets are all very straight, very narrow, and very clean. Through the rejas across the doorways you obtain glimpses of trim little patios, bedecked with flowering plants. Occasionally you come out into a little square, prettily laid out with gardens, like the Plaza de Mina, where the loungers asleep on the seats irresistibly recall dear old busy London.

AYAMONTE (THE GATEWAY OF ANDALUSIA)

The charming Parque Genovés, bordering the sea, reminds us of the great merchant race of Italy who had their warehouses here. It is exquisite to walk by night along the sea wall, which at some points rises sheer upwards from the water, and to inhale the breezes blown straight across, one would like to think, from the West Indies. You will crave for that cool wind afterwards, in the parched interior of Andalusia.

From Cadiz you may go to Seville by steamer up the Guadalquivir, but it is far from being an interesting trip. The river is about as picturesque, and in the same way, as the Dutch Rhine. However, in these days of distorted ?sthetics-when all that we thought beautiful we are now told is ugly, and vice versa-it is quite possible that some rapturous travellers will extol the mystical loveliness of the plains of the Guadalquivir, rating their charms far above the vulgar, blatant scenery of Switzerland and the Riviera, which is at the disadvantage of being at once realized by the mere ordinary person. En passant I cannot refrain from expressing my wonder why superior people of this sort go abroad. If Rhenish and Italian panoramas are suggestive to them only of oleographs and Christmas numbers, have we not our Abanas and Pharpars in England-the Essex marshes, the treeless downs of Sussex, the odoriferous banks of the Mersey, for instance?

But I digress-and I counsel you against doing so, but recommend you to proceed to Seville, if that be your destination, by rail direct. The journey occupies eight and a half hours, and is not among the most agreeable experiences of a lifetime. The railway runs right round the bay of Cadiz, touching several towns of importance. That any of them are worth a break of journey I doubt. Puerto Santa Maria is said to be much resorted to by toreros and their admirers. I have never heard what attracts them there, but indeed my interest in bull-killing was never more than languid. The country round the bay is marshy. It is traversed by the river Guadalete, beside which, it seems, Don Roderic was not slain, and the battle never took place. You must look for the scene of that epoch-making encounter farther towards the strait near the Rio Barbate.

Between Cadiz and Seville you stop at the buffet of Jerez to drink a glass of sherry in its native place. As most people know, all the good wine comes to England; but at Jerez I think, in all reason, the price of the wine might be a little lower and its quality a good deal higher. The city, of which I only caught a glimpse, looks like an inland Cadiz, very clean, white, sunny, and bright.

And so we creep onwards over dreary country-like the South African veld-to Lebrija, an old Moorish town with a great church on a height, apparently the only building of note in the place. Further on is Utrera, renowned for bulls and for possessing one of the thirty deniers for which Judas sold his Master. It should be an interesting town, with its Moorish castle and walls still extant. But the same individuality is not to be expected of the smaller Spanish as of the lesser Italian cities; for the history of the one country has been a record of steady centralization; of the other, obstinate decentralization. In Utrera, and Moron, and Lebrija-even in Cadiz and Granada-there were no independent princes or ambitious municipalities to foster and to reward native art. The genius and talent of Spain flocked to great centres like Seville, Toledo, Valladolid, and Zaragoza, and became ultimately concentrated in Madrid. We read the same story in our own country; and in fact it is impossible to resist the dangerous and obvious conclusion that centralization and unity are good things for nations but bad things for art.