by internet archive (http://www.archive.org) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the 60 lovely original illustrations in color. see 32255-h.htm or 32255-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32255/32255-h/32255-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32255/32255-h.zip) images of the original pages are available through internet archive. see http://www.archive.org/details/cathedralcitieso00colluoft cathedral cities of spain 60 reproductions from original water colours by w. w. collins. r. i. william wiehe collins * * * * * five portfolios of colour plates these make good studies and are full of suggestions for everyone doing water colour work. all uniform in size. 5-1/4 x 9. like sample. each portfolio done by a different artist sent prepaid on receipt of price new series spanish cathedrals. $2.00 60 reproductions from original water colours by w. w. collins. r. i. english cathedrals. $2.00 60 reproductions from original water colours by w. w. collins, r. i. french cathedral. $2.00 60 reproductions from original water colours by herbert marshall. r. w. s. versailles and the trianons. $2.00 56 reproductions from original water colours by renei binet. cairo, jerusalem and damascus. $2.00 58 reproductions from original water colours and paintings by w. s. s. tyrwhitt, r. b. a. and reginald barratt, a. r. w. s. the five portfolios will be sent, express paid on receipt of $9.00 they are all interesting j. h. jansen successor to m. a. vinson publisher, importer and dealer books on architecture, decoration and illustration 205-206 caxton building cleveland, o. _portion of review from "american architect," page 16, issue of july 8, 1908._ "probably the most interesting moments of the trip abroad by the architectural students are those spent in sketching bits of interest in water color. and it is equally true, we believe, that nothing is so helpful, so reminiscent as these same notes of color when viewed in alter years. we have been prompted to these remarks by the receipt of five portfolios of color plates, being copies of original water color drawings by english and french water colorists." * * * * * list of plates [illustration: barcelona. _in the cathedral._] [illustration: astorga.] [illustration: malaga. _the market._] [illustration: tortosa.] [illustration: toledo. _the cathedral._] [illustration: gerona. _the cattle market._] [illustration: gerona. _the cathedral._] [illustration: segovia. _plaza mayor._] [illustration: toledo. _the alcántara bridge._] [illustration: granada. _the alhambra, court of lions._] [illustration: valencia. _san pablo._] [illustration: leon. _san marcos._] [illustration: santiago. _the cathedral._] [illustration: cordoba. _interior of the mesquita._] [illustration: saragossa. _la seo._] [illustration: burgos. _the cathedral._] [illustration: cadiz. _the cathedral._] [illustration: cordoba. _the campanario tower._] [illustration: oviedo. _the cloisters._] [illustration: salamanca. _the old cathedral._] [illustration: segovia. _the aqueduct._] [illustration: burgos. _arch of santa maria._] [illustration: burgos. _the capilla mayor._] [illustration: leon. _the west porch of the cathedral._] [illustration: seville. _in the alcazar._] [illustration: seville. _view over the town._] [illustration: santiago. _south door of the cathedral._] [illustration: valencia. _door of the cathedral._] [illustration: valladolid. _san pablo._] [illustration: orense. _in the cathedral._] [illustration: tuy.] [illustration: seville. _the giralda tower._] [illustration: seville. _in the cathedral._] [illustration: tarragona.] [illustration: valencia. _religious procession._] [illustration: tarragona. _the cloisters._] [illustration: tarragona. _the archbishop's tower._] [illustration: salamanca.] [illustration: salamanca. _an old street._] [illustration: avila.] [illustration: toledo. _the south transept._] [illustration: malaga. _view from the harbour._] oviedo. _in the cathedral._ [illustration: zamora. _the cathedral._] [illustration: granada. _calle del darro._] [illustration: santiago. _interior of the cathedral._] [illustration: toledo. _the zócodover._] [illustration: gateway at avila. _puerta de san vicente._] [illustration: cadiz. _the market place._] [illustration: granada. _the alhambra._] [illustration: granada. _exterior of the cathedral._] transcriber's note: extensive research found no evidence that the copyright on this book has been renewed getting to know spain illustrated by don lambo getting to know spain by dee day coward-mccann, inc. new york © 1957, by coward-mccann, inc. all rights reserved. this book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publishers. published simultaneously in the dominion of canada by longmans, green & company, toronto. acknowledgments the author wishes to acknowledge the assistance and hospitality of direccion general del turismo in all its offices in spain, the spanish state tourist department in new york, and iberia air lines of spain, without whose co-operation the gathering of much of the material and the personal experience reflected in this book would have been impossible. a majority of the pictures were drawn from photographs by herb kratovil, taken especially for this book. new york, 1957 dee day editor of this series: sabra holbrook seventh impression library of congress catalog number: 57-7427 manufactured in the united states of america for my parents [illustration] you probably know that it was a queen of spain, isabella, who made it possible for america to be discovered in 1492. it was an italian sailor, christopher columbus, who first had the strange new idea that he could sail westward from spain in order to reach the far east. he came to spain to tell people about his idea, and everybody he met thought he was crazy because they knew, or thought they knew, that the northern corner of spain, jutting out into the atlantic, was the very end of the world. even the most daring sailors and fishermen wouldn't go very far from that shore for fear they would drop over the rim into nothingness. but queen isabella didn't think columbus was crazy. she took time to listen to him and decided she wanted to help him. she didn't have any money to buy ships for his expedition, so she ordered a little fishing village, palos, to build three ships as a way of paying a fine they owed her. the fishermen of palos knew how to build good, sturdy sailing vessels, and they soon had the three ships ready for columbus and his brave sailors. that is why, in august of 1492, the daring expedition started from this little spanish village. what a sight! three little ships, the _niña_ (small girl), the _pinta_ (spotted), and the _santa maria_ (named in honor of the virgin mary) cast off from the wharf of palos. flags fluttered in the breeze as the sails billowed out from the masts. all the villagers were lined up on the shore to pray and to cheer, and the bells in the church rang as columbus and his crew sailed off "the rim" to the west in search of wealth and glory for spain! [illustration] many spanish explorers followed columbus to the new world, and even sailed all the way around the world, west to east, but the spanish people today are mostly "stay-at-homes." sometimes they leave home for a little while to make money, like the spanish shepherds who are so good at handling flocks of sheep that american ranchers in california, new mexico, nevada and other western states pay them a lot of money to come and work for them. but those who leave always go back to their beloved land as soon as they have earned what they need. [illustration] if you were to meet a spanish person, you would find that he would be interested in america and other countries, but he couldn't imagine living the rest of his life anywhere except in spain. "why should i ever live anywhere else?" he would ask you. "everything beautiful and good in life is right here." he would feel this way even though he might be very poor and might even have to leave for a little while, like the shepherds. to him, the important things in life are his family, his friends, his church and his country. [illustration] his country is a large, squarish, mountainous land at the southwesternmost tip of europe. to the north, over the tall wall of the pyrenees mountains, is france. to the west is portugal and the atlantic ocean, and to the east is the mediterranean sea. spain has more seacoast than any other european country and more mountains than any except switzerland. spain and portugal together make up what is called the iberian peninsula. it is named for the iberian people who came there from north africa almost 5,000 years ago and settled down to become the ancestors of the spanish people. if you were to stand at the bottom of the iberian peninsula, on a hill overlooking a town called algeciras, you could look right into africa, only twelve miles away. you would also see the rock of gibraltar--a giant rock rising out of the sea and turned into a fort to guard the narrow passage between the atlantic ocean and the mediterranean sea. this passage is the strait of gibraltar, and all ships must go through it to get from the sea to the ocean. [illustration] in this mountainous country between two seas, more babies are born every day than in any other country in europe. there are 29 million people in spain already, although it is only the size of our state of montana, where 600,000 people live. this country might seem very small to us, but it is the third largest country in europe. and because their mountains shut different parts of the country away from each other, there are many differences in ways of living among the 29 million spaniards. there are 15 different regions in spain, and each one has a different way of dressing, different music and dances, different ways of fixing food, a different sort of house to live in, and even different ways of speaking. sometimes you will meet a spaniard who has never been out of his own region, or even away from his own village, because the mountains make it very difficult to travel when your way of getting around is on your own two feet or in a little cart pulled by a small burro or donkey. [illustration] another reason for the many different ways of living is that spain is a very old country which has been invaded many times by other countries. these countries were jealous of the beauty and wealth of spain and wanted to get it for themselves. for hundreds of years the spanish people were always fighting to protect their beloved homeland against invading armies. [illustration] the iberians themselves were invaders, because they weren't the first people who lived in spain. we don't even know the names of those very first people who lived there when most of europe was covered with ice. we only know that they lived in caves and hunted wild animals, because some of their caves have been discovered and the walls are covered with bright drawings of the animals these people hunted--bison, deer, wild horses and wild boars. [illustration] after the iberians, came the celts, greeks, phoenicians, carthaginians and romans. from rome, spain took her language, her system of laws, and her church. there were once more than 80 roman cities in spain, with roads and bridges and walls which were built so well that they are still used by spanish people today. in the city of segovia, the romans built an aqueduct to bring drinking water into the town from the nearby mountains, and this aqueduct still brings water to the people of segovia. the romans liked spain so much they stayed 500 years, but finally barbaric tribes from central europe drove them out. a short time later, these tribes were conquered by moors from north africa. the moors brought many new ways to the spanish people. they spoke the arabic language, and worshiped mohammed instead of christ, in churches called mosques. they taught the spanish people algebra and the science of astronomy; they introduced a new kind of poetry, music and dancing. they brought many new kinds of trees and flowers to spain, like the date palm, the orange and the pomegranate, and taught the people how to grow them with an irrigation system which is still in use today. many little spanish boys learn how to run it, so that they can help their fathers and mothers. the moors built many mosques and palaces in spain which are still in use, and they look like buildings from arabian fairy tales. these moorish buildings have their rooms built around open courtyards, called patios, where orange and lemon trees and many bright flowers grow, and fountains splash in the sunshine. the rooms have many pillars to support the ceiling, and all the pillars and arches and ceilings are beautifully carved. the moors could carve hard stone so that it looks like delicate lace, and this is what gives their buildings such a fairy-tale look. [illustration] the spanish christians, however, didn't like the moors, and during all of the 800 years the moors ruled spain, the christians were fighting to drive them out. finally, queen isabella and her husband, king ferdinand, led their christian army to victory against the last moorish stronghold, granada. because of this victory, queen isabella didn't have to worry about fighting for a while, and she was able to help columbus. [illustration] when columbus discovered america on october 12, 1492, he began spain's most exciting period of history. the next century after columbus was called the age of the conquistadores. conquistadores were adventurers who set out to find and conquer new lands for spain in the new world which columbus had discovered. many of their conquests later became part of the united states. for instance, de soto claimed the mississippi river and all the rivers that run into it, as well as part of the land that is now the american southwest. ponce de leon, looking for a magic fountain that would keep people young forever, discovered florida and claimed for spain the land that is now the american southeast. cortez, who had conquered mexico for spain and had sent millions of dollars' worth of gold and jewels back to his homeland, also traveled through the southwest and as far north as colorado. the great pacific ocean, which washes the western coast of both north and south america, was discovered by a spaniard named balboa. one spanish sailor, juan sebastian elcano, was the very first man to sail all the way around the world. the conquistadores sent back a huge treasure of gold, silver, copper and jewels to spain, and more than paid queen isabella and her family for her faith in columbus. in fact, spain became one of the most important countries in europe. her queens and kings and princesses married rulers of other countries so that soon, in addition to being very rich and owning many countries across the ocean, spain owned most of europe too. she was sitting on top of the world. only england had stood up against the spanish power. so in 1588, spain sent a great fleet of warships, called the armada, to challenge england. england won. spain never recovered from this defeat by england. it became harder for her to govern the lands she had conquered. today only two places outside the country are still spanish. they are the canary islands out in the atlantic ocean near the coast of africa, and the balearic islands in the mediterranean. at the same time that spain was losing lands she had conquered, her own lovely land tempted other countries, and the spanish people were called upon to fight invading armies from england and france. the real losers during all these years of fighting were the spanish people. they had to fight instead of grow crops, and natural resources, like forests, were neglected or used up. spain fell further and further behind other countries, and even today she hasn't been able to catch up as far as she would like. all the unhappy years of fighting in spain weren't in the long-ago past. just a while ago, in 1936, a civil war broke out between the spanish people who wanted their king to come back to the throne he'd left in 1931, and the people who wanted spain to set up a republic, like ours in the united states. this war went on for three years, and in the end, everybody lost. general francisco franco and his army defeated the forces which wanted a republic, and also those who wanted to set up communism. he is now the head of the spanish government. because he is considered a dictator, there are many spanish people who disagree with the way he runs the government and are hoping to change it. in 1947 a new constitution was written in which general franco agreed that spain would one day have a king again, but the person who becomes king must be at least twenty-five years old. the old king is dead and there is nobody for the job right now. but the king's grandson, young prince juan carlos, is taking special studies so he will be ready to be king when he is old enough. and of course there are still people who would like to see spain become a democratic republic, like the united states, and not have a king at all. [illustration] in the meantime, the spanish people and their government have a lot to do to make their country stable and strong again. if you were to visit spain, you would see why the spanish people love their country so much. you could also understand why so many different nations wanted to conquer spain. spain is a very beautiful country and also a country that can produce many good things. it has minerals such as iron, lead, copper and sulphur in the earth. in the south, it has a warm climate that helps grow luscious crops of oranges, lemons, olives and grapes for wine. [illustration] you might like to take a trip from one region to another by riding on a little donkey as spanish boys do, or in a little high-wheeled cart pulled by a donkey, the way little spanish girls might do. your donkey would probably not have a saddle, but just a rug or a straw mat folded across his back, and he might wear a headband of bright red and blue wool woven into a gay pattern to shade his eyes from the sun. you could carry your food and clothes for the journey in a pair of straw bags hung one on each side of your donkey's back. along the way, you would see dozens of other little donkeys and burros. the burro is a donkey-cousin but even smaller. donkeys and burros work with the spanish men and boys in the fields or carry stones to help build new roads, or carry jars of water from a well to someone's house. these gentle little animals work to earn their keep in spain. [illustration] [illustration] [illustration] suppose you start your trip in the north. at the very most northwestern tip of spain is the region of galicia, which everybody thought was the end of the world before columbus showed them it wasn't. people in galicia call themselves "gallegos," and they live in a country of rocky seacoasts, where the ocean pokes long fingers called "rias" back into green hills and fog rolls in almost every day. in galicia and the neighboring region of asturias, fathers earn their living by fishing or by farming, and mothers make all the clothes for their families from cloth they weave themselves. families live in houses built from stones cleared from their own fields. this is where the bagpipes are played while the young people, gaily dressed in red and green, dance their lively dances. this northern region is quite different from the sunny south, where the climate is very hot in the summer and never really gets cold in the winter. here in the south is andalusia, where mountain ranges may have snow on their peaks all year round, but down in the valleys and plains sweet-scented tropical flowers bloom in bright colors every single month. on the hillsides, grapes are grown to make wine, or silvery-green olive trees make groves against the red earth. this is a region of horses and good horsemen. here big ranches stretch along the river banks and huge black bulls are raised. [illustration] the people of andalusia are full of music, dancing and the love of life. they live in white houses built around courtyards full of flowers, with windows covered with designs in black wrought iron. black-haired andalusian women wear black lace mantillas draped over their heads, a kind of veil and shawl. they like to carry lacy fans and wear long flashing earrings. lots of gypsies live in andalusia, many of them in caves in the chalky-white hillsides. gypsy girls wear long red or green or blue dresses dotted with white. they fold bright-colored silk fringed scarves around their necks, and they love to wear many gold bracelets. andalusia is the region the moors loved the most, so this is where you'll see many of their lovely stone buildings full of lacelike carvings. [illustration] [illustration] it's like going into another world to journey from andalusia into western spain. in extremadura, the land where the conquistadores lived, and in león, there are great sweeping plains where the land is not very fertile because there are long dry seasons. raising sheep, fruit and pigs are the main sources of making a living, and the people must work very hard. they don't have time for as much fun as the andalusians do. these people are quiet but proud. they are especially proud of their universities, libraries and cathedrals. [illustration] still another little world in this country of contrasts is found in the eastern part of spain, along the mediterranean coast and in the region inland from this coast. the coastal regions are called, from north to south, catalonia, valencia and murcia, all very pretty names. catalonia has a long seacoast which is cut by many bays and coves reaching back right into the mountains, which rise straight from the sea. many white sand beaches, rimmed with pine trees, invite you to stop and swim and sun. if you stopped, you could have fun climbing around the ruins of old walls and watchtowers on the hills looking out to sea. once upon a time on these hills, lookouts used to give warning when pirates were sailing up to plunder the villages. one of these catalonian villages, called tossa de mar, has a whole village built inside the walls on top of a hill above the regular village. people used to gather in this hilltop hideout for protection against pirates. the second largest city in spain, barcelona, is in catalonia, and it has a very busy harbor where ships of all nations sail in and out every day. valencia, south of catalonia, is a land of flowers. carnations, roses, jasmine, scarlet bougainvillea vines, and orange and lemon blossoms fill the air with perfume. every spaniard loves flowers, and every window and courtyard is full of blossoms. in the city of valencia there's a battle of flowers every year during one of their festivals. great baskets of rose petals and carnations line the streets and everyone dips out handfuls to toss over his neighbors and friends. you can imagine that in a very short time the whole city looks as if it were paved with flowers. in sitges, a small fishing village a few miles north of valencia where the most beautiful carnations in spain are grown, there is a carnation festival every june, and here the main square actually _is_ paved with flower petals, laid out in gorgeous designs for the occasion. the land in the region of valencia is so fertile that, with the help of the irrigation system set up long ago by the moors, the people today grow as many as four crops a year of rice, vegetables, melons and oranges. murcia has a small bit of seacoast, but the rest of it is mostly desert land where the earth looks like chalk-dust. it gets so hot people can't go out in the middle of the day. they stay indoors in the cool darkness as much as possible. murcia is very much like north africa, and in some of the old towns the women still wear heavy veils over their faces the way the moors from north africa did. you wouldn't be at all surprised to see a camel train in the chalky dust of the dry river bed, but instead, it's just another procession of little donkeys carrying goods to market in their straw saddlebags, driven by men hiding under huge hats from the burning sun. the regions of navarre and aragon, in the northeast, are quite different from murcia's desert. they have a rich, mountainous countryside with the tall pyrenees marching across the north. many wild animals are found in these regions, including some which are rare in other parts of the world, like the chamois, the ibex, the wild boar, bears, several kinds of deer, and the great golden eagle. like other northern regions of spain, there's snow in the winter and people go sledding and skiing. [illustration] just to the north are the basque provinces, on the southern slopes of the pyrenees and stretching along the bay of biscay. the basque people are known as the "mystery men of europe," because nobody is sure where they came from. nobody knows where the strange language they speak came from either. we do know that they are a very ancient people, perhaps direct descendants of the original iberians. the basques are fearless and daring, and are noted throughout the world as excellent sailors and sheep-herders. when you visit the basques, you will notice that they all like to eat enormous meals, they like to gamble, and they like to play "jai alai," a very fast ball game which they invented. [illustration] "jai alai" means "happy festival" in the basque language, and the game is a very exciting and happy one. the ball, slightly smaller than a baseball, is very hard and can travel very fast. players have curved baskets attached to their right wrists, and they must scoop up or catch the ball in these baskets and immediately throw it and try to hit a certain spot marked off on the wall. if it doesn't hit the right spot, the opposing team scores a point. if it hits the right spot, the other team must try to scoop it up before it bounces and send it back, hitting a certain spot on the other side of the court. you can see that it can be a very fast and complicated game. you could see jai alai played in specially built concrete courts in many cities in spain, also in the state of florida, right here in our own country. a jai alai court is called a "fronton." but in the basque country you'd see all the men and boys in the village playing jai alai back of the church, using the high stone wall as their court. girls don't play it very often, but when they do it is a very pretty sight, because they wear wide skirts of blue or red with many white petticoats underneath. when they run and turn to hit the ball, their skirts swing around wildly and make them look like spinning tops. completely different from the basque country and all other regions is the central part of spain. it is a high plateau bordered by still higher rugged rocky mountains. the weather is very hot in summer and very cold in winter, with scorching or icy winds blasting across the land because there are no forests to break their force. great gray boulders thrust out of purple-green hillsides, and rivers cut deep gorges in the gray soil. this central part is made up of two regions, old and new castile. old castile is to the north, and cattle are raised in the green fields fed by mountain streams. castile means "land of castles," and both old and new castile have cities built around castles and cathedrals, sometimes surrounded by walls built during the years of warfare. one of these cities in castile is avila, which has high stone walls so thick that four or five soldiers could march side by side on top all the way around the city. there are 88 round towers rising from these walls, where sentries and lookouts were posted, but only 16 ways to get in and out, so that the city could be guarded more easily. [illustration] not far from avila is the famous palace of el escorial, where most of the kings and queens of spain are buried. castile isn't the only part of spain with castles, of course. if you were visiting spain today, you could stay overnight in many of these castles and pretend you were a king or queen of lovely spain. these castles made into hotels are called "paradores," and a visit to one of them is great fun. because castile is in the very heart of spain, the capital, madrid, is located there. madrid is a lively, bustling, modern city of more than 1-1/2 million people. it is the highest capital in europe, being almost half a mile above sea level in the center of the great mesa or tableland of castile. madrid is not a very old city compared with such ancient cities as avila, but it has an old section built around the plaza mayor--the main square--where steps lead down into winding, narrow streets with arches and covered sidewalks. the larger part of madrid is a modern city with wide boulevards lined with trees, where people can sit at sidewalk terrace cafés sipping coffee or wine or lemonade and watching other people streaming by. sometimes it seems that everybody in madrid lives outdoors all the time, because there are always so many people on the streets all day and all night. meals are served very late--lunch is at 2 o'clock or later, and dinner not until about 10. concerts, plays and movies don't start until 11 o'clock at night, or even midnight. even very young children and babies stay up late with their parents, to visit with friends at a sidewalk café or to go to a movie. only in the middle of the day, when it is hot, everybody goes indoors for a long nap. this is called a "siesta," and during siesta time the streets of madrid and all other spanish cities are deserted. shops and offices are closed. there is almost no traffic on the streets and boulevards. from 1 to 5 every afternoon, a stranger in spain might think that a great calamity had happened and made spain a land of sleeping princes and princesses. after siesta, the streets wake to an even more bustling life than before. offices and stores open again to serve their customers until 7 or 8 o'clock at night. the sidewalk cafés and restaurants become busier than ever. every chair is taken, and the conversation goes on at such a fast rate that unless you understood spanish very well, you could be lost in the rushing sound of it. spain has other proud cities besides madrid. two, whose history goes way back to the days of the moors, are granada and toledo. [illustration] granada is the city in andalusia which the moors loved most and held longest. they fought hard to keep it, and when they finally surrendered it to ferdinand and isabella in 1492 they wept bitterly, for it seemed to them they had lost a paradise. the great fortress-palace of the moors in granada is called the alhambra, which means "red castle." about a hundred years ago an american author, washington irving, went to live in the alhambra. he found the romantic castle very much as the moors had left it, except for the dust which hadn't been removed in 400 years. he walked through the echoing corridors and into the moonlit courtyards with their silent fountains. he talked with dozens of old spanish and gypsy storytellers to learn all he could about the alhambra. he even claimed he could see the ghosts of the sultans who had once lived there. then he wrote a book, _tales of the alhambra_, which we can still read and enjoy. because of his book, the alhambra was cleaned and restored to all its former beauty. today the carved white and golden stonework of this castle shines with the splendor of long ago. one of its most interesting courtyards is called the court of the lions. twelve very old stone lions, each with a different expression on his face, stand in a circle in the center, supporting the curved bowl of a fountain on their backs. out of each lion's mouth trickles a little stream of water, helping to cool the air. everyone who visits the alhambra loves these funny old lions and goes away with a picture of them. [illustration] the moorish sultans entertained their guests and held big parties in courtyards like this one. but they lived with their families and servants in another part of the alhambra, with gardens and a sparkling pool where the royal ladies bathed. looking out through certain of the arching, carved windows, the sultans could see the snow-covered sierra nevada mountains. the sierra nevada peaks have snow the year round, even in the hottest summers. when the moors lived in the alhambra, swift-running slaves would bring snow from the mountains to make sherbet for the sultans and their guests in hot weather. from other windows in the alhambra the sultans could see sacro monte--the holy mountain--where gypsies still live today in whitewashed caves. many centuries ago the gypsies didn't have homes, but wandered throughout the world. when some of them came to granada, they fell in love with the city and decided to stay. now there are thousands of them living in andalusia, many of them in sacro monte. their cave-homes are really quite comfortable. many have fine copper cooking pots hanging on the walls and beautiful works of art, and hangings of hand-woven fabrics. if you go to granada, you can visit a gypsy cave and the gypsies will dance for you to a kind of music which is called "flamenco." nobody knows where the flamenco came from, but some say it is as old as the phoenicians, and some say--even older. toledo is another old, old city in spain--at one time the capital. toledo is built on a series of hills above a river, called tagus, which winds around the base of the city like a natural moat around a fortress. nearly four hundred years ago a greek painter came to toledo and stayed to become one of spain's--and the world's--greatest artists. he was known as "el greco," which means the greek, and today most people have forgotten his real name. perhaps you have seen his famous painting of the city he loved, called "view of toledo." if you have, you know what toledo looks like today, for it has changed very little since el greco painted it. you could take your crayons or paints to the same spot across the river tagus where he stood with his canvas and easel, and you would see the same rapids in the river, the same arched gateways in the city walls, the same cathedral spire rising from a hill. then you could cross an old bridge, and go through a moorish gateway into town. walking along a cobblestone street, you might pass an old church which has iron chains hanging on its walls. these are the chains of christian slaves captured by moors, then freed by christian armies. at the top of one hill you would discover an old house with red tiled roof and a garden full of roses, geraniums, mimosa, jasmine and oleanders. this is the house where el greco lived, and you'd see his easel, his bedroom, his kitchen and furniture just as he left them. in a small museum next to the house you'd find paintings by el greco, mostly pictures of saints and portraits of famous spaniards of his time. one of his paintings is in a chapel in town and others are in other churches throughout spain, and in the prado museum in madrid, along with those of other great spanish painters like valesquez, goya and murillo. the people of toledo have a special art of their own--making fine jewelry called "toledo ware." the moors brought the knack from the ancient city of damascus. threads of gold and silver are woven into intricate patterns with fine steel. when the piece is put into a hot furnace, the steel part of the pattern turns black, then the gold and silver designs are polished until they shine. originally the moors made their big swords this way, but today toledo ware is bracelets, earrings, cuff links and other small jewelry. the people of toledo also make glistening glazed tiles. some of these show scenes from the lives of favorite spanish heroes, real and imaginary. there are some toledo tiles that will tell you about don quixote of la mancha, a hero invented 350 years ago by miguel cervantes. [illustration] cervantes wanted to tease his fellow countrymen about reading so many books with stories that could never happen in real life. so he wrote a book of his own about don quixote, a foolish old fellow who imagined he was a handsome knight. the poor don rode all around the country on a rickety old horse dreaming he was rescuing beautiful ladies and fighting imaginary battles for his king. once he even tried to fight a windmill, thinking it was a giant! another time he thought a shepherd and his flock were an army! cervantes' fun-poking book is still read and laughed over by people throughout the whole world. today, if you were to drive from granada to toledo or madrid, you would pass through don quixote's country, la mancha, and you would see windmills and the shepherds leading their sheep and goats, with all the countryside looking much as cervantes described it through don quixote's eyes. wherever you stopped for the night, you would see a great walking-around, which begins at 7 o'clock. every family comes out to join in this evening custom which is called "paseo." of course the children come too, dressed in their best clothes. but boys and girls do not walk together. two or three girls will walk by, arm-in-arm, and several boys will walk by, talking together and looking at the girls from the corner of their eyes. in the smaller places, all the older boys walk together in one direction while all the older girls walk arm-in-arm in the opposite direction, or else on the other side of the street. just as boys and girls don't walk together in the paseo, they don't often play games together either--at least not after they are old enough to go to school. before school days start, all children play singing and dancing games something like our "london bridge." they play tag and a favorite game called "hit the pot." they put a tin can or an old clay pot on the end of a long stick and blindfold the child who is "it." the others then run around with the stick while "it" tries to knock off the can with another stick. but when they are six years old, all little boys and girls must go to school, and--except in small villages where there are only a few children to study with one teacher--they go to separate schools, so they stop playing together then, too. little girls jump rope, play with jacks and dolls. or they play singing games which act out the parts of kings and queens and princesses. little boys are most interested in games with balls, like jai alai or football. the favorite game of most little boys in spain is "torero." in this game they pretend they are bullfighters, who are called "toreros." every boy in spain dreams of growing up to be the greatest bullfighter in the world. bullfighting is one of the most exciting things in life to every spaniard. [illustration] every big city has a great bullring, a round building with many steps of seats and no roof, called the "plaza de toros." "toro" is the bull. the bulls are especially bred for the ring, because no ordinary cow or bull would be able to take part in this colorful pageant. almost every sunday afternoon throughout the year, and at holiday times, there is a "corrida" or bullfight, and everybody goes to see the toreros fight the bulls. bullfighters in spain are the same heroes to spanish boys and girls that baseball players are to american youngsters. this is the reason why you'll see all the little spanish boys playing torero. one pretends he is the toro and wears a basket over his head as he charges at the one pretending he is the torero with a red cape and wooden sword. although spanish children like to play, they are also very serious about schoolwork, because they know that if spain is to be a wise member of the family of nations, she needs educated citizens. during the civil war it was very hard for young people to get an education, and some of the schools and universities were destroyed by bombs or fires. now the universities have been rebuilt, and more schools are being built every year. [illustration] some boys and girls go to schools run by their church, and they are taught by priests and nuns. according to law, everyone must go to school until the age of fourteen. then, if the family can afford it, they can go on to higher schools and the university. if the family is poor but a boy is very bright, he may win a scholarship by getting high marks. because boys are more likely than girls to go to a university, they study more science and mathematics in school than their sisters do. of course they all study reading, writing, history, arithmetic and good manners. when a spanish boy grows up and has a university education, he may become a doctor, lawyer, banker, newspaperman or government worker, just as any of you may. if he is going to be a farmer, a fisherman, or fashion things with his hands as a carpenter or wrought-iron maker does, he probably won't go to school after he is fourteen. if he's going to do the same thing his father does, his father will teach him. otherwise, he may become an apprentice, which means that he will work right along with grownups who already do what he wants to learn. he learns by doing it with them. little spanish girls, who wear pinafores to school and do their hair in pigtails, are more interested in learning how to be good mothers, because every little spanish girl dreams of marrying and having lots of children. they learn how to read and write, and the history of their country, but they also learn how to cook and sew and bring up children. recently some spanish girls have started learning how to be lawyers, doctors and teachers. these girls, like their brothers, go on to universities. some girls also learn shorthand and typing so that they can work in offices. before the civil war there were no girls in offices, but today they like being secretaries and typists just as girls in america do. still, even these modern spanish girls don't have the freedom to go to parties or on dates with boys, the way american girls do, unless they are engaged to be married. when they go out at night for the paseo or to attend the theater or a movie, they go with other girls or with their whole family. a strong family bond unites all spanish people. fathers and mothers and children spend as much time together as they possibly can. if being together means that children must go with parents into the fields at harvest time, then they go, even if they only play around and don't really help. in the evenings when the father and mother go to the paseo or sit in a café to talk with their friends, their children go with them. always the whole family goes to church together. one of the most important days in a spanish child's life is the day of confirmation. then the family and relatives and friends from miles around come to celebrate. all over spain, on a sunday morning, you'll see the little girls in their long white dresses with white gloves and veils, looking proud and happy as they walk to church with their beaming mothers and fathers for their confirmation. when boys are confirmed, they wear white suits, with a cape lined in scarlet or blue satin and trimmed with gold braid. if the family has enough money, they may hire a horse-drawn carriage. the driver wears a tall black stovepipe silk hat and the carriage doors and horses' bridles are decorated with white flowers. the church is very important in spanish life. the apostle james himself came to preach in spain, and later, after he had been killed in palestine, his body was brought back to spain for burial. his tomb is in the beautiful cathedral of santiago--which is the way spanish people say st. james--in compostela, in northern spain. for thousands of years people from all over the world have come as pilgrims to compostela. many little spanish boys are named santiago, or perhaps jaime, another way to say james in spanish, for santiago is the patron saint of all spain. every city and village also has its very own private patron saint. once a year there is a village festival or "fiesta" in his or her honor. if you were to travel through spain you would find a fiesta somewhere every day of the year! these fiestas start in the morning when all the people go to church, which is always decorated with hundreds of flowers and candles. then in the afternoon or evening there is a long parade from the church through the main streets and back to the church again, with the figure of the saint standing on a flower-draped platform which is carried on the shoulders of young men. [illustration] choirs sing, candles and incense burn, and all the people stand in reverence along the route. a bullfight is usually a feature of a saint's day too, with the whole town going to the plaza de toros to watch. the paseo will be especially gay at fiesta time, and as darkness falls, the guitars will start to twang, castanets will click and all the young people will gather in the main square to take part in folk dances until morning. sometimes the saint's fiesta will last a whole week, with bullfights every afternoon and a fair every night. one of the most unusual fiestas in all spain is held every march in valencia in honor of st. joseph. it is called the "fallas de san josé" because of the huge, grotesque figures called "fallas" which are the main feature of the celebration. every club and religious group in the city spends weeks in advance of st. joseph's day building these figures out of papier-màché, and each group tries to keep its design secret until the fiesta takes place. the best falla wins a prize, and at the end of the three-day celebration, all the fallas except the prize-winner are burned in a big bonfire while the people dance around it and fireworks are shot into the sky. of all holidays, christmas is one of the merriest in spanish homes. "noche buena," or christmas eve, is a time for families to sit down to a wonderful feast. the mothers and older sisters of the family have been preparing this feast for months, and fathers have been collecting the best spanish wines to store away until now. turkey is the traditional dish at spanish christmas dinners just as it is here. but christmas is one of the few times turkey is ever served in most spanish homes, so it is really a special treat. spicy hams, stuffed roast lamb, and special fish dishes are also served with the roast turkey. and no christmas table would be complete without "turrones"--a candy made of honey and almonds, something like our nougats. dried figs and grapes, walnuts and hazelnuts load the table even more. after dinner, the family goes to midnight services at church called "misa de gallo"; then they come home and celebrate until morning. there are no christmas trees in spain, but each family makes its own nativity scene, which is set out in time for christmas eve. in some cities contests are held for the most beautiful "belen" scenes, as they are called, because "belen" is the way spanish people say bethlehem. on christmas day everybody goes calling to see the belens in other people's houses. sometimes grownups exchange gifts on christmas day, but spanish children don't receive their gifts until january 6, three king's day. instead of santa claus, the three wise men, melchior, gaspar and balthasar leave gifts in the children's shoes. the shoes are set out in a window or near the fireplace, filled with hay so the camels of the three kings may feast. in the morning the hay is gone and toys, nuts, fruit and candy have taken its place. [illustration] holy week, the week starting with palm sunday and ending with easter, is another important time in spanish life. on palm sunday, everyone throughout the country has palm branches from elche, an old town where the only palm grove in europe grows. after carrying the branches in processions through the streets and into the churches and cathedrals, people hang them on the balconies of their houses, where they remain until the fresh palm branches of the next year replace them. the most colorful celebration of holy week is held in seville, a city in sunny andalusia. every night there are processions of robed and hooded men moving silently through streets lined with thousands of men, women and children. all the figures of saints and madonnas from all the churches and the cathedral are carried in one procession or another. the figures are dressed in costly vestments and jewels, and the procession is lighted by flickering torches and candles. as the figures pass beneath balconies crowded with watchers, a singer will suddenly break into a spontaneous, unaccompanied song, called a "saeta," to salute the saint being carried by. the saeta is the same sort of song the moors used to sing when they lived in seville and other cities in andalusia, and today it is usually sung by gypsies, thousands of whom live here. night after night these processions go on, until good friday, when the most gorgeous one of all starts at 3 o'clock in the morning. this is the procession of the virgin of macarena, the patron saint of bullfighters and all seville. the virgin is dressed up in robes of silver and gold and wears jewels given by famous bullfighters and wealthy people. the men who march in this procession wear costumes of rich red and gold, and there is an honor guard dressed like ancient roman centurions. the "macarena" is the most popular saint in seville, and everyone watches her procession until it takes her back to her shrine in the gypsy section, triana, followed by thousands of gaily clad gypsies who spend the rest of the night singing and dancing to the throbbing of guitars. shortly after holy week, seville has another gay festival, this time called a "feria," which is rather like a big country fair. for two weeks everybody celebrates all day and all night, singing and dancing and visiting friends for a glass of wine. every day there is a bullfight, and at night there are concerts, dance and art shows, and plays. the huge fair grounds blaze with light, and ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds spin gaily round and round. once upon a time, the feria was an auction for horses and cattle, and today it is still a time when the best horsemen show off their fine horses and their skill at riding. during the feria, the proud horsemen wear leather aprons something like our cowboys' chaps over their tight gray riding pants. their bolero jackets are black trimmed with braid, and their hats are black too, the flat, wide-brimmed felt hats which horsemen always wear in spain. horses are curried until they shine, and flowers and ribbons are twined in their manes and tails and decorate their bridles. beautiful black-haired girls dress up like gypsies, something they would not be allowed to do at any other time. as the girls ride in the saddles behind their young men, the long, flounced, polka-dotted skirts of red, green or blue fall down over the horse's side. black lace mantillas are draped over very tall combs in their hair, and a gay flower is usually pinned behind one ear. every carriage, every farm cart, every house and every person is decorated with flowers. at harvest time, when olives, grapes, fruit or grain are brought in from the land, there is much merry-making, too. at jerez de la frontera, a sunny town in andalusia where everybody works at growing grapes and making them into a famous wine called sherry, the harvest festival comes just before the grapes are ready to be harvested, in september. [illustration] high-wheeled vineyard carts decorated with vines and flowers are pulled, by sturdy oxen, out of every vineyard in the countryside, carrying all the pretty girls who work there and a basket of new grapes. the carts wind through the streets to the cathedral, where the grapes are blessed and all the people pray and give thanks for a good harvest. then, in the square in front of the cathedral, a great flock of pigeons is loosed into the air. these are homing pigeons, and they fly back to their homes in every part of spain, carrying the message that the harvest is about to begin. there's dancing in the streets all night, and the next day there are bullfights, races and more dancing. then the people all go to work to harvest the grapes. [illustration] on spanish holidays, there is plenty to eat and drink. for visitors, eating is fun even on any ordinary day. if you were to travel from region to region in spain, you would notice that people eat different foods in different places. along the seacoasts, of course, they eat many kinds of fish. in the north, one of the favorite seafood dishes is made of codfish cooked in a delicious sauce of red and green peppers flavored with garlic. in valencia you would eat "paella" made of many kinds of shellfish, chicken, ham and rice flavored with saffron, a yellow spice which grows in spain. paella is made in a big round iron pan over a charcoal fire, and the little clams, shrimps, pieces of chicken and everything else that makes it good are tossed in, a handful at a time, until the whole dish is ready to be served, right from the pan it was cooked in. most families have a big lunch, at about 2 o'clock. if the weather is cool, this is very likely to be a pot of stew, or "cocido." depending on what part of the country you are in, this cocido might be made of fish, lamb, beef or chicken. whatever the meat or fish may be, the cocido also includes all the vegetables that grow in the garden at that time of year. it's apt to be flavored with garlic, sweet spanish red peppers, and perhaps several spoonfuls of sherry wine. in the hot summer weather in andalusia, people eat a delicious cold soup as their main dish at lunch, and sometimes at dinner too. this soup is called _gazpacho_, and it is made with spanish olive oil, vinegar, tomato juice and ice water. very fine bread crumbs help make it thick, and little pieces of fresh, cold tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, olives and onions float on top. everybody in spain eats a great many "churros." churros are something like doughnuts, but they are twisted into odd shapes and fried in olive oil until they are crisp all the way through, not just on the outside. they are very fine for breakfast with hot chocolate, and they are also good with sugar sprinkled on them as a between-meals snack. another snack is almonds, grown right in spain, and shrimp the size of your little finger. some of the foods the spanish children eat are the same ones their great-great-great-grandfathers and mothers ate, too. mostly, the houses where they live are also very old--as old as the holiday customs that haven't changed in hundreds of years. these old ways and scenes are some of the reasons spain has been called "the land where time stands still." only just now is this old spain about to become modern spain. new roads, railroads and airfields are being built to help people get around the country faster and to send food from farms and seacoasts to markets in a hurry. all over spain you hear the sound of hammers and chisels, busily building a new life for the people. spain has joined the united nations and spanish boys and girls are eager to join all boys and girls who want their countries to be partners in progress. if, in getting to know spain, you have learned to like it, perhaps you'll want to say "hello" and "good luck" to your spanish friends. here is how to say it: "saludos, amigos!" history before 200 b.c.--earliest people lived in caves in northern spain; were conquered by iberians, then celts. phoenicians and greeks came, and finally all were conquered by carthaginians. 201 b.c.--romans conquered carthaginians, began a rule lasting more than 500 years. 406 a.d.--barbarians, especially visigoths, came into spain from central europe and eventually drove out the romans. 711 a.d.--the moors came from north africa and conquered all spain in less than 10 years. although the christian spaniards started fighting almost immediately for the "reconquest" of spain, the moors were masters for almost 800 years. january 2, 1492--the reconquest of spain was completed when the armies of ferdinand and isabella drove the moors out of the alhambra in granada, their last stronghold. august, 1492--columbus sailed with his three ships from palos in an effort to reach the far east by sailing west; on october 12, he made his first landfall in the new world and claimed it for spain. 1492-1588--the golden age of spain. columbus discovered more lands in the new world, and conquistadores planted the spanish flag all through north and south america. spain controlled most of europe. it was a time of great artists and writers like velasquez, el greco, murillo, lope de vega and cervantes. 1588--spain's great naval armada was defeated by england and the power of spain began to decline throughout the world. last overseas possessions were lost at the end of the spanish-american war in 1898. 1931--king alfonso xiii abdicated from his throne, went into exile; spain became a republic. 1936-1939--the spanish civil war. nationalists led by general francisco franco won the war and the general became chief of state. 1947--the law of succession was adopted by spanish parliament, providing for a future king and new spanish monarchy; this law altered in 1956 so that the monarchy may be established sooner than originally planned. 1953--american aid program began; airfields, pipelines and other construction projects using american money and american builders help spain develop a defense network and natural resources. 1956--spain admitted to the united nations. index alhambra, 37-40 andalusia, 26-27, 37, 55, 57, 60 aragon, 32 armada, 20 asturias, 25 avila, 34 balearic islands, 20 barcelona, 30 basque, 33 bulls & bullfighting, 26, 45-46, 51-52, 56, 58 burros, 14, 24 canary islands, 20 castile, 34-36 castles, 34-35 catalonia, 29, 30 cave drawings, 15 christmas, 52-53 church, 15-16, 46, 49-50 civil war, 21, 46 columbus, christopher, 7, 8, 18 conquistadores, 19, 20, 28 donkeys, 14, 24, 32 don quixote, 42-44 elche, 54 el escorial, 35 el greco, 41-42 extremadura, 28 festivals, 31, 56-58 fiestas, 50-52 flamenco, 40 food, 52, 53, 58-61 franco, francisco, 21 galicia, 25 games, 45 geography, 11, 12, 25-36 gibraltar, 12 granada, 19, 37-40 gypsies, 27, 40, 56 history, 7-8, 15-21 holy week, 54-55 iberians, 11, 15, 32 isabella, 7, 8, 17, 19, 20 jai alai, 33-34, 45 jerez, 56 león, 28 lions, 38 madrid, 36-37, 42 moors, 16, 17, 27, 31, 32, 37-40, 41-42, 55 murcia, 29, 32 navarre, 32 palos, 8 paradores, 35 paseo, 44, 49, 51 prado museum, 42 pyrenees, 11, 32 regions, 12, 13, 24-36, 58 romans, 15, 16 saints, 50-51, 55 schools, 44, 45, 46-48 segovia, 16 seville, 55-57 shepherds, 9, 33, 44 siesta, 36-37 three kings day, 53 toledo, 37, 40-42 valencia, 29, 30, 31, 52, 60 sources in preparing this book, the author drew upon her own experience in spain as well as historical and other information supplied by official spanish sources both in spain and the u.s. teachers may obtain additional information from library of congress, washington, d. c.; hispanic american society, inc. 80 wall street, n. y.; hispanic institute, 435 west 117th street, n. y.; hispanic society of america (museum and library), broadway between 155 and 156 streets, n. y.; iberia air lines of spain, 339 madison avenue, n. y.; spanish embassy, washington, d. c. (commercial office and office of cultural relations); spanish state tourist department, 485 madison avenue, n. y. the getting to know books cover today's world _africa_ getting to know africa's french community getting to know algeria getting to know the congo river getting to know egypt getting to know kenya getting to know liberia getting to know nigeria getting to know the sahara getting to know south africa getting to know rhodesia, zambia and malawi getting to know tanzania _arctic_ getting to know the arctic _asia_ getting to know burma getting to know the central himalayas getting to know hong kong getting to know india getting to know japan getting to know the northern himalayas getting to know pakistan getting to know the river ganges getting to know thailand getting to know the two chinas getting to know the two koreas getting to know the two vietnams _caribbean and central america_ getting to know the british west indies getting to know costa rica, el salvador and nicaragua getting to know cuba getting to know guatemala and the two honduras getting to know mexico getting to know panama getting to know puerto rico getting to know the virgin islands _europe; east and west_ getting to know eastern europe getting to know england, scotland, ireland and wales getting to know france getting to know greece getting to know italy getting to know poland getting to know scandinavia getting to know spain getting to know switzerland getting to know the soviet union getting to know the two germanys _middle east_ getting to know iran-iraq getting to know israel getting to know lebanon getting to know saudi arabia getting to know the tigris and euphrates rivers getting to know turkey _north america_ getting to know alaska getting to know american indians today getting to know canada getting to know the mississippi river getting to know the u.s.a. _pacific_ getting to know australia getting to know hawaii getting to know indonesia getting to know malaysia and singapore getting to know the philippines getting to know the south pacific _south america_ getting to know argentina getting to know brazil getting to know chile getting to know colombia getting to know peru getting to know the river amazon getting to know venezuela _united nations agencies_ getting to know f.a.o. getting to know the human rights commission getting to know unesco getting to know unicef getting to know the united nations peace forces getting to know who getting to know wmo note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 45797-h.htm or 45797-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45797/45797-h/45797-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45797/45797-h.zip) jose: our little portuguese cousin * * * * * the little cousin series (trade mark) each volume illustrated with six or more full-page plates in tint. cloth, 12mo, with decorative cover, per volume, 60 cents list of titles by mary hazelton wade (unless otherwise indicated) our little african cousin our little alaskan cousin by mary f. nixon-roulet our little arabian cousin by blanche mcmanus our little argentine cousin by eva canon brooks our little armenian cousin our little australian cousin by mary f. nixon-roulet our little belgian cousin by blanche mcmanus our little bohemian cousin by clara v. winlow our little brazilian cousin by mary f. nixon-roulet our little brown cousin our little canadian cousin by elizabeth r. macdonald our little chinese cousin by isaac taylor headland our little cuban cousin our little dutch cousin by blanche mcmanus our little egyptian cousin by blanche mcmanus our little english cousin by blanche mcmanus our little eskimo cousin our little french cousin by blanche mcmanus our little german cousin our little grecian cousin by mary f. nixon-roulet our little hawaiian cousin our little hindu cousin by blanche mcmanus our little hungarian cousin by mary f. nixon-roulet our little indian cousin our little irish cousin our little italian cousin our little japanese cousin our little jewish cousin our little korean cousin by h. lee m. pike our little mexican cousin by edward c. butler our little norwegian cousin our little panama cousin by h. lee m. pike our little persian cousin by e. c. shedd our little philippine cousin our little porto rican cousin our little portuguese cousin by edith a. sawyer our little russian cousin our little scotch cousin by blanche mcmanus our little siamese cousin our little spanish cousin by mary f. nixon-roulet our little swedish cousin by claire m. coburn our little swiss cousin our little turkish cousin l. c. page & company 53 beacon street, boston, mass. * * * * * [illustration: "a slim slip of a boy ... walked at the head of a pair of fawn-colored oxen." (_see page 1_)] jose: our little portuguese cousin by edith a. sawyer author of "the christmas makers' club," "elsa's gift home," etc. illustrated by diantha horne marlowe [illustration] boston l. c. page & company mdccccxi copyright, 1911, by l. c. page & company (incorporated) all rights reserved first impression, may, 1911 preface one of the important historic events of the present century is the revolution which took place in portugal on the third day of october, 1910, when king manuel ii lost his throne. the king and his mother were exiled and fled from lisbon, the capital city, to england. a republic was proclaimed throughout portugal, and a new, progressive government was adopted on december 1st, 1910. portugal is often described as "a garden by the side of the sea." its strength as a country lies in its agriculture, especially in its vineyards, which are the chief source of wealth. education in portugal has generally been at a low ebb. at the time of the revolution less than one-fifth of the portuguese people could read and write. plans for the new government include the opening of many primary schools and the development of a system of higher education. the portuguese are an earnest people, enthusiastic yet serious-minded. even the children play soberly. whether rich or poor, portuguese children are taught to respect age as well as to honor their parents. throughout the country even a small boy takes off his cap and makes a bow when he meets an older person. little girls also are taught gentleness of manner. the home life is simple and happy. contents chapter page preface v i. jose's secret 1 ii. the elder brother 11 iii. a portuguese home 17 iv. garden and vineyard 28 v. the husking of the maize 38 vi. an autumn ramble 45 vii. winter work and play 56 viii. when spring unlocks the flowers 67 ix. on st. antonio's day 71 x. better times 85 list of illustrations page "a slim slip of a boy ... walked at the head of a pair of fawn-colored oxen" (_see page 1_) _frontispiece_ "jose called to the dog to leave off barking" 12 "joanna, with a boat-shaped basket of clothes upon her head" 34 "she was a picture of youth, beauty and grace" 43 "for a long time the brothers were silent" 50 "he and jose looked across the city" 82 jose our little portuguese cousin chapter i jose's secret "the childhood shows the man."--_john milton._ a slim slip of a boy, with dark brown eyes and pale olive skin, walked at the head of a pair of fawn-colored oxen as he turned homeward from the market-place of a small village in the north of portugal. the village was just a humble collection of narrow streets paved with round, worn cobble stones; a few shops and a long, one-storied inn; a group of cottages and two or three larger houses, and a little white granite church. along the street through which jose almaida passed with the oxen, the market-day produce was spread out under the trees. there were great piles of maize-cobs, potatoes, chestnuts and beans; baskets full of grapes, figs and apples; strings of garlic and onions; heaps of giant early yellow gourds, scarlet pimentos and deep red tomatoes; panniers of fish, fresh and salted, and red earthenware household dishes, crocks and water-jars. jose had exchanged the grapes, onions and tomatoes, which he had brought from the home farm, for a small amount of tea and of hard, brown salted codfish,--now the only luxuries of the almaida family. in the rough ox-cart, carlos, his dog, a thick-nosed pointer, white with brown spots, mounted guard over these provisions. the market-place was no new sight to jose. he did not stop in passing along the street, except at the village fountain to fill a jar with water for an old woman. around the fountain good-natured looking groups of women were talking over village affairs,--women in peasant dress of dark, full short skirts, bright-colored waists, and gay red, blue or orange kerchiefs over their shoulders and hanging from under their round pork-pie black hats. each woman carried a boat-shaped basket or a water-jar upon her head. little jose was a familiar figure on the market-day. for five months past, he had done the family marketing, sometimes with his oldest sister joanna as companion, but often, as to-day, alone. at each greeting, he bowed and pulled off his long black knitted stocking-cap. to-day, early in october, the market-place had confused him. he had heard groups of men saying that the king had gone away from the country, never to return, and that there would be great changes in portugal. jose had three miles to travel before dark. there was no time to lose, so he urged on the oxen. but every now and then, out on the main road, he turned to look back toward the village, shading his eyes with his hand. not seeing what he sought, he urged on the oxen again with the goad, which was twice as long as himself. the road was steep. the oxen plodded on with low-bowed heads. they were small and intelligent-looking oxen with strong shoulders and wide-branched horns. above their heavy yoke rose the _canga_, or head-board, the pride of the portuguese farmer. this was a piece of hard wood, about eighteen inches high and five feet wide, and handsomely carved in open work. it was the same kind of head-board used by the romans two thousand years ago, when they held control of portugal. the up-hill road had many sharp stones. but the boy's hardened bare feet heeded them not. carlos jumped from the cart to run by his master's side. jose gave the dog a loving pat: "ah, carlos, brother antonio does not come yet." the dog was the only one who knew jose's secret. he looked up with eyes which seemed full of sympathy, and put his nose into the boy's hand. along the wayside were rows and rows of oaks, chestnuts, planes, and most of all, white poplars. the poplars were covered to the top by trailing vines, loaded with purple grapes. on the hillsides were scattered little cottages, whitewashed or painted pale blue, pink, or buff, with red-tiled roofs. every cottage which jose passed had its shady porch built with trellis covering, and heavy bunches of grapes hung over the heads of women spinning at the open doorways, surrounded by quiet, bare-foot children. in the distance stood green pine-covered hills. farther away rose vast mountains, peak upon peak, purple now in the shadows of the october afternoon. it is a beautiful, mountainous country, this minho region around guimarães, the old capital city. minho is portugal's richest province. and here, it is said, faces are brighter and manners gentler than anywhere else in portugal. up-hill the road wound always. jose met many other boys, barefooted like himself, but usually older, driving oxen or pannier-loaded donkeys. the boys were dressed, as he was, in loose white linen shirt and blue cotton trousers which came just to the knees, a scarlet sash wound three times around the waist, a long, knitted black cap, and a jacket of brown homespun slung upon one shoulder. sometimes the cap was red or green, but oftenest black; and it ended in a tassel which hung down the back. many a bare-foot girl, too, trudged along the road, dressed in peasant costume, and driving a donkey with a short stick. with a last wistful look in the direction of the village, jose turned the oxen from the main road into the rough wooded lane which led to his father's home. the ox-cart creaked and rumbled over the uneven ground. like all such carts in portugal, it was made of four or five boards laid flat and resting upon two supports. it had two wheels of solid wood, without spokes, and with iron tires, fixed fast to an axle which turned with the wheels. long as the three mile journey was to jose, it was easier to walk than to ride in the jolting car. jose felt very tired. although it was almost sunset time, he stopped the oxen and threw himself down near a clump of fragrant shrubs to rest before the last half mile of the hard journey. carlos came and licked his master's face, then darted off after a red-legged partridge. upon this young boy had fallen the man's duty in a family of six, including himself,--a now helpless father, a hard-working mother, and three sisters. since may, when the senhor almaida had a stroke of paralysis, jose had done the heavy work--for a young boy--of caring for the oxen, the cow, the chickens and pig. besides, he had done what he could, with the help of joanna, the seventeen-year-old sister, to carry on the farm garden and the vineyard. there was an elder brother, antonio, now twenty-one years old. he had left home, four years ago, to seek his fortune in america. it was this elder brother whom jose had been eagerly looking for during the last four months. joanna had at once written to antonio of the father's illness, but had not suggested antonio's return. "we must not send for antonio," she and her mother decided. three times each year they had received money from this elder brother; and the money would be even a greater help now that the father could not work. jose had been given the letter to post on a village market-day. it was then that the plan for his secret came to him. at the _correio_, post-office, he spent all the money he had ever owned for a post-card and stamp,--twenty _reas_, two cents, for the card and twenty _reas_ more, for a two-cent stamp. on one side of the card he copied in printed letters, antonio's american address; on the other side he wrote the words: "please come home. we need you. jose." how glad the boy was then that in the evenings last winter his father had taught him to write and to spell,--something which very few portuguese children know. for a long time after mailing the post-card jose felt very guilty with the heavy burden of his secret. as days and weeks went by, the burden grew lighter, but the desire for antonio's return grew stronger. no letter had come from antonio since joanna had written. no money had come, either. this fact, which caused anxiety to the elders, gave jose strong hope. he felt that antonio's not sending any money meant that antonio himself was coming. chapter ii the elder brother "his first, best country ever is at home." --_oliver goldsmith._ the few moments of rest in the sweet, cool air refreshed jose. he jumped up quickly. the farm-work must be done before nightfall. carlos was barking excitedly. had he caught the red-legged partridge? jose turned to see. no, the dog was running toward a stranger, who was walking rapidly in their direction. could it be antonio? jose's heart-beats almost choked him. but no; this was a well-dressed stranger, with shoes on. he was evidently a man from the city, and a traveller, too, because he carried a hand-bag. and he had a black moustache. of course it was not antonio. antonio would be barefooted; antonio had no moustache. [illustration: "jose called to the dog to leave off barking."] jose called to the dog to leave off barking. the stranger drew near. stopping, he stroked one of the fawn-brown oxen. he looked at jose with piercing dark eyes. his olive skin was clear and sunburned. "do you live near here, boy?" jose pulled off his cap as he answered: "_sim, senhor_--yes, sir--a half mile away." "what is your name?" "jose almaida, _senhor_." the stranger dropped his hand-bag. he waited a moment to control his voice before he said: "jose,--this is your brother antonio." the two brothers rushed into each other's arms and kissed each the other on the cheek. "_accolade!_"--welcome! jose cried out at last. antonio, thumping him gently on the shoulders, had drawn back to look into his face. "is it truly you, antonio? you are so changed--so old--so splendidly dressed!" "it is your brother antonio. you, too, are so changed, jose, that i did not know you. instead of a very small boy i find a tall, grown lad. how are the father and mother, and the sisters? one little sister, tareja, i have never seen." eager talk followed, questions and answers coming close together. the mild-eyed oxen looked around as if to ask the reason why the homeward journey was so long delayed. "you say the father can never walk again?" antonio asked sadly. "we have had the doctor once. he said father may perhaps have the use of his right hand and foot sometime, if he has the best of care." "are there any crops on the farm this year? who could do the work?" "the apple and fig trees have borne well. we have good crops of maize and melons and gourds, because father had done the early spring planting before his illness came. joanna and i did the hoeing and took what care we could. the vines are full of grapes. father had pruned and trimmed them last winter. joanna and i are gathering the grapes nowadays and beginning to press them. and i sold some to-day." "is this your dog, jose?" antonio asked. carlos had burst out again into barking. "yes. inez castillo, the daughter of senhor castillo--you remember our neighbor who lives on the big farm?--gave carlos to me when he was a puppy, a year ago. he stays with me always when i work and goes with me wherever i go. he barks in such a friendly way at you that i think he must know you belong to the family." one of the oxen gave a low cry which the other echoed. jose picked up the ox-goad and started them forward. "it is time to go on; the night work must be done." antonio lifted his hand-bag into the cart. "who does that work?" he asked. "i do. sometimes joanna helps. you will help now? you have come to stay at home?" jose's voice was very wistful. "i shall stay a while to help. we will not talk about this before the others." "a little while will help. i am growing bigger every day." jose drew his slight figure to its fullest height. antonio was silent. "did you get my post-card, antonio?" jose asked timidly, after a few moments. "yes; that is why i came home, jose." antonio threw his arm lovingly over the little brother's shoulder as they walked on, side by side. "please, oh please, do not speak about it before the others,--about my writing to you," jose begged in a half frightened voice. "i will not speak about it, jose, i promise you." antonio looked down at his brother, whom he remembered as little more than a baby. it was hard to realize that this mere child had been the head of the family for five months. chapter iii a portuguese home "he was a man of single countenance, of frank address and simple faith." --_francisco de sá de miranda._ it was twilight when antonio, jose, the patient oxen and the frisky dog reached home. great was the joy over that home-coming. the father, sitting propped with pillows by the hearth, put his left hand in blessing upon the head of his eldest son and exclaimed "_graças à deus_," thanks be to god. the mother, weeping tears of joy, held antonio's strong body in her arms for a long moment. joanna, the tall bronzed sister, who had just come in with the pails from milking, greeted him with a glad kiss upon the forehead. shy, thirteen-year-old malfada, her jet black hair floating over her shoulders, hugged the big brother, and then ran to a shadowy corner to watch him. two-year-old baby tareja held out her chubby hands: antonio had her on his shoulder now. the green parrot in its gilded cage cried "_accolade, accolade_," in a shrill tone. joanna quickly began preparing for supper the _bôlos de bacalhau_--the portuguese delicacy for feast days--made of minced salt fish, mixed with garlic, shaped into cakes and fried in olive oil. jose ran out and put the oxen into their corner of the farm-yard near the house, fed them and the cow, the chickens and the pig; brought in firewood, and, last of all, filled the red earthenware jar with cool water from the well on the terrace below the garden. soon the supper was ready. with thankful hearts and glad talk the family gathered around the long, dark, polished chestnut-wood table. the father's chair was drawn to the side nearest the hearth where a bright fire blazed, lighting the room. the mother held little tareja. joanna kept the plates filled with _bacalhau_, with _brôa_--the maize and rye bread of portugal--with the vegetable stew of gourds, dried beans and rice, flavored with bacon, which was the usual supper-dish; then, with ripe olives, fresh figs and sweet seed cakes. malfada helped the father take his food. jose ate hungrily, and once in a while slipped a piece of _brôa_, or bacon, into carlos' mouth. the front door stood open. beyond the trees, the shadow of twilight lingered in the valley. the hills were bathed in rosy mist. the almaida home was one of the better class of small farmhouses. it stood in the centre of a hillside farm of about four acres. it was a square, plastered stone house, whitewashed inside and out. the overhanging eaves of the red-tiled roof were painted deep red underneath. this was the house where senhor miguel almaida's father, his grandfather and great-grandfather had lived. the central room, into which one entered from the vine-clad porch, was uncarpeted. the furnishings showed that the almaidas were a family of more than peasant rank. at one end of the room stood a large cupboard or cabinet of carved chestnut-wood. its shelves were full of odds and ends,--some old pieces of english ware, souvenirs of long ago days when trade relations existed with great britain, and there was a silver platter of the fine old portuguese handwork of two hundred years ago. there were also a few books on the shelves, and a violin, a guitar and a flute. against the wall, opposite the cabinet, were the beds, separated from one another by partitions which did not reach quite to the top of the room. on the walls hung framed colored pictures of the portuguese hero king, affonso henriquez, of inez de castro and prince pedro, her lover. a large gilt-framed mirror hung near the door, and over the mantel was a crucifix. never was there a cleaner or a prettier farmhouse in all portugal. never were there better-trained, more obedient children than miguel almaida's. the father, in these many days when he had to sit helpless by the fireside in his arm-chair, felt grateful for his tidy home, his good wife, and his dutiful children. he was a man of middle height, thick-set in figure. he was of grave character and of great common sense. even during this illness he kept himself cheerful and of good hope. while the mother strained and cared for the milk, the older sisters washed and put away the dishes. jose sat on a low stool by his father's side, holding tareja on his knee, and listening to antonio's stories about america, of his voyage home, and of the revolution in portugal. indeed the events in portugal were of more interest even than the wonders of far-away america. "our country has changed very little in the past ten, twenty and perhaps fifty years. now we can hope for better times," said miguel almaida. news of the revolution had been slow in reaching the hillside farm. what the father had heard before as rumors antonio now told him as facts. the revolution had taken place while antonio was on the voyage from new york to gibraltar. the news had greeted him when he landed. as he had journeyed from gibraltar to lisbon, the capital city of portugal, and then, northward still, to guimarães, people everywhere were talking of the great event. since then, travelling by foot from guimarães out into the hill country and past the little market-place, always the one topic of interest had been king manuel's banishment and the fact that the portuguese people were now to rule and govern themselves. jose could not understand all that the change meant. but to antonio and his father it meant better times,--not so much money to be paid in taxes, better laws, and a chance for the children to go to school. almost all of the education which the almaida children had received had been at home. senhor almaida was a man better educated than many of his neighbors. when the evening work was done, the mother and the two older sisters drew around the hearth. tiny tareja soon fell asleep in the mother's arms. joanna and malfada began to embroider: portuguese girls do beautiful work with their needles. the hearth-fire of maple wood burned brilliantly. two candles on the mantel lighted up the crucifix. every few moments the parrot in its cage near the mantel, opened its eyes, blinked, and called out "_accolade! à deus!_"--welcome! good-by! "i am sure the old parrot remembers you, antonio," the mother said, each time. "he has not talked so much as this for six months." now it was that antonio opened his heavy travelling-bag. one by one he took out the presents he had brought. joanna and malfada quickly put aside their work. first there was a silver watch for the father,--who had never before in all his life owned a watch. next came three silver-link hand-bags, the largest for the mother, the middle sized one for joanna, the smallest for malfada. when malfada hung the bag from her round wrist and held it forth to look at it, antonio burst into a hearty laugh and said: "that is just the way i imagined that malfada would dangle the little bag from her wrist." antonio put the present for sleeping tareja into his mother's hands. it was a wonderful american doll with yellow hair and with eyes which would shut and open, and it was dressed all in white, just as joanna had sometimes, on rare visits to guimarães, seen foreign children dressed. then how gleefully they all laughed at the next present which antonio brought out! it was for the house,--a china salt-cellar, red and round like a tomato. "we must put it in the cabinet. it is too fine to use except on holidays and feast-days," said the mother. jose's present was the last to appear. now it was the little boy's turn to receive a paper-covered package, tied with pink string. jose's short fingers trembled in impatience as he untied the string,--careful, even in his haste, not to break it, for a piece of string was very precious to the boy. off came the paper and out came a square white box. off came the box-cover and out came an engine and four gaily painted cars,--such a wonderful toy as jose had never seen before. it was an evening always to be remembered in the almaida family. they looked at one another's presents. they listened to antonio's tales of great american cities and railroads and bridges, of active, rapid-moving people, and of his own work as foreman on a section of railroad diggers. by and by the mother saw that the father, in his arm-chair, was growing tired. so she told the children it was time to go to bed, because they could hear more to-morrow about all these things. jose took the engine and cars, the box and the pink string to bed with him, and held them clasped in both hands to make sure that the treasures were real. he was very wide-awake. he heard his mother and antonio talking after they had helped the father to his bed. and the little boy never forgot antonio's last words to his mother that night: "before i went away from home, mother, you said to me 'each morning, resolve not to do anything during all the day which will make you feel sorry when night comes.' i remembered that each morning, mother, and it kept me always from wrong ways and wrong places." chapter iv garden and vineyard "trees manifold here left their branches tall, fruit laden, fragrant, exquisite and rare." --_camoens._ when, the next morning, jose led antonio through the garden and vineyard, crimson vine leaves and purple grapes were the only signs of autumn. the green of summer was fresh over everything else. the granite gate-posts, which divided the front yard and flower garden from the fields, were almost buried in ferns and covered with ivy. in the garden blossomed roses, bright geraniums, asters, balsams, verbenas, salvias and dahlias. the portuguese are great lovers of flowers. their climate, where the temperature hardly ever goes below forty degrees, is favorable to the growing of all the flowers, as well as the trees and shrubs, of both temperate and tropical zones. on the borders of the almaidas' garden and fields, great palms and tall cedars of lebanon stood side by side with orange, lemon, citron and fig-trees. here and there was an olive-tree, with gray-green leaves. "how beautiful the flowers are, jose, and how the trees have grown!" antonio breathed a happy sigh as he spoke. many times in his absence these last four years his heart had cried out for the flowers and trees and the quiet happiness of his childhood home. jose darted off to the house with the large bouquet of flowers he had gathered for his father. as he ran back to antonio, he called: "come to the farm-yard. i want you to see our pretty, gentle cow, and the chickens and the pig." at the right-hand side of the house was a good-sized farm-yard, kept more than ankle-deep in gorse and bracken litter. this yard was formed by one side of the house and by a small granite building which held the grape-vats. high over the yard hung grave-vines on strong wooden trellises. here the cattle found shade and shelter in the heat of mid-summer. in portugal, cattle are kept in the yards instead of being put out to pasture. the dun-brown cow was indeed a gentle creature. she leaned her head to one side while jose stroked her neck, and she looked at antonio with friendly brown eyes. the chickens, in their corner coop, hurried forward, as if expecting food, so jose ran outside the yard and pulled some handfuls of chickweed for them. the long, tall pig grunted a welcome, standing still to have his back scratched. the oxen turned restlessly, as if wondering why work was so late in beginning to-day. next the brothers visited the grape-vats. the wide, shallow tubs were full of trodden grapes. for several days jose with joanna, and malfada to help sometimes, had carefully removed the green and decayed grapes from the huge purple clusters they had gathered, and had thrown the good grapes into the vats. jose and the girls had trodden these grapes with their bare feet. now the juice was running from the vats through the troughs and the strainers in rich crimson streams into caskets set upon slabs of granite outside. this is the way that port, the wine for which portugal is famed, is made throughout the country. antonio stood looking out over the maize field and vineyard, of about an acre, beyond the flower gardens. it was surrounded by poplar trees. upon the trees hung grape-vines, heavy with fruit. "we must gather more grapes to-day, jose. i will help, and together we will tread the wine-press." antonio's quick eyes saw that only a small part of the grapes had been taken from the vines. they must make the most of the vineyard crop. beyond the grape-vats was the _eira_, or threshing-floor, made of granite slabs set close together, and beyond the _eira_, a small barn and storehouse. the _eira_ was well open to sun and wind. piled high at one side were stacks of maize-stalks, full of unhusked ears. the farm-work was behindhand at this harvest time: it had been more than jose and his two sisters could do. yet they had bravely tried. the oxen's inquiring looks had reminded jose that the day's watering of the gardens and fields ought to begin. "let me take the oxen out to-day, antonio, please," jose said, when his brother would have gone ahead with the work. jose knew that his part as leader would soon be ended. hard as the care had been, he felt more than half sorry to give it up to antonio. the obedient oxen came forth under the yoke and the high, carved head-board. with the long ox-goad jose guided them, antonio following, to the wide terrace at the left side of the house, where a well was sunk into a deep spring, which had a supply of water that never failed. jose fastened the oxen to the _nora_, the old-time water-wheel. round and round the oxen went, in a wide circle, under trellises covered with vines. their moving carried power to an endless chain which was set a few feet apart with buckets. these buckets, sent dipping in turn down into the well, brought up water from its depths. half of it was spilled by the way. but enough was saved to make a plentiful stream which flowed off to the thirsty gardens and fields below. in this portuguese part of europe there is scarcely any rain from may to november. therefore through the long dry season, watering is necessary to the growth of the crops and the vines. irrigation by the water of springs brought down from the hill-tops to the farms on the way, is increasing every year. but many farmers, in remote places, like the almaidas', still follow the two thousand year old custom of watering from a well by means of the oxen's turning of the endless chain. [illustration: "joanna, with a boat-shaped basket of clothes upon her head."] "this is water enough for to-day," jose said at last. "will you drive the oxen to the yard? i must help joanna." and off the boy ran. joanna, with a boat-shaped basket of clothes upon her head, had just gone to the stream beyond the barn, near the wood-lane entrance to the farm. she waded out into the stream, above her ankles, and took the clothes which jose handed to her, washing out one piece after another in the running water. when this task was done, busy jose hurried back to join antonio, who had begun to gather grapes. for an hour they worked, filling and emptying other boat-shaped baskets, till the sun was high overhead. "we will tread the grapes toward night, jose," antonio said, when joanna called them to dinner. at the noon-day meal they ate _brôa_--bread--dipped in olive oil, a little dried fish, oranges and figs. after dinner, in the heat of the day, antonio went out to a rocky corner of the farm and lay down in the cool shade. jose brought along his engine and cars. it was the first chance he had found to-day to play with them. and until antonio grew too sleepy, he told jose about real trains and railroads. oh, it was good to be free, good to be in the shade of the trees, to look off over the hills and dream of the cities and the people beyond! antonio fell asleep, thinking these thoughts. when he awoke, jose was drawing the train of cars by the pink string, back and forth. a far-away strain of music sounded upon the air. "have you learned yet to play the flute or violin, jose?" antonio asked. "yes, antonio, i can play the violin a little." "run to the house, bring both violin and flute. you can play the one, and i will see if i have forgotten what i knew about the other." away sped jose. returning, he gave antonio the flute, keeping the violin. then for an hour the brothers played, not by note but by ear, the simple, sweet melodies of the country-side. the portuguese people are lovers of music as of flowers. each farmer, peasant, shepherd and charcoal-burner has his guitar or violin, his pipe or flute. jose's violin notes were true and liquid. the old violin--it had been his grandfather's--was rich-toned. presently antonio laid aside the flute and listened to the little brother's playing. chapter v the husking of the maize "if all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work." --_william shakespeare._ jose and antonio, malfada and joanna worked side by side those busy days of the next two weeks. they gathered and trod the grapes. they cut and carried through the threshing-floor great sheaves of maize and of bean-stalks, leaving them to dry there in readiness for the threshing. the girls were active and willing, strong and cheerful. both girls and boys worked with the eager purpose of helping the invalid father and the mother so wearied with constant care of the sick man and the young child. after the grapes were gathered, and the maize and beans harvested, the hard work was over for a time. the gourds and watermelons, which had been planted between the rows of maize and beans, now open to the sunshine, were gaining in mellow color. there was some free time for the almaida family in the afternoons of these october days. jose drew his engine and cars back and forth on the terrace, carlos barking after him. sometimes jose played with malfada around the water-works, and swam oranges in the streams still running from the endless chain of buckets. the mother and joanna worked in the flower garden. antonio wandered off on the hillside with his flute. at the maize-husking season in portugal there is many a gay assembly. the threshing-floor is the social gathering-place for old and young. antonio, joanna, malfada and even little jose had already been to the _decamisadas_, or husking, on neighboring farms, when the work and the dancing had lasted until late into the evening. now antonio had, in turn, invited their neighbors to a maize-husking. on the afternoon set, eager troops of men and boys, most of them carrying some musical instrument, came in holiday costume of homespun trousers, white linen shirt with a large gold or silver stud at the neck, a red sash bound around the waist, broadcloth or homespun cloak hung over one shoulder, and newest hat of black felt or cap of knitted yarn. eager troops of girls came also, in full short skirts, in bodices of dark red or yellow worn over white waists, the large sleeves newly starched and ironed. each girl had a gay-colored cotton or silk kerchief over her shoulders, and almost every one wore handsome filigree gold earrings. jose's mother was dressed in the same kind of costume, except that her kerchief was of soft dark red silk; and she wore her chief treasure, a heavy gold chain and cross. that afternoon, for the first time since his illness, senhor almaida sat out on the porch in his arm-chair, his best broadcloth cloak wrapped about him. in the excitement of the family preparation for the _decamisadas_, he had moved his right hand slightly. how the mother and the children rejoiced in this sign of returning strength! the husking went on merrily. skilful fingers made quick work. gossip and song filled the air with busy hum. at times one or two of the men left off work, upon antonio's asking, and for a half hour played familiar tunes on flute, guitar, violin or pipe. toward sunset, when the sky was all aglow with red light, the mother, joanna and malfada brought out the supper of _brôa_, dried fish and preserved fruits. the large platters were piled high with the food, and there was plenty more in the house. the workers had hearty appetites, and each took a cupful of the fresh-pressed grape-juice which antonio passed around. [illustration: "she was a picture of youth, beauty and grace."] the round harvest moon rose just at sunset. in the red-silver glow of twilight and moonlight, the cheerful workers began their tasks again. after an hour more, the husking was finished. a huge heap of golden ears gleamed in the centre of the threshing-floor. willing hands carried these off to the barn. the threshing-floor was cleared of maize-stalks and chaff. all was ready for dancing. first the young men and maidens formed a circle and went round and round in a merry jig. then they danced, in groups, the _bolero_, a dance slow and firm in motion, with well-marked time. this was followed by a lively reel. as the music grew louder, little jose dared to join in with his beloved violin. then singing burst forth to the music, players and dancers taking part in the simple country-side melodies, until, warm and breathless, the dancers drew back to the edges of the threshing-floor. and now they began eagerly calling upon inez castillo for the dance she did so well. eighteen-year-old inez castillo had stood aside while the others danced. she did not like so much romping. but now she stepped forward good-naturedly at their request. her deep black eyes glowed with the lustre of health. there was a ripe red flush upon her cheeks, an expression of gentle modesty upon face and figure. "you play for me, jose, you alone, please," the girl asked. she knew how perfectly in tune and in time jose's music was. steadily, but rather low at first, the boy began to play. steadily and gracefully inez danced forth, her silver bracelets tinkling upon her wrists. her arms and body moved in perfect time. she was a picture of youth, beauty and grace. jose did not think about the people listening as he drew his bow back and forth. he thought only of making his music as true as possible for inez,--inez who had given him his dear dog-friend carlos. antonio leaned against the stone wall of the barn, watching the face of his music-loving little brother. "i must try to let the lad have some music-training," he said to himself. he watched, too, the modest, graceful dancing of inez; and he decided that however interesting far-away america had been, his own fatherland was a goodly country. chapter vi an autumn ramble "with dreamful eyes my spirit lies under the walls of paradise." --_thomas buchanan read._ the father was better. he could move the weak hand and foot, although he was not yet able to use them. but he could sit all day in the arm-chair on the porch. from there he was able to direct the late autumn work. this was fortunate. antonio had half forgotten what needed to be done, and jose did not yet know much about it. the mother's face had brightened. she did the work of the household and cared for tareja with a thankful heart. joanna and malfada were again busy all day out of doors in the field with their brothers. now the winter's supply of gourds, left among the stubble of maize-stalks, had grown very large and yellow. there were two kinds of gourds,--one, smooth and round, the other, long and striped. these were gathered and lifted, some to the low roof of the barn, others to the top of the rocky ledge, where they would not have to stand in the wet after the autumn rains began. the melons, also, were gathered and stored in the same way. upon these places, gourds and melons would keep sound until february. all through the winter the better ones would be valuable food for the family, while the coarser ones would be used for cattle and pig. there was a good supply of cabbage in the garden for the winter's house-use and for feeding the live stock. sown late in the summer, the cabbage had grown to four or five feet in height. its lower leaves would be picked off, week after week, then the stalks cut down in the spring to make room for other crops. twice jose went with antonio to the wild lands of the remote hillside, and loaded upon the ox-cart gorse, heather, bracken and wild grass as winter stabling for the cattle. this they cut or scraped together with broad-bladed hoes,--simple tools made of a flat piece of iron shaped like a spade and fastened upon a handle. jose's hoe-handle was so long that he had very hard work to manage it. but he bravely kept on, no matter how his arms and back ached during those early november days. it would soon be time to plough the stubble and to sow the winter barley, rye and wheat, the flax, and the maize for cattle feed. "we will take a holiday, jose, before we begin this new work. where would you like to go?" antonio asked, as they walked homeward from the wild-land by the side of the oxen. carlos ran ahead on the wood-road, sniffing the fresh air. "i would like best to go up to the hill-top, where we can look off and see guimarães and the old ruined roman city, citania." "we will go to-morrow. you have earned a holiday, and the up-hill walk will straighten your shoulders. the hoeing has made you bend over like a little old man." the next morning's work of caring for the live-stock was done early. each with a lunch-basket, and a cloak hung over one shoulder, the two brothers set forth, followed by carlos, and watched out of sight by the family on the front porch. they found the mossy old foot-path which led from the main road up the hill. pine needles made the rocks here and there as slippery as glass. but tufts of tall, stout grass along the path served as a help in climbing. the sky overhead was deepest blue. through the trunks of trees on both sides of the path they could see many a maize-field yellow with stubble, and many a vineyard with brilliant bronze leaves. the trees were very beautiful. here was the straight trunk of a eucalyptus "tall as the mast of some great admiral;" here was a cork-tree with a rich, brown velvet-like trunk, and here a gum-tree, its long drooping leaves of russet, red and orange showing like jewels against the slender, dark trunk. there were seats for the weary built against the trees along the way. once in a while the brothers stopped to rest. and at the noon hour they ate their luncheon, jose sitting at antonio's feet, and giving a large part of his own share to the dog. by early afternoon they came to the rocky crag of the hill. a humble hermitage stood upon the outer edge of this great rock. near the hermitage a gilded cross was built upon a broad pillar of piled stones,--the work of some long-ago, shoeless carmelite or trappist monk. the hermitage was deserted now, but the palms and ferns around it were rich in beauty. antonio, who had read much about his country's history, told jose that all these green growing things had been planted and tended with loving care by the devout monks who had taken on themselves the vows of poverty and of silence. [illustration: "for a long time the brothers were silent."] antonio and jose lay down upon the soft, fine grass, under a tall palm-tree, and looked out over the wide view which the rocky crag gave. the mole-crickets made a soft churr-churring sound around them. blackbirds in the tree-tops gave shrill, crowing calls. from hilly pastures, shepherds among their sheep sang in rivalry with one another. for a long time the brothers were silent. the beauty of the scene almost took away speech. on all sides were purple hills and upon every hill-top stood a hermitage or shrine with a shining cross above it. far away rose the giant peak of the penha, a mountain covered with green up the greater part of its height, then bare granite to its top. antonio pointed to the southeast: "there on the plain, is guimarães, with its many roofs and chimneys; and, look, there is the smoke of a railroad train." "will you take me there some time, antonio, so that i can see a real train of cars?" "yes, jose, we will go there on our next long holiday. now look over yonder. half way up the hill do you see some rows of stone wall?" "yes, antonio." "there lies the old fortress city, built by the romans more than a hundred years before christ was born. it is called citania now, and it is in ruins. some day you will read about it in a book of history." jose sighed as he said: "i fear it will be a long, long time before i can read a book. i can only spell out a few words now,--not much more than i wrote on the post-card to you." "would you like to go to school this winter, jose?" "oh, how i should like it,--more than anything else in all the world! but there is no school, and if there was one, i could not leave the farm-work to go to it." "there is to be a free primary school opened this winter, with a good teacher, in our village where we go on market-days. i want you to attend the school, jose." "but who will do the work at home, antonio? you will soon go back to america, i think." jose never forgot, even in the joy of having antonio at home, that this big brother might soon go away again. antonio was silent a long time. then he said slowly, looking off to the far penha mountain: "jose, how would you feel if i told you i will stay at home?" "i should be very happy, oh, so happy, brother." "well, jose, i have decided to stay." jose raised himself upon his elbow and looked eagerly into antonio's face: "do you really mean it?" he asked. "yes, jose." "then i _can_ go to school, and learn as much as you know?" antonio laughed a little sadly: "it is not very much that i know, from books. most of the small amount i know is what i have learned from men and things in america, and from the newspapers. but i will study in the evenings this winter. i would rather have an education than be a millionaire. there was a school in the village when i was your age. the new school will be better than that." "why will it be better, antonio?" jose asked. he knew nothing of schools except that they were places where children could learn to read from books. "we had old, dull books to study, and we had to wait, all in one class, until every boy and every girl had learned the lesson. but senhor castillo has told me that in the new school there will be new books, and there will be more than one class, so that the boys and girls who are quickest to learn can go ahead of the others." "i am afraid i shall not be quickest to learn, antonio." "try as hard as you can, jose. then, in the future, perhaps you will be one of the rulers of portugal. the time is coming in this country when education will mean power." jose listened with close attention. and although he could not understand antonio's words, he remembered them. a moment later he asked: "may i be the one to tell the family that you will stay at home with us, antonio? i know the father and mother have felt very anxious about this." "yes, jose, you may tell them this evening. now take a last look toward guimarães. we must start for home. it is nearly the sunset hour, and darkness will soon follow. the path is so steep that we need light to tread it." chapter vii winter work and play "see, winter comes to rule the varied year." --_james thomson._ what joy in the home when jose that evening, after the late supper, told the good news! how they crowded around antonio, clapping him on the shoulders! with what glee did joanna bring out preserved fruits and sweet cakes for them to eat as they drew their chairs around the hearth! "we will have many a happy winter evening together;" the father spoke with a new courage shining in his eyes. "the doctor you sent for, antonio, came to-day while you and jose were away. he told me that if i rest this winter, free from care, i shall have full use of my right hand and foot again. your taking the care from me will be what saves me, antonio." "i can do more than keep you from care, father. i saved money while i was away, and have over two hundred dollars now, even after paying my passage home. i will spend some of this money to make the farm better." this was the first time antonio had spoken of his savings. he had kept silent until he could decide as to whether or not he would go back to america. "you are a rich man, my son." a look of pride shone in the father's eyes as he spoke. "you deserve it, antonio. you are a good son," the mother said, as she wiped happy tears from her eyes. indeed this seemed to the whole family a very great fortune. even senhor castillo was not worth more than five hundred dollars, and he was the wealthiest man for miles around. "i will buy a new plough and some new tools. we shall soon have enough better crops to more than pay for this spending. when you are well again, father, there will be two men of us to work instead of one." "and what about jose?" the father put his left hand upon the little boy's shoulder. jose was kneeling beside him, roasting chestnuts on the hearth. "i am going to school this winter, antonio says." jose looked up with a happy face. "a school term will begin early in january, at the village. jose can go for the sixteen weeks; he is strong enough to walk there and back, i think," said antonio. "sometimes can i go, too?" malfada asked, tossing back her thick black hair. "yes, little one, you can go with jose, that is the best plan. then you can help each other with your lessons," the father said quickly. soon the winter began. the dull weather with heavy rains lasted two or three weeks. in this portuguese country, autumn meets winter with pouring rain and with strong winds, which break down almost everything in the gardens and which cover gardens and fields with wet leaves and long sprays of vine. during these days antonio and jose wore about the farm-work curious coats made of several layers of dried grass. these were some protection against rain and wind. but there was not much work to be done until the heavy storms should cease. in late november the sun came forth brightly. it was time to plough the stubble fields. the only plough jose had ever seen until now, was one made of a crooked branch of hardwood tree, shod with iron,--of the same pattern as the plough used by the romans two thousand years ago. it was a plough so light in weight that after the day's work was done, the man lifted it from the ground and hung it over the yoke of the ox. this old kind of plough was drawn by one ox, and it stirred the soil only six or seven inches deep. the new plough--which antonio brought home one day behind the oxen--turned a deep straight furrow in the light crumbling soil. the old harrow, to level the ground after the ploughing, was made of fifteen or twenty teeth of iron set into a wooden framework. the new harrow which antonio bought had many strong, close-set teeth. jose had followed after the plough with great delight, to watch its working. now, when antonio let him ride on the harrow-seat, the boy kept his head turned back most of the way, in order that he might see the ploughed land grow level under the harrow's teeth. "surely our crops will be doubled next season--twice as large as ever before--because the ground is so well-prepared," the father said each day as he watched the work from the doorway. he seemed to gain in strength daily, even during this dullest season of the year. it was hard, though, for him to be unable to help, for there was much work to be done. jose was given the sowing of the winter wheat and rye, and of the maize for the winter food of the cattle. antonio pruned the grape-vines and cut off the tops of the trees on which the vines hung. soon the maize shot up, and the young stalks had to be cut, morning and night. jose stayed around the house all one market-day afternoon, taking care of little tareja and being company for his father, while the mother, joanna and malfada went to the village with antonio. malfada dangled the silver-link bag from her wrist, just as antonio knew she would; and she brought back home in it a little boxful of candies for jose. it was a great day for them all. there were long, pleasant evenings, for portuguese families stay at home together instead of going to their neighbors for amusement. jose played softly on his violin. the mother, joanna and malfada sewed or embroidered. antonio read aloud from some book, or oftener from a newspaper he had bought on the weekly market-day and which gave news of the nation's progress. sometimes, but not often, he went out with his flute; and then the family knew that he had gone to serenade inez castillo. swiftly the days passed. soon came _natal_--christmas--the great holiday of the year. on this day and on new year's, there were fireworks and decorations at each farmhouse, singing, and visits back and forth. daily between christmas and new year's the almaida family ate _bôlos de bacalhau_, and _rebanadas_,--thick slices of _brôa_ soaked in new milk, fried in olive oil and spread with honey. _rebanadas_ is the special holiday food for christmas and new year's. the red tomato salt-cellar was used at table on each of these days. the holidays from farm-work lasted up to the feast of the epiphany, january 6th. on the day after, the school in the village opened. five days each week jose and malfada walked barefoot the three miles in the early morning, returning in the dusk of the mild winter day. the walk was very tiring sometimes. it was fortunate that both children were strong, and used to being much on their feet. at first carlos wanted to go with them. but soon he seemed to understand that he was not to be allowed to take these morning walks. on each school-day, however, at four o'clock, he would begin watching for the children, and the moment he caught sight of them coming along the wood-lane, he dashed off at top speed to meet them. the old parrot was very funny these days. so much going and coming confused him. in the mornings when jose and malfada went away he called out _accolade_--welcome, and in the afternoons, when they returned, _à deus_--good-by. these were the only words he knew; jose had tried in vain to teach him other words, just as antonio had tried when a little boy. "the parrot is growing very old; he is losing his sense," the mother said one day when the bird greeted the children on their return from school with _à deus! à deus! à deus!_ "oh no, mother; i am sure he thinks it is a joke, just as we do," jose said, very earnestly. on the saturday holiday jose worked from dawn till dark, helping antonio. the vine-pruning and tying did not end until february. jose learned to tie the vine branches skilfully to the trees, leaving room for the vines to grow and not be hurt by the cord. in february, march and april came the sowing for the crops of the summer and autumn. the sixteen weeks' term of school ended in april. jose had been put into the class of the quickest learners. he had gone rapidly ahead of malfada, who, although three years older, stayed in the lower class. jose had been eager over his books,--far more eager than malfada. but he ran almost all the way home, and reaching there long before she did, put away his books gladly. the school-room, with its crowd of boys and girls, had seemed hot and dusty those days when the outside world was growing so beautiful. antonio was out in the field, planting cabbages, when jose hurried toward him calling: "no more school, antonio, no more school now." antonio straightened back his shoulders and asked: "is this the boy who wanted so much to go to school?" jose's face turned very red under its tan. but when he saw the teasing look in antonio's eyes, he laughed and said: "it is good to have spring come after winter, so i think it is good to change from going to school to not going. besides, the teacher says there will be a ten weeks' term next autumn." "spring unlocks the flowers, so the spring should let children come out of doors," said antonio. "there will be some hard work for you, jose, but never mind!" "never mind," repeated jose, racing back to the house with carlos at his heels. chapter viii when spring unlocks the flowers "in the merry month of may." --_william shakespeare._ the hills were sweet with the air of spring. down their sides ran rills of water, foaming with golden light. the fresh grass of the fields was carpeted with flowers. the young vine-shoots were full of tender, pale green leaves. lemon and orange trees shone with white blossoms. the elder, lotus, and shining-leaved magnolia showed almost more white than green. the pomegranate held forth fiery red blossoms. the olive-tree, with its stunted growth and its gray-green leaves, glowed all day long with a beautiful silver color under the bright sunshine. in the flower-garden, roses, geraniums and heliotrope were a-bloom. crops were growing wonderfully. the effects of the deep ploughing already showed in the stronger maize-stalks, the more abundant bean pods and the well-started vegetables. "the fourth leaf-spike has appeared on the maize: it is time for the hoeing," said the father. he could walk now, slowly, with the aid of a stout cane, as far as the field. it was easy for jose to work with the new short-handled hoe antonio had bought for him. yet at the end of the day his arms and wrists were so tired that he could scarcely draw the bow across the violin. many an evening the bow dropped from his hand as he fell asleep, heavy-eyed after being all day in the open air. as soon as the young maize-stalks were strong enough to stand the flow of water, the oxen were set to work at the _nora_ and streams of water began running down through the fields. the dry season had commenced. there was day after day of bright, unclouded sunshine. then came the thinning of the crops, to make the strong stalks grow stronger, and to give food for the cattle. working with his bare feet two or three inches deep in the warm, moist soil, jose felt as if he were a part of this great, growing, beautiful world. the strength of the earth seemed to come into him with the air he breathed. he was taller and more sturdy: he no longer looked like the slim slip of a boy of six or seven months ago. early in june the crops had grown to their limit. their turning to a yellow color showed the ripening. it would soon be time for cutting down the first crop of barley, oats, rye and wheat, and to make ready for a second sowing. the flax had already been taken up, and had been steeped or soaked in water for more than a week. now, well-dried in the sun, it must be broken and scutched by hand, or taken to some mill to be finally made ready for spinning. antonio decided that he would carry the flax to guimarães, where there were good mills, instead of having his mother and sisters do the work at home. besides, he wanted to buy some new seeds for the second sowing. "would you like to take a holiday with me to-morrow?" he asked jose on the evening before st. antonio's day. "yes. where? to guimarães?" jose replied quickly. "how did you guess, little brother?" "because last autumn, when we went on a holiday, you said you would take me to guimarães when we went away again." "we will start early to-morrow. we will take the oxen, because i am going to carry the flax to the mill." "it is good to have the holiday on st. antonio's day. because you have that name, the day should be your holiday, antonio." chapter ix on st. antonio's day "--in my soul is naught but gayety." --_antonio ferreira._ for the first time in all his life, jose was to see guimarães, the old city where portugal's hero king, affonso henriquez, was born in 1109, the great warrior who made of portugal a united country. on the morning of st. antonio's day, the thirteenth of june, the family was up early to eat with antonio and jose the holiday breakfast of _estofado_--stewed meat and vegetables. at six o'clock they gathered on the wide stone doorstep to see the brothers start. carlos lay at the edge of the step, his nose upon his paws, waiting, both eyes fixed upon jose. the dog knew that some unusual journey was planned; he was all ready to go, too. but carlos could not go. this was jose's only regret at starting. "he would be frightened and perhaps lost in the city," antonio said. so the dog was held back by joanna, and he decided, in his dog way, that jose must be going off to school again. the parrot's cries of _accolade! accolade!_ followed the brothers until they were beyond reach of the sound. it was a glorious june morning. although so early, the sun was even now high in the blue heavens. the air was fragrant with sweet flower perfumes. many small brown and yellow butterflies fluttered along the roadside. large gray sand-lizards ran out from the underbrush. meadow-larks and blackbirds sang in every tree-top. all beyond the village market-place was new to jose. the road grew constantly better. soon above the pine forests appeared the granite peak of penha. on the approach to guimarães, the ground rises and pine forests spread around the city for miles. in that wild country, affonso henriquez first learned the art of war, and in his very boyhood became the trusted leader of his troops. as the brothers drew nearer, they saw the gentle hill on which stand the walls of the old castle, still keeping watch over the city which lies beneath. it is impossible to imagine a ruin more stately than that of this grand old castle of the middle ages, the first christian fortress in portugal,--a castle-fortress which tells the story of the strong spirit of the race of men who built it. the huge granite blocks, each taller than a man, which form the battlements, still stand erect and immovable. on the road, as the brothers drew yet nearer, were many other travellers, like themselves bound for the city. it was market-day as well as the holiday of st. antonio. there were men and women, boys and girls, in gala-day costume. sometimes the women and girls were driving donkeys, pannier-laden. but oftenest, these women-folk had baskets, heavily filled, upon their heads; in portugal women carry everything in baskets, from babies to bales of goods. there were herdsmen on the way, driving flocks of goats. groups of children walked soberly along with their parents. now and then a beggar asked antonio for a bit of money; but portugal has few beggars compared with its neighboring country, spain. the crowd of holiday-makers grew. jose climbed into the ox-cart, because he could see more and because the long walk and the unusual excitement were making him feel rather tired. most of the travellers passed on ahead, for the oxen, pulling their load up-hill, made slow progress. but jose did not mind this. the music of a brass band was coming to his ears. he had to ask antonio what it was; he had never before heard a band. guimarães is a delightful old city. even people who have travelled much more than jose think so. it is full of picturesque buildings. there are many houses with balconies and windows of fine wood-carving. several of the streets are hardly more than narrow alleys, and the eaves of the houses all but meet overhead. some of the wider streets end in wonderful views of the hills, seen across fields brilliant green with rye and clover. and there is a beautiful old granite cathedral church. jose had never seen anything so marvellous as this building. in its graceful granite belfry tower the peal of eight bells was ringing out the hour of ten as the oxen moved slowly past, along the crowded street. but jose hardly noticed the people: he was looking up, full of eager curiosity, at the strange heads and faces, half like men, half like animals,--the gargoyles carved on church and tower. "take me to see the cars and the railroad first of all, please, antonio," had been jose's request, made over and over again that morning on the way. so, to please the little brother, antonio drove the oxen directly to the railway station. by good fortune they were just in time to see the arrival of a long passenger train. jose was almost terrified by the rushing in of the tall black engine with its smoke and noise. the cars, with their seats and windows and curtains, seemed to him like strange little homes. many a traveller turned to gaze with interest at the earnest-faced, black-eyed boy and the handsome, strong-looking brother, with the fresh color of the country upon their faces. a little girl dressed in white stepped from the cars, holding fast to her mother's hand. "see, antonio," jose cried out in a voice so loud that everyone around heard: "see, she looks just like tareja's doll!" as the mother and little girl passed, they smiled with friendly blue eyes at the brothers. after the passenger train moved out of the station, a puffing freight engine went back and forth, shifting and changing about many long, box-like looking freight cars. presently the cars were all in place, and the puffy engine pulled them slowly away. jose would have stayed all day at the station, waiting for other trains to come and go. his eyes were not yet satisfied. but antonio had many other things to do. when they finally turned away, jose looked back as long as the station remained in sight. he soon, however, grew interested in seeing other sights. to antonio, guimarães seemed very old-fashioned and slow, compared with the busy american cities of the same size which he had seen. but to jose everything was new and wonderful,--so many people, such tall buildings, such beautiful things in the shop windows, so much noise. everywhere on the corners of the quaint, crowded streets groups of men were talking about the new government, and curious small boys were listening at the edges of the crowds. jose wanted to stop long enough to hear what was being said; but antonio urged the oxen on toward the mill. processions of young men marched through the streets to the music of flutes, pipes, and drums. on many a street the statue figure of st. antonio, in a shrine, was decorated with flowers and garlands of leaves. around bonfires in the city square young people were dancing. when they reached the mill, antonio fastened the oxen at the corner of a near-by side street. jose helped carry the flax into the mill, but he hurried back to take his seat in the ox-cart: he liked this better even than staying in the mill. a red, whizzing machine which jose knew at once, from descriptions antonio had given him, was an automobile--came rushing through the narrow street. the frightened oxen pulled so hard at the chain that jose thought they would break it and run away. he jumped down, and, in his effort to quiet the oxen, lost the chance really to see the darting red machine. but he saw other automobiles, by and by. from the mill antonio went to a neighboring shop to buy the seeds he wanted for the second crop planting. this took a long time. just as he came back, the sweet-toned bells of the cathedral tower were chiming out one o'clock. he guided the oxen to the end of a short side street, where he let them graze upon the rich grass by the road while he and jose ate their luncheon. streams of water ran along in stone channels by the roadside. the murmur of running water was heard everywhere and always, for this was an especially dry season, and the gardens and fields of guimarães needed much moisture. back the brothers went with the oxen into the city crowds. antonio wanted to get some presents to take home. jose helped him choose these. they bought a bright-colored little basket for the mother, new silk kerchiefs for the sisters, a gay little scarlet kerchief for tareja, and a book, about modern ways of farming, for the father. after this was done, antonio was ready to go home. but jose begged: "please, oh please, antonio, let us stay till dark. the band keeps on playing; i never should tire of hearing that. and some boys were saying on the street as we passed that there are going to be fireworks at dusk." antonio hesitated. they were a long way from home, and it had been a long day. "joanna will milk the cow, and feed the chickens and pig. mother will know we are safe together. do stay, antonio." so, because the little brother did not often have a holiday, antonio delayed starting for home. the sky was very clear. a bright moon would give them light on the way after the late twilight ended. there were many more people now in the city square. the crowds were cheerful, rather quiet, and very orderly; the portuguese people are sober-minded, even on their holidays. toward nightfall the scene grew gayer. more bonfires were lighted. a second, third, and fourth brass band marched through the streets to their own lively strains of music. jose's quick ear caught many a tune which he afterward played upon his violin. candles were lighted now on the shrines of the holiday saint. the cathedral bells rang forth a beautiful vesper hymn. and almost before the sun had set, the fireworks began. [illustration: "he and jose looked across the city."] antonio bought a bagful of buns and seed-cakes, which they ate as they sat in the ox-cart on the edge of the crowd. it was not long before he saw that jose was growing very tired. antonio stepped down from the cart. "we will start now, jose. we can watch the fireworks as we move away from the city. then we can stop outside and let the oxen feed a while. they must be very hungry." and because the big brother had been so kind, jose did not object now to the homeward start. a half mile out in the country, just before they reached the borders of the pine forest, antonio turned the willing oxen aside to let them crop the thick grass. seated on a high rock, he and jose looked across at the city. wonderful gleams of colored light--red, blue, green and orange--shot out over the surrounding valleys. showers of bright stars fell, it seemed, as if at their very feet. the tall granite castle ruin was lighted up with a red glow. the city itself, with its many towers and tops showing in the blaze of color, with its bursts of music which floated across on the soft night air, was like a story or a dream. at last antonio turned the oxen to the road again. "truly we have had a wonderful end to our holiday, jose," he said. "truly we have," jose replied drowsily. the rest by the roadside had made him very sleepy, and the glare of light had almost blinded his eyes. "climb into the cart, jose. there is no need for two of us to walk. the road is growing rougher now, and the cart jolts badly, but that is easier to bear than going afoot." jose crept into the cart, and put his folded jacket under his head for a pillow. he had tight in his hand the paper bag with the three seed-cakes he had saved for his sisters. a few moments later he was fast asleep. antonio, without stopping the oxen who were now going at top speed toward home, gently put his cloak over the sleeping little man-brother. chapter x better times "in measureless content." --_william shakespeare._ better times had surely come to the almaida family. by july, the father was able to walk about without a cane; and the doctor, whom antonio asked to come again, said that senhor almaida might begin work in september. the first crops of the year were the largest that the farm had ever raised. the early harvest of oats, rye, and wheat was piled high in the barn by the last of july, and the new crops were growing abundantly. "another year we shall have twice as much of everything," jose said, as he sat with his father and antonio at the barn door in the summer twilight. the father looked smilingly into the little boy's eager face as he answered: "yes, and we can keep two cows instead of one cow, and more chickens, perhaps another pig. we shall have more feed for them, and with our larger crops to sell, we can soon pay back to antonio the money which he has spent for new farm implements and tools. it was good for us all that you went away, antonio, and came back with the new ideas." there were other plans for the farm forming in antonio's mind, but he was not yet quite ready to talk them over with his father. a few days later, as antonio and jose finished the work of watering the maize-fields for the second time that day, by means of the oxen's turning of the _nora_, antonio said to jose: "you know there is the good full stream which flows beyond the barn and along by the wood-lane? this autumn, when the farm-work grows lighter, we will put in pipes from that stream to the vineyard and garden, so that the crops can be watered by what is called irrigation, and without using the _nora_, which takes the oxen away from the other work. we will not tell this to the father until the time comes. he may think it too large a thing for us to do." in mid-august a party of students from coimbra university came strolling through the village and up the hillside to the almaidas' and other farms. they were on a vacation pilgrimage to braga, one of the oldest cities in portugal, known in roman times as _baraca augusta_, and in more modern times as the home of the royal braganza family, to which king manuel ii belonged. while these students, in long black coats buttoned close to the chin, ate the _brôa_ and the fresh fruits which the good mother set before them, jose asked them many questions about the place from which they came. and they told the little boy about coimbra university, famous for many centuries as the seat of learning for all portugal, and about the great buildings of the university on the hill overlooking the town. "like the old castle of guimarães?" jose asked. "yes, have you ever seen that?" the leader of the students asked. then jose shyly described to them his holiday with antonio at guimarães. "there is antonio off in the field now, and father is sitting with him, in the shade." the five students were very comfortable on the vine-covered porch this warm august afternoon, so they stayed a little longer, and told jose more about coimbra,--how the city was, after guimarães, made the capital of portugal, and how, as the christian kings, beginning with affonso henriquez, drove the moors farther and farther south, until, after coimbra, the more southern city of lisbon was made the capital. the students shook jose's hand and clapped him on the back as they started to go on with their journey. "some day i hope you will visit coimbra," one of them said. "_graçias, senhor_," jose answered very politely. "some day i will go there, but not yet, for i am only a little boy." "you have seen and learned more than most boys of your age in portugal. i believe you will some day come to study at coimbra," the leader of the students said. "_á deus, à deus_, boy; come to coimbra some day," the students cried as they went off; a jolly, laughing group in their black coats. through the summer, talk of public reforms, of railroad strikes, of riots and unrest, reached the almaida farm. it made the father think with a half regret of the old days of quiet. it made antonio long for the time when the young republic of portugal would have passed through these first months of change and become settled. but none of this talk disturbed jose. he was the happiest boy in all portugal. his father was nearly well. his big brother was going to stay in portugal. his mother grew brighter of face every day. joanna was soon to marry a young village carpenter. malfada and jose himself could go to school again in the autumn. little tareja in a few years would also be able to go. and every day antonio told jose stories about the great world outside of portugal. antonio valued education more than ever, since his four years of life in america. he knew that it was too late for him to go to school again, because of his age and because of the need for him to work on the farm. but he talked with jose of the future when, if the boy turned out to be good at studies, he might go to the university at coimbra. and it happened in the years afterward, that jose did go to coimbra, and that the leader of the students who had stopped at the almaida farm for brôa and fruits on the august afternoon, was then a teacher at coimbra. of the money brought from america antonio had spent hardly any except that for farm tools and implements. the rest of the money, a good round sum for a young portuguese farmer, was in the bank at guimarães. once a month, now, antonio added a few dollars to this--not half nor quarter as much as he might have had in america, but although a man earns less in portugal, living costs less there. with this money, and with what he would add to it in the future, antonio planned to pay for jose's education, and some time soon it would make him able to build near his father's, a new home where he could bring inez castillo as his bride. if antonio and jose have hot summers of sixteen hours' work daily to toil through, they have no great severity of winter weather to bear. if their summer days bring more than common heat and weariness, they find rest during the cool, pleasant nights. in the summer and winter evenings alike, father, mother and children find quiet enjoyment together, and always, best of all, they have the power to enjoy simple things "in measureless content." meanwhile jose and malfada, with many other portuguese children, are eagerly gaining education in the bettered schools which are a part of portugal's new government. the end. books for young people the little colonel books (trade mark) _by annie fellows johnston_ _each 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth, illustrated, per vol._ $1.50 the little colonel stories (trade mark) being three "little colonel" stories in the cosy corner series, "the little 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"beautiful joe's paradise," "'tilda jane," etc. library 12mo, cloth decorative. illustrated by e. b. barry $1.50 here we have the haps and mishaps, the trials and triumphs, of a delightful new england family, of whose devotion and sturdiness it will do the reader good to hear. born to the blue. by florence kimball russel. 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.25 the atmosphere of army life on the plains breathes on every page of this delightful tale. the boy is the son of a captain of u. s. cavalry stationed at a frontier post in the days when our regulars earned the gratitude of a nation. in west point gray by florence kimball russel. 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 "singularly enough one of the best books of the year for boys is written by a woman and deals with life at west point. the presentment of life in the famous military academy whence so many heroes have graduated is realistic and enjoyable."--_new york sun._ the sandman: his farm stories by william j. hopkins. with fifty illustrations by ada clendenin williamson. large 12mo, decorative cover $1.50 "an amusing, original book, written for the benefit of very small children. it should be one of the most popular of the year's books for reading to small children."--_buffalo express._ the sandman: more farm stories by william j. hopkins. large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated $1.50 mr. hopkins's first essay at bedtime stories met with such approval that this second book of "sandman" tales was issued for scores of eager children. life on the farm, and out-of-doors, is portrayed in his inimitable manner. the sandman: his ship stories by william j. hopkins, author of "the sandman: his farm stories," etc. large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated $1.50 "children call for these stories over and over again."--_chicago evening post._ the sandman: his sea stories by william j. hopkins. large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated $1.50 each year adds to the popularity of this unique series of stories to be read to the little ones at bed time and at other times. a texas blue bonnet by emilia elliott. 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 this is the story of a warm-hearted, impulsive and breezy girl of the southwest, who has lived all her life on a big ranch. she comes to the far east for a long visit, and her experiences "up north" are indeed delightful reading. blue bonnet is sure to win the hearts of all girl readers. the doctor's little girl by marion ames taggart, author of "pussy-cat town," etc. one vol., library 12mo, illustrated $1.50 a thoroughly enjoyable tale of a little girl and her comrade father, written in a delightful vein of sympathetic comprehension of the child's point of view. sweet nancy the further adventures of the doctor's little girl. by marion ames taggart. one vol., library, 12mo, illustrated $1.50 in the new book, the author tells how nancy becomes in fact "the doctor's assistant," and continues to shed happiness around her. carlota a story of the san gabriel mission. by frances margaret fox. small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in colors by ethelind ridgway $1.00 "it is a pleasure to recommend this little story as an entertaining contribution to juvenile literature."--_the new york sun._ the seven christmas candles by frances margaret fox. small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in colors by e. b. barry $1.00 miss fox's new book deals with the fortunes of the delightful mulvaney children. seven little wise men by frances margaret fox. small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated in colors by e. b. barry $1.00 in this new story miss fox relates how seven little children, who lived in sunny california, prepared for the great christmas festival. pussy-cat town by marion ames taggart. small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in colors $1.00 "anything more interesting than the doings of the cats in this story, their humor, their wisdom, their patriotism, would be hard to imagine."--_chicago post._ the roses of saint elizabeth by jane scott woodruff. small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in colors by adelaide everhart $1.00 this is a charming little story of a child whose father was caretaker of the great castle of the wartburg. gabriel and the hour book by evaleen stein. small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in colors by adelaide everhart $1.00 gabriel was a loving, patient, little french lad, who assisted the monks in the long ago days, when all the books were written and illuminated by hand, in the monasteries. a little shepherd of provence by evaleen stein. small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated in colors by diantha horne marlowe $1.00 this is the story of little lame jean, a goatherd of provence, and of the "golden goat" who is supposed to guard a hidden treasure. the enchanted automobile translated from the french by mary j. safford. small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in colors by edna m. sawyer $1.00 "an up-to-date french fairy-tale which fairly radiates the spirit of the hour,--unceasing diligence."--_chicago record-herald._ o-heart-san the story of a japanese girl. by helen eggleston haskell. small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in colors by frank p. fairbanks $1.00 "the story comes straight from the heart of japan. from every page breathes the fragrance of tea leaves, cherry blossoms and chrysanthemums."--_the chicago inter-ocean._ the young section-hand; or, the adventures of allan west. by burton e. stevenson. square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 mr. stevenson's hero is a manly lad of sixteen, who is given a chance as a section-hand on a big western railroad, and whose experiences are as real as they are thrilling. the young train dispatcher. by burton e. stevenson. square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 "a better book for boys has never left an american press."--_springfield union._ the young train master. by burton e. stevenson. square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 "nothing better in the way of a book of adventure for boys in which the actualities of life are set forth in a practical way could be devised or written."--_boston herald._ captain jack lorimer. by winn standish. square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 jack is a fine example of the all-around american high-school boy. jack lorimer's champions; or, sports on land and lake. by winn standish. square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 "it is exactly the sort of book to give a boy interested in athletics, for it shows him what it means to always 'play fair.'"--_chicago tribune._ jack lorimer's holidays; or, millvale high in camp. by winn standish. illustrated $1.50 full of just the kind of fun, sports and adventure to excite the healthy minded youngster to emulation. jack lorimer's substitute; or, the acting captain of the team. by winn standish. illustrated $1.50 on the sporting side, this book takes up football, wrestling, tobogganing, but it is more of a _school_ story perhaps than any of its predecessors. the red feathers. by theodore roberts. cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 "the red feathers" tells of the remarkable adventures of an indian boy who lived in the stone age, many years ago, when the world was young. flying plover. by theodore roberts. cloth decorative. illustrated by charles livingston bull $1.00 squat-by-the-fire is a very old and wise indian who lives alone with her grandson, "flying plover," to whom she tells the stories each evening. comrades of the trails. by g. e. theodore roberts. cloth decorative. illustrated by charles livingston bull $1.50 the story of a fearless young english lad, dick ramsey, who, after the death of his father, crosses the seas and takes up the life of a hunter and trapper in the canadian forests. little white indians. by fannie e. ostrander. cloth decorative, illustrated $1.25 "a bright, interesting story which will appeal strongly to the 'make-believe' instinct in children, and will give them a healthy, active interest in 'the simple life.'" the boy who won by fannie e. ostrander, author of "little white indians." 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by r. farrington elwell $1.25 a companion volume to "little white indians" continuing the adventures of the different "tribes," whose "doings" were so interestingly told in the earlier volume. marching with morgan. how donald lovell became a soldier of the revolution. by john v. lane. cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 this is a splendid boy's story of the expedition of montgomery and arnold against quebec. * * * * * transcriber's note: punctuation errors were corrected without note. page 70, "guimãraes" changed to "guimarães" (to guimarães, where there) page 89, "a" changed to "á" changed to (á deus!) page a-4, subtitle of "prisoners of fortune" small-capped to match rest of usage in text. by linda cantoni. [transcriber's note: bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic text is surrounded by _underscores_.] our little spanish cousin the little cousin series [illustration] each volume illustrated with six or more full-page plates in tint. cloth, 12mo, with decorative cover, per volume, 60 cents. [illustration] list of titles by mary hazelton wade (unless otherwise indicated) =our little african cousin= =our little armenian cousin= =our little brown cousin= =our little canadian cousin= by elizabeth r. macdonald =our little chinese cousin= by isaac taylor headland =our little cuban cousin= =our little dutch cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little english cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little eskimo cousin= =our little french cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little german cousin= =our little hawaiian cousin= =our little indian cousin= =our little irish cousin= =our little italian cousin= =our little japanese cousin= =our little jewish cousin= =our little korean cousin= by h. lee m. pike =our little mexican cousin= by edward c. butler =our little norwegian cousin= =our little panama cousin= by h. lee m. pike =our little philippine cousin= =our little porto rican cousin= =our little russian cousin= =our little scotch cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little siamese cousin= =our little spanish cousin= by mary f. nixon-roulet =our little swedish cousin= by claire m. coburn =our little swiss cousin= =our little turkish cousin= [illustration] l. c. page & company new england building, boston, mass. [illustration: fernando and his donkey. (_see page 60._)] our little spanish cousin by mary f. nixon-roulet _author of "god, the king, my brother," "with a pessimist in spain," etc._ _illustrated by_ blanche mcmanus [illustration: spe labor levis] boston l. c. page & company _mdccccvi_ _copyright, 1906_ by l. c. page & company _all rights reserved_ first impression, july, 1906 _colonial press_ _electrotyped and printed by c. h. simonds & co._ _boston, u. s. a._ =to= paul and antoinette preface washed by the blue mediterranean and kissed by the warm southern sun, the iberian peninsula lies at the southwestern corner of europe. to this sunny land of spain we owe much, for, from its hospitable shores, aided by her generous queen, columbus sailed to discover that new world which is to-day our home. we should therefore be very friendly to the country which helped him, and american boys and girls should welcome the coming of our little spanish cousin. contents chapter page i. the christening 1 ii. school-days 10 iii. a visit to a hacienda 19 iv. at the alhambra 33 v. antonio's story 43 vi. the holidays 53 vii. easter in sevilla 65 viii. rainy days 74 ix. to the country 87 x. games and sports 96 xi. a tertulia 104 xii. viva el rey! 117 list of illustrations page fernando and his donkey (_see page 60_) _frontispiece_ "the owner pulled it up to her window again" 6 "they played hide and seek through the marble halls" 40 "all the people of the town who had such animals drove them down to the church to be blessed" 60 "their bodies swayed to and fro in time to the music" 71 "they went to the alcazar gardens" 84 our little spanish cousin chapter i. the christening one of the first things which fernando remembered was the christening of his little sister. he was five years old and had no other brother or sister to play with, for pablo, his wonderful big brother, was away at the naval school, and his older sister, augustia, was at school in the convent. when fernando's nurse told him that he had a little sister he was delighted, and begged to see her; and when all his relatives on both sides of the house came to see the baby christened, he was still more pleased. fernando was a little spanish boy, and in his country a great deal is thought of kinsfolk, for the spanish are very warm-hearted and affectionate. so fernando was glad to see all his aunts and uncles and cousins and all the friends who happened to be visiting them at the time. fernando's father, the señor don juan de guzman, was a courtly gentleman, and he bowed low over the ladies' hands, and said, "the house is yours, señora!" to each one; so, as boys generally copy their fathers, fernando assured his little cousins that he "placed himself at their feet," and welcomed them just as politely as his father had the older folk. what a wonderful time he had that day! first came the christening in the great cathedral which towers above granada, and in which lie buried the king and queen, ferdinand and isabella, in whose reign columbus sailed away from spain to discover america. the cathedral was so grand that it always made fernando feel very strange and quiet, and he thought it was shocking that the baby cried when the priest poured water on her and baptized her, maria dolores concepcion isabel inez juanita. this seems a long name for such a tiny little mite, but there was a reason for every single name, and not one could be left out. nearly all spanish children are named maria, whether boys or girls, because the spaniards are devoted to the virgin mary, and as the baby was born on the feast of the immaculate conception, she was called concepcion. isabel was for her aunt, and inez was for her godmother, and juanita for her father. her name did not seem at all long to fernando, for his name was fernando antonio maria allegria francisco ruy guzman y ximenez. every one called him fernando or nando, and his long name had troubled him but once in all his gay little life. that time he had been naughty and had run away from his _aya_, the nurse who always watches little spanish children like a faithful dog, and he had fallen into the deep ditch beside the great aloe hedge. the aloes are stalwart plants with long leaves, wide-extending and saw-toothed, and they are often planted close together so as to make hedgerows through which cattle cannot pass. the leaves of the aloe are sometimes a yard long, and they are very useful. from them are made strong cords, and also the _alpagatas_, or sandals, which the peasants wear; and the fibres of the leaf are separated from the pulp and made into many things to wear. the central stem of the aloe grows sometimes twenty feet high, and it has a number of stems on the ends of which grow yellow flowers. the leaves are a bluish-green in colour, and look like long blue swords. the long hedgerows look very beautiful against the soft blue of the spanish sky, but little fernando did not see anything pretty in them as he lay at the bottom of the ditch, roaring lustily. "who's there?" demanded an american gentleman, who was travelling in spain, as he came along on the other side of the hedge, and fernando replied, "fernando antonio maria allegria francisco ruy guzman y ximenez!" "if there's so many of you i should think you could help each other out," said the american, and when he finally extricated one small boy he laughed heartily, and said, as he took fernando home: "i should think a name like that would topple you over." after that fernando always called americans "the people who laugh." after the baby was christened, they went home through the narrow streets of the quaint old town. all the horses wore bells, and, as they trotted along, the tinkle, tinkle sounded like sleighing-time in america. the reason for this is that in many places the streets are too narrow for two carriages to pass, and the bells give warning that a vehicle is coming, so that the one coming from the opposite direction may find a wide spot in the road, and there wait till the other carriage has passed. [illustration: "the owner pulled it up to her window again."] as the christening party went toward the home of fernando, it passed a man driving two or three goats, and he stopped in front of a house, from a window of which was let down a string and a pail. into this the man looked, and taking out a piece of money which lay in the bottom, he milked the pail full from one of the goats, and the owner pulled it up to her window again. it seems a strange way to get your morning's milk, but it is sure to be fresh and sweet, right from the goat, and there is no chance to put water in it, as milkmen sometimes do in america. the houses fernando passed were all painted in many soft colours, and they had charming little iron balconies, to some of which palm branches were fastened, blessed palms from the church at holy week, which the spaniards believe will keep lightning from striking the house. fernando's house was much larger than the rest, for his father was a noble of one of the oldest families in spain, whose ancestors had done many splendid things for the state in the olden times. the house had several balconies, from which hung down long sprays of blossoms, for every balcony railing was filled with flower-pots. there grew vines and flowers, nasturtiums, hyacinths, wallflowers, pinks and violets, their sweet scents filling the air. when the christening party entered the house, the baby was borne off to the nursery, and fernando, no longer a baby, but a big boy with a baby sister, was allowed to go with the rest to the _patio_, where breakfast was served. the _patio_ is one of the most charming things about the real spanish houses. it is a court in the centre of the house, larger than an ordinary room, with a marble floor and a huge awning which protects from the sun, yet leaves the _patio_ open to the fresh air and sweet scents of the sunny out-of-doors. all the family gather in the _patio_, and it is the favourite lounging-place for old and young. in the _patio_ of the señor guzman's house were orange-trees and jasmine, and all colours of violets bloomed around the marble rim of the fountain, which was in the centre. what a wonderful thing that christening feast was to fernando! there was much laughing and talking, and such good things to eat! when all were through eating, little juanita's health was drunk, and her godfather proposed her health, and recited a poem he had composed in her honour. "queridita ahijada! plague alecielo qui tu vida sea feliz y placentera cual arroyo cristalino qui atra viesa la pradera su padrino, francesco."[1] this very much delighted every one, and so with laughter and merriment the christening feast was over. footnote: [1] "please god, my little godchild, that your life as pure may be as the laughing brook which through the valley, runneth ever limpidly. your godfather francesco wishes fervently." chapter ii. school-days when fernando was seven years old he began to go to school. little juanita cried bitterly, for she was devoted to the big brother who played such lovely games with her, and she did not like to think of his being away from her nearly all day. however, she was told that fernando was a big boy now, and that before long she would be having a governess to teach her to read and embroider, so she stopped crying very quickly, for she was a sunny little child, and went to picking flowers in the garden quite contentedly. how grown up fernando felt! to be a real schoolboy! his school-days were all alike. he arose at half-past seven, when the church-bells were ringing for the daily service; he had a bath, said his prayers, and dressed himself very neatly, for he had first to be looked over by his _aya_, and then inspected by his mamma, to see if he could pass muster, and was clean and neat as a little spanish gentleman should be. mamma being satisfied with his appearance, he gave her his morning kiss, and greeted the rest of the family. then followed breakfast,--a simple, wholesome meal of _semula_, or gruel and warm milk, with bread and honey and eggs. after a run in the garden, the _ayo_, or preceptor, called to take him to school. fernando skipped happily away to study until twelve o'clock, when dinner was served to the day boarders, a dinner of soup, vegetables, and dessert, with a little playtime afterward. spanish boys do not take tea or coffee until they are grown up. at half-past four the boys are turned out of school, and then comes the delight of the day to fernando. his _ayo_ has disappeared, and in his stead has come manuel, his own man, who tells such delightful stories of knights and warriors and the glories of spain, and who thinks that all his little master does is perfect. manuel knows all about the city, and he is willing to take fernando any place he wishes to go, provided it is a fit place for a boy of rank. he knows just where the marionettes are playing, and if there is a gay crowd on the square, a trained bear or a funny little monkey, he will be sure to have heard about it, and take fernando to see it. if there is no special excitement, manuel takes him to the _paseo_, where all the boys of the town gather. here they play in mimic battles and bull-fights, and fernando enters into everything with delight, until manuel thinks it is time for the señora, his mother, to pass by in the carriage. how delighted the little boy is to see her, and how his tongue rattles as he tells her all the events of the day, as he rides home with her through the long soft twilight of the soft spanish night! how good his supper tastes, a simple little supper of chocolate, rich and dark, white bread and golden honey, with some little iced cakes, which dear old dolores, the cook, has made for the little master. all the servants love fernando dearly, for though he has a hot temper, and sometimes is very wilful, he is so loving that they do not mind his naughtiness. after supper fernando says the rosary with his _aya_, goes over his lessons a little, and then tumbles into bed in a happy slumber. all his days are very much alike, for spanish children are brought up very simply, and have little excitement, though they have many pleasures. there are little visits paid to aunts and cousins, visits remembered not too pleasantly by the pet dog and parrot of his aunt. the parrot was brought from cuba by uncle enrico, the priest. the bird knows fernando well, and scolds terribly in most unchurchly language every time he approaches the cage. the french poodle, too, does not greatly care for a visit from fernando, for the boy cannot help teasing, and the fat, stupid dog, his aunt isabel's darling, does nothing but lie around on silken cushions and eat comfits. fernando likes animals, and would never really hurt one, but there is something in the calm self-satisfaction of beppino which stirs up all the mischief in him, and aunt isabel has been heard to exclaim: "fernando will be my death! he is a dear boy, and if it came to choosing between him and beppo, i am quite sure that i would take my nephew, but, thank heaven, i have not to choose!" fernando's own dog was different. he found him one day close by the garden railing, a poor, ragged fellow, lean and hungry, with a lame foot, but a pair of pleading and wistful brown eyes, which, with all their misery, had yet a look of good-fellowship within them which appealed to fernando's gay nature, as the pitiful plight of the little fellow appealed to his tender heart. the dog put a pink tongue through the railing and licked fernando's hand, and that clinched the bargain. henceforth the two were friends. fernando persuaded manuel to bathe and tie up the wounded foot, and feed the puppy. that was all the boy dared at first, but the next day he found the dog in the same place and fed him again. every day after that the little tramp followed him to school, and when school was over his yellow-haired dogship awaited his benefactor. manuel winked at the friendship, and allowed mazo, as fernando called him, to have many a good meal at the garden gate. manuel was a great stickler for the proprieties, but he had been a boy once, and there were some things that fernando's lady mother would not at all have comprehended, that good old manuel understood perfectly. mazo was far more interesting to fernando than the thoroughbred, ladylike pets of his mother, and it was a sore subject with him that mazo, who was so clever, who could whip the tramp dogs of any of his school friends, should be kept outside the house. his mother did not seem to realize that mazo's fighting qualities were what made him valuable. one fatal day, when she had driven to the _paseo_ a little earlier than usual, and had seen a fight between mazo and another little dog, equally disreputable, she had cried out: "fernando, come away from that ferocious beast! he must be mad!" and she had seemed anything but reassured when fernando had tried to calm her by saying: "but, mamma, he is not mad; i know him well; he is the gentlest of beings, and he can whip any dog in the _paseo_," the pride of possession getting the better of prudence. thereafter manuel was most careful of mazo's appearance. he captured him and washed him, and let him sleep in a shed at night, and by degrees the little fellow lost his trampish appearance, and became a semi-respectable member of society, though still ready to follow fernando like a shadow, to fight at his will, and to share with him an excursion into forbidden lands. it was really droll to see the different airs which mazo could assume. he had ever an eye upon his audience, having early learned in the hard school of misfortune that his comfort depended not at all upon himself, but upon the humour of those about him. with the outside world his look was wary. with the family of his master he was apologetic. his brown eye seemed to say: "i place myself at your feet, most noble señors; i pray you excuse me for living." but with fernando, while it was tempered with respect, his air was one of good-fellowship alone. even the señora herself, the head of the house and authority in chief, as is the case in all spanish households, came to regard fernando's dog with a degree of friendliness, and finding this out, the servants treated him kindly, and mazo decided that his lines had fallen in pleasant places. upon this, however, he never presumed. he knew not how long it would last, but felt that he was upon good behaviour. he restrained his desire to chase juanita's pet cat, and to bark when the parrot imitated his barking, though the restraint put upon himself must have been severe, for he made up for it when out with manuel and fernando. then he was himself again, mazo the tramp. chapter iii. a visit to a hacienda one day in october, when the sun was shining in golden beauty, the señora said to her husband: "i should like to go to the _hacienda_ to-morrow, and take the children with me, for _la niña_ has never seen the picking, and fernando did not go last year or the year before." "it will give me pleasure to escort you," said the señor de guzman, in the courtly manner which spanish gentlemen use toward their wives. "at what hour will it please you to start?" "as early as you can," she answered. "so that we may arrive there in plenty of time to see the picking before luncheon, and after a siesta, drive back in the pleasant part of the afternoon." "we shall start at nine, then," said her husband, "and should arrive there by ten or a little after." when fernando returned from school and heard that he was to accompany his mother next day, he was nearly beside himself with joy. "juanita," he cried, "you have no idea how delightful it is at the fruit farm! i have not been there for two years, but i remember it well. all the oranges one can eat, and such raisins! you will much enjoy it, i am sure." he was up bright and early next day, and impatient to start long before his mother was ready, and even his father was waiting before the señora made her appearance. she was a large woman, and very slow and graceful in her movements. no one had ever seen her hurried, and every one expected to wait for her, so that it was nearly half-past nine when they started. the coachman whipped up the horses, and away they went skimming over the rough stones. fernando sat with diego and manuel on the front seat of the carriage, while dolores sat beside the señora, holding juanita on her lap. the señor rode upon his high-stepping andalusian horse beside the carriage, and pointed out places of interest to the children as they drove along. a gay young officer passed by them, young and slim, riding a handsome horse, and some soldiers were manoeuvring on the plaza. one poor fellow, once a gay soldier, but now with an empty sleeve, dressed in a faded army blouse and wearing a merit medal, was begging in the street, and the señor stopped to give him a piece of silver, for spaniards are always generous and pitiful, and cannot resist a beggar. "he had served in cuba," said the señor to his wife, and she sighed as she thought of the many lost to spain and their dear ones in that useless war. fruit-venders passed along the street, and donkeys so laden with fruit and flowers that almost nothing could be seen of them but their slim little legs and their great waving ears. water-carriers were there, carrying huge jars which looked like those used by the old moors; and a travelling merchant, in gray garments, but with brightly dressed mules. it was not so bright a party that they passed later, for a peasant funeral passed by on its way to the cemetery. four young men carried the bier, upon which was the body of a child, covered all but its face, which lay exposed to the sun. "take off your hat, son," said the señora. "always do so to a passing funeral, for maybe yours will be the last salute the dead will receive on earth." no sooner was the funeral passed than there came a straw and charcoal merchant, crying, "_paja! carbon! cabrito!_" so many people in granada have no way to warm themselves except by the _brazero_, in which charcoal is burnt, that there is great need for the charcoal man, and he drives a brisk trade. next they saw a priest on a sick call, for he bore the blessed sacrament. a crowd of ragged urchins stopped in their play to kneel as he passed, and fernando and his father raised their hats. by this time, the carriage had reached the outskirts of the city, and the road wound along the banks of the darro, a rushing stream which gushes out of a deep mountain gorge, and passes through the town. its banks are lined with quaint old houses, leaning far over the river, and fernando saw women there, washing their linen in the water, and spreading their clothes on the stones to dry. outside of the town their way lay along the beautiful vega, which stretches beyond granada, in green and fertile loveliness, to the far-away hills. crossed by two rivers, the darro and genil, the plain is dotted with whitewashed villas, nestling like birds in the soft green of the olive and orange trees. sloping gradually to the mountains above, the vega is green as emerald, and truly a fair sight beneath the turquoise sky, and the mother-of-pearl of the snowy mountains. fernando's father owned large estates upon the hillsides, and raised oranges and grapes. the last were used for raisins, the grapes from which the finest wine is made, the _amontillado_, for which spain is so famous, not reaching their greatest perfection in this part of the land. in an hour they reached the farm and drove down the long lane which led to the house. the _hacienda_ of santa eulalia was a large, low building, with a broad porch and a tangle of vines and roses climbing over it. huge trees spread their arms over the roof, and from the balcony one could see groves of cypress-trees, pines, oaks, and poplars, beyond the fruit-trees, and, above all, the rose-coloured peaks of the sierras. upon the slope of the hill, as it fell away toward granada, were the grape-vines, with huge clusters of grapes, purple, white, and red, weighing down the vines. there were, too, terraces where the raisins dried; and nearer the house were the drying-sheds, where an army of packers pressed the raisins under boards, and carefully sorted them before packing. the vineyards were beautiful, but even more so were the orange groves, and one who has seen a grove in full fruit never forgets the beautiful sight. the trees are deep green in colour, and full of leaves, many of them bearing at the same time flowers and green and ripe fruit. the children were wild with delight, and ran about eager to see the picking and sorting of the fine fruit, for the oranges of santa eulalia were famous for size and quality. the trees grew rather low to the ground, and were covered with fruit which the pickers were gathering. ladders were put up to the lower branches, and each picker carried a basket swung to his neck by a cord. he carefully picked the oranges, one at a time, and dropped them in his basket, and so expert were many of them that it seemed as if they had scarcely mounted the ladder before the basket was full. many young girls were employed as pickers, and they were particularly skilful, vying with the men in their swiftness. very gay were their voices, and merry jest and song enlivened the work, until it seemed as if it were not work but play. fernando and juanita hopped about like little rabbits, eating the fruit which rolled to the ground, for often the golden globes fell from the trees, as they were shaken by the picking. when the baskets were filled, the oranges were carried to the sheds and left overnight to harden the skins a little, when each orange was wrapped in soft tissue-paper. for this are employed young boys and girls, and very expert they grow in the wrapping of the oranges, each one being properly wrapped with but a twist of the hand. the next thing is the packing, and the oranges are stored away in wooden boxes, and are ready to be shipped to market. the children ate so many oranges that they scarcely wanted any of the luncheon prepared for them at the _hacienda_. there was an omelet with green peppers, a delicious salad, some fowl, and tiny round potato balls, all sprinkled over with chopped parsley, with a huge dish of oranges and grapes for dessert. the señora insisted upon a little siesta after luncheon, but fernando's eyes were so wide open that he could not close them as he swung to and fro in the great hammock between two orange-trees in front of the house. he was delighted when his father sat down beside him, in one of the big easy chairs, and said: "you look to me like a boy who would like to hear a story." "indeed i would; please tell me one," said fernando. "have you ever heard about the judges of pedro the cruel?" "no, papa," said fernando, all interest. "a long time ago, there ruled over andalusia a king named pedro, and he was so disliked by his subjects, and did so many wicked things, that he was called pedro the cruel. he lived in the city of sevilla, and though he was cruel, and often heartless, still he had a strong sense of justice, which would not allow the common people to be badly treated. he found out one day that four of his judges had been cheating the people and taking bribes, and he determined to teach them a lesson. he went to his favourite gardens, those of the alcazar, and sent for the judges to come to him there. it is a wonderful place even to-day, and then it must have been very beautiful. huge banana-trees waved their rough green leaves above the tangled beauty of the flower-beds, where jasmine and violets and roses grew in profusion. in the midst was a fountain, and don pedro knelt beside it, smiling wickedly as he placed upon the perfumed waters, five oranges cut in halves, and placed flat-side down. the reflection was so perfect that any one would be deceived, and think they were whole oranges floating upon the water. "'how many oranges are there here?' asked the king, smiling genially, and the judges replied: "'ten, may it please your gracious majesty.' "'nay, but it does not please my gracious majesty to have four fools for judges,' he said. 'liars! can you not see that there are but five?' and he raised two of the halves and held them together. 'know, oh, unjust judges,' he said, sternly, 'that the king's servants must see more than the surface of things if they are to conduct that portion of the realm which it is their business to attend to, and since you cannot tell a half from a whole, perchance that is the reason of the tales i hear of your ill-dealings with the property of some of my subjects!' "he ordered them to be beheaded and their places filled with better men, and the poor people whom they had defrauded had their property restored to them. there are many other stories of king pedro which are not pleasant to tell, and it is good to remember that he sometimes did kind things." "thank you," said fernando. "what is the alcazar where the gardens were?" "it is a very remarkable place, and when you go to sevilla you will see it. at first, hundreds of years ago, when the romans were in spain, it was the house of cæsar; afterward the moors turned it into a fortress, and it is a perfect example of moorish work. don pedro rebuilt it, and spent a great deal of money upon it, making it the most beautiful palace in all spain. all manner of things happened there, among them the murder of don pedro's half-brother, don fadrique, who he was afraid would lay claim to the throne. "but here come your mother and juanita, and i think your rest time is about over. go and play, and tell manuel we return at four o'clock, so you must be on time." so fernando spent a delightful afternoon in the orange grove, and drove home through the cool twilight, passing the _paseo_ just as the band was playing the _marche real_, the national song, which he hummed until he went to bed. [illustration: music] chapter iv. at the alhambra "_mi madre_," cried fernando, rushing into the house one day in october, "to-day is the feast-day of the head master, and we have a holiday. may i have permission to go to the hill to see antonio?" "not by yourself, my son," replied his mother, and fernando said, hastily, "oh, no, _madre mia_, manuel says that he will take me if you will permit me, and, if juanita's nurse could be spared, we could take the _niña_, as she has never been there, and that would give her pleasure." "let me see," his mother paused a moment, "the day is fine. this morning i am busy, but after luncheon i will drive thither with the little one, and leave you for an hour while i go on to the villa of the señora sanchez; but you must be a good boy, and mind manuel." "yes, mother, and you will see antonio, whom i like best of all the boys at school," said fernando, and he hastened away to make ready for the great treat. a drive with his mother in school hours was a pleasure seldom indulged in, and a visit to the great hill which crowns granada was treat enough, but to take juanita,--these were things so pleasant that he said to himself, "i think my guardian angel must have whispered in my mother's ear to give me all this pleasure." it was about two o'clock as they drove through the narrow streets of the city up the steep and hilly way which led to the outskirts of the town. "you are going to see the nicest boy in granada, and the most wonderful castle in spain, _niña_," said fernando to juanita, and the two children chattered merrily as the carriage went slowly up the hill. "here is a riddle i heard at school, _niña_, see if you can guess it,- "'guarded in a prison strait, ivory gaolers round her wait, venomous snake of sanguine hue, mother of all the lies that brew!'" "i do not know," said his little sister, wonderingly. she thought all that fernando said and did was perfection. "what is it, nando?" "why, the tongue, of course," he said, pleased to have given a riddle which she could not guess; and his mother said: "that is a very good riddle, and i hope you will remember it, for it is the tongue which makes much mischief in this world. remember that 'a stone and a word flung do not return.'" "there is mazo following us," said juanita, and her mother said, laughingly, "really, fernando, i don't see why you like that dog so much! he is uglier than picio."[2] "he isn't handsome, but you have told me that handsome is as handsome does!" said her son, and his mother laughed again. "oh, what is that?" cried juanita, as the carriage made a turn, and some splendid great towers came into view. "that is the alhambra," said fernando. "it is the most wonderful castle in spain. manuel said it was begun in 1238, in the reign of the moorish king, ibn-l-ahmar, and it was years and years in building. he says the moors used to have the castle and the city of granada, and i read in my history of how the catholic king, ferdinand, came here to conquer it. he fought and fought, but the moors wouldn't give it up. i think they were a brave people, if they were beaten, don't you?" "yes, my son, they were very brave, but they did such cruel things to the captives they took, that it is not surprising that the spaniards wanted to conquer them," said his mother. "they captured christian girls, and forced them to become their wives, though what they wanted with them i cannot see, for they already had many wives, and i should think one was enough for any man. where shall we find your friend, fernando? if you wish i will leave you with him for an hour, and continue my drive." "oh, thank you, mother, i knew you would let me stay!" cried fernando; and juanita said, "please leave me, too, mother, that i may see antonio and the great palace." "antonio lives within the palace, mamma," said fernando. "he was born there, and he and his sister, pepita, have never been away. he is to go to the english school at gibraltar, but not until he is bigger. may we ask some one where he is?" "certainly. he must be a nice boy to have lived always in such a place, and to have you so devoted to him. there is a guard; ask him where the apartments of the boy's father are," she said to manuel, who sat upon the box with the coachman. further inquiry, however, was not necessary, for, as the carriage made its way up the broad drive shaded with magnificent elm-trees, which the duke of wellington planted, a boy came bounding toward them. "there he is," cried fernando. "antonio, come here, we have come to see you." the carriage stopped, and fernando hopped out as lightly as a squirrel, giving antonio a good hug, for spanish boys are never ashamed of showing that they like their friends. antonio's cap was off in a trice and he smiled and bowed as fernando presented him to his mother and little sister. antonio was a handsome boy, with eyes as dark and blue as the sapphire of the spanish skies, and fair hair tossed back from an open brow. all spaniards are not dark, and, in andalusia, the province in which granada lies, there are many blonds. "i will leave fernando and juanita with you for a visit," said the señora, graciously. "will you bring them here in an hour?" "_si_, señora," said antonio. "but if you would so honour us, the señora, my mother has prepared a little luncheon in the garden of lindaraya at four o'clock, and she would be most happy if you would partake of it with us." "thank you, then i shall allow the children to remain with you until that time and i shall myself prolong my visit with my friends at the villa," she replied. "when i return i shall do myself the pleasure of meeting your mother." [illustration: "they played hide and seek through the marble halls."] so she drove off, and the children tripped happily away, followed closely by manuel and dolores, for spanish little ones of good family are never allowed to go about alone. however, one must relax a little sometimes, and the two attendants saw a pleasant hour before them as they sat idly about while the children played in the wonderful gardens of the palace. pepita, antonio's sister, was but a year older than juanita, and the two little girls were quite happy together, and the boys did not consider themselves too big to play with them. they played hide and seek through the marble halls, and tag and chaser about the flower beds. the little girls played house and made mud pies, although dolores objected to this and told juanita that she would be as dirty as the "_caseada de burguillos_"[3] if she were not more careful. juanita thought pepita was wonderful because she had been born in a palace, and her father was custodian of the wonderful place, but it was antonio who claimed her greatest admiration. he was even more marvellous than fernando, she almost thought, because he was bigger, and his eyes had such a kind and merry look, and he always carried her over the rough places in his strong young arms, and lifted her over the walls as they strolled through the gardens. she had never seen such gardens as these of the alhambra. they were full of the most beautiful flowers, and there was the most delicious scent in the air. antonio told her it was from the wallflowers, which grew here in great profusion, and were twice as large as they were in other places. but besides them there were great trees of purple heliotrope, the blooms as large around as juanita's big hat; and geranium-trees, taller than a man, with orange-trees in bloom, late though it was, and with the ripe fruit upon their branches also. then the children had a charming luncheon on the grass, for antonio's mother set forth for them all manner of good things,--a dainty salad with some cold meat, thick chocolate in tiny cups, and cakes in the daintiest of shapes. what a merry picnic it was beneath the shade of the great orange-tree which antonio told them had been there for over a hundred years, and from which the great american, washington irving, had picked fruit when he lived at the alhambra! then when the party was over, and his mother had not come, fernando said: "antonio, tell us a story. you know some about the castle, i am sure." and little juanita begged, "do please tell us one, antonio," and as nobody could ever resist the _niña's_ wistful, brown eyes, antonio smilingly began the story of "the three sisters." footnotes: [2] picio was a man so ugly that his name has passed into a proverb in spain. [3] the "housewife of burguillos," who prided herself on her neatness, yet who was seen to spit in her frying-pan to see if it was hot enough. chapter v. antonio's story "once upon a time," antonio began, "there were in the palace of the alhambra three princesses whose names were zayde, zorayde and zorahayda. they were daughters of the sultan, for it was in the days when the moors reigned in granada, and there were no christians here but captive spaniards. the princesses were kept in a tower called the tower of the infantas, one of the most beautiful towers of the alhambra. it was fitted up in a manner befitting the home of the king's daughters. the walls of the room were hung with tapestries in cloth of gold and royal blue; the divans were heaped high with pillows, the pillars and arches which held up the roof itself, were in filigree of softest hues,--blue, terra-cotta, and gold. the princess zayde's chamber was the richest, all in cloth of gold, since she was the eldest infanta; that of zorayde was hung with steel mirrors, burnished bright, for she was most fair to look upon and loved to look upon herself; while that of the youngest, little brown-eyed princess zorahayda, was delicate in tone, as if some rare jewel lay in a dainty casket. upon the princesses waited the discreet kadiga, an elderly duenna who never let them from her sight for a moment. she watched them as a cat does a mouse, but there was one thing she could not control, and that was the eyes of the princesses. they would look forth from the windows, and, indeed, this kadiga never forbade, for it seemed to her a pity that three such fair maidens should have so little amusement, and she thought it could not possibly hurt them to gaze into the gardens below. "one day, while the princesses were looking out the narrow windows, they saw something which made them look and look again. yes, it was true,--could it be? it _was_! they were the very same--the three christian princes whom they had seen at salobrena; but here they were labouring as captives. at the tourney to which the princesses had been taken, they had seen these noble knights, and had fallen in love with them, and it was for this that their father had shut them up in a tower, for he had said no daughter of his should marry a christian. "but the knights thought differently, and they had come to granada in the hope of finding their princesses, and had been taken captive and were compelled to hard labour. "'it is he!' cried zayde. 'the knight with the scarlet tunic is the one i saw!' "'yes, but the one in blue, he is mine!' cried zorayde. "little zorahayda said nothing, but she looked with all her eyes at the third knight. and this was not the last time she saw him, for the knights had come thither, bent on rescuing the maidens, and had bribed their jailer to help them to escape. so one moonlight night, when the moon was turning into silver beauty the orange-trees of the garden, and shining in fullest light into the deep ravine below the tower of the infantas, the knights awaited their lady-loves in the valley below, and kadiga let them down by a rope-ladder. "all escaped in safety but little zorahayda, and she feared to go. "'leave me,' she cried. 'i must not leave my father!' and at last, since they could not persuade her to go, they rode sadly away without her, and her little white hand waved a sad farewell to them from the window. there she still is, so say the legends, and there are those who, walking in these gardens at midnight, tell that they have seen a white hand wave from the tower window, and a voice whisper through the murmur of the fountains, '_ay di mi zorahayda!_'" "oh, antonio! hast thou seen her?" cried juanita, and her brother laughed, and said: "little foolish one, it is but a story! but antonio, tell us a tale of battle, for this is but a woman's story, and there have been splendid deeds done in this old castle." "splendid ones, and sorry ones as well," said antonio, who was old for his twelve years, and had lived so long in the atmosphere of romance that he seemed a part of it, in speech and manners. "shall i tell you of the taking of the alhambra from the moors? it was a glorious fight, and both sides were brave men." then he told them of the conquest of granada, when christian knight and moor fought valiantly for the possession of the splendid city, with its gem, the alhambra. he told of how the noble knight, juan de véga, was sent to demand tribute from muley ben hassan, king of granada, and that fierce old monarch said: "return to your sovereigns, o spaniard, and tell them that the kings of granada who paid tribute are all dead. my mint coins only swords!" brave words, but it was his son, boabdil the unlucky, who was forced to surrender the castle to the victorious enemy, and who handed the keys to the spaniards, as he rode through the gate of the siete suelos, saying: "go, possess these fortresses which allah has taken from me, but grant me this one boon, that none other shall pass under this gateway from which i have come out." and ferdinand granted his request and walled up the gate, so that, from that day to this, no one has passed through that entrance. these and other tales antonio told them, and the afternoon passed so quickly that the children were surprised when their mother's voice warned them that it was time to go home. "oh, mamma," they cried, "must we go?" and the señora smilingly waited a little, chatting with antonio's mother, while he picked a huge bunch of flowers for the children to carry away with them. then the good-byes were said, and they drove away crying: "come soon to see us, antonio." to which he replied, in pleasant spanish fashion: "thank you well, and very much for your visit!" "isn't he a nice boy?" said juanita. "quite a little don," her mother answered, smiling. "fernando, i am glad to see that you have the sense to choose your friends so well," and fernando grinned, boylike, well pleased. "oh, who is that?" juanita asked, as a fantastic figure approached. "that is the gipsy king," said her mother. "you know the gipsies live all huddled together there, below the alhambra, and they have a chief whom they call king. they are a lazy set, doing little but thieving and telling fortunes. they live in little burrows, like rabbits, set into the hillsides, and there are pigs, goats, and dogs all living together with the people." "that girl with the king is very pretty," said fernando, "with her black hair and eyes, and her bright skirts, and the pomegranate flower behind her ear." "the pomegranate is the flower of granada, you know," said his mother, "and it does look pretty in her dark hair. hear her call her dogs! gipsy dogs are all named melampo, cubilon, or lubina, after the shepherd dogs who followed the shepherds, and saw our lord at bethlehem. ah, juanita, '_jesus, maria y josef!_' you must not sneeze! drive faster, diego, and dolores, wrap the baby in that palencian blanket, so soft and warm. the nights grow cool quickly at this time of year." "why do we always say '_jesus, maria y josef!_' when people sneeze?" asked fernando. "it has been the custom so long that people have almost forgotten why it is done," replied his mother; "but i remember my grandmother saying once that her mother told her the reason. years and years ago, in 1580, there was in all andalusia a terrible plague called the _mosquillo_. people sneezed once, and lo! they had the plague, and little could save them, though some few recovered. so it grew to be the custom, when one sneezed, for those who heard him to look pityingly upon him and say, '_dios le ayude_,'[4] or call upon the holy names to help him, saying, '_jesus, maria y josef._'"[5] "see that ragged beggar, mamma," said juanita. "may we not give him something?" as a little boy came hopping along beside the carriage, crying, lustily: "_una limosna por el amor de dios,[6] señora!_" "i have no _centimos_,"[7] said the señora, "and it is not wise to give more to a beggar, but you can always give politeness, _niña_, and when you have no money say, '_perdone me, usted_,'[8] or, '_por el amor de dios,_'[9] and thus you will not give offence to god's poor." footnotes: [4] "god help him." [5] "jesus, mary, and joseph." [6] "an alms for the love of god." [7] coppers. [8] "pardon me, your grace." [9] "for the love of god." chapter vi. the holidays fernando had been three months in school and was beginning to grow tired, when it came time for the feast of christmas, and he was very happy in the thought of all he was to do and see during his holiday. he and juanita were very much excited in preparing their _nacimento_, which nearly every spanish child has at christmas time. this is a plaster representation of the birth of christ. there are in it many figures, a manger surrounded with greens, the baby our lord, st. joseph, and the blessed virgin, the wise men worshipping the holy child, and angels hovering near, as well as the patient ox and ass who were his first worshippers. juanita was wild with excitement as these were all grouped and set in place. she was only four and did not well remember the christmas before, so that it was all new to her. christmas eve there was a grand family party, all the relatives coming to the home of fernando and partaking of a supper of sweetmeats and wine. in the morning there was, of course, early mass in the great cathedral, where the choir sang divinely. it started way up in the loft to sing the _adeste fideles_, the church's christmas hymn for centuries, slowly coming nearer and nearer; and juanita thought it was an angel choir until she saw it come into sight and the glorious voices rolled forth in a volume of song. then the children had breakfast and they made their _aguinaldo_, for every servant on the place expected a present as surely as did the old darkies of southern days. the postman, the errand boy, the porter, the _sereno_ who walks the street all night with his lantern, trying your door to see if it is locked properly, and assuring you that all is well as the hours strike,--all must be remembered. then the señora took the carriage, and the children accompanied her, as she filled it with sweetmeats for the poor children and such of her special protégés as could not come to the house for their _aguinaldo_. it was a cold day, for granada grows cold in the winter time, and is not like other spanish cities, which have summer all the year. the wind sweeps down from the sierras and brings with it a blustering hint of mountain snows; and as the houses have no furnaces and seldom good stoves to heat them, even the rich can suffer, and the poor do suffer bitterly. while the sun shines it matters not, for the sun of andalusia is so warm and bright that it blesses all who lie beneath it; but when the dark days come or evening's mantle falls upon the town, people hover close about the _brazero_ and long for summer. with fernando it mattered little, for he was seldom still enough to be cold, and he spent a merry christmas, falling asleep to dream of delightful things, and waking to the happy thought that it would soon be the feast of the circumcision. this is new year's day, and is celebrated with much festivity in spain. the evening before there is a grand party for the grown-ups, and slips of paper are passed around, one being drawn by each person. they are in pairs, so that the one who draws number one must go to supper with number one, and great merriment is made over the pairing off of the guests. the gentleman has to send a bunch of flowers or sweets to the lady whose number he draws, and not a few matches have been made in spain by this merry custom. fernando and juanita, however, were quite otherwise engaged. they were sent early to bed and were dreaming of the sugar-plums of the morrow, wondering whom they would first meet, for they think in spain that what happens to you on new year's day will determine the course of the whole year. if you meet a pauper you will have bad luck, but if you see a man with gold in his pocket, you will have money all the year. merrier still was the feast of the three kings, which is the day upon which little spanish children have gifts made them as american children do at christmas. this is in honour of the wise men having brought presents to our lord on that day, so that on the eve of january sixth, the feast of the epiphany, fernando and juanita set their little shoes on their balcony with a wisp of straw to feed the magi's horses, and with many surmises as to what they would find in them on the morrow. what wonderful things there were! fernando had all the things that boys love,--tops, marbles, balls, and a fine knife; while juanita had a wonderful dolly and all manner of dainty things for her to wear. "the three kings never make one feel like the governor of cartagena," said fernando, as he tossed his new ball and lovingly fingered his knife. "but there is still another gift for thee and thy sister," said his father, and he led them to the door. there stood a wonderful little donkey, his bridle decorated with streaming ribbons and bells, his kind eyes blinking as he turned his head and seemed to say, "hello, little master, are you and i going to be great friends?" "oh, papa, is that for us?" cried fernando, while juanita clapped her tiny hands with delight. it took fernando but a moment to spring on the donkey's back, but his mother cried, warningly: "be careful, son! remember how the little prince of granada rode too fast through the streets, and fell from his pony and was killed." "have no fear," her husband said, smiling, "the donkey will not go fast enough to hurt him; that is why i selected him." and he placed juanita up behind her brother, bidding manuel walk beside them, while mazo, unbidden, jumped around. everything else that fernando had sank into insignificance when compared to the little donkey, which he named babieca, and which he and juanita rode whenever they had a chance. babieca was a kind little beast, though something of a rogue. he seemed to know that he must play no tricks when juanita rode him, and he behaved himself well; but when fernando rode, it was quite another matter. babieca would prick up his long ears and go along quietly, then stop suddenly without saying "by your leave," and, of course, fernando would go over his head. he would not hurt himself at all, and the naughty little mule would look at him wonderingly as if to say: "now what on earth are you doing down there?" fernando soon grew to expect such antics and was on the lookout for them. [illustration: "all the people of the town who had such animals drove them down to the church to be blessed."] when st. anthony's day came, of course babieca had to go with the other four-footed friends of the saint, to be blessed and insured from all harm through the year. the seventeenth of january is the day of st. anthony, patron of mules, horses, and donkeys, and a grand parade took place. all the people of the town who had such animals drove them down to the church to be blessed and to get a barley wafer. many of the animals were gaily decorated with streamers and ribbons, and some with flowers; and all along the streets small booths were set up containing little images of st. anthony and barley cakes. babieca behaved very well at his blessing, though his refractory tongue did try to nibble the priest's stole; but some of the horses kicked and neighed, and, with the braying of the many donkeys and mules, there was a din not often heard in staid granada. there were no more fêtes for the time being, and fernando, a trifle spoiled by all the gaiety, had to return to his studies again. it was a long month before carnival time, but his thoughts went forward to that delightful season, and it seemed to the little boy as if it would never come. however, as "all things come to him who will but wait," the great day arrived at last, and fernando was wild with joy. carnival time is just before the beginning of lent, and is a season of great merriment. under a turquoise sky, with no clouds to mar its fairness, there is a pageant almost like those of the days of chivalry, and fernando and juanita, attended by their faithful manuel and dolores, saw it all. fernando dressed as a page, and his sister as a court lady of the days of isabella the catholic, and they were masked, as are all the people who throng the streets on these gay days. sunday, monday, and tuesday the carnival continues, each year, and the children are asked to little dances at the houses of friends, and also to hear student choirs sing and to see plays. but what they most enjoy is mingling in the crowds upon the _paseo_, throwing _confetti_ at those who throw at them, seeing the flower-decked carriages, the wonderful costumes; monks, nuns, generals, court ladies, flowers, animals, all are represented,--all are laughing and throwing _confetti_ right and left. children are selling _confetti_, crying shrilly, "_confetti_, five _centimos_ a packet. showers of a million colours! only a _perro chico_!"[10] ah, how gay and delightful it all is! juanita saw much, and dolores lay down at night thanking the saints that carnival lasted but three days! but fernando saw everything, and poor manuel's legs were weary as he kept pace with his little master, now here, now there, now everywhere, laughing and jesting, the merriest lad in all the carnival. alas, it was all over! ash wednesday dawned, dull and heavy, the weather as sad and sorry as the day. fernando dragged himself to church, where his brow was marked with ashes according to custom, and gazed longingly at the _entierro de la sardina_, a bit of pork the size and shape of a sardine, buried to show that the fast had begun, for no one in spain eats meat on ash wednesday, and very little of it in lent. fernando looked so depressed at supper that his mother asked him: "what is the trouble, little son, are you ill?" "no, mamma," he said. "but it is so long till easter." "not if you do not think about it," said his mother with a smile. "do your work with a will, and the days will pass quickly. if you are a good boy, you shall have a treat at easter." "oh, what will that be," he asked, and juanita cried, eagerly, "shall i have it, too?" "both of you," the mother said. "your father is going to take us to sevilla, to see the grand easter festival, and we shall see your brother and sister as well, and your cousins and your aunt isabella, so you must be good children." "indeed we will," cried both, joyously, at the thought of so much pleasure. footnote: [10] _perro chico_, little dog, name given to a five-_centimo_ piece because of the little lion upon it. chapter vii. easter in sevilla easter in sevilla! what a gay and charming time it is! flowers are everywhere, blooming in beauty, and all the people seem joyous in the thought that the long season of fasting is over. fernando and juanita had arrived in the city on the saturday before palm sunday, and were wild with delight at seeing their cousins, mariquita, pepita, and angel, and in looking forward to the delights of the week's holiday with its processions and fêtes. beginning with the beautiful procession of the palms, on palm sunday, all through holy week are processions and celebrations, and the little folk thoroughly enjoy them. their older brother and sister were there, also, and full of wonderful tales of what they had done at school. fernando thought pablo was a wonderful being, and that everything he did was perfect. he could hardly wait until he himself would be big enough to go away to college; and little juanita felt quite the same way about augustia, who had learned many things in the convent. "indeed, _niña_," she said, "it is pleasant at school with the girls, but that mother justina makes one work so hard, and that the play-hours are few. i have embroidery to make, and lessons to say, and my class learns french as well as castilian. but the other girls are charming. most of all i like paquita de guiteras, an _americana_, at least she comes from the island of cuba, and the girls say that she is an indian, and that her mother was an indian princess married to her father, a noble spaniard. of this i cannot say, and she herself does not relate, but she says that in cuba the spaniards have often married the indians and have been kind to them, and have not destroyed them as have the _americanos_ in the _estados unidos_. well, _niña_, paquita is the merriest of girls! she has always some prank to play upon some one, and, indeed, she cares not if it is the mother superior herself, so she can have her joke. her aunt, good sister mercedes, is always fretting for fear lest paquita should be in disgrace, but it worries paquita not at all. one night she did the funniest thing. there is one girl who is very mean to the little ones, always teasing them, and they dare say nothing, as she is the niece of the mother superior, and she believes nothing against her. this teresa alcantara once found a little girl, and teased her until paquita could stand it no longer, and flew at teresa and bit her hand. sister turned at that moment and saw the bite, but she had not seen what had gone before, and would not listen to what i tried to tell her, and paquita is always too proud to try to make excuses, and just looked at sister so fiercely from her great black eyes that the sister was still more displeased. "'thou art but a savage wildcat,' she said, and took her to mother superior for punishment. she could not have any playtime for a whole week, and she would have to apologize to teresa, too, and i think she hated that the worst of anything. but she got even with her, as you shall hear. she found out that teresa was terribly afraid of cats, and one night, when we were all safely tucked away in our little beds, there came from behind teresa's curtains a terrible scream, and she jumped out of bed and rushed up and down the dormitory. such a breach of decorum was never seen before, and the nuns were shocked to a degree. teresa kept shrieking, 'a wild beast is in my bed! a wild beast is in my bed!' and after calming her down they went to investigate. what do you think they found? a feather duster! it was tucked under the sheets, and who could have put it there? no one knew, but every one felt that paquita was the only one who could have thought of such mischief. but the sisters did not try to find out, for one of them had seen teresa teasing the little girl, and knew why paquita disliked her so much; and after that the big bully let us little ones alone." "oh, it must be so nice," sighed juanita, but pablo laughed, and said that those were girl's stories, and that far more exciting things happened at the naval college, especially when they all went on a cruise. on easter sunday morning the children went to the cathedral to see the wonderful dances which take place but three times a year. fernando and juanita were struck dumb with the beautiful cathedral, so unlike the gothic one of granada; for this one at sevilla is a saracenic church, built hundreds of years ago, begun by the moorish sultan, yakub al mansour, in 1184. [illustration: "their bodies swayed to and fro in time to the music."] how strange it seemed to see dancing in church! fernando and juanita sat beside their mother, on their little camp-stools, for there are no pews in spanish churches. the whole centre of the church is empty, and people kneel there during the mass, or if they are too tired or too little to stand, they rent camp-stools for half a cent, and an old woman who has them in charge hobbles along with a stool, which they may keep while the service lasts. the men generally stand, and it is interesting to see them settle themselves in a comfortable position when the sermon begins, and stand there almost without moving while the preacher speaks, sometimes a half-hour, sometimes a whole hour. but the hearers do not seem to mind, for these spanish monks are very fine preachers. as the children gazed at the beautiful altar covered with flowers, there came the sound of music,--violins, flutes, flageolets, and hautboys all making a quaint harmony,--and with the music was mingled the sound of youthful voices, fresh and sweet, and a band of boys entered the chancel, and gliding down the altar steps danced quietly, singing as they danced. their bodies swayed to and fro in time to the music, at first slowly, then, as the time quickened, castanets click-clicked with the other sounds, and the boys moved faster and faster, still in perfect time, yet not with wild abandon, but rather with dignified respect for the place. they were quaintly dressed in the court costumes of the middle ages; on their heads were big spanish hats, turned up at one side with a sweeping blue feather, a mantle of light blue was over one shoulder, their vests were of white satin, their hose and shoes of white. the boys danced on until the great bells of the giralda rang out, and then they vanished, the music growing softer and softer, until its last strains sounded far away, like a floating wave of heavenly harmony. "how pretty the dance was," said little juanita, as they walked home from the service. "why do they dance in church?" "the holy scriptures say that david danced before the lord," her mother answered, "so perhaps that is the reason the sevillians think this is a form of worship, but you must ask your cousins to tell you how it was first done." "do tell me, mariquita," said the little girl, and her cousin said, "i do not know how it happened at first, but it has been done ever since the moors were here in sevilla. only once in hundreds of years has it been stopped, and then an archbishop said it was not right to have dancing in church. he made every one very angry, for the people said, 'what our fathers did is good enough for us!' so they went to the pope, and he said that he could not tell unless he saw the dance. so the boys and the musicians were taken to rome, and there danced before the holy father, who said, 'i see no harm in this, any more than in the children's hosannas before our lord when he entered jerusalem. let them have their dance so long as the clothes which they wear may last.' then they came back and so determined were they to continue it for ever, that they never let the clothes wear out to this day. if one piece of a suit shall be worn it is so quickly mended or repaired that no suit has ever worn out all at once, so that these are the same suits as those worn long ago." "i am so glad they still have it," said fernando, "for i wouldn't have missed seeing it to-day for anything." chapter viii. rainy days "mamma, would you allow me to go to the bull-fight with father and pablo?" asked fernando next day. "no, indeed, my son, a bull-fight is no place for women and children," his mother replied. "i have never been to one in all my life, and juanita shall never attend. i wish pablo did not care to go, either, but he must do as he wishes now that he is grown. a boy cannot always be at his mother's girdle, but you must be much bigger than now before you will see such a sight." fernando sighed, but he knew that there was no use saying more, for the word of _la madre_ was law. he was very anxious to see a bull-fight, for every boy in spain desires that above all things. the fights are held on all holidays, but the finest one of all is at easter. the immense amphitheatre of sevilla holds thousands of spectators, men wild with excitement over the sport, and even women, though the most refined ladies do not frequent the _corridos_. the bull is turned loose in the centre of the huge ring and tormented until he is ready to fight. men with sharp-pointed darts, called _banderillos_, tease him by throwing their barbs at him, and pricking his skin until he is nearly crazy. then men mounted on horseback, the _picadores_, wave scarlet cloths before his eyes, exciting him still more, for a bull hates red worse than anything in the world. he dashes at the cruel cloth, and sometimes is too quick for the man who carries it, tossing him on his horns, but generally it is the poor horse who is killed, and the man jumps away to safety. the _matador_ is the one who slays the bull, and he is sometimes killed himself. it is a terribly cruel affair, though spaniards say it is not so cruel as our prize-fighting. it was late that evening when fernando went to bed, and ere he did so there was quite an excitement. they were all seated upon the piazza of the house, he and juanita, his cousins and their elders, when there was a great cry from the street, "the toro! the toro!" and a clatter of horses' hoofs. all screamed loudly, for to have a bull escape from the pens is a frequent occurrence, and not a very pleasant one. the cries became louder, the horses' hoofs beat nearer and nearer, and as in the dusk a figure dashed down the street, the señora, screaming loudly, caught juanita to her and tried to climb the pillar at her side. she was very stout, and the pillar was very slippery, and she could not climb with one arm, so she slid down as fast as she climbed up, squealing all the time, "_a toro, madre di dios! a toro!_" fernando was frightened, too, but he was a brave boy, and he tried his best to push his mother up out of danger, boosting her as she slipped down, but not helping very much, as you might suppose. it seemed to him an hour, but it was only a minute before servants came from the house, and as they did so a horse dashed up before the pillars, and, stopped too hastily by his rider, slid along the stones on his hind feet. on his back was pablo, waving his _sombrero_, and crying, "what a _corrido_! it was glorious! six bulls to die, and rosito never in such form! but, _madre mia_, what is the matter?" as he sprang from his horse and assisted his mother to a seat. the señora could not speak, but fernando said, "we thought the noise was a bull escaped, and i was assisting my mother to a height of safety." pablo looked at the little figure speaking so gravely, then threw back his head and shouted with laughter, but seeing fernando's hurt expression, stopped quickly, and said: "bravo, little brother, thou art a good knight to care for thy mother and sister!" "better than thou!" his mother had regained her voice by this time. "thou art still the same pablo, and will yet be the death of thy poor mother," but pablo kissed her hand so gallantly, and begged her pardon so amiably, that she quite forgave him. next day, alas! it was raining, and it rained so hard all that day, and nearly all of the next, that the children were like little bears in a cage. they played with everything they could think of, but after awhile they grew restless and quarrelled so that the grown-up folk grew nervous, too. at last, mariquita's father, gay and charming uncle ruy, came to the rescue. "who wants to take a trip into the country with me?" he asked, and as each one squealed "i!" he said: "of course we can't go, really, but we can make believe, and i shall take you to a _hacienda_ outside the old wall of sevilla. "it lies amidst orange and olive groves, and all kinds of flowers, and many of the things we eat come from that very place. who knows how they pickle olives?" "are olives pickled?" asked juanita, and mariquita said: "how queer it seems that all the things we eat have to go through so much before they can be eaten. i did not know that olives had to be pickled." "yes, _mi niña_, and we will play that we are visiting an olive grove, and we can see the way the olives are picked and made ready for food. see, here are the trees, and the fruit is picked from them and placed in baskets. there are two kinds of olives used, green and ripe, the green ones are picked just before they begin to turn soft. these are separated from the others, and the bitter taste is removed by soaking in fresh water for a long time, or some picklers soak them for a shorter time in a solution of potash lye. this softens the skin and extracts all bitterness, but the olives must be soaked in clear water, which is frequently changed to get all the potash off. then they are placed in weak brine, and afterward in stronger, until they have the salty taste which we like so much. then they are put in small barrels and taken to the bottling rooms, where they are bottled and labelled for the market." "how is the oil made?" asked fernando. "that is harder to do, but it is very interesting to watch. the fresh olives are carefully picked, dried a little, and then crushed. old-fashioned stone mills are used to crush the fruit, and the mass is pressed to extract the liquid which contains all the watery juice as well as the oil and pulp." "what do they do after it is pressed?" asked fernando. "they let it stand for a month and the refuse goes to the bottom. then the oil is poured off and allowed to stand another month, when the process is repeated. after the third time the oil is ready for use. the best oil is made in this way, as it keeps its colour and flavour better by the settling process than when it is filtered. "in some places the olives are placed on a platform and the millstone is placed over them. this is turned round and round by means of a pole to which a donkey is hitched, and the mass which is turned out is placed in rush baskets, which are put under a press which is screwed down by five or six men, so that the oil is squeezed out, but that is a very old-fashioned way of making oil, and there are better ways now. they still use this, however, when there is a big crop, and they want to get the fruit made into oil as rapidly as possible. great care must be taken that everything is clean and that the oil does not become rancid, or it will all be spoiled." "is everything we eat so interesting?" asked juanita. "the things we eat and wear, too," her uncle answered, "and nothing in all sevilla is more interesting than the way of making silk." "how is that done?" asked fernando. "i am afraid i could not make you understand it all, unless you could go to the silk manufactory, and even then it would be hard for you. but i can tell you about the cocoons, and that is the strangest thing about it. the silkworm was first brought to europe from india in 530, when monks brought it to the emperor justinian. the silkworm is a kind of a caterpillar which feeds on the leaves of the white mulberry-tree, and lays his eggs in a kind of gummy substance on the leaves in the end of june to be hatched out in the following april. the caterpillar is small at first, about a quarter of an inch long, but grows to be three inches in length. by means of a substance in their mouths the silkworms spin out silky strands which form cocoons, each fibre being about eight hundred yards long. when ready for weaving, the cocoons are placed in an oven at a gentle heat which kills the chrysalis so that the silk fibres can be removed and wound." "how do they get the silk wound? doesn't it break?" asked fernando. "it is rather hard to do," his uncle answered, "but they learn to be very careful, and the cocoon is soaked in warm water which loosens the little filaments. when the cocoons are reeled the first step has been taken, and the reeled silk is called raw silk, from which all silk products are made." [illustration: "they went to the alcazar gardens."] "i wish we could see it all, but perhaps we can sometime when we are here again," said fernando. "oh, it has stopped raining!" "yes, indeed, and the guadalquiver has overflowed its banks," said pablo, coming in at that moment. "there has not been such a freshet for years. come along with me, nando, and we will go boating in the streets. i climbed to the top of the giralda, and the whole country looks like a great sea." "oh, may i go with pablo and see?" cried fernando, and his mother, with many injunctions to pablo to take care of him, said "yes." they went to the alcazar gardens, those most wonderful gardens of spain, and as it was early spring the flowers and insects were making merry in the sunshine, which had come back with renewed force, after its vacation. scarcely tumbled by the rain, lovely banksia roses were climbing over the walls, the rosy, blossoming judas-trees, tinted acacias, and pink almonds were in bloom, and orange-trees were bursting into fragrant beauty. violets and tulips, yellow oxalis, wild hyacinths, and the scarlet dragon-flower carpeted the ground, while tall white lilies, like fair maidens, and stately iris with sword-like leaves, reminding one of the knights of chivalry who once walked these paths, stood sentinel adown the walks. fernando saw, too, the insects which flitted among the branches, beetles with bright green coats like emeralds, white and gold butterflies, birds with brilliant wings and sweet voices. but pablo was thinking more of sport than of nature, and he hurried along until they found a man and a boat to row them, and what a gay sail they had right down the main streets of the town! past the cathedral steps and the golden tower where columbus piled up gold brought from the new world, sevillians say, and all the other interesting sights of the city, so that fernando came home tired and happy, to tell juanita of the wonderful things he had seen. "i do not wonder that they say, 'he whom god loves has a house in sevilla,'" he said. "it is so beautiful a city." "truly,- "'quien no ha vista sevilla no ha vista un maravillo.'"[11] said mariquita boastingly, but little juanita prattled in reply the grenadino's favourite response- "'quien no ha vista grenada no ha vista nada.'"[12] footnotes: [11] he who has not visited sevilla has not seen a marvel. [12] who has not seen granada has seen nothing. chapter ix. to the country home again! at first it seemed to fernando as if he could never go back to school, for after his week of fêtes and processions and fun, lessons were dull things, but he soon fell into the old ways, and there were so many pleasant things at home that he did not pine for sevilla at all. he had a pet lamb--what boy has not in spring-time in spain?--and he was devoted to it for awhile, trying to feed it all manner of things. "manuel," he said one day, "i do not know what is wrong with my pet lamb. it will not eat the things i give it. i have never seen so stubborn a thing. mazo is far different. it will eat anything at all, but the lamb stands and stares at me, and shuts its mouth, no matter what i offer him." "lambs are always stubborn," said manuel. "they do not eat much but milk when they are so young. but here, i have a new kite; will you fly it?" "indeed i will," cried the boy, and in an instant the lamb was forgotten, and he was skipping down the street, his kite skimming the air like a gaily coloured bird. it was a beautiful spring in granada, and fernando spent every minute out of doors unless actually compelled to be in school or in bed. the family ate in the lovely _patio_ where the flowers were beginning to blossom, and the sun was not too warm to do without the awning, which in summer stretched overhead. if it was not kites in which he was interested, it was marbles and ball, or even a play bull-fight; and fernando was very proud when he was chosen to be "toro," and put his head in a basketwork affair with points like horns, and the boys chased him with sticks, running, jumping, and dodging when he turned and charged them as he had heard that the bulls did at the real _corridos_. best of all, it was time to have his head shaved, and of all things that was what he liked. his mother mourned, for the boy's hair was naturally curly, and in winter was as soft and pretty as black velvet. but all spanish boys have their heads shaved in summer, and fernando must be like the rest. it was cut so close that it made him look very funny, and his great black eyes shone like beads in his lean brown face, with no soft hair to soften its harsh outlines. fernando and antonio were still devoted friends. they played together after school and on the holidays, and many delightful times did the two boys have, either in the alhambra or at fernando's home, where there were many city sights as interesting to antonio as the delights of the old palace were to fernando. so devoted had they become that fernando felt very sorry to leave his friend when the time came for him to accompany his mother and sister to their country home. generally he had been delighted to go to the _hacienda_, and enjoyed the country school even more than the one he attended in the city, but this year he felt so badly over it that his father said: "never mind, my son. i shall bring antonio out to visit you when school is over, and you may have a fine time together at the _hacienda_." this made fernando more contented, and he went away with his parents quite happily. as they started for the country on a bright may day, juanita said, "oh, mamma, see that strange cow! it is all dressed with flower-wreaths, and has bells around its neck and flowers on its horns. why does that young girl lead it, and that old blind man walk behind, and blow that horn and beat the drum?" "that is a cow to be won in a lottery," said the señora. "manuel, stop; i wish to buy a ticket. how we spaniards do love a game of chance! see, i shall buy a ticket for each one of you, and maybe your number will win the prize." "oh, thank you, mamma!" both children cried, for neither had ever had a lottery ticket before. "now i wish you to stop at a cigar-store, and buy a stamp[13] for my letter to your aunt isabella, and then we will drive on." as they turned into the main street leading to the alameda, juanita asked, "oh, _mi madre_, what are those people sitting in the streets making?" "haven't you seen the ice-cream makers before?" said the señora. "no, i think you cannot remember last summer, can you? the gipsies go up to the sierras in the very early morning, and get donkey-loads of snow, and the people make ice-cream in those pails with the snow in it. they sit right at their doors on the sidewalk and make the fresh cream, and any one can buy a glass of it." "do let us have some," cried the children, and their indulgent mother ordered the horses stopped while they ate some of the delicious fresh cream. as the carriage rolled on down the steep street, so narrow that as manuel said "one can hardly pass another after a full dinner," the swineherd was just coming out for the day, and juanita cried: "oh, _madre_! see that man with the pipe in his mouth; what queer music he plays! what is he?" "he is the swineherd, _niña_. see, he comes from his alley, staff in hand," the señora said. "watch him blow his pipe without turning his head, and the pigs come after him, as if he had charmed them. little and big, dark and light, fat and scrawny, there they come following him to pasture. every alley we pass adds some curly tail to the procession. now he is ready to turn out of the town into that grove, and see what an army of piggies follows him! he never looks for any of them, but they hear the music of his pipe and start because they learned long ago that it leads them to good pastures." "i think they are too funny for anything," said the little girl. "does he bring them back at night?" "yes, and every little piggy knows his own alley, and goes right home with a little frisk of his curly tail to say 'good night,'" said her mother, smiling. "see those oxen; are they not splendid fellows? i love to see them draw their loads so easily. beautiful creamy creatures, with their dark points and their great, soft eyes." "what is that wooden thing over their heads?" asked juanita. "that is the yoke to couple them together. they are the gentlest animals in the world, these great, hornèd beasts, and the driver walks in front of them with a stick over his shoulder, which he seldom thinks of using." "oh, what a cunning little donkey!" cried the little girl, as they passed a tiny donkey laden with panniers filled with flowers, fruit, vegetables, bread, fowls, and even a water-jar. "how prettily he is clipped, all in a pattern." "mamma," said fernando, "some of the donkeys that the gipsies have clipped have mottoes and pictures on them. i know a boy whose donkey has '_viva mi amo_'[14] on his side. i don't like that, for if the donkey doesn't love his master, it is telling a story." his mother laughed. "we will hope he has a good little master, and then the donkey will care for him and not be telling a falsehood with his fur. "but here we are almost to the _hacienda_, and how short the ride has seemed. now if two children i know are good, we shall have a delightful summer, and although you are to be in the country, and thou, fernando, will go to a country school, remember the saying of thy fathers: "'quando fueres par despoblado non hagas desaquisado, porque quando fueres per poblado iras a lo vesado.'"[15] footnotes: [13] in spain stamps are sold in cigar-stores, not at the post-office. [14] i love my master. [15] when you are in the wilderness do not act ill, or when you are among people you will do likewise. chapter x. games and sports the _hacienda_ was more beautiful than it had been in the fall, and fernando was soon busy as a bee. he had of course to attend school, but it was a country school, not so strict nor so large as the city one, and he enjoyed showing off his superior accomplishments to the other boys. this the others did not relish, and there was a grand fight to see which was the strongest, and when fernando had whipped all the boys of his own size, he was happy and felt that he had not disgraced the name of guzman. manuel did not attend him in the country, and fernando much enjoyed doing as he liked, roaming about, taking his own time to come home, tramping about the orange groves, or sailing boats in the brook. when school was over and antonio came for the promised visit, what merry times there were! the boys went swimming at all hours. they ran bareheaded all over the place, mazo after them, their constant companion. fernando had a few lessons to do each morning, a master to teach him his french, music, and drawing,--for boys of his class in spain are accomplished as well as educated,--but these were soon over, and then, stung by the bees, burnt by the sun, wet by the rain, eating green oranges, doing in fact what american boys, or boys all over the world will do if let alone, this was the way in which the two spanish boys spent their vacation. juanita, meantime, was having a very happy time. she, too, had a few lessons, and her _aya_ was giving place to a governess, but she was still too young to learn much, and the beautiful out-of-doors was a great lesson-book to her. riding babieca, tagging after the boys, sun-tanned and rosy, she grew strong and hearty, and was never so happy as when allowed to go with her brother and antonio. generally they took very good care of her, and her mother felt that she was safe with the two boys. fernando teased her a good deal, but antonio was of a calmer mood, and was always her gentle knight. all manner of games were played by these happy children, who, with their little neighbours of the nearest _hacienda_, made a merry group. they were simple-hearted little folk, and the boys had not reached the state described in the old spanish rhyme of the boys of madrid: "they should be romping with us, for they are only children yet; but they will not play at anything except a cigarette. no plays will cheer the prado in future times, for then the little boys of seven will all be married men." fernando, and even the graver antonio, entered into all the childish sports with the rest, and an especial favourite was a play very much like our "london bridge is falling down," called the "gate of alcala." two children are chosen to head the lines, and called rose and pink. they form an arch with their arms held up and their fingers locked, and under this the other children pass headed by the mother. they sing gaily a little dialogue: _rose and pink._ "to the viper of love that hides in the flowers the only way lies here." _mother._ "then here i pass and leave behind one little daughter dear." _rose and pink._ "shall the first one or the last be captive of our chain?" _mother._ "oh, the first one runs so lightly, the last one shall remain." _chorus._ "pass on, oho, pass on, aha! by the gate of alcala." the last child, with squeals of delight, is caught in the falling arms, and chooses whether she shall follow rose or pink, taking her place behind the one of her choice. when all have been chosen, there is a grand tug of war, the merry party singing, meantime. _rose and pink._ "let the young mind make its choice, as young minds chance to think; now is rose your leader, or go you with the pink? let the young mind make its choice by laws the young heart knows. now is pink your leader or go you with the rose?" _chorus._ "pass on, oho, pass on, aha, by the gates of alcala." the boys enjoyed playing soldier, and would whittle toy swords out of sticks, and form in line, marching and singing: "the catalans are coming, marching two by two; all who hear their drumming, tiptoe for a view, aye, aye, tiptoe for a view; red and yellow banners, pennies very few. aye, aye, pennies very few. "red and yellow banners the moon comes out to see; if moons had better manners she'd take me on her knee. aye, aye, she'd take me on her knee. she peeps through purple shutters; would i were tall as she. aye, aye, would i were tall as she. "soldiers need not learn letters nor any schooly thing; but, unless they mind their betters, in golden chains they swing. aye, aye, in golden chains they'll swing. or sit in silver fetters, presents from the king. aye, aye, presents from the king." the prettiest of all the games is that of the "little white pigeons," which all andalusian children love to play. the little companions form in two rows, and, facing each other, dance forward and slip beneath the upraised arms of the opposite side. thus they pass under the "silver arches" to sevilla and granada: "little white pigeons are dreaming of seville, sun in the palm-trees, rose and revel. lift up the arches, gold as the weather, little white pigeons come flying together. "little white pigeons, dream of granada, glistening snows on sierra nevada. lift up the arches, silver as fountains, little white pigeons fly to the mountains." our little spanish cousins play nearly all the same games that american children play, only their "blind man's buff" is called "blind hen," and "pussy wants a corner," is called "cottage to rent," and played with the rhyme: "cottage to rent, try the other side, you see this one is occupied." their game of tag is called the "moon and the morning stars," and is played by one child being chosen as the moon and forced to keep within the shadow. the rest of the children, being morning stars, are safe only where it is light. if the moon can catch a star in the shadow, the star must become a moon, and as the stars scamper in and out of the shadow, all sing: "o the moon and the morning stars, o the moon and the morning stars, who dares to tread--oh within the shadow." "hide and seek" the children played, and "forfeits," and all manner of other games, and as the sun nearly always shines in andalusia, the summer was one long merry round of out-of-door fun. chapter xi. a tertulia september found the children at home again, and fernando back at school, while juanita had a governess for a part of each day, though she was not expected to learn a great deal; for the spaniards think if their girls are sweet and gentle they need not be very learned. if a spanish girl of sixteen knows how to read and write, simple arithmetic, a little history, and can dance and embroider well, she is quite accomplished enough to marry, which is what most of them intend to do. things were going very quietly, when there came an excitement so great for the children that they were almost wild. this was the home-coming, in the latter part of september, of pablo, just in from his long summer cruise, with a fortnight's leave of absence. he came home to celebrate his coming of age, and there was to be a _tertulia_ in his honour. the children were to stay up to the party, and as it was the first time that they had been permitted to stay up after eight o'clock, they were delighted. to them it was the greatest event in their lives, and they were almost afraid to breathe all day, for fear the treat would be cut off. juanita even stood quite still to have her curls made, which was generally a performance attended with agony, and before the end of which her _aya_ was sure to say, "hush, mambru will certainly get you!" mambru is to a little spanish girl what a bogey is to an american child, and she will be very good for fear of mambru. but the day passed off pleasantly, and the children were dressed and sent down to the _patio_ to await the arrival of the guests. the pleasant thing about a spanish party is that there is no fuss made, and therefore everybody enjoys themselves. the hostess never tires herself out preparing for her guests so that she cannot be cheerful and agreeable when they arrive. the hospitality of spain is perfect. a spaniard gives his friends just what is good enough for himself, and never thinks of doing more. so there was not a great brewing and baking on the day of the party, and flushed, heated faces; but there were a few simple refreshments, much pleasant talk and hearty laughter among old and young. there were about thirty friends of the family who came in to talk and chat. the parents came with their daughters, for girls never go to parties alone in spain, and old and young spent the evening together. some one played on the piano and the young people danced, lovely trinidad del aguistanado dancing with pablo. this juanita watched with delight. trinidad was the loveliest of all the girls, and she thought, of course, pablo should have the prettiest maiden in all the world. she was as sweet as she was pretty, and said to the little girl: "what is thy name, _niña_?" and when juanita answered, sweetly: "juanita, to serve god and you," as all spanish children are taught to answer, trinidad kissed her on both cheeks, and gave her a rose from her girdle. at this juanita was delighted, and pablo sighed prodigiously. the older people, too, seemed well pleased with pablo's choice, for the girl's family was as good as theirs, and the two had been friends for many years. "juanita," said fernando in a whisper, "i believe that pablo will bite the iron[16] of the señorita trinidad. will it not be strange to think of him beneath her window, singing of love to his guitar?" "it will be beautiful," sighed the little girl, for spanish children are always interested in the love affairs of their older brothers and sisters, and even little girls talk about them. "how handsome pablo looks as he talks with her." "they are as fair as the lovers of teruel," said old dolores, who was at the party to take care of her little charges. "tell us about them," said juanita, eagerly, for she dearly loved dolores's quaint stories; and the _aya_ began: "in the town of teruel there lived, many years ago, a spanish knight, don juan diego martinez de marcilla, and he loved with all his heart doña isabel de segura. alas, unhappily! for the fathers of the two lovers were enemies, and would not listen to love between them. "'thou art but a second son,' said don pedro de segura, the father of doña isabel. 'moreover, thou hast not a fortune equal to that of my daughter, who possesses thirty thousand _sueldos_ in good gold, and is my sole heiress.' "'full well i know that i am in no wise worthy of thy fair daughter,' said don juan, 'and upon her grace have i no claim save that she loves my unworthy self. but since this is god's truth, i pray you give me the chance to prove my devotion, and i will furnish sufficient fortune to equal hers. i go to the wars with my lord, king sancho of navarre. grant me five years in which to gain this fortune, and give me your promise that for that length of time you will not force doña isabel to marry another.' "doña isabel was very young, and her father very fond, and by this he could keep her with him five long years, and, moreover, marry her to whom he pleased, for he said to himself, 'in that time both of them will forget,' and so he smilingly said: "'your words have some reason. go with god, and if you return, well and good. my daughter shall not marry against her will for five years to this day, but mark me, rash youth, not one day more shall she wait.' "then the lovers bade each other farewell, and don juan rode to the wars. these were waged against the wicked moors, and with knights and squires, the armies of don alphonso of castile, don pedro of aragon, and don sancho of navarre fought long and fiercely until, at the great battle of las navas de tolosa, the moor was crushed. many a valiant deed was done, and don juan was bravest of them all. he broke through the chain which guarded the tent of the moorish king, and thereby gained great glory and won for himself the right to wear a chain around the margin of his shield in honour of the day. he gained great renown and fortune, but, alas, he was sorely wounded, and it was more than five years before he could return to his beloved. he arrived in teruel but one short day after the time was up, and found doña isabel married to another, don pedro fernandez de azagra. despairing, he desired to see his beloved once more, and climbed to her window on her wedding-night. finding her alone and her husband sleeping, he implored her to give him one last kiss. she refused, and said, weeping, 'alas! you came not and i thought myself forgotten. i am wedded to this good man, and to him alone belong my caresses.' "at this his heart broke, and crying, 'farewell, beloved!' he dropped dead at her feet. "at that moment her husband awoke, and she told him straightway the truth, at which he said, 'thou hast been cruel and unkind to this good man, but to me faithful and true, and i shall but love thee the more!' and he took the body of the poor don juan and bore it secretly to his father's step and laid it down and fled away. "when the body of the knight was found, there was great mourning, and he was given a grand funeral at the cathedral, to which all teruel came to do him honour. there also came the unhappy doña isabel, disguised so that none might know her, and, determined to give her lover in death the kiss which she had denied him in life, she stooped to kiss his lips. lo! the eyes unclosed, he smiled at her, and they closed again, and she fell beside him dead! all were struck dumb with horror, but don azagra came forward and told the mournful story, whereupon the two bodies were buried in the same grave. "'separated in life, in death they shall be together,' said the generous knight who had been her husband but not her beloved; and this is the sad, sad story of the lovers of teruel." "oh, thank you, dolores, it is a beautiful story," cried juanita, and the young people who had gathered around to hear clapped their hands, and thanked her, too. "what think you, señorita trinidad, would you have kissed your lover had you been doña isabel?" asked pablo of the young girl. "i should not have married the other man, señor," she said, flushing prettily. "come, trinidad, you must sing for us," cried one of her friends. "sing the song of santa rita," and trinidad, with a merry little glance at pablo, sang the gay little song which spanish girls sing in jest, asking santa rita to procure them a good husband. "santa rita, santa rita, cada una de nosotros necesita, para uso de diario un marido milionario, anunque sea un animal si tal, si tal, si tal, si tal, un marido milionario, anunque sea un animal."[17] everybody applauded loudly, and trinidad, laughing and blushing, sang again. the older people sat about serenely, some talking, others playing cards or dominoes. the younger ones played sprightly games and talked like magpies, and the children listened spellbound. "who art thou, pablo?" laughed one, and pablo answered, merrily: "ole saltero, sin vanidad, soy muy bonito, soy muy sala!"[18] and every one laughed, and trinidad gave him a charming glance from under her black lashes. refreshments were passed around, very simple ones. there were trays of water, and by each glass round lumps of sugar, which the guests dipped in the water and ate, hard little cakes, cups of thick chocolate into which finger cakes were dipped and eaten, and some charming little bonbons. there was no wine, for although the finest wine in the world is made in spain, the spaniards are great water drinkers, and seldom have wine except at dinners. the men all smoked, but not the ladies, for while the mexican women sometimes smoke a dainty _cigarrillo_, spanish women do not. later on, pablo's health was drunk in tiny glasses of sherry, as this was a special occasion, and pleasant speeches were made to him, wishing him all success in his career. "thou art now a man, my son," said his father, proudly and affectionately. "remember that since the time of the emperor charles v., thy fathers have had the right to wear the golden key[19] upon their hip, and do nothing to disgrace thy name. on the sword of my grandfather was engraved the motto, 'do not draw me without reason nor sheathe me without honour!' let his motto be thine own, and remember that to a spaniard honour comes first." then the party broke up, and fernando and juanita were trotted off to bed, and sleepily murmured their evening prayer: "jesus, joseph, mary, your little servant keep, and with your kind permission, i'll lay me down to sleep!" and they heard through the soft moonlight the tinkle of pablo's guitar, as he strolled along to bite the iron beneath the grating of the dainty señorita trinidad. footnotes: [16] spanish lovers stand beneath the windows of their sweethearts, to serenade them every night, and, as the windows are grated with iron, this is called "biting the iron." [17] "santa rita, santa rita, send us now, we pray thee fervently, a millionaire for a husband, e'en a blockhead though he be, e'en so, e'en so, e'en so, a millionaire for a husband, a blockhead though he be." [18] "sister saltero, without vanity, i am lovely, i am salada," salada meaning charming, witty, gracious. [19] the noblest of the spanish grandees wear a golden key upon the hip to indicate that they have the right to enter the king's doors at any time. chapter xii. viva el rey! all granada was in a flutter! it was the brightest of october days, and the sun seemed to be trying to be as bright as the people, or the people to be as gay as the sunshine. fernando and juanita hopped out of bed and ran to the window the first minute they were awake, and squealed with delight when they saw that the day was fair. "oh, mamma!" cried fernando. "is it not glorious? the fête will be a success!" and juanita echoed her brother, "is it not wonderfully fair!" "come and have your chocolate quickly, like good children," returned their mother, "for you must be ready early." as soon as the children were breakfasted, they were dressed in their best clothes, juanita all in white, with a gay sash, and fernando in a sailor suit of blue, and they waited impatiently for their parents to be ready to start for the fête. it was a great day for granada, for the king was coming to visit the city, and it had been many years since royalty had honoured the andalusian town. spaniards are nearly always devoted to their king, and in andalusia there are very few who are not fond and proud of the young king alphonso. in northern spain there are many who are called carlists, and who believe that the descendants of don carlos are the lawful kings of spain, and these have often gotten up revolutions and tried to set their own favourites up as kings. in barcelona and some of the eastern provinces there are many who like neither king alphonso nor don carlos, and these are anarchists; but granada was heart and soul for the king, and all the people were overjoyed at his coming. every balcony in the city was covered with flowers; flags and banners floated everywhere. the alameda was ablaze with decorations, and every face wore a smile of welcome. the programme for the day was a simple one. the king was to be met at the station by a delegation, a band, and a mounted escort, witness a military review on the alameda, and depart by an afternoon train. all granada must see him, and fernando and juanita with it. it had been decided that the best time for the children to have a good look at the king was when he drove to the alhambra, and manuel and dolores started early to take them to meet antonio, who had promised to provide places within the alhambra grounds, where the general multitude would be less likely to go, and where the children would have a finer view. pablo went with them, for he was still at home, and he walked beside babieca to see that juanita did not fall off, on her long ride up-hill. "see there, little sister," he said. "is not that an easy way to get milk for the day?" the goatherd was passing at the head of his procession of goats, looking neither to the right nor to the left, expecting his herd to follow him as gravely as he walked; but a peasant woman stole out of her door, and quietly milked one of the little beasts, who seemed not to object in the least, and took it so calmly that pablo added, "that is not the first time there has been stolen milk for breakfast, i'm sure." "see the poor beggar; do give him something, pablo," said juanita, touched by a wretched specimen of humanity who sat with blind eyes peering up at them as they passed. pablo threw a _perro chico_ into the beggar's outstretched hand, but he said: "you must not be too sad for all the beggars, _niña_; there is an old rhyme: "'the armless man has written a letter, the blind man finds the writing clear; the mute is reading it aloud, and the deaf man runs to hear.' they are not all so sad as they look, but one must give for fear one may slight the really needy." "oh, pablo, may we have some _horchata_?" cried fernando, and his brother stopped to purchase some of the snowy, chilly, puckery stuff, and they enjoyed it greatly. fernando ate too hastily, and his brother said: "_quita, quita!_ you must not act so! you are as bad as the king when he was a baby and put his knife in his mouth. his governess said to him, 'kings do not eat with their knives,' and he haughtily replied, 'this king does!'" "indeed," said fernando, pertly, "the king is my cousin, so it says in my history book that all spaniards may say." "he is your cousin, that is, you must love him as your own blood; but say, rather, 'all equal below the king,' and put him ever first. remember that your fathers have died for the kings of spain, and we may have a chance to show our loyalty yet," and pablo's bright face clouded a moment. "listen to the music; there goes the military salute! the king has come, and by the time we reach the alhambra he will be on his way hither. get up, babieca," and he hurried the little donkey along until they reached the top of the hill and found antonio waiting for them, his face flushed and eager. "he will pass here," he cried, "beneath the gate of justice, and my father says we may stand just behind the guard upon the wall; there could not be a better place." "how nice that will be!" cried juanita. "and where is pepita?" "there, awaiting you," antonio answered. "i will take care of babieca and return," and he led the donkey away, coming back in a few moments, and they all waited impatiently. spaniards all love a spectacle, and the young folk could hardly restrain themselves as they heard the strains of music coming nearer and nearer. at last the cavalcade came in sight,--first a troop of soldiers, then a band playing the _marcha real_, then a mounted guard keeping close to his majesty's carriage. there he sat, the young king, a tall, slight youth, with a pale, proud face and great black eyes, sad, yet merry and tender; a patrician face in every feature, yet a lovable one, and one to arouse all of love and loyalty in his subjects, as the character of alphonso xiii. arouses their respect and affection. as the carriage paused at the entrance gate, the king looked up at the eager little group upon the wall and smiled. juanita and pepita flung into his carriage their huge bouquets of flowers and to the girls he threw a kiss; but fernando and antonio stood up very straight and saluted gravely, and with a smile in his eyes, but with grave lips, the young king raised his hand to his hat and gave them in return the military salute. then his carriage passed on, and bore him out of sight, but a shout went up from every voice, "_viva el rey!_" "when i grow up i shall be a nun and pray all the time for the king!" said pepita. "i shall be a soldier and fight for him," said fernando, proudly. "and i," said juanita, "shall marry and have many children to fight and pray for him and for spain!" "indeed, little sister, perhaps thou hast chosen the better part," said pablo, laughing heartily. "see!" cried antonio, "there goes the carriage again, and hear how the people shout!" and as the bravas rent the air, the children shouted, too: "_viva espagna! viva el rey! dios guarda usted!_"[20] the end. footnote: [20] "long live spain! long live the king! god guard your grace!" the little cousin series the most delightful and interesting accounts possible of child-life in other lands, filled with quaint sayings, doings, and adventures. each 1 vol., 12mo, decorative cover, cloth, with six or more full-page illustrations in color. price per volume $0.60 _by mary hazelton wade (unless otherwise indicated)_ =our little african cousin= =our little armenian cousin= =our little brown cousin= =our little canadian cousin= by elizabeth r. macdonald =our little chinese cousin= by isaac taylor headland =our little cuban cousin= =our little dutch cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little english cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little eskimo cousin= =our little french cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little german cousin= =our little hawaiian cousin= =our little indian cousin= =our little irish cousin= =our little italian cousin= =our little japanese cousin= =our little jewish cousin= =our little korean cousin= by h. lee m. pike =our little mexican cousin= by edward c. butler =our little norwegian cousin= =our little panama cousin= by h. lee m. pike =our little philippine cousin= =our little porto rican cousin= =our little russian cousin= =our little scotch cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little siamese cousin= =our little spanish cousin= by mary f. nixon-roulet =our little swedish cousin= by claire m. coburn =our little swiss cousin= =our little turkish cousin= the goldenrod library the goldenrod library contains only the highest and purest literature,--stories which appeal alike both to children and to their parents and guardians. each volume is well illustrated from drawings by competent artists, which, together with their handsomely decorated uniform binding, showing the goldenrod, usually considered the emblem of america, is a feature of their manufacture. each one volume, small 12mo, illustrated, decorated cover, paper wrapper $0.35 list of titles =aunt nabby's children.= by frances hodges white. =child's dream of a star, the.= by charles dickens. =flight of rosy dawn, the.= by pauline bradford mackie. =findelkind=. by ouida. =fairy of the rhone, the.= by a. comyns carr. =gatty and i.= by frances e. crompton. =great emergency, a.= by juliana horatia ewing. =helena's wonderworld.= by frances hodges white. =jackanapes.= by juliana horatia ewing. =jerry's reward.= by evelyn snead barnett. =la belle nivernaise.= by alphonse daudet. =little king davie.= by nellie hellis. =little peterkin vandike.= by charles stuart pratt. =little professor, the.= by ida horton cash. =peggy's trial.= by mary knight potter. =prince yellowtop.= by kate whiting patch. =provence rose, a.= by ouida. =rab and his friends.= by dr. john brown. =seventh daughter, a.= by grace wickham curran. =sleeping beauty, the.= by martha baker dunn. =small, small child, a.= by e. livingston prescott. =story of a short life, the.= by juliana horatia ewing. =susanne.= by frances j. delano. =water people, the.= by charles lee sleight. =young archer, the.= by charles e. brimblecom. cosy corner series it is the intention of the publishers that this series shall contain only the very highest and purest literature,--stories that shall not only appeal to the children themselves, but be appreciated by all those who feel with them in their joys and sorrows. the numerous illustrations in each book are by well-known artists, and each volume has a separate attractive cover design. each 1 vol., 16mo, cloth $0.50 _by annie fellows johnston_ =the little colonel.= (trade mark.) the scene of this story is laid in kentucky. its heroine is a small girl, who is known as the little colonel, on account of her fancied resemblance to an old-school southern gentleman, whose fine estate and old family are famous in the region. =the giant scissors.= this is the story of joyce and of her adventures in france. joyce is a great friend of the little colonel, and in later volumes shares with her the delightful experiences of the "house party" and the "holidays." =two little knights of kentucky.= who were the little colonel's neighbors. in this volume the little colonel returns to us like an old friend, but with added grace and charm. she is not, however, the central figure of the story, that place being taken by the "two little knights." =mildred's inheritance.= a delightful little story of a lonely english girl who comes to america and is befriended by a sympathetic american family who are attracted by her beautiful speaking voice. by means of this one gift she is enabled to help a school-girl who has temporarily lost the use of her eyes, and thus finally her life becomes a busy, happy one. =cicely and other stories for girls.= the readers of mrs. johnston's charming juveniles will be glad to learn of the issue of this volume for young people. =aunt 'liza's hero and other stories.= a collection of six bright little stories, which will appeal to all boys and most girls. =big brother.= a story of two boys. the devotion and care of steven, himself a small boy, for his baby brother, is the theme of the simple tale. =ole mammy's torment.= "ole mammy's torment" has been fitly called "a classic of southern life." it relates the haps and mishaps of a small negro lad, and tells how he was led by love and kindness to a knowledge of the right. =the story of dago.= in this story mrs. johnston relates the story of dago, a pet monkey, owned jointly by two brothers. dago tells his own story, and the account of his haps and mishaps is both interesting and amusing. =the quilt that jack built.= a pleasant little story of a boy's labor of love, and how it changed the course of his life many years after it was accomplished. =flip's islands of providence.= a story of a boy's life battle, his early defeat, and his final triumph, well worth the reading. _by edith robinson_ =a little puritan's first christmas.= a story of colonial times in boston, telling how christmas was invented by betty sewall, a typical child of the puritans, aided by her brother sam. =a little daughter of liberty.= the author's motive for this story is well indicated by a quotation from her introduction, as follows: "one ride is memorable in the early history of the american revolution, the well-known ride of paul revere. equally deserving of commendation is another ride,--the ride of anthony severn,--which was no less historic in its action or memorable in its consequences." =a loyal little maid.= a delightful and interesting story of revolutionary days, in which the child heroine, betsey schuyler, renders important services to george washington. =a little puritan rebel.= this is an historical tale of a real girl, during the time when the gallant sir harry vane was governor of massachusetts. =a little puritan pioneer.= the scene of this story is laid in the puritan settlement at charlestown. the little girl heroine adds another to the list of favorites so well known to the young people. =a little puritan bound girl.= a story of boston in puritan days, which is of great interest to youthful readers. =a little puritan cavalier.= the story of a "little puritan cavalier" who tried with all his boyish enthusiasm to emulate the spirit and ideals of the dead crusaders. _by ouida_ (_louise de la ramée_) =a dog of flanders:= a christmas story. too well and favorably known to require description. =the nurnberg stove.= this beautiful story has never before been published at a popular price. _by frances margaret fox_ =the little giant's neighbours.= a charming nature story of a "little giant" whose neighbours were the creatures of the field and garden. =farmer brown and the birds.= a little story which teaches children that the birds are man's best friends. =betty of old mackinaw.= a charming story of child-life, appealing especially to the little readers who like stories of "real people." =brother billy.= the story of betty's brother, and some further adventures of betty herself. =mother nature's little ones.= curious little sketches describing the early lifetime, or "childhood," of the little creatures out-of-doors. =how christmas came to the mulvaneys.= a bright, lifelike little story of a family of poor children, with an unlimited capacity for fun and mischief. the wonderful never-to-be forgotten christmas that came to them is the climax of a series of exciting incidents. * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. page xi, "bodiess wayed" changed to "bodies swayed" (bodies swayed to and fro) page 86, "mada" changed to "nada" (ha vista nada) [transcriber's note: original spellings have been retained, including those that are inconsistent within the document. an error in the table of contents has been corrected from page 154 to page 156.] a short history of spain by mary platt parmele illustrated new york charles scribner's sons 1906 copyright, 1898, by mary platt parmele copyright, 1898, 1906, by charles scribner's sons [illustration: from the portrait by titian. charles v.] preface. in presenting this book to the public the author can only reiterate what she has already said in works of a similar kind: that she has tried to exclude the mass of confusing details which often make the reading of history a dreary task; and to keep closely to those facts which are vital to the unfolding of the narrative. this is done under a strong conviction that the essential facts in history are those which reveal and explain the development of a nation, rather than the incidents, more or less entertaining, which have attended such development. and also under another conviction: that a little, thoroughly comprehended, is better than much imperfectly remembered and understood. m.p.p new york. _june 15, 1898._ contents. chapter i. ancient iberia--the basques--the keltberians--the phenicians--cadiz founded, 1 chapter ii. struggle between phenicians and assyrians--founding of carthage--decline of phenicia--rise of roman power--first punic war, 9 chapter iii. hamilcar--hannibal--siege and fall of saguntum--rome invades spain--scipio's policy--cadiz, (gades) surrendered to the romans--by what steps iberia became spain--fall of carthaginian power--how spain became a roman province, 15 chapter iv. sertorius--story of the white hind--rome fights her own battles on spanish soil--battle of munda--cæsar declared dictator--the ides of march--octavius augustus--spain latinized--four hundred years of peace, 24 chapter v. northern races in the history of civilization--roman empire expiring--ataulfus--attila and the huns--theodoric--evaric completes conquest of spanish peninsula--europe teutonized--difference between anglo-saxon and latin races, 30 chapter vi. ulfilas--arianism--the spanish language--brunhilde--leovigild--his son's apostasy--arianism ceases to be the established religion of spain, 39 chapter vii. toledo--church of santa maria--wamba, 45 chapter viii. decline of visigoths--roderick--count julian's treachery--mahommedanism--tarif--prophecy found in the enchanted tower--tarik--roderick's defeat and death--moslem empire established in spain, 50 chapter ix. musa's dream of european conquest--charles martel--characteristics of mahommedan rule--mission of the saracen in europe--the germ of a christian kingdom in the north of spain, 58 chapter x. pelayo and the cave of covadonga--alfonso i.--berbers and arabs at war on african coast--war extends to spain--the omeyyad khalifs superseded by the abbasides--abd-er-rahman--omeyyad dynasty established at cordova--ineffectual attempt of the abbasides to overthrow abd-er-rahman--character of this conqueror, 64 chapter xi. charlemagne--battle of roncesvalles, 69 chapter xii. conditions after death of abd-er-rahman--abd-er-rahman ii.--arab refinements--eulogius and the christian martyrs--abd-er-rahman iii.--a khalifate at cordova--the great mosque--the city of "the fairest"--death of abd-er-rahman iii., 72 chapter xiii. rough cradle of a spanish nationality in the asturias--alfonso iii. and his hidalgos and dons--guerrilla warfare with moors--jealousies and strife between christian kingdoms--civil war--almanzor--ruin of christian state seemed imminent--death of almanzor--berber revolt--anarchy in moorish state--a khalif begging a crust of bread--berbers destroy cordova--library burned--city of "the fairest" a ruin--asturias--leon and castile united--alfonso vi.--the cid--triumph of christians--moors ask aid of the almoravides--christians driven back--death of the cid--a dynasty of the almoravides--the alhomades--the great mahdi--moorish people become subject to emperor of morocco--his designs upon europe--the pope proclaims a crusade--alhomades driven out of spain by christians--moorish kingdom reduced to province of granada, 78 chapter xiv. european conditions in thirteenth century--visigoth kings recover their land--its changed conditions--effect of arab civilization upon spanish nation--fernando iii.--spain draws into closer companionship with european states--alfonso x.--spain becoming picturesque--the bull-fight--beautiful granada--the alhambra, 87 chapter xv. perpetual civil war between spanish states--castile and aragon absorb the others and in conflict for supremacy--pedro the cruel--the "black prince" his champion against aragon--john of gaunt--his claim upon the throne of castile--his final compromise--political conditions contrasted with those of other states, 94 chapter xvi. death of juan ii.--enrique iv.--isabella--her marriage with ferdinand of aragon--isabella crowned queen of castile--ferdinand, king of aragon--the two crowns united--characteristics of the two sovereigns--the inquisition created--jews driven out of the kingdom--abdul-hassan's defiance--zahara--family troubles at the alhambra--ayesha and boabdil--alhama captured by ferdinand--boabdil supplants his father--massacre of the abencerrages--granada besieged--its capitulation--moorish rule ended in spain, 100 chapter xvii. columbus and isabella--isabella's private griefs--her death--charles, king under a regency--charles elected emperor of germany--spain during his reign--cruelties in the east and in the west--vain struggle with protestantism--abdication and death of charles, 108 chapter xviii. philip ii.--union of spain and portugal--the duke of alva in the netherlands--war with england--spanish armada destroyed--death of philip ii.--spain's decline--glory of the name "castilian," 117 chapter xix. philip iii.--rebellion of the moriscos--last of the moors conveyed to african coast--don quixote--philip iv.--louis xiv. marries spanish infanta--a diminishing kingdom--carlos ii.--first collision between anglo-saxon and spaniard in america--close of hapsburg dynasty in spain, 125 chapter xx. new european conditions--louis xiv.--war of the "spanish succession"--marlborough checks louis at blenheim--archduke abandons sovereignty in spain--peace of utrecht--further dismemberment of spain--gibraltar passes to england--bourbon dynasty--commences with philip v.--ferdinand vi.--carlos iii.--expulsion of the jesuits, 131 chapter xxi. a dismantled kingdom--spanish-american colonies--england and france at war over american boundaries--spain the ally of france--loss of some of her west india islands, and capture of havana and manila by british--florida given in exchange for return of conquered territory--growing irritation against england--france aids american colonies in war with england--spain's satisfaction at their success--its effect in peru--revolution in france--rapid rise of napoleon--carlos iv. removed and joseph bonaparte king--spain joins napoleon in war against england--trafalgar--arthur wellesley--joseph flees from his kingdom, 137 chapter xxii. liberal sentiment developing--constitution of 1812--ferdinand vi. and reactionary measures--revolt of all the spanish-american colonies--the holy alliance--the monroe doctrine--revolution in spain--spain under the protectorate of the holy alliance--ferdinand reinstated--two political parties--six spanish-american colonies freed, 144 chapter xxiii. the salic law and the princess isabella--the carlists--regency of christine--isabella ii.--her expulsion from spain--amadeo--an era of republicanism--castelar--alfonso xii. recalled--his brief reign and death--alfonso xiii., 150 chapter xxiv. birth of an insurgent party in cuba--ten years' war--impossible reforms promised--revolution started by josé marti, 1895--attitude of the american government--general weyler's methods--effect upon sentiment in america--destruction of the battle-ship _maine_--verdict of court of inquiry--war declared between spain and america--victories of manila and in cuba--terms of peace--marriage of alfonso xiii. and the princess ena, 154 illustrations. charles v. _frontispiece_ facing page columbus at the court of ferdinand and isabella 108 the surrender of breda 118 philip iv. of spain 126 heroic combat in the pulpit of the church of st. augustine, saragossa, 1809 144 the duke de la torre sworn in as regent before the cortes of 1869 152 a short history of spain. chapter i. no name is more fraught with picturesque and romantic interest than that of the "spanish peninsula." after finishing this rare bit of handiwork nature seems to have thrown up a great ragged wall, stretching from sea to sea, to protect it; and the pyrenees have stood for ages a frowning barrier, descending toward france on the northern side from gradually decreasing heights--but on the spanish side in wild disorder, plunging down through steep chasms, ravines, and precipices--with sharp cliffs towering thousands of feet skyward, which better than standing armies protect the sunny plains below. but the "spanish peninsula," at the time we are about to consider, was neither "spanish" nor was it a "peninsula." at the dawn of history this sunny corner of europe was known as _iberia_, and its people as _iberians_. time has effaced all positive knowledge of this aboriginal race; but they are believed to have come from the south, and to have been allied to the libyans, who inhabited the northern coast of africa. in fact, _iberi_ in the libyan tongue meant _freeman_; and _berber_, apparently derived from that word, was the term by which all of these western peoples were known to the ancient egyptians. but it is suspected that the iberians found it an easy matter to flow into the land south of the pyrenees, and that they needed no boats for the transit. there has always existed a tradition of the joining of the two continents, and now it is believed by geologists that an isthmus once really stretched across to the african coast at the narrowest point of the straits, at a time when the waters of a mediterranean gulf, and the waters flowing over the sands of sahara, together found their outlet in the indian ocean. there is also a tradition that the adventurous phenicians, who are known to have been in iberia as early as 1300 b.c., cut a canal through the narrow strip of land, and then built a bridge across the canal. but a bridge was a frail link by which to hold the mighty continents together. the atlantic, glad of such an entrance to the great gulf beyond, must have rushed impetuously through, gradually widening the opening, and (may have) thus permanently severed europe and africa; drained the sahara dry; transformed the mediterranean gulf into a mediterranean sea; and created a "spanish peninsula." how long this fair peninsula was the undisturbed home of the iberians no one knows. behind the rocky ramparts of the pyrenees they may have remained for centuries unconscious of the aryan torrent which was flooding western europe as far as the british isles. nothing has been discovered by which we may reconstruct this prehistoric people and (perhaps) civilization. but their physical characteristics we are enabled to guess; for just as we find in cornwall, england, lingering traces of the ancient britons, so in the mountain fastnesses of northern spain linger the _basques_, who are by many supposed to be the last survivors of that mysterious primitive race. the language of the basques bears no resemblance to any of the indo-european, nor indeed to any known tongue. it is so difficult, so intricate in construction, that only those who learn it in infancy can ever master it. it is said that, in basque, "you spell solomon, and pronounce it nebuchadnezzar." its antiquity is so great that one legend calls it the "language of the angels," and another says that _tubal_ brought it to spain before the lingual disaster at babel! and still another relates that the devil once tried to learn it, but that, after studying it for seven years and learning only three words, he gave it up in despair. a language which, without literature, can so resist change, can so persist unmodified by another tongue spoken all around and about it, must have great antiquity; and there is every reason to believe that the basque is a survival of the tongue spoken by the primitive iberians, before the kelts began to flow over and around the pyrennees; and also that the physical characteristics of this people are the same as those of their ancient progenitors; small-framed, dark, with a faint suggestion of the semitic in their swarthy faces. we cannot say when it occurred, but at last the powerful, warlike kelts had surmounted the barrier and were mingled with this non-aryan people, and the resulting race thus formed was known to antiquity as the _keltiberians_. it is probable that the rugged kelt easily absorbed the race of more delicate type, and made it, in religion and customs, not unlike the keltic aryan in gaul. but the physical characteristics of the other and primitive race are indelibly stamped upon the spanish people; and it is probably to the iberian strain in the blood that may be traced the small, dark type of men which largely prevails in spain, and to some extent also in central and southern france. but the keltiberians were keltic in their religion. there are now in spain the usual monuments found wherever druid worship prevailed. huge blocks of stone, especially in cantabria and lusitania (portugal), standing alone or in circles, tell the story of druidical rites, and of the worship of the ocean, the wind, and the thunder, and of the placating of the powers of nature by human sacrifices. the mingling of the kelts and the iberians in varying proportions in different parts of spain, and in some places (as among the basques) their mingling not at all, produced that diversity of traits which distinguished the _asturians_ in the mountain gorges from their neighbors the _cantabrians_, and both these from the _catalonians_ in the northeast and the _gallicians_ on the northwest coast, and from the _lusitanians_, where now is portugal; and still more distinguished the _basques_, in the rocky ravines of the pyrenees, from each and all of the others. and yet these unlike members of one family were collectively known as keltiberians. while this race--hardy, temperate, brave, and superstitious--was leading its primitive life upon the iberian peninsula, while they were shooting arrows at the sky to threaten the thunder, drawing their swords against the rising tide, and prizing iron more dearly than their abundant gold and silver, because they could hammer it into hooks, and swords, and spears--there had long existed in the east a group of wonderful civilizations: the egyptian, hoary with age and steeped in wisdom and in wickedness; the _chaldeans_, who, with "looks commercing with the skies," were the fathers of astronomy; the _assyrians_ and _babylonians_, with their wonderful cities of _nineveh_ and _babylon_, and the phenicians, with their no less famous cities of _sidon_ and _tyre_. sidon, which was the more ancient of these two, is said to have been founded by sidon, the son of canaan, who was the great-grandson of noah. of all these nations it was the phenicians who were the most adventurous. they were a semitic people, syrian in blood, and their home was a narrow strip of coast on the east of the mediterranean, where a group of free cities was joined into a confederacy held together by a strong national spirit. of these cities sidon was once the head, but in time tyre eclipsed it in splendor, and writers, sacred and profane, have sung her glories. these phenicians had a genius for commerce and trade. they scented a bargain from afar, and knew how to exchange "their broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate" (i kings xxvii. 16), their glassware and their wonderful cloths dyed in tyrian scarlet and purple, for the spices and jewels of the east, and for the gold and silver and the ivory and the ebony of the south and west. their ships were coursing the red sea and the persian gulf and bringing back treasures from india and searching every inlet in the mediterranean, and finally, either through the canal they are said to have cut, or the straits it had made, they sailed as far as the british isles and brought back tin. but the gold and silver of the iberian peninsula were more alluring than the spices of india or the tin of britain. so upon the spanish coast they made permanent settlements and built cities. as early as 1100 b.c. they had founded beyond the "pillars of hercules," the city of _gades_ (cadiz), a walled and fortified town, and had taught the keltiberians how to open and work their gold and silver mines systematically; and in exchange they brought an old civilization, with new luxuries, new ideas and customs into the lives of the simple people. but they bestowed something far beyond this--something more enriching than silver and gold,--an alphabet,--and it is to the phenicians that we are indebted for the alphabet now in use throughout the civilized world. chapter ii. such an extension of power, and the acquisition of sources of wealth so boundless, excited the envy of other nations. the greeks are said to have been in the iberian peninsula long before the fall of troy, where they came with a fleet from zante, in the ionian sea, and in memory of that place, called the city they founded zacynthus, which name in time became _saguntum_. now they sent more expeditions and founded more cities on the spanish coast; and the babylonians, and the assyrians, and, at a later time, the persians and the greeks, all took up arms against these insatiate traders. phenician supremacy was not easily maintained with so many jealous rivals in the field, and it was rudely shaken in 850 b.c., when "the assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold." and the phenician power was partially broken at its source in the east. it is with thrilling interest that we read isaiah's prophecy of the destruction of tyre, which was written at this very time. for the phenicians were the _canaanites_ of bible history, and "hiram king of tyre" was their king; and his "navy," which, together with solomon's "came once in three years from _tarshish_," was their navy; and _tarshish_ was none other than _tartessus_, their own province, just beyond gibraltar on the spanish coast. nor is it at all improbable that spanish gold was used to adorn the temple which the great solomon was building. (i kings ix., x.) shakspere, who says all things better than anyone else, makes othello find in the fatal handkerchief "confirmation strong as proofs from holy writ." where can be found "confirmation" stronger than these "proofs from holy writ"? and where a more magnificent picture of the luxury, the sumptuous oriental splendor of this nation at that period, than in ezekiel, chapters xxvii., xxviii.? what an eloquent apostrophe to tyre--"thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, a merchant of the people, for _many isles_."--"with thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches," and, "by thy great wisdom and by thy _traffick_ hast thou increased, and thine heart is lifted up." and then follows the terrible arraignment--"because of the iniquity of thy _traffick_." and then the final prediction of ruin--"i will bring thee to ashes upon the earth"; "thou shalt be a terror, and _never_ shalt thou be any more." where in any literature can we find such lurid splendor of description, and such a powerful appeal to the imagination of the reader! and where could the student of history find a more graphic and accurate picture of a vanished civilization! in 850 b.c., the same year in which the assyrians partly subjugated the phenicians in the east, the city of carthage was founded upon the north coast of africa, and there commenced a movement, with that city as its center, which drew together all their scattered possessions into a punic confederacy. this was composed of the islands of sardinia, corsica, part of sicily, the balearic isles, and the cities and colonies upon the spanish peninsula and african coast. as the power of this confederacy expands, the name phenician passes away and that of _carthaginian_ takes its place in history. carthage became a mighty city, and controlled with a strong hand the scattered empire which had been planted by the syrian tradesmen. carthaginian merchants and miners were in tartessus, and were planting cities and colonies throughout the peninsula, and a torrent of carthaginian life was thus pouring into spain for many hundred years, and the blood of the two races must have freely mingled. there are memorials of this time now existing, not only in phenician coins, medals, and ruins, but in the names of the cities. _barcelona_, named after the powerful family of barca in carthage, to which hannibal belonged. _carthagena_, a memorial of carthage, which meant "the city"; and even _cordova_ is traced to its primitive form,--kartah-duba,--meaning "an important city." while _isabella_, the name most famous in spanish annals, has a still greater antiquity; and was none other than jezebel--after the beautiful daughter of the king of sidon (the "_zidoneans_"), who married ahab, and lured him to his downfall. and we are told that this wicked siren whose dreadful fate elijah foretold, was cousin to dido, she who virgil tells us "wept in silence" for the faithless æneas. with what a strange thrill do we find these threads of association between history sacred and profane, and both mingled with the modern history of spain. but phenicia, for the "iniquity of her traffick," was doomed. the roots of this old asiatic tree had been slowly and surely perishing, while her branches in the west were expanding. in the year 332 b.c. the siege and destruction of tyre, predicted five hundred years before by isaiah, was accomplished by alexander the great, and the words of the prophet found their complete fulfillment--that the people of tarshish should find no city, no port, no welcome, when they came back to syria! but on the northern coast of the mediterranean there was another power which was waxing, while the carthaginian was waning. the occupation of the young roman republic was not trade, but conquest. a bitter enmity existed between the two nations. rome was determined to break this grasping old asiatic confederacy and to drive it out of europe. the spanish peninsula she knew little about, but the rich islands near her own coast--they must be hers. when, after the first punic war (264-241 b.c.), the carthaginians saw sardinia and sicily torn from them, hamilcar, their great general, determined upon a plan of vengeance which should make of italy a punic province. his people were strong upon the sea, but for this war of invasion they must have an army, too. so he conceived the idea of making spain the basis of his military operations, and recruiting an immense army from the iberian peninsula. chapter iii. the carthaginian occupation of spain had not extended much beyond the coast, and had been rather in the nature of a commercial alliance with a few cities. now hamilcar determined, by placating, and by bribes, and if necessary by force, to take possession of the peninsula for his own purposes, and to make of the people a punic nation under the complete dominion of carthage. so his first task was to win, or to subdue, the keltiberians. he built the city of new carthage (now carthagena), he showed the people how to develop their immense resources, and by promises of increased prosperity won the confidence and sympathy of the nation, and soon had a population of millions from which to recruit its army. when his son hannibal was nine years old, at his father's bidding he placed his hand upon the altar and swore eternal enmity to rome. the fidelity of the boy to his oath made a great deal of history. he took up the task when his father laid it down, inaugurated the second punic war (218-201 b.c.); and for forty years carried on one of the most desperate struggles the world has ever seen; the hoary east in struggle with the young west. saguntum was that ancient city in valencia which was said to have been founded by the greeks long before homer sang of troy, or, indeed, before helen brought ruin upon that city. at all events its antiquity was greater even than that of the phenician cities in spain, and after being long forgotten by the greeks it had drifted under roman protection. it was the only spot in spain which acknowledged allegiance to rome; and for that reason was marked for destruction as an act of defiance. the saguntines sent an embassy to rome. these men made a pitiful and passionate appeal in the senate chamber: "romans, allies, friends! help! help! hannibal is at the gates of our city. hannibal, the sworn enemy of rome. hannibal the terrible. hannibal who fears not the gods, neither keeps faith with men. ["punic faith" was a byword.] o romans, fathers, friends! help while there is yet time." but they found they had a "protector" who did not protect. the senators sent an embassy to treat with hannibal, but no soldiers. so, with desperate courage, the saguntines defended their beleaguered city for weeks, hurling javelins, thrusting their lances, and beating down the besiegers from the walls. they had no repeating rifles nor dynamite guns, but they had the terrible _falaric_, a shaft of fir with an iron head a yard long, at the point of which was a mass of burning tow, which had been dipped in pitch. when a breach was made in the walls, the inflowing army would be met by a rain of this deadly falaric, which was hurled with telling power and precision. then, in the short interval of rest this gave them, men, women, and children swiftly repaired the broken walls before the next assault. but at last the resourceful hannibal abandoned his battering rams, and with pickaxes undermined the wall, which fell with a crash. when asked to surrender, the chief men of the city kindled a great fire in the market-place, into which they then threw all the silver and gold in the treasury, their own gold and silver and garments and furniture, and then cast themselves headlong into the flames. this was their answer. saguntum, which for more than a thousand years had looked from its elevation out upon the sea, was no more, and its destruction was one of the thrilling tragedies of ancient history. on its site there exists to-day a town called _mur viedro_ (old walls), and these old walls are the last vestige of ancient saguntum. in order to understand the indifference of rome to the spanish peninsula at this time, it must be remembered that spain was then the uttermost verge of the known world, beyond which was only a dread waste of waters and of mystery. to the people of tyre and of greece, the twin "pillars of hercules" had marked the limit beyond which there was nothing; and those two columns, gibraltar and ceuta, with the legend _ne plus ultra_ entwined about them, still survive, as a symbol, in the arms of spain and upon the spanish coins; and what is still more interesting to americans, in the familiar mark ($) which represents a dollar. (the english name for the spanish _peso_ is _pillar-dollar_.) now rome was aroused from its apathy. it sent an army into spain, led by scipio the elder, known as scipio africanus. when he fell, his son, only twenty-four years old, stood up in the roman forum and offered to fill the undesired post; and, in 210 b.c., scipio "the younger"--and the greater--took the command--as livy eloquently says--"between the tombs of his father and his uncle", who had both perished in spain within a month. the chief feature of scipio's policy was, while he was defeating hannibal in battles, to be undermining him with his native allies; and to make that people realize to what hard taskmasters they had bound themselves; and by his own manliness and courtesy and justice to win them to his side. he marched his army swiftly and unexpectedly upon new carthage, the capital and center of the whole carthaginian movement, sent his fleet to blockade the city, and planned his moves with such precision that the fleet for the blockade and the army for the siege arrived before the city on the same day. taken entirely by surprise. new carthage was captured without a siege. not one of the inhabitants was spared, and spoil of fabulous amounts fell to the victors. it seems like a fairy tale--or like the story of mexico and peru 1800 years later--to read of 276 golden bowls which were brought to scipio's tent, countless vessels of silver, and 18 tons of coined and wrought silver. but the richest part of the prize was the 750 spanish hostages--high in rank of course--whom the various tribes had given in pledge of their fidelity to carthage. now scipio held these pledges, and they were a menace and a promise. they were roman slaves, but he could by kindness, and by holding out the hope of emancipation, placate and further bind to him the native people. by an exercise of tact and clemency scipio gained such an ascendancy over the inhabitants, and so moved were they by this unexpected generosity and kindness, that many would gladly have made him their king. but he seems to have been the "noblest roman of them all," and when saluted as king on one occasion he said: "never call me king. other nations may revere that name, but no roman can endure it. my soldiers have given me a more honorable title--that of general." such nobility, such a display of roman virtue, was a revelation to these barbarians; and they felt the grandeur of the words, though they could not quite understand them. they were won to the cause of rome, and formed loyal alliances with scipio which they never broke. in the year 206 b.c. gades (cadiz), the last stronghold, was surrendered to the romans, and the entire spanish peninsula had been wrenched from the carthaginians. _iberia_ was changed to _hispania_, and fifteen years later the whole of the peninsula was organized into a roman province, thenceforth known in history, not as _iberia_, nor yet _hispania_; but _spain_, and its people as _spaniards_. at the end of the third punic war (149-146 b.c.), the ruin of the carthaginians was complete. hannibal had died a fugitive and a suicide. his nation had not a single ship upon the seas, nor a foot of territory upon the earth, and the great city of carthage was plowed and sowed with salt. rome had been used by fate to fulfill her stern decree--"_delenda est carthago_." it was really only a limited portion of the peninsula; a fringe of provinces upon the south and east coast, which had been under carthaginian and now acknowledged roman dominion. beyond these the keltiberian tribes in the center formed a sort of confederation, and consented to certain alliances with the romans; while beyond them, intrenched in their own impregnable mountain fastnesses, were brave, warlike, independent tribes, which had never known anything but freedom, whose names even, rome had not yet heard. the stern virtue and nobility of scipio proved a delusive promise. rome had not an easy task, and other and brutal methods were to be employed in subduing stubborn tribes and making of the whole a latin nation. in one of the defiles of the pyrenees there may now be seen the ruins of fortifications built by cato the elder, not long after scipio, which show how early those free people in the north were made to feel the iron heel of the master and to learn their lesson of submission. the century which followed scipio's conquest was one of dire experience for spain. a roman army was trampling out every vestige of freedom in provinces which had known nothing else; and more than that, roman diplomacy was making of their new possession a fighting ground for the civil war which was then raging at rome; and partisans of marius and of sylla were using and slaughtering the native tribes in their own desperate struggle. roman rule was arrogant and oppressive, roman governors cruel, arbitrary, and rapacious, and the boasted "roman virtue" seemed to have been left in rome, when treaties were made only to be violated at pleasure. chapter iv. as nature delights in adorning the crevices of crumbling ruins with mosses and graceful lichens, so literature has busied itself with these historic ruins; and cervantes has made the siege of numantia (134 b.c.)--more terrible even than that of saguntum--the subject of a poem, in which he depicts the horrors of the famine. lira, the heroine, answers her ardent lover mirando in high-flown spanish phrase, which, when summed up in plain english prose, means that she cannot listen to his wooing, because she is so hungry--which, in view of the fact that she has not tasted food for weeks, seems to us not surprising! sertorius, whose story is told by plutarch, affords another picturesque subject for corneille in one of his most famous tragedies. this roman was an adherent of marius in the long struggle with sylla, and while upholding his cause in spain he won to his side the people of lusitania (portugal), who made him their ruler, and helped him to fight the great army of the opposing roman faction, part of which was led by pompey. mithridates, in asia minor, was also in conflict with sylla, and sent an embassy to sertorius which led to a league between the two for mutual aid, and for the defense of the cause of marius. but senators of his own party became jealous of the great elevation of sertorius, and conspired to assassinate him at a feast to which he was invited. so ended (72 b.c.) one of the most picturesque characters and interesting episodes in the difficult march of barbarous spain toward enlightenment and civilization. sertorius seems to have been a great administrator as well as fighter, and must also be counted one of the civilizers of spain. he founded a school at osca,--now huesca,--where he had roman and greek masters for the spanish youth. and it is interesting to learn that there is to-day at that city a university which bears the title "university of sertorius." but it is not the valor nor the sagacity of sertorius which made him the favorite of poets; but the story of the white hind, which he made to serve him so ingeniously in establishing his authority with the lusitanians. a milk-white fawn, on account of its rarity, was given him by a peasant. he tamed her, and she became his constant companion, unaffrighted even in the tumult of battle. he saw that the people began to invest the little animal with supernatural qualities; so, finally, he confided to them that she was sent to him by the goddess diana, who spoke to him through her, and revealed important secrets. such is the story which corneille and writers in other lands have found so fascinating, and which an english author has made the subject of his poem "the white hind of sertorius." another roman civil war, more pregnant of great results, was to be fought out in spain. julius cæsar's conspiracy against the roman republic, and his desperate fight with pompey for the dictatorship, long drenched spanish soil with blood, and had its final culmination (after pompey's tragic death in egypt) in cæsar's victory over pompey's sons at munda, in spain, 45 b.c. with this event, the military triumphs and the intrigues of cæsar had accomplished his purpose. he was declared _imperator_, perpetual dictator of rome, and religious sacrifices were decreed to him as if he were a god. unconscious of the chasm which was yawning at his feet he haughtily accepted the honors and adulation of men who were at that very moment conspiring for his death. on the fatal "ides of march" (44 b.c.) he was stricken in the senate chamber by the hands of his friends, and the great cæsar lay dead at the feet of pompey's statue. the world had reached a supreme crisis in its existence. two events--the most momentous it has ever known--were at hand: the birth of a roman empire, which was to perish in a few centuries, after a life of amazing splendor; and the birth of a spiritual kingdom, which would never die! cæsar's nephew, octavius augustus, by gradual approaches reached the goal toward which no doubt his greater uncle was moving. after defeating brutus and cassius at philippi (42 b.c.) and then after destroying his only competitor, antony, at actium (31 b.c.) he assumed the imperial purple under the name of augustus. the title sounded harmless, but its wearer had founded the "roman empire." at last there was peace. spain was pacified, and only here and there did she struggle in the grasp of the romans. augustus, to make sure of the permanence of this pacification, himself went to the peninsula. he built cities in the plains, where he compelled the stubborn mountaineers to reside, and established military colonies in the places they had occupied. saragossa was one of these cities in the plains, and its name was "cæsar augusta," and many others have wandered quite as far from their original names, which may, however, still be traced. it is said that "the annals of the happy are brief." let us hope that poor spain, so long harried by fate, was happy in the next four hundred years, for her story can be briefly told. she seemed to have settled into a state of eternal peace. it was a period not of external events, but of a process--an internal process of assimilation. spain, in every department of its life, was becoming latinized. a people of rare intellectual activity had been united to the life of rome at the moment of her greatest intellectual elevation. was it strange that no roman province ever produced so long a list of historians, poets, philosophers, as did southern spain after the augustan conquest? when we read the list of great roman authors who were born in spain--the three senecas, one of whom, the author and wit, opened his veins at the command of nero (65 a.d.), and another, the gallio of the book of acts; also lucan, martial, and quintilian, when we read these names native to spain, it seems as if the source of inspiration had removed from the banks of the tiber to the banks of the guadalquivir. nowhere can the student of roman antiquities find a richer field than in spain. and not only that, there is to-day in the manners and customs, and in the habits of the peasantry, a pervading atmosphere of the classic land which adopted them, which all that has occurred since has been powerless to efface, while the language of spain is latin to its core. nor is this strange when we reflect that they were under this powerful influence for a period as long as from christopher columbus to the spanish-american war! chapter v. in the history of nations there is one fact which again and again with startling uniformity repeats itself. the rough, strong races from the north menace, and at last rudely dominate more highly civilized but less hardy races at the south, to the ultimate benefit of both, although with much present discomfort to the conquered race! in greece it was first the rude hellenes who overran the pelasgians. and again, long after that, there was another descent of fierce northern barbarians,--the dorians from epirus,--who, when they took possession of the peloponnesus and became the _spartans_, infused that vigorous strain without which the history of greece might have been a very tame affair. in the british isles it was the picts and scots, who would have done the same thing with england, perhaps, if the angles and saxons had not come to the rescue, while spain had her own picts and scots in the mountain tribes of the pyrenees. but in the fifth century there was the most stupendous illustration of this tendency, when all of southern europe was at last inundated by that northern deluge, and the effete roman empire was effaced. the process had been a gradual one; had commenced, in fact, two centuries before the overthrow of the roman republic. but not until the fourth century, after the wicked old empire had espoused christianity, did it become obvious that its foundations were undermined by this flood of barbarians. in 410 a.d., when the west-goths, under alaric, entered and sacked rome, her power was broken. the roots no longer nourished the distant extremities in britain and gaul, and it was only a question of time when these, too, should succumb to the inflowing tide. the ostro-goths--or east-goths--in northern italy, and the visigoths--or west-goths--in gaul, were setting up kingdoms of their own, under a roman protectorate. the long period of peace in spain was broken. the pyrenees, with their warlike tribes, defended her for a time; but the suevi and the vandals--the latter a companion tribe of the goths--had found an easier entrance by the sea on the east. they flowed down toward the south, and from thence across to the northern coast of africa, which they colonized, leaving a memorial in spain, in the lovely province of andalusia, which was named after them--_vandalusia_. but before the sacking of rome a wave of the gothic invasion had overflowed the pyrenees, and northern spain had become a part of the gothic kingdom in gaul, with the city of toulouse as its head. a century of contact with roman civilization had wrought great changes in this conquering race. they were untamed in strength, but realized the value of the civilities of life, and of intellectual superiority; and even strove to acquire some of the arts and accomplishments of the race they were invading. they were not yet acknowledged entire masters of gaul and northern spain. on condition of military service they had undisputed possession of their territory, with their own king, laws, and customs, but were nominally subjects of the roman emperor, honorius. their attitude toward the romans at this period cannot better be told than in the words of ataulf himself (or ataulfus, or adolphus), whose interesting story will be briefly related. he says: "it was my first wish to destroy the roman name and erect in its place a gothic empire, taking to myself the place and the powers of cæsar augustus. but when experience taught me that the untamable barbarism of the goths would not suffer them to live under the sway of law, and that the abolition of the institutions on which the state rested would involve the ruin of the state itself, i chose instead the glory of renewing and maintaining by gothic strength the fame of rome; preferring to go down to posterity as the restorer of that roman power which it was beyond my power to replace." these are not the words of a barbarian; although by the corrupt and courtly nobles in rome he was considered one; but no doubt he towered far above the barbarous host whom he helped to lead into rome in the year 410 a.d. ataulf was the brother-in-law of alaric, and succeeded that great leader in authority after his death (410 a.d.). at the time of the sacking of rome this gothic prince fell in love with placidia, the sister of the emperor honorius; and after the fashion of his people, carried her away as his captive; not an unwilling one, we suspect, for we learn of her great devotion to her brave, strong wooer, with blond hair and blue eyes. ataulf took his fair prize to the city of narbonne in southern france, and made her his queen. but when constantius, a disappointed roman lover of placidia's, instigated honorius to send an army against him and his goths, he withdrew into spain, and established his court with its rude splendor in the ancient city of barcelona. he seems to have had not an easy task between the desire to please his haughty roman bride and, at the same time, to repel the charge of his people that he was becoming effeminate and romanized; and, finally, so jealous did they become of her influence that ataulf was assassinated in the presence of his wife, all his children butchered, and the proud placidia compelled to walk barefoot through the streets of barcelona. constantius, the faithful roman lover, came with an army and carried back to rome the royal widow, who married him and became the mother of valentinian iii., who succeeded his uncle honorius as emperor of rome in 425 a.d., under the regency of placidia during his infancy. this romance, lying at the very root of a gothic dynasty in spain, marks the earliest beginnings of a line of visigoth kings. ataulf's successor removed his court to toulouse in france, and spain for many years remained only an outlying province of the gothic kingdom; her turbulent northern tribes refusing to accept or to mingle with the strange intruders. when driven by the romans from their mountain fastnesses the basques, many of them, were at that time dispersed through southern and central france; which accounts for the presence of that race in france, before alluded to. in the second half of the fifth century attila, "the scourge of god," swept down upon europe with his huns,--mysterious, terrible, as a fire out of heaven, and more like an army of demons than men,--destroying city after city, and driving the people before them, until they came to orléans. there they met the combined roman and gothic armies. theodoric, the visigoth king, was killed on the battlefield. but to him, and to the roman general ætius, belongs the glory of the defeat of the huns (451 a.d.). it was evaric, the son of this theodoric, who finally completed the conquest of the spanish peninsula, and with him really commences the line of visigoth kings in spain, and the conversion of that country into a gothic empire,[a] entirely independent of rome. the german _franks_, under clovis, established their kingdom in gaul 481 a.d. the _angles_ and _saxons_ in 446 a.d. did the same in britain. the _ostrogoths_ had their own kingdom in northern italy and southern gaul (burgundy). so, with the _visigoths_ ruling in spain, the "northern deluge" had in the fifth century practically submerged the whole of europe, and above its dark waters showed only the somber wreck of a roman empire. from this fusing of roman and teutonic races there were to arise two types of civilization, utterly different in kind, the _anglo-saxon_ and the _latin_. in one the prevailing element, after the fusing was complete, was to be the teutonic; in the other, the roman. herein lies the difference between these two great divisions of the human family, and this is the germinal fact in the war raging to-day between spain and the united states. it is a difference created not by the mastery of arms, but by the more efficient mastery of ideas. when the angles and saxons conquered britain, after a roman occupation of over three hundred years, they swept it clean of roman laws, literature, and civilization. untamed pagan barbarians though they were, they had fine instincts and simple ideals of society and government, and they cast out the corrupt old empire, root and branch. the visigoths in spain, more enlightened than they, already christianized, and, perhaps, even superior in intelligence, were content in the words of ataulf--"to renew and maintain by gothic strength the fame of rome." so they built upon the ruins of decaying institutions of a corrupt civilization, a kingdom which flourished with the enormous vitality drawn from the conquering race, which race was in turn conquered by roman ideals. so, in the conflict now existing between spain and the united states, we see the spaniard, the child of the romans; valorous, picturesque, cruel, versed in strategic arts, and with a savor of archaic wickedness which belongs to a corrupt old age. in the american we see the child of the simple angles and saxons, no less brave, but just, and with an enthusiasm and confiding integrity which seems to endow him with an imperishable youth. [footnote a: the famous gothic code established by him still linger in much of spanish jurisprudence.] chapter vi. the story of ulfilas, who christianized the pagan goths in the last half of the fourth century, is really the first chapter not alone in the history of gothic civilization but in that of the german and english literatures; which, with their vast riches, had their origin in the strange achievement of ulfilas. he had, while a boy, been captured by some goths off the coast of asia minor, and was called by them "_wulf-ilas_" (little wolf). in his desire to translate the bible to his captors wulf-ilas reduced the gothic language to writing. he had first to create an alphabet; taking twenty-two roman letters, and inventing two more: the letter _w_, and still another for _th_. so while, after constantine, the christian religion was being adopted by the roman empire, and while its simple dogmas were being discussed and refined into a complicated and intricate system by men versed in greek philosophy, and then formulated by minds trained in logic and rhetoric, the same religion was being spelled out in simple fashion by the goths in central europe from the book translated for them by ulfilas. all they found was that jesus christ was the beloved son of god and the saviour of the world; that he was the long-promised messiah, and to believe in him and to follow his teachings was salvation. they knew nothing of the trinity nor of any theologic subtleties, and this was the simple faith which the goths carried with them into the lands they conquered. the romans, who had spent three centuries in burning christians and trying to obliterate the religion of christ, were now its jealous guardians. they considered this "arianism," as it was called, a blasphemous heresy, so shocking that they refused to call it christianity at all. the history of the first century of the gothic kingdom in spain was therefore mainly that of the deadly strife between arianism and catholicism, or orthodoxy. the goths could not discuss, for they were utterly unable to understand even the terms under discussion; but they could fight and lay down their lives for the faith which had done so much for them; and this they did freely and fiercely. so the simple gothic people were bewildered by finding themselves in the presence of a christianity incomprehensible to them; a complicated, highly organized social order, equally incomprehensible; and a science and a literature of which they knew nothing. they might struggle for a while against this tide of superiority, but one by one they entered the fascinating portals of learning and of art, accepted the dogmas of learned prelates, and a few generations were sufficient to make them meek disciples of the older civilization. the spanish language fairly illustrates the result from this incongruous mingling of roman and gothic. it is said to be a language of latin roots with a teutonic grammar. the goths laid rough hands on the speech they consented to use, and the smooth, sonorous latin was strangely broken and mixed with gothic words and idioms; yet it became one of the most copious, flexible, and picturesque of languages, with a literature marvelously rich and beautiful. in precisely the same way was the classic old ruin of a roman state re-enforced with a rough gothic framework, and after centuries have hidden the joints and the scars with mosses and verdure, we have a picturesque and beautiful spain! but barbarous kings were fighting other things besides heresy. there were rebellions to put down; there were remnants of sueves and of roman power to drive out, and there were always the fierce mountain tribes who never mingled with any conquerors, nor had ever surrendered to anything but the catholic faith. there were intermarriages between the three gothic kingdoms, in burgundy, gaul, and spain, and the history of some of these royal families shows what wild passions still raged among the goths, and what atrocities were strangely mingled with ambitious projects and religion. athanagild, one of the visigoth kings, gave his daughter brunhilde in marriage to the king of the franks in gaul. the story of this terrible queen, stained with every crime, and accused of the death of no less than ten kings, comes to a fitting end when, we are told, that in her wicked old age she was tied to the tail of an unbroken horse and dragged over the stones of paris (600 a.d.). at this time leovigild (570-587), the visigoth king, was ruling spain with a strong hand. he had assumed more splendor than any of his predecessors. he had erected a magnificent throne in his palace at toledo, and his head, wearing the royal diadem, was placed on spanish coins, which may still be seen. a daughter of the terrible brunhilde, the princess ingunda, came over from france to become the wife of ermingild, the son of the great king leovigild, and heir to his throne. all went smoothly until it was discovered that this fair princess was a catholic, and was artfully plotting to win her husband over to her faith from the faith of his fathers--arianism. although catholicism had made great inroads among their people, never before had it invaded the royal household. and when his son declared his intention to desert their ancient creed there commenced a terrible conflict between father and son, which finally led to ermingild's open rebellion, and at last to his being beheaded by his father's order. but this crime against nature was in vain. arianism had reached the limit of its life in spain. upon the death of leovigild, his second son, recared (587-601), succeeded to the throne, and one of his first acts was to abjure the old faith of the gothic people, and catholicism became the established religion of spain. chapter vii. toledo, the capital of the visigoth kings, is the city about which cluster the richest memories of spain in her heroic age. when leovigild removed his capital there from seville in the sixth century, it was already an ancient jewish city, about which tradition had long busied itself. to-day, as it sits on the summit of a barren hill, one looks in vain for traces of its ancient gothic splendor. but the spot where now stands a beautiful cathedral is hallowed by a wonderful legend, which murillo made the subject of one of his great paintings. it is said that the apostle st. james founded on that very spot the church of _santa maria_; and that the virgin, in recognition of the dedication to her, descended from heaven to present its bishop, ildofonso, with a marvelous chasuble. in proof of this miracle, doubting visitors are still shown the marks of mary's footprint upon a stair in the chapel! however this may be, it is on this very spot that king recared formally abjured arianism; and preserved in a cloister of the cathedral may still be seen the "consecration stone" which reads: that the church of santa maria,--built probably on the foundation of the older church,--was consecrated under "king recared the catholic, 587 a.d." it also tells of the councils of the spanish church held there--at one of which councils was the famous canon which decreed that all future kings must swear they would show no mercy to "that accursed people"--meaning the jews. it was these very jews who had brought commercial success and created the enormous wealth of the city, from which it was now the duty of the pious visigoth kings to harry and hunt them as if they were frightened deer. the visigoth monarchy, although in many cases hereditary, was in fact elective. and the student of spanish history will not find an orderly royal succession as in england and france. disputes regarding the succession were not infrequent, and sometimes there will occur an interval with apparently no king at all, followed by another period when there are two--one ruling in the north and another in the south. "the king is dead--long live the king!" might do for france, but not for spain. during one of these periods of uncertainty, in the latter half of the seventh century, it is said that leo, a holy man (afterward pope), was told in a dream that the man who must wear the crown was then a laborer, living in the west, and that his name was wamba. they traveled in search of this man almost to the borders of portugal, and there they found the future candidate for the throne plowing in the field. the messengers, bowing before the plowman, informed him that he had been selected as king of spain. wamba laughed, and said, "yes, i shall be king of spain when my pole puts forth leaves." instantly the bare pole began to bud, and in a few moments was covered with verdure! in vain did wamba protest. what could a poor man do in the face of such a miracle, and with a spanish duke pressing a poniard against his breast, and telling him to choose on the instant between a throne and a tomb! the unhappy wamba suffered himself to be borne in triumph to toledo, and there to be crowned. and a very wise and excellent king did he make. he seemed fully equal to the difficult demands of his new position. a rebellion, fomented by an ambitious duke paul, who gathered about his standard all the banished jews, was a very formidable affair. but wamba put it down with a firm hand, and then, when it was over, treated the conspirators and rebels with marvelous clemency. when his reign was concluded he left a record of wisdom and sagacity rare in those days, in any land. his taking off the stage was as remarkable as his coming on. he fell into a trance (october 14, 680), and after long insensibility it was concluded that the king was dying. according to a custom of the period wamba's head was shaved, and he was clothed in the habit of a monk. the meaning of this was that if he died, he would, as was fitting, pass into the divine presence in penitential garb. but if, peradventure, the patient survived, he was pledged to spend the rest of his life in that holy vocation, renouncing every worldly advantage. so when, after a few hours, wamba, in perfect health, opened his eyes, he found that instead of a king he was transformed into a monk! whether this was a cunning device of this philosophic king to lay down the burdens which wearied him, and spend the rest of his days in tranquility; or whether it was the work of the royal prince, who joyfully assumed the diadem which he had so unwillingly worn, nobody knows. but wamba passed the remainder of his days in a monastery near burgos, and the ambitious ervigius reigned as his successor. chapter viii. the visigoth kingdom, which had stood for three centuries, had passed its meridian. it had created a magnificent background for historic spain, and a heritage which would be the pride and glory of the proudest nation in europe. the goths had come as only rude intruders into that country; but to be descended from the visigoth kings was hereafter to be the proudest boast of the spaniard. and the man who could make good such claim to distinction was a _hidalgo_; or in its original form, _hijo-de-algo_--son of somebody. but many generations of peace had impaired the rugged strength and softened the sinews of the nation. it was the beginning of the end when, at the close of the seventh century, there were two rival claimants to the throne; and while the vicious and cruel witiza reigned at toledo, roderick, the son of theodofred, also reigned in andalusia. there had been a long struggle, during which it is said that theodofred's eyes had been put out by his victorious rival, and his son roderick had obtained assistance from the greek emperor at byzantium in asserting his own claims. he succeeded in driving witiza out of the country; and in 709,--"the last of the goths,"--was crowned at toledo, king of all spain. but the struggle was not over; and it was about to lead to a result which is one of the most momentous in the history, not alone of spain,--nor yet of europe,--but of _christendom_. witiza was dead, but his two sons, with a formidable following, were still trying to work the ruin of roderick. a certain count julian, who, on account of his daughter florinda, had his own wrongs to avenge, accepted the leadership of these rebels. the power of the visigoths had extended across the narrow strait (cut by the phenicians) over to the opposite shore, where morocco seems to be reaching out in vain endeavor to touch the land from which she was long ago severed; and there, at tangiers, this arch-traitor laid his plans and matured the scheme of revenge and treachery which had such tremendous results for europe. with an appearance of perfect loyalty he parted from roderick, who unsuspectingly asked him to bring him some hawks from africa when he returned. bowing, he said: "sire, i will bring you such hawks as never were seen in spain before." for one hundred years an unprecedented wave of conquest had been moving from asia toward the west. mahommedanism, which was destined to become the scourge of christendom, had subjected syria, mesopotamia, egypt, and northern africa, until it reached ceuta--the companion pillar to gibraltar on the african coast. at this point the goths had stood, as a protecting wall beyond which the asiatic deluge could not flow. count julian was the trusted military commander of the gothic garrisons in morocco, as _musa_, the oft-defeated saracen leader, knew to his cost. as this musa was one day looking with covetous eyes across at the spanish peninsula, he was suddenly surprised by a visit from count julian; and still more astonished when that commander offered to surrender to him the gothic strongholds _tangier_, _arsilla_, and _ceuta_ in return for the assistance of the saracen army in the cause of witiza's sons against roderick. amazed at such colossal treason, musa referred count julian to his master the khalif, at damascus, who at once accepted his infamous proposition. in spanish legend and history this man is always designated as _the traitor_, as if standing alone and on a pinnacle among the men who have betrayed their countries. musa, half doubting, sent a preliminary force of about five hundred moors under a chief named _tarif_, to the opposite coast; and the moors found, as was promised, that they might range at their own will and pleasure in that earthly paradise of andalusia. the name of this mussulman chief, tarif, was given to the spot first touched by the feet of the mahommedan, which was called _tarifa_; and as tarifa was afterward the place where customs were collected, the word _tariff_ is an imperishable memorial of that event. in like manner gibraltar was named _gebel-al-tarik_, (mountain of tarik) after the leader bearing that name, who was sent later by musa with a larger force; which name has been gradually changed to its present form--gibraltar. poor king roderick, while still fighting to maintain his own right to the crown he wore, learned with dismay that his country was invaded by a horde of people from the african coast. theodemir wrote to him: "so strange is their appearance that we might take them for inhabitants of the sky. send me all the troops you can collect, without delay." the hawks promised by count julian had arrived! the hour of doom had sounded for the last king of the visigoths, and for his kingdom. there is a legend that a mysterious tower existed near toledo, which was built by hercules, soon after adam, with the command that no king or lord of spain should ever seek to know what it contained; instead of that it was the duty of each king to put a new lock upon its mysterious portal. it is said that roderick, perhaps in his extremity, resolved to disobey the command, and to discover the secret hidden in the enchanted tower. in a jeweled shrine in the very heart of the structure he came at last to a coffer of silver, "right subtly wrought," and far inside of that he reached the final mystery,--only this,--a white cloth folded between two pieces of copper. with trembling eagerness roderick opened and found painted thereon men with turbans, carrying banners, with swords strung around their necks, and bows behind them, slung at the saddle-bow. over these figures was written: "when this cloth shall be opened, men appareled like these shall conquer spain, and be the lords thereof." such is the picturesque legend. men with "turbans and banners and swords slung about their necks," were assuredly now in andalusia, led by tarik, who had literally burned his ships behind him, and then told his followers to choose between victory or death. the two armies faced each other at a spot near cadiz. it is said that roderick, the degenerate successor of alaric, went into battle in a robe of white silk embroidered with gold, sitting on a car of ivory, drawn by white mules. tarik's men, who were fighting for victory or paradise, overwhelmed the goths; roderick, in his flight, was drowned in the guadalquivir, and his diadem of pearls and his embroidered robe were sent to damascus as trophies. count julian urged that the victory be immediately followed up by musa before there was time for the spaniards to rally. one after another the cities of toledo, cordova, and granada capitulated, the persecuted jews flocking to the new standard and aiding in the conquest of their oppressors. as well might one have held back the atlantic from rushing through that canal upon the isthmus, as to have stayed the inflowing of the saracens through the breach made by "the traitor," count julian! in less than two years spain was a conquered province, rendering allegiance to the khalif at damascus, and the _moor_,--as the followers of the prophet in morocco were called,--reigned in toledo. it was in the year 412 that ataulfus, with his haughty bride placidia, had established his court at barcelona, and romanized spain became gothic spain. in 711--just three centuries later--the visigoth kingdom had disappeared as utterly beneath the saracen flood as had its ill-fated king roderick under the waters of the guadalquivir; and fastened upon christian europe was a mahommedan empire; an empire which all the combined powers of that continent have never since been able entirely to dislodge. from that ill-omened day in 709, when tarif set foot on the spanish coast, to this june of 1898, the mahommedan has been in europe; and remains to-day, a scourge and a blight in the territory upon which his cruel grasp still lingers. chapter ix. tarik and his twelve thousand berbers,[a] or moors, had at one stroke won the spanish peninsula. the banner of the prophet waved over every one of the ancient and famous cities in andalusia, and the turbaned army had marched through the stubborn north as far as the spanish border. as musa, intoxicated with success, stood at last upon the pyrenees, he saw before him a vision of a subjugated europe. the banner of the prophet should wave from the pyrenees to the baltic! a mosque should stand where st. peter's now stands in rome! so, step by step, the moslems pressed up into gaul, and in 732 their army had reached tours. it was a moment of supreme peril for christendom. but, happily, the franks had what the goths had not--a great leader. charles martel,--then _maire du palais_, and virtually king of france, instead of the feeble lothair,--led his franks into what was to be one of the most decisive of the world's battles; a battle which would determine whether europe should be christian or mahommedan. the tide of infidel invasion had reached its limits. the strong right arm of charles dealt such ponderous blows that the moslems broke in confusion, and this savior of christendom was thenceforth known as charles martel: "karl of the hammer." after this crushing disaster at tours the moors realized that they were not invincible. their vaulting ambition did not again try to overleap the pyrenees; and they addressed themselves to settling affairs in their new territory. it has been wisely said that if the mahommedan state had been confined within the borders of arabia, it would speedily have collapsed. islam became a world-wide religion when it clothed itself with armor, and became a church militant. it was _conquest_ which saved the faith of the prophet. in its home in asia the empire of mahommed was composed of hostile tribes and clans, and as it moved westward it gathered up syrians, egyptians, and the berbers on the african coast, who, when morocco was reached, were known as moors. this strange, heterogeneous mass of humanity, all nourished from arabia, was held together by two things: the _koran_ and the _sword_. when conquest was exchanged for peaceful possession, all the internecine jealousies, the tribal feuds, and old hatreds burst forth, and the first fifty years of moorish rule in spain was a period of internal strife and disorder--arabs and moors were jealously trying to undermine each other; while the arabs themselves were torn by factions representing rival clans in damascus. but a singular clemency was shown toward the conquered spaniards. they were permitted to retain their own law and judges, and their own governors administered the affairs of the districts and collected the taxes. the rule of the conquering race bore upon the people actually less heavily than had the old gothic rule. jews and christians alike were free to worship whom or what they pleased; but, at the same time, great benefits were bestowed upon those who would accept the religion of the prophet. the slave class, which was very large and had suffered terrible cruelties under its old masters, was treated with especial mildness and humanity. there was a simple road to freedom opened to every man. he had only to say, "there is one god, and mahommed is his prophet," and on the instant he became a freeman! such gentle proselytizing as this speedily won converts, not alone among slaves but from all classes. the pacification of spain by the romans had required centuries; while only a few years sufficed to make of the vanquished in the southern provinces, a contented and almost happy people; not only reconciled, but even glad of the change of masters. never was andalusia so mildly, justly, and wisely governed as by her arab conquerors. the most delicate of all problems is that of dealing with a conquered race in its own land. that this should have been so wisely and so skillfully handled would be incomprehensible if this had been really, what it is always called, a moorish conquest. but to be accurate, it was a moorish invasion and a saracen conquest! the fierce berber moor contributed the brute force, which was wielded by saracen intelligence. the saracens were the leaven which penetrated the whole sodden mass of mahommedanism. with a civilization which had been ripening for centuries under oriental skies,--rich in wisdom, learning, culture, science, and in art,--they had come into europe, infidels though they were, to build up and not to destroy. the roman conquest of spain had civilized a barbarous race. the gothic conquest of romanized spain had converted an effete civilization into a strong semi-barbarism. now again the saracen had come from the east to convert a semi-barbarism into a civilization richer than any spain had yet known, and, more than that, to hold up a torch of learning and enlightenment which should illumine europe in the days of darkness which were at hand. although this difference between arab and moor primarily existed, they became fused, and we shall speak of them only as moors. but we should not lose sight of the fact that the superior intelligence which made the moorish kingdom magnificent was from the land of the prophet. the saracen dealt gently with the conquered spaniard, not because his heart was tender and kind, but because he was crafty and wise, and knew when not to use force, in order to accomplish his ends. for the same reason he refrained from trying to break the spirit of the independent northern provinces, where the descendants of the old visigoths--the hidalgos ("sons-of-somebody")--proudly intrenched themselves in an attitude of defiance, making in time a clearly defined christian north and moslem south, with a mountain range (the sierra guadarrama) and a river (the ebro) as the natural boundary line of the two territories. the moor was a child of the sun. if the stubborn goth chose to sulk, up among the chilly heights and on the bleak plains of the north, he might do so, and it was little matter if one alfonso called himself "king of the asturians," in that mountain-defended and sea-girt province. the fertile plains of andalusia, and the banks of the tagus and guadalquivir, were all of spain the moor wanted for the wonderful kingdom which was to be the marvel of the middle ages. [footnote a: the old phenician name for the north african tribes, derived from the word iberi.] chapter x. but, at the early period we are considering, the "christian kingdom" was composed of a handful of men and women who had fled from the moslems to the mountains of the asturias. its one stronghold was the cave of covadonga, where pelagius, or pelayo, had gathered thirty men and ten women. here, in the dark recesses of this cave,--which was approached through a long and narrow mountain pass, and entered by a ladder of ninety steps,--was the germ of the future kingdoms of castile and aragon, and also of the downfall of the moor. an arab historian said later: "would to god the moslems had extinguished that spark which was destined to consume the dominion of islam in the north" and, he might have added, "_in spain._" when alfonso of cantabria married the daughter of pelayo in 751, the cave of covadonga no longer held the insurgent band. he roused all the northern provinces against the moors and gathered an army which drove them step by step further south, until he had pushed the christian frontier as far as the great sierra, so that the one-time visigoth capital of toledo marked the line of the moslem border fortresses. too scanty in numbers and too poor in purse to occupy the territory, alfonso and his army then retreated to their mountains, there to enjoy the empty satisfaction of their conquest. but the moors in andalusia had too many troubles of their own at that time to give much heed to alfonso i. and his rebellious band hiding in the mountains. the berbers and the arabs on the african coast were jealous and antagonistic; the one was devout, credulous, and emotional; the other cool, crafty, and diplomatic. suddenly the long-slumbering hatred burst into open revolt, and the khalif sent thirty thousand syrians to put down a formidable revolution in his african dominions. in full sympathy with their kinsmen across the sea, the moors in spain began to realize that while that land had been won by twelve thousand berbers, led by one berber general, that the lion's share of the spoils had gone to the arabs, who were carrying things with a high hand! there were signs of a general uprising, in concert with the revolution in africa; and it looked as if the new territory was to be given up to anarchy; when suddenly all was changed. the khalif, who was the head of all the mahommedan empire, was supposed to be the supreme ruler in spiritual and temporal affairs. but as his empire extended to such vast dimensions, he was obliged to delegate much of his temporal authority to others; so gradually it had become somewhat like that of the pope. he was the supreme spiritual head, and only nominally supreme in affairs of state. the family of _omeyyad_ had given fourteen khalifs to the mahommedan empire from 661 to 750; at which time the then reigning omeyyad was deposed, and the second dynasty of khalifs commenced, called _abbaside_, after abbas, an uncle of the prophet. abd-er-rahman was a prince belonging to the deposed family of the omeyyads. he was the only one of his family who escaped the exterminating fury of the abbasides. there was no future for him in the east, so the thoughts of the ambitious youth turned to the west--to the newly won territory of spain. the coming of this last survivor of the omeyyads to andalusia is one of the romances of history, and was not unlike the coming of another young pretender to scotland, one thousand years later. it aroused the same wild enthusiasm, and as if by magic an army gathered about him, to meet the army of the governor, yusuf, which would resist him. victory declared itself for the prince, and he entered cordova in triumph. before the year had expired the dynasty of the omeyyads--which was to stand for three centuries--was finally established, and its first king--abd-er-rahman--reigned at cordova. his hereditary enemies the abbasides followed him to spain, and found supporters among the disaffected. but it was in vain. the abbaside army of invasion was utterly annihilated; and the qualities slumbering in this son of the khalifs may be judged when we relate that the heads of the abbaside leaders were put into a bag with descriptive labels attached to their ears, and sent to the reigning khalif as a present. this little incident does not seem to have injured him in the estimation of mansur, the new khalif, who said of him: "wonderful is this man! such daring, wisdom, prudence! to throw himself into a distant land; to profit by the jealousies of the people; to turn their arms against one another instead of against himself; to win homage and obedience through such difficulties; and to rule supreme--lord of all! of a truth there is not such another man!" abd-er-rahman (the sultan, as he was called) merited this praise. he knew when to be cruel and when to show mercy; and how to hold scheming arab chiefs, fierce, jealous berbers, and vanquished christians, and could placate or crucify as the conditions required. chapter xi. charlemagne was at this time building up his colossal empire. his christian soul was mightily stirred by seeing an infidel kingdom set up in andalusia; and when, in 777, the saracen governor and two other arab chiefs appealed to him for aid against the omeyyad usurper, abd-er-rahman, he eagerly responded. his grandfather charles martel had driven these infidels back over the pyrenees; now he would drive them out of spain, and reclaim that land for christianity! his army never reached farther than saragossa. he was recalled to france by a revolt of the recently conquered saxons, and the "battle of roncesvalles" is the historic monument of the ill-starred attempt. the battle in itself was insignificant. no action of such small importance has ever been invested with such a glamour of romance, nor the theme of so much legend and poetry. it has been called the thermopylæ of the pyrenees, because of the personal valor displayed, and the tragic death of the two great paladins (as the twelve peers of charlemagne were called) roland and olivier. the _chanson de roland_ was one of the famous ballads in the early literature of europe, and roland and olivier were to french and spanish minstrelsy what the knights of king arthur were to the english. the simple story about which so much has been written and sung is this: as the retreating army of charlemagne was crossing the pyrenees, the rear of the army under roland and olivier was ambuscaded in the narrow pass of roncesvalles by the basques and exterminated to a man. these basques were the unconquerable mountain tribe of which we heard so much in the early history of spain. they had been on guard for centuries, keeping the franks back from the pyrenees. they may have been acting under saracenic influence when they exterminated the rear-guard of charlemagne's army. but it was done, not because they loved the saracen, but because they had a hereditary hatred for the franks. mediæval europe never tired of hearing of the great charles' lament over his roland: "o thou right arm of my kingdom,--defender of the christians,--scourge of the saracens! how can i behold thee dead, and not die myself! thou art exalted to the heavenly kingdom,--and i am left alone, a poor miserable king!" chapter xii. the tide which had flowed over southern spain was a singular mixture of religious fervor, of brutish humanity, and refinements of wisdom and wickedness. no stranger and more composite elements were ever thrown together. permanence and peace were impossible. nothing but force could hold together elements so incongruous and antagonistic. as soon as the hand of abd-er-rahman i. was removed disintegration began. clashing races, clans, and political parties had in a few years made such havoc that it seemed as if the omeyyad dynasty was crumbling. it might have been an arab who said "he cared not who made the laws of his country, so he could write its songs." learning, literature, refinements of luxury and of art had taken possession of the land, which seemed given up to the muses. when in 822 abd-er-rahman ii. reigned, he did not trouble himself about the laws of his crumbling empire. the one man in whom he delighted was _ziryab_. what petronius was to nero,[a] and beau brummel to george iv., that was ziryab to the sultan abd-er-rahman ii., the elegant arbiter in matters of taste. from the dishes which should be eaten to the clothes which should be worn, he was the supreme judge; while at the same time he knew by heart and could "like an angel sing" one thousand songs to his adoring sultan. even the gothic christians were seduced by these alluring refinements. they felt contempt for their old latin speech and for their literature, with the tiresome asceticism it eternally preached. the christian ideal had grown to be one of penance and mortification of the flesh, and to a few ardent souls these sensuous delights were an open highway to death eternal. _eulogius_ became the leader of this band of zealots. in lamenting the decadence of his people, he wrote, "hardly one in a thousand can write a decent latin letter, and yet they indite excellent arabic verse!" filled with despairing ardor this man aroused a few kindred spirits to join him in a desperate attempt to awaken the benumbed conscience of the christians. they could not get the moslems to persecute them, but they might attain martyrdom by cursing the prophet; then the infidels, however reluctant, would be compelled to behead them. this they did, and one by one perished, to no purpose. the gothic christians were not conscience-stricken as eulogius supposed they would be, and there was no general uprising for the christian faith. in 912 the threatened ruin of the dynasty was arrested by the coming of another abd-er-rahman, third sultan of that name. rebellion was put down, and fifty years of wise and just administration gave solidity to the kingdom, which also then became a _khalifate_. the abbaside khalifs, after the deposition of the omeyyads, had removed the khalifate from damascus to baghdad. but the empire had extended too far west to revolve about that distant pivot. abd-er-rahman--perhaps remembering the old feud between his family and the abbasides--determined to assume the spiritual headship of the western part of the empire. and thereafter, the mahommedan empire--like the roman--had two heads, an eastern khalif at baghdad, and a western khalif at cordova. while thus extending his own power the khalif was extinguishing every spark of rebellion in the south and driving the rebellious christians back in the north, and at the same time he was clothing cordova with a splendor which amazed and dazzled even the eastern princes who came to pay court to the great khalif. his emissaries were everywhere collecting books for his library and treasure for his palaces. cordova became the abode of learning, and the nursery for science, philosophy, and art, transplanted from asia. the imagination and the pen of an arab poet could not have overdrawn this wonderful city on the guadalquivir,--with its palaces, its gardens, and fountains,--its 50,000 houses of the aristocracy,--its 700 mosques,--and 900 public baths,--all adorned with color and carvings and tracery beautiful as a dream of paradise. one hears with amazement of the great mosque, with its 19 arcades, its pavings of silver and rich mosaics, its 1293 clustered columns, inlaid with gold and lapis-lazuli, the clusters reaching up to the slender arches which supported the roof; the whole of this marvelous scene lighted by countless brazen lamps made from christian bells, while hundreds of attendants swung censers, filling the air with perfume. after the ravages of a thousand years travelers stand amazed to-day before the forest of columns which open out in endless vistas in the splendid ruin, calling up visions of the vanished glories of cordova and the great khalif. there is not time to tell of the city this spanish khalif built for his favorite wife, "the fairest," and which he called "hill of the bride," upon which for fifteen years ten thousand men worked daily; nor of the four thousand columns which adorned its palaces, presents from emperors and potentates in constantinople, rome, and far-off eastern states; nor of the ivory and ebony doors, studded with jewels, through which shone the sun, the light then falling on the lake of quick-silver, which sent back blinding, quivering flashes into dazzled eyes. and we are told of the thirteen thousand male servants who ministered in this palace of delight. all this, too, at a time when our saxon ancestors were living in dwellings without chimneys, and casting the bones from the table at which they feasted into the foul straw which covered their floors; when a gothic night had settled upon europe, and blotted out civilization so completely that only in a part of italy, and around constantinople, did there remain a vestige of refinement! it is said that when the embassy from constantinople came bearing a letter to the khalif, the courtier whose duty it was to read it was so awed by all this splendor that he fainted! and yet the owner and creator of this fabulous luxury,--sultan and khalif of a dominion the greatest of his time, and with "the fairest" for his adored wife,--when he came to die, left a paper upon which he had written that he could only recall fourteen days in which he had been happy. [footnote a: see "quo vadis?"] chapter xiii. in the north there was developing another and very different power. the descendants of the visigoth kings, making common cause with the rough mountaineers, had shared all their hardships and rigors in the mountains of the asturias. inured to privation and suffering, entirely unacquainted with luxury or even with the comforts of living, they had grown strong, and in a century after alfonso i. had emerged from their mountain shelter and removed their court and capital from oviedo to leon, where alfonso iii. held sway over a group of barren kingdoms, poor, proud, but with _hidalgos_ and _dons_, who were keeping alive the sacred fires of patriotism and of religion. this was the rough cradle of a spanish nationality. they had their own jealousies and fierce conflicts, but all united in a common hatred of the moor. though they did not yet dream of driving him out of their land, their brave leaders, ramiro i. and ordoño i. had been for years steadily defying and tormenting him with the kind of warfare to which they gave its name--_guerrilla_--meaning "little wars." while the great khalif was consolidating his moorish kingdom and driving the christians back into their mountains, the power of that people was being weakened by internal strifes existing between the three adjacent kingdoms--leon, castile, and navarre. the headship of leon was for years disputed by her ambitious neighbor castile (so called because of the numerous fortified castles with which it was studded), under the leadership of one fernando, count of castile. there had been the usual lapse into anarchy and weakness after the great khalif's death. andalusia always needed a master, and this she found in _almanzor_, who was prime minister to one of the khalif's feeble descendants. it was a sad day for the struggling kingdom in the north when this all-subduing man took the reins in his own hands, and left his young master to amuse himself in collecting rare manuscripts and making cordova more beautiful. this almanzor, the mightiest of the soldiers of the crescent since tarik and musa, proclaimed a war of faith against the christians, who were obliged to forget their local dissensions and to try with their combined strength to save their kingdom from extermination. these were the darkest days to which they had yet been subjected. but for the death of almanzor the ruin of the christian state would have been complete. a monkish historian thus records this welcome event: "in 1002 died almanzor, and was buried in hell." the death of almanzor was the turning point in the fortunes of the two kingdoms--that of the moors and of the christians. the magnificence and the glory of the kingdom faded like the mist before the morning sun. never again would cordova be called the "bride of andalusia." eight years after the death of almanzor anarchy and ruin reigned in that city. the gentle, studious youth who was khalif, was dragged with his only child to a dismal vault attached to the great mosque; and here, in darkness and cold and damp, sat the grandson of the first great khalif, his child clinging to his breast and begging in vain for food, his wretched father pathetically pleading with his jailers for just a crust of bread, and a candle to relieve the awful darkness. the brutal berbers now had their turn. the priceless library, with its six hundred thousand volumes, was in ashes. they were in the "city of the fairest." palace after palace was ransacked, and in a few days all that remained of its exquisite treasures of art was a heap of blackened stones (1010). the christians drew their broken state closer together, and gathered themselves for a more aggressive warfare than any yet undertaken. the time when the moors were in the throes of civil war was favorable. the three kingdoms of asturias, leon, and castile were in 1073 united into one "kingdom of castile," under alfonso vi., who had already made great inroads upon the moslem territory and laid many cities under tribute. with this event, the name _castilian_ comes into spanish history, and from thenceforth that name represents all that is proudest, bravest, and most characteristic of the part of the race which traces a direct lineage from the ancient visigoth kings. alfonso had not misjudged his opportunity. he had traversed spain with his army, and bathed in the ocean in sight of the "pillars of hercules." his great general rodrigo diaz, known as "my cid, the challenger," had cut another path all the way to valencia, where he reigned as a sort of uncrowned king; and he will forever reign as crowned king in the realm of romance and poetry; the perfect embodiment of the knightly idea--the "challenger," who, in defense of the faith, would stand before great armies and defy them to single combat! whether "my cid" ever did such mighty deeds as are ascribed to him, no one knows. but he stands for the highest ideal of his time. he was the "king arthur" of spanish history; and so valiantly did he serve the christian cause that the moors were driven to a most disastrous step. with the cid in valencia, with alfonso vi. marching a victorious army through the moslem territory, and with toledo, the city of the ancient visigoth kings, repossessed, it looked as if, after almost four hundred years, the christians were about to recover their land. the moors, thoroughly frightened, realizing how helpless they had grown, resolved upon a desperate measure. there was, on the opposite african coast, a sect of berber fanatics, fierce and devout, known as "saints," but which the moors called _almoravides_. fighting for the faith was their occupation. what more fitting than to use them as a means of driving the infidel christians out of moslem territory! they came, like a cloud of locusts, and settled upon the land. yusuf, their general, led his men against alfonso's castilians october 23, 1086. near badajos the attack was made simultaneously in front and rear, crushing them utterly; alfonso barely escaping with five hundred men. this was only the first of many other crushing defeats; the most disheartening of which was the one in 1099, when the cid, fighting in alliance with pedro, king of aragon, was defeated near gardia, on the seacoast. then the great warrior's heart broke, and he died; and we are told he was clothed cap-à-pie in shining armor and placed upright on his good steed bavieca, his trusty sword in his hand--and so he passed to his burial; his banner borne and guarded by five hundred knights. and we are also told the moors wonderingly watched his departure with his knights, not suspecting that he was dead. the object of the moors in inviting the odious almoravides had been accomplished; the christians had been driven out of andalusia back into their own territory; but their african auxiliaries were too well pleased with their new abode to think of leaving it. one by one the moorish princes were subdued by the men whose aid they had invoked, until a dynasty of the almoravides was fastened upon spain. to the refined spanish arabs contact with these savages from the desert was a terrible scourge, and so far as they were able they withdrew into communities by themselves, leaving these african locusts to devour their substance and dim their glory. but luxury was not favorable to the invaders. in another generation their martial spirit was gone and they had become only ignorant, sodden voluptuaries; and when the christians once more renewed their attacks, they failed to repel them as yusuf had done thirty years before. there was another fanatical sect, beyond the atlas range in africa, which had long been looking for a coming messiah, whom they called the _mahdi_. they were known as the _alhomades_. a son of a lamp-lighter in the mosque of cordova one day presented himself before the alhomades, and announced that he was the great _mahdi_, who was divinely appointed to lead them, and to bring happiness to all the earth. the path this _mahdi_ desired to lead them was first to morocco, there to subdue the almoravides in their own land, and thence to spain. in a short time this entire plan was realized. the mahdi's successor was emperor of morocco, and by the year 1150 included in his dominion was all of mahommedan spain! the spanish arabs, when they were fighting alfonso vi. and the "cid," did not anticipate this disgraceful downfall from people of their own faith. they abhorred these mahommedan savages, and drew together still closer for a century more in and about their chosen refuge of granada. in the early part of the thirteenth century the emperor of morocco made such enormous preparations for the occupation of spain that a larger design upon europe became manifest. once more christendom was alarmed; not since charles martel had the danger appeared so great. the pope proclaimed a crusade, this time not into palestine, but spain. an army of volunteers from the kingdom of portugal and from southern france re-enforced the great armies of the kings of castile, aragon, and navarre. the crusaders, as they called themselves, assembled at toledo july 12, 1212, under the command of alfonso ix., king of castile. the power of the alhomades was broken, and they were driven out of spain. the once great mahommedan empire in that country was reduced to the single province of granada, where the moors intrenched themselves in their last stronghold. for nearly three centuries the crescent was yet to wave over the kingdom of granada; but it was to shine in only the pale light of a waning crescent, until its final extinction in the full light of a christian day. chapter xiv. a great change had been wrought in europe. the crusades had opened a channel through which flowed from the east reviving streams of ancient knowledge and culture over the arid waste of mediævalism. france and england had awakened from their long mental torpor, paris was become the center of an intellectual revival. in england, roger bacon, in his "opus majus," was systematizing all existing knowledge and laying a foundation for a more advanced science and philosophy for the people, who had only recently extorted from their wicked king john the great charter of their liberties. it was just at this period, when the door had suddenly opened ushering europe into a new life, that the christian cause in spain triumphed; and, excepting in the little kingdom of granada, the cross waved from the pyrenees to the sea. after more than four centuries of steadfast devotion to that object, the descendants of the visigoth kings had come once more into their inheritance. they found it enriched, and clothed with a beauty of which their ancestors could never have dreamed. these spaniards had learned their lesson of valor in the north, and they had learned it well. now in the land of the moor, dwelling in the palaces they had built, and gazing upon masterpieces of arabic art and architecture which they had left, they were to learn the subtle charm of form and color, and the fascination which music and poetry and beauty and knowledge may lend to life. as they drank from these moorish fountains the rugged warriors found them very sweet; and they discovered that there were other pleasures in life beside fighting the moors and nursing memories of the cid and their vanished heroes. the territory of fernando iii., king of castile (1230-52), extended now from the bay of biscay to the guadalquivir. the ancient city of seville was chosen as his capital. it was a far cry from the "cave of covadonga" to the moorish palace of the "alcazar," where dwelt the pious descendant of pelayo! the first act of fernando iii. was to convert the mosque at seville into a cathedral, which still stands with its moorish bell-tower, the beautiful "giralda." there may also be seen to-day over one of its portals a stuffed crocodile, which was sent alive to king ferdinand by the sultan of egypt. and within the cathedral, in a silver urn with glass sides, the traveler may also gaze to-day upon the remains of this "saint ferdinand" clothed in royal robes, and with a crown upon his head. spain had begun to lift up her head among the other nations of europe. to defeat the crescent was the highest ideal of that chivalric age. spain, longer than any other nation, had fought the mahommedan. it had been her sole occupation for four centuries, and now she had vanquished him, and driven him into the mountains of one of her smallest provinces, there to hide from the spaniards as they had once hidden from the moors in the north. this was a passport to the honor and respect of other christian nations. she was spain "the catholic"--the loved and favorite child of the church--and great monarchs in england, france, and germany bestowed their sons and daughters upon her kings and princes. poor though she was in purse, and somewhat rude yet in manners, she held up her head high in proud consciousness of her aristocratic lineage, and her unmatched championship of christianity. we realize how close had become the tie binding her to other nations when we learn that king fernando iii. was the grandson of queen eleanor of england (daughter of henry ii.), and that louis ix. of france, that other royal saint, was his own cousin; and also that his wife beatrix, whom he brought with him to seville, was daughter of frederick ii., emperor of germany. the deep hold which arabic life and thought had taken upon their conquerors was shown when alfonso x., son of ferdinand, came to the throne. so in love was he with learning and science that he let his kingdom fall into utter confusion while he busied himself with a set of astronomical tables upon which his heart was set and in holding up to ridicule the ptolemaic theory. if he had given less thought to the stars, and more to the humble question as to who was to be his successor, it would have saved much strife and suffering to those who came after him. while the moslems were building up their kingdom and making of their capital city a second and even more beautiful cordova, there was a partial truce with the moors in granada. moors and christians were enemies still; the hereditary hatreds were only lulled into temporary repose. but christian knights who were handsome and gallant might love and woo moorish maidens who were beautiful; and, as a writer has intimated, love became the business and war the pastime of the spaniard in andalusia. spain was unconsciously inbibing the soft, sensuous charm of the civilization she was exterminating; and the peculiar rhythm of spanish music, and the subtle picturesqueness which makes the spanish people unique among the other latin nations of europe, came, not from her gothic, nor her roman, nor her phenician ancestry, but from the plains of arabia; and the guitar and the dance and the castanet, and the charm and the coquetry of her women, are echoes from that far-off land of poetry and romance. not so the bull-fight! would you trace to its source that pleasant pastime, you must not go to the east; the oriental was cruel to man, but not to beast. he would have abhorred such a form of amusement, for the origin of which we must look to the barbarous kelt; or perhaps, as is more probable, to the mysterious iberians, since among the latin peoples of europe bull-fighting is found in spain alone. well was it for spain that her rough, untutored ancestors were kept hiding in the mountains for centuries, while that brilliant oriental race planted their peninsula thick with the germs of high thinking and beautiful living. as the spider, after his glistening habitation has been destroyed by some ruthless footstep, goes patiently to work to rebuild it, so the moor in granada, with his imperishable instinct for beauty, was making of his little kingdom the most beautiful spot in europe. the city of granada was lovelier than cordova; its alhambra more enchanting than had been the palaces in the "city of the fairest." this citadel, which is fortress and palace in one, still stands like the acropolis, looking out upon the plain from its lofty elevation. volumes have been written about its labyrinthine halls and corridors and courts, and the amazing richness of decoration, which still survives--an inexhaustible mine for artists and a shrine for lovers of the beautiful. but granada cultivated other things besides the art of beauty. nowhere in europe was there in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries such advanced thinking, and a knowledge so akin to our own to-day, as within the borders of that moorish kingdom. chapter xv. there were other reasons beside the growing peacefulness of the spaniards why granada was left to develop in comparative security for two centuries. it was impossible that adjacent ambitious kingdoms, such as navarre, castile, aragon, leon, and portugal, with indefinite and disputed boundaries, and, on account of intermarriages between the kingdoms, with indefinite and disputed successions, should ever be at peace. in the perpetual strife and warfare which prevailed on account of royal european alliances, the fate of foreign princes and princesses were often involved, and hence european states stood ready to take a hand. castile and aragon had gradually absorbed the smaller states, excepting portugal on the one side and navarre on the other. the history of spain at this time is a history of the struggles of these two states for supremacy. the most eventful as well as the most lurid period of this prolonged civil war was while pedro the cruel was king of castile, 1350-69. this spanish nero, when sixteen years old, commenced his reign by the murder of his mother. a catalogue of his crimes is impossible. enough to say that assassination was his remedy, and means of escape, from every entanglement in which his treacheries involved him. it was the unhappy fate of blanche de bourbon, sister of charles v., king of france, to marry this king of castile, and when he refused to live with her and had her removed from his palace the alcazar to a fortress, and finally poisoned her, the french king determined to avenge the insult to his royal house. he allied himself with the king of aragon to destroy pedro, with whom the king of aragon was of course at war. edward, the "black prince," was then brilliantly invading france and extending the kingdom of his father edward iii. he was the kinsman of pedro, and when appealed to by his cousin for aid in protecting his kingdom from the king of aragon and his french allies, edward gallantly consented to help him; and in the spring of 1367, for the second time, a splendid army advanced through the pass at roncesvalles, and a great battle, worthy of a better cause, was fought and won. so this most atrocious king--perhaps excepting richard iii. of england, whom he resembled--had for his champion the victor of cressy and poictiers. he was restored to his throne, which had been usurped by his brother enrique (or henry), but in a personal encounter with enrique soon after (which was artfully brought about by the famous breton knight, bertrand du guesclin), he met a deserved fate (1369). constanza, the daughter of pedro the cruel, had been married to john of gaunt (duke of lancester), brother of the black prince and son of edward iii. as constanza was the great-grandmother of isabella i. of spain, so in the veins of that revered queen there flowed the blood of the plantagenets, as well as that of pedro the cruel! because of the number of doubtful pretenders always existing in spain, disputes about the royal succession also always existed. such a dispute now led to a long war with portugal, where king fernando had really the most valid hereditary claim to the throne made vacant by pedro's death. if his right had been acknowledged, portugal and spain would now be united; isabella would have remained only a poor and devout princess, and would never have had the power to win a continent for the world. so impossible is it to remove one of the links forged by fate, that we dare not regret even so monstrous a reign as that of pedro the cruel! enrique's right to the vacant throne of his brother had two disputants. besides the king of portugal, john of gaunt, who had married the lady constanza,--by virtue of her rights as daughter of pedro,--claimed the crown of castile. this plantagenet was actually proclaimed king of castile and leon (1386). for twenty-five years he vainly strove to come into his kingdom as sovereign; but finally compromised by giving his young daughter catherine to the boy "prince of asturias," the heir to the throne. he was obliged to content himself by thus securing to his child the long-coveted prize. and it was this catherine, who at fourteen was betrothed to a boy of nine, who was the grandmother of isabella, queen of castile. when such was the private history of those highest in the land we can only imagine what must have been that of the rest. feudalism, which was a part of spain's gothic inheritance, had always made that country one of its strongholds, and chivalry had nowhere else found so congenial a soil. there was no great artisan class, as in france, creating a powerful "bourgeoisie"; no "guilds," or simple "burghers," as in germany, stubbornly standing for their rights; no "boroughs" and "town meetings," where the people were sternly guarding their liberties, as in england. the history of other nations is that of the struggles of the common people against the tyranny of kings and rulers. if there were any "common people" in spain, they were so effaced that history makes no mention of them. we hear only of kings and great barons and glorious knights; and their wonderful deeds and their valor and prowess--excepting in the wars with the moors--were always over boundary-lines and successions, or personal quarrels more or less disgraceful, with never a single high purpose or a principle involved. it was all a gay, ambitious pageant, adorned by a mantle of chivalry, and made sacred by the banner of the cross. in the history of no other european country do we see a great state develop under despotism so unredeemed by wholesome ideals, and so unmitigated and unrestrained by gentle human impulses. chapter xvi. juan ii., the son of the young catherine and the boy prince of the asturias, died in 1454, and his son enrique (or henry) iv. was king of castile. when, after some years, henry was without children, and with health very infirm, his young sister isabella unexpectedly found herself the acknowledged heir to the throne of castile. she suddenly became a very important young person. the old king of portugal was a suitor for her hand, and a brother of the king of england, and also a brother of the king of france, were striving for the same honor. but isabella had very decided views of her own. her hero was the young ferdinand of aragon, and heir to that throne. she resisted all her brother's efforts to coerce her, and finally took the matter into her own hands by sending an envoy to her handsome young lover to come to her at valladolid, with a letter telling him they had better be married at once. accompanied by a few knights disguised as merchants, ferdinand, pretending to be their servant, during the entire journey waited on them at table and took care of their mules. he entered valladolid, where he was received by the archbishop of toledo, who was in the conspiracy, and was by him conveyed to isabella's apartments. we are told that when he entered someone exclaimed: _ese-es, ese-es_ (that is he); and the escutcheon of the descendants of that knight has ever since borne a double _s.s._, which sounds like this exclamation. the marriage was arranged to take place in four days. an embarrassment then occurred of which no one had before thought. neither of them had any money. but someone was found who would lend them enough for the wedding expenses, and so on the 19th of october, 1469, the most important marriage ever yet consummated in spain took place--a marriage which would forever set at rest the rivalries between castile and aragon, and bring honors undreamed of to a united spain. isabella was fair, intelligent, accomplished, and lovely. she was eighteen and her boy husband was a year younger. of course her royal brother stormed and raged. but, of course, it did no good. in five years from that time (1474) he died, and isabella, royally attired, and seated on a white palfrey, proceeded to the throne prepared for her, and was there proclaimed "queen of castile." at the end of another five years, ferdinand came into his inheritance. his old father, juan ii., king of aragon and navarre, died in 1479, and castile, aragon, and navarre--all of spain except portugal and granada--had come under the double crown of ferdinand and isabella. the war with portugal still existed, and their reign began in the midst of confusion and trouble, but it was brilliant from the outset. ferdinand had great abilities and an ambition which matched his abilities. isabella, no less ambitious than he, was more far-reaching in her plans, and always saw more clearly than ferdinand what was for the true glory of spain. with infinite tact she softened his asperities, and disarmed his jealousy, and ruled her "dear lord," by making him believe he ruled her. a joint sovereignty, with a man so grasping of power and so jealous of his own rights, required self-control and tact in no ordinary measure. it was agreed at last that in all public acts ferdinand's name should precede hers; and although her sanction was necessary, his indignation at this was abated by her promise of submission to his will. the court of the new sovereigns was established at seville, and they took up their abode in that palace so filled with associations both moorish and castilian--the alcazar. from the very first isabella's powerful mind grappled every public question, and she gave herself heart and soul to what she believed was her divine mission--the building up of a great catholic state. isabella's devout soul was sorely troubled by the prevalence of judaism in her kingdom. she took counsel with her confessor, and also with the pope, and by their advice a religious tribunal was established at seville in 1483, the object of which was to inquire of heretics whether they were willing to renounce their faith and accept christianity. the head of this tribunal, which was soon followed by others in all the large cites, was a dominican friar called _torquemada_. he was known as the "inquisitor general." inaccessible to pity, mild in manners, humble in demeanor, yet swayed only by a sense of duty, this strange being was so cruel that he seems like an incarnation of the evil principle. at the tribunal in seville alone it is said that in thirty-six years four thousand victims were consigned to the flames, besides the thousands more who endured living deaths by torture, mutilation, and nameless sufferings. humanity shudders at the recital! and yet this monstrous tribunal was the creation of one of the wisest and gentlest of women, who believed no rigors could be too great to save people from eternal death! and, in her misguided zeal, she emptied her kingdom of a people who had helped to create its prosperity, and drove the most valuable part of her population into france, italy, and england, there to disseminate the seeds of a higher culture and intelligence which they had imbibed from contact with the moors, who had treated them with such uniform tolerance and gentleness. the kingdom of granada was now at the height of its splendor. its capital city was larger and richer than any city in spain. its army was the best equipped of any in europe. the moorish king, a man of fiery temper, thought the time had come when he might defy his enemy by refusing to pay an annual tribute to which his father had ten years before consented. when ferdinand's messenger, in 1476, came to demand the accustomed tribute, he said, "go tell your master the kings who pay tribute in granada are all dead. our mints coin nothing but sword-blades now." the cool and crafty ferdinand prepared his own answer to this challenge. the infatuated king abdul-hassan followed up his insult by capturing the christian fortress of zahara. his temper was not at the best at this time on account of a war raging in his own household. his wife ayesha was fiercely jealous of a christian captive whom he had also made his wife. she had become his favorite sultana, and was conspiring to have her own son supplant boabdil, the son of ayesha, the heir to the throne. in his championship of zoraya and her son, abdul-hassan imprisoned ayesha and boabdil, whom he threatened to disinherit. we are shown to-day the window in the alhambra from which ayesha lowered boabdil in a basket, telling him to come back with an army and assert his rights. suddenly, while absorbed by this smaller war, news came that alhama, their most impregnable fortress, only six leagues from the city of granada, had been captured by ferdinand's army. it was the key to granada. despair was in every soul. the air was filled with wailing and lamentation. "woe, woe is me, alhama!" "ay de mi, alhama!" indignant with their old king, who had brought destruction upon them, when boabdil came with his army of followers, they flocked about him--"el rey chico!" (the boy king) as they called him. abdul hassan was forced to fly, and boabdil reigned over the expiring kingdom. it was a brief and troubled reign. in the famous "court of the lions" in the alhambra, visitors are shown to-day the blood-stains left by the celebrated massacre of the "abencerrages." the abencerrages had supported the claim of ayesha's rival, zoraya; and it is said that boabdil invited the princes of this clan, some thirty in number, to a friendly conference in the alhambra, and there had them treacherously beheaded at the fountain. but whether this blood-stain upon his memory is as doubtful as those upon the stones at the fountain, seems an open question. [illustration: from the painting by v. brozik. columbus at the court of ferdinand and isabella.] so stubborn was the defense, it appeared sometimes as if the reduction of granada would have to be abandoned. isabella's courage and faith were sorely tried. but the brave queen infused her own courage into the flagging spirits of her husband, and kept alive the enthusiasm of the people; and at last,--on the 2d of january, 1402,--the proud city capitulated. boabdil surrendered the keys of the alhambra to ferdinand--the silver cross which had preceded the king throughout the war gleamed from a high tower; and from the loftiest pinnacle of the alhambra waved the banners of castile and aragon. the conflict which had lasted for 781 years was over. the death of roderick and the fall of the goths was avenged, and christendom, still weeping for the loss of constantinople, was consoled and took heart again. chapter xvii. the reduction of granada had required eleven years, and had drained the kingdom of all its resources. it is not strange that isabella should have had no time to listen seriously to a threadbare enthusiast asking for money and ships for a strange adventure! to have grown old and haggard in pressing an unsuccessful project is not a passport to the confidence of princes. but the gracious queen had promised to listen to him when the war with the moors was concluded. so now columbus sought her out at granada; and it is a strange scene which the imagination pictures--a shabby old man pleading with a queen in the halls of the alhambra for permission to lift the veil from an unsuspected hemisphere; artfully dwelling upon the glory of planting the cross in the dominions of the great khan! the cool, unimaginative ferdinand listened contemptuously; but isabella, for once opposing the will of her "dear lord," arose and said, "the enterprise is mine. i undertake it for castile." and on the 3d of august, 1492, the little fleet of caravels sailed from the mouth of the same river whence had once sailed the "ships of tarshish," laden with treasure for king solomon and "hiram, king of tyre." a union with portugal--the land of the lusitanians and of sertorius--was all that was now required to make of the spanish peninsula one kingdom. this isabella planned to accomplish by the marriage of her oldest daughter, isabella, with the king of portugal. her son john, heir to the spanish throne, had died suddenly just after his marriage with the daughter of maximilian, emperor of germany. this terrible blow was swiftly followed by another, the death of her daughter isabella, and also that of the infant which was expected to unite the kingdoms of portugal and spain. the succession of castile and aragon now passed to joanna, her second daughter, who had married philip, archduke of austria and son of maximilian, an unfortunate child who seemed on the verge of madness. isabella's youngest daughter, catherine, became the wife of henry viii. of england. happily the mother did not live to witness this child's unhappiness; but her heart-breaking losses and domestic griefs were greater than she could bear. the unbalanced condition of joanna, upon whom rested all her hopes, was undermining her health. the results of the expedition of columbus had exceeded the wildest dreams of romance. gold was pouring in from the west enough to pay for the war with the moors many times over, and for all wars to come. spain, from being the poorest, had suddenly become the richest country in europe; richest in wealth, in territory, and in the imperishable glory of its discovery. but isabella,--who had been the instrument in this transformation,--who had built up a firm united kingdom and swept it clean of heretics, jews, and moors,--was still a sad and disappointed woman, thwarted in her dearest hopes; and on the 26th of november, 1504, she died leaving the fruits of her triumphs to a grandson six years old. this infant charles was proclaimed king of castile under the regency of his ambitious father, the archduke of austria, and his insane mother. the death of the archduke and the incapacity of joanna in a few years gave to ferdinand the control of the two kingdoms for which he had contended and schemed, until his own death in 1516, when the crowns of castile and aragon passed to his grandson, who was proclaimed charles i., king of spain. a plain, sedate youth of sixteen was called from his home in flanders to assume the crowns of castile and aragon. silent, reserved, and speaking the spanish language very imperfectly, the impression produced by the young king was very unpromising. no one suspected the designs which were maturing under that mask; nor that this boy was planning to grasp all the threads of diplomacy in europe, and to be the master of kings. in 1517 maximilian died, leaving a vacant throne in germany to be contended for by the ambitious francis i. of france and maximilian's grandson, charles. it was a question of supremacy in europe. so the successful aspirant must win to himself leo x., henry viii. and his great minister wolsey, and after that the electors of germany. it required consummate skill. francis i. was an able player. the astute wolsey made the moves for his master henry viii., keeping a watchful eye on charles, "that young man who looks so modest, and soars so high"; while leo x., unconscious of the coming reformation, was craftily aiding this side or that as benefit to the church seemed to be promised. but that "modest young man" played the strongest game. charles was, by the unanimous vote of the electors, raised to the imperial throne; and the grandson of isabella, as charles i. of spain and charles v. of germany, possessed more power than had been exercised by any one man since the reign of augustus. the territory over which he had dominion in the new world was practically without limit. mexico surrendered to cortez (1521) and peru to pizarro (1532); ponce de leon was in florida and de soto on the banks of the mississippi; while wealth, fabulous in amount, was pouring into spain, and from thence into flanders. the history of charles belongs, in fact, more to europe than to spain. no slightest tenderness seems to have existed in his cold heart for the land of isabella, which he seemed to regard simply as a treasury from which to draw money for the objects to which he was really devoted. so, in fact, spain was governed by an absolute despot who was emperor of germany, where he resided, and she visibly declined from the strength and prosperity which had been created by the wise and personal administration of ferdinand and isabella. the cortes, where the deputies had never been allowed the privilege of debate, had been at its best a very imperfect expression of popular sentiment; and now was reduced to a mere empty form. abuses which had been corrected under the vigilant personal administration of two able and patriotic sovereigns returned in aggravated form. misrule and disorder prevailed, while their king was absorbed in the larger field of european politics and diplomacy. the light in which spain shines in this, which is always accounted her most glorious period, was that of discovery and conquest and the enormous wealth coming therefrom; all of which was bestowed by that shabby adventurer and suppliant at the alhambra, in whom isabella alone believed, and who, after enriching spain beyond its wildest expectations, was permitted to die in poverty and neglect at valladolid in 1506! history has written its verdict: imperishable renown to columbus, balboa, magellan, and the navigators who dared such perils and won so much; and eternal infamy to the men who planted a bloodstained cross in those distant lands. the history of the west indies, of mexico, and peru is unmatched for cruelty in the annals of the world; and isabella's is the only voice that was ever raised in defense of the gentle, helpless race which was found in those lands. the reformation, which had commenced in germany with the reign of charles v., had assumed enormous proportions. charles, who was a bigot with "heart as hard as hammered iron," was using with unsparing hand the inquisition, that engine of cruelty created by his grandmother. and while his captains, the "conquistadors," were burning and torturing in the west, he was burning and torturing in the east. his entire reign was occupied in a struggle with his ambitious rival francis i., and another and vain struggle with the followers of luther. he had married isabel, the daughter of the king of portugal. philip, his son and heir, was born in 1527. the desire of his heart was to secure for this son the succession to the imperial throne of germany. to this the electors would not consent. he was defeated in the two objects dearest to his heart: the power to bequeath this imperial possession to philip, and the destruction of protestantism. so this most powerful sovereign since the day of charlemagne felt himself ill-used by fate. weary and sick at heart, in the year 1556 he abdicated in favor of philip. the netherlands was his own to bestow upon his son, as that was an inheritance from his father, the archduke of austria. so the fate of philip does not seem to us so very heart-breaking, as, upon the abdication of his father, he was king of spain, of naples, and of sicily; duke of milan; lord of the netherlands and of the indies, and of a vast portion of the american continent stretching from the atlantic to the pacific! such was the inheritance left to his son by the disappointed man who carried his sorrows to the monastery at st. yuste, where the austerities and severities he practiced finally cost him his life (1558). but let no one suppose that these penances were on account of cruelties practiced upon his protestant subjects! from his cloister he wrote to the inquisitors adjuring them to show no mercy; to deliver all to the flames, even if they should recant; and the only regret of the dying penitent was that he had not executed luther! chapter xviii. philip established his capital at madrid, and commenced the palace of the escurial, nineteen miles distant, which stands to-day as his monument. his coronation was celebrated by an _auto-da-fé_ at valladolid, which it is said "he attended with much devotion." one of the victims, an officer of distinction, while awaiting his turn said to him: "sire, how can you witness such tortures?" "were my own son in your place i should witness it," was the reply; which was a key to the character of the man. [illustration: from the painting by velasquez. the surrender of breda.] he asserted his claim through his mother, the princess isabel of portugal, to the throne of that country, and after a stubborn contest with the lusitanians, the long-desired union of spain and portugal was accomplished. this event was celebrated by cervantes in a poem which extravagantly lauds his sovereign. henry viii. had been succeeded in england by mary, daughter of his unhappy queen, catherine of aragon, who, it will be remembered, was the daughter of ferdinand and isabella. mary had inherited the intense religious fervor and perhaps the cruel instincts of her mother's family, and she quickly set about restoring protestant england to the catholic faith. philip saw in a union with mary and a joint sovereignty over england, such as he hoped would follow, an immense opportunity for spain. the marriage took place with great splendor, and in the desire to please her handsome husband, of whom she was very fond, she commenced the work which has given her the title, "bloody mary." in vain were human torches lighted to lure philip from spain, where he lingered. she did not win his love, nor did philip reign conjointly with his royal consort in england. mary died in 1558, and her protestant sister elizabeth, daughter of anne boleyn, was queen of england. philip had made up his mind that protestantism should be exterminated in his kingdom of the netherlands. he could not go there himself, so he looked about for a suitable instrument for his purpose. the duke of alva was the man chosen. he was appointed viceroy, with full authority to carry out the pious design. heresy must cease to exist in the netherlands. the arrival of alva, clothed with such despotic powers, and the atrocities committed by him, caused the greatest indignation in the netherlands. the prince of orange, aided by the counts egmont and horn, organized a party to resist him, and a revolution was commenced which lasted for forty years, affording one of the blackest chapters in the history of europe. the name of alva stands at the head of the list of men who have wrought desolation and suffering in the name of religion. the other european states protested, and elizabeth, in hot indignation, gave aid to the persecuted states. philip had contracted a marriage, after mary's death, with the daughter of that terrible woman catherine de medici, widow of henry ii. of france, and there is much reason to believe that it was this duke of alva who planned the massacre of st. bartholomew. there were sinister conferences between catherine, philip, and alva, and little doubt exists that the hideous tragedy which occurred in paris on the night of august 24, 1572, was arranged in madrid, and had its first inception in the cruel breast of alva. there had not been much love existing before between philip and elizabeth, who it is said had refused the hand of her spanish brother-in-law. but after her interference in the netherlands, and when her ships were intercepting and waylaying spanish ships returning with treasure from the west, and when at last the one was the accepted champion of the protestant, and the other of the catholic cause, they became avowed enemies. philip resolved to prepare a mighty armament for the invasion of england. in 1587 elizabeth sent sir francis drake to reconnoiter and find out what philip was doing. he appeared with twenty-five vessels before cadiz. having learned all he wanted, and burned a fleet of merchant vessels, he returned to his queen. in may, 1588, a fleet of one hundred and thirty ships, some "the largest that ever plowed the deep," sailed from lisbon for the english coast. we may form some idea to-day of what must have been the feeling in england when this armada, unparalleled in size, appeared in the english channel! if sir francis drake's ships were fewer and smaller, he could match the spaniards in audacity. he sent eight fireships right in among the close-lying vessels. then, in the confusion which followed, while they were obstructed and entangled with their own fleet, he swiftly attacked them with such vigor that ten ships were sunk or disabled, and the entire fleet was demoralized. then a storm overtook the fleeing vessels, and the winds and the waves completed the victory. as in the spanish report of the disaster thirty-five is the number of ships acknowledged to be lost, we may imagine how great was the destruction. so ended philip's invasion of england, and the great spanish "armada." philip ii. died, 1598, in the palace of the escurial which he had built, and with that event ends the story of spain's greatness. the period of one hundred and twenty-five years, including the reigns of ferdinand and isabella, of charles v., and of philip ii., is, in a way, one of unmatched splendor. spain had not like england by slow degrees expanded into great proportions, but through strange and perfectly fortuitous circumstances, she had, from a proud obscurity, suddenly leaped into a position of commanding power and magnificence. fortune threw into her lap the greatest prize she ever had to bestow, and at the same time gave her two sovereigns of exceptional qualities and abilities. the story of this double reign is the romance, the fairy tale of history. then came the magnificent reign of charles v. with more gifts from fortune--the imperial crown, if not a substantial benefit to spain, still bringing dignity and éclat. but under this glittering surface there had commenced even then a decline. under philip ii. she was still magnificent, europe was bowing down to her, but the decline was growing more manifest; and with the accession of his puny son, philip iii., there was little left but a brilliant past, which a proud and retrospective nation was going to feed upon for over three centuries. but it takes some time for such dazzling effulgence to disappear. the glamour of the spanish name was going to last a long time and picturesquely veil her decay. the memory of such an ascendancy in europe nourished the intense national pride of her people. the name castilian took on a new significance. nor can we wonder at their pride in the name "castilian." its glory was not the capricious gift of fortune, but won by a devotion, a constancy, and a fidelity of purpose which are unique in the history of the world. for seven hundred years the race for which that name stands had kept alive the national spirit, while their land was occupied by an alien civilization. these were centuries of privation and suffering and hardship; but never wavering in their purpose, and by brave deeds which have filled volumes, they reclaimed their land and drove out the moors. this is what gives to the name "castilian," its proud significance. but when degenerate hidalgos and grandees, debauched by wealth and luxury, gloried in the name; when by rapacity and cruelty they destroyed the lands their valor had won; and when the inquisition became their pastime and the rack and the wheel their toys--then the name castilian began to take on a sinister meaning. spain's most glorious period was not when she was converting the indies and mexico and peru into a hell, not when charles v. was playing his great game of diplomacy in europe, but in that pre-columbian era when a brave and rugged people were keeping alive their national life in the mountains of the asturias. well may spain do honor to that time by calling the heir to her throne the "prince of the asturias!" chapter xix. the history of the century after the death of philip ii. is one of rapid decline; with no longer a powerful master-mind to hold the state together. every year saw the court at madrid more splendid, and the people,--that insignificant factor,--more wretched, and sinking deeper and deeper into poverty. in fact, in spite of the fabulous wealth which fortune had poured upon her, spain was becoming poor. but nowhere in europe was royalty invested with such dignity and splendor of ceremonial, and the ambitious marie de medici, widow of henry iv., was glad to form alliances for her children with those of philip iii. the "prince of the asturias," who was soon to become philip iv., married her daughter, isabella de bourbon, and the infanta, his sister, was at the same time married to the young louis xiii., king of france. [illustration: philip iv. of spain. from the portrait by velasquez.] the remnant of the moors who still lingered in the land were called _moriscos_; and under a very thin surface of submission to christian spain, they nursed bitter memories and even hopes that some miracle would some day restore them to what was really the land of their fathers. a very severe edict, promulgated by philip ii., compelling conformity in all respects with christian living, and--as if that were not a part of christian living--forbidding _ablutions_, led to a serious revolt. and this again led to the forcible expulsion of every morisco in spain. in 1609, by order of philip iii., the last of the moors were conveyed in galleys to the african coast whence they had come just nine hundred years before. in a narrative so drenched with tears, it is pleasant to hear of light-hearted laughter. we are told that when the young king philip iii. saw from his window a man striking his forehead and laughing immoderately he said: "that man is either mad, or he is reading 'don quixote'"--which latter was the case. but the story written by cervantes did more than entertain. chivalry had lingered in the congenial soil of spain long after it had disappeared in every other part of europe; but when in the person of don quixote it was made to appear so utterly ridiculous, it was heard of no more. philip iii., who died in 1621, was succeeded by his son philip iv. as in the reign of his father worthless favorites ruled, while a profligate king squandered the money of the people in lavish entertainments and luxuries. much has been written about the visit of charles, prince of wales (afterward charles i.), accompanied by the duke of buckingham, at his court; whither the young prince had come disguised, to see the infanta, philip's sister, whom he thought of making his queen. probably she did not please him, or perhaps the alliance with protestant england was not acceptable to the pious catholic family of philip. at all events, henrietta, sister of louis xiii. of france, was his final choice; and shared his terrible misfortunes a few years later. a revolt of the catalonians on the french frontier led to a difficulty with france, which was finally adjusted by the celebrated "treaty of the pyrenees." in this treaty was included the marriage of the young king louis xiv. and maria theresa, daughter of philip iv., the king of spain. the european powers would only consent to this union upon condition that louis should solemnly renounce all claim to the spanish crown for himself and his heirs; which promise had later a somewhat eventful history. seven of the united provinces had achieved their independence during the reign of the third philip, who had also driven out of his kingdom six hundred thousand moriscos; by far the most skilled and industrious portion of the community. and now, at the close of the reign of philip iv., the kingdom was further diminished by the loss of portugal; which, in 1664, the lusitanians recovered, and proclaimed the duke of braganza king. when we add to this the loss of much of the netherlands, and of the island of jamaica, and concessions here and there to france and to italy, it will be obvious that a process of contraction had soon followed that of spain's phenomenal expansion! during the reign of carlos ii., who succeeded his father (1665), spain was still further diminished by the cession to louis xiv., in 1678, of more provinces in the low countries and also of the region now known as alsace and lorraine; which, it will be remembered, have in our own time passed from the keeping of france to that of victorious germany. in the year 1655 the island of jamaica was captured by an expedition sent out by cromwell. it was between the years 1670 and 1686 that the spaniard and the anglo-saxon had their first collision in america. st. augustine had been founded in 1565, and the old spanish colony was much disturbed in 1663, when charles ii. of england planted an english colony in their near neighborhood (the carolinas). during the war between spain and england at the time above mentioned, feeling ran high between florida and the carolinas, and houses were burned and blood was shed. spain had felt no concern about the little english colony planted on the bleak new england coast in 1620. death by exposure and starvation promised speedily to remove that. but the settlement on the carolinas was more serious, and at the same time the french were planting a colony of their own at the mouth of the mississippi. the "lords of america" began to feel anxious about their control of the gulf of mexico. the cloud was a very small one, but it was not to be the last which would dim their skies in the west. the one thing which gives historic importance to the reign of carlos ii. is that it marks the close--the ignominious close--of the great hapsburg dynasty in spain. and if the death of carlos, in 1700, was a melancholy event, it is because with it the scepter so magnificently wielded by ferdinand and isabella passed to the keeping of the house of bourbon, whose spanish descendants have, excepting for two brief intervals, ruled spain ever since. chapter xx. the last century had wrought great changes in european conditions. "the holy roman empire," after a thirty-years' war with protestantism, was shattered, and the emperor of germany was no longer the head of europe. protestant england had sternly executed charles i., and then in the person of james ii. had swept the last of the catholic house of stuart out of her kingdom. france, on the foundation laid by richelieu, had developed into a powerful despotism, which her king, louis xiv., was making magnificent at home and feared abroad. for spain it had been a century of steady decline, with loss of territory, power, and prestige. no longer great in herself, she was regarded by her ambitious neighbor, louis xiv., as only a make-weight in the supremacy in europe upon which he was determined. he had been ravaging the enfeebled german empire, and now a friendly fate opened a peaceful door through which he might make spain contribute to his greatness. carlos ii. died (1700) without an heir. there was a vacant throne in spain to which--on account of louis' marriage, years before, with the spanish princess maria theresa--his grandson philip had now the most valid claim. the other claimant, archduke karl, son of leopold, emperor of germany, in addition to having a less direct hereditary descent, was unacceptable to the spanish people, who had no desire to be ruled again by an occupant of the imperial throne of germany. so, as louis wished it, and the spanish people also wished it, there was only one obstacle to his design; that was a promise made at the time of his marriage that he would never claim that throne for himself or his heirs. but when the pope, after "prayerful deliberation," absolved him from that promise the way was clear. this grandson, just seventeen years old, was proclaimed philip v., king of spain, and louis in the fullness of his heart exclaimed, "the pyrenees have ceased to exist!" perhaps it would have been better for the king if he had not made that dramatic exclamation. a man who could remove mountains to make a path for his ambitions might also drain seas! england took warning. she had been quietly bearing his insults for a long time, and not till he had impertinently threatened to place upon her throne the pretender, the exiled son of james ii., had she joined the coalition against the french king. but now she sent more armies, and a great captain to re-enforce prince eugene, who was fighting this battle for the archduke karl and for europe. but louis had reached the summit. he was to go no higher than he had climbed when he uttered that vain boast. philip v. was acknowledged king in 1702, and in 1704 _blenheim_ had been fought and won by marlborough, and the decline of the _grand monarque_ had commenced. the war against him by a combined europe now became the war of the "spanish succession." england and holland united with emperor leopold to curb his limitless ambition. the purpose of the war of the "spanish succession" was, ostensibly, to place the austrian archduke upon the throne of spain; its real purpose was to check the alarming ascendancy of louis xiv. in europe. it lasted for years, the poor young king and queen being driven from one city to another, while the austrian archduke was at madrid striving to reign over a people who would not recognize him. spain was being made the sport of three nations in pursuance of their own ambitious ends. her land was being ravaged by foreign armies, recruited from three of her own disaffected provinces; while a young king with whom she was well satisfied was peremptorily ordered to make way for one austria, england, and holland preferred. it was a humiliating proof of the decline in national spirit, and the old castilian pride must have sorely degenerated for such things to be possible. finally, after louis xiv. had once more given solemn oath that the crowns of france and spain should never be united, the "peace of utrecht" was signed (1713). but the provisions of the treaty were momentous for spain. she was at one stroke of the pen stripped of half her possessions in europe. philip v. was acknowledged king of spain and the indies. but sicily, with its regal title, was ceded to the duke of savoy; milan, naples, sardinia, and the netherlands went to karl, now emperor charles vi. of germany; while minorca and gibraltar passed to the keeping of england. no one felt unmixed satisfaction, except perhaps england. the archduke had failed to get his throne, and to wear the double crown like charles v. louis had carried his point. he had succeeded in keeping the kingdom for his grandson. but that kingdom was dismembered, and had shrunk to insignificant proportions in europe, while england, most fortunate of all, had carried off the key to the mediterranean. that little rocky promontory of gibraltar was potentially of more value than all the rest! such was the beginning of the dynasty of the bourbon in spain. philip was succeeded, upon his death in 1746, by his son ferdinand vi., who also died, in 1759, and was succeeded by his brother, philip's second son, who was known as carlos iii. when we try to praise these princes of the wretched bourbon line, it is by mention of the evil they have refrained from doing rather than the good they have done. so carlos iii. is said to have done less harm to spain than his predecessors. he established libraries and academies of science and of arts, and ruled like a kind-hearted gentleman, without the vices of his recent predecessors. his severity toward the jesuits and their forcible expulsion from spain, in 1767, are said to have been caused by personal resentment on account of some slanderous rumors regarding his birth, which were traced to them. chapter xxi. but the fate of spain was not now in the hands of her kings. were they good or evil she was destined henceforth to drift in the currents of _circumstance_, that sternest of masters, to whom her kings as well as her people would be obliged helplessly to bow. all that she now possessed outside the borders of her own kingdom was the west indies, her colonies in america, north and south, and the philippines, that archipelago of a thousand isles in the southern pacific, where magellan was slain by the savage inhabitants after he had discovered it (1520). mexico and peru had proved to be inexhaustible sources of wealth, and when the gold and silver diminished, the viceroys in these and the other colonies could compel the people to wring rich products out of the soil, enough to supply spain's necessities. the inhabitants of these colonies, composed of the aboriginal races with an admixture of spanish, had been treated as slaves and drudges for so many centuries that they never dreamed of resistance, nor questioned the justice of a fate which condemned them always to toil for spain. in the north the feeble colony planted in 1620 had expanded into thirteen vigorous english colonies. france, too, had been colonizing in america, and had drawn her frontier line from the mouth of the mississippi to canada. in 1755 a collision occurred between england and france over their american boundaries. by the year 1759, france had lost quebec and every one of her strongholds, and she formed an alliance with spain in a last effort to save her vanishing possessions in america. spain's punishment for this interference was swift. england promptly dispatched ships to havana and to the philippines; and when we read of the anglo-saxon capturing havana and the adjacent islands on one side of the globe, and the city of manila and fourteen of the philippines on the other, in the midsummer of 1762, it has a slightly familiar sound. and when the old record further says, the "conquest in the west indies cost many precious lives, more of whom were destroyed by the climate than by the enemy," and still again, "the capture of manila was conducted with marvelous celerity and judgment," we begin to wonder whether we are reading the dispatches of the associated press in 1898, or history! in the treaty which followed these victories, upon condition of england's returning havana, and all the conquered territory excepting a portion of the west india islands, spain ceded to her the peninsula of florida; while france, who was obliged to give to england all her territory east of the mississippi, gave to spain in return for her services the city of new orleans, and all her territory west of the great river. this territory was retroceded to france by spain in the year 1800, by the "treaty of madrid," and in 1803 was purchased by america from napoleon, under the title of "louisiana." there was a growing irritation in the spanish heart against england. she was crowding spain out of north america, had insinuated herself into the west india islands, and she was mistress of gibraltar. so it was with no little satisfaction that they saw her involved in a serious quarrel with her american colonies, at a time when a stubborn and incompetent hanoverian king was doing his best to destroy her. the hour seemed auspicious for recovering gibraltar, and also to drive england out of the west indies. the alliance with france had become a permanent one, and was known as a _family compact_ between the bourbon cousins louis xv. and carlos iii. france had at this time rather distracting conditions at home; but she was thirsting for revenge at the loss of her rich american possessions, and besides, a sentimental interest in the brave people who had proclaimed their independence from the mother country, and were fighting to maintain it, began to manifest itself. it was fanned, no doubt, by a desire for england's humiliation; but it assumed a form too chivalric and too generous for americans ever to discredit by unfriendly analysis of motive. spain cared little for the cause of the colonies; but she was quite willing to help them by worrying and diverting the energies of england. so she invested gibraltar. a garrison of only a handful of men astonished europe by the bravery of its defense. gibraltar was not taken by the bourbon allies, neither were the english driven out of the west indies. but it was a satisfaction to spain to see her humbled by her victorious colonies! so carlos iii. had indirectly assisted in the establishment of a republic on the confines of his mexican empire; apparently unconscious of the contagion in the word _independence_. but he quickly learned this to his sorrow. the story of the revolted and freed colonies sped on the wings of the wind. and in peru a brave descendant of the incas arose as a deliverer. he led sixty thousand men into a vain fight for liberty. of course the effort failed, but a spirit had been awakened which might be smothered, but never extinguished. carlos iii. died in 1788 and was succeeded by his son carlos iv. during the miserable reign of this miserable king, france caught the infection from the free institutions in america. the republic she had helped to create was fatal to monarchy in her own land. a revolution accompanied by unparalleled horrors swept away the whole tyrannous system of centuries and left the country a trembling wreck--but free. the dream of a republic was brief. napoleon gathered the imperfectly organized government into his own hands, then by successive and rapid steps arose to imperial power. france was an empire, and adoringly submitted to the man who swiftly made her great and feared in europe. she had another charlemagne, who was bringing to his feet kings and princes, and annexing half of europe to his empire! spain, all unconscious of his designs, and perhaps thinking this invincible man might help her to get back gibraltar and to drive the english out of the west indies, joined him in 1804 in a war against great britain; and the following year the combined fleets of france and spain were annihilated by lord nelson off cape trafalgar. family dissensions in the spanish royal household at this time were opportune for napoleon's designs. carlos and his son ferdinand were engaged in an unseemly quarrel. carlos appealed to napoleon regarding the treasonable conduct and threats of his son. nothing could have better suited the purposes of the emperor. the fox had been invited to be umpire! french troops poured into spain. carlos, under protest, resigned in favor of his son, who was proclaimed ferdinand vii. (1807). the young king was then invited to meet the emperor for consultation at bayonne. he found himself a prisoner in france, and to joseph bonaparte, brother of the emperor, was transferred the crown of spain. the nation seemed paralyzed by the swiftness and the audacity of these overturnings. but soon popular indignation found expression. juntas were formed. the one at seville, calling itself the supreme junta, proclaimed an alliance with great britain; its purpose being the expulsion of the french from their kingdom. spain was in a state of chaos. joseph was not without spanish adherents, and there was no leader, no legitimate head to give constitutional stamp to the acts of the protesting people, who without the usual formalities convoked the cortes. but while they were groping after reforms, and while lord wellington was driving back the french, napoleon had met his reverse at moscow, and a "war of liberation" had commenced in germany. the grasp upon the spanish throne relaxed. the captive king had permission to return, and the reign of joseph was ended by his ignominious flight from the kingdom, with one gold-piece in his pocket (1814). chapter xxii. the decade between 1804 and 1814 had been very barren in external benefits to spain, with her king held in "honorable captivity" in france, and the obscure joseph abjectly striving to please not his subjects, but his august brother napoleon. but in this time of chaos, when there was no bourbon king, no long-established despotism to stifle popular sentiment, the unsuspected fact developed that spain had caught the infection of freedom. [illustration: from the painting by c. alvarez dumont. heroic combat in the pulpit of the church of st. augustine, saragossa, 1809.] when, as we have seen, the cortes assumed all the functions of a government, that body (in 1812) drew up a new constitution for spain. so completely did this remodel the whole administration, that the most despotic monarchy in europe was transformed into the one most severely limited. great was the surprise of ferdinand vii. when, in 1814, he came to the throne of his ejected father carlos iv., to find himself called upon to reign under a constitution which made spain almost as free as a republic. he promulgated a decree declaring the cortes illegal and rescinding all its acts, the constitution of 1812 included. then when he had re-established the inquisition, which had been abolished by the cortes, when he had publicly burned the impertinent constitution, and quenched conspiracies here and there, he settled himself for a comfortable reign after the good old arbitrary fashion. the napoleonic empire having been effaced by a combined europe, ferdinand's bourbon cousins were in the same way restoring the excellent methods of their fathers in france. but there was a spirit in the air which was not favorable to the peace of kings. on the american coast there stood "liberty enlightening the world!" a growing, prosperous republic was a shining example of what might be done by a brave resistance to oppression and a determined spirit of independence. the pestilential leaven of freedom had been at work while monarchies slept in security. ferdinand discovered that not only was there a seditious sentiment in his own kingdom, but every one of his american colonies was in open rebellion, and some were even daring to set up free governments in imitation of the united states. not only was ferdinand's sovereignty threatened, but the very principle of monarchy itself was endangered. russia, austria, and prussia formed themselves into a league for the preservation of what they were pleased to call "the divine right of kings." it was the attack upon this sacred principle, which was the germ of all this mischievous talk about freedom. they called their league "the holy alliance," and what they proposed to do was to _stamp out free institutions in the germ_. in pursuance of this purpose, in 1819 there appeared at cadiz a large fleet, assembled for the subjugation of spanish america. but there was an anglo-saxon america, which had a preponderating influence in that land now; and there was also an anglo-saxon race in europe which had its own views about the "divine right of kings," and also concerning the mission of the "holy alliance." the right of three european powers to restore to spain her revolted colonies in america was denied by president monroe; not upon the ground of spain's inhumanity, and the inherent right of the colonies to an independence which they might achieve. such was the nature of england's protest, through her minister canning. but president monroe's contention rested on a much broader ground. in a message delivered in 1823 he uttered these words: "european powers must not extend their political systems to any portion of the american continent." the meaning of this was that _america has been won for freedom_; and no european power will be permitted to establish a monarchy, nor to coerce in any way, nor to suppress inclinations toward freedom, in any part of the western hemisphere. this is the "monroe doctrine"; a doctrine which, although so startling in 1832, had in 1896 become so firmly imbedded in the minds of the people, that congress decided it to be a vital principle of american policy. but there was another and more serious obstacle in the way of the proposed plan for subjugating the spanish-american colonies. the army assembled by the holy alliance at cadiz was an offense to the people who had seen their constitution burned and their hopes of a freer government destroyed. officers and troops refused to embark, and joined a concourse of disaffected people at cadiz. a smothered popular sentiment burst forth into a series of insurrections throughout spain, and the astonished ferdinand was compelled, in 1820, to acknowledge the constitution of 1812. this was not upholding the principle of the "divine right of kings"! so, under the direction of the holy alliance, a french army of one hundred thousand men moved into spain, took possession of her capital, and for two years administered her affairs under a regency, and then reinstated ferdinand, leaving a french army of occupation. in this contest two distinct political parties had developed--the liberal party and the party of absolutism. as ferdinand vii. became the choice of the liberals, and his brother don carlos of the party of absolutism, we must infer either that it was a liberalism of a very mild type, or that ferdinand's views had been modified since the "holy alliance" took his kingdom into its own keeping. but his brother carlos was the adored of the absolutists, and a plot was made to compel ferdinand to abdicate in his favor. this was the first of the carlist plots, which, with little intermission, and always in the interest of despotism and bigotry, have menaced the safety and well-being of spain ever since. from the year 1825 to 1898 there has been always a don carlos to trouble the political waters in that land. so the mission of the "holy alliance" had failed. instead of rehabilitating the sacred principle of the "divine right of kings," they saw a powerful liberal party established in a kingdom which was the very stronghold of despotism. and instead of stamping out free institutions, six spanish-american colonies had been recognized as free and independent states (1826). spain had for three centuries ruled the richest and the fairest land on the earth. she had shown herself utterly undeserving of the opportunity, and unfit for the responsibilities imposed by a great colonial empire. she had sown the wind and now she reaped the whirlwind. she did not own a foot of territory on the continent she had discovered! chapter xxiii. in 1833 king ferdinand vii. died, leaving one child, the princess isabella, who was three years old. here was the opportunity for the adherents of don carlos. the "salic law" had been one of the gothic traditions of ancient spain, and had with few exceptions been in force until 1789; when carlos iv. issued a "pragmatic sanction," establishing the succession through the female as well as the male line; and on april 6, 1830, king ferdinand confirmed this decree; so, when isabella was born, october 10, 1830, she was heiress to the throne, _unless_ her ambitious uncle, don carlos, could set aside the decree abrogating the old salic law, and reign as carlos iv. in the three years before his brother's death he had laid his plans for the coming crisis. isabella was proclaimed queen under the regency of her depraved mother christina. the extreme of the catholic party, and of the reactionary or absolutist party, flocked about the carlist standard; while the party of the infant queen was the rallying point for the liberal and progressive sentiment in the kingdom; and her cause had the support of the new reform government of louis philippe in france, and of lovers of freedom elsewhere. the party of the queen triumphed. but the carlists survived; and, like the bourbons in france, have ever since in times of political peril been a serious element to be reckoned with. during the infancy of the queen, spain was the prey of unceasing party dissensions; don carlos again and again trying to overthrow her government, and again and again being driven a fugitive over the pyrenees; while the queen regent, who was secretly married to her chamberlain, the son of a tobacconist in madrid, was bringing disgrace and odium upon the liberal party which she was supposed to lead. in 1843 the cortes declared that the queen had attained her majority. her disgraced mother was driven out of the country and isabella ii. ascended her throne. isabella had a younger sister, maria louisa, and in 1846 the double marriage of these two children was celebrated with great splendor at madrid. the queen was married to her cousin don francisco d'assisi, and her sister to the duke de montpensier, fifth son of louis philippe. [illustration: from the painting by j. siguenza y chavarrieta. the duke de la torre sworn in as regent before the cortes of 1869.] if, upon the birth of liberalism in spain, that kingdom could have been governed by a wise and competent sovereign, the concluding chapters of this narrative might have been very different. no time could have been less favorable for a radical change in policy than the period during which isabella ii. was queen of spain. personally she was all that a woman and a queen should not be. with apparently not an exalted desire or ambition for her country, this depraved daughter of a depraved mother pursued her downward course until 1868, when the nation would bear no more. a revolution broke out. isabella, with her three children, fled to france and there was once more a vacant throne in spain. the hopes of the carlists ran high. but the cortes came to an unexpected decision. they would have no spanish bourbon, be he carlist or liberal. the reigning dynasty in italy was at this moment the adored of the liberals in europe. so they offered the crown to amadeo, second son of victor emmanuel, king of italy. three years were quite sufficient for this experiment. the young amadeo was as glad to take off his crown and to leave his kingdom, as the people were to have him do so. he abdicated in 1873. the liberal party had been regretting their loss of opportunity in 1870. france had passed through many political phases in the last few years, and the present french republic had just come into existence. again spain caught the contagion from her neighbor, and spanish liberalism became _spanish republicanism_. when castelar, that patriotic and sagacious statesman, friend of garibaldi, of mazzini, and of kossuth, led this movement, many hopefully believed the political millennium was at hand, when spain was about to join the brotherhood of republics! but something more than a great leader is needed to create a republic. the magic of castelar's eloquence, the purity of his character, and the force of his convictions were powerless to hold in stable union the conflicting elements with which he had to deal. the carlists were scheming, and the cortes was driven to an immediate decision. the fugitive queen isabella had with her in exile a young son alfonso, seventeen years of age. alfonso was invited to return upon the sole condition that his mother should be excluded from his kingdom. an insurrection which was being fomented by don carlos ii. led to this action of the cortes, which was perhaps the wisest possible under the circumstances. the young prince of the legitimate bourbon line was proclaimed king alfonso xii. in 1874. a romantic marriage with his cousin mercedes, daughter of the duke de montpensier, to whom he was deeply attached, speedily took place. only five months later mercedes died and was laid in the gloomy escurial. a marriage was then arranged with christina, an austrian archduchess, who was brought to madrid, and there was another marriage celebrated with much splendor. the infant daughter, who was born a few years later, was named mercedes; a loving tribute to the adored young queen he had lost, which did credit as much to christina as to alfonso. the hard school of exile had, no doubt, been an advantage to alfonso; and at the outset of his reign he won the confidence of the liberals by saying "he wished them to understand he was the first republican in europe; and when they were tired of him they had only to tell him so, and he would leave as quickly as amadeo had done." there was not time to test the sincerity of these assurances. alfonso xii. died in 1885, and joined mercedes and his long line of predecessors in the escurial. five months later his son was born, and the throne which had been filled by the little mercedes passed to the boy who was proclaimed alfonso xiii. of spain, under the regency of his mother queen christina. chapter xxiv. at the beginning of the nineteenth century the foreign dominions of spain, although reduced, were still a vast and imperial possession. the colonial territory over which alfonso xiii. was to have sovereignty at the close of that century, consisted of the philippines, the richest of the east indies; cuba, the richest of the west indies; porto rico, and a few outlying groups of islands of no great value. nowhere had the constitution of 1812 awakened more hope than in cuba; and from the setting aside of that instrument by ferdinand vi. dates the existence of an insurgent party in that beautiful but most unhappy island. ages of spoliation and cruelty and wrong had done their work. the iron of oppression had entered into the soul of the cuban. there was a deep exasperation which refused to be calmed. from thenceforth annexation to the united states, or else a "_cuba libre_," was the determined, and even desperate aim. after a ten-years' war, 1868-78, the people yielded to what proved a delusive promise of home-rule. how could spain bestow upon her colony what she did not possess herself? when in 1881 she tried to pacify cuba by permitting that island to send six senators to sit in the spanish cortes, it was a phantom of a phantom. there was no outlet for the national will in spain itself. her cortes was _not_ a national assembly, and its members were _not_ the choice of the people. how much less must they be so then in cuba, where they were only men of straw selected by the home government, for the purpose of defeating--not expressing--the popular will? the emptiness of this gift was soon discovered. then came a shorter conflict, which was only a prelude to the last. a handful of ragged revolutionists, ignorant of the arts of war, commenced the final struggle for liberty on february 24, 1895, under the leadership of josé marti. at the end of two years a poorly armed band of guerrilla soldiers had waged a successful contest against 235,000 well-equipped troops, supported by a militia and a navy, and maintained by supplies from spain; had adopted a constitution, and were asking for recognition as a free republic. the spanish commander martinez campos was superseded by general weyler (1895), and a new and severer method was inaugurated in dealing with the stubborn revolutionists, but with no better success than before. in august, 1897, an insurrection broke out anew in the philippines, and spain was in despair. america calmly resisted all appeals for annexation or for intervention in cuba. sympathy for cuban patriots was strong in the hearts of the people, but the american government steadfastly maintained an attitude of strict neutrality and impartiality, and with unexampled patience saw a commerce amounting annually to one hundred millions of dollars wiped out of existence, her citizens reduced to want by the destruction of their property,--some of them lying in spanish dungeons subjected to barbarities which were worthy of the turkish janizaries; our fleets used as a coastguard and a police, in the protection of spanish interests, and more intolerable than all else, our hearts wrung by cries of anguish at our very doors! but when general weyler inaugurated a system for the deliberate starvation of thirty thousand "reconcentrados," an innocent peasantry driven from their homes and herded in cities, there to perish, the limit of patience was reached. it was this touch of human pity--this last and intolerable strain upon our sympathies--which turned the scale. while a profound feeling of indignation was prevailing on account of these revolting crimes against humanity, the battleship _maine_ was, by request of consul general lee at that place, dispatched to the harbor of havana to guard american citizens and interests. the sullen reception of the _maine_ was followed on february 15, 1898, by a tragedy which shocked the world. whether the destruction of that ship and the death of 266 brave men was from internal or external causes was a very critical question. it was submitted to a court of inquiry which, after long deliberation, rendered the decision that the cause was--_external_. it looked dark for lovers of peace! president mckinley exhausted all the resources of diplomacy before he abandoned hope of a peaceful adjustment which would at the same time compel justice to the cuban people. but on april 25, 1898, it was declared that war existed between spain and america. less than a week after this declaration, in the early morning of may 1, a victory over the spanish fleet at manila was achieved by commodore dewey, which made him virtual master of the philippines; and just two months later, july 1 and 2 were made memorable by two engagements in the west indies, resulting, the one in the defeat of the spanish land forces at san juan, and the other in the complete annihilation of admiral cervera's fleet in the bay of santiago de cuba--misfortunes so overwhelming that overtures for peace were quickly received at washington from madrid; and the spanish-american war was over. the colonial empire of spain was at an end. the kingdom over which alfonso xiii. was soon to reign had at a stroke lost the spanish indies in the west, and the philippines in the far east. to america was confided the destiny of these widely separated possessions, porto rico being permanently ceded to the united states; while, according to the avowed purpose at the outset of the war, cuba and the islands in the pacific, as soon as fitted for self-government, were to be given into their own keeping; a promise which in the case of cuba has already been redeemed, all possible haste being made to prepare the philippines for a similar responsibility and destiny. the quickness with which cordial relations have been re-established between spain and the united states is most gratifying; and too much praise cannot be bestowed upon that proud, high-spirited people, who have accepted the results of the war in a spirit so admirable. in the loss of her american colonies, spain has been paying a debt contracted in the days of her dazzling splendor--the time of the great charles and of philip ii.,--a kind of indebtedness which in the case of nations is never forgiven, but must be paid to the uttermost farthing. if history teaches anything, it is that the nations which have been cruel and unjust sooner or later must "drink the cup of the lord's fury," just as surely as did the assyrians of old. another thing which is quite as obvious is that the nations of the earth to-day must accept the ideals of the advancing tide of modern civilization, or perish! a people whose national festival is a bull-fight, has still something to learn. much of mediævalism still lingers in the methods and ideals of spain. in the time of her opulence and splendor these methods and ideals were hers. so she believes in them and clings to them still. she has been the victim of a vicious political system, to which an intensely proud, patriotic, and brave people have believed they must be loyal. in no other land--as we have seen--is the national spirit so strong. certainly nowhere else has it ever been subjected to such strain and survived. and this intense loyalty, this overwhelming pride of race, this magnificent valor, have all been summoned to uphold a poor, perishing, vicious political system. but the _zeitgeist_ is contagious. and at no time has its influence in this conservative kingdom been so apparent as since the spanish-american war; soon after this was over, alfonso ascended the throne of his fathers. the important question of his marriage after long consideration was decided by himself, when he selected an english princess, niece of edward vii., for his future queen. the princess ena is the daughter of princess beatrice,--youngest child of queen victoria,--and prince henry of battenberg, who was killed some years ago during one of the kaffir wars in south africa. a royal marriage uniting protestant england and catholic spain would at one time have cost a throne and perhaps a head; and the cordiality, and even enthusiasm, with which this union has been greeted in england shows what seas of prejudice have been sailed through and what continents of sectarian differences have been left behind; proving that the _zeitgeist_ has been busy in england as well as in spain. the royal marriage of these two children--(the king having just passed his twentieth birthday)--attended by the traditional formalities, and a revival of almost mediæval splendor, took place at madrid, june 1, 1906. the many romantic features attending the courtship of the boy king and his english girl-bride invested the occasion with a picturesque interest for the whole world. and yet--impossible as it would have seemed--there existed some one degenerate enough to convert it into a ghastly tragedy. while returning to the royal palace over flower-strewn streets, after the conclusion of the marriage ceremony, a bomb concealed in a bouquet was thrown from an upper window, hitting the royal coach at which it was directly aimed. the young king and queen escaped as if by a miracle from the wreck; and the destruction intended for them bore death and mutilation to scores of innocent people in no wise connected with the government; and madrid, at the moment of her supreme rejoicing, was converted into a blood-stained, mourning city. never did anarchistic methods seem so utterly divorced from intelligence as in this last attempt at regicide. if it had succeeded, an infant-nephew would have been king of spain, with a long regency, perhaps, of some well-seasoned castilian of the old school! there was an incident in connection with this marriage which deeply touches the american heart. the special envoy, bearing a letter of congratulation to the king from president roosevelt, was received with a warmth and consideration far exceeding what was required by diplomatic usage, and the stars and stripes helping to adorn madrid for the great festival gave assurance that spain and the united states are really friends again. list of visigoth kings. a.d. ataulfus, 411-415 wallia, 415-420 theodored, 420-451 thorismund, 451-452 theodoric i. (defeated attila), 452-466 evaric (completed gothic conquest in spain), 466-483 alaric, 483-506 gesaleic, 506-511 theodoric ii., 511-522 amalaric, 522-531 theudis, 531-548 theudisel, 548-549 agilan, 549-554 athanagild i., 554-567 liuva i., 567-570 leovigild, 570-587 recared i., 587-601 liuva ii., 601-603 witteric, 603-610 gundemar, 610-612 sisebert, 612-621 recared ii. (3 months). swintila, 621-631 sisenand, 631-636 chintila, 636-640 tulga, 640-642 chindaswind, 642-649 receswind, 649-672 wamba, 672-680 ervigius, 680-687 egica (son of wamba), 687-701 witiza, 701-709 roderick, 700-711 theodomir, } kings without a kingdom { 711-743 athanagild ii.,} { 743-755 kings of the asturias and leon. a.d. pelayo (of royal gothic birth), 718 favila (son of above), 737 alfonso i. (son-in-law of pelayo), 739 fruela i. (son of alfonso), 757 aurelio, 768 mauregato, 774 bermudo i., 788 alfonso ii., 791 ramiro i., 842 ordoño i., 850 alfonso iii., 866 garcia, 910 ordoño ii., 914 fruela ii., 923 alfonso iv., 925 ramiro ii., 930 ordoño iii., 950 sancho i., 955 ramiro iii., 967 bermudo ii., 982 alfonso v., 999 bermudo iii., 1027 fernando i. (also king of castile), 1037 alfonso vi., 1065 urraca, 1109 alfonso vii. (also king of castile), 1126 fernando ii., 1157 alfonso ix. (aided conquest of moors), 1188 fernando iii., 1230 leon and castile united. alfonso x. (_el sabio_), 1252 sancho iv., 1284 fernando iv., 1295 alfonso xi., 1312 pedro i. (_el cruel_), 1350 enrique ii., 1369 juan i., 1379 enrique iv., 1454 isabel i. (married to fernando ii. of aragon), 1474 castile and aragon united. carlos i. (charles i. elected charles v. of germany, 1519), 1516 philip ii., 1556 philip iii., 1593 philip iv., 1621 carlos ii., 1665 house of bourbon. philip v., 1700 fernando vi., 1746 carlos iii., 1759 carlos iv., 1788 ferdinand vii., 1799 joseph bonaparte, 1806 ferdinand vii. (reinstated), 1814 isabella ii. (dethroned, 1868), 1843 alfonso xii., 1874 alfonso xiii., 1885 index abbasides, 66, 67 abd-el-rahman i, 66, 67, 68, 69, 72 abd-el-rahman ii, 72, 73, 74 abd-el-rahman iii, 74 abdul hassan, 105, 106 acropolis, 92 actium, 27 æneas, 12 ætius, 36 ahab, 12 alaric, 31 alcázar, 89 alexander, 13 alfonso i, 63, 64, 65, 78 alfonso iii, 78 alfonso vi, 81, 82 alfonso ix, 86 alfonso x, 90 alfonso xii, 154, 155, 156, 160 alfonso xiii, 144, 148, 150, 155, 162 alhambra, 92, 106, 107 alhama, 106 almanzor, 79, 80, 86 almoravides, 83, 84 alsace, 129 andalusian, 32, 61, 67, 79, 80 antony, 27 arabia, 91 aragon, 64 arianism, 40, 46 armada, 121 arthur, 70, 82 assyrian, 7 asturias, 6, 63, 64, 78, 81, 125 ataulf, 32 austria, archduke of, 110 ayasha, 105 babel, 4 babylonian, 7 bacon, roger, 87 badajos, 83 baghdad, 74, 75 balboa, 114 balearic, 11 barcelona, 12 basques, 36, 70 battenberg, 162 beatrice, 162 berber, 2, 58, 65, 81, 83 bertrand du guesclin, 96 black prince, 95 blanche de bourbon, 95 blenheim, 133 boabdil, 105, 106, 107 bourbon, 130 braganza, duke de, 128 brummel, 73 brunhilde, 42 brutus, 27 cadiz, 8, 21, 55, 120 cæsar, 26, 27 canaan, 7 canada, 138, 139 canning, 147 cantabrian, 56, 64, 127 carlists, 149 carlos ii, 128, 130, 131, 132 carlos iii, 135, 136, 141 carlos iv, 142 carolinas, 129 carthage, 10, 12 carthagena, 15 castelar, 153 castile, 64, 79, 81, 94, 100, 101, 109 castilian, 81, 123 catalonian, 6 catherine, 109, 118 catherine de' medici, 119 cato, the elder, 22 cervantes, 24, 126 cervera, 160 ceuta, 18 chaldean civilization, 6 chanson de roland, 70 charlemagne, 69, 70, 142 charles martel, 58, 69, 86 charles i, 131 charles ii, 129 charles v, 95, 110, 112, 122, 123 chivalry, 126 christina, 150 christina, hapsburg, 154 cid, 82, 83, 85, 88 clovis, 36 columbus, 29, 109, 114 constantinople, 107 constantius, 34 constanza, 96 constitution, 144, 145, 148, 149 corneille, 24, 26 cortes, 112, 113, 144, 145, 147 cortez, 112 count julian, 52-56 court of the lions, 106 covadonga, 64, 88 crusade, 86, 87 damascus, 60, 74 delenda est carthago, 21 de soto, 112 dictator, 27 dido, 12 don quixote, 126 don carlos, 159 drake, sir francis, 120 edward iii, 96 egmont, 119 egyptian civilization, 6 eleanor, queen, 90 elizabeth, 120 ena, princess, 162 enrique iii, 96, 97 enrique iv, 97 errigius, 73, 74 escurial, 117, 121, 154, 155 eugene, prince, 133 eulogius, 73, 74 evaric, 36 ezekiel, 10 ferdinand i, 100, 101, 105, 107, 111, 130 ferdinand vi, 135 ferdinand vii, 142 fernando i, 79 flanders, 112 florida, 121, 129 francis i, 111, 114 francis d'assisi, 152 frederick ii, 90 gallicians, 6 garibaldi, 153 george iv, 73 gibraltar, 18, 135, 139, 141, 142 granada, 85, 86, 92, 100, 101, 104 guadalquivir, 73 hamilcar, 14, 15 hannibal, 12 hapsburg, 130 havana, 138 henrietta, 127 henry ii, 119 henry viii, 109, 111, 117 hidalgo, 50, 63, 78, 123 hiram, 10, 109 hispania, 21 holy alliance, 146, 147, 148, 149 honorius, 34 horn, 119 huesca, 25 huns, 36 iberia, 2, 6 ides of march, 27 ionian, 9 isabella i, 12, 96, 100, 102, 108, 109, 110, 130 isabella ii, 150, 151, 152 isabella de bourbon, 125 isabel of portugal, 114 isaiah, 13 islam, 59, 64 jamaica, 128, 129 james ii, 131, 132 janizaries, 158 jesuits, 136 jezebel, 12 joanna, 109, 110 john of gaunt, 96, 97 josé marti, 157 joseph bonaparte, 143 juan ii, 100, 102 juntas, 143 karl, archduke of austria, 132, 133 kelts, 4 keltiberians, 5, 15, 22 khalif, 65, 66, 75-77 koran, 60 kossuth, 151 lee, 159 leo x, 111 leon, 79, 81, 94 leopold, 132 leovigild, 43 lira, 24 lorraine, 129 louis ix, 90 louis xiii, 125 louis xiv, 127, 128, 131, 132, 133, 134 louis xv, 140 louisiana, 139 lucan, 29 luther, 114, 116 madrid, treaty of, 139 magellan, 114 mahdi, 85 maine, 159 manila, 138, 160 maria theresa, 127, 132 marie de' medici, 125 marius, 23, 24 marlborough, 133 martian, 29 martinez campos, 158 mary tudor, 117, 118 maximilian, 109, 111 mazzini, 153 mercedes, 154 mexico, 20, 112, 137 milan, 135 minorca, 135 mississippi, 138 mithridates, 25 monroe, 147 moor, 56 moriscos, 126, 128 moscow, 143 montpensier, duke de, 152, 154 munda, 26 murillo, 52 mur-viedo, 16 musa, 52 naples, 135 napoleon, 139, 142 navarre, 79, 94 nelson, 142 ne plus ultra, 18 nero, 29, 73 netherlands, 115, 119, 120, 128, 135 new orleans, 139 nineveh, 7 noah, 7 numantia, 24 octavius augustus, 23 olivier, 70 omeyads, 66, 67, 72, 74 opus majus, 87 ordoño i, 79 osca, 25 ostrogoths, 36 paladins, 70 pedro, 83, 95 pelagius, 64 pelasgians, 30, 88 peru, 20, 112, 137 petronius, 73 phenicia, 91 philip ii, 161 philip iii, 125, 126, 127 philip iv, 127, 128 philip v, 33, 134, 133 philippi, 27 philippines, 137, 138, 156, 158, 160 pillars of hercules, 18, 82 pizzarro, 112 placidia, 33 plutarch, 24 pompey, 25, 26 ponce de leon, 112 portugal, 94, 102, 109 pragmatic sanction, 151 pretender, 132 protestantism, 115, 118, 119 punic, 11, 14, 16 quebec, 138 quintilian, 29 ramiro i, 79 recared, 46 reconcentrados, 159 reformation, 114 richelieu, 131 roderick, 51, 54, 56, 107 roland, 70, 71 rome, 13 roncesvalles, 13 saguntum, 9, 16 sahara, 2 salic law, 150 saracen, 61, 62, 63 santiago de cuba, 160 sardinia, 11, 14, 135 scipio, 19, 22 seneca, 29 seville, 88, 89 sidon, 7, 12 spanish succession, war of, 33 spartans, 30 st. augustine, 129 st. bartholomew, 119 stuart, house of, 131 suevi, 31 sylla, 23, 24 syrian, 7 tarif, 53 tarshish, 10, 13 toledo, 45, 65 torquemada, 103 trafalgar, 142 troy, 9 tubal, 4 tyre, 7, 13 ulfilas, 39 utrecht, peace of, 134 valladolid, 100, 101, 104, 117 vandals, 30 visigoths, 36 wamba, 47 wellington, 143 weyler, 158 white hind, 26 witiza, 50, 51 yusuf, 67 zante, 9 zarynthus, 9 zeitgeist, 162, 163 ziryab, 73 [transcriber's note: underscores are used as delimiter for _italics_] gibraltar [illustration: the alameda parade.] gibraltar by henry m. field _illustrated_ london: chapman and hall, limited. 1889. [_all rights reserved._] trow's printing and bookbinding company, new york. to my friend and neighbor in the berkshire hills, joseph h. choate, who finds it a relief now and then to turn from the hard labors of the law to the romance of travel: i send as a christmas present a story of fortress and siege that may beguile a vacant hour as he sits before his winter evening fire. preface. the common tour in spain does not include gibraltar. indeed it is not a part of spain, for, though connected with the spanish peninsula, it belongs to england; and to one who likes to preserve a unity in his memories of a country and people, this modern fortress, with its english garrison, is not "in color" with the old picturesque kingdom of the goths and moors. nor is it on the great lines of travel. it is not touched by any railroad, and by steamers only at intervals of days, so that it has come to be known as a place which it is at once difficult to get to and to get away from. hence easy-going travellers, who are content to take circular tickets and follow fixed routes, give gibraltar the go-by, though by so doing they miss a place that is unique in the world--unique in position, in picturesqueness, and in history. that mighty rock, "standing out of the water and in the water," (as on the day when the old world perished;) is one of the pillars of hercules, that once marked the very end of the world; and around its base ancient and modern history flow together, as the waters of the atlantic mingle with those of the mediterranean. like constantinople, it is throned on two seas and two continents. as europe at its southeastern corner stands face to face with asia; at its southwestern it is face to face with africa: and these were the two points of the moslem invasion. but here the natural course of history was reversed, as that invasion began in the west. hundreds of years before the turk crossed the bosphorus, the moor crossed the straits of gibraltar. his coming was the signal of an endless war of races and religions, whose lurid flames lighted up the dark background of the stormy coast. the rock, which was the "storm-centre" of all those clouds of war, is surely worth the attention of the passing traveller. that it has been so long neglected, is the sufficient reason for an attempt to make it better known. contents. page i. entering the straits, 1 ii. climbing the rock, 12 iii. the fortifications, 18 iv. round the town, 29 v. parade on the alameda, and presentation of colors to the south staffordshire regiment, 35 vi. the society of gibraltar, 48 vii. a chapter of history--the great siege, 63 viii. holding a fortress in a foreign country, 110 ix. farewell to gibraltar--leaving for africa, 128 list of illustrations. the alameda parade, _frontispiece_. facing page the lion couchant, 4 general view of the rock, 12 the signal station, 14 the new mole and rosia bay, 19 the saluting battery, 27 walk in the alameda gardens, 62 catalan bay, on the east side of gibraltar, 65 plan of gibraltar, 71 "old eliott," the defender of gibraltar, 108 windmill hill and o'hara's tower, 132 europa point, 143 chapter i. entering the straits. i heard the last gun of the old year fired from the top of the rock, and the first gun of the new. it was the very last day of 1886 that we entered the straits of gibraltar. the sea was smooth, the sky was clear, and the atmosphere so warm and bright that it seemed as if winter had changed places with summer, and that in december we were breathing the air of june. on a day like this, when the sea is calm and still, groups of travellers sit about on the deck, watching the shores on either hand. how near they come to each other, only nine miles dividing the most southern point of europe from the most northern point of africa! perhaps they once came together, forming a mountain chain which separated the sea from the ocean. but since the barrier was burst, the waters have rushed through with resistless power. looking over the side of the ship, we observe that the current is setting eastward, which would not excite surprise were it not that it never turns back. the mediterranean is a tideless sea: it does not ebb and flow, but pours its mighty volume ceaselessly in the same direction. this, the geographers tell us, is a provision of nature to supply the waste caused by the greater evaporation at the eastern end of the great sea. but this satisfies us only in part, since while this current flows on the surface, there is another, though perhaps a feebler, current flowing in the opposite direction. down hundreds or fathoms deep, a hidden gulf stream is pouring back into the bosom of the ocean. this system of the ocean currents is one of the mysteries which we do not fully understand. it seems as if there were a spirit moving not only upon the waters, but in the waters; as if the great deep were a living organism, of which the ebb and flow were like the circulation of the blood in the human frame. or shall we say that this upper current represents the stream of life, which might seem to be over-full were it not that far down in the depths the excess of life is relieved by the black waters of death that are flowing darkly beneath? turning from the sea to the shore, on our left is tarifa, the most southern point of spain and of europe--a point far more picturesque than the low, wooded spit of land that forms the most southern point of asia, which the "globe-trotter" rounds as he comes into the harbor of singapore, for here the headland that juts into the sea is crowned by a moorish castle, on the ramparts of which, in the good old times of the barbary pirates, sentinels kept watch of ships that should attempt to pass the straits from either direction: for incomers and outgoers alike had to lower their flags, and pay tribute to those who counted themselves the rightful lords of this whole watery realm. i wonder that the free-traders do not ring the changes on the fact that the very word _tariff_ is derived from this ancient stronghold, at which the mariners of the middle ages paid "duties" to the robbers of the sea. if both sides of the straits of gibraltar were to-day, as they once were, under the control of the same moslem power, we might have two castles--one in europe and one in africa--like the "castles of europe and asia," that still guard the dardanelles, at which all ships of commerce are required to stop and report before they can pass; while ships-of-war carrying too many guns, cannot pass at all without special permission from constantinople. but the days of the sea-robbers are ended, and the mediterranean is free to all the commerce of the world. the castle of tarifa is still kept up, and makes a picturesque object on the spanish coast, but no corsair watches the approach of the distant sail, and no gun checks her speed; every ship--english, french, or spanish--passes unmolested on her way between these peaceful shores. instead of the mutual hatred which once existed between the two sides of the straits, they are in friendly intercourse, and to-day, under these smiling skies, spain looks love to barbary, and barbary to spain. while thus turning our eyes landward and seaward, we have been rounding into a bay, and coming in sight of a mighty rock that looms up grandly before us. although it was but the middle of the afternoon, the winter sun hung low, and striking across the bay outlined against the sky the figure of a lion couchant--a true british lion, not unlike those in trafalgar square in london, only that the bronze is changed to stone, and the figure carved out of a mountain! but the lion is there, with his kingly head turned toward spain, as if in defiance of his former master, every feature bearing the character of leonine majesty and power. that is gibraltar! it is a common saying that "some men achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." the same may be said of places; but here is one to which both descriptions may be applied--that has had greatness thrust upon it by nature, and has achieved it in history. there is not a more picturesque spot in europe. the rock is fourteen hundred feet high--more than three times as high as edinburgh castle, and not, like that, firm-set upon the solid ground, but rising out of the seas--and girdled with the strongest fortifications in the world. such greatness has nature thrust upon gibraltar. and few places have seen more history, as few have been fought over more times than this in the long wars of the spaniard and the moor; for here the moor first set foot in europe, and gave name to the place (gibraltar being merely gebel-el-tarik, the mountain of tarik, the moorish invader), and here departed from it, after a conflict of nearly eight hundred years. [illustration: the lion couchant.] the steamer anchors in the bay, half a mile from shore, and a boat takes us off to the quay, where after being duly registered by the police, we are permitted to pass under the massive arches, and through the heavy gates of the double line of fortifications, and enter waterport street, the one and almost only street of gibraltar, where we find quarters in that most comfortable refuge of the traveller, the royal hotel, which, for the period of our stay, is to be our home. when i stepped on shore i was among strangers: even the friend who had been my companion through spain had remained in cadiz, since in coming under the english flag i had no longer need of a spanish interpreter, and i felt a little lonely; for inside these walls there was not a human being, man or woman, whom i had ever seen before. yet one who has been knocked about the world as i have been, soon makes himself at home, and in an hour i had found, if not a familiar face, at least a familiar name, which gave me a right to claim acquaintance. readers whose memories run back thirty years to the laying of the first atlantic cable in 1858, may recall the fact that the messages from newfoundland were signed by an operator who bore the singular name of de sauty, and when the pulse of the old sea-cord grew faint and fluttering, as if it were muttering incoherent phrases before it drew its last breath, we were accustomed to receive daily messages signed "all right: de sauty!" which kept up our courage for a time, until we found that "all right" was "all wrong." the circumstance afforded much amusement at the time, and dr. holmes wrote one of his wittiest poems about it, in which the refrain of every verse was "all right: de sauty!" well, the message was true, at least in one sense, for de sauty was all right, if the cable was not. the cable died, but the stout-hearted operator lived, and is at this moment the manager of the eastern telegraph company in gibraltar. this is one of those great english companies, which have their centre in london, and whose "lines have" literally "gone out through all the earth." its "home field" is the mediterranean, from which it reaches out long arms down the red sea to india and australia, and indeed to all the eastern world. its general manager is sir james anderson, who commanded the great eastern when she laid the cable successfully in 1866. i had crossed the ocean with him in '67, and now, wishing to do me a good turn, he had insisted on my taking a letter to all their offices on both sides of the mediterranean, to transmit my messages free! this was a pretty big license; his letter was almost like one of paul's epistles "to the twelve tribes scattered abroad, greeting." it contained a sort of general direction to make myself at home in all creation! with such an introduction i felt at home in the telegraph office in gibraltar, and especially when i could take by the hand our old friend de sauty. he has a hearty grip, which speaks for the true englishman that he is. if any of my countrymen had supposed that he died with the cable, i am happy to say that he not only "still lives," but is very much alive. he at once sent off to london a message to my friends in america--a good-bye for the old year, which brought me the next morning a greeting for the new. from the telegraph office i took my way to that of the american consul, who gave me a welcome such as i could find in no other house in gibraltar, since his is the only american family! when i asked after my countrymen (who, as they are going up and down in the earth, and show themselves everywhere, i took for granted must be here), he answered that there was "not one!" he is not only the official representative of our country, but he and his children the only americans. this being so, it is a happy circumstance that the great republic is so well represented; for a better man than horatio j. sprague could not be found in the two hemispheres. he is the oldest consul in the service, having been forty years at this post, where his father, who was appointed by general jackson, was consul before him. he received _his_ appointment from president polk. through all these years he has maintained the honor of the american name, and to-day there is not within the walls of gibraltar a man--soldier or civilian--who is more respected than this solitary representative of our country. some may think there is not much need of a consul where there are no americans, and yet nearly five hundred ships sailed from this port last year for america: pity that he should have to confess that very few bore the american flag! thus the post is a responsible one, and at times involves duties the most delicate and difficult, as in the late war, when the sumter was lying here, with three or four american ships off the harbor (for they were not permitted to remain in port but twenty-four hours) to prevent her escape. at that time the consul was constantly on the watch, only to see the privateer get off at last by the transparent device of taking out her guns, and being sold to an english owner, who immediately hoisted the english flag, and put to sea in broad daylight in the face of our ships, and made her way to liverpool, where she was fitted out as a blockade-runner! those were trying days for expatriated americans. however, it was all made up when peace came, and peace with victory--with the union restored and the country saved. since then it has been the privilege of the consul at gibraltar to welcome many who took part in the great struggle, among them generals grant and sherman and admiral farragut. of course a soldier is always interested in a fortress, for it is in the line of his profession; and the greatest fortification in the world could but be regarded with a curious eye by old soldiers like those who had led our armies for four years; who had conducted great campaigns, with long marches and battles and sieges--battles among the bloodiest of modern times, and one siege (that of richmond) which lasted as long as the famous siege of gibraltar. but perhaps no one felt a keener interest in what he saw here than the old sea-dog, who had bombarded the forts at the mouth of the mississippi six days and nights; had broken the heavy iron boom stretched across the river; and run his ships past the forts under a tremendous fire; only to find still before him a fleet greater than his own, of twenty armed steamers, four ironclad rams, and a multitude of fire-rafts, all of which he attacked and destroyed, and captured new orleans, an achievement in naval warfare as great as any ever wrought by nelson. to farragut gibraltar was nothing more than a big ship, whose decks were ramparts. pretty long decks they were, to be sure, but only furnishing so many more port-holes, and carrying so many more guns, and enabling its commander to fire a more tremendous broadside. talking over these things fired my patriotic breast till i began to feel as if i were in "mine ain countrie," and among my american kinsmen. and as i walked from the consul's back to the royal hotel, i did not feel quite so lonely in gibraltar as i felt an hour before. as the afternoon wore away, the spaniards who had come in from the country to market, to buy or sell, began to disappear, and soon went hurrying out, while the belated townsmen came hurrying in. at half-past five the evening gun from the top of the rock boomed over land and sea, and with a few minutes' grace for the last straggler, the gates of the double line of fortifications were closed for the night, and there was no more going out or coming in till morning. it gave me a little uncomfortable feeling to be thus imprisoned in a fortress, with no possibility of escape. the bustling streets soon subsided into quietness. at half-past nine another gun was the signal for the soldiers to return to their barracks; and soon the town was as tranquil as a new england village. as i stepped out upon the balcony, the stillness seemed almost unnatural. i heard no cry of "all's well" from the sentinel pacing the ramparts, as from sailors on the deck, nor the "ave maria santissima" of the spanish watchman. not even the howling of a dog broke the stillness of the night. the moon, but in her second quarter, did not shut out the light of stars, which were shining brightly on rock and bay. even the heavy black guns looked peaceful in the soft and tender light. it was the last night of the year--and therefore a holy night, as it was to be marked by a holy nativity--the birth of a new year, a "holy child," as it would come from the hands of god unstained by sin. a little before midnight i fell asleep, from which i started up at the sound of the morning gun. the old year was dead! he had been a long time dying, but there is always a shock when the end comes. and yet in that same midnight a new star appeared in the east, bringing fresh hope to the poor old world. life and death are not divided. the very instant that the old year died, the new year was born; and soon the dawn came "blushing o'er the world," as if such a thing as death were unknown. the bugles sounded the morning call, as they had sounded for the night's repose. scarcely had we caught the last echoes, that, growing fainter and fainter, seemed to be wailing for the dying year, before a piercing blast announced his successor. the king is dead! long live the king! [illustration: moorish castle.] chapter ii. climbing the rock. it was a bright new-year's morning, that first day of 1887, and how could we begin the year better than by climbing to the top of the rock to get the outlook over land and sea? the ascent is not difficult, for though the rock is steep as well as high, a zigzag path winds up its side, which to a good pedestrian is only a bracing walk, while a lady can mount a little donkey and be carried to the very top. if you have to go slowly, so much the better, for you will be glad to linger by the way. as you mount higher and higher, the view spreads out wider and wider. below, the bay is placid as an inland lake, on which ships of war are riding at anchor, "resting on their shadows," while vessels that have brought supplies for the garrison are unlading at the new mole. nor is the side of the rock itself wanting in beauty. gibraltar is not a barren cliff; its very crags are mantled with vegetation, and wild flowers spring up almost as in palestine. those who have made a study of its flora tell us that it has no less than five hundred species of flowering plants and ferns, of which but one-tenth have been brought from abroad; all the rest are native. the sunshine of africa rests in the clefts of the rocks; in every sheltered spot the vine and fig-tree flourish, and the almond-tree and the myrtle; you inhale the fragrance of the locust and the orange blossoms; while the clematis hangs out its white tassels, and the red geranium lights up the cold gray stone with rich masses of color. [illustration: general view of the rock.] thus loitering by the way, you come at last to the top of the rock, where a scene bursts upon you hardly to be found elsewhere in the world, since you are literally pinnacled in air, with a horizon that takes in two seas and two continents. you are standing on the very top of one of the pillars of hercules, the ancient calpe, and in full view of the other, on the african coast, where, above the present town of ceuta, whose white walls glisten in the sun, rises the ancient abyla, the mount of god. these are the two pillars which to the ancient navigators set bounds to the habitable world. on this point is the signal station, from which a constant watch is kept for ships entering the straits. there was a tradition that it had been an ancient watch-tower of the carthaginians, from which (as from monte pellegrino, that overlooks the harbor of palermo) they had watched the roman ships. but later historians think it played no great part in history or in war until the rock served as a stepping-stone to the moors in their invasion and conquest of spain. when the spaniards retook it, they gave this peak the name of "el hacho," the torch, because here beacon-fires were lighted to give warning in time of danger. a little house furnishes a shelter for the officer on duty, who from its flat roof, with his field-glass, sweeps the whole horizon, north and south, from the sierra nevada in spain, to the long chain of the atlas mountains in africa. looking down, the mediterranean is at your feet. there go the ships, with boats from either shore which dip their long lateen-sails as sea-gulls dip their wings, and sometimes fly over the waves as a bird flies through the air, even while large ships labor against the wind. as the current from the atlantic flows steadily into the mediterranean, if perchance the wind should blow from the same quarter, it is not an easy matter to get out of the straits. ships that have made the whole course of the mediterranean are baffled here in the throat of the sea. before the days of steam, mariners were subject to delays of weeks, an experience which was more picturesque than pleasant. thirty years ago a friend of mine made a voyage from boston to smyrna in the henry hill, a ship which often took out missionaries to the east, and now had on board a mixed cargo of missionaries and rum! whether it was a punishment for the latter, on her return she had head winds all the way; but in spite of them was able to make a slow progress by tacking from shore to shore, for which, however, she had less room as she came into the straits, through which, as through a funnel, both wind and current set at times with such force as in this case detained the bostonian _five weeks_! "the captain," says my informant, "was a pretty good-natured man, but as he was a joint-owner of the ship, this long detention was very trying. but to me"--it is a lady who writes--"it was quite the reverse. i found it delightful to tack over to the side of gibraltar every morning, and drift back every evening to the shores of africa, with the little excitement from the risk of being boarded by pirates in the night! i never tired of the brilliant sunsets, the gorgeous clouds, with the snow-capped mountains of granada for a background. but for the captain (even with missionaries on board, who were returning to america) the head winds were too much for his temper, and after vainly striving day after day to get through the straits, he would take off his cap, scratch his head, and shake his fists at the clouds! [illustration: the signal station.] "after tacking for three weeks off gibraltar, wearing out our cordage and exhausting our larder, we put into the bay and anchored. here we were surrounded by vessels from all parts of the world, and were so near the town that we could almost exchange greetings with those on shore. one sunday the spaniards had a bull-fight just across the neutral ground; but i preferred a quiet new england sabbath on shipboard. "after lying at anchor in the bay for two weeks i went on shore one day to lunch with an american lady. returning to the ship in the evening, i betook myself to my berth. at midnight i heard unusual sounds, clanking of chains, and sailors singing 'heave ho!' from my port-hole i could see an unusual stir, and dressing in haste went on deck. sure enough the wind had changed, and all the vessels in the bay were alive with excitement. the captain was radiant. i could see his beaming face, for it was clear and beautiful as moonlight could make it. he invited me to stay on deck, sent for a cup of coffee, and made himself very agreeable. we were soon under way. i was in a kind of ecstasy with the novelty and the beauty of it all. the full moon, the grand scenery, the pillars of hercules, solemn in the moonlight, and the added charm of six hundred vessels, from large to small craft, all in full sail, made a rare picture. i sat on deck till morning, and certainly never saw a more beautiful sight than that fleet spreading its wings like a flock of mighty sea-birds, and moving off together from the mediterranean into the atlantic." such picturesque scenes are not so likely to be witnessed now; for since the introduction of steam the plain and prosaic, but very useful, "tug" tows off the wind-bound bark through the dreaded straits into the open sea, where she can spread her wings and fly across the wide expanse of the ocean. to-day, as we look down from the signal station, we see no gathered ships below waiting for a favoring breeze; the wind scarcely ripples the sea, and the boats glide gently whither they will, while here and there a great steamer from england, bound for naples, or malta, or india, appears on the horizon, marking its course by the long line of smoke trailing behind it. to this wonderful combination of land and sea nothing can be added except by the changing light which falls upon it. for the fullest effect you must wait till sunset, when the evening gun has been fired, to signal the departing day, and its heavy boom is dying away in the distance, "swinging low with sullen roar." then the sky is aflame where the sun has gone down in the atlantic; and as the last light from the west streams through the straits, they shine as if they were the very gates of gold that open into a fairer world than ours. chapter iii. the fortifications. if gibraltar were merely a rock in the ocean, like the peak of teneriffe, its solitary grandeur would excite a feeling of awe, and voyagers up and down the mediterranean would turn to this pillar of hercules as the great feature of the spanish coast, a "pillar" poised between sea and sky, with its head in the clouds and its base deep in the mighty waters. but gibraltar is at the same time the strongest fortress in the world, and the interest of every visitor is to see its defences, in which the natural strength of the position has been multiplied by all the resources of modern warfare. a glance at the map will show what is to be defended. the rock is nearly three miles long, with a breadth of half to three quarters of a mile, so that the whole circuit is about seven miles. but not all this requires to be defended, for on the eastern side the cliff is so tremendous that there is no possibility of scaling it. it is fearful to stand on the brow and look down to where the waves are dashing more than a thousand feet below. the only approach must be by land from the north, or from the sea on the western side. as the latter lies along the bay, and is at the lowest level, it is the most exposed to attack. here lies the town, which could easily be approached by an enemy if it were not for its artificial defences. these consist mainly of what is called the line-wall, a tremendous mass of masonry two miles long, relieved here and there by projecting bastions, with guns turned right and left, so as to sweep the face of the wall, if an enemy were to attempt to carry it by storm. indeed the line defended is more than two miles long, if we follow it in its ins and outs; where the new mole reaches out its long arm into the bay, with a line of guns on either side; followed by a re-entering curve round rosia bay, the little basin whose waters are so deep and still, that it is a quiet haven for unlading ships, but where an enemy would find himself in the centre of a circle of fire under which nothing could live; and if we include the batteries still farther southward, that are carried beyond europa point, until the last gun is planted under the eastern cliff, which is itself a defence of nature that needs no help from man. [illustration: the new mole and rosia bay.] within the line-wall, immediately fronting the bay, are the casemates and barracks for the artillery regiments that are to serve the guns. the casemates are designed to be absolutely bomb-proof, the walls being of such thickness as to resist the impact of shot weighing hundreds of pounds, while the enormous arches overhead are made to withstand the weight and the explosion of the heaviest shells. such at least was the design of the military engineers who constructed them: though, with the new inventions in war, the monster guns and the new explosives, it is hard to put any limit to man's power of destruction. this line-wall is armed with guns of the largest calibre, some of which are mounted on the parapet above, but the greater part are in the casemates below, and therefore nearer the level of the sea, so that they can be fired but a few feet above the water, and thus strike ships in the most vital part. the latest pets of gibraltar are a pair of twins--two guns, each of which weighs a hundred tons! these are guarded with great care from the too close inspection of strangers. no description can give a clear impression of their enormous size. in the early history of artillery, the turks cast some of the largest pieces in the world. those who have visited the east, may remember the huge cannon-balls of stone, that may still be seen lying under the walls of the round towers on the bosphorus. but those were pebbles compared with shot that can only be lifted to the mouth of the guns by machinery. the bore of these monsters would delight the soul of the grand turk, for, (as a man could easily crawl into one of them,) if the barbarous punishment of the old days were still reserved for great offenders, a pasha who had displeased the sultan might easily be put in along with the cartridge, and be rammed down and fired off! the guns had recently been tried, and found to be perfect, though the explosion was not so terrible as had at first been feared. there had been some apprehension that a weapon which was to be so destructive to enemies, might not be an innocent toy to those who fired it; that it might split the ear-drums of the gunners themselves. some years ago i was at syra, in the greek archipelago, when the english ironclad devastation was lying in port, which had four thirty-five-ton guns, (the monsters of that day,) and one of her officers said that they "never fired them except at sea, for that the discharge in the harbor would break every window in the town." but here the effect seems not to have been so great. one who was present at the firing of one of the hundred-ton guns, told me that all who stood round expected to be deafened by the concussion. yet when it came, they turned and looked at each other with a mixture of surprise and disappointment. the sound was not in proportion to the size. indeed our consul tells me that some of the sixty-eight pounders are as ear-splitting as the hundred-ton guns. but an english gentleman whom i met at naples gave me a different report of his experience. he had just come from malta, where they have a hundred-ton gun mounted on the ramparts. one day, while at dinner in the hotel, they heard a crash, at which all started from their seats, and rushed to the windows to throw them open, lest a second discharge should leave not a pane of glass unbroken. but this came only as they left the harbor. when about three miles at sea, they saw the flash, which was followed by a boom such as they never heard before. it was the most awful thunder rolling over the deep in billows, like waves of the sea, filling the whole horizon with the vast, tremendous sound. it was as "the voice of god upon the waters." but, of course, with the hundred-ton guns, as with any other, the main question is, not how much noise they make, but what is their power of destruction. here the experiment was entirely satisfactory. it proved that a hundred-ton gun would throw a ball weighing 2,000 pounds over eight miles![1] with such a range it would reach every part of the bay, and a brace of them, with the hundreds of heavy guns along the line-wall, might be relied upon to clear the bay of a hostile fleet, so that gibraltar could hardly be approached by sea. but these are not the whole of its defences; they are only the beginning. there are batteries in the rear of the town, as well as in front, that can be fired over the tops of the houses, so that, if an enemy were to effect a landing he would have to fight his way at every step. as you climb the rock, it fairly bristles with guns. you cannot turn to the right or the left without seeing these open-mouthed monsters, and looking into their murderous throats. everywhere it is nothing but guns, guns, guns! there are guns over your head and under your feet- "cannon to the right of you, cannon to the left of you;" and what is still more, cannon pointed directly at you, till you almost feel as if they were aimed with a purpose, and as if they might suddenly open their mouths, and belch you forth, as the whale did jonah, though not upon the land, but into the midst of the sea! but my story is not ended. it is a good rule in description to keep the best to the last. the unique feature of gibraltar--that in which it surpasses all the other fortresses of europe, or of the world--is the rock galleries, to which i will now lead the way. these were begun more than a hundred years ago, during the great siege, which lasted nearly four years, when the inhabitants had no rest day nor night. for, though the french and spanish besiegers had not rifled guns, nor any of the improved artillery of modern times, yet even with their smooth-bore cannon and mortars they managed to reach every part of the rock. bombs and shells were always flying over the town, now bursting in the air, and now falling with terrible destruction. so high did these missiles reach, that even the rock gun, on the very pinnacle of gibraltar, was twice dismounted. thus pursued to the very eagle's nest of their citadel, and finding no rest above ground, the besieged felt that their only shelter must be in the bowels of the earth, and gangs of convicts were set to work to blast out these long galleries, which we are now to visit. as it is a two miles' walk through them, we may save our steps by riding as far as the entrance. it is an easy drive up to the moorish castle, built by the african invader who crossed the straits in 711, and finding the south of spain an easy conquest, resolved to establish himself in the country, and a few years later built this castle on a shoulder of the hill, where it has stood, frowning over land and sea for nearly twelve centuries. here we present an order from the military secretary, and the officer in charge details a gunner to conduct us through the galleries. the gate is opened, and we plunge in at once, beginning on the lower level. the excavation is just like that of a railway tunnel, except that no arches are required, as it is for the whole distance hewn through the solid rock, which is self-supporting. but it is not a gloomy cavern that we are to explore, through which we can make our way only by the light of torches, for at every dozen yards there is a large port-hole, by which light is admitted from without, at all of which heavy guns are mounted on carriages, by which they can be swung round to any quarter. after we have passed through one tier, perhaps a mile in length, we mount to a second, which rises above the other like the upper deck of an enormous line-of-battle ship. enormous indeed it must be, if we can imagine a double-decker a mile long! following the galleries to the very end, we find them enlarged to an open space, called the hall of st.â george, in which nelson was once fãªted by the officers of the garrison. it must have been a proud moment when the defenders of the great fortress paid homage to the conqueror of the sea. as they drank to the health of the hero of the battle of the nile, they could hardly have dreamed that a greater victory was yet to come; and still less, that it would be a victory followed by mourning, when all the flags in gibraltar would be hung at half-mast, as the flagship of nelson anchored in the bay, with only his body on board, one week after the battle of trafalgar. as we tramped past these endless rows of cannon, it occurred to me that their simultaneous discharge must be very trying to the nerves of the artilleryman (if he has any nerves), as the concussion against the walls of rock is much greater than if they were fired in the open air, and i asked my guide if he did not dread it? he confessed that he did; but added, like the plucky soldier that he was: "we've got to stand up to it!" these galleries are all on the northern side of the rock, which, as it is very precipitous, hardly needs such a defence. but it is the side which looks toward spain, and is intended to command any advance against the fortress from the land. keeping in mind the general shape of the rock as that of a lion, this is the lion's head, and as i looked up at it afterward from the neutral ground, i could but imagine these open port-holes, with the savage-looking guns peering out of them, to be the lion's teeth, and thought what terror would be thrown into a camp of besiegers if the monster should once open those ponderous jaws and shake the hills with his tremendous roar. it is not often that this roar is heard; but there is one day in the year when it culminates, when the british lion roars the loudest. it is the queen's birthday, when the rock gun, mounted on the highest point of the rock, 1,400 feet in air, gives the signal; which is immediately caught up by the galleries below, one after the other; and the batteries along the sea answer to those from the mountain side, until the mighty reverberations not only sweep round the bay, but across the mediterranean, and far along the african shores. nothing like this is seen or heard in any other part of the world. the only parallel to it is in the magnificent phenomena of nature, as in a storm in the alps, when "not from one lone cloud, but every mountain now hath found a tongue, and jura answers from her misty shroud back to the joyous alps that call to her aloud." this is magnificent: and yet i trust my military friends will not despise my sober tastes if i confess that this "roar," if kept up for any length of time, would greatly disturb the meditations of a quiet traveller like myself. indeed it would be a serious objection to living in gibraltar that i should be compelled to endure the cannonading, which, at certain times of the year, makes the rocks echo with a deafening sound. i hate noise, and especially the noise of sharp explosions. i have always been of falstaff's opinion, that "but for those vile guns i would be a soldier." but here the "vile guns" are everywhere, and though they may be quiet for a time, it is only to break out afterward and make themselves heard in a way that cannot but be understood. [illustration: the saluting battery.] as i have happened on an interval of rest, i have been surprised at the quietness of gibraltar. in all the time of my stay i have not heard a single gun, except at sunrise and sunset, and at half-past nine o'clock for the soldiers to return to their barracks. there has not been even a salute, for, although there is on the alameda a saluting battery, composed of russian guns taken in the crimean war, yet it is less often used than might be supposed, for the ships of war that come here are for the most part english (the french and spaniards would hardly find the associations agreeable), and these are not saluted since they are _at home_, as much as if they were entering portsmouth. for these reasons i have found gibraltar so quiet that i was beginning to think it a dull old spanish town, fit for a retreat, if not for monks, at least for travellers and scholars, when the colonial secretary dispelled the illusion by saying, "yes, it is very quiet just now; but wait a few weeks and you will have enough of it." as the spring comes on, the artillerymen begin their practice. the guns in the galleries are not used, but all the batteries along the sea, and at different points on the side of the rock, some of which are mounted with the heaviest modern artillery, are let loose upon the town. but this is not done without due notice. the order is published in the _chronicle_, a little sheet which appears every morning, and lest it might not reach the eyes of all, messengers are sent to every house to give due warning, so that nervous people can get out of the way; but the inhabitants generally, being used to it, take no other precaution than to open their windows, which might otherwise be broken by the violence of the concussion. lord gifford, soldier as he is, said, "it is awful," pointing to the ceiling over his head, which had been cracked in many places so as to be in danger of falling, by the tremendous jar. he told me how one house had been so knocked to pieces that a piece of timber had fallen, nearly killing an officer. this is an enlivening experience, of which i should be sorry to deprive those who like it. but as some of us prefer to live in "the still air of delightful studies," i must say that i enjoy these explosions best at a distance, as even in an alpine storm i would not have the lightning flashing in my very eyes, but rather lighting up the whole blackened sky, and the mighty thunder rolling afar off in the mountains. chapter iv. round the town. accustomed as we are to think of gibraltar as a fortress, we may forget that it is anything else. but it is an old spanish town, quaint and picturesque as spanish towns are apt to be, with twenty thousand inhabitants, in which the spanish element, though subject to another and more powerful element, gives a distinct flavor to the place. indeed, the mingling of the spanish with the english, or the appearance of the two side by side, without mingling, furnishes a lively contrast, which is one of the most piquant features of this very miscellaneous and picturesque population. of course, in a garrison town the military element is first and foremost. as there are always five or six thousand troops in gibraltar, it is perhaps the largest garrison in the british dominions, unless the troops in and around london be reckoned as a garrison. but that is rather an army, of which only a small part is in london itself, where a few picked regiments are kept as household troops, not only to insure the personal safety of the sovereign, but to keep up the state and dignity of the court; while other regiments are distributed in barracks within easy call in case of need, not for defence against foreign enemies so much as to preserve internal order; to put down riot and insurrection; and thus guard what is not only the capital of great britain, but the commercial centre of the world. very different from this is a garrison town, where a large body of troops is shut up within the walls of a fortress. here the military element is so absorbing and controlling, that it dominates the whole life of the place. everything goes by military rule; even the hours of the day are announced by "gun-fire;" the morning gun gives the exact minute at which the soldiers are to turn out of their beds, and the last evening gun the minute at which they are to "turn in," signals which, though for the soldiers only, the working population of the town find it convenient to adopt; and which outsiders _must_ regard, since at these hours the gates are opened and shut; so that a large part of the non-military part of the population have to "keep step," almost as much as if they were marching in the ranks, since their rising up and their lying down, their goings out and their comings in, are all regulated by the fire of the gun or the blast of the bugle. the presence of so large a body of troops in gibraltar gives a constant animation to its streets, which are alive with red-coats and blue-coats, the latter being the uniform of the artillery. this is a great entertainment to an american, to whom such sights in his own country are rare and strange. a few years ago we had enough of them when we had a million of men in arms, and the land was filled with the sound of war. but since the blessed days of peace have come we seldom see a soldier, so that the parades in foreign capitals have all the charm of novelty. in fondness for these i am as much "a boy" as the youngest of my countrymen. almost every hour a company passes up the street, and never do i hear the "tramp, tramp," keeping time to the fife and drum, that i do not rush to the balcony to see the sight, and hear the sounds which stir even my peaceful breast. there is nothing that stirs me quite so much as the bugle. twice a day it startles us with its piercing blast, as it follows instantly the gun-fire at sunrise and sunset. but this does not thrill me as when i hear it blown on some far-off height, and dying away in a valley below, or answered back from a yet more distant point, like a mountain echo. one morning i was taking a walk to europa point, and as the path leads upward i came upon several squads of buglers (i counted a dozen men in one of them) practising their "calls." they were stationed at different points on the side of the rock, so that when one company had given the signal, it was repeated by another from a distance, bugle answering to bugle, precisely like the echoes in the alps, to which every traveller stops to listen. so here i stopped to listen till the last note had died away in the murmuring sea; and then, as i went on over the hill, kept repeating, as if it were a spell to call them back again: "blow, bugles, blow, set the wild echoes flying!" as the english are masters of gibraltar, i am glad to see that they bring their english ideas and english customs with them. nothing shows the thoroughly english character of the place more than the perfect quiet of the day of rest. religious worship seems to be a part of the military discipline. on sunday morning i heard the familiar sound of music, followed by the soldiers' tramp, and stepping to the balcony again, found a regiment on the march, not to parade but _to church_. gibraltar has the honor of being the seat of an english bishop, because of which its modest church bears the stately name of a cathedral; and here may be seen on a sunday morning nearly all the officials of the place, from the governor down; with the officers of the garrison: and probably the soldiers generally follow the example of their officers in attending the service of the church of england. but they are not compelled to this against their own preferences. the irish can go to mass, and the scotch to their simpler worship. in all the churches there is a large display of uniforms, nor could the preachers address more orderly or more attentive listeners. the pastor of the scotch church tells me that he is made happy when a scotch regiment is ordered to gibraltar, for then he is sure of a large array of stalwart cameronians, among whom are always some who have the "gift of prayer," and know how to sing the "psaumes of dawvid." these brave scots go through with their religious exercises almost with the stride of grenadiers, for they are in dead earnest in whatever they undertake, whether it be praying or fighting; and these are the men on whom a great commander would rely to lead a forlorn hope into the deadly breach; or, as an english writer has said, "to march first and foremost if a city is to be taken by storm!" besides the garrison, and the english or spanish residents of gibraltar, the town has a floating population as motley in race and color as can be found in any city on the mediterranean. indeed it is one of the most cosmopolitan places in the world. it is a great resort of political refugees, who seek protection under the english flag. as it is so close to spain, it is the first refuge of spanish conspirators, who, failing in their attempts at revolution, flee across the lines. misery makes strange bedfellows. it must be strange indeed for those to meet here who in their own land have conspired with, or it may be against, each other. apart from these, there is a singular mixture of characters and countries, of races and religions. here spaniards and moors, who fought for gibraltar a thousand years ago, are at peace and good friends, at least so far as to be willing to cheat each other as readily as if they were of the same religion. here are long-bearded jews in their gabardines; and turks with their baggy trousers, taking up more space than is allowed to christian legs; with a mongrel race from the eastern part of the mediterranean, known as levantines; and another like unto them, the maltese; and a choice variety of natives of gibraltar, called "rock scorpions," with africans blacker than moors, who have perhaps crossed the desert, and hail from timbuctoo. all these make a babel of races and languages, as they jostle each other in these narrow and crowded streets, and bargain with each other, and, i am afraid, sometimes swear at each other, in all the languages of the east. here is a field for the young american artists, who after making their sketches in florence and rome and naples, sometimes come to spain, but seldom take the trouble to come as far as the pillars of hercules. as an old traveller, let me assure them that an artist in search of the picturesque, or of what is curious in the study of strange peoples, may find in gibraltar, with its neighbor tangier, (but three hours' sail across the straits) subjects for his pencil as rich in feature, in color, and in costume, as he can find in the bazaars of cairo or constantinople. chapter v. parade on the alameda. presentation of colors to the south staffordshire regiment. the garrison of gibraltar, in time of peace, numbers five or six thousand men, made up chiefly of regiments brought home from foreign service, that are stationed here for a few months, or it may be a year or two, not merely to perform garrison duty, but as a place of rest to recover strength for fresh campaigns, from which they can be ordered to any part of the mediterranean or to india. while here they are kept under constant drill, yet not in such bodies as to make a grand military display, for there is no parade ground large enough for the purpose. gibraltar has no champ de mars on which all the regiments can be brought into the field, and go through with the evolutions of an army. if the whole garrison is to be put under arms, it must be marched out of the gates to the north front, adjoining the neutral ground, that it may have room for its military manoeuvres. when our countryman general crawford, who commanded the pennsylvania reserves at the battle of gettysburg, was here a few years since, the governor, sir fenwick williams, gave him a review of four thousand men. but that was a mark of respect to a distinguished military visitor, and presented a sight rarely witnessed by the ordinary traveller. it was therefore a piece of good fortune to have an opportunity to see, though on a smaller scale, the splendid bearing of the trained soldiers of the british army. one morning our consul (always thoughtful of what might contribute to my pleasure) sent me word that there was to be a parade of one of the regiments of the garrison for the purpose of receiving new colors from the hands of the governor. hastening to the alameda, (which is the only open space within the walls at once large enough and level enough even for a single regiment,) i found it already in position, the long scarlet lines forming three sides of a hollow square. joining a group of spectators on the side that was open, we waited the arrival of the governor, an interval well employed in some inquiries as to the corps that was to receive the honors of the day. "what did you tell me was the name of this regiment?" "the south staffordshire!" but that is merely the name of a county in england, which conveys no meaning to an american. and yet the name caught my ear as one that i had heard before. "was not this one of the regiments that served lately in the soudan?" it was indeed the same, and i at once knew more of it than i had supposed. as i had been twice in egypt, i was greatly interested in the expedition up the nile for the relief of khartoum and the rescue of general gordon, and had followed its progress in the english papers, where, along with the black watch and other famous troops, i had seen frequent mention of the south staffordshire regiment. as the expedition was for months the leading feature of the london illustrated papers, they were filled with pictures of the troops, engaged in every kind of service, sometimes looking more like sailors than soldiers, from which, however, they were ready, at the first alarm, to fall into ranks and march to battle. many of the comrades who sailed from england with them left their bones on the banks of the nile. with this recent history in mind, i could not look in the faces of the brave men who had made all these marches, and endured these fatigues, and fought these battles, without my heart beating fast. it beat faster still when i learned that the campaign in egypt was only the last of a long series of campaigns, reaching over not only many years, but almost two centuries! the history of this regiment is worth the telling, if it were only to show of what stuff the british army is made, and how the traditions of a particular corps, passing down from sire to son, remain its perpetual glory and inspiration. the south staffordshire regiment is one of the oldest in the english army, having been organized in the reign of queen anne, when the great marlborough led her troops to foreign wars. but it does not appear to have fought under marlborough, having been early transferred to the western hemisphere. after four years' service at home it was sent to the west indies, where it remained nearly _sixty years_, its losses by death being made good by fresh recruits from england, so that its organization was kept intact. returning home in 1765, it was stationed in ireland till the cloud began to darken over the american colonies, when it was one of the first corps despatched across the atlantic. as an american, i could not but feel the respect due to a brave enemy on learning that this very regiment that i saw before me _had fought at bunker hill_! from boston it was ordered to new york, where it remained till the close of the war. no doubt it often paraded on the battery, as to-day it parades on the alameda. after the war it was stationed several years in nova scotia. from that time it has had a full century of glory, serving now in the west indies, and now at the cape of good hope, and then coming back across the atlantic to the river plate in south america, where it distinguished itself at the storming and capture of monte video, and afterward fought at buenos ayres. but the "storm centre" in the opening nineteenth century was to be, not in america, north or south, nor in africa, but in europe, in the wars of napoleon. this regiment was with sir john moore when he fell at corunna, and afterward followed the iron duke through spain, fighting in the great battle of salamanca, and later with sir thomas graham at vittoria, and in the siege and storming of san sebastian. it was part of the army that crossed the bidassoa, and made the campaign of 1813-14 in the south of france. after the fall of napoleon it returned home, but on his return from elba was immediately ordered back to the continent, and arrived at ostend, too late to take part in the battle of waterloo, but joined the army and marched with it to paris. when the great disturber of the peace of the continent was sent to st.â helena, europe had a long rest from war; but there was trouble in other parts of the world, and in 1819 the regiment was again at the cape of good hope, fighting the kaffirs; from which it went to india, and thence to burmah, where it served in the war of 1824-26. this is the war which has been made familiar to american readers in the life of the missionary judson, who was thrown into prison at ava, (as the king made no distinction between englishmen and americans), confined in a dungeon, and chained to the vilest malefactors, in constant danger of death, till the advance of the british army up the irrawaddi threw the tyrant into a panic of terror, when he sent for his prisoner to go to the british camp and make terms with the conquerors. england made peace, but the regiment was half destroyed, having lost in burmah eleven officers and five hundred men. the ten years of peace that followed were spent in bengal. when at last the regiment was called home, it was stationed for a few years in the ionian islands, in jamaica, honduras, and nova scotia. then came the russian war, when it was sent to turkey, and fought at the alma and inkerman, and through the long siege of sebastopol. only a single year of peace followed, and it was again ordered to india, where the outbreak of the mutiny threatened the loss of the indian empire, and by forced marches reached cawnpore in time to defeat the sepoy army; from which it marched to lucknow, where it was part of the fiery host that stormed the kaiser-bagh, where it suffered fearful loss, but the siege was raised and lucknow delivered; after which, in a campaign in oude, it helped to stamp out the mutiny. its last campaign was in egypt, where it went up the nile as a part of the river column, hauling its boats over the cataracts, and was the first regiment that reached korti. from this point it kept along the course of the river toward berber (while another column, mounted on camels, made the march across the desert), and with the black watch bore the brunt of the fighting in the battle of kirbekan, in which the commander of the column and the colonel of the regiment both fell.[2] such is the story of a hundred and fifty years. of the hundred and eighty-four years that the regiment has been in existence, it has spent a hundred and thirty-four--all but fifty--in foreign service, in which it has fought in thirty-eight battles, and has left the bones of its dead in every quarter of the globe. was there ever a roman legion that could show a longer record of war and of glory? and now this british legion, with a history antedating the possession of gibraltar itself, (for it was organized in 1702, two years before the rock was captured from spain,) had been brought back to this historic ground, bringing with it its old battle-flags, that had floated on so many fields, which, worn by time and torn by shot and shell, it was now to surrender, to be taken back to england and hung in the oldest church in staffordshire as the proud memorials of its glory, while it was to receive new colors, to be borne in future wars. the rents in its ranks had been filled by new recruits, so that it stood full a thousand strong, its burnished arms glistening as if those who bore them had never been in the heat of battle. in the hollow square in which it was drawn up were its mounted officers, waiting the arrival of the governor, who presently rode upon the ground, with major-general walker, the commander of the infantry brigade, at his side; followed by other officers, who took position in the rear, according to their rank. the band struck up "god save the queen," and the troops, wheeling into column, began the "march past," moving with such firm and even tread that it seemed as if the regiment had but one body and one soul. after a series of evolutions it was again formed in a square, for a ceremony that was half military and half religious, for in such pageants the church of england always lends its presence to the scene. i had read of military mass in the russian army, when the troops drawn up in battle array, fall upon their knees, while the czar, prostrating himself, prays apparently with the utmost devotion for the blessing of almighty god upon the russian arms! something of the same effect was produced here, when the bishop of gibraltar in his robes came forward with his assistant clergy. at once the band ceased; the troops stood silent and reverent. the silence was first broken by the singing of a hymn, whose rugged verse had a strange effect, as given by the regimental choir. i leave to my readers to imagine the power of these martial lines sung by those stentorian voices: when israel's chief in days of yore, thy banner, lord, flung out, old kishon's tide ran red with gore, dire was the pagan rout. and later, when the roman's eye turned upward in despair, the cross, that flickered in the sky, made answer to his prayer. so, lord, to us thy suppliants now, bend thou a gracious ear, and mark, and register the vow we make before thee here. through fire and steel, 'mid weal or woe, unwavering and in faith, where'er these sacred banners go, we'll follow, to the death. we'll follow, strengthened by the might that comes of trust in thee, and if we conquer in the fight, thine shall the glory be: or if thy wisdom wing the ball, and life or limb be riven, the cross we gaze on as we fall shall point the way to heaven. when this song of battle died away, the voice of the bishop was heard in a prayer prepared for the occasion. some may criticise it as implying that the god of battles must always be on the side of england. but such is the character of all prayers offered in time of war. making this allowance, it seems as if the feeling of the hour could not be more devoutly expressed than in the following: almighty and most merciful father, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy, we come before thee with a deep sense of thine exceeding majesty and our own unworthiness, praying thee to shed upon us the light of thy countenance, and to hallow and sanctify the work in which we are this day engaged. we beseech thee to forward with thy blessing, the presentation to this regiment of the colors which are henceforth to be carried in its ranks; and with all lowliness and humility of spirit, we presume to consecrate the same in thy great name, to the cause of peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety. we humbly pray that the time may come when the sound of war shall cease to be heard in the world; but forasmuch as to our mortal vision that blessed consummation seems still far distant, we beseech thee so to order the course of events that these colors shall be unfurled in the face of an enemy only for a righteous cause. and in that dark hour may stain and disgrace fall upon them never; but being borne aloft as emblems of loyalty and truth, may the brave who gather round them go forward conquering for the right, and maintaining, as becomes them, the honor of the british crown, the purity of our most holy faith, the majesty of our laws, and the influence of our free and happy constitution. finally, we pray that thy servants here present, not forgetful of thine exceeding mercies vouchsafed to their regiment in times gone by, and that all the forces of our sovereign lady the queen, wherever stationed and however employed, may labor through thy grace to maintain a conscience void of offence towards thee and towards man, always remembering that of soldier and of civilian the same account shall be taken, and that he is best prepared to do his duty, and to meet death, let it come in what form it may, who in the integrity of a pure heart is able to look to thee as a god reconciled to him through the blood of the atonement. grant this, o lord, for thine only son jesus christ's sake! amen. then followed the usual prayer for the queen: o lord, our heavenly father, high and mighty, king of kings, lord of lords, the only ruler of princes, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth, most heartily we beseech thee with thy favor to behold our most gracious sovereign lady queen victoria, and so replenish her with the grace of thy holy spirit that she may always incline to thy will and walk in thy way; endue her plenteously with heavenly gifts; grant her in health and wealth long to live; strengthen her that she may vanquish and overcome all her enemies; and finally, after this life, she may attain everlasting joy and felicity, through jesus christ our lord! amen. * * * * * the grace of our lord jesus christ, and the love of god, and the fellowship of the holy ghost, be with us all evermore! amen. the service ended, the governor, dismounting from his horse, took the place of the bishop in a service which had a sacred as well as patriotic character. two officers, the youngest of the regiment, advancing, surrendered the old flags, which had been carried for so many years and through so many wars, and then each bending on one knee, received from his hands the new colors which were to have a like glorious history. as they rose from their knees, the governor remounted his horse, and from the saddle delivered an address as full of patriotic sentiment, of loyalty to the queen and country, and as spirit-stirring to the brave men before him, as if they were to be summoned to immediate battle. with that he turned and galloped off the ground, while the regiment unfurling its new standards, with drums beating and band playing, marched proudly away. as it wound up the height, the long scarlet line had a most picturesque effect. it has been objected to these brilliant uniforms that they make the soldiers too conspicuous a mark for the sharpshooters of the enemy. but, however it may be in war, nothing can be finer on parade. our modern architects and decorators, who attach so much importance to color, and insist that everything, from cottage to castle, should be "picked out in red," would have been in ecstasies at the colors which that day gleamed among the rocks and trees of gibraltar. indeed, if you should happen to be sauntering on the alameda just at evening, as the sunset-gun is fired, and should look upward to see the smoke curling away, you might see above it a gathering of black clouds--the sure sign of the coming of the terrible east wind known as the "levanter"; and if at the same moment the afterglow of the dying day should touch a group of soldiers standing on the mountain's crest (where colors could be clearly distinguished even if figures were confused), it might seem as if that last gleam under the shadow of the clouds were itself the red cross of england soaring against a dark and stormy sky. this was the brilliant side of war: pity that there should be another side! but the next day, walking near the barracks, i met a company with reversed arms bearing the body of a comrade to the grave. there was no funeral pomp, no waving plumes nor roll of muffled drums: for it was only a common soldier, who might have fallen on any field, and be buried where he fell, with not a stone to mark his resting-place. but for all that, he may have been a true hero; for it is such as he, the unknown brave, who have fought all the battles and gained all the victories of the world. turning from this scene, i thought how hard was the fate of the english soldier: to be an exile from the land of his birth, "a man without a country"; who may be ordered to any part of the world (for such is the stern necessity, if men are to defend "an empire on which the sun never sets"); serving in many lands, yet with a home in none; to sleep at last in a nameless grave! such has been the fate of many of that gallant regiment which i saw marching so proudly yesterday. their next campaign may be in central asia, fighting the russians in afghanistan, amid the snows of the himalayas. if so, i fear it may be said of them with sad, prophetic truth, as they go into battle: "ah! few shall part where many meet; the snow shall be their winding-sheet; and every turf beneath their feet shall be a soldier's sepulchre." chapter vi. society in gibraltar. the best thing that i find in any place is the men that are in it. strong walls and high towers are grand, but after a while they oppress me by their very massiveness, unless animated by a living presence. even the great guns, those huge monsters that frown over the ramparts, would lose their majesty and terror, if there were not brave men behind them. and so, after i had surveyed gibraltar from every point of land and sea; after i had been round about it, and marked well its towers and its bulwarks; to complete the enjoyment i had but one wish--to sit down in some quiet nook and talk it all over. there is no man in the world whom i respect more than an old soldier. he is the embodiment of courage and of all manly qualities, and he has given his life to his country. and if he bears in his person the scars of honorable wounds, i look up to him with a feeling of veneration. of such characters no place has more than gibraltar, which perhaps may be considered the centre of the military life of england. true, the movements of the army are directed by orders from the horse guards in london. but here the military feature is the predominant, if not the exclusive, one; while in london a few thousand troops would be lost in a city of five millions of inhabitants. here the outward and visible sign is ever before you: regiments whose names are historical, are always coming and going; and if you are interested in the history of modern wars, (as who can fail to be, since it is a part of the history of our times?) you may not only read about them in the garrison library, but see the very men that have fought in them. here is a column coming up the street! i look at its colors, and read the name of a regiment already familiar through the english papers; that has shown the national pluck and endurance in penetrating an african forest or an indian jungle, or in climbing the khyber pass in the himalayas to settle accounts with the emir of cabul. there must be strange meetings of old comrades here, as well as new companionships formed between those who have fought under the same royal standard, though in different parts of the world. a regiment recalled from halifax is quartered near another just returned from natal or the cape of good hope; while troops from hong kong, or that have been up the irrawaddi to take part in the late war in upper burmah, can exchange experiences with their brother soldiers from the other side of the globe. almost all the regiments collected here have figured in distant campaigns, and the officers that ride at their head are the very ones that led them to victory. to a heart that is not so dead but that it can still be stirred by deeds of daring, there is nothing more thrilling than to sit under the guns of the greatest fortress in the world, and listen to the story as it comes from the lips of those who were actors in the scenes. but it would be a mistake to suppose that the society of gibraltar is confined to men. the home instincts are strong in english breasts; and wherever they go they carry their household gods with them. in my wanderings about the world, it has been my fortune to visit portions of the british empire ten thousand miles away from the mother country; yet in every community there was an english stamp, a family likeness to the old island home. hence it is that in the most remote colony there are the elements of a good society. whatever country the english may enter, even if it be in the antipodes, as soon as they have taken root and become established they send back to england for their wives and daughters, that they may renew the happy life that they have lived before, so that the traveller who penetrates the interior of australia, of new zealand, or van dieman's land, is surprised to find, even "in the bush," the refinement of an english home. this instinct is not lost, even when they are in camps or barracks. if you visit a "cantonment" in upper india, you will find the officers with their families about them. the brave-hearted english women "follow the drum" to the ends of the earth; and i have sometimes thought that their husbands and brothers owed part of their indomitable resolution to the inspiration of their wives and sisters. it is this feature of garrison life, this union of "fair women and brave men," which gives such a charm to the society of gibraltar--a union which is more complete here than in most garrison towns, because the troops stay longer, and there is more opportunity for that home-life which strangers would hardly believe to exist. most travellers see nothing of it. indeed it is probable that they hardly think of gibraltar as having any home-life, since its population is always on the come and go; living here only as in a camp, and to-morrow "folding its tents like the arabs, and silently stealing away." this is partly true. soldiers of course are subject to orders, and the necessities of war may cause them to be embarked at an hour's notice. but in time of peace they may remain longer undisturbed. regiments which have done hard service in india are sometimes left here to recruit even for years, which gives their officers opportunity to bring their families, whose presence makes gibraltar seem like a part of england itself, as if it were no farther away than the isle of wight. this it is which makes life here quite other than being imprisoned in a fortress. i may perhaps give some glimpses of these interiors (without publicity to what is private and sacred), which i depict simply that i may do justice to a place to which i came as a stranger, and from which i depart as a friend. just before i left america, i was present at a breakfast given to m. de lesseps on his visit to america to attend the inauguration of bartholdi's statue of liberty. as i sat opposite the "grand franã§ais," i turned the conversation to spain, to which i was going, and where i knew that he had spent many years. he took up the subject with all his natural fire, and spoke of the country and the people in a way to add to my enthusiasm. next to him sat chief justice daly, who kindled at the mention of spain, and almost "raved" (if a learned judge ever "raves") about spanish cathedrals. he had continued his journey to the pillars of hercules, and said that "in all his travels he had never spent a month with more pleasure than in gibraltar." he had come with letters to the governor, lord napier of magdala, which at once opened all doors to him. wishing to smooth my path in the same way, the english minister at madrid, who had shown me so much courtesy there, gave me a letter to the colonial secretary, lord gilford, who received me with the greatest kindness, and took me in at once to the governor, who was equally cordial in his welcome. the position of governor of gibraltar is one of such distinction as to be greatly coveted by officers in the english army. it is always bestowed on one of high rank, and generally on some old soldier who has distinguished himself in the field. among the late governors was sir fenwick williams, who, with only a garrison of turks, under the command of four or five english officers, defended kars, the capital of armenia, in 1855, repelling an assault by the russians when they endeavored to take it by storm, and yielding at last only to famine; and lord napier of magdala, who, born in ceylon, spent the earlier part of his military life in india, where he fought in the great mutiny, and distinguished himself at lucknow. ten years later he led an english army (though composed largely of indian troops, with the oriental accompaniment of guns and baggage-trains carried on the backs of camels and elephants) into abyssinia, and took the capital in an assault in which king john was slain, and the missionaries and others, whom he had long held as prisoners and captives, were rescued. he was afterward commander-in-chief of the forces in india, and, when he retired from that, no position was thought more worthy of his rank and services than that of governor of gibraltar, a fit termination to his long and honored career. the present governor is a worthy successor to this line of distinguished men. sir arthur hardinge is the son of lord hardinge, who commanded the army in india a generation ago. brought up as it were in a camp, he was bred as a soldier, and when little more than a boy accompanied his father to the wars, serving as aide-de-camp through the sutlej campaign in 1845-46, and was in the thick of the fight in some hard-fought battles, in one of which, at ferozeshah, he had a horse shot under him. when the crimean war broke out he was ordered to the field, and served in the campaign of 1854-55, being at the alma and at inkerman, and remaining to the close of the siege of sebastopol. here he had rapid promotion, besides receiving numerous decorations from the turkish government, and being made knight of the legion of honor. returning to england, he seems to have been a favorite at court and at the horse guards, being made knight commander of the bath, honorary colonel of the king's royal rifle corps, and extra equerry to the queen, his honors culminating in his present high position of governor and commander-in-chief of gibraltar. the politeness of the governor did not end with his first welcome: it was followed by an invitation to his new year's reception. it was but a few weeks since he had taken office; and, wishing to do a courtesy to the citizens of gibraltar as well as to the officers of the garrison, both were included in the invitation. the government house was the one place where all--soldiers and civilians--could meet on common ground, and form the acquaintance, and cultivate the friendly feeling, so important to the happiness of a community shut up within the limits of a fortress. although i was a stranger, the consul desired me to attend, as it would give me the opportunity to see in a familiar way the leading men of gibraltar, civil and military, and further, as, owing to the recent death of his son, he could not be present nor any of his family, so that i should be the only representative of our country. it was indeed a notable occasion. the government house is an old convent, which still retains its ancient and venerable look, though the flag floating over it, and the sentry marching up and down before the door, tell that it is now the seat of english power. to-night it took on its most festive appearance, entrance and stairway being hung with flags, embowered in palms, and wreathed with vines and ferns and flowers; and when the officers appeared in their uniforms, and the military band filled the place with stirring music, it was a brilliant scene. the gathering was in a large hall, part of which was turned to a purpose which to some must have seemed strangely incongruous with the sacred associations of the place: for in the old spanish days this was a convent of the franciscan friars, who, if they ever revisit the place of their former habitation, must have been shocked to find their chapel turned into a place for music and dancing, and to hear the "sound of revelry by night," where they were wont to say midnight mass, and to offer prayers for the quick and dead! while this was going on in one part of the hall, at the other end the governor sat on a dais, quietly enjoying the meeting of old friends and the making of new ones. it was my good fortune to be one of the group, which gave me the best possible opportunity to see the society of gibraltar: for here it was all gathered under one roof. of course it was chiefly military. there was a brilliant array of officers--generals, colonels, and majors; while in still larger number were captains and lieutenants, in their gay uniforms, who, if they did not exactly realize my idea of "whiskered pandours and fierce hussars," looked like the brave and gallant englishmen they were. nor were they alone: for there were civilians also--magistrates and lawyers and judges; and, better still, the lovely english women, who are the ornament of every english colony. all received me with a manner so cordial as assured me that i was not to be treated with cold formality as a stranger. if i had come into a camp of american officers, i could not have had a more hearty welcome. at length the clock struck the hour of midnight, and i rose to take leave of the governor; but he answered, "no, that will never do; you must take a lady out to supper." being under military orders, i could but obey, and, essaying for the first time the part of a spanish cavalier, conducted a spanish lady into the dining-hall. this is a historical apartment, in which have been fãªted all the royalties that have visited gibraltar. on the walls are hung the portraits of the governors from the beginning of the english occupation in 1704, among which every visitor looks for that of "old eliott," the defender of the place in the great siege. he was followed by a long succession of brave men, who, in keeping gibraltar, felt they were guarding the honor of england. after this pleasant duty had been performed, i returned to the governor to "report" that "i had obeyed his orders," and that "in taking leave, i could only express the wish that gibraltar might never be attacked in any other way than it had been that evening," adding that "if he should treat all my countrymen as he had treated me, i could promise him on their part, as on mine, an unconditional surrender!" thus introduced, i found myself at home in a circle which included men who had seen service in all parts of the world. next to the governor i was attracted by a grand old officer whom i had observed on the parade, his breast being covered with decorations won in many wars. this was major-general walker, who has been in the army for a large part of the reign of queen victoria. as long ago as the anglo-russian war, he was an adjutant in one of the regiments sent to the crimea, where he fought at the alma and at inkerman, and took part in the long siege of sebastopol. eager to be in the post of danger, he volunteered for a night attack, in which he led a party that took and destroyed a russian rifle-pit. soon after he was dangerously wounded in the trenches, and his right arm amputated, for which he was promoted and received a number of decorations. he afterward served throughout the campaign of 1860, in china.[3] lord gifford, though too young for service dating so far back, and of such slender figure that he looks more like a university student than like a soldier, was the hero of the ashantee war, who led his men through forest and jungle, in the face of the savage foe, to the capture of coomassie, for which he received the victoria cross, the proud distinction of a british soldier. a little volume published in england, entitled "the victoria cross in the colonies," by lieutenant-colonel knollys, f.r.g.s., gives the following sketch of this gallant officer. "the hero of the ashantee war, 1873-74, was undoubtedly ederic, third baron gifford. born in 1849, he entered the eighty-third regiment as ensign in 1869, became lieutenant the following year, and in 1873 was transferred to the twenty-fourth regiment. he was one of the body of volunteers who accompanied sir garnet wolseley to the gold coast. appointed to train and command the winnebeh company of russell's native regiment, he took part in the defence of absacampa and the defeat of the ashantee army. he subsequently, for several weeks, performed the duties of adjutant to russell's regiment. when the ashantee territory was invaded, to lord gifford was assigned the command of a scouting party. this party was fifty strong, and composed of men from the west india regiment of houssas, kossos, and bonny natives. "early on the morning of januaryâ 6th, 1874, gifford, with his scouts, crossed the prah in canoes, and explored the country on both sides of the road to coomassie. the rest of the army crossed by the bridge the same day. marching some five miles ahead of the advance guard, he reached a village called essiaman, and found that it was occupied by an ashantee detachment, which, on advancing, he at once attacked and put to flight, losing only one man severely wounded. advancing to a village called akrofumin, he discovered that it was held by the ashantees; but not being able to ascertain their strength, which he believed to be superior to his own, he prudently contented himself with observing them. "after remaining in this critical position for several days, he had the satisfaction of seeing the enemy retire. he then pushed on--indeed never left off pushing on in the most daring yet skilful manner till coomassie was reached--always keeping well ahead. his scouts were devoted to lord gifford, 'whose docile savages,' writes an historian of the campaign, 'worshipped the english gentleman for his superior skill and spirit in climbing that steep barrier range, the adansi hills, dividing the assin from the ashantee country. the night previous to the action at amoaful, he carefully reconnoitred the enemy's position, and during the fight he was, with his gallant little band, as usual, well in advance. "the next day he was sent to reconnoitre the village of becqua. he had got close up when some twenty ashantees sprang up in the bush and fired, but providentially without effect. on receipt of his report sir garnet wolseley despatched a strong force to capture the place. gifford's scouts led, followed by a body of houssas, russell's regiment, and the naval brigade, the forty-second highlanders, and a company of the twenty-third royal welsh fusileers acting as supports. as soon as the firing began, gifford, followed by his handful of scouts, rushed on, and dashed into the town, though it was occupied by a thousand ashantees. the houssas, for once, could not be induced to charge; they persisted in lying down and firing unaimed shots into the bush. "in the meantime lord gifford and his party were exposed to the concentrated fire of the defenders. his best scout was killed, and he and all his men were wounded. in fact, he was in an almost desperate situation. on this he shouted to the naval brigade to come to his assistance. with a cheer the gallant fellows replied to the appeal, and at their charge the enemy fled. "three days later the action of ordahsu took place, coomassie was entered, and the campaign was virtually at an end. "from that time lord gifford, there being no further need for his services as a scout, acted as aide-de-camp to sir garnet wolseley. during the whole war this young, slight, modest-looking lad had displayed the greatest enterprise and intrepidity, and rendered the most valuable services. fortune had in this case certainly favored the brave; for notwithstanding unremitting exertions and constant exposure both to climate and the bullets of the enemy, he escaped disease, and was only once wounded. modest as he was brave, he never sought to make capital out of his exploits. they were, however, too conspicuous to escape notice, and he was repeatedly mentioned in despatches. "on his return to england, he paid a visit to his regiment, the twenty-fourth, then stationed at aldershot. he was received with the greatest enthusiasm by both men and officers. the former carried him shoulder-high into camp, and the latter entertained him at dinner; yet he was as unaffected and simple as if he had only returned from an ordinary duty. for his daring conduct on the gold coast he was granted the victoria cross." it was a privilege to spend an hour with general walker at his own table, and to draw him into conversation on the wars in which he had taken part, and the great soldiers who had been his companions in arms. of his own part in these events he spoke very modestly, like the true soldier that he is; though no modesty could hide the story told by that empty sleeve of the arm that he had left in the trenches at sebastopol. from the southeastern corner of europe to the eastern coast of asia, is a long stretch round the globe, but here, when the scene of war was transferred from russia to china, we find the same gallant officer among the foremost in the storming of the taku forts, and with the combined french and english army that fought its way to peking. as the house of the major general stands on the line-wall, it is close to the enormous batteries in the casemates below, (while one of the hundred-ton guns is mounted near the alameda, quite "within speaking distance,") and must be rudely rocked by the thunder which shakes even the solid ground like an earthquake. "what do you do at such a time?" i asked of the ladies of the family, to which they answered gayly, "oh, we don't mind it." they took good care, however, to take down their mirrors, and to lay away their glass and china, lest they should be shattered in pieces. then they threw open their windows, and let the explosion come. for me this would be a trifle too near, and with all my love for gibraltar, i do not think i should choose a hundred-ton gun as a next-door neighbor. as i rose to leave, i found horses saddled and bridled at the door, on which the general and his niece were about to take their afternoon ride, for the officers in gibraltar are not so shut up within its walls, that they cannot take their pleasure as if they were in the field. true, the rock does not offer a very wide space for excursions, but the gay troopers of both sexes have but to ride out of the northern gate, and cross the spanish lines, and the whole country is before them. one day i met the governor coming in at full speed, with his staff behind him; and almost daily there are riding parties or hunting parties, which go off for hours, and come back with the ruddy english glow of health upon their faces. indeed if one had to go about on foot, he need not feel as if he were shut up in a fortress-prison, for there are pleasant walks over the rock, leading to many a nook, from which one may look off upon the sea, where, if he has an agreeable companion, the hours will not seem long. if for a few months the climate has a little too much of the warmth of africa, there is a delightful promenade along the alameda, where friends may saunter on summer evenings, inhaling the fresh breezes; or sit under the trees, and (as they listen to the bands playing the familiar airs of england) talk of their dear native island. [illustration: walk in the alameda gardens.] chapter vii. the great siege. although gibraltar is the greatest fortress in the world, if it were only that, it would not have half the interest which it now has. the supreme interest of the rock is in the record of centuries that is graven on its rugged front. for nearly eight hundred years it was the prize of war between the spaniard and the moor, and its legends are all of battle and of blood. ten times it was besieged and passed back and forth from conqueror to conqueror, the cross replacing the crescent, and the crescent the cross. ten times was the battle lost and won. when, at last, in 1598 the spaniards drove the moors out of spain, they remained masters of gibraltar, and held it with undisputed sway for a little more than a hundred years. they might have held it still but for a surprise, hardly worthy to be called a siege; for the place was taken by a _coup de main_, that is one of the strangest incidents of history. it was the war of the spanish succession, waged by half europe to determine which of two incompetents should occupy the throne of spain. the english sent a squadron into the mediterranean, under sir george rooke, who, after cruising about and accomplishing little, bethought himself, in order not to return in complete failure, to try his hand on gibraltar. the place was well fortified, with a hundred guns, but inside the walls only a hundred and fifty men (a man and a half to a gun!), so that it could offer but a brief resistance to a bombardment, and thus the spaniards lost in three days what they spent more than three years to recover, and spent in vain. though the place was taken by an english fleet, it was not taken for england, but in the name of an archduke of austria, whom england supported as a pretender to the spanish throne; and had he succeeded in gaining it the place would doubtless have been turned over to him (as on a visit to gibraltar he was received by the garrison as lawful sovereign of spain, and proclaimed king by the title of charlesâ iii.), but as he was finally defeated, england thought it not a bad thing to keep the place for herself. [illustration: catalan bay, on the east side of gibraltar. cliff scaled by the spaniards in an attempt to take the rock by surprise.] hardly had it slipped from their hands before the spaniards realized the tremendous blow which had been given to their power and their pride, and made desperate endeavors to recover it. the very same year they attacked it with a large army and fleet. at the beginning an attempt was made which would seem to have been conceived in the heroism of despair. the eastern side of gibraltar terminates in a tremendous cliff, rising fourteen hundred feet above the sea, which thunders against the rocks below. this side has never been fortified, for the reason that it is so defended by nature that it needs no other defence. one would as soon think of storming el capitan in the valley of the yosemite as the eastern side of the rock of gibraltar. yet he who has followed a swiss guide in the alps knows that with his cool head and agile step he will climb heights which seemed inaccessible. and so a spanish shepherd, or goatherd, had found a path from catalan bay, up which he offered to lead a party to the top, and five hundred men were daring enough to follow him. they knew that the attempt was desperate, but braced up their courage by religious enthusiasm, devoting themselves to the sacrifice by taking the sacrament, and binding themselves to capture gibraltar or perish in the attempt. in the darkness and silence of the night they crept slowly upward till a part had reached the top, and concealed themselves in st.â michael's cave until the break of day; when with the earliest dawn they attacked the signal station, killing the guard, and then by ropes and ladders brought up the rest of the party. following up the momentary success, they stormed the wall of charlesâ v., so called because constructed by him. but by this time the garrison had been awakened to the fact that there was an enemy within the walls. the roll of drums from below summoned the troops to arms, and soon the grenadiers came rushing up the hill. exposed to the fire from above, many fell, but nothing could check their advance, and reaching the top they charged with such fury that half of the party that had scaled the heights soon fell, some of whom were driven over the cliff into the sea. an officer who was present during the whole of the siege tells how they made short work of it. "five hundred spaniards attacked the middle hill but were soon repulsed, and two hundred men with their commanding officer taken. the rest were killed by our shot, or in making their escape broke their necks over the rocks and precipices, which in that place are many and prodigiously high." so ended the first and last attempt to take gibraltar in the rear. but still the spanish army lay encamped before the town, and the siege was kept up for six months with a loss of ten thousand men. no other attack was made during that war, though the war itself raged elsewhere for seven years more, till it was closed by the treaty of utrecht, in which gibraltar was finally ceded to great britain. but the spaniards did not give it up yet. in 1727 they renewed the struggle, and besieged the place for five months with nearly twenty thousand men, but with the same result as before, after which it had rest and quiet for half a century, till the time of the great siege, which i am now to describe. it seems beginning a long way off to find any connection between the siege of gibraltar and the battle of saratoga; but one followed from the other. the surrender of general burgoyne (who had marched from canada with a large army to crush the rebellion in the colonies) was the first great event that gave hope, in the eyes of europe, to the cause of american independence, and led france to join it openly, as she had before favored it secretly. spain followed france, having a common hatred of england, with the special grievance of the loss of gibraltar, which she hoped, with the help of her powerful ally, to recover. in such a contest the chances were more evenly balanced than might be at first supposed. true, england had the advantage of possession, and if possession is nine points of the law, it is more than nine points in war, especially when the possessor is intrenched in the strongest fortress in the world. but as an offset to this, she had to hold it in an enemy's country. gibraltar was a part of the territory of spain, in which the english had not a foot of ground but the rock on which they stood; while it was much nearer to france than to england. thus the allied powers had facilities for attacking it both by land and sea, and brought against it such tremendous forces that it could not have held out for nearly four years, had it not been for the british power of resistance, animated by one of the bravest of soldiers. to begin with, england did not commit the folly by which spain had lost gibraltar--in leaving it with an insufficient garrison. it had over five thousand troops in the fortress--a force by which it was thoroughly manned. but its power for defence was doubled by having a commander, who was fitted by nature and by training for the responsibilities that were to be laid upon him. george augustus eliott was the son of sir gilbert eliott, of roxburghshire, where he was born in 1718. scotch families in those days, like those of our new england fathers, were apt to be large, and the future defender of gibraltar was one of eleven children, of whom but two were daughters, and of the nine sons george was the youngest. after such education as he could receive at home, he was sent to the continent, and entered the university of leyden, where, with his other studies, he acquired a knowledge of german, which was to be of practical use to him afterward, as he was to serve for a year in a german army. but france was the country that then took the lead in the art of war; and from holland he was sent to a famous military school in picardy, founded by vauban, the constructor of the french fortresses, where he learned the principles which he was to apply to the defence of a greater fortress than any in france. he gave particular attention also to the practice of gunnery. as napoleon learned the art of war in the artillery school of brienne, so did eliott in the school of la fã¨re. an incidental advantage of this french education was that he acquired the language so that he could speak it fluently, a knowledge which was of service to him afterward when he had so much to do with the french, even though it were as enemies. from france eliott travelled into other countries on a tour of military observation, and then enlisted for a year in the prussian army, which was considered the model in the way of discipline. thus equipped for the life of a soldier, he returned to scotland, where (as his father wished that he should be further inured to the practice of arms), he entered a welsh regiment then in edinburgh as a volunteer, and served with it for a year, from which he went into the engineer corps at woolwich, and then into a troop of "horse grenadiers," that, under his vigorous training, became famous as a corps of heavy cavalry. when it was ordered to the continent, he went with it, and served in germany and the netherlands, where he took part in several engagements and was wounded at the battle of dettingen. in this varied service eliott had gained the reputation of being a brave and capable officer, but had as yet no opportunity to show the extraordinary ability which he was afterward to display. he had, however, acquired such a mastery of the art of war, that he was fitted for any position. in those days, however, promotion was slow, and he had served in the army (which he entered at the age of seventeen,) forty years, and was fifty-seven years old, and had yet reached only the grade of a lieutenant-general, when, in 1775, he was placed in command of the fortress of gibraltar. this was four years before the siege began, by which time he was a little turned of sixty, so that he was familiarly called "old eliott." but his good scotch frame did him service now, for he was hale and strong, with a heart of oak and a frame of iron; asking no indulgence on account of his years, but ready to endure every fatigue and share every danger. such was the man who was to conduct the defence of gibraltar, and to be, from the beginning to the end, its very heart and soul.[4] [illustration: plan of gibraltar.] it was in the year 1779, and on the very longest day of the year, the 21st of june, that spain, by order of the king, severed all communication with gibraltar. but this was not war; it was simply non-intercourse, and not a hostile gun was fired for months. it is an awkward thing to strike the first blow where relations have been friendly. it had long been the custom of the spaniards to keep a regiment of cavalry at san roque, and one of infantry at algeciras, across the bay, between which and the garrison there was a frequent exchange of military courtesies. two days before this abrupt termination of intercourse, the governor had been to pay his respects to general mendoza, and found him very much embarrassed by the visit, so that he suspected something was wrong, and was not surprised when the order came down from madrid to cut off all friendly communication. the spaniards had resolved to make a fresh attempt to recapture gibraltar, thinking at first that it might be done by a blockade, without a bombardment. there are two ways to take a fortress--by shot and shell, or _by starvation_. the latter may be slower and not so striking to the imagination as carrying a walled city by storm, but it is even more certain of success if only the operation can be completely done. but to this end the place must be sealed up so tightly that there shall be no going out nor coming in. this seems a very simple process, but in execution is not so easy, especially if the fortress be of large extent, and has approaches by land and sea. the spaniards began with a vigor that seemed to promise success, by constructing a parallel across the isthmus which connects the rock with the mainland. this was itself a formidable undertaking, but they seemed not to care for cost or labor. putting ten thousand men at work, they had in a few weeks drawn a line across the neutral ground, which rendered access to the garrison impossible _by land_. any supplies must come _by sea_. to prevent this, the spaniards had a large fleet in the bay and cruising in the straits. but with all their vigilance, they found it hard to keep a blockade of a rock, with a circuit of seven miles, when there were hundreds of eyes looking out from the land, answered by hundreds of watchers from the sea. in dark nights boats with muffled oars glided between the blockading ships, and stole up to some sheltered nook, bringing news from the outside world. and there were always daring cruisers ready to attempt to run the blockade, taking any risk for the sake of the large reward in case of success. sometimes the weather would favor them. a fierce "levanter" blowing from the east, would drive off the fleet, and fill the straits with fog and mist, under cover of which they could run in undiscovered. at another time a bold privateer would come in, in face of the fleet, and if sighted and pursued, would set all sail, and rush to destruction or to victory. once under the guns of the fortress she was safe. thus for a time the garrison received irregular supplies.[5] but in spite of all it was often in sore and pressing need. the soldiers required to be well fed to be fit for duty, and yet not infrequently they were half starved. six thousand capacious mouths made havoc of provisions, and a brig-load was quickly consumed. as if this was not enough, the hucksters of the town, who had got hold of the necessaries of life, secreted them to create an appearance of greater scarcity, that they might extort still larger prices from the famine-stricken inhabitants. drinkwater, in his "history of the siege," gives a list of prices actually paid. "the hind-quarter of an algerian sheep, with the head and tail, was sold for seven pounds and ten shillings; a large sow for upwards of twenty-nine pounds; a goat, with a young kid, the latter about twelve months old, for near twelve pounds. an english milch cow was sold for fifty guineas, reserving to the seller a pint of milk each day whilst she gave milk; and another cow was purchased by a jew for sixty guineas, but the beast was in such a feeble condition that she dropped down dead before she had been removed many hundred yards." but it was not only meat that was wanted: bread was so scarce that even biscuit-crumbs sold for a shilling a pound! the economy of flour was carried to the most minute details. it was an old custom that the soldiers who were to mount guard should powder their hair, like the servants in the royal household; but even this had to be denied them. the governor would not waste a thimbleful of the precious article, which he had rather see going into the stomachs of his brave soldiers than plastered on their hair. a brief entry in a soldier's diary, tells how the pinch came closer and closer: "another bakery shut up to-day. no more flour. even salt meat scarce, and no vegetables." shortly after this an examination of supplies revealed the fact that no fresh meat remained, with the exception of an old cow, which was reserved for the sick. a goose was sold for two pounds, and a turkey for four. in such a condition--so near to the starvation point--there was but one thing to do. it was a hard necessity, but there was no help for it, and an order was issued for the immediate reduction of the soldiers' rations, already barely sufficient to sustain life. the effect of this continued privation upon the _morale_ of the garrison was very depressing. hunger, like disease, weakens the vital forces, and when both come together they weigh upon the spirit until the manliest give way to discouragement. that this feeling did not become general was owing chiefly to the personal influence of the governor, whose presence was medicine to the sick, and a new force to the well, making the brave braver and the strong stronger. when famine stared them in the face he made light of it, and taught others to make light of it by sharing their privations. at the beginning of the siege he had formed a resolution to share all the hardships of his men, even to limiting himself to the fare of a common soldier. his food was of the plainest and coarsest. as a scotch boy he had perhaps been brought up on oatmeal porridge, and it was good enough for him still. if a blockade-runner came in with a cargo of fresh provisions, he did not reserve the best for himself, but all was sold in the open market. if it be said that he had the means to buy which others had not, yet his tastes were so simple that he preferred to share the soldier's mess rather than to partake of the richest food. besides, he had a principle about it. to such extent did he carry this, that, on one occasion, when the enemy's commander, as a courtesy not unusual in war, sent him a present of fruit, vegetables, and game, the governor, while returning a polite acknowledgment, begged that the act might not be repeated, for that he had a fixed resolution "never to receive or procure, by any means whatever, any provisions or other commodity for his own private use;" adding, "i make it a point of honor to partake both of plenty and scarcity in common with the lowest of my brave fellow-soldiers." once indeed when the stress was the sharpest, he showed his men how close they could come to starvation and not die, by living eight days on four ounces of rice a day! the old hero had been preparing for just such a crisis as this by his previous life, for he had trained himself from boyhood to bear every sort of hardship and privation. the argument for total abstinence needs no stronger fact to support it than that the defence of gibraltar was conducted by a man who needed no artificial stimulus to keep up his courage or brace his nerves against the shock of battle. "old eliott," the brave scotchman and magnificent soldier, was able to stand to his guns with nothing stronger to fire his blood than cold water. chalmers' biographical dictionary says: "he was perhaps the most abstemious man of the age. his food was vegetables, and his drink water. he neither indulged himself in animal food nor wine. he never slept more than four hours at a time, so that he was up later and earlier than most other men. he had so inured himself to habits of hardness, that the things which are difficult and painful to other men were to him his daily practice, and rendered pleasant by use. it could not be easy to starve such a man into a surrender, nor to surprise him. his wants were easily supplied, and his watchfulness was beyond precedent. the example of the commander-in-chief in a besieged garrison, has a most persuasive efficacy in forming the manners of the soldiery. like him, his brave followers came to regulate their lives by the most strict rules of discipline before there arose a necessity for so doing; and severe exercise, with short diet, became habitual to them by their own choice." thus the old governor, by starving himself, taught his men how to bear starvation. after that a soldier, however pinched, would hardly dare to complain. he might not indeed care for himself, but he could not help caring for those dependent on him. the cruel hardship of it was that the suffering fell not on the soldiers alone, but on women and children. the governor had tried, as far as possible, to send away all non-combatants. but it was not always easy to separate families. there were soldiers' wives, who clung to their husbands all the more because of their danger. if a scotch grenadier were to have his legs carried off by a cannon-ball, or frightfully torn by a shell, who could nurse him so well as his faithful wife, who had followed him in the camp and in the field? and so, for better, for worse, many a wife, with the courage of womanhood, determined to share her husband's fate. it was a brave resolution, but it only involved them in the common distress. there were so many more mouths to feed, when the supply even for the soldiers was all too little. the captain who has recorded so faithfully the heroisms and the privations of the siege, says: "many officers and soldiers had families to support out of the pittance received from the victualling office. a soldier and his wife and three children would inevitably have been starved to death had not the generous contribution of his corps relieved his family. one woman actually died through want, and many were so enfeebled that it was not without great attention they recovered. thistles, dandelions, and wild leeks were for some time the daily nourishment of numbers." another account tells the same pitiful tale, with additional horrors: "the ordinary means of sustenance were now almost exhausted, and _roots and weeds_, with thistles and wild onions, were greedily sought after and devoured by the famished inhabitants. "bread was becoming so scarce that the daily rations were served out under protection of a guard, and the weak, the aged, and the infirm, who could not struggle against the hungry, impetuous crowd that thronged the doors of the bakeries, often returned to their homes robbed of their share."[6] "ancell's journal," kept during the siege, thus records the impressions of the day: "it is a terribly painful sight to see the fighting among the people for a morsel of bread at an exorbitant price; men wrestling, women entreating, and children crying, a jargon of all languages, piteously pouring forth their complaints. you would think sensibility would shed a tear, and yet when we are in equal distress ourselves our feelings for others rather subside." while this slow and wasting process of starvation was going on, the garrison were in a fearful state of suspense. sometimes it seemed as if england had forgotten them, but again came tidings that the nation was watching their defence with the utmost anxiety, and would speedily send relief. the time of waiting seemed long as the months passed--summer and autumn and part of winter, and no help appeared. the blockade began in june, 1779, and it was january, 1780, before the fleet of admiral rodney, after gaining a battle over the spanish fleet off the coast of portugal, bore away to the south. to those who were watching from the top of the rock, probably no event of their lives ever moved them so much as when they first caught sight of the english ships entering the straits of gibraltar. men, women, and children, wept aloud for joy, for the coming fleet brought them life from the dead. and when it anchored in the bay, and the ships began to unload, they brought forth not only guns and ammunition, but more priceless treasures--beef, pork, butter, flour, peas, oatmeal, raisins, and biscuits, as well as coals, iron hoops, and candles! revelling in such abundance, could they ever want again? it was indeed a timely relief, and if the fleet could have remained, it might have put an end to the siege. but england was then carrying on wars in two hemispheres; and while the french fleet was crossing the atlantic to aid the american colonies in gaining their independence, she could not afford that her largest fleet should lie idle in the bay of gibraltar. as soon, therefore, as the stores could be landed, admiral rodney returned to england. the governor seized the opportunity to send home great numbers of invalids and women. it was necessary that the garrison should "strip for the fight," as there were darker days to come. gibraltar had been saved from the jaws of famine by the arrival of the english fleet. but as soon as it left, the spanish ships remained masters of the bay, and the blockade was closer than ever. the garrison had had a narrow escape. that it might not be caught so again, the governor, with his scotch thrift, put his men upon a new kind of service, quite apart from military duty. the rock is not wholly barren. there are many nooks and corners that are bright with flowers, and anything that the earth can yield will ripen under that warm southern sky. accordingly the soldiers, in the intervals of firing the big guns, were put to do a little gardening; and turned patches of ground here and there to cultivation; and where the hillside was too steep, the earth was raised into terraces and banked up with walls, on which they raised small quantities of lettuce or cabbages; so that afterward, although they still suffered for many of the comforts, if not the necessaries, of life, they never came quite so near absolute starvation. this "home produce" was the more important as the garrison was now to be cut off from its principal resource outside. for a time it had been able to obtain supplies from the barbary coast. at first the moors were all on the side of england, for the spaniards were their hereditary enemies, who had fought them for hundreds of years, and finally driven them out of spain, for which the moors took a pious revenge by thronging the mosques of tangier to pray that allah would give the victory to the arms of england! but after a time they saw things in a new light. it could not be christian charity that softened their hearts toward their old enemies, for they hated the very name of christian, but some secret influence (was it spanish gold?) so worked on the mind of the sultan of morocco that he became convinced that allah was on the side of the besiegers--a discovery which he announced in a manner that was not quite in the usual style of diplomatic intercourse. thus, without any warning, "a party of black troops that were quartered in the vicinity of tangier, came to the house of the british consul, and being introduced, informed him that they had orders from their master to abuse and insult him in the grossest manner, which they immediately put in execution by spitting in his face, seizing him by the collar, and threatening to stab him with their daggers!" fortunately he escaped with nothing worse than this gross outrage; but the serious part of the business was that it cut off all communication of gibraltar with the barbary coast; for the sultan prohibited the export of provisions, and as the supplies brought by the convoy were exhausted in a few months, the garrison was again, not indeed at the starvation point, but in sore need of what was for its health and vigor. the meagre diet threatened to produce a pestilence. at one time there were seven hundred men in the hospitals; at another the small-pox broke out; and at another the garrison was so reduced by the scurvy, caused by the use of salt meats, that strong men became weak as children, and hobbled about on crutches. this threatened a great disaster, which was averted only by lemons! in the moment of extremity a dutch "dogger" coming from malaga was captured, and found to be laden with oranges and lemons, "a freight which, at such a crisis, was of more value to the garrison than tons of powder or magazines of ammunition." the lemons were instantly distributed in the hospitals. the men seized them and devoured them ravenously, and the restoration was so speedy as to seem almost miraculous. and yet this relief was only temporary. soon we have this picture of the condition of the garrison: "as the spring of 1781 advanced, the situation assumed the most distressing aspect. the few provisions which remained were bad in quality, and having been kept too long were decomposed and uneatable. the most common necessaries of life were exorbitantly dear; bad ship biscuit, full of worms, was sold at a shilling a pound; flour, in not much better condition, at the same price; old dried peas, a shilling and fourpence; salt, half dirt, the sweepings of ships' bottoms and storehouses, at eight pence; old salt butter, at two shillings and sixpence; and english farthing candles cost sixpence apiece. fresh provisions commanded a still higher price: turkeys sold at three pounds twelve shillings, sucking pigs at two guineas, and a guinea was refused for a calf's pluck. "the english government, aware of this condition of things, had for months turned their attention to the relief of the fortress; but the many exigencies of the war, and the extensive arena over which it was spread, caused so many demands upon the navy that it had hitherto been impossible to provide a fleet for the succor of gibraltar. but the relief of the garrison was indispensable, and the honor of england required that it should be executed. accordingly the government made extraordinary efforts to equip a squadron to convoy a flotilla of merchantmen to the rock."[7] but with all their efforts, it was more than a year before the second fleet arrived. when it came, it was loaded with all conceivable supplies, which took ten days to unload. the joy of the beleaguered garrison knew no bounds. and yet this new relief only precipitated a calamity which had been long impending. the scene of the arrival is thus described by an eye-witness: "at daybreak, aprilâ 12th, the much-expected fleet, under the command of admiral darby, was in sight from our signal-house, but was not discernible from below, being obscured by a thick mist. as the sun, however, became more powerful, the fog gradually rose, like the curtain of a vast theatre, discovering to the anxious garrison one of the most beautiful and pleasing scenes it is possible to conceive. the convoy, consisting of near a hundred vessels, led by several men-of-war, their sails just enough filled for steerage; whilst the majority of the line-of-battle ships lay-to under the barbary shore, having orders not to enter the bay lest the enemy should molest them with their fire-ships. the ecstasies of the inhabitants at this grand and exhilarating sight are not to be described. their expressions of joy far exceeded their former exultations [at the arrival of the fleet under admiral rodney]. alas! they little dreamed of the tremendous blow that impended, which was to annihilate their property, and reduce many of them to indigence and beggary."[8] what this blow was, at once appeared. the arrival of the second fleet from england convinced the spaniards that it would be impossible to reduce gibraltar by blockade, and determined them to try the other alternative of bombardment. enormous batteries, mounting 170 guns and 80 mortars, had been planted along the shore; and now (before even the english ships could be unladen of their stores) was opened all round the bay a _feu d'enfer_, which was kept up for six weeks! only two hours out of the twenty-four was there any cessation, and that for a singular reason. national customs must rule in war as in peace. the spaniards began their fire at daybreak, and continued it without intermission till noon. then suddenly it ceased, and the camp of the besiegers relapsed into silence: for that the officers, if not the men, _were asleep_! what spanish gentleman could be deprived of his _siesta_? at two o'clock precisely they woke up and went to fighting again. at nightfall the cannon ceased, but only that the mortars (which did not need to be aimed with precision, and therefore could be fired in darkness as well as in daylight) opened their larger throats, and kept up the roar till daybreak. thus, with only the time of the _siesta_, there was not an hour of day or night that the rock did not echo with tremendous reverberations. the town was soon set on fire, and completely destroyed. there was no safety anywhere, not even in the casemates. if a bomb-proof withstood a falling shell, it would sometimes explode at the open door, wounding those within. men were killed sleeping in their beds. the scene at night was more terrible than by day, as the shells were more clearly seen in their deadly track. sometimes a dozen would be wheeling in the air at the same moment, keeping every eye strained to see where the bolts would fall, and the bravest held their breath when (as was several times the case) they fell near the powder magazines! again, the soldiers were not the only ones to suffer: their wives and children were their partners in misery. when the town was on fire, the people fled from it, and at a distance watched the flames that rose from their burning dwellings, in which all their little property was consumed--the roofs that sheltered them, and even the food that fed them. for six weeks they had not a moment's rest, day nor night. although they had fled to the southern end of the rock, destruction pursued them there. the spanish ships had a custom of sailing round europa point, and firing indiscriminately on shore. this was generally at night, so that the poor creatures who had lain down to snatch a moment of forgetfulness, were roused at midnight and fled almost naked to seek for shelter behind rocks and in holes in the ground, in which they cowered like hunted beasts, till the storm of fire had passed over them. the troops were not quite so badly off, for though they were shelled out of their old quarters, and had not a roof to cover them, yet english soldiers and sailors are ingenious, and getting hold of some old ship canvas they rigged up a few forlorn tents, which they pitched on the hillside. but again they were discomfited. gibraltar is subject at certain seasons to terrific storms of thunder and lightning, and now the rains poured down the side of the rock in such floods as to sweep away the tents, and leave the men exposed to the fury of the elements. it seemed as if the stars in their courses fought against them. but they were to find that the stars in their courses fight for those who fight for themselves. sometimes the storms, so terrible in one way, brought relief in another. there had been a scarcity of fuel as well as of food. a soldier could hardly pick up sticks to make his pot boil, and cook his scanty meal; so that when a furious gale wrecked a ship in the bay, and cast its fragments on the shore, which furnished fuel for their camp-fires for some weeks, they counted it a providential interposition for their deliverance; and as the firelight cast its ruddy glow in their faces, they thanked god and took courage. but with all their courage, kept up by such occasional good fortune, it was a life-and-death struggle, as they fought not only with the enemy, but with hunger and cold, and every form of privation. during all this dreadful time the old governor was magnificent. going among the families that were houseless and homeless, for whom he felt the utmost sympathy (for with all his rugged strength he had a very tender heart), he allayed their fears; terrified and miserable as they were, it was impossible to resist the sunshine of that kindly scotch face.[9] then he turned to his soldiers, who may well have been appalled by the tremendous fire, which wrought such wreck and ruin. if they were troubled and anxious, he was calm. he shunned no danger, as he had shunned no privation. indeed danger did not affect him as it did other men, but only roused the lion in his breast. the more the danger grew, the higher rose his unconquerable spirit. he was constantly under fire, and his perfect coolness tended to produce the same composure in others equally exposed. terrible as the bombardment was, not for one moment did he admit the possibility of surrender. but now came a new danger, not from without, but from within. the fire which swept the town uncovered cellars and other hiding-places in which the hucksters had concealed provisions and other stores to double their price, and extort the last penny from the half-fed population. when their storehouses were destroyed little sympathy was felt for them. indeed, there was a general feeling of savage exultation; and as here and there supplies of food were found, they were seized without scruple and appropriated to the common use. men who have been living on short allowance are apt to be led into excesses by sudden plenty, and the soldiers could hardly be blamed if for once they gave themselves a generous supply. from the extreme of want they went to the extreme of waste. in some cases incredible profusion prevailed. drinkwater says: "among other instances of caprice and extravagance, i recollect seeing a party of soldiers roast a pig by a fire made of cinnamon!" if this had been all, there would not have been so much to regret. but in the stores were casks of wine and barrels of spirits, which were now knocked on the head, and the contents distributed with no restraint, till soon a large part of the garrison was in such a state of intoxication as to be utterly unfit for duty. "as the enemy's shells forced open the secret recesses of the merchants, the soldiers instantly availed themselves of the opportunity to seize upon the liquors, which they conveyed to haunts of their own. here in parties they barricaded their quarters against all opposers, and insensible of their danger, regaled themselves with the spoils." for a time this sudden madness ran riot in the streets, threatening the overthrow of all order and discipline. it can hardly be matter of surprise that the reaction from this long tension of feeling, with the sudden temptation to drunkenness, should show itself in wild extravagances. an incident related in "ancell's journal," shows the soldier in the mood of making sport of his dangers: "aprilâ 15, 1781.--yesterday i met a soldier singing in the street with uncommon glee, notwithstanding the enemy were firing with prodigious warmth, 'a soldier's life is a merry life, from care and trouble free.' he ran to me with eagerness, and presenting his bottle, cried: 'd----n me if i don't like fighting, with plenty of good liquor for carrying away. 'why, jack,' says i, 'what have you been about?' 'faith,' says he, 'i scarce know myself. i have been constantly, on foot and watch, half-starved and without money, facing a parcel of pitiful spaniards. i have been fighting, wheeling, marching, counter-marching, sometimes with a firelock, sometimes with a handspike, and now with my bottle.' "a shell that instant burst, a piece of which knocked the bottle out of his hand. 'jack,' says i, 'are you not thankful to god for your preservation?' 'how do you mean?' says he; 'fine talking of god with a soldier whose trade and occupation is cutting throats. divinity and slaughter sound very well together; they jingle like a cracked bell in the hands of a noisy crier. my religion is a firelock, open touch-hole, good flint, well-rammed charge, and seventy rounds: this is military creed. come, comrade, drink!'" such license as this would soon demoralize the best troops in the world. had the spaniards known the degree to which it existed at that moment, and been able to effect an entrance into the fortress, gibraltar might have been lost. the insubordination was suppressed only by the most strenuous efforts of the governor and the vigorous enforcement of discipline. an order was issued that any soldier caught marauding should be "executed _immediately_," and this summary judgment was put in force in several cases, where men were not only executed without a moment's delay, but on the very spot where the crime was committed. this timely severity, with the personal influence of the governor, at length brought the soldiers to their senses, and order was restored. perhaps they were brought back to duty in part by the continued roar of that terrific bombardment, for in a true soldier nothing rouses the martial spirit like the sound of the enemy's guns. danger and duty go together: and many of those who had been carried away by this temporary frenzy, when they "came to themselves," were among the bravest who fought in the conflicts that were yet to come. it was now a struggle of endurance--firing and counter-firing month after month, with exciting incidents now and then to relieve the monotony of the siege. of these episodes the most notable was the sortie executed on the night of novemberâ 26, 1781. the siege had lasted more than two years, and the spaniards, boastful and confident as they are apt to be, by this time appreciated the enormous difficulty of attacking the rock of gibraltar. to do them justice, instead of being daunted by the greatness of the task, their military ardor rose with the vastness of the undertaking, and they had been engaged for months in rearing a stupendous parallel across the neutral ground, to be mounted with the heaviest battering artillery. the governor had kept his eye upon the progress of the work, and as he saw its lines spreading out wider and wider, and rising higher and higher, he could not but feel anxiety for the moment when these batteries should open, and rain shot and shell upon the devoted garrison. the way in which he met the new danger showed that he had the promptness in action of a great commander. from the beginning of the siege he had observed the utmost economy in the use of his resources. he was sparing of his ammunition, and sometimes reproached his officers with great severity for wasting it in unimportant attacks. he saved his powder as he saved his men. indeed he was sparing of everything except himself. yet "he never relaxed from his discipline by the appearance of security, nor hazarded the lives of his garrison by wild experiments. collected within himself, he in no instance destroyed, by premature attacks, the labors which would cost the enemy time, patience, and expense to complete; he deliberately observed their approaches, and seized on the proper moment in which to make his attack with success." for months he had been waiting and watching: the time for action had now come. during the siege there had been frequent desertions on both sides. now and then soldiers of the garrison, wearied with the interminable siege (and thinking it better to take the chances of instant death than to be shut up in a fortress-prison and perish by inches), let themselves down by ropes over the face of the rock. some escaped to the enemy, and some were dashed on the rocks below. on the other side there were among the spanish soldiers a good many walloons from belgium, who had no interest in the contest, and were as ready to fight on one side as the other. occasionally one of these would stray out of the camp, as if without intention, and when he had got at a distance which he thought gave him a chance of escape, would take to his heels and run for the gates of the fortress. if discovered, he was immediately fired at, and a mounted guard started in pursuit, and if overtaken, he was brought back, and the next day his body, hanging from the scaffold, in full sight of the rock, served as a ghastly warning alike to the besiegers and the besieged. but, in spite of all, desertions went on. one day a couple of deserters were brought to the governor, one of whom proved to be uncommonly intelligent, and gave important information. "old eliott" took him up to a point of the rock from which they could look down into the camp of the besiegers, and questioned him minutely as to its condition and the intentions of the enemy. he said that the parallel was nearly completed; and that as soon as all was ready the spaniards would make a grand assault; but that meanwhile the works, enormous as they were, were not guarded by a large force, the besiegers not dreaming that the batteries prepared for attack could be themselves attacked! the governor instantly perceived the value of this information, but kept it to himself, and had the deserter closely confined lest he should incautiously reveal to others what he had told to him. keeping his own counsel, he made his preparations, which he did not disclose even to his lieutenants until the moment for action. it was in the evening when he called them together, and announced his intention to make an attack on the works of the besiegers _that very night_, and at midnight about two thousand men were in arms on the "red sands," now the alameda, to carry the daring purpose into execution. their orders were of the strictest kind: "each man to have thirty-six rounds of ammunition, with a good flint in his piece and another in his pocket. no drums to go out, excepting two with each of the regiments. _no volunteers will be allowed._" the brave old commander wanted no amateurs on such an occasion. "no person to advance before the front, unless ordered by the officer commanding the column: and _the most profound silence to be observed_." as it took two or three hours to form the columns, and acquaint all with the special duty to be undertaken, and the necessity for the strictest obedience, it was nearly three o'clock when they began to move. the moon was just setting across the bay, and soon all was dark and still, as the men advanced with quick but cautious steps through the silent streets. the commander had picked his men for the daring attempt. knowing how powerful are the traditions of bravery, he had chosen two regiments that had fought side by side at the battle of minden, twenty-two years before. the officers to lead them he had chosen with equal care, and yet, when it came to the moment of action, the old soldier felt such a fire in his bones that he could not resist the impulse to keep them company. as they emerged from the gates they had still three-quarters of a mile across the plain to reach the enemy's works. with all the precautions to secure silence, the tramp of two thousand men, however muffled, could not but reach the ears of the spanish sentinels, and a few rapid shots told that they were discovered. but the alarm was given too late. it only quickened the advance of the column, which, as it reached the works, rushed over the parapet, bayoneting the men, such as did not flee, panic-stricken by the sudden attack, and spiking the guns. as the soldiers had come prepared with faggots for the purpose, they immediately set the works on fire. but even at this moment of terror there was one who thought of mercy as well as of victory. before the flames had spread the governor, "anxious that none of the wounded should by any accident perish in the burning batteries, went into the trench himself and found among the bodies of the slain a wounded officer, whom by his uniform he knew to be a captain of the spanish artillery, to whom he spoke with all kindness, and promising him every assistance, ordered him to be removed, as the fire was now rapidly spreading to the spot where he lay. but the spaniard, raising himself with difficulty, feebly exclaimed, "no, sir, no, leave me and let me perish amid the ruins of my post." in a few minutes he expired. it was afterward found that he had commanded the guard of the san carlos battery, and that when his men threw down their arms and fled, he rushed forward into the attacking column, exclaiming, "at least one spaniard shall die honorably," and fell where he was found, at the foot of his post."[10] it was now too late to talk of mercy. in an hour the flames had spread into a conflagration that could not be subdued. as it rose into the air, it lighted up the rock above and the plain below. leaving the elements to complete the work of destruction, the assailants made their retreat, only to hear, as they re-entered the gates, the explosion of the magazines. so vast was the ruin wrought that the camp was like a city on fire, and continued to burn for four days, without an effort on the part of the spaniards (who seemed to be stunned and bewildered by the sudden attack) to subdue the flames. thus was destroyed at a single stroke what it had cost months of labor and millions of money to construct. and so the game of war went on for three long years, until it had fixed the gaze of the whole civilized world. the last act was to be inaugurated by a change in the military command, and in the method of attack. hitherto the siege had been conducted chiefly by the spaniards, as was fitting, since, if the fortress were taken, to spain would fall the splendid prize. they had fought bravely, maintaining the reputation which had never been shaken from the days of alva, when the spanish infantry was more dreaded than any other on the battle-fields of europe. during the siege the officers of the garrison, as they looked down from their heights into the hostile camp, could not but admire the way in which both officers and men exposed themselves. it was not to their dishonor if they had failed in attempting the impossible. but having to confess defeat, it was but military prudence to see if another mode of operation might not be more successful. accordingly, french skill in the art of war was now called in to take part in the tremendous conflict. the duc de crillon, who had recently distinguished himself by the capture of minorca, was put in command of the combined land forces; while a french engineer, the chevalier d'arã§on, was to prepare an armament more formidable than had ever been known in naval warfare. the plan had certainly the merit of boldness. there was to be no more long blockade, and no more attempt to take the place by stratagem. gibraltar was to be taken, if at all, by hard fighting. but the conditions of battle were unequal: for how could wooden ships be matched against stone walls? no ships of the day could stand an hour against guns fired from behind those ramparts. but this engineer was bold enough to believe that vessels could be made so strong that they would withstand even that tremendous fire. he proposed to construct "battering ships" of such enormous strength that they could be moored within short range, when he in turn would open a fire equally tremendous, that should blow gibraltar into the air! all he asked was that his flotilla might be laid close alongside the enemy, when, gun to gun and man to man, the contest should be decided. once let him get near enough to make a breach for a storming party to mount the walls, and his french grenadiers would do the rest. it was bravely conceived, and to the day of battle it seemed as if it might be bravely done. to begin with, ten of the largest ships in the spanish navy were to be sacrificed: for it seemed like a sacrifice to cut down the huge bulwarks of their towering sides. but show was to be sacrificed to strength. the new constructor would have no more three-deckers, nor two-deckers. all he wanted was one broad deck, reaching the whole length of the ship, from stem to stern, which should be as solid as if it were a part of the mainland, or a floating island, on which he could plant his guns as on the ramparts of a fortress. having thus dismantled and razeed the great ships, he proceeded to reconstruct them without and within. his method is of interest, as showing how a hundred years ago a naval engineer anticipated the modern construction of ironclads. his battering ships were in outward shape almost exactly what the merrimac was in our civil war. he did everything except case them with iron, the art of rolling plates of wrought iron, such as are now used in the construction of ships, not being then known. but if they could not be "plated" with iron on the outside, they were "backed" by ribs of oak within. inside their enormous hulls was a triple thickness of beams, braced against the sides. next to this was a layer of _sand_, in which it was supposed a cannon-ball would bury itself as in the earth. to this sand-bank, resting against its oaken backing, there was still an inner lining in a thick wall of _cork_, which, yielding like india-rubber, would offer the best resistance to the penetration of shot. having thus protected the hulls, it was only necessary to protect the crews. for this the decks were roofed with heavy timbers, which were covered with _ropes_, and next with _hides_, after the manner of the ancient romans; so that the men working at the guns were almost as secure from the enemy's fire as if they were inside of the strongest casemates that the art of fortification could construct. thus shielded above and below--from the deck to the keel--these novel ships-of-war were in truth floating fortresses, and it was hardly presumptuous in their constructor to say that they "could not be burnt, nor sunk, nor taken." these preparations for attack could not be made without the knowledge of the garrison. from the top of the rock they had but to turn their glasses across the bay, and they could see distinctly hundreds of workmen swarming over the great hulks, and could almost hear the sound of the hammers that ceased not day nor night. turning to the camp of the besiegers, they could see "long strings of mules streaming hourly into the trenches laden with shot, shell, and ammunition." deserters brought in reports of the vast preparations, and the confidence they inspired. the fever of expectation had spread to the capitals of spain and france. the king of spain was almost beside himself with eagerness and impatience. every morning his first question was "is it taken?" and when answered in the negative he always kept up his courage by saying, "it will soon be ours." his expectations seemed now likely to be realized. all felt that at last the end was nigh, and the comte d'artois, the brother of louisâ xvi., the king of france, had made the journey all the way from paris to be present at the grand culmination of the surrender of gibraltar! so sure were the allies of victory that they debated among themselves as to "how many hours" the garrison could keep up a resistance. twenty-four hours was the limit, and when the french commander, less sanguine than the naval constructors and engineers, thought it might be even _two weeks_ before the place fell, he was the subject of general ridicule. taking for granted that the fire of the garrison would soon be silenced, precise directions were given about the landing of the storming party. as soon as a break was made, the grenadiers were to mount the walls. it was especially ordered that strong bodies of troops should _advance rapidly and cut off the retreat_ of the garrison, which might otherwise flee to the heights of the rock, and keep up for a while longer the hopeless resistance. the victory must be complete. on the other hand, the garrison was roused to greater exertion by the greater danger. its ardor was excited also by what was passing in other parts of the world. war was still raging in both hemispheres, with the usual vicissitudes of victory and defeat. england had lost america, but her wounded pride was soon relieved, if not entirely removed, by a great victory at sea. cornwallis surrendered at yorktown, in october, 1781, and only six months after, in april, 1782, admiral rodney (the same who had relieved gibraltar only two years before) gained a victory in the west indies over count de grasse, which almost annihilated the french fleet, and assured to england, whatever her losses upon land, the mastery of the seas. the tidings of this great victory reached gibraltar, and fired the spirit of every briton. the governor was now sixty-four years old, and the events of the last three years might well make him feel that he was a hundred. but his youth returned in the great crisis that was upon him. both governor and garrison burned to do something worthy the name and fame of old england. the opportunity soon came. though the battering ships were regarded as invincible, yet to make assurance doubly sure the french and spanish fleets had been quadrupled in force. if any man's heart had been trembling before, it must have failed him on septemberâ 12, 1782, when there sailed into the bay thirty-nine ships of the line, raising the naval armament to fifty line-of-battle ships, with innumerable smaller vessels--the largest naval armament since the spanish armada--supported on land by an army of forty thousand men, whose batteries, mounted with the heaviest ordnance, stretched along the shore. against this mighty array of force by land and sea the english commander, mustering every gun and every man, could oppose only ninety-six pieces of artillery, manned by seven thousand soldiers and sailors. as the allied forces had been waiting only for the fleet, the attack was announced for the following day, and accordingly soon after the sun rose the next morning the battering-ships were seen to be getting under way. it was a grand sight, at which the spirits of the besiegers rose to the highest pitch. so confident were they of victory that thousands of spectators, among whom were many of the spanish nobility, had gathered near the "queen's seat," in the spanish lines, to witness the final capture of gibraltar, for which they had been waiting three long years. even the englishmen who lined the ramparts could not but admire the order in which the ships took up their positions. so confident was the spanish admiral that they were shot-proof and bomb-proof, that he took no pains to keep at long range, but advanced boldly and moored within half gunshot, with large boats full of men ready to land as soon as the guns of the fortress were silenced. to both sides it was evident that the decisive day had come. while the ships were being ranged in line of battle, the english stood at their guns in silence till "old eliott" took his stand on the king's bastion, and gave the signal for the roar of earth and hell to begin. instantly the floating batteries answered from the whole line, and their fire was taken up along the shores of the bay, till there were four hundred guns playing on the devoted town. no thunderstorm in the tropics ever shot out such lightnings and thunderings. as the hills echoed the tremendous reverberations, it seemed as if the solid globe was reeling under the shock of an earthquake. the ships at first aimed their guns a little too high, so that balls and shells flew over the line-wall and fell in the rear; but they soon got the range, and lowering their guns to almost a dead-level, fired point-blank. "about noon their firing was powerful and well-directed." guns were dismounted, and the wounded began to fall and to be carried to the rear. but others took their place at the guns, and kept up the steady fire, never turning from the one object directly in front. although the batteries on the land tried to divert their fire, the governor disdained to answer them with a single gun. "not there! not there!" was the danger. his keen eye saw that the fate of gibraltar was to be decided that day by the answer given to those battering ships that were pouring such a terrific fire into his lines. in the midst of it all he was as cool as if on parade. a large part of the day he kept his place on the king's bastion, the centre at which the enemy's fire was directed, and his presence had an inspiring effect upon his men. to do them justice, the soldiers, who had served under such a commander for three years, were worthy of their leader. as he looked along the lines they were wrapped in a cloud of smoke, and yet now and then, by the flashing of the guns, he could see their heroic features glowing "with the light of battle in their faces." on that day, as with nelson twenty-three years later, "england expected every man to do his duty," and did not expect in vain. but for a time all their courage and skill seemed to be without result. for hours the battle raged with doubtful issue. though the english fired at such short range, they did not produce much effect. their thirty-two-pound shot could not pierce the thick-ribbed sides of the battering-ships, while their heaviest shells were seen to rebound from the roofs, as the shots of the congress and the cumberland rebounded from the roof of the merrimac. apparently the fire of the garrison produced as little impression on the ships as the fire of the ships produced on the rocks of gibraltar. the disparity of forces was so great that the allies might have carried the day if that inequality had not been balanced by one advantage of the besieged. they had one means of destruction which could not be so easily turned against land defences--in the use of hot shot. the experiment had been tried on the works of the besiegers, and they now hoped it would have still greater effect upon the ships. but their enemies were neither surprised nor daunted by this new mode of attack. they were fully aware of what the english had done, and what they proposed to do, and with true castilian pride laughed at this new method of destruction. so much did they despise it, that one of the spanish commanders said "he would engage to receive in his breast all the hot shot of the enemy." meanwhile "old eliott" had gone on with his preparations. a few days before, coal had been served out to the furnaces, which had been placed beside the batteries. these were now kept at white heat, and the heavy balls dropped into them till they glowed like molten iron, and then were carefully lifted to the guns.[11] as the artillerymen sighted their guns they observed with grim satisfaction that the ships had anchored at the right distance, so that they had but to elevate their guns _very slightly_, just enough to save the necessity of ramming the ball with a second wadding to hold it in place; and thus not a moment was lost when moments were very precious, but the ball was simply rolled into the cannon's mouth, from which it was instantly hurled at the foe. yet even the hot shot did not at first make much impression. the french engineer had guarded against them by having pumps constantly pouring water into the layer of sand below, where a red-hot cannon-ball would soon be rendered harmless. in fact, a number of times during the day smoke was seen to issue from the floating batteries, showing that the hot shot had taken effect, but the flames were promptly extinguished. it was not till late in the afternoon that they began to burst out, and it was seen that the admiral's ship was on fire. as the night drew on the flames became more visible, showing the exact position of the spanish line, and furnishing a mark for the english guns. on another ship the fires advanced so rapidly that they had to flood the magazine for fear of an explosion. others threw up rockets, and hoisted signals of distress to their consorts, and boats were seen rowing toward them. at midnight nine out of the ten battering-ships were on fire. the scene at this moment was awful beyond description, as the flames mounted higher and higher till they lighted up the whole bay and the surrounding shores. when it became evident that the ships could not be saved, there was a panic on board; all discipline was lost in the eagerness to escape from the burning decks; sailors and gunners threw themselves into the sea. french and spanish boats picked up hundreds, and still there were hundreds more who were perishing, whose agonized shrieks rose upon the midnight air. the english heard it, and stout hearts that quailed not at the roar of guns, quivered "at the cry of some strong swimmer in his agony." then it was that the english showed that their courage was equalled by their humanity, as the very men who had fought all day at the guns pushed off in boats to save their foes from drowning. this was an attempt which involved the utmost danger, for the ships were on fire, and might blow up at any moment. but brigadier curtis, learning from the prisoners that hundreds of officers and men, some wounded, still remained on board, forgot everything in his eagerness to save them. careless of danger from the explosions which every instant scattered fragments of wreck around him, he passed from ship to ship, and literally dragged from the burning decks the miserable spaniards whom their own countrymen had left to perish. the governor watched the movement with the utmost anxiety, which rose to "anguish," to use his own word, as he saw the gallant officer push his boat alongside one of the largest ships, that was a mass of flames. as he stood transfixed with horror at the sight, there came a tremendous explosion, and the ship was blown into the air, its fragments falling far and wide over the sea. that was a moment of agony, for he could not doubt that friend and foe had perished together. but as the wreck cleared away the little pinnace was seen, by the light of the other burning ships, to be still afloat, though shattered. a huge beam of timber had fallen through her flooring, killing the coxswain, wounding others of her crew, and starting a large hole in her bottom, through which the water rushed so rapidly that it seemed as if she must sink in a few minutes. but english sailors are equal to anything, and stripping off their jackets they stuffed them into the hole, and thus kept the boat above water till they reached the shore, bringing with them 357 of their late enemies, whom they had saved from a horrible death. the wounded were sent to the hospitals and treated with the greatest care; and an officer who died four days after, received the honors that would have been paid to one of their own countrymen, the grenadiers following his bier and firing their farewell shot "o'er the grave where the hero was buried." this last act was all that was wanting to complete the glory of england on that immortal day. history records the heroic conduct of british seamen at the battle of the nile, when the french admiral's ship, the orient, took fire, and nelson sent his boats to pick up the drowning crew. while this should be remembered, let it not be forgotten that sixteen years before the battle of the nile, the garrison of gibraltar had set the splendid example. the next morning saw the bay covered with wrecks. the victory was complete. the siege was still kept up in form, and the besiegers continued firing, and for some days threw into the town four, five, and six hundred shells, and from six hundred to a thousand shot, every twenty-four hours! but this was only the muttering thunder after the storm. the battle was over, and from that day to this--more than a hundred years--the red cross of england has floated from the rock of gibraltar. the close of this long and terrible conflict was like the ending of a play, when the curtain falls at last upon a scene of happy reunion. even during the years of fiercest strife the courtesies of war had been strictly observed. flags of truce passed between the garrison and the camp of the besiegers; prisoners were exchanged, and now and then one or the other of the commanders paid a compliment that was well deserved, to the courage and skill of his antagonist. especially did the duc de crillon, true frenchman as he was, indulge in these flattering phrases. in a letter written just before the attack of the battering-ships, he assures general eliott of his "highest esteem," and of "the pleasure to which i look forward of becoming your friend, after i shall have proved myself worthy of the honor, by facing you as an enemy!" that pleasure he was now to have. he had faced the general as an enemy; he was now to know him as a friend. [illustration: painted by sir joshua reynolds p.r.a. engraved by j. cochran. george augustus eliott, lord heathfield, baron gibraltar. [the above portrait of "old eliott" was taken on his return from gibraltar, in 1787, when he was the hero of england. the figure is drawn against a background of the clouds of war, with the cannon pointing downward, as when fired from the top of the rock; while he holds firmly in his hand the key of the fortress he has won. the face is open, frank, and bold, with eyes looking straight before him, as if he did not fear any enemy. many have remarked a likeness to wellington, with a more prominent nose, a feature which napoleon always looked for in one whom he chose for a post of peculiar difficulty and danger.]] for months, there had been whispers in the air of a coming peace, and the attitude of the contending parties was more that of armed neutrality than of active war. at last the announcement came. the besiegers were the first to receive it, and sent the news to the garrison; but "old eliott," true soldier as he was, waited for orders from home. at length a british frigate sailed into the harbor with the blessed tidings that great britain had acknowledged the independence of america, and that the three powers--england, france, and spain--had solemnly agreed to be at peace. now all barriers to intercourse were removed, and the governor rode out to meet his late enemy at a point midway between the lines. both generals instantly dismounted and embraced, thus answering a blow, or the many blows given and received, with a kiss. the duke soon after returned the visit, and found the gates of gibraltar, which had not been forced in three and a half years of war, now thrown wide open to his coming in the attitude of peace. he was received with all the honors of war. as he rode through the gates his appearance was greeted with loud huzzas, which ran along the lines, and echoed among the hills, a salutation which at first he did not understand, and was confused by it, as it might be interpreted as a cheer of triumph over a fallen enemy; but when it was explained to him that it was the way in which english soldiers greeted one whom they recognized as a hero, he was very much flattered by the demonstration. as the artillery officers were presented to him he complimented them highly on their courage and skill, saying pleasantly (no one could doubt his sincerity in this) that he "would rather see them here as friends than on their batteries as enemies!" and so at last, after these long and terrible years, the curtain fell on a scene as peaceful as ever ended a tragedy on the stage. such are the heroic memories which gather round gibraltar, and overshadow it as its mighty crags cast their shadows on the sea. let us not say, "all this is nothing to us, because we are neither englishmen, nor frenchmen, nor spaniards." "we are men, and whatever concerns man concerns us." if it be indeed "beautiful to die for one's country," the spot is holy ground where, for the dear sake of "country," brave men have fought and died. chapter viii. holding a fortress in a foreign country. there is one thing in gibraltar which strikes me unpleasantly, and yet (such are the contradictions in our likes and dislikes) it is the very thing which has made it so attractive, viz., the english occupation. for picturesqueness of situation, the mighty rock, standing at the entering in of the seas, is unique in the world, and the outlook along the shores of africa and europe is enough to captivate the eye of the most sight-worn traveller. and the people who hold this rock-fortress are worthy to be its masters, for they are not only brave, as soldiers are by profession, but they have all the manly qualities of the english race; they are chivalrous and generous. nowhere does english hospitality appear more charming. if ever a man had occasion to like gibraltar and the english _in_ gibraltar, i have; and i shall keep them both in grateful memory. and yet--and yet--in this general accord of pleased reflection, which comes to me in the midst of these happy days, there is one thing which strikes a discordant note. the english are here, not by right of birth, but of conquest. gibraltar is not a part of england: it is a part of spain, to which it belongs by nature, if nature has anything to do with the boundaries of states. true, the english have taken it and hold it, and by the right of war it belongs to them, as a fortress belongs to the power that is strongest. yet that does not change the relation of things, any more than it changes the geographical position of the captured fortress. and so it remains that england holds gibraltar, i will not say in an enemy's country, but certainly in a foreign country--a fact which, however it be disguised, it is not pleasant to contemplate. the stranger does not feel this so much while he is inside the gates as when he leaves the town and goes out into the country. perhaps the reader will share my feeling if he will give me the pleasure of his company. it was a bright, crisp winter afternoon that a friend from boston and i planned an excursion on foot. but stop a moment! when i travelled in the east i learned the wisdom of the old oriental custom of "girding up the loins"; and so, stepping into a shop in waterport street, i bought something like a soldier's belt, my only military trapping, with which i braced myself so firmly together that i felt "in prime marching order," and away we went at a swinging gait, as merry as two new england boys out of school and off for a holiday. it is not a long walk to the gates, and once through them and outside the walls we took a long breath as we once more inhaled the free air of the country. at a little distance we came to a row of sentries--a line of red-coats that kept guard over the majesty of england. then a half-mile walk across a low, sandy plain--the neutral ground--and we came to another line of sentinels in different uniforms and speaking a different tongue, a little beyond which is linea (so named from its being just beyond the lines), a place of twelve thousand inhabitants, which has the three requisites of a spanish town--a church, a market, and a bull-ring! here was the situation: a double line of soldiers facing each other, not in a hostile attitude, not training their guns on each other, but certainly not in a position which was calculated to promote friendly relations. strolling through the town it seemed to us (perhaps it was only imagination) that there was a sullen look in the faces of the people; that they did not regard englishmen, or those speaking the english tongue, with special affection. linea has a bad name for being a nest of smugglers; but whether it is worse than other frontier towns, which afford special facilities for smuggling, and therefore offer great temptations, i cannot say. it was not an attractive place, and after an hour's walk we retraced our steps back to our fortress home. as we turned toward the rock we were facing the british lion just as the descending sun was putting a crown upon his royal head. never did he wear a more kingly look than in that evening sky. if the god of war has a throne on earth, it must be on that height, more than a thousand feet in air, looking down on the petty human creatures below, all of whom he could destroy with one breath of his nostrils. it was indeed a glorious sight. but how do the spaniards like it? how should _we_ like it if we were in their place? this was a very inconvenient question to be asked just at that moment, as we were crossing the neutral ground. but if i _must_ answer, i cannot but say that, if i were a spanish sentinel, pacing back and forth in such a presence and compelled at every turn to look up at that lion frowning over me, it would be with a very bitter feeling. i might even ask my english friends who are masters of gibraltar, how they would like to see the flag of another country floating over a part of _their_ country? of course, the retention of gibraltar is to england a matter of pride. it is a great thing to see the red cross flying on the top of the rock in the sight of two continents, and of all who go sailing up and down in these waters. but this pride has to be paid for by a good many entanglements of one kind and another. for example: it is a constant source of complaint on the part of spain that gibraltar is the headquarters for smuggling across the frontier. this is not at all surprising, since (like singapore and perhaps other distant places in the british empire) it is a "free port." its deliverance from commercial restrictions dates back to the reign of queen anne, in the beginning of the last century--an immunity which it has enjoyed for nearly two hundred years. a few years since a light restriction was placed upon wines and spirits, probably for a moral rather than a commercial purpose, lest their too great abundance might lead to drunkenness among the soldiers. but with respect to everything else used by man, trade is absolutely free; whatever is brought here for sale is not burdened with the added tax of an import duty. though gibraltar is so near tarifa, there is no _tariff_ levied on merchandise any more than on voyagers that go up and down the seas. not only english goods, but french and italian goods, all are free; even those which, if imported into england, would pay duty, here pay none, so that they are cheaper than in england itself. thus gibraltar is the paradise of free-traders, since in it there is no such "accursed thing" as a custom-house, and no such hated official as a custom-house officer! this puts it at an advantage as compared with any port or city or country which is not free, and they have to suffer from the difference. especially does spain, which is not yet converted to free trade, suffer from its close contact with its more liberal neighbor. the extraordinary cheapness on one side of the neutral ground, as compared with the dearness on the other, is a temptation to smuggling which it requires more virtue than the spaniards possess to resist. the temptation takes them on their weakest side when it presents itself in the form of tobacco, for the spaniards are a nation of smokers. the manufacture and sale of tobacco is a monopoly of the government, and yields a large revenue, amounting, i believe, to fifteen millions of dollars. it might amount to twice as much if every smoker in spain bought only spanish tobacco. but who will pay the price for the government cigars and cigarettes when they can be obtained without paying duty? smuggling is going on every day, and every hour of the day; and the spaniards say that it is winked at and encouraged by the english in gibraltar; to which the latter reply that whatever smuggling is done, is done by the spaniards themselves, for which they are not responsible. a shopkeeper in gibraltar has as good a right to sell a pound of tobacco to a spanish peasant as to an english sailor. what becomes of it after it leaves his shop is no concern of his. of course the spanish police are numerous, and are, or are supposed to be, vigilant. the carabineros are stationed at the lines, whose duty it is to keep a sharp look-out on every passing vehicle; whether it be a lordly carriage rolling swiftly by, or a market wagon; to poke their noses into every little cart; to lift up the panniers of every donkey; and even to thrust their hands into every basket, and to give a pinch to every suspicious-looking parcel. and yet, with this great display of watchfulness, which indeed is a little overdone, somehow an immense quantity slips through their fingers. many amusing stories are told of contrabandists. one honest spaniard had a wonderful dog that went through miraculous transformations: he was sometimes fat and sometimes lean, nature (or man) having provided him with a double skin, between which was packed a handsome allowance of tobacco. this dog was a model of docility, and would play with other dogs, like the poor innocent that he was, and then dart off to his master to "unload" and be sent back again! it was said that he would make several trips a day. in another case a poor man tried to make an honest living by raising turkeys for market; but even then fate had a spite against him, for after he had brought them into town, he had no luck in selling them! the same ill-fortune attended him every day. but one evening, as he came out of the gates looking sad and sorrowful, the carabineros took a closer inspection of his cart, and found that every turkey had been prepared for another market than that of gibraltar, by a well-spiced "stuffing" under her motherly wings! of course the spanish officers are indignant at the duplicity which permits this smuggling to take place, and utter great oaths in sonorous castilian against their treacherous neighbors. but even the guardians of the law may fall from virtue. the governor, who took office here but a few weeks since, tells me that when the governor of algeciras, the spanish town across the bay, came to pay his respects to him, the officers of his suite, while their horses were standing in the court of the convent [the government house], filled their pockets with tobacco! fit agents indeed to collect the revenue of spain! but smuggling is not the worst of the complications that arise out of having a fortress in a foreign country. another is that gibraltar becomes the resort of all the characters that find spain too hot to hold them. men who have committed offences against spanish law, flee across the lines and claim protection. some of them are political refugees, who have escaped from a government that would persecute and perhaps imprison them for their opinions, and find safety under the english flag. the necessity for this protection is not so great now as in former years, when the government of spain was a despotism as absolute and intolerant as any in europe. even so late as thirty years ago, castelar would have been shot if he had not escaped across the frontier into switzerland; as his father, twenty years before, had been sentenced to death, and would have been executed if he had not made haste to get inside of gibraltar, and remained here seven years. in his case, as in many others, the old fortress was a bulwark against tyranny. within these walls the laws of national hospitality were sacred. no spanish patriot could be taken from under this flag, to be sent to the dungeon or the scaffold. all honor to england, that she has a city of refuge for the free and the brave of all lands, and that she has so often sheltered and saved those who were the champions, and but for her would have been the martyrs, of liberty! but the greater number of those who seek a refuge here have no claim to protection, since they are not political refugees, but ordinary criminals--thieves, and sometimes murderers--who have fled here to escape the punishment of their crimes. in such cases it is easy to say what should be done with them: they should be given up at once to the spanish authorities, to be tried by spanish law and receive the just reward of their deeds. if all cases were like these, the disposition of them would be a very simple matter. but they are not all so clear; some of them, indeed, are very complex, involving questions of international law, which an army officer, or even a civil officer, might not understand. a man may be accused of crime by the spanish authorities, and yet, in the eye of impartial judges of another country, be guilty of no greater crime than loving his country too well. but the spanish government demands his surrender. the case is referred to the colonial secretary, as the highest authority in gibraltar next to the governor. it is a grave responsibility, which requires not only a disposition to do what is right and just, but a knowledge of law which a military or a civil officer may not possess. the present secretary is lord gifford, and a more honorable english gentleman it would be impossible to find. but though a gallant soldier, brave and accomplished as he is, he may not be familiar with all the points which he may have to decide. he tells me that this matter of extradition is the most difficult duty that is laid upon him. he said, "i have two cases before me to-day," in the decision of which he seemed a good deal perplexed. with the most earnest desire to decide right, he might decide wrong. his predecessor had been removed for extraditing a man without proper authority. he told me the incident to illustrate the responsibility of his position, and the extreme difficulty of adjudicating cases which are of a doubtful character. it was this: the island of cuba, as americans know too well, is in a chronic state of insurrection. in one of the numerous outbreaks, a man who was implicated made his escape, and took refuge in tangier, and while there asked of some visitors from gibraltar if he would be safe here, to which they promptly replied, "certainly; that he could not be given up," and on the strength of that assurance he came; but the spanish agents were watching, and somehow managed to influence the officers here to surrender him. the english government promptly disavowed the act, and claimed that the man was still under their protection, and should be brought back. this spanish pride did not permit them to do. however, he was sent to port mahon, in the balearic islands, and there (perhaps by the connivance of the authorities, who may have thought it the easiest way to get rid of a troublesome question) he was not so closely guarded but that he was able to make his escape, and so the matter ended. but the colonial secretary who had permitted his extradition was promptly recalled, in disapprobation of his conduct. with such a warning before him, as well as from his own desire to do justice, the present secretary wished to act with due prudence and caution, that he might not share the fate of his predecessor. i could but admire his patience and care, and yet a stranger can but reflect that all this complication and embarrassment comes from holding a fortress in a foreign country! but while this is true, yet what are such petty vexations as smuggling and extradition; what is the million of dollars a year which it costs to keep gibraltar; in a matter which concerns the majesty and the colossal pride of england--the sense of power to hold her own against the world? a hundred years ago burke spoke of gibraltar with exultation as "a post of power, a post of superiority, of connection, of commerce--one which makes us invaluable to our friends and dreadful to our enemies;" and the feeling has survived to this day. not an englishman passes through the straits whose heart does not swell within him to see the flag of his country floating from the top of the rock, from which, as he believes, the whole world cannot tear it down. every true briton would look upon the lowering of that flag as the abdication of imperial power. but is not this an over-estimate of the value of gibraltar to england? is it worth all it costs? would it weigh much in the balance in a great contest of nations for the mastery of the world? the object of this rock-fortress is to command the passage into the mediterranean. the arms of gibraltar are a castle and a key, to signify that it holds the key of the straits, and that no ship flying any other flag than that of england can enter or depart except by her permission. but that power is already gone. england may hold the key of the straits, but the door is too wide to be bolted. the hundred-ton guns of gibraltar, even if aimed directly seaward, could not destroy or stop a passing fleet. i know this is not the limit of construction in modern ordnance. guns have been wrought weighing a hundred and twenty tons, which throw a ball weighing a ton over ten miles! such a gun mounted at tarifa might indeed hurl its tremendous bolt across the mediterranean into africa. but tarifa is in spain, while opposite gibraltar it is fourteen miles to ceuta, a point not to be reached by any ordnance in existence, even if the last product of modern warfare were mounted on the height of o'hara's tower; so that a fleet of ironclads, hugging the african coast, would be quite safe from the english fire, which could not prevent the entrance of a french or german or russian fleet into the mediterranean, if it were strong enough to encounter the english fleet. the reliance must be therefore on the fleet, not on the fortress. of course the latter would be a refuge in case of disaster, where the english ships could find protection under the guns of the fort. but the fortress _alone_ could not bar the passage into the mediterranean. as to the fleet, england has been mistress of the seas for more than a century; and yet it does not follow that she will always retain this supremacy. her fleet is still the largest and most powerful in the world, and her seamen as skilful and as brave as in the days of nelson; but the conditions of naval warfare are greatly changed. the use of steam for ships of war as well as for commerce, and the building of ironclads mounted with enormous guns, tend to equalize the conditions of war. battles may be decided by the weight of guns or the thickness of defensive armor, and in these particulars other nations have advanced as well as england. france, germany, and russia have vied with each other as to which should build the most tremendous ships of war. even italy has within a few years risen to the rank of a first-class naval power, as she has some of the largest ships in the world. the italia, which i saw lying in the harbor of naples, could probably have destroyed the whole fleet with which nelson won the battle of trafalgar; and hence the italian fleet must be counted as a factor of no second importance in any future struggle for the control of the mediterranean. and yet some military authorities think too much importance is attached to these modern inventions. farragut did not believe in iron ships. he judged from his own experience in naval warfare, and no man had had greater. he had found wooden ships good enough to win his splendid victories. in his famous attack upon mobile he ran his fleet close under the guns of the fort, himself standing in the round-top of his flag-ship to overlook the whole scene of battle, and then boldly attacked ironclads, and sunk them in the open bay. his motto was: "wooden ships and iron hearts!" ships and guns are good, but men are better. and so i do not give up my faith in english prowess and skill, but hold that, whatever the improvements in ships or guns, to the last hour that men meet each other face to face in battle, the issue will depend largely on a genius in war; on the daring to seize unexpected opportunities; to take advantage of sudden changes; and thus by some master-stroke to turn what seemed inevitable defeat into victory. in the year 1867 i crossed the atlantic in the great eastern, then in command of sir james anderson. among the passengers was the austrian admiral tegetthoff, who had the year before gained the battle of lissa, with whom i formed a pleasant acquaintance; and as we walked the deck together, drew from him some particulars of that great victory. he was as modest as he was brave, and did not like to talk of himself; but in answer to my inquiries, said that before the battle he knew the immense superiority of the italian fleet; and that his only hope of victory was in disregarding all the ordinary rules of naval warfare: that, instead of drawing up his ships in the usual line of battle, he must rush into the centre of the enemy, and confuse them by the suddenness of his attack where they did not expect him. the manoeuvre was successful even beyond his own expectation. the _r㨠d'italia_, the flagship of the italian admiral, which had been built in new york as the masterpiece of naval architecture, was sunk, and the fleet utterly defeated! what tegetthoff did at lissa, the english may do in future battles. of this i am sure, that whatever _can_ be done by courage and skill will be done by the sons of the vikings to retain their mastery of the sea. but it would be too much to expect of any power that it could stand against the combined navies of the world. if gibraltar be thus powerless for offence, is it altogether secure for defence? is it really impregnable? that is a question often asked, and on which only military men are competent to give an opinion, and even they are divided. englishmen, who are most familiar with its defences, say, yes! those defences have been enormously increased even in our day. in the great siege we saw its powers of resistance a hundred years ago. yet eliott defeated the french and spanish fleets and armies with less than a hundred guns. ninety years later--in 1870--there were _seven hundred_ guns in position on the rock, the smallest of which were larger than the heaviest used in the siege. and yet since 1870 the increase in the size of guns and their weight of metal, is greater than in the hundred years before. in the siege it was counted a wonderful shot that carried a ball two miles and a half. now the hundred-ton guns carry over eight miles. putting these things together, english officers maintain that gibraltar cannot be taken by all the powers of europe combined. on the other hand, french and german engineers--familiar with the new inventions in war, and knowing that they can use dynamite and nitro-glycerine, instead of gunpowder, to give tremendous force to the new projectiles--would probably say that there is no fortress which cannot be battered down. to me, who am but a layman in such matters, as i walk about gibraltar, it seems that, if all the armies of europe should come up against it, they could make no impression on its rock-ribbed sides; that only some convulsion of nature could shake its "everlasting foundations." and yet such is the power of modern explosives to rend the rocks and hills, with a new invention every year of something still more terrible, that we know not but they may at last almost tear the solid globe asunder. what wreck and ruin of the works of man may be wrought by such engines of destruction, it is not given us to foresee. meanwhile to the spaniards the english possession of gibraltar is a constant irritation. it is of no use to remind them that they had it once, and might have kept it; that is no comfort; it only makes the matter worse; for they are like spoiled children, who grieve the most for that which they have thrown away. again it was offered to them by england, with only the condition that they should not sell florida to napoleon; but as he was then in the height of his career, they thought it safer to trust to his protection; albeit a few years later they found out his treachery, and had to depend on an english army, led by wellington, to drive the french out of spain. and still these spoiled children of the south will not recognize the english sovereignty. to this day the king of spain claims gibraltar as a part of his dominions, though he recognizes it as "temporarily in the possession of the english," and all who are born on the rock are entitled to the rights of spanish subjects! but whether gibraltar can be "taken" or not by siege or storm, in the course of human events there may be a turn of fortune which shall compel england to surrender it. if there should come a general european war, in which there should be (what the first napoleon endeavored to effect) a combination of all the continental powers against england, she might, standing alone, be reduced to such extremity as to be obliged to sue for peace, and one of the hard conditions forced upon her might be the surrender of gibraltar! but while we may speculate on such a possibility of the future, it is not a change which i desire to see in my day. the transfer of gibraltar to spain might satisfy spanish pride, but i fear that it would be no longer what it is if it had not the treasury of england to supply its numerous wants. the spaniards are not good managers, and gibraltar would ere long sink into the condition of an old, decayed spanish town. further than this, i confess that, as a matter of sentiment, it would be no pleasure to me to visit it if the charm of its present society were gone. i should miss greatly the english faces, so manly and yet so kindly, and the dear old mother tongue. so while i live i hope gibraltar will be held by english soldiers. "after me the deluge!" no: not the deluge, but universal peace! let the old rock remain as it is. lover of peace as i am, i should be sorry to see it dismantled. it would not be the same thing if it were to become another capri--a mere resort for artists, who should sit upon europa point, and make their sketches; or if lovers only should saunter in the alameda gardens, whispering softly as they look out upon the moonlit sea. the mighty crag that bears the name of hercules should bear on its front something which speaks of power. let the great fortress remain as the grim monument of war, even when men learn war no more; as the castles on the rhine are kept as the monuments of mediã¦val barbarism. if its guns are all silent, or unshotted, it will stand for something more than a symbol of brute force: it will be a monumental proof that the blessed age of peace has come. then, if there be any change in the flag that waves over it; if the red cross of england, which has never been lowered in war, should give place to an emblem of universal peace; it may be a red cross still--red in sign of blood, but only of that blood which was shed alike for all nations, and which is yet to unite in one brotherhood the whole family of mankind. chapter ix. farewell to gibraltar--leaving for africa. all too swiftly the days flew by, and the time of my visit to gibraltar was coming to an end. but in travel i have often found that the last taste was the sweetest. it is only when you have come to know a place well that you can fully enjoy it; when emancipated from guides, with no self-appointed cicerone to dog your footsteps and intrude his stereotyped observations; when, in short, you have obtained "the freedom of the place" by right of familiar acquaintance, and can wander about alone, sauntering slowly in favorite walks, or sitting under the shade of the trees, and looking off upon the purple mountains or the rippling sea, that you are fully master of the situation. "days of idleness," as they are called, are sometimes, of all days, at once the busiest and the happiest, when, having finished up all regular and routine work, and thus done his duty as a traveller, one devotes himself to "odds and ends," and gathers up his varied impressions into one delightful whole. these are delicious moments, when the pleasure of a foreign clime- "blest be the time, the clime, the spot!"-becomes so intense that we are reluctant to let it go, and linger still, clinging to that which is nearly exhausted, as if we would drain the cup to the very last drop. such is the feeling that comes in these last days, as i go wandering about, full of moods and fancies born of the place and the hour. there is a strange spell and fascination in the rock itself. if it be proper ever to speak of respect for inanimate things, next to a great mountain, i have a profound respect for a great rock. it is the emblem of strength and power, which by its very height shelters and protects the feebleness of man. how often on the desert, under the burning sun, have i espied afar off a huge cliff rising above the plain, and urging on my wearied camel, thrown myself from it, and found the inexpressible relief of "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land!" so here this mountain wall that rises above me, does not awe and overwhelm so much as it shelters and protects; the higher it lifts its head, the more it carries me upward, and gives me an outlook over a wider horizon. if i were a dweller in gibraltar, i would seek out every sequestered nook upon its side, where i could be away from the haunts of men, and could "dream dreams and see visions." often would i climb to the signal station, or o'hara's tower, to see the glory of the sunrisings and sunsettings; and, as the evening comes on, to see the african mountains casting their shadows over the broad line of coast and the broader sea. next to the rock itself, the oldest thing in gibraltar--the very oldest that man has made--is the moorish castle, on which the moslem invader planted the standard of the crescent near twelve centuries ago, making this his first stronghold in the land which he was to conquer. and now i must look upon its face again, because of its very age. american as i am, coming from a country where everything is supposed to be "brand new," i feel a strange delight in these old castles and towers, and even in ruins, gray with the moss of centuries. i know it is a "far cry" to the time of the moors, but we must not think of it as a time of barbarism. the period in which the moors held gibraltar was that of the moorish rule in spain, when they were the most highly civilized people in europe, and the goths were the barbarians. in that day the old moorish town must have been a very picturesque place, with the domes of its mosques, and the slender minarets rising above them, from which at the sunset hour voices called the faithful to prayer; and very picturesque figures were those of the turbaned moors, as they reverently turned toward mecca, and bowed themselves and worshipped. nor did the romance die when the spaniards followed in the procession of races, for they were only less picturesque than the moors. they too had their good times. a life which would seem tame and dull to the modern englishman had its charms for the children of the sun, whether they were children of europe or of africa. when the church took the place of the mosque, mollahs and ulemas were replaced by priests and monks; and the old franciscan friars, whose convent is now the residence of the governor, marched in sombre procession through the streets, and instead of the call from the minaret, the evening was made holy by the sound of the ave maria or the angelus bell. and these spaniards had their gayeties as well as their solemnities. they danced as well as prayed. when their prayers were ended, the same dark-eyed senoritas who had knelt in the churches sat on balconies in the moonlight, while gallant cavaliers sang their songs and tinkled their guitars--diversions which filled the intervals of stern and savage war. out of all this strange old history, with many a heroic episode that still lives in spanish song and story, might be wrought, if there were another irving to tell the tale, an historical romance as fascinating as that of the conquest of granada. the materials are abundant; all that is wanting is that they be touched by the wand of the enchanter. but as i have just now more freshly in mind the english history of gibraltar, i leave the spaniards and the moors, and betake me to the king's bastion, on which "old eliott" stood on the greatest day that gibraltar ever saw. and here we must not forget the second in command, his brave companion-in-arms, general boyd, who built the bastion in 1773, and who, on laying the first stone, prayed "that he might live to see it resist the united fleets of france and spain"--a wish that was gloriously fulfilled nine years later, when he took part in the immortal defence; and it is fitting that his body should sleep under his own work, at once the instrument and the monument of that great victory. even the trees have a historic air, as they are old--at least many of them have a look of age. one would think that the constant firing of guns, the shock and "sulphurous canopy," would kill vegetation or stunt it in its growth. but there are many fine old trees in gibraltar. near the alameda stands a magnificent _bella sombra_ (so named because its wide-spreading branches are dark and sombre, and yet strangely beautiful), which must be very old. perhaps it was standing a century ago, and heard all the guns fired in the great siege, as possibly a few years later it may have heard, across the bay and away over the spanish hills, even the thunder of nelson at trafalgar. [illustration: windmill hill and o'hara's tower.] on one of the last days i had engaged to take a midday dinner with the pastor of the scotch church, who lives in the southern part of the town. it is a pleasant walk beyond the alameda over the hill, where you can but stop now and then to look down on the long breakwater of the new mole, or into the quiet dock of rosia bay; or to hear the bugles waken the echoes of the hills. after dinner my friend proposed a stroll, in which i was glad to join him, especially as it took me to new points of view, from which i could look up at the rock on its southern side, as i had already seen it on the north. taking our way across the level plateau of windmill hill, past barracks and hospitals that are here somewhat retired from the shore, we descended toward the sea. this end of gibraltar is a great resort of the people in the summer time, and furnishes the only drive, unless they go out of the gates and crossing the neutral ground enter the spanish lines. here they are wholly within the peninsula, and yet in a space so limited is a drive such as one might find along the riviera. the road is beautifully kept, and winds in and out among the rocks, in one place crossing a deep gorge, which makes you almost dizzy as you look over the parapet of the little bridge which spans it. at each turn you get some new glimpse of the sea, and whenever you raise your eyes to look across the strait, there is the long line of the african coast. this is the favorite drive of officers and ladies on summer afternoons, since here they can escape the blistering sun, and get into the cool shadows. as we come to europa point we are at the very foot of the rock, and must stop to look upward; for above us rises the highest point of gibraltar, o'hara's tower, which, as it is also nearest to the sea, is the one that first catches the eye of the mariner sailing up or down the mediterranean. here the old phoenicians sacrificed to hercules, as they were approaching what was to them the end of the habitable globe; and here, in later ages, a lamp was always hung before the shrine of the virgin, and the devout sailor crossed himself and repeated his ave maria as he floated by. winding round europa point, we found our progress barred by an iron gateway; but rattling at the gate brought a sentinel, who, seeing nothing suspicious in our appearance, allowed us to enter the guarded enclosure. here in this quiet spot, on a shelf of rock which hangs above the road, and is itself overhung by the mighty cliff which rises behind it and above it, is the cottage which is the governor's summer retreat. the convent answers very well for a winter residence; but in summer gibraltar is a very hot place, as it has the reflection of the sun both from the sea in front and the rock behind; and the convent, standing on the shore of the bay, gets the full force of both. but there are cool retreats both north and south. on the north the townsfolk pour out of the gates to get under the giant cliff which casts its mighty shadow across the neutral ground. a little farther to the east, they come to the sands of a beach, which seems so like a watering-place in dear old england that they have christened it margate. so also, turning the corner at the south end of the rock, one is sheltered from the heat in the long summer afternoon. the cottage is without any pretension to ornament; but as it has a somewhat elevated perch, like a swiss chalet, it is a sort of eyrie, in which one can look down upon the sea and catch every wind that comes from the mediterranean. just now this little eyrie was turned to another purpose--a place of confinement for zebehr pasha, a name that brings back memories of egypt. an arab sheikh, at the head of one of the most powerful tribes on the upper nile, he was at the same time one of the most famous slave-hunters of africa. and yet such was his influence in the soudan, that he was the one man to whom gordon turned in his isolation at khartoum, when neither england nor egypt came to the rescue; and his one message to the authorities at cairo was: "send me zebehr pasha!" the request was refused, and we know the rest. had it been granted, the result might have been different. but the british government seemed to have a great fear of letting him return to the scene of his old exploits lest he should turn against them, and after the english occupation of egypt, had him remanded for safe-keeping to gibraltar. his detention is made as little irksome as possible. he is not confined in a prison. he is even the occupant of the governor's cottage, and has his family with him. looking up at the windows, i saw dark faces (perhaps those of his wives), that moved away as soon as they were observed. but to be comfortably housed is nothing without liberty. to the lion in captivity it matters little whether he is in a barred cage, or has the most luxurious quarters in a royal zoã¶logical garden. zebehr pasha is a lion of the desert that has never been tamed. how he must chafe at the gilded bars of his prison, and look out wistfully upon the blue waves that separate him from his beloved africa! he envies the eagles that he sees soaring and screaming over the sea. if they would but lend him their wings, he would "homeward fly," and mounting the swiftest dromedary, taste once more the wild freedom of the desert.[12] but all things must have an end, and my stay in gibraltar, delightful as it was, must be brought to a close. i was not eager to depart. so quickly does one become at home in new surroundings, that a place which i never saw till a few days before, now seemed like an old friend. my new acquaintances said i "ought to stay a month at least," and i was sure that it would pass quickly and delightfully. but travellers, like city tramps, must "move on," and it is certainly better to go regretting and regretted, than to carry away only disagreeable memories. i had taken passage for oran on the barbary coast, when the colonial secretary, kind to the last, proposed to send me off to the ship in a government launch, an offer which my modesty compelled me to decline. but he insisted (for these englishmen, when they do a thing, must do it handsomely) till i had to submit. that evening, while dining at the hotel, a servant brought me word that a messenger had a special message for me, and when i presented myself, he put into my hands the following: "_memorandum from the colonial secretary to the captain of the port._ "dr. field, an american gentleman, introduced here by sir clare ford, is now staying at the royal hotel, and leaving friday evening by the steamer for algiers. "his excellency wishes every attention to be shown him: so you will send a boarding officer to-morrow at 6â p.m., and ask him at what hour he desires to leave from waterport, and have a launch ready for him: the boarding officer making all arrangements for dr. field and his friends passing through the gates. gifford." on the back of the above order was written in red ink, in very large letters: "boarding officer: _comply with his excellency's wishes_. "g. b. bassadone, "for the captain of the port." this was the first time in my life that i had been waited upon for orders! having this greatness thrust upon me, i did not betray my unfamiliarity with such things by any light and trivial conduct, but kept my dignity with a sober face, and graciously announced my sovereign pleasure to depart the following evening at eight o'clock. this was really a great convenience, as it gave me a few hours more on shore, whereas otherwise i must leave before sunset, when the gates are shut, not to be opened till morning. appreciating not only the courtesy, but the distinction, i invited an american party at the hotel to keep me company. but they had already made their arrangements, and went off ingloriously before "gun-fire"; while his republican highness took his dinner quietly, and awaited the coming of his escort. one young lady, however, (a cousin of mr. joseph h. choate, of new york, my friend and neighbor at our summer homes in the berkshire hills,) stood by me, and at eight o'clock in the evening we walked down waterport street, attended by two stalwart defenders. the street was strangely silent, for as the outsiders leave at sunset when the gates are closed, the town is very quiet. it was dark as we approached the first gate, which had been shut hours before; but the guard, having "received orders," instantly appeared to unlock it, a form which was repeated at the second line of fortifications. at the quay we found the launch ready, with steam up, and as we took our places in the stern of the boat, on the cushioned seat provided for distinguished guests, i felt as if i were a lord high admiral. it was a beautiful night. the moon was up, though half hidden by clouds, from which now and then she burst forth, covering the bay with a flood of light. at that moment--stern puritan as i am, and impassible as my friends know me to be--if i had been put upon my oath, or my honor, i should have been compelled to confess, that to be floating over a moonlit sea, with a fair countrywoman at my side, was not altogether the most miserable position in which i have ever been placed in my wanderings up and down in this world. once on the deck, the whole broadside of the rock was before us, with the lights glimmering far up and down the heights. at half-past nine the last gun was fired, and in another half hour the lights in the barracks were put out, and all was dark and still. it was midnight when the steamer began to move. the moon had now flung off her misty veil, and risen to the zenith, where she hung over the very crest of the rock, her soft light falling on every projecting crag. the ship itself seemed to feel the holy stillness of the night, and glided like a phantom-ship, almost without a sound, over the unruffled sea. as we crept past the long line of batteries, the great fortress, with its hundreds of guns, was silent; the lion was sleeping, with all his thunders muffled in his rocky breast. thus our last glimpse of gibraltar was a vision not of war, but of peace, as we rounded europa point and set our faces toward africa. [illustration: europa point.] [footnotes] [1] the exact figures of this armstrong gun are: weight, 101.2 tons. length, 32.65 feet. length of bore, 30.25 feet. diameter of bore, 17.72 inches. length of charge of powder, 5 feet. weight of charge, 450 pounds. weight of shot, 2,000 pounds. velocity at the muzzle, 1,548 feet per second. at such velocity, a ball of such weight would have a "smashing effect" of 33.230 "foot-tons," and would penetrate 24.9 inches of wrought iron. range, when fired at the highest elevation, over 8 miles. [2] a letter received from sir charles wilson, who was in the column that crossed the desert, and who went up the nile and arrived in sight of khartoum only to learn that the city had fallen and gordon been killed, speaks warmly of both these officers, his old companions in arms. he says: "general earle, who was killed at kirbekan, was a regimental officer in the guards, and had been on the staff in canada and india--in both cases, i think, as military secretary to the viceroy. he was much beloved by every one. colonel earle, who commanded the south staffordshire regiment, was also killed at kirbekan. he originally rose from the ranks, and was looked upon as one of the best regimental officers up the nile. [3] war services of general officers, in hart's annual army list for 1882. [4] the above outline is derived chiefly from chalmers' biographical dictionary, a work in thirty-two octavo volumes, published in london more than seventy years ago (in 1814). i have sought for fuller information from other sources, but without result. the "encyclopã¦dia britannica," in its article on gibraltar refers to a "life of eliott," but i have not been able to find it either in the united states or in england. after a fruitless search in the astor library, with the aid of the librarian, i cabled twice to london, the second time directing that search be made in the british museum, but received reply that the book could not be found. the american consul at gibraltar writes me that he cannot find it there. can it be possible that there is not in existence any full and authentic record of one of the greatest heroes that england has produced? has such a man no place in english history except to furnish the subject of an article in a biographical dictionary? [5] the incidents so briefly told in the following sketch are derived chiefly from "a history of the siege of gibraltar," by john drinkwater, a captain in the 72d regiment, which formed part of the garrison, and who was therefore a witness and an actor in the scenes he describes. his narrative, though written in the plain style of a soldier, yet being "compiled from observations daily noted down upon the spot," is invaluable as a minute and faithful record of one of the greatest events in modern war. [6] sayer's history of gibraltar, pp. 297, 298. [7] sayer's history of gibraltar, pp. 346, 347. [8] drinkwater, p. 68. [9] it is a common saying that the brave are generous, but this is not always so. some of the bravest men that ever lived have been cold-hearted and cruel. but eliott, though he had an iron frame and iron will, was as soft-hearted as a woman. nothing roused his indignation more than an act of inhumanity on the part of a superior toward an inferior. hence he was the protector not only of women and children, but of prisoners who fell into his hands, and who might otherwise be exposed to the license of soldiers demoralized by victory. he repressed all pillage and stood between the victors and the vanquished, as the defender of the defenceless. so noted was he for his humanity that those who were in trouble sought his protection, and his response to their appeals sometimes took them by surprise. an amusing illustration of this occurred some years before at the capture of havana: a frenchman who had suffered greatly by the depredations of the soldiery, came to him, and begged in bad english that he would interfere to have his property restored. but his wife, who was a woman of high spirit, was angry at her husband that he should ask any favor of an enemy, and turned to him sharply, saying, "comment pouvez vous demander de grace ã  un homme qui vient vous dã©pouiller? n'en esperez pas." the husband persisting in his application, the wife grew more loud in her censure, and said, "vous n'ã©tes pas franã§ais!" the general, who was busy writing at the time, overheard the conversation, and as he spoke french perfectly, turned to the woman, and said smiling, "madame, ne vous ã©chauffez pas; ce que votre mari demande lui sera accordã©." at this she broke out again, as if it were the last degree of indignity, that the englishman should speak french: "oh, faut-il pour surcroit de malheur, que le barbare parle franã§ais!" the general was so much pleased with the woman's spirit that he not only procured them their property again, but also took pains to accommodate them in every respect.--_chalmers' biographical dictionary._ [10] sayer's history, p. 365. [11] "the shot were heated either in the grates and furnaces made for that purpose, or by piling them in a corner of some old house adjoining the batteries, and surrounding them with faggots, pieces of timber, and small coal." afterwards "the engineers erected kilns (similar to those used in burning lime, but smaller) in various parts of the garrison. they were large enough to heat upwards of one hundred balls in an hour and a quarter."--_drinkwater._ [12] a few months after i left gibraltar, the old arab was set at liberty by the british government, but on very strict conditions. a letter from the american consul, in reply to my questions, says: "zebehr pasha was released augustâ 3, 1887, on signing a certain document sent from the home government relative to his future conduct. this was an engagement 'to remain in the place which should be chosen by the egyptian government; to place himself under its surveillance; and to abstain from interference in political or military questions relating to the soudan or otherwise.' this he signed in the presence of two british staff officers. he had arrived in gibraltar in march, 1885, and from that time had been a prisoner in the governor's cottage for about two years and a half, under charge at different times of several officers of the garrison. he left gibraltar augustâ 16th, for port said, accompanied by his household, which included two women and three men, and was attended by three male and two female servants. he also took back to his african home an infant born in the governor's cottage at europa." [transcriber's notes the following modifications have been made, page vii: â».â« changed to â»,â« (memories of a country and people, this modern fortress) page 3: â».â« added (is free to all the commerce of the world.) page 32: â»'â« changed to â»"â« (set the wild echoes flying!")] [illustration: _london printed for w. chetwood at cato's head in russel street covent garden_] the revolutions of _portugal_. written in _french_ by the abbot _de vertot_, of the royal academy of inscriptions. done into _english_ from the last _french_ edition. _o think what anxious moments pass between the birth of plots, and their last fatal periods! oh! 'tis a dreadful interval of time, fill'd up with horror all, and big with death! destruction hangs on ev'ry word we speak, on ev'ry thought, till the concluding stroke determines all, and closes our design._ addison's cato. _london_, printed for william chetwood, at _cato_'s _head_, in _russel-street, covent-garden_. m.dcc.xxi. [illustration] to his grace _philip_ duke of _wharton_. _may it please your grace_; i am not ignorant of the censure i lay my-self open to, in offering so incorrect a work to a person of your grace's judgment; and could not have had assurance to do it, if i was unacquainted with your grace's goodness. as this is not the first time of this excellent author's appearing in _english_, my undertaking must expose me to abundance of cavil and criticism; and i see my-self reduced to the necessity of applying to a patron who is able to protect me. our modern dedications are meer daub and flattery; but 'tis for those who deserve no better: your grace cannot be flatter'd; every body that knows the duke of wharton, will say there is no praising him, as there is no loving him more than he deserves. but like other great minds, your grace may be blind to your own merit, and imagine i am complimenting, or doing something worse, whilst i am only giving your just character; for which reason, however fond i am of so noble a theme, i shall decline attempting it. only this i must beg leave to say, your grace can't be enough admir'd for the universal learning which you are master of, for your judgment in discerning, your indulgence in excusing, for the great stedfastness of your soul, for your contempt of power and grandeur, your love for your country, your passion for liberty, and (which is the best characteristick) your desire of doing good to mankind. i can hardly leave so agreeable a subject, but i cannot say more than all the world knows already. your grace's illustrious father has left a name behind him as glorious as any person of the age: it is unnecessary to enter into the particulars of his character; to mention his name, is the greatest panegyrick: immediately to succeed that great man, must have been extremely to the disadvantage of any other person, but it is far from being so to your grace; it makes your virtues but the more conspicuous, and convinces us the nation is not without one man worthy of being his successor. i have nothing more to trouble your grace with, than only to wish you the honours you so well deserve, and to beg you would excuse my presuming to honour my-self with the title of, _may it please your grace, your grace's most obedient, humble servant_, gabriel roussillon. [illustration] preface. _amongst the historians of the present age, none has more justly deserv'd, neither has any acquir'd a greater reputation than the abbot ~de vertot~; not only by this piece, but also by the ~revolutions of~ sweden ~and of~ rome, which he has since publish'd._ _this small history he has extracted from the[a] writings of several ~french~, ~spanish~, ~portuguese~, and ~italian~ authors, as well as from the testimony of many persons, who were in ~lisbon~ at the time of the revolution. and i believe that it will be no difficult matter to persuade the reader, that this little volume is written with much more politeness and fidelity than any which has been publish'd on this subject._ _and indeed there could be no man fitter to undertake the work than monsieur ~de vertot~; not only as he was master of an excellent style, and had all the opportunities imaginable of informing himself of the truth, but also as he could have no interest in speaking partially of either the one or the other party; and therefore might say much more justly than ~salust, de conjuratione, quam verissime potero, paucis absolvam; eoque magis, quod mihi a spe, metu, partibus reipublicæ animus liber est~._ _would i undertake to prove the impartiality of my author, i could easily do it from several little circumstances of his history. does he not tell us, that the inquisition is oftner a terror to honest men than to rogues? does he not paint the archbishop of ~braga~ in all the colours of a traitor? and i am fully persuaded, that if a churchman will own and discover the frailties, or rather the enormities of those of his own cloth, he will tell them in any thing else, and is worthy of being believed._ _there are several passages in the following sheets, which really deserve our attention; we shall see a nation involv'd in woe and ruin, and all their miseries proceeding from the bigotry and superstition of their monarch, whose zeal hurries him to inevitable destruction, and whose piety makes him sacrifice the lives of ~13000~ christians, without so much as having the satisfaction of converting one obstinate infidel._ _such was the fate of the rash don ~sebastian~, who seem'd born to be the blessing of his people, and terror of his foes; who would have made a just, a wise, a truly pious monarch, had not his education been entrusted to a jesuit. nor is he the only unfortunate prince, who, govern'd by intriguing and insinuating churchmen, have prov'd the ruin of their kingdom, and in the end lost both their crown and life._ _we shall see a people, who, no longer able to bear a heavy yoke, resolve to shake it off, and venture their lives and their fortunes for their liberty: a conspiracy prevail, (if an intent to revolt from an usurping tyrant may be call'd a conspiracy) in which so many persons, whose age, quality and interest were very different, are engag'd; and by the courage and publick spirit of a few, a happy and glorious revolution brought about._ _but scarce is the new king settled upon his throne, and endeavouring to confirm his authority abroad, when a horrid conspiracy is forming against him at home; we shall see a prelate at the head of the traitors, who, tho a bigotted churchman, makes no scruple of borrowing the assistance of the most profess'd enemies of the church to deliver her out of danger, and to assassinate his lawful king: but the whole plot is happily discover'd, and those who were engaged in it meet with the just reward of treason and rebellion, the block and gallows. nor is it the first time that our own nation has seen an archbishop doing king and country all the harm he could._ _after the death of her husband, we see a queen of an extraordinary genius, and uncommon courage, taking the regency upon her; and tho at first oppress'd with a load of misfortunes, rises against them all, and in the end triumphs over her enemies._ _under the next reign we see the kingdom almost invaded by the antient usurper, and sav'd only by the skill of a wife and brave general, who had much ado to keep the foes out, whilst the people were divided at home, and loudly complain'd of the riots and debaucheries of their monarch, and the tyrannick conduct of his minister. but we find how impossible a thing it is, that so violent a government should last long; his brother, a prince whose virtues were as famous, as the other's vices were odious, to preserve the crown in their family, is forced to depose him, and take the government upon himself: ~ita imperium semper ad optumum quemq; ab minus bono transfertur~._ [illustration] the revolution of _portugal_. portugal is part of that vast tract of land, known by the name of _iberia_ or _spain_, most of whose provinces are call'd kingdoms. it is bounded on the west by the ocean, on the east by _castile_. its length is about a hundred and ten leagues, and its breadth in the very broadest part does not exceed fifty. the soil is fruitful, the air wholesome; and tho under such a climate we might expect excessive heats, yet here we always find them allay'd with cooling breezes or refreshing rains. its crown is hereditary, the king's power despotick, nor is the grand inquisition the most useless means of preserving this absolute authority. the _portuguese_ are by nature proud and haughty, very zealous, but rather superstitious than religious; the most natural events will amongst them pass for miracles, and they are firmly persuaded that heaven is always contriving something or other for their good. who the first inhabitants of this country were, is not known, their own historians indeed tell us that they are sprung from _tubal_; for my part, i believe them descended from the _romans_ and _carthaginians_, who long contended for those provinces, and who were both at sundry times in actual possession of them. about the beginning of the fifth century, the _swedes_, the _vandals_, and all those other barbarous nations, generally known by the name of _goths_, over-run the empire; and, amongst other places, made themselves masters of the provinces of _spain_. _portugal_ was then made a kingdom, and was sometimes govern'd by its own prince, at other times it was reckon'd part of the dominions of the king of _castile_. [sidenote: 712.] about the beginning of the eighth century, during the reign of _roderick_, the last king of the _goths_, the _moors_, or rather the _arabians_, _valid almanzor_ being their caliph, enter'd _spain_. they were received and assisted by _julian_, an _italian_ nobleman, who made the conquest of those places easy, which might otherwise have proved difficult, not out of any affection to the _arabians_, but from a desire of revenging himself on _roderick_, who had debauched his daughter. [sidenote: 717.] the _arabians_ soon made themselves masters of all the country between the streights of _gibraltar_ and the _pyrenees_, excepting the mountains of _asturia_; where the christians, commanded by prince _pelagus_, fled, who founded the kingdom _oviedo_ or _leon_. _portugal_, with the rest of _spain_, became subject to the infidels. in each respective province, governours were appointed, who after the death of _almanzor_ revolted from his successor, made themselves independent of any other power, and took the title of sovereign princes. they were driven out of _portugal_ about the beginning of the twelfth century, by _henry_ count of _burgundy_, son to _robert_ king of _france_. this prince, full of the same zeal which excited so many others to engage in a holy war, went into _spain_ on purpose to attack the infidels; and such courage, such conduct did he show, that _alphonso_ vi. king of _castile_ and _leon_, made him general of his army: and afterwards, that he might for ever engage so brave a soldier, he married him to one of his daughters, named _teresia_, and gave him all those places from which he had driven the _moors_. the count, by new conquests, extended his dominions, and founded the kingdom of _portugal_, but never gave himself the royal title. [sidenote: 1139.] _alphonso_, his son, did not only inherit his father's dominions, but his virtues also; and not content with what the count his father had left him, he vigorously carried on the war, and encreas'd his territories. having obtained a signal victory over the _arabians_, his soldiers unanimously proclaimed him king; which title his successors have ever since borne. and now this family had sway'd the scepter of _portugal_ for almost the space of five hundred years, when don _sebastian_ came to the crown; he was the posthumous son of don _john_, who died some time before his father, don _john_ iii. son of the renowned king _emanuel_. [sidenote: 1557.] don _sebastian_ was not above three years of age when the old king died; his grandmother _catherine_, of the house of _austria_, daughter to _philip_ i. king of _castile_, and sister to the emperor _charles_ v. was made regent of _portugal_ during his minority. don _alexis de menezes_, a nobleman noted for his singular piety, was appointed governour to the young king, and don _lewis de camara_, a jesuit, was named for his tutor. from such teachers as these, what might not be expected? they filled his mind with sentiments of honour, and his soul with devotion. but, (which may at first appear strange or impossible) these notions were too often, and too strongly inculcated in him. _menezes_ was always telling the young prince what victories his predecessors had obtain'd over the _moors_ in the _indies_, and in almost every part of _africa_. on the other hand, the jesuit was perpetually teaching him, that the crown of kings was the immediate gift of _god_, and that therefore the chiefest duty of a prince was to propagate the holy gospel, and to have the word of the _lord_ preached to those nations, who had never heard of the name of _christ_. these different ideas of honour and religion made a deep impression on the heart of don _sebastian_, who was naturally pious. scarce therefore had he taken the government of _portugal_ upon himself, but he thought of transporting an army into _africa_; and to that end he often conferr'd with his officers, but oftener with his missionaries and other ecclesiasticks. a civil war breaking out about this time in _morocco_, seem'd very much to favour his design. the occasion was this: _muley mahomet_ had caus'd himself to be proclaim'd king of _morocco_ after the death of _abdalla_, his father; _muley moluc_, _abdalla_'s brother, opposed him, objecting that he had ascended the throne contrary to the law of the cherifs, by which it is ordained, that the crown shall devolve to the king's brethren, if he has any, and his sons be excluded the succession. this occasion'd a bloody war between the uncle and the nephew; but _muley moluc_, who was as brave a soldier as he was a wise commander, defeated _mahomet_'s army in three pitch'd battles, and drove him out of _africa_. the exil'd prince fled for refuge to the court of _portugal_, and finding access to don _sebastian_, told him, that notwithstanding his misfortunes, there were still a considerable number of his subjects, who were loyal in their hearts, and wanted only an opportunity of declaring themselves in his favour. that besides this, he was very well assured that _moluc_ was afflicted with a lingring disease, which prey'd upon his vitals; that _hamet_, _moluc_'s brother, was not belov'd by the people; that therefore if don _sebastian_ would but send him with a small army into _africa_, so many of his subjects would come over to him, that he did not in the least question but that he should soon re-establish himself in his father's dominions: which, if he did recover by these means, the kingdom should become tributary to the crown of _portugal_; nay, that he would much rather have don _sebastian_ himself fill the throne of _morocco_, than see it in possession of the present usurper. don _sebastian_, who was ever entertaining himself with the ideas of future conquests, thought this opportunity of planting the christian religion in _morocco_ was not to be neglected; and therefore promis'd the _moorish_ king not only his assistance, but rashly engaged himself in the expedition, giving out that he intended to command the army in person. the wisest of his counsellors in vain endeavour'd to dissuade him from the dangerous design. his zeal, his courage, an inconsiderate rashness, the common fault of youth, as well as some flatterers, the bane of royalty, and destruction of princes, all prompted him to continue fixed in his resolution, and persuaded him that he needed only appear in _africa_ to overcome, and that his conquests would be both easy and glorious. to this end he embarked with an army of thirteen thousand men, with which he was to drive a powerful prince out of his own dominions. _moluc_ had timely notice given him of the _portuguese_ expedition, and of their landing in _africa_; he had put himself at the head of forty thousand horsemen, all disciplin'd soldiers, and who were not so much to be dreaded for their number and courage, as they were for the conduct of their general. his infantry he did not at all value himself upon, not having above ten thousand regular men; there was indeed a vast number of the militia, and others of the people who came pouring down to his assistance, but these he justly look'd upon as men who were rather come to plunder than to fight, and who would at any time side with the conqueror. several skirmishes were fought, but _moluc_'s officers had private orders still to fly before the foe, hoping thereby to make the _portuguese_ leave the shore, where they had intrench'd themselves. this stratagem had its desir'd effect; for don _sebastian_ observing that the _moors_ still fled before him, order'd his army to leave their intrenchments, and marched against the foe as to a certain victory. _moluc_ made his army retire, as if he did not dare to fight a decisive battle; nay, sent messengers to don _sebastian_, who pretended they were order'd to treat of peace. the king of _portugal_ immediately concluded, that his adversary was doubtful of the success of the war, and that 'twould be an easier matter to overcome _moluc_'s army, than to join them; he therefore indefatigably pursued them. but the _moor_ had no sooner drawn him far enough from the shore, and made it impossible for him to retire to his fleet, but he halted, faced the _portuguese_, and put his army in battalia; the horse making a half circle, with intent, as soon as they engaged, to surround the enemy on every side. _moluc_ made _hamet_, his brother and successor, commander in chief of the cavalry; but as he doubted his courage, he came up to him a little before the engagement, told him that he must either conquer or die, and that should he prove coward enough to turn his back upon the foe, he would strangle him with his own hand. the reason why _moluc_ did not command the army himself, was, that he was sensible of the increase of his lingring disease, and found that in all probability this day would be his last, and therefore resolved to make it the most glorious of his life. he put his army, as i said before, in battalia himself, and gave all the necessary orders with as much presence of mind, as if he had enjoy'd the greatest health. he went farther than this; for foreseeing what a sudden damp the news of his death might cast upon the courage of his soldiers, he order'd the officers that were about him, that if during the heat of the battle he should die, they should carefully conceal it, and that even after his death, his _aides de camp_ should come up to his litter, as if to receive fresh orders. after this he was carried from rank to rank, where he exhorted his soldiers to fight bravely for the defence of their religion and their country. but now the combat began, and the great artillery being discharg'd, the armies join'd. the _portuguese_ infantry soon routed the _moorish_ foot-soldiers, who, as was before mention'd, were raw and undisciplin'd; the duke _d'aviedo_ engaged with a parry of horse so happily, that they gave ground, and retir'd to the very center of the army, where the king was. enraged at so unexpected a sight, notwithstanding what his officers could say or do, he threw himself out of his litter; sword in hand he clear'd himself a passage, rallied his flying soldiers, and led them back himself to the engagement. but this action quite exhausting his remaining strength and spirits, he fainted; his officers put him into his litter, where he just recover'd strength enough to put his finger upon his mouth once more, to enjoin secrecy, then died before they could convey him back to his tent. his commands were obey'd, and the news of his death conceal'd. [sidenote: _aug. 4. 1578._] hitherto the christians seem'd to have the advantage, but the _moorish_ horse advancing at last, hemm'd in _sebastian_'s whole army, and attack'd them on every side. the cavalry was drove back upon their infantry, whom they trampled under foot, and spread every where amongst their own soldiers, disorder, fear, and confusion. the infidels seiz'd upon this advantage, and sword in hand fell upon the conquer'd troops; a dreadful slaughter ensu'd, some on their knees begg'd for quarter, others thought to save themselves by flight, but being surrounded by their foes, met their fate in another place. the rash don _sebastian_ himself was slain, but whether he fell amidst the horror and confusion of the battle, not being known by the _moors_, or whether he was resolv'd not to survive the loss of so many of his subjects, whom he had led on to a field of slaughter, is doubtful. _muley mahomet_ got off, but passing the river _mucazen_, was drown'd. thus perish'd, in one fatal day, three heroick princes. the cardinal, don henry, great uncle to don _sebastian_, succeeded him; he was brother to _john_ iii. the late king's grandfather, and son to _emanuel_. during his reign, his pretended heirs made all the interest they could in the court of _portugal_, being well assur'd that the present king, who was weak and sickly, and sixty-seven years old, could not be long-liv'd; nor could he marry, and leave children behind him, for he was a cardinal, and in priest's orders. the succession was claim'd by _philip_ ii. king of _spain_; _catherine_ of _portugal_, espous'd to don _james_, duke of _braganza_; by the duke of _savoy_; the duke of _parma_; and by _antonio_, grand prior of _crete_: they all publish'd their respective manifesto's, in which every one declar'd their pretensions to the crown. _philip_ was son to the infanta _isabella_, eldest daughter of king _emanuel_. the dutchess of _braganza_ was granddaughter to the same king _emanuel_, by _edward_ his second son. the duke of _savoy_'s mother was the princess _beatrix_, a younger sister of the empress _isabella_. the duke of _parma_ was son to _mary_ of _portugal_, the second daughter of prince _edward_, and sister to the dutchess of _braganza_. don _lewis_, duke of _beja_, was second son to king _emanuel_ by _violenta_, the finest lady of that age, whom he had debauch'd, but whom the grand prior pretended to have been privately married to that prince. _catherine de medicis_, amongst the rest, made her claim, as being descended from _alphonso_ iii. king of _portugal_, and _maud_ countess of _bolonia_. the _pope_ too put in his claim; he would have it, that after the reign of the _cardinal_, _portugal_ must be look'd upon as a fat living in his gift, and to which, like many a modern patron, he would willingly have presented himself. but notwithstanding all their pretensions, it plainly appear'd that the succession belong'd either to _philip_ king of _spain_, or to the dutchess of _braganza_, a lady of an extraordinary merit, and belov'd by the whole nation. the duke, her spouse, was descended, tho not in a direct line, from the royal blood, and she herself was sprung from prince _edward_; whereas the king of _spain_ was son to _edward_'s sister: besides, by the fundamental laws of the kingdom, all strangers were excluded the succession. this _philip_ own'd, since thereby the pretensions of _savoy_ and _parma_ vanish'd; but he would by no means acknowledge himself a stranger in _portugal_, which he said had often been part of the dominions of the king of _castile_. each had their several parties at court, and the _cardinal_ king was daily press'd to decide the difference, but always evaded it; he could not bear to hear of his successors, and would willingly have liv'd to have bury'd all his pretended heirs: however, his reign lasted but 17 months, and by his death _portugal_ became the unhappy theatre of civil wars. [sidenote: 1580.] by his last will he had order'd, that a juncto, or assembly of the states, should be call'd, to settle the succession; but king _philip_ not caring to wait for their decision, sent a powerful army into _portugal_, commanded by the duke of _alba_, which ended the dispute, and put _philip_ in possession of that kingdom. [sidenote: 1581.] we cannot find that the duke of _braganza_ us'd any endeavours to assert his right by force of arms. the grand prior indeed did all he could to oppose the _castilians_; the mob had proclaim'd him king, and he took the title upon him, as if it had been given by the states of _portugal_: and his friends rais'd some forces for him, but they were soon cut in pieces by the duke of _alba_, than whom _spain_ could not have chosen a better general. as much as the _portuguese_ hate the _castilians_, yet could they not keep them out, being disunited among themselves, and having no general, nor any regular troops on foot. most of the towns, for fear of being plunder'd, capitulated, and made each their several treaty; so that in a short time _philip_ was acknowledg'd their lawful sovereign by the whole nation, as being next heir male to his great uncle, the late king: of such wondrous use is open force to support a bad cause! after him reign'd his son and grandson, _philip_ iii. and iv. who us'd the _portuguese_ not like subjects, but like a conquer'd people; and the kingdom of _portugal_ saw itself dwindle into a province of _spain_, and so weaken'd, that there was no hope left of recovering their liberty: their noblemen durst not appear in an equipage suitable to their birth, for fear of making the _spanish_ ministers jealous of their greatness or riches; the gentry were confin'd to their country-seats, and the people oppress'd with taxes. the duke of _olivarez_, who was then first minister to _philip_ iv. king of _spain_, was firmly persuaded, that all means were to be us'd to exhaust this new conquest; he was sensible of the natural antipathy of the _portuguese_ and _castilians_, and thought that the former could never calmly behold their chief posts fill'd with strangers, or at best with _portuguese_ of a _plebeian_ extraction, who had nothing else to recommend 'em but their zeal for the service of _spain_. he thought therefore, that the surest way of establishing king _philip_'s power, was to remove the nobility of _portugal_ from all places of trust, and so to impoverish the people, that they should never be capable of attempting to shake off the _spanish_ yoke. besides this, he employ'd the _portuguese_ youth in foreign wars, resolving to drain the kingdom of all those who were capable of bearing arms. as politick as this conduct of _olivarez_ might appear, yet did he miss his aim; for carrying his cruelty to too high a pitch, at a time when the court of _spain_ was in distress, and seeming rather to plunder an enemy's country, than levying taxes from the _portuguese_, who daily saw their miseries encrease, and be the consequence of their attempt what it would, they could never fare worse; unanimously resolv'd to free themselves from the intolerable tyranny of spain. [sidenote: 1640.] _margaret of savoy_, dutchess of _mantua_, was then in _portugal_, where she had the title of vice-queen, but was very far from having the power. _miguel vasconcellos_, a _portuguese_ by birth, but attach'd to the _spanish_ interest, had the name of secretary of state, but was indeed an absolute and independent minister, and dispatch'd, without the knowledge of the vice-queen, all the secret business; his orders he receiv'd directly from _d'olivarez_, whose creature he was, and who found him absolutely necessary for extorting vast sums of money from the _portuguese_. he was so deeply learn'd in the art of intriguing, that he could perpetually make the nobility jealous of one another, then would he foment their divisions, and encrease their animosities, whereby the _spanish_ government became every day more absolute; for the duke was assur'd, that whilst the grandees were engag'd in private quarrels, they would never think of the common cause. the duke of _braganza_ was the only man in all _portugal_, of whom the _spaniards_ were now jealous. his humour was agreeable, and the chief thing he consulted was his ease. he was a man rather of sound sense, than quick wit. he could easily make himself master of any business to which he apply'd his mind, but then he never car'd much for the trouble on't. don _theodosius_, duke of _braganza_, his father, was of a fiery and passionate temper, and had taken care to infuse in his son's mind an hereditary aversion to the _spaniards_, who had usurp'd a crown, that of right belonged to him; to swell his mind with the ambition of repossessing himself of a throne, which his ancestors had been unjustly depriv'd of; and to fill his soul with all the courage that would be necessary for the carrying on of so great a design. nor was this prince's care wholly lost; don _john_ had imbib'd as much of the sentiments of his father as were consistent with so mild and easy a temper. he abhorr'd the _spaniards_, yet was not at all uneasy at his incapacity of revenging himself. he entertain'd hopes of ascending the throne of _portugal_, yet did he not shew the least impatience, as duke _theodosius_, his father, had done, but contented himself with a distant prospect of a crown; nor would for an uncertainty venture the quiet of his life, and a fortune which was already greater than what was well consistent with the condition of a subject. had he been precisely what duke _theodosius_ wish'd him, he had never been fit for the great design; for _d'olivarez_ had him observ'd so strictly, that had his easy and pleasant manner of living proceeded from any other cause but a natural inclination, it had certainly been discover'd, and the discovery had prov'd fatal both to his life and fortune: at least the court of _spain_ would never have suffer'd him to live in so splendid a manner in the very heart of his country. had he been the most refin'd politician, he could never have liv'd in a manner less capable of giving suspicion. his birth, his riches, his title to the crown, were not criminal in themselves, but became so by the law of policy. this he was very sensible of, and therefore chose this way of living, prompted to it as well by nature as by reason. it would have been a crime to be formidable, he must therefore take care not to appear so: at _villa-viciosa_, the seat of the dukes of _braganza_, nothing was thought of but hunting-matches, and other rural diversions; the brightness of his parts could not in the least make the _spaniards_ apprehend any bold undertaking, but the solidity of his understanding made the _portuguese_ promise themselves the enjoyment of a mild and easy king, provided they would undertake to raise him to the throne. but an accident soon after happen'd, which very much alarm'd _olivarez_. some new taxes being laid upon the people of _evora_, which they were not able to pay, reduc'd 'em to despair; upon which they rose in a tumultuous manner, loudly exclaiming against the _spanish_ tyranny, and declaring themselves in favour of the house of _braganza_. then, but too late, the court of _spain_ began to be sensible of their error, in leaving so rich and powerful a prince in the heart of a kingdom so lately subdued, and to whose crown he had such legal pretensions. this made the council of _spain_ immediately determine, that it was necessary to secure the duke of _braganza_, or at best not to let him make any longer stay in _portugal_. to this end they nam'd him governour of _milan_, which government he refus'd, alledging the weakness of his constitution for an excuse: besides, he said he was wholly unacquainted with the affairs of _italy_, and by consequence not capable of acquitting himself in so weighty a post. * * * * * [sidenote: 1640.] the duke _d'olivarez_, seem'd to approve of the excuse, and therefore began to think of some new expedient to draw him to court. the king's marching at the head of his army to the frontiers of _arragon_, to suppress the rebelling _catalonians_, was a very good pretence; he wrote to the duke of _braganza_, "to come at the head of the _portuguese_ nobility to serve the king in an expedition, which could not but be glorious, since his majesty commanded it in person." the duke, who had no great relish for any favour confer'd by the court of _spain_, excus'd himself, upon pretence that "his birth would oblige him to be at a much greater expence than what he was at present able to support." this second refusal alarm'd _d'olivarez_. notwithstanding don _john_'s easy temper, he began to be afraid that the _evorians_ had made an impression upon his thoughts, by reminding him of his right to the throne. it was dangerous to leave him any longer in his country, and equally dangerous to hurry him out of it by force; so great a love had the _portuguese_ ever bore to the house of _braganza_, so great a respect did they bear to this duke in particular. he must therefore treacherously be drawn into _spain_, nor could any properer means be thought of, for compassing this end, than by shewing him all the seeming tokens of an unfeigned friendship. _france_ and _spain_ were at that time engag'd in war, and the _french_ fleet had been seen off the coasts of _portugal_. this gave the _spanish_ minister a fair opportunity of accomplishing his ends; for it was necessary to have an army on foot, under the command of some brave general, to hinder the _french_ from making a descent, or landing any where in _portugal_. the commission was sent to the duke of _braganza_, with an absolute authority over all the towns and garisons, as well as a power over the maritime forces; in short, so unlimited was the command given him, that the minister seem'd blindly to have deliver'd all _portugal_ into his power: but this was only the better to colour his design. don _lopez ozorio_, the _spanish_ admiral, had private orders sent him, that as soon as don _john_ should visit any of the ports, he should put in, as if drove by stress of weather; then artfully invite the general aboard, immediately hoist sail, and with all possible expedition bring him into _spain_. but propitious fortune seem'd to have taken him into her protection; a violent storm arose, which dispers'd the _spanish_ fleet, part of which suffer'd shipwreck, and the rest were so shatter'd, that they could not make _portugal_. this ill success did not in the least discourage _olivarez_, or make him drop his project; he attributed the escape of the duke of _braganza_ to meer chance: he wrote him a letter, full of expressions of friendship, and as if he had with him shar'd the government of the whole kingdom, wherein he deplor'd the loss of the fleet, and told him, that the king now expected that he would carefully review all the ports and their respective fortifications, seeing that the fleet, which was to defend the coasts of _portugal_ from the insults of the _french_, had miserably perish'd. and that his villany might not be suspected, he return'd him forty thousand ducats to defray his expences, and to raise more troops, in case there should be a necessity of them. at the same time he sent private orders to all the governours of forts and citadels, (the greatest part whereof were _spaniards_) that if they should find a favourable occasion of securing the duke of _braganza_, they should do it, and forthwith convey him into _spain_. this entire confidence which was repos'd in him, alarm'd the duke; he plainly saw that there was treachery intended, and therefore thought it just to return the treachery. he wrote an answer to _olivarez_, wherein he told him, that with joy he accepted the honour which the king had confer'd upon him, in naming him his general, and promis'd so to discharge the important trust, as to deserve the continuation of his majesty's favour. but now the duke began to have a nearer prospect of the throne; nor did he neglect this opportunity of putting some of his friends into places of trust, that they might be the more able to serve him upon occasion; he also employ'd part of the _spanish_ money in making new creatures, and confirming those in his interest whom he had already made. and as he partly mistrusted the _spaniards_ design, he never visited any fort, but he was surrounded by such a number of friends, that it was impossible for the governours to execute their orders. mean while the court of _spain_ loudly murmur'd at the trust which was repos'd in don _john_, they were ignorant of the prime minister's aim, and therefore some did not stick to tell the king, that his near alliance to the house of _braganza_ made him overlook his master's interest; seeing that it was the highest imprudence to put so absolute an authority into the hands of one who had such pretensions to the crown, and to entrust the army to the command of one, who in all probability might make the soldiers turn their arms against their lawful sovereign. but the more they complain'd, the better was the king pleas'd, being persuaded that the plot was artfully laid, since no one could unravel the dark design. thus _braganza_ not only had the liberty, but was oblig'd to visit all _portugal_, and by that means laid the foundation of his future fortune. the eyes of the many were every where drawn by his magnificent equipage, all that came to him, he mildly, and with unequal'd goodness heard; the soldiers were not suffer'd to commit the least disorders, and he laid hold of all opportunities of praising the conduct of the officers, and by frequent recompences bestow'd upon them, won their hearts. the nobility were charm'd with his free deportment, he receiv'd every one of them in the most obliging manner, and paid each the respect due to his quality. in short, such was his carriage, that the people began to think there could be no greater happiness for them upon earth, than the restoration of the prince to the throne of his ancestors. mean while his party omitted nothing that they thought might contribute to the establishing of his reputation. amongst others, _pinto ribeiro_, comptroller of his household, particularly distinguish'd himself, and was the first who form'd an exact scheme for the advancement of his master. there was no man more experienc'd in business, who at the same time was so careful, diligent, and watchful: he was firm to the interest of the duke, not doubting but that if he could raise him to the throne, he should raise himself to some considerable post. his master had often privately assur'd him, that he would willingly lay hold of any fair opportunity for his restoration, yet would not rashly declare himself, as a man who had nothing to lose; that notwithstanding he might endeavour to gain the minds of the people, and to make new creatures, yet he must do it with that caution, that it might appear his own work, and done without the consent and knowledge of the duke. _pinto_ had spar'd no pains in discovering who were, and the number of the disaffected, which he daily endeavoured to encrease; he rail'd against the present government sometimes with heat, at other times with caution, always accommodating himself to the humour of the company which he was in: tho indeed so great was the hatred which the _portuguese_ bore the _spaniards_, that there was no need of reserve in complaining of them. he would often remind the nobility what honourable employments their forefathers had borne, when _portugal_ was govern'd by its own kings. then would he mention the summons which had so much exasperated the nobility, and by which they were commanded to attend the king in _catalonia_. _pinto_ us'd to complain of this hardship as of a kind of banishment, from which they would scarce find it possible to return; that the pride of the _spaniards_, who would command them, was insufferable, and the expence they should be at intolerable; that this was only a plausible pretence to drain _portugal_ of its bravest men, that in all their expeditions they might be assur'd of being expos'd where the greatest danger was, but that they must never hope to share the least part of the glory. when he was amongst the merchants and other citizens, he would bewail the misery of his country, which was ruin'd by the injustice of the _spaniard_, who had transfer'd the trade, which _portugal_ carried on with the _indies_, to _cadiz_. then would he remind them of the felicity which the _dutch_ and _catalonians_ enjoy'd, who had shaken off the _spanish_ yoke. as for the clergy, he did not in the least question but that he should engage 'em in his interest, and exasperate 'em most irreconcileably against the _castilians_; he told them, that the immunities and privileges of the church were violated, their orders contemn'd and neglected, and that all the best preferments and fattest livings were possess'd by foreign incumbents. when he was with those, of whose disaffection he was already convinc'd, he would take care to turn his discourse to his master, and talk of his manner of living. he would often complain, that that prince shew'd too little affection for the good of his country, and concern for his own interest; and that at a time when it was in his power to assert his title to the crown, he should seem so regardless of his own right, and lead so idle a life. finding that these insinuations made an impression upon the people, he went still farther: to those who were publick-spirited, he represented what a glorious thing it would be for them to lay the foundations of a revolution, and to deserve the name of _deliverers of their country_. those who had been injur'd and ill-treated by the _spaniards_, he would excite to the desire of revenge; and the ambitious he flatter'd with a prospect of the grandeurs and preferments they might expect from the new king, would they once raise him to the throne. in short, he manag'd every thing with so much art, that being privately assur'd of the unshaken affection of many to his master, he procur'd a meeting of a considerable number of the nobility, with the archbishop of _lisbon_ at the head of them. this prelate was of the house of _acugna_, one of the best families of all _portugal_; he was a man of learning, and an excellent politician, belov'd by the people, but hated by the _spaniards_, and whom he had also just cause to hate, since they had made don _sebastian maltos de norognia_, archbishop of braga, president of the chamber of _opaco_, whom they had all along prefer'd to him, and to whom they had given a great share in the administration of affairs. another of the most considerable members of this assembly, was don _miguel d'almeida_, a venerable old man, and who deserv'd, and had the esteem of every body; he was very publick-spirited, and was not so much griev'd at his own private misfortunes, as at those of his country, whose inhabitants were become the slaves of an usurping tyrant. in these sentiments he had been educated, and to these with undaunted courage and resolution he still adher'd; nor could the entreaties of his relations, nor the repeated advices of his friends, ever make him go to court, or cringe to the _spanish_ ministers. this carriage of his had made them jealous of him. this therefore was the man whom _pinto_ first cast his eyes upon, being well assur'd that he might safely entrust him with the secret; besides which, no one could be more useful in carrying on their design, his interest with the nobility being so great, that he could easily bring over a considerable number of them to his party. there were, besides these two, at this first meeting, don _antonio d'almada_, an intimate friend of the archbishop's, with don _lewis_, his son; don _lewis d'acugna_, nephew to that prelate, and who had married don _antonio d'almada_'s daughter; _mello_ lord _ranger_, don _george_ his brother; _pedro mendoza_; don _rodrigo de saa_, lord-chamberlain: with several other officers of the houshold, whose places were nothing now but empty titles, since _portugal_ had lost her own natural kings. [sidenote: conostagio.] the archbishop, who was naturally a good rhetorician, broke the ice in this assembly; he made an eloquent speech, in which he set forth the many grievances _portugal_ had labour'd under since it had been subject to the domination of _spain_. he reminded them of the number of nobility which _philip_ ii. had butchered to secure his conquest; nor had he been more favourable to the church, witness the famous brief of absolution, which he had obtain'd from the pope for the murder of two thousand priests, or others of religious orders, whom he had barbarously put to death, on no other account but to secure his usurpation: and since that unhappy time the _spaniards_ had not chang'd their inhuman policy; how many had fallen for no other crime but their unshaken love to their country! that none of those who were there present, could call their lives or their estates their own: that the nobility were slighted and remov'd from all places of trust, profit, or power: that the church was fill'd with a scandalous clergy, since _vasconcellos_ had dispos'd of all the livings, and to which he had prefer'd his own creatures only: that the people were oppress'd with excessive taxes, whilst the earth remain'd untill'd for want of hands, their labourers being all sent away by force, for soldiers to _catalonia_: that this last summons for the nobility to attend the king, was only a specious pretence to force them out of their own country, lest their presence might prove an obstacle to some cruel design, which was doubtless on foot: that the mildest fate they could hope for, was a tedious, if not a perpetual banishment; and that whilst they were ill-treated by the _castilians_ abroad, strangers should enjoy their estates, and new colonies take possession of their habitations. he concluded by assuring them, that so great were the miseries of his country, that he would rather chuse to die ten thousand deaths, than be obliged to see the encrease of them; nor would he now entertain one thought of life, did he not hope that so many persons of quality were not met together in vain. this discourse had its desir'd effect, by reminding every one of the many evils which they had suffer'd. each seem'd earnest to give some instance of _vasconcellos_'s cruelty. the estates of some had been unjustly confiscated, whilst others had hereditary places and governments taken from them; some had been long confin'd in prisons thro the jealousy of the _spanish_ ministers, and many bewail'd a father, a brother, or a friend, either detain'd at _madrid_, or sent into _catalonia_ as hostages of the fidelity of their unhappy countrymen. in short, there was not one of those who were engag'd in this publick cause, but what had some private quarrel to revenge: but nothing provoked them more than the _catalonian_ expedition; they plainly saw, that it was not so much the want of their assistance, as the desire of ruining them, which made the _spanish_ minister oblige them to that tedious and expensive voyage. these considerations, join'd to their own private animosities, made 'em unanimously resolve to venture life and fortune, rather than any longer to bear the heavy yoke: but the form of government which they ought to chuse, caus'd a division amongst them. part of the assembly were for making themselves a republick, as _holland_ had lately done; others were for a monarchy, but could not agree upon the choice of a king: some propos'd the duke of _braganza_, some the marquis de _villareal_, and others the duke _d'aviedo_, (all three princes of the royal blood of _portugal_,) according as their different inclinations or interests byass'd them. but the archbishop, who was wholly devoted to the house of _braganza_, assuming the authority of his character, set forth with great strength of reason, that the choice of a government was not in their power; that the oath of allegiance which they had taken to the king of _spain_, could not in conscience be broken, unless it was with a design to restore their rightful sovereign to the throne of his fathers, which every one knew to be the duke of _braganza_; that they must therefore resolve to proclaim him king, or for ever to continue under the tyranny of the _spanish_ usurper. after this, he made 'em consider the power and riches of this prince, as well as the great number of his vassals, on whom depended almost a third part of the kingdom. he shew'd 'em it was impossible for 'em to drive the _spaniards_ out of _portugal_, unless he was at their head: that the only way to engage him, would be by making him an offer of the crown, which they would be under a necessity of doing, altho he was not the first prince of the royal blood. then began he to reckon all those excellent qualities with which he was endow'd, as his wisdom, his prudence; but above all, his affable behaviour, and inimitable goodness. in short, his words prevail'd so well upon every one, that they unanimously declared him their king, and promis'd that they would spare no pains, no endeavours to engage him to enter into their measures: after which, having agreed upon the time and place of a second meeting, to concert the ways and means of bringing this happy revolution about, the assembly broke up. _pinto_ observing how well the minds of the people were dispos'd in favour of his master, wrote privately to him, to acquaint him with the success of the first meeting, and advis'd him to come, as if by chance, to _lisbon_, that by his presence he might encourage the conspirators, and at the same time get some opportunity of conferring with them. this man spent his whole time in negotiating this grand affair, yet did it so artfully, that no one could suspect his having any farther interest in it, than his concern for the publick welfare. he seemingly doubted whether his master would ever enter into their measures, objecting his natural aversion to any undertaking which was hazardous and requir'd application: then would he start some difficulties, which were of no other use but to destroy all suspicion of his having any understanding with his master, and were so far from being weighty enough to discourage them, that they rather serv'd to excite their ardour. upon the advice given by _pinto_, the duke left _villa-viciosa_, and came to _almada_, a castle near _lisbon_, on pretence of visiting it as he had done the other fortifications of that kingdom. his equipage was so magnificent, and he had with him such a number of the nobility and gentry, as well as of officers, that he looked more like a king going to take possession of a kingdom, than like the governour of a province, who was viewing the places and forts under his jurisdiction: he was so near _lisbon_, that he was under an obligation of going to pay his devoirs to the vice-queen. as soon as he enter'd the palace-yard, he found the avenues crowded with infinite numbers of people, who press'd forward to see him pass along; and all the nobility came to wait upon him, and to accompany him to the vice-queen's. it was a general holiday throughout the city, and so great was the joy of the people, that there seem'd only a herald wanting to proclaim him king, or resolution enough in himself to put the crown upon his head. but the duke was too prudent to trust to the uncertain sallies of an inconstant people. he knew what a vast difference there was between their vain shouts, and that steddiness which is necessary to support so great an enterprize. therefore after having paid his respects to the vice-queen, and taken leave of her, he return'd to _almada_, without so much as going to _braganza-house_, or passing thro the city, lest he should encrease the jealousy of the _spaniards_, who already seem'd very uneasy at the affection which the people had so unanimously express'd for the duke. _pinto_ took care to make his friends observe the unnecessary caution which his master us'd, and that therefore they ought not to neglect this opportunity, which his stay at _almada_ afforded them, to wait upon that prince, and to persuade, nay, as tho it were to force him to accept the crown. the conspirators thought the counsel good, and deputed him to the duke to obtain an audience. he granted them one, but upon condition there should come three of the conspirators only, not thinking it safe to explain himself before a greater number. _miguel d'almeida_, _antonio d'almada_, and _pedro mendoza_, were the three persons pitched upon; who coming by night to the prince's, and being introduc'd into his chamber, _d'almada_, who was their spokesman, represented in few words the present unhappy state of _portugal_, whose natives, of what quality or condition soever, had suffer'd so much from the unjust and cruel _castilians_: that the duke himself was as much, if not more expos'd than any other to their treachery; that he was too discerning not to perceive that _d'olivarez_'s aim was his ruin, and that there was no other place of refuge but the throne; for the restoring him to which, he had orders to offer him the services of a considerable number of people of the first quality, who would willingly expose their lives, and sacrifice their fortunes for his sake, and to revenge themselves upon the oppressing _spaniards_. he afterwards told them, that the times of _charles_ v. and _philip_ ii. were no more, when _spain_ held the ballance of _europe_ in her hand, and gave the neighbouring nations laws: that this monarchy, which had been once so formidable, could scarce now preserve its antient territories; that the _french_ and _dutch_ not only wag'd war against them, but often overcame 'em; that _catalonia_ itself employ'd the greatest part of their forces; that they scarce had an army on foot, the treasury was exhausted, and that the kingdom was governed by a weak prince, who was himself sway'd by a minister, abhor'd by the whole nation. he then observ'd what foreign protection and alliances they might depend on, and be assur'd of; most of the princes of _europe_ were profess'd enemies to the house of _austria_; the encouragement _holland_ and _catalonia_ had met with, sufficiently shew'd what might be expected from that able[b] statesman, whose mighty genius seem'd wholly bent upon the destruction of the _spanish_ king; that the sea was now open, and he might have free communication with whom he pleas'd; that there were scarce any _spanish_ garisons left in _portugal_, they having been drawn out to serve in _catalonia_; that there could never be a more favourable opportunity of asserting his right and title to the crown, of securing his life, his fortune, and his liberty, which were at stake, and of delivering his country from slavery and oppression. we may easily imagine, that there was nothing in this speech which could displease the duke of _braganza_; however, unwilling to let them see his heart, he answer'd the deputies in such a manner, as could neither lessen, or encrease their hopes. he told them, that he was but too sensible of the miseries to which _portugal_ was reduc'd by the _castilians_, nor could he think himself secure from their treachery; that he very much commended the zeal which they shew'd for the welfare of their country, and was in an especial manner oblig'd to them for the affection which they bore him in particular; that notwithstanding what they had represented, he fear'd that matters were not ripe for so dangerous an enterprize, whose consequence, should they not bring it to a happy period, would prove so fatal to them all. having return'd this answer, (for a more positive one he would not return) he caress'd the deputies, and thank'd them in so obliging a manner, that they left him, well satisfy'd that their message was gratefully receiv'd; but at the same time persuaded, that the prince would be no farther concerned in their design, than giving his content to the execution of it, as soon as their plot should be ripe. after their departure, the duke confer'd with _pinto_ about the new measures which they must take, and then return'd to _villa-viciosa_; but not with that inward satisfaction of mind which he had hitherto enjoy'd, but with a restlessness of thought, the too common companion of princes. as soon as he arriv'd, he communicated those proportions, which had been made him, to the dutchess his wife. she was of a _castilian_ family, sister to the duke of _medina sidonia_, a grandee of _spain_, and governor of _andalusia_. during her childhood, her mind was great and heroick, and as she grew up, became passionately fond of honour and glory. the duke, her father, who perceived this natural inclination of hers, took care to cultivate it betimes, and gave the care of her education to persons who would swell her breast with[c] ambition, and represent it as the chiefest virtue of princes. she apply'd herself betimes to the study of the different tempers and inclinations of mankind, and would by the looks of a person judge of his heart; so that the most dissembling courtier could scarce hide his thoughts from her discerning eye. she neither wanted courage to undertake, nor conduct to carry on the most difficult things, provided their end was glorious and honourable. her actions were free and easy, and at the same time noble and majestick; her air at once inspir'd love, and commanded respect. she took the _portuguese_ air with so much ease, that it seem'd natural to her. she made it her chief study to deserve the love and esteem of her husband; nor could the austerity of her life, a solid devotion, and a perfect complaisance to all his actions, fail of doing it. she neglected all those pleasures, which persons of her age and quality usually relish; and the greatest part of her time was employ'd in studies, which might adorn her mind, and improve her understanding. the duke thought himself compleatly happy in the possession of so accomplish'd a lady; his love could scarce be parallel'd, and his confidence in her was entire: he never undertook any thing without her advice, nor would he engage himself any farther in a matter of such consequence, without first consulting with her. he therefore shew'd her the scheme of the revolution; the names of the conspirators, and acquainted her with what had pass'd as well in the assembly held at _lisbon_, as in the conference he had had with them at _almada_, and the warmth which every one had shown upon this occasion. he told her, that the expedition of _catalonia_ had so incens'd the nobility, that they were all resolv'd to revolt, rather than to leave their native country; he dreaded, that if he should refuse to lead them on, they would forsake him, and chuse themselves another leader. yet he confess'd, that the greatness of the danger made him dread the event; that whilst he view'd the throne at a distance, the flattering idea of royalty was most agreeable to his mind, but that now having a nearer prospect of it, and of the intervening obstacles, he was startled; nor could he calmly behold those dangers into which he must inevitably plunge himself and his whole family, in case of a discovery: that the people, on whom they must chiefly depend for the success, were inconstant, and disheartned by the least difficulty: that the number of nobility and gentry which he had on his side, was not sufficient, unless supported by the grandees of the kingdom; who doubtless, jealous of his fortune, would oppose it, as not being able to submit to the government of one, whom they had all along look'd upon as their equal. that these considerations, as well as the little dependance he could make on foreign assistance, overrul'd his ambition, and made him forget the hopes of reigning. but the dutchess, whose soul was truly great, and ambition her ruling passion, immediately declar'd herself in favour of the conspiracy. she ask'd the duke, "whether in case the _portuguese_, accepting his denial, should resolve to make themselves a republick, he would side with them, or with the king of _spain_?" "with his countrymen undoubtedly, _he reply'd_; for whose liberty he would willingly venture his life." "and why can you not do for your own sake, _answer'd she_, what you would do as a member of the commonwealth? the throne belongs to you, and should you perish in attempting to recover it, your fate would be glorious, and rather to be envy'd than pity'd." after this she urg'd "his undoubted right to the crown; that _portugal_ was reduc'd to such a miserable state by the _castilians_, that it was inconsistent with the honour of a person of his quality to be an idle looker-on; that his children would reproach, and their posterity curse his memory, for neglecting so fair an opportunity of restoring them what they ought in justice to have had." then she represented the difference between a sovereign and a subject, and the pleasure of ruling, instead of obeying in a servile manner. she made him sensible, that it would be no such difficult matter to re-possess himself of the crown; that tho he could not hope for foreign assistance, yet were the _portuguese_ of themselves able to drive the _spaniards_ out of their country, especially at such a favourable juncture as this. in short, so great was her persuasive art, that she prevailed upon the duke to accept the offer made him, but at the same time confess'd his prudence, in letting the number of the conspirators encrease before he join'd with them; nor would she advise him to appear openly in it, till the plot was ripe. mean while the court of _spain_ grew very jealous or him. those extraordinary marks of joy, which the _lisbonites_ had shewn at his coming thither, had very much alarm'd _d'olivarez_. it was also whisper'd about, that there were nightly meetings and secret assemblies held at _lisbon_: so impossible it is, that a business of such a consequence should be wholly conceal'd. [sidenote: _octob. 20. 1640._] upon this several councils were held at _madrid_, in which it was resolv'd, that the only way to prevent the _portuguese_ from revolting, was by taking from them their leader, in favour of whom it was suppos'd they intended to revolt. wherefore _d'olivarez_ immediately dispatch'd a courier to the duke of _braganza_, to acquaint him, that the king desir'd to be inform'd, by his own mouth, of the strength of every fort and citadel, the condition of the sea-ports, and what garisons were plac'd in each of them: to this he added, that his friends at court were overjoy'd at the thoughts of seeing him so soon, and that every one of them were preparing to receive him with the respect due to his quality and deserts. this news thunder-struck the unhappy prince; he was well assur'd, that since so many pretences were made use of to get him into _spain_, his destruction was resolv'd on, and nothing less than his life could satisfy them. they had left off caresses and invitations, and had now sent positive orders, which either must be obey'd, or probably open force would be made use of. he concluded, that he was betray'd. such is the fear of those, whose thoughts are taken up with great designs, and who always imagine that the inquisitive world is prying into their actions, and observing all their steps. thus did the duke, whose conduct had been always greater than his courage, dread that he had plung'd himself into inevitable destruction. but to gain time enough to give the conspirators notice of his danger, by the advice of the dutchess, he sent a gentleman, whose capacity and fidelity he was before assur'd of, to the court of _madrid_, to assure the _spanish_ minister, that he would suddenly wait on the king; but had at the same time given him private orders to find out all the pretences imaginable for the delaying his journey, hoping in the mean time to bring the conspiracy to ripeness, and thereby to shelter himself from the impending storm. as soon as this gentleman arriv'd at _madrid_, he assur'd the king and the duke _d'olivarez_, that his master follow'd him. to make his story the more plausible, he took a large house, which he furnish'd very sumptuously, then hir'd a considerable number of servants, to whom he before-hand gave liveries. in short, he spar'd no cost to persuade the _spaniards_ that his master would be in a very little time at court, and that he intended to appear with an equipage suitable to his birth. some days after he pretended to have receiv'd advice that his master was fallen sick. when this pretence was grown stale, he presented a memorial to _d'olivarez_, in which he desir'd that his master's precedence in the court might be adjusted. he did not in the least question but that this would gain a considerable time, hoping that the grandees, by maintaining their rights, would oppose his claims. but these delays beginning to be suspected, the first minister had the thing soon decided, and always in favour of the duke of _braganza_; so earnestly did he desire to see him once out of _portugal_, and to have him safe at _madrid_. the conspirators no sooner heard of the orders which the duke had receiv'd, but fearing that he might obey them, deputed _mendoza_ to know what he intended to do, and to engage him firmly, if possible, to their party. this gentleman was chosen preferably to any other, because he was governor of a town near _villa-viciosa_; so that he could hide the real intent of his journey from the _spaniards_, under the specious pretence of business. he did not dare to go directly to the prince's house, but took an opportunity of meeting him in a forest one morning as he was hunting; they retir'd together into the thickest part of the wood, where _mendoza_ shew'd him what danger he expos'd himself to, by going to a place where all were his enemies: that by this inconsiderate action the hopes of the nobility, as well as of the people, were utterly destroy'd: that a sufficient number of gentlemen, who were as able to serve him, as they were willing to do it, or to sacrifice their lives for his sake, only waited for his consent to declare themselves in his favour: that now was the very crisis of his fate, and that he must this instant resolve to be _cæsar_ or nothing: that the business would admit of no longer delay, lest the secret being divulg'd, their designs should prove abortive. the duke, convinc'd of the truth of what was said to him, told him that he was of his mind, and that he might assure his friends, that as soon as their plot should be ripe, he would put himself at the head of them. this conference ended, _mendoza_ immediately return'd home, for fear of being suspected, and wrote to some of the conspirators that he had been hunting; "we had almost, _continued he_, lost our game in the pursuit, but at last the day prov'd a day of good sport." some few days after _mendoza_ return'd to _lisbon_, and acquainted _pinto_ that his master wanted him, who set out as soon as they had together drawn out a shorter scheme to proceed upon. coming to _villa-viciosa_, the first thing he acquainted the duke with, was the difference which had lately happen'd at the court of _lisbon_, the vice-queen loudly complaining of the haughty pride and insolence of _vasconcellos_; nor could she any longer bear that all business should be transacted by him, whilst she enjoy'd an empty title, without any the least authority. what made her complaints the juster, was, that she was really a deferring princess, and capable of discharging the trust which was committed to her secretary. but it was the greatness of her genius, and her other extraordinary deserts, which made the court of _spain_ unwilling to let her have a greater share in the government. _pinto_ observ'd, that this difference could never have happen'd in a better time, seeing that the ministers of _spain_ being taken up with this business, would not be at leisure to pry into his actions, or to observe the steps he should take. the duke of _braganza_, since _mendoza_'s departure, was fallen into his wonted irresolution, and the nearer the business came to a crisis, the more he dreaded the event: _pinto_ made use of all his rhetorick to excite his master's courage, and to draw him into his former resolution. nay, to his persuasions he added threatnings; he told him, in spite of himself, the conspirators would proclaim him king, and what dangers must he run then, when the crown should be fix'd upon his head, at a time when, only for want of necessary preparation, he was not capable of preserving it. the dutchess join'd with this faithful servant, and convinc'd the duke of the baseness of preferring life to honour: he, charm'd with her courage, yet asham'd to see it greater than his own, yielded to their persuasions. mean while, the gentleman whom he had sent to _madrid_, wrote daily to let him know, that he could no longer defer his journey on any pretence whatsoever, and that _olivarez_ refus'd to hear the excuses which he would have made. the duke, to gain a little longer time, order'd the gentleman to acquaint the _spanish_ minister, that he had long since been at _madrid_, had he had money enough to defray the expence of his journey, and to appear at court in a manner suitable to his quality: that as soon as he could receive a sufficient sum, he would immediately set out. this business dispatch'd, he consulted with the dutchess and _pinto_ about the properest means of executing their design: several were propos'd, but at last this was agreed upon, that the plot must break out at _lisbon_, whose example might have a good effect upon the other towns and cities of the kingdom: that the same day wherein he was proclaim'd king in the metropolis, he should be also proclaim'd in every place which was under his dependance; nay, in every borough and village, of which any of the conspirators were the leading men, they should raise the people, so that one half of the kingdom being up, the other of course would fall into their measures, and the few remaining _spaniards_ would not know on which side to turn their arms. his own regiment he should quarter in _elvas_, whose governour was wholly in his interest. that as for the manner of their making themselves masters of _lisbon_, time and opportunity would be their best counsellors; however, the duke's opinion was, that they should seize the palace in the first place, so that by securing the vice-queen, and the _spaniards_ of note, they would be like so many hostages in their hands, for the behaviour of the governour and garison of the citadel, who otherwise might very much annoy 'em when they were masters of the town. after this, the duke having assur'd _pinto_, that notwithstanding any change of fortune, he should still have the same place in his affection; he sent him to _lisbon_ with two letters of trust, one for _almeida_, the other for _mendoza_; wherein he conjur'd 'em to continue faithful to their promises, and resolutely and courageously to finish what they had begun. as soon as he arriv'd at _lisbon_, he deliver'd his letters to _almeida_ and _mendoza_, who instantly sent for _lemos_ and _coreo_, whom _pinto_ had long since engag'd in the interest of his master. these were two rich citizens, who had gone thro all the offices of the city, and had the people of it very much at their command; as they still carry'd on their trade, there were a vast number of poor people daily employ'd by 'em, and whose hatred to the _spaniards_ they had still taken care to encrease, by insinuating that there were new taxes to be laid upon several things at the beginning of the next year. when they observ'd any one of a fiery temper, they would take care to discharge him, on pretence that the _castilians_ had utterly ruin'd their trade, and that they were no longer able to employ them; but their aim was to reduce them to poverty and want, insomuch that necessity should oblige them to revolt: but still would they extend their charity towards them, that they might always have them at their service. besides this, they had engag'd some of the ablest merchants and tradesmen in every part of _lisbon_, and promis'd, that if the conspirators would give 'em warning over night of the hour they intended to rise, punctually at that time they would have half the city up in arms. _pinto_ being thus sure of the citizens, turn'd his thoughts to the other conspirators: he advis'd them to be ready for the execution of their plot upon the first notice given them; that mean while he would have them pretend they had some private quarrel, and engage their friends to assist them, for many, he observ'd, were not fit to be entrusted with so important a secret, and others could not in cold blood behold the dangers they must go thro, and yet both be very serviceable when matters were ripe, and only their swords wanted. [sidenote: _dec. 1. 1640._] finding every body firm in their resolutions, and impatient to revenge themselves upon the _spaniards_, he conferr'd with _almeida_, _mendoza_, _almada_, and _mello_, who fix'd upon saturday, the first of _december_, for the great, the important day: notice was immediately given to the duke of _braganza_, that he might cause himself to be proclaim'd king the same day in the province of _alentejo_, most part of which belong'd to him. after which they agreed upon meeting once more before the time. on the twenty-fifth of _november_, according to their agreement, they met at _braganza-house_, where mustering their forces, they found that they could depend upon about one hundred and fifty gentlemen, (most of them heads of families) with their servants and tenants, and about two hundred substantial citizens, who could bring with them a considerable number of inferior workmen. _vasconcellos_'s death was unanimously resolv'd on, as a just victim, and which would be grateful to the people. some urg'd, that the archbishop of _braga_ deserv'd the same fate, especially considering the strength of his genius, and the greatness of his courage; for it was not to be suppos'd that he would be an idle looker-on, but would probably be more dangerous than the secretary himself could be, by raising all the _spaniards_ who were in _lisbon_, with their creatures; and that whilst they were busy in making themselves masters of the palace, he, at the head of his people, might fling himself into the citadel, or come to the assistance of the vice-queen, to whose service he was entirely devoted; and that at such a time as this, pity was unseasonable, and mercy dangerous. these considerations made the greatest part of the assembly consent to the prelate's death; and he had shar'd _vasconcellos_'s fate, had not[d] don _miguel d'almeida_ interpos'd. he represented to the conspirators, that the death of a man of the prelate's character and station, would make them odious to the people; that it would infallibly draw the hatred of the clergy, and of the inquisition in particular, (a people who at this juncture were to be dreaded) upon the duke of _braganza_, to whom they would not only give the names of tyrant and usurper, but whom they would also excommunicate; that the prince himself would be sorely griev'd to have the day stain'd with so cruel an action; that he himself would engage to watch him so closely on that day, that he should not have an opportunity of doing any thing which might be prejudicial to the common cause. in short, he urg'd so many things in his behalf, that the prelate's life was granted, the assembly not being able to deny any thing to so worthy an advocate. nothing now remain'd but to regulate the order of the march and attack, which was agreed upon in this manner: they should divide into four companies, which should enter the palace by four different ways; so that all the avenues to it being stopt, the _spaniards_ might have no communication with, or be able to assist one another: that don _miguel d'almeida_, with his, should fall on the _german_ guard, at the entrance of the palace: that _mello_ lord _ranger_, his brother, and don _estevan d'acugna_, should attack the guard, which was always set at a place call'd the _fort_: that the lord-chamberlain _emanuel saa_, _teillo de menezes_, and _pinto_, should enter _vasconcellos_'s apartment, whom they must immediately dispatch: that don _antonio d'almada_, _mendoza_, don _carlos norogna_, and _antonio salsaigni_, should seize the vice-queen, and the _spaniards_ which were with her, to serve for hostages, in case of need. mean while, some of the gentlemen, with a few of the most reputable citizens, should proclaim don _john_, duke of _braganza_, king of _portugal_ throughout the city; and that the people being rais'd by their acclamations, they should make use of them to assist, wherever they found any opposition. after this they resolv'd to meet on the first of _december_ in the morning, some at _almeida_'s, some at _almada_'s, and the rest at _mendoza_'s house, where every man should be furnish'd with necessary arms. while these things were transacting at _lisbon_, and that the duke's friends were using all their endeavours for his re-establishment, he receiv'd an express from _olivarez_, (who grew very jealous of his conduct) with positive orders to come immediately to _madrid_; and that he might have nothing to colour his delay, he remitted him a bill upon the royal treasury for ten thousand ducats. the commands laid upon him were so plain and positive, that the duke could not put off his journey without justly encreasing his suspicion. he plainly foresaw, that if he did not obey those orders, the court of _madrid_ would take some such measures as might prove fatal to him, and wholly destroy their projection; he would not therefore refuse to obey, but made part of his houshold immediately set out, and take the _madrid_ road. in the presence of the courier he gave several orders relating to the conduct of those he left his deputy-governours, and in all respects behav'd himself like a man who was going a long journey. he dispatch'd a gentleman to the vice-queen, to give her notice of his departure, and wrote to _olivarez_, that he would be at _madrid_ in eight days time at farthest; and that he might engage the courier to report all these things, he made him a considerable present, under pretence of rewarding him for his expeditious haste, in bringing him letters from the king, and his first ministers. at the same time he let the conspirators know what new orders he had receiv'd from court, that they might see the danger of deferring the execution of their design; but they were scarce in a capacity of assisting him, an accident having happen'd, which had almost broken all their measures. there was at _lisbon_ a nobleman, who on all occasions had shewn an immortal hatred to the _spanish_ government; he never call'd them any thing but tyrants and usurpers, and would openly rail at their unjust proceedings, but nothing anger'd him more than the expedition of _catalonia_: _d'almada_ having taken care to fall often into his company, thought there was not a truer-hearted _portuguese_ in the whole kingdom, and that no one would more strenuously labour for their liberty. but oh heaven! how great was his surprize! when having taken him aside, and discover'd the whole conspiracy to him, this base, this cowardly wretch, whose whole courage was plac'd in his tongue, refus'd to have any hand in the business, or to engage himself with the conspirators, pretending that their plot had no solid foundation: bold and adventrous where no danger was, but fearful and daunted as soon as it appear'd. "have you, _said he to_ almada, forces enough to undertake so great a thing? where is your army to oppose the troops of _spain_, who upon the first news of the revolt will enter the kingdom? what grandees have you at your head? can they furnish you with money sufficient to defray the expence of a civil war? i fear, _continued he_, that instead of revenging yourselves on the _spaniards_, and freeing _portugal_ from slavery, you will utterly ruin it, by giving the _spaniards_ a specious pretence for doing what they have been so long endeavouring at." _d'almada_, who expected nothing less than such an answer, and being very much troubled at his having entrusted the secret to a man, who in all probability would betray it, without replying drew his sword, and coming up to the other, his eyes sparkling with rage; "base wretch, _said he_, by thy deceitful words thou hast drawn a secret from me, with which thou must take my life, or by the loss of thine atone for thy treachery." the other, who had always thought it safest to avoid the nearest danger, at the sight of _d'almada_'s naked sword, promis'd to do any thing. he offer'd to sign the conspiracy, and found weighty reasons to destroy his former objections; he swore that he would bury the secret in his heart, and endeavour'd all he could to persuade _almada_, that it was neither want of courage, or hatred to the _spaniards_, which had at first made him averse to what he had propos'd. notwithstanding his oaths and promises, _d'almada_ could not be thoroughly satisfy'd of this man's fidelity; he took care, without losing sight of him, to let the others know what had happen'd. a general consternation immediately spread itself amongst them, and they fear'd, that the prospect of the danger which he must share, or the hope of a reward, would make this wretch betray them. upon this they resolv'd to defer the execution of their project, and forc'd _pinto_ to write to his master, to put off his being proclaim'd in his country, till he should hear further from them. but _pinto_, who knew how dangerous it was to defer such a thing, tho but for a day, at the same time sent him another letter, in which he desir'd him to take no notice of his first, seeing that it was only the effect of a panick fear, which had seiz'd the conspirators, and which would be over long before the express arriv'd. nor was this crafty man at all deceiv'd; for the next day finding every thing still and quiet, and the person who caus'd the alarm making fresh promises of secrecy, they concluded that either he had arm'd his mind with a generous resolution of assisting them, or was afraid of impeaching so many persons of quality; and therefore they determin'd to proceed to execution on the appointed day. but another adventure happen'd, which disquieted 'em as much as the former. there were always in the palace several of the conspirators, walking up and down like courtiers out of place, whose business it was to observe what was done within; but on the evening of the last of _november_, they came in a fright to their companions, to tell them that _vasconcellos_ (by whose death they were to begin the mighty work) was just gone on board a yacht, and had cross'd the _tagus_. who but conspirators would have taken notice of so indifferent a thing? for a thousand reasons, in which they were not concern'd, might have made him go on the other side of the water; but they immediately concluded, that this artful statesman, who had always his spies abroad, had discover'd their plot, and was about to bring into _lisbon_ those soldiers which were quarter'd in the villages on the other side of the river. death, in its most ghastly shape, appear'd to them, and they fancy'd that they already felt the cruellest torments which could be inflicted. some were resolving to fly into _africa_, others into _england_; and all of them spent the first part of the night in the greatest disquiet imaginable, between the hopes of life and fear of death. but about the middle of the night their apprehensions vanish'd; for some who had been sauntring about the port, to endeavour to discover the secretary's design, came and brought them the welcome news, that _vasconcellos_ had been only diverting himself upon the water, and that he was return'd, with the musick playing before him. a sudden joy succeeded to their grief, and about an hour after, being inform'd that every thing was quiet in the palace, and every body bury'd in a profound sleep, they return'd home to enjoy a little rest; that they might be fitter for the morning's work. it was very late, or rather very early, when they parted, and within some few hours of their appointed time, and yet an accident happen'd within those few hours, which had almost betray'd them; so dangerous and uncertain are enterprizes of this nature, whilst there are men, whom hopes of gain, or fear of punishment, can work upon to betray their fellows. don _george mello_, brother to the lord _ranger_, lodg'd at a relation's house, in the furthest suburbs of _lisbon_. this gentleman thought, that now the time was come in which the conspiracy would break out, and there was no necessity of hiding it any longer from this relation, whom he had reason to believe was his friend, as also one that might be serviceable to them, and who otherwise would for ever reproach him with having distrusted him as one not true to the interest of his country. wherefore as soon as he came home, he went into his chamber, and there reveal'd the secret, desiring him to join in the enterprize with so many persons of quality, and to behave himself as a _portuguese_ ought to do upon such an occasion. the other, surpriz'd at the strangeness of this news, affected a seeming joy for the approaching liberty of his country, thank'd _mello_ for the confidence he repos'd in him, and assur'd him, that he accounted himself happy in having an opportunity of exposing his life in so just and glorious a cause. upon this _mello_ retir'd to his chamber, to lay himself down to sleep, but scarce was he got thither, when he began seriously to reflect upon what he had been doing, and could not but think himself guilty of a very inconsiderate action, in putting the lives of so many persons of quality in the power of one, of whose principles he was not overwell assur'd; then began he to fancy, that he had observ'd something of fear in the countenance of the person, at the time when he was advising him to share the danger of the undertaking. full of these reflections, he could not lay him down to rest, but was walking in great disorder about his chamber, when he thought he over-heard a kind of whispering noise. opening his window softly, to see if any body was in the street, he could perceive a servant holding his relation's horse, and himself ready to mount. enrag'd at this, he snatch'd his sword, and hastening down stairs, seiz'd his kinsman, and ask'd him whither he was going at this unseasonable time. the other would have forg'd an excuse, and was hammering out a lye, but _mello_ holding his point to his breast, threaten'd to kill him, if he did not immediately go in again; then order'd he the keys of the house to be brought him, and having fasten'd all the doors himself, he retir'd with his kinsman, nor would he lose sight of him till it was time to go to the rendevouz, to which he carried him. but now the morning dawn'd, that was to decide whether the duke of _braganza_ should be the king and deliverer of his country, or be accounted a rebel and traitor. betimes in the morning the conspirators met at the appointed places, where they were to be furnish'd with arms. they all appear'd with so much resolution and courage, that they rather seem'd marching to a certain victory, than to an uncertain enterprize. but what is very much to be admir'd at, is, that amongst such a number of nobility, gentry, citizens, nay priests, not one should falsify his word, or break his promise, tho their interests in the event were very different; but they all seem'd as impatient for the important moment, as if each there had been the contriver of the scheme, or at the head of the enterprize; or rather, as if the crown was to have been the reward of each individual man's labour. several ladies also made themselves famous on that day. but the noble behaviour of donna _philippa de villenes_ ought never to be forgotten, who with her own hands arm'd both her sons; and giving them their swords, "go, my children, _said she_, put an end to a tyrant's power, revenge yourselves on your enemies, free your country, and be assur'd, that if success does not crown your undertaking, your mother never will live to see the cruel fate of so many brave and deserving patriots." every one being arm'd, they made the best of their way towards the palace, most of them in litters, that they might conceal their number and their arms. there they divided into four companies, and waited with impatience till the palace-clock struck eight; that, and the firing of a pistol, being the appointed signal. never did time seem so long; they fear'd that their being at that place so early, and in such a number, might make the secretary jealous of their design: but at last the long-expected hour struck, and _pinto_ firing a pistol, they rush'd forward to execute their bold design. don _miguel d'almeida_, with those that accompany'd him, fell upon the _german_ guard, who were so far from expecting any attack, that they were sitting very carelessly, few of them having their arms in hand; so that they were cut to pieces, without scarce making any resistance. the lord _ranger_, with his brother _mello_, and don _estevan d'acugna_, fell on the _spaniards_ who kept guard at a place before the palace, call'd the _fort_. these nobles, followed by most of the citizens who were engag'd in the conspiracy, fell upon the _castilians_ sword in hand, and fought most resolutely; but no one behav'd himself more bravely than one of the city priests: this reverend man, with a crucifix in one hand, and a sword in the other, appear'd at the head of his party, and encourag'd the people, both by his words and his example, to cut their enemies in pieces. the _spaniards_, aw'd at the sight of so religious an object, neither durst offend him, nor defend themselves, but fled before him. in short, after some small resistance, the officer of the guard, willing to save his own life, was forc'd to cry out with the rest, _long live the duke of_ braganza, _king of_ portugal! _pinto_ having forced his way into the palace, march'd at the head of those, who were to enter _vasconcellos_'s apartment, so undauntedly, and with so little concern, that meeting with an acquaintance, who, surpriz'd and frighted, ask'd him, whither he was going with such a number of arm'd men, and what they design'd to do; "nothing, _said he smiling_, but change our master, rid you of a tyrant, and give _portugal_ their rightful king." entring the secretary's apartment, the first person they met with was the[e] _civil corregidor_; who, thinking that the noise he heard proceeded from some private quarrel, would have interpos'd his authority, but hearing a cry of _long live the duke of_ braganza, _&c._ thought he was in honour oblig'd to cry out _long live the king of_ spain _and_ portugal: but he lost his life for his ill-tim'd loyalty, one of the conspirators immediately shooting him thro the head. _antonio correa_, first clerk of the secretary's office, ran out to know the occasion of this tumult. this was the man who was employ'd in oppressing the people, and who, after the example of his master, treated the nobility of the kingdom with scorn and contempt; therefore as soon as he appear'd, don _antonio de menezes_ plung'd his sword into his bosom. but the blow not ending either his life or pride, and thinking that they had mistaken him, he turn'd towards _menezes_, his eyes sparkling with rage and indignation, and, in a passionate manner, cry'd out, _villain! darest thou strike me?_ but _menezes_, without answering, redoubled his blows; and the other, having receiv'd four or five stabs, fell down: however, none of the wounds prov'd mortal, and he escap'd at that time, to lose his life afterwards in an ignominious manner, by the hands of the common hangman. this business had stop'd the conspirators, but as soon as _correa_ fell, they all rush'd forwards towards _vasconcellos_'s apartment. there was with him, at that time, don _garcez palleia_, a captain of foot; who seeing so many arm'd men, immediately concluded, that their design was to butcher the secretary. and altho' he was under no manner of obligation to that minister, yet he thought himself in honour oblig'd to lend him what assistance he could; wherefore standing at the door, with his sword in hand, he barr'd that passage: but one of the conspirators running him thro' the arm, and several, who were unwilling to give him fair play, pressing forward, he was glad to make his escape, by leaping out of a window. upon this all the company, that was with _pinto_, enter'd the chamber at once, and sought _vasconcellos_; they overturn'd the bed and tables, broke open the trunks, and every one was desirous of giving him the first blow; yet, spite of their endeavour, they could not find him, and they began to fear that he had made his escape: but at last an old maid-servant being threaten'd with death, unless she would tell where her master was; and seeing the uplifted swords, pointed to a press which was made within the wall, and in which they found the secretary bury'd under a heap of papers. so great was his fear of death, which he saw surrounding him on every side, that it prevented his speech. don _roderigo de saa_, lord chamberlain, was the man who kill'd him, by shooting him through the head with a pistol; after which several of the conspirators stabb'd him, then threw him out of the window, crying, _liberty! liberty! the tyrant is dead! long live don_ john _king of_ portugal! the noise which all this had made, had drawn a vast number of people to the palace-court, who seeing the secretary's body thrown out, shouted in a most joyful manner; then rushing upon the carcase, they mangled it, every one being eager to give him a stab, thinking that, thro his sides, they wounded tyranny. thus perish'd _miguel vasconcellos_, a _portuguese_ by birth, but by inclination a _spaniard_, and an enemy to his country. he had an excellent genius for business, was crafty, politick, nor could any man apply himself closer to it than he did. he was always inventing new ways of extorting money from the people, was unmerciful, inexorable, and cruel, without the least regard to friend or relation; so fix'd, that after he had taken a resolution, no one could byass his temper; and so harden'd, that he never knew what the stings of conscience were. he had a soul that was not capable of relishing any pleasure, but that of hoarding up money; so that he left vast sums behind him, part of which the people plunder'd, being willing to repay themselves, in some measure, that which had been extorted from them. _pinto_, without loss of time, march'd directly to join the other conspirators, who were to make themselves masters of the palace, and to seize the vice-queen; he found that the business was already done, and that success had every where crown'd their undertakings. those who were appointed for that expedition, came directly up to her chamber, and the furious mob, who follow'd them, threatning to set her apartment on fire, if the door was not immediately open'd; the vice-queen thinking by her presence to pacify the nobility, and awe the people, came out, attended by her maids of honour, and the archbishop of _braga_; and addressing herself to the chief conspirators, "i own, gentlemen, _said she_, that the secretary justly deserv'd your hatred and indignation; his cruelty and his haughty insolence were intolerable, nor can his death be charg'd upon you as a crime, since you have only deliver'd yourselves from an oppressing minister: but cannot his blood satisfy you? or what other victim would you sacrifice to your resentment? think seriously, that altho' his illegal conduct may excuse this insurrection, yet should you any longer continue in arms, rebellion will be laid at your doors, and you will put it out of my power to make your peace with the king." don _antonio de menezes_ answer'd, and assur'd her, "that so many persons of quality had not taken up arms to murder a wretch, who ought to have lost his life by the hands of the common hangman; but that their design was to restore the crown to the duke of _braganza_, to whom it lawfully belong'd, and which the king of _spain_ had unjustly usurp'd; and that they were all ready to sacrifice their lives in so glorious a cause." she was about to reply, and to interpose the king's authority; but _d'almeida_, who fear'd that such a speech might have a dangerous effect upon the people, or at least cool their courages, interrupted her, saying, "that _portugal_ acknowledg'd no other king but the duke of _braganza_." upon which the people shouted again, crying, _long live don_ john, _king of_ portugal! the vice-queen believing that her presence might be of service in the city, and have a good effect upon the people every where, where the conspirators were not present, was going in haste down stairs, but don _carlos norogna_ stopp'd her, desiring that she would retire to her own apartment, assuring her that she should be treated with as much respect as if she still had the supreme command in the kingdom; but told her that it would be dangerous for so great a princess to expose herself to the insults of a furious people, who were jealous of their liberties, and enflam'd with thirst of revenge. the queen easily understood the meaning of his words, and found that she was their prisoner. enrag'd at this, "and what can the people do to me?" _cry'd she_. "nothing, madam, _reply'd_ norogna _in a passion_, but fling your highness out of the window." the archbishop of _braga_ hearing this answer, grew furious, and snatching a sword from one of the soldiers who stood next him, he flew towards _norogna_, resolving to revenge the vice-queen, and had certainly met with death, the just reward of his rashness, had not don _miguel d'almeida_ laid hold of him, and embracing him, begg'd him to consider what danger he expos'd himself to, telling him that he was already hated enough by the conspirators; nor had he found it an easy task to obtain a promise of them that they would spare his life, why then would he urge them by an action, which would not only be unprofitable to his cause, but which also so highly misbecame his character. the prelate, convinc'd of the truth of what his friend said, was obliged to dissemble his anger; however, he hoped that he should meet with some favourable opportunity of revenging himself on _norogna_, and doing something for the service of _spain_, to whose interest he was entirely devoted. the rest of the _spaniards_ who were in the palace, were made prisoners by the other conspirators: amongst these were the marquiss of _puebla_, major-domo to the vice-queen, and elder brother to the marquiss _de leganez_; don _didaco cardenas_, lieutenant-general of the cavalry; don _ferdinand de castro_, comptroller of the navy-office; the marquiss _de baynetto_, an _italian_, gentleman-usher to the vice-queen: with some sea-officers, who lay on shore, and whose ships were in the harbour. all this was done as regularly and as quietly, as if they had been taken up by an order from the king of _spain_, nobody stirring to their assistance, and they not being able to defend themselves, most of them having been seiz'd in their beds. this done, don _antonio de salsaigni_, follow'd by a crowd of friends, and an innumerable multitude of people, went up into the hall, where the court of justice was then sitting, and in an elegant speech laid before them the present happiness of _portugal_, who had restor'd their own lawful king; he told them, that tyranny was now no more, and that the laws, which had been long slighted and neglected, should henceforward take their regular course. this speech was applauded by the whole court, and they chang'd the title of their decrees, which they no longer made in the name of the king of _spain_, but in the name of don _john_, king of _portugal_. whilst _salsaigni_ was thus persuading the high court of justice to adhere to the duke of _braganza_'s interest, don _gaston coutingno_ was taking out of prison those who had been thrown into it by the cruelty of the _spanish_ minister. these unhappy wretches, who had all along been persuaded, that they should end their lives in their dismal dungeons, unless taken out to be led to a cruel death; seeing themselves now at liberty, and their country in a fair way of being freed, and resolving to suffer any thing, rather than to return to their dark prisons, form'd a body no less formidable than that of the conspirators, and who were as fully resolv'd to set the duke of _braganza_ on the throne. but in the midst of this general joy, _pinto_, with the rest of the leaders, were under great apprehensions: the _spaniards_ were yet masters of the citadel, from whence they could easily burn and destroy the town; besides which, the port was open to the _spanish_ fleet: therefore thinking that they had done nothing till they had taken that place, they went up to the vice-queen, and desir'd her to sign a warrant to the governour, by virtue of which he should be oblig'd to give them possession of the citadel. she, far from granting what they ask'd, upbraided them as rebels and traitors, and with indignation ask'd them, whether they had a mind to make her an accomplice? but _d'almada_, who knew how dangerous it was to leave the enemies any longer in that fort, and being provok'd at the vice-queen's denial, his eyes sparkling with rage, swore violently, that if she did not sign the warrant, he would forthwith put every one of the _spaniards_ to death, whom they had taken in the palace. the poor princess, frightened with these threats, and unwilling to be the occasion of the death of so many persons of quality, was obliged to comply, thinking at the same time that the governour knew his duty too well, to obey an order, which he might be assur'd was sign'd by compulsion; but she was very much mistaken in her conjecture, for don _lewis del campo_, the _spanish_ governour, was a man of no resolution at all, and seeing the conspirators coming arm'd towards the citadel, and all the people of the town following them, who threaten'd to cut him and his garison in pieces, unless he immediately surrender'd, was glad to see the warrant, and have so fair an excuse for his cowardice; wherefore he immediately obey'd the order, and gave up the fort. proud of having dispatch'd their business so happily, the conspirators forthwith deputed _mendoza_ and the lord _ranger_ to the duke of _braganza_, to acquaint him with their success, and assure him, that nothing was now wanting but the presence of their king, to compleat the happiness of his subjects. notwithstanding their message, his presence was not equally coveted by every body. the grandees of the kingdom could not see him rais'd to the throne, without being inwardly jealous of his fortune; and those of the nobility, who were not let into the secret, refus'd as yet to declare themselves; nay, some went so far as to assure the people, that the duke would never approve of so rash an action, and whose consequence might be so fatal to them all. those who were in the _spanish_ interest, were in a strange consternation, and did not dare so much as stir abroad, lest they should be sacrific'd by the people, whose rage was not yet appeas'd: in short, every body seem'd at an uncertainty, and waited impatiently for the resolutions of the duke of _braganza_. but his friends, who were better acquainted with his intentions, still pursued what they had so happily began, and assembled in the palace, to give the necessary orders. the archbishop was unanimously chosen president of the council, and lord-lieutenant of _portugal_ till the king's arrival. he would at first have refus'd the office, declaring that his opinion was, that they had more need of a good general at their head, than of a man of his character. however, being press'd by the assembly to accept the place, he consented to it, on condition that he might have the archbishop of _braga_ for his collegue; who, he said, was well acquainted with the business, and might be very serviceable to him during the king's absence. this cunning prelate chose his brother archbishop sooner than any other man, well knowing that if he did accept it, he made himself an accomplice in what he call'd rebellion, and would be accounted criminal by the _spanish_ minister: besides which, he would have only had the title of one of the lord-lieutenants, without any share of the power. but if, on the other hand, he refus'd it, he should for ever put him out of the king's favour, and make him odious to all the people, who henceforwards would look on him as an open and profess'd enemy to his country. the archbishop of _braga_ was very sensible of the snare which was laid for him, but as he was wholly devoted to the vice-queen, and firm to the _spanish_ interest, he refus'd having any thing to do with the administration; so that the whole burden of the publick affairs fell upon the archbishop of _lisbon_: to ease him of part of which, they gave him for assistants don _miguel d'almeida_, _pedro mendoza_, and don _antonio d'almada_. one of the first orders which the new governour gave, was to seize upon the three _spanish_ galloons which were then in the harbour; upon which they arm'd a few barks, and in them went most part of the _lisbon_ youth, so desirous were they of shewing their affection to the king: but the galloons were taken without resistance, the officers, and the greatest part of the ships crew, having been seiz'd in the morning ashore. that very evening couriers were dispatch'd to every province, to exhort the people to give thanks for the recovery of their liberties, and the restoration of the duke of _braganza_; with orders at the same time to all governours of towns, and other magistrates, to have him proclaim'd king of _portugal_, and to take all the _spaniards_, in their respective districts, into custody. and now they began to prepare every thing at _lisbon_ for the reception of the new king, and the archbishop sent word to the late vice-queen, that she would very much oblige them, in leaving the palace where she was, for he thought the king would want her apartment, and that he had prepar'd every thing for her reception at the palace of _xabregas_, which was at the farther end of the town. this princess receiv'd the order with a scornful look, and without answering a word, obey'd it. she went thro the street, but without the usual train of courtiers and crowd of people; there was only the archbishop of _braga_ with her, who still gave her manifest tokens of his respect, even now when he expos'd his life by so doing. mean while the duke of _braganza_ continued in the cruel state of uncertainty, sometimes flattering himself with the most pleasing ideas which a lively hope can form, and sometimes under the most dismal apprehensions which frighten'd fancy can suggest. the distance between _villa-viciosa_ and _lisbon_ being thirty leagues, he could not know what pass'd in his behalf so soon as he could have wish'd. all that he knew was, that on this day his life and fortune were at stake. he had at first resolv'd to have himself proclaim'd at the same time in all the towns which were under his dependance; but his mind chang'd, and he determin'd to wait for the news of what had pass'd at _lisbon_, before he undertook any thing. there still remain'd the kingdom of _algarva_, and the citadel of _elvas_, to which he could retire, in case his party at _lisbon_ should fail; nay, he thought he could clear himself of having any hand in the conspiracy, especially at a time when the _spaniards_ would be glad to believe him innocent. he had planted several couriers on the road to _lisbon_, and thereby expected to have an account of what had pass'd betimes; but he had waited with impatience all the day, and the greatest part of the night, without hearing any thing, and the next morning was already near at hand, when _mello_ and _mendoza_, who had rode post from _lisbon_, arriv'd. they threw themselves at the duke's feet, by which action, as well as by the joy which appear'd in their faces, the success of their undertaking might be better read, than it was possible for them to express. they were about to give him an exact account of every thing, but the duke, without hearing a word of what they had to tell him, conducted them to the dutchess's apartment. the two noblemen saluted her with the same respect, as if she had actually been upon the throne; they assur'd her of the good-wishes and fidelity of her subjects: and to shew her that they acknowledg'd her their queen, they now gave her the title of _majesty_, whereas the kings and queens of _portugal_ had hitherto been always call'd their _highnesses_. we may easily judge of what pass'd in the heart of this royal pair, if we consider the fears and agitations which they were before in, and to what grandeur they were now rais'd. nothing but shouts of joy were heard throughout the palace, the happy news soon spread, and the same morning the king was proclaim'd in all those places, where it should have been done the day before; _mello_ and _alphonso_ also had him proclaim'd at _elvas_. the people came in crouds to pay their homage to the new king; which, tho in a confus'd manner, was no less agreeable to him, than what he afterwards receiv'd in all the formal pomp of ceremony. the king immediately set out for _lisbon_, with the same equipage which had been prepar'd for his setting out for _madrid_. he was accompany'd by the marquiss _de ferreira_, a relation of his; the count _de vimioso_; and several other persons of quality, who were come to wait upon him to the capital. [sidenote: _decem. 6._] the queen he left at _villa-viciosa_, knowing that her presence was necessary there, to keep the provinces in awe. every where, upon the roads to _lisbon_, they met with infinite numbers of people, who crouded forwards to see the king; who had the satisfaction every where of hearing the people blessing him, and cursing the _spaniards_. all the nobility, with the whole court, and the magistrates of the city, met him at a great distance from _lisbon_, and he enter'd the town amidst the acclamations of a joyful people. that evening there were illuminations every where, and fireworks in every publick place; each citizen in particular had a bonfire before his door, which made a _spaniard_ say, "the duke of _braganza_ was a happy prince, who had got a whole kingdom for a bonfire." nor was it long indeed before he was master of the whole kingdom, every town follow'd the example of their capital, and seem'd as if they had a plot ripe for execution. fresh couriers every day arriv'd, who brought news of towns, and sometimes of whole provinces, which had driven the _castilians_ out, and proclaim'd the duke of _braganza_. nor were many of the _spanish_ governours more resolute than the commander of the citadel of _lisbon_; and whether they wanted soldiers, ammunition, or courage, is uncertain, but most of them surrender'd, without so much as giving the _portuguese_ the trouble of firing a gun. in short, they fled the kingdom like so many criminals who had broke out of prison; each man dreaded _vasconcellos_'s fate, and trembled at the sight of an incens'd multitude: nor was there a _spaniard_ left in the whole kingdom, but those who were taken into custody, and all this in less than a fortnight's time. don _ferdinand de la cueva_, commander of the citadel of _st. juan_, at the mouth of the _tagus_, was the only man who offer'd to make any resistance, and to preserve the place for the king his master. the garison was wholly compos'd of _spaniards_, the officers brave, and resolv'd to hold it out to the last; and therefore, as soon as the _portuguese_ approach'd them, made a vigorous defence. they were oblig'd to besiege it in form; to that end they brought cannon from _lisbon_, and open'd the trenches before it, which they carry'd as far as the counterscarp, spite of the besieged's continual fire, and their frequent sallies. but the king, who knew that treating with the commander would be not only the safest, but the shortest way, made him such advantageous proposals, that the governour could not resist the temptation; but dazled with the prospect of the vast sum which was offer'd, besides a commandry of the _order of christ_, and pretending that his garison was not strong enough to hold out a siege, he surrender'd upon terms, spite of the chief officers, who refus'd to sign the capitulation. this done, the king thought it best not to defer his coronation, that he might thereby confirm his royalty, and consecrate his majesty. the ceremony was perform'd on the fifteenth of _december_ with all the magnificence imaginable; the duke _d'aveiro_, the marquiss _de villareal_, the duke _de carmino_, his son, the count _de monsano_, and all the other grandees of the kingdom, being present. the archbishop of _lisbon_, at the head of all the clergy of his diocese, and accompany'd by several other bishops, met him at the door of the cathedral; there he was solemnly acknowledg'd by the states of the kingdom their rightful and lawful king: after which every one of them took the oath of allegiance. some few days after the coronation, the queen arriv'd at _lisbon_ with a sumptuous equipage and numerous retinue. all the court went out of town to meet her, and she already had with her all the officers of her houshold. the king himself met her at some distance from the town. this prince omitted nothing which might make her entry appear magnificent, and convince the people that he believ'd she had very much contributed to the placing the crown upon his head. every one observ'd, that notwithstanding her fortune was alter'd, yet was not the queen in the least chang'd, but behav'd herself as majestically, as if she had been born to, and was educated for the possession of a throne. * * * * * such was the success of this great enterprize, as happily finish'd, as it was prudently begun; which may be reckon'd a sort of miracle, considering the vast number of persons, and the different quality and inclinations of those who were let into the secret: nor can it be accounted for, but from the natural hatred which the _portuguese_ had to a _spanish_ government; a hatred! which took its first rise from the frequent wars which these neighbouring nations waged against one another, ever since they had been monarchies; as well as from their being both concern'd in the discovery of the _indies_, and the frequent debates which they had concerning their commerce; these at last grew into an inveterate hatred, which was now encreas'd by the tyranny of _spain_. the news of the revolution soon reach'd the court of _spain_. _d'olivarez_ was almost driven to despair at the hearing it; he saw his own project miscarry, and ruin threatning his country, which might have been easily prevented, but could not now be remedy'd. nor had _spain_ any need of acquiring new enemies, the _french_ and _dutch_ troops already employ'd their utmost forces, with much ado they resisted their combin'd strength; and the revolt of _catalonia_, he fear'd, might invite other provinces to do the like. there was no one now in the court of _madrid_ ignorant of the news, but the king himself; every one thought that he ought to be inform'd of it, yet no one dar'd undertake the ungrateful task, for fear of incurring the minister's displeasure, whose implacable temper they knew too well, to hope that he would ever forgive an offence of this nature. at last the duke, seeing that the story was too well known to be any longer conceal'd from the king, and fearing that some of his enemies, either to ingratiate or revenge themselves, should tell it in such a manner, that the whole fault would seem to fall upon him, he resolv'd to be himself the messenger, and coming up to the king, with a serene look, and a face on which a dissembled joy sat confess'd, "i wish your majesty joy," _said he_, "of a noble dutchy, and a fine estate, which are lately fallen to you." "how _olivarez!" answer'd the king_; "what do you mean?" "mean!" _reply'd the minister_; "why the duke of _braganza_ is run mad, the mob have proclaimed him king of _portugal_, and he has accepted the title; so that now all he has is confiscated, and you have a good pretence to rid yourself of the whole family: henceforwards you may reign king of _portugal_, nor fear that any one will dispute your title to that kingdom." as weak a prince as _philip_ was, he easily comprehended the meaning of these words; but as he could no longer see but thro his minister's eyes, he only told him, that he must take care betimes to put an end to a rebellion, whose consequence might otherwise prove dangerous. [sidenote: _jan. 28. 1644._] mean while the king of _portugal_ took all the necessary measures to confirm his new authority. as soon as he came to _lisbon_, he nam'd governours for every town of _portugal_, as much distinguish'd for their fidelity to him, as for their experience and approv'd valour; who immediately, with what soldiers they could get together, went to take possession of their command, and to put the place in a posture of defence. at the same time recruiting commissions were given out; and the solemnity of his coronation being over, he call'd together the states of the kingdom: in which, to prevent all the doubts and scruples which might rise in the minds of the people, his pretensions to the crown were examin'd, and by a solemn decree of the states he was acknowledg'd rightful and lawful king, as being descended from prince _edward_, son to king _emanuel_; whereas the king of _spain_ was only descended from a daughter of the same king _emanuel_, who also by the fundamental laws of _portugal_ was excluded the succession, having espous'd a foreign prince. in this assembly the king declar'd, that he would content himself with his own estate, and that the usual royal revenue should be apply'd to the defraying of the extraordinary expences, and paying the debts of the kingdom. and the better to ingratiate himself with the people, he took off all the taxes which the oppressing _spaniards_ had laid upon them. to all the considerable offices and employments he promoted those of the conspirators, whose birth and capacity might give them just pretensions to it, and who had shewn the greatest desire of raising him to the throne. in this promotion no notice was taken of _pinto_; the king did not think his royalty sufficiently confirm'd, to venture at raising one of his servants, and whose extraction was but mean. however, the prince was not in the least unmindful of his service, and without having the title of a minister of state, he had the authority of one; so great was his influence over his master, and such entire confidence did he repose in him. having given all the necessary orders within the kingdom, he resolv'd to assure himself of some foreign assistance in case of necessity, as well by making strict alliances with all the enemies of _spain_, as by raising them new ones. to this end he endeavour'd to persuade the duke of _medina sidonia_, governour of _andalusia_, and his brother-in-law, to follow his example, shake off the _spanish_ yoke, and make himself an independent prince. the marquiss _daiamonti_, a _spanish_ nobleman, and related to the queen of _portugal_, was to negotiate this business, the success of which will be seen in the sequel of this history. the king of _portugal_ made a league offensive and defensive with the _dutch_; _france_ promis'd him its protection, and he sent ambassadors to all the courts of _europe_, that his title might be acknowledg'd by their princes. but the king of _spain_ was so destitute of men, _catalonia_ employing all his forces, that he did very little all that campaign for the recovery of _portugal_, and even what he did undertake met with no success. some little time after this, news was brought that _goa_, and all those other places which belong'd to _portugal_, whether in the _indies_, _africa_, or in _peru_, had follow'd the example of their _european_ masters, and revolted from the _spaniards_. thus was the king flatter'd with the prospect of a happy reign, and rejoic'd to see peace and tranquillity preserv'd within his kingdom, whilst his arms met with success abroad; little suspecting the danger which threaten'd his life and crown, both which he had almost lost by a cursed conspiracy, which was form'd even in the midst of that prince's court. the archbishop of _braga_, as has before been observ'd, was wholly devoted to the king of _spain_, during whose reign in _portugal_ he had had a great share in the ministry. he now plainly saw, that he must never hope for any preferment, unless the _spanish_ government could be again introduc'd into that kingdom; besides, he fear'd that the new king, who out of a tender regard to his character, had not had him put into prison with the other _spaniards_, might alter his mind, and seeing his authority once confirm'd, and dreading no longer the danger of incensing the people, or provoking the inquisition, might make him share the fate of those, whose courage or politicks 'twas thought might prove prejudicial to the new king's government, and who had all been depriv'd of their liberty. but the chief motive which induc'd him to undertake something for their cause, was his affection to the late vice-queen: with impatience he beheld that princess under confinement, especially in a place where he thought it was her right to rule; and his rage was violently increas'd by the orders which were given her guards to admit neither the prelate, nor any other person of quality, the king having been inform'd that she endeavour'd to infuse sentiments of rebellion into all those _portuguese_ who went to visit her; and therefore thought fit to deprive her of that liberty, which she so palpably abus'd. as just and as necessary as this proceeding was, the archbishop call'd it cruel and tyrannick; and as he had some notions of gratitude, believ'd himself under an obligation of doing something for the liberty of a princess, who had done so much for him. the remembrance of her past kindness enflam'd his soul with anger, and made him resolve to embrace any opportunity whatsoever of revenging himself on her enemies, and delivering her out of their hands. but as he plainly saw it would be impossible either to surprize or corrupt her guards, he could not think of any surer way than going directly to the fountain-head, and by the death of the king to restore her liberty and authority both at once. being fully confirm'd in this resolution, he began to think of the speediest means of putting it in execution, well knowing that he should not long enjoy the place of president of the palace, which was not as yet taken from him. he plainly saw that it was in vain to follow the king's measures, by endeavouring to win the people, and make them join with him; their hatred to the _spaniards_ being too deeply rooted in their hearts. the nobility, he was assur'd, wou'd not assist him, since by their means the crown was placed upon the duke of _braganza_'s head: he could therefore only depend upon the grandees, who with envy beheld one that had been their equal, upon the throne. the first thing he did, was to assure himself of _olivarez_'s protection and assistance: after which, he began to work upon the marquiss of _villareal_; to whom he represented, that the new king was timorous and diffident, for which reason he sought all opportunities of ruining his family, lest he should leave a subject who was capable of disputing the crown with his successor: that he and the duke _d'aveiro_, who were both of the royal blood, were not thought worthy of any office or employment; whilst all places of trust were fill'd by a company of factious and seditious people: that with indignation the people saw how little he was valued, and were very much troubled to think that a person of his quality and capacity must spend his time at a country-seat, and in an inglorious ease: that one of his birth and estate was too great to be the subject of so petty a prince as the king of _portugal_: that he had lost a master in the king of _spain_, who only was capable of bestowing such employments on him as he deserv'd, by reason of the many kingdoms of which he was sovereign, and over which he must establish governours. seeing that this discourse made an impression on the mind of the marquiss, he went so far as to assure him, that he had orders from the king of _spain_ to promise him the viceroyalty of _portugal_, as a reward of his loyalty, in case he would assist him in his design of recovering that kingdom. notwithstanding what the archbishop promis'd, the thing was very far from his heart; his chief aim being to restore the dutchess of _mantua_ to her liberty and former authority: for the compassing of which, he thought it very lawful to promise what he never intended to perform; and he knew that ambitious motives were the likeliest to engage the marquiss _de villareal_, upon whom his fair speeches had at last such an effect, that he yielded to his persuasions, and promis'd that he, with his son the duke of _camino_, would be at the head of the enterprize. this prelate being thus assur'd of these two princes, made it his next business to engage the grand inquisitor, who was his intimate friend, and than whom no one could be more necessary in carrying on their great design; seeing that by his means he should also prevail upon all the officers belonging to the inquisition, a people more to be dreaded by honest men than rogues, and who bear a great sway amongst the _portuguese_. he endeavour'd at first to alarm his conscience, by reminding him of the oath of allegiance which he had taken to the king of _spain_, and which he ought not to break in favour of an usurping tyrant; but finding the inquisitor a true churchman, over whom interest had a greater sway than conscience, he told him that he must join in the plot, if he hoped to keep his place much longer, for that the new king made it his business to give all the employments to persons whose fidelity he could depend upon. after this, he spent several months in encreasing the number of conspirators, the chief of which were the commissary _de la crusada_; the count _d'armamar_, nephew to the archbishop; the count _de ballerais_; don _augustin emanuel_; _antonio correa_, that clerk of _vasconcellos_, to whom _menezes_ had given divers stabs on the first day of the revolution; _laurento pidez carvable_, keeper of the royal treasury; with several others, who were the creatures of the _spanish_ ministers, to whom they ow'd their fortunes and their places, and which they could not hope to keep long, unless by once more introducing the _spanish_ government. there were also a vast number of _jews_ who were concern'd in the plot, and who had long liv'd at _lisbon_ in an outward profession of the christian faith. these had lately offer'd the king a vast sum of money, if he would free them from the persecution of the inquisitors, and let them have their synagogues at _lisbon_; but the prince rejected their offer, and deny'd their petition. this had thrown the chief of them into a great consternation, for appearing at the head of the petitioners, they had made themselves known, and thereby expos'd themselves to all the torments which the inquisition could invent. with these the archbishop took care to get acquainted, and taking advantage of the confusion they were in, promis'd them his protection, which was not to be despis'd, since he had such an influence over the grand inquisitor; but insinuated at the same time, that they were in danger of being banish'd _portugal_ by the king, who affected very much to be thought a true and pious catholick: and at the same time promis'd in the name of the king of _spain_, that if they would be instrumental to his restoration, they should have liberty of conscience, and leave openly to profess their religion. so violent was the passion of the archbishop, that he was not asham'd to make use of the profess'd enemies of _jesus christ_, to drive a _christian_ prince from a throne, which rightfully belong'd to him; and this was perhaps the first time that ever the inquisition and synagogue went hand in hand together. several schemes were propos'd, but at last this, which was drawn by the archbishop, and approv'd of by the first minister of _spain_, was agreed upon; that the _jews_ should set fire to the four corners of the palace on the 5th of _august_, and at the same time to several houses both in the city and suburbs, that the people might every where be employ'd in extinguishing the fire; that the conspirators should all fly to the palace under pretence of assisting, and that amidst the horrour and confusion which this vast conflagration would cause, some of them should assassinate the king; that the duke _de camino_ should seize the queen and her children, who might be as serviceable to them in regaining the citadel, as the dutchess of _mantua_ had been to their enemies; that at the same time there should be fireworks ready to be play'd off, to set the _portuguese_ fleet on fire; that the archbishop, with the grand inquisitor and all his officers, should march thro the town, to keep the people in awe, and prevent their coming to the assistance of the king, so much do they dread the power of the inquisition; and that the marquiss _de villareal_ should take the administration upon him, till they had receiv'd orders from the court of _spain_. but as they had not the least reason to hope that the people would second them, they thought it necessary to make sure of some troops, and to that end wrote to _olivarez_ to send a fleet towards the coasts of _portugal_, which should be ready to enter the port of _lisbon_ at the time when the conspiracy should break out; and that there should be some forces on foot on the frontiers of the kingdom, which should be in a readiness to act against any place, which would not willingly surrender to the king of _spain_. but the most difficult part of their labour was to keep an exact correspondence with the _spanish_ minister: for since the king had been inform'd that the dutchess of _mantua_ had sent letters to _madrid_, there was such a strict guard kept upon the frontiers of the kingdom, that no one could go into _castile_ without the king's own passport; nor did they dare attempt to corrupt the guards, lest they should reveal what had been offer'd them. but at last, seeing themselves under an absolute necessity of acquainting the _spanish_ minister with their design, without which all their measures would infallibly be broken; they cast their eyes upon a rich merchant of _lisbon_, who was treasurer of the custom-house, and who, by reason of his great trade, had the king's immediate leave to send letters into _castile_ at any time. this man's name was _baeze_; he outwardly profess'd the christian religion, but was suppos'd to be a conceal'd observer of the _jewish_ law. to him they offer'd vast sums of money for his assistance; which, together with the persuasions of the _jews_ who were engag'd in the conspiracy, prevail'd upon him so far, that he promis'd to take care that their letters should be deliver'd to the duke _d'olivarez_. to this end he enclos'd the pacquet directed to the marquiss _daiamonti_, governour of the first town on the frontiers of _spain_, believing his letters safe, when once out of the dominions of _portugal_. the marquiss, who was nearly related to the queen, and was at that time negotiating a business for the king of _portugal_, was very much surpriz'd to see letters seal'd with the great seal of the inquisition, and directed to the first minister of _spain_; and beginning to fear that his own business was discover'd, and notice of it hereby given to _olivarez_, he open'd them, and found that they contain'd the scheme of a conspiracy against the royal family, and which was speedily to be put in execution. startled at the contents, he dispatch'd a courier to the court of _portugal_ with the intercepted letters. it is impossible to express the surprize of the king, when he saw that three princes, who were so nearly related to him, with the archbishop, and several grandees of the kingdom, were contriving how to take away his life, and give his crown to a stranger. he immediately communicated their intended treason to his privy-council, who after a small deliberation came to a resolution, which some few days afterwards was executed. the fifth of _october_ was the day appointed by the conspirators, and the time eleven at night. that very morning, about ten of the clock, all the soldiers who were quarter'd in the neighbouring villages, march'd into _lisbon_, it having been given out that they were then to be review'd in the court of the palace. the king at the same time gave notes with his own hand to several officers and others of his court, which were seal'd up, with positive orders not to open them till twelve, and then punctually to execute the contents. a little before noon the archbishop and the marquiss _de villareal_ were sent for to the palace about some business, and coming into the king's apartment, were arrested without the least noise, or any body's knowing it; and at the same time one of the captains of the guard made the duke _de camino_ a prisoner. those who had receiv'd the seal'd notes having open'd them, found orders to arrest such a man, whom they should convey to such a prison, and not lose sight of him till farther orders. in short, matters were manag'd so prudently, that in less than an hour's time the forty-seven conspirators were seiz'd, without so much as giving any one of them time enough to escape, or even the least suspicion that their plot was discover'd. the news of their intended barbarity reaching the ears of the people, they came flocking towards the palace, and in a tumultuous manner demanded the prisoners, that they might tear them piece-meal. tho the king was well pleas'd with the affection and loyalty of his subjects, yet was he a little troubled to see how easily they could be gather'd together, and what mischief they were at such a time able to do. wherefore having thank'd them for the care which they took of him, and having promis'd that the traitors should be punish'd according to law, he order'd the magistrates to disperse them. but as he knew that the most violent passions of an incens'd people will soon grow cool, and perhaps dwindle into compassion, when they no longer should consider the criminals as the worst of villains, who would have destroy'd their king and country, but as unhappy wretches, who must shortly suffer an ignominious death; he took care to publish, that the conspirators intent was to assassinate him and all the royal family, to set the whole town on fire, and those who escaped the raging flames, should have fallen by the sword of the rebels: that _spain_ being resolv'd to have nothing more to fear from the _portuguese_, would have sent all their citizens into _america_, to toil like slaves, and be bury'd alive in those mines, where so many had already perish'd, and to people the city of _lisbon_ with a colony of _castilians_. after this the king order'd the traitors to be brought to their tryal, and to this end he appointed judges, which he took out of the supreme court of judicature, and to whom he added two grandees of the kingdom, upon account of the archbishop of _braga_, the marquiss _de villareal_, and the duke _de camino_. the king put their letters, which they had sent to _olivarez_, into the hands of those who were appointed to prosecute them; but with orders not to make use of them, if they could by any other means prove them guilty of high treason, lest the court of _spain_ should thereby discover the correspondence which he held with the marquiss _daiamonti_: but there was no necessity of producing them to discover the truth; for _baeze_, who was the first that was brought to the bar, contradicted himself in almost every question which was ask'd him, and being put to the torture, his courage fail'd him, he confess'd his crime, and discover'd the whole plan of the conspiracy. he own'd that their design was to kill the king, that the office of the inquisition was now full of arms, and that they waited only for _olivarez_'s answer to execute their design. most of the other conspirators were put to the torture, and their deposition entirely agreed with _baeze_'s. the archbishop, the grand inquisitor, the marquiss _de villareal_, and the duke _de camino_, being unwilling to suffer the torments of the question, confess'd their crime. these two last were condemn'd to be beheaded, the rest of the lay-traitors to be hang'd, drawn and quarter'd, and the sentence of the ecclesiasticks was refer'd to the king himself. upon this the king immediately assembled his council, and told them, that the consequence of putting so many persons of quality to death, altho they were criminal, might be fatal: that the chief conspirators were of the first families of the kingdom, whose relations would be for ever his conceal'd enemies, and that the desire of revenging their death would be the unhappy source of new plots: that the consequence of the death of count _d'egmont_ in _flanders_, and of the _guises_ in _france_, had prov'd fatal: that if he pardon'd some of them, and chang'd the sentence of the others into a punishment less severe than death, he should for ever win theirs, their friends, and their kindreds hearts, and bind them to his service by the ties of gratitude: but yet, that notwithstanding he himself was inclin'd to mercy, he had assembled his council to know their opinions, and to follow that which should seem the most reasonable, and the most just. the marquiss _de ferreira_ was the first who spoke, and was for having them executed without delay: he represented, that in such cases as these justice only ought to be consulted, and that mercy was most dangerous: that pardon would seem not so much the effect of the goodness, as weakness of the prince, or the fear of their threatning powerful friends: that if these should go unpunish'd, it would bring the government into contempt, and encourage their relations to deliver them out of prison, or perhaps to carry matters farther: that now, at his accession to the crown, he ought, by an example of severity, to deter others from ever attempting the like. he urg'd farther, that they were traitors not only to the king, but also to the state, whose present constitution they had endeavour'd to subvert: that he ought rather to hearken to the justice which he ow'd his people, and punish these criminals, than to his own inclination of forgiving them, especially at a time when his preservation and the publick safety were inseparable. the whole council being of the same opinion, the king yielded, and the next day sentence was executed. the archbishop of of _lisbon_ being willing to save one of his friends, came to the queen, and sollicited her for a pardon, with all the assurance of a man, who thought that nothing could be deny'd him, and that his former services might claim a much greater favour. but the queen, who was convinc'd of the justice and absolute necessity of their suffering the law, and how much a distinction of this nature would incense the friends and relations of the rest, answer'd the archbishop in few words, but with such a tone, as made him see it would be in vain to urge his request any farther; "my lord, the only favour i can now grant you, is to forget that you ever ask'd me this." the king, unwilling to disoblige the clergy, and especially the court of _rome_, who had not as yet acknowledg'd him king, or receiv'd his ambassadors, would not suffer the archbishop of _braga_, or the grand inquisitor, to be executed, but condemn'd them to a perpetual imprisonment; where the archbishop shortly after died of a violent fever, a disease often fatal to state-prisoners, who for some politick reason must not be led to open execution. nothing could be equal to the surprize of _olivarez_, when this news was brought him; he could not imagine by what means the king of _portugal_ had discover'd their design, nor would it ever have been known, had not an accident happen'd, which made him see that it was the marquiss _daiamonti_, who had unravel'd the dark design, and acquainted the king with it. this prince still kept a very good correspondence with the enemies of _spain_, his ports were open to the fleets of _france_ and _holland_; he had a resident at _barcelona_, and encourag'd the revolting _catalonians_: in short, he did all he could to weaken _spain_, not only by increasing the rage of its foes, but also by endeavouring to raise up new ones. to this end, he had already inclin'd the duke _de medina sidonia_, his brother-in-law, to rebel; whom the marquiss _daiamonti_, a _castilian_, and their mutual confidant, at length entirely seduced. this nobleman was, as has been before observ'd, nearly related to the queen of _portugal_, and the duke of _medina_: he was governour of a place at the mouth of the _guadiano_, and just on the frontiers of _portugal_, which made it easy for him to keep a good correspondence with that court; nor did he question, but that by being serviceable to two such powerful families, he should easily make his own fortune. he was valiant, enterprizing, hated the first minister, and at the same time did not in the least value his life; a quality so very necessary to those who embark themselves in any dangerous design. he wrote privately to the duke, to congratulate him upon the discovery of the archbishop's plot, and the preservation of the life of the queen his sister, and all the royal family; he at the same time observ'd how grateful it must be to him to see the crown of _portugal_ one day adorn the head of his nephews, which made that kingdom a sure refuge for him in time of distress: which perhaps might be too near at hand, since he could never reckon himself safe while _olivarez_ was at the head of affairs, whose only aim was to ruin all the grandees; nor was it to be suppos'd that the crafty statesman would long leave him governour of so large a province, and in the neighbourhood of _portugal_: that he would advise him seriously to reflect on all these things, and let him know his resolutions; to which end he should send him a person in whom he could confide, and to whom they both might safely trust their secret. the duke was naturally proud and ambitious, and with envy had beheld his brother-in-law raising himself to the throne; nor would he, on his side, willingly neglect any opportunity of doing the like. believing by what the marquiss said, that he had some very advantageous proposal of this kind to make him, he sent _lewis de castile_, his confidant, to _daiamonti_, who seeing his credentials, at once open'd his mind, and bid him remember with what ease the duke of _braganza_ had made himself master of the crown of portugal; nor could there ever be a more favourable time for the duke of _medina sidonia_ to do the like, and make himself independent of the crown of _spain_. after this he represented the weakness of that kingdom, which was exhausted by the wars which the _french_ and _dutch_ had continually waged against them: that _catalonia_ now employ'd all its forces, nor would the king know how to help himself, should _andalusia_ rise in arms against him, and the war be thus carry'd into the very heart of the kingdom: that the people would certainly side with him, being always fond of a new government; besides which, they had reason enough to complain of the old one, which had so oppress'd them with taxes, and extorted such vast sums from them: that the duke of _medina_ was as well beloved by the _andalusians_, as the duke of _braganza_ was at the time of the revolution by the _portuguese_: that the only thing which now remain'd to be done, was to gain all those, who, under him, were governours of towns and forts, without entrusting them with the secret, which might be done; and to fill all places of trust with his surest friends: that as soon as the galloons, which were expected from the _indies_, arriv'd, he should seize them, and the riches which were on board would defray the expences of this enterprize: that the king of _portugal_, with his allies, should have a fleet ready to enter _cadiz_, and there land a sufficient number of forces, to subdue those who would unseasonably shew their loyalty to _spain_. _lewis de castile_ being return'd to his master, gave him a faithful account of all that had pass'd between him and the marquiss. the duke, dazled with the prospect of a crown, resolv'd to hazard every thing, rather than fail of obtaining one. he was chief commander there both by sea and land, as captain-general of the ocean, and governour of the province, in which he also had a very large estate, and several towns under his own immediate jurisdiction. this seem'd very much to facilitate his design, and made him believe, that it was in his power to put a crown upon his head whenever he pleas'd. upon this he sent _lewis de castile_ back to the marquiss, that they might together agree upon the properest measures of accomplishing their project, and especially of engaging the crown of _portugal_ to lend them all the assistance it possibly could. mean while, he himself was disposing every thing for the intended revolution; he put his own creatures in all those places where their assistance would be most serviceable to him; he frequently would pity the soldiers, who were not paid as they ought to be, and the people, who were over-burden'd with excessive taxes. the marquiss _daiamonti_ was well pleas'd to see the duke in that disposition he had long wish'd to see him in; he wanted to acquaint the king of _portugal_ with it, but was unwilling to trust to letters, and fear'd he could not send a messenger so privately, but that the court of _spain_ might discover it, and have just cause to mistrust his fidelity: however, at last he cast his eyes upon a crafty and intriguing monk, who for love of money, or hope of preferment, would undertake any thing; he was call'd father _nicholas de valasco_, of the order of _st. francis_. no one could be fitter for his purpose, since in the countries where the inquisition is, this habit is so much respected, that no one would dare to pry into his actions, and observe his steps. as soon as he had receiv'd his instructions, he came to _castro-marino_, the first town on the frontiers of _portugal_, pretending to ransom some _castilian_ prisoners which were detain'd in _portugal_. the king, who had notice given him of it, by a letter from the marquiss _daiamonti_, was desir'd to seize him, and bring him to court: this was accordingly done; he was arrested as a spy, loaded with chains, and brought to _lisbon_ as a state-criminal, whom the ministry themselves would examine; where he was immediately cast into prison, and seemingly watch'd very strictly: some time after he was set at liberty, since upon examination it appear'd, that his only intent was to ransom some _castilian_ prisoners; and partly, to make him amends for his former ill usage, he was permitted to come to court, to treat with the proper officer about it. the king saw him himself several times, and promis'd him, that as a reward of his industry and faithful service, he would give him a bishoprick. the monk, flatter'd with the hopes of the mitre, would never stir from the palace; he made his court to the queen, and was always waiting upon the ministers: he wanted to be let into all the state-intrigues, and did all he could to shew what credit he had at court; and thus, without directly revealing his secret, he betray'd it by his pride and inconsiderateness. it plainly appear'd, that the severity of his prison was only a blind, and the examination of the ministry a pretence to introduce him into court. many and various were the conjectures which were made about his real business there; but at last a _castilian_, who was prisoner at _lisbon_, discover'd the whole intrigue. this _castilian_, nam'd _sancho_, was a creature of the duke of _medina sidonia_'s, and, before the late revolution, pay-master of the _spanish_ army in _portugal_. he, with the rest of his countrymen who were taken up at that time, groan'd in confinement, nor had they any prospect of liberty; but hearing of this monk, and being inform'd of his country, his extravagant conduct, his credit at court, and several other circumstances, which made it plain that he was there employ'd in some secret business; he thought he had now an opportunity of obtaining his liberty, and with this hope he wrote the monk a long letter, full of expressions fit to sooth his vanity; in it he complain'd, that the king of _portugal_ detain'd him in prison, (with the other _castilians_) who was a servant and creature of the duke his brother-in-law: and to confirm it, he sent him several letters, wrote to him by that prince himself some little time before the revolution, in which he treated him as one in whom he repos'd an entire confidence. the _franciscan_ answer'd _sancho_'s letter, and assur'd him, that nothing could recommend him more to him, than his belonging to the duke of _medina_; that he would use all his endeavour to procure him his liberty, but in the mean time he must take care not so much as to open his mouth about it. the _spaniard_ waited some days for the effect of his promise, and at last sent him a second epistle, in which he represented, that seven months were expir'd since he was cast into prison; that the _spanish_ minister seem'd to have quite forgotten him, since he neither talk'd of ransoming or exchanging him; and that therefore he had no hopes of liberty left, but what were built upon the charity and interest of the reverend father. the monk, who thought he should very much oblige the duke of _medina_, by procuring _sancho_ his freedom, begg'd it of the king, and obtain'd it. he went to the prison himself, to fetch him out of it, and offer'd to have him included in a passport, which was to be given to some of the dutchess of _mantua_'s servants, who were then returning to _madrid_. but the crafty _castilian_ answer'd him, that _madrid_ was a place to which he could never more return; that he must not pretend to appear at court, unless he desir'd to be thrown into prison again, seeing that _olivarez_ was so severe and unjust, that he would expect his accounts to be made up, altho in the late revolution he had been stript not only of his money, but had had his books also taken from him: to this he added, that he desir'd nothing more than to be near the duke of _medina_, his patron, who was both able and willing, he did not question, to advance him. the _franciscan_ wanting somebody whom he could trust his secret to, and by whom he might give the marquiss _daiamonti_ a strict account of his negotiation, cast his eyes upon the _castilian_, who seem'd very much attach'd to the interest of the duke of _medina_. to this end he detain'd the _spaniard_ some time, pretending that he could not as yet procure him a passport, tho his intent was to observe him, and see whether or not he was a person fit to be entrusted. their being frequently together begat an intimate acquaintance, which they both mutually desir'd; the monk, that he might engage the _spaniard_ to serve him; and the _spaniard_, that he might make himself master of the monk's secret. this holy man, like the rest of his brethren, puff'd up with vanity, could not forbear one day telling his friend, that he would not long see him in that garb in which he was, that he had a bishoprick promis'd him, and that he did not despair of obtaining the _roman_ purple. _sancho_, to make him prattle the faster, pretended that he did not believe a word of what he said. the fryar laugh'd at his incredulity: "and i suppose, _continued he_, you would not believe me neither, if i should tell you, that the duke of _medina_ will shortly be a king." the other, to get the secret quite out of him, urg'd the impossibility of it; upon which the monk told him the whole story: that _andalusia_ must in a little time acknowledge the duke for their sovereign: that the marquiss _daiamonti_, who had also discover'd the _spanish_ plot to the king of _portugal_, was the chief negotiator and instrument of this intended revolution: that he should shortly see strange alterations in _spain_, and that he had now an opportunity of making his fortune only by being secret, and taking care to deliver some letters from him to the duke and marquiss. _sancho_, well pleas'd at the discovery of this secret, which he had long labour'd to get out of him, renew'd his protestations of fidelity and secrecy, and his offers of service; and having taken _velasco_'s letters, told him, that he should be proud of the opportunity of serving the prince, and hoped that he should be thought worthy of the honour of bringing him an answer. upon this the _castilian_ set out for _andalusia_, but was no sooner got into the _spanish_ territories, than he took the _madrid_ road; and as soon as he arriv'd, went strait to the minister's house, and sent him word that _sancho_, pay-master of the army in _portugal_, was just escaped out of prison, where he had been confin'd by the usurper, and had some important business to communicate to him. it was a very hard matter to gain access to _olivarez_, who had his set hours of granting audience, and at which time he sent word the pay-master must return. enrag'd at this refusal, _sancho_ cry'd he must, he would speak to him; that his business was no trifle, but the safety of the kingdom depended on its being immediately reveal'd. this being told _olivarez_, he order'd him to be admitted: _sancho_ enter'd the room, and threw himself at his feet, crying the kingdom was sav'd from the ruin which threaten'd it, since he had gain'd admittance to one, in whose power it was to prevent it; then told the whole story of the duke of _medina_'s intent, encourag'd in it by the king of _portugal_, and persuaded to it by the marquiss _daiamonti_, his design of seizing upon the galloons, and of making the soldiers of _andalusia_ turn their arms against their king: to justify all which, he deliver'd those letters given him by the _franciscan_ for the duke and marquiss, and which contain'd the scheme of the conspiracy. _olivarez_, was so surpriz'd at the strangeness of this news, that he could not for some time utter a word, but at last recovering himself, he prais'd _sancho_ for his loyalty, and told him that he deserv'd a double reward, not only as he had reveal'd the plot, but also as he had not been afraid to discover it even to the nearest relation of the chief conspirator. then order'd he the _spaniard_ to be conducted into a private apartment, and be debarr'd the liberty of speaking to any one. mean while the minister went into the king's apartment, and told him all that _sancho_ had related, and shew'd him the letters which he had deliver'd him. never was prince in a greater consternation than _philip_ was, long had he observ'd and dreaded the haughty carriage of the _gusmans_; and as the loss of _portugal_, which he thought was owing to the dutchess of _braganza_, was still fresh in his memory, he could not forbear telling _olivarez_, in a reproachful manner, that all the misfortunes which the _spaniards_ had lately suffer'd, they were beholden to his family for. this prince wanted neither wit or judgment, but he was so addicted to pleasure, that he would never apply himself to any thing that carry'd the face of business, but would rather have lost half his dominions, than be oblig'd to quit his indolent and effeminate manner of living: wherefore having vented his passion in this reproach, he gave the _franciscan_'s letters back to _olivarez_, without so much as opening them; ordering him to have them examin'd by a committee, compos'd of three members of his privy-council, who should make their report to him. this was all that _olivarez_ desir'd, for now he could give the business what turn he pleas'd. he chose three of his own creatures for the commissioners, into whose hands the letters were put, and by whom _sancho_ was examin'd several times; all their aim was to acquit the duke of _medina_, to which end _olivarez_, himself came to _sancho_, and affecting an affable behaviour, and an extraordinary kindness for the man; "how, my dear _sancho, said_ he, shall we contrive to acquit the duke of _medina_ of a crime, which is testify'd only by the letters of an unknown monk, and who probably was bribed by the duke's enemies to lay this to his charge; for certain it is, that never governour of _andalusia_ discharg'd his duty better, both towards the king and his province." _sancho_, who was fully persuaded of the truth of his deposition, and fear'd that any of the criminals should be acquitted, lest he should lose his hoped-for reward, still maintain'd, that he was well assur'd that there was an horrid conspiracy form'd against the government in favour of the duke, who was also at the head of it; that the marquiss _daiamonti_ was the contriver of the plot; and that he himself had read several of their letters, which were shewn him by the _franciscan_, and was certain, that if _olivarez_ did not prevent it in time, all _andalusia_ would be up in arms, to make their governour their monarch. _olivarez_, very unwilling that this business should be too narrowly search'd into, took an opportunity of telling the king, that the monk's letters had been decypher'd and examin'd, and that he really believ'd him to be some wretch who had been bribed to calumniate the duke; for there was no letter of his produc'd, nor did _sancho_ make any formal deposition against him. however, as it was impossible to be too cautious in such a case as this, his opinion was, that the duke must be artfully drawn to court, for if he had any such design on foot, it was not safe to arrest him in _andalusia_; that some forces must be sent to _cadiz_, under a new governour; that the marquiss _daiamonti_ must be taken up at the same time, and if they were found guilty, his majesty might deliver them over to the severity of the law. this haughty minister's will was not only generally a law to the subjects of _spain_, but was always one to the king; who told him, that he should manage this business as he thought fit, for he left it entirely to him. upon this _olivarez_ sent his nephew, don _lewis d'haro_, to the duke of _medina_, to tell him what had been depos'd against him, and with orders, that guilty or not guilty, he should immediately come to court, which if he did, his pardon should be granted; but that if he defer'd his journey, it would no longer be in his power to procure it. this message thunder-struck the duke of _medina_, and he saw himself under a necessity of obeying, or immediately flying into _portugal_: but then considering how ignominious it was to spend his days in indolence, and live a banish'd man, especially in a country where there was no employment worthy of him, and at the same time knowing how great _olivarez_'s power was; he resolv'd to trust him: and set out for _madrid_, and with such diligence did he pursue his journey, that the king was immediately inclin'd to believe him innocent, or to forgive him, should he be found guilty. whilst don _lewis d'haro_ was employ'd in this business, a messenger was sent to take up the marquiss _daiamonti_; and the duke of _ciudad-real_ march'd into _cadiz_ at the head of 5000 men. as soon as the duke of _medina_ arriv'd at _madrid_, he went and alighted at _olivarez_'s house, to whom he confess'd the conspiracy, shew'd him the scheme by which they were to proceed, but cast all the odium of it upon the marquiss. _olivarez_ that instant introduc'd him into the king's closet, where he threw himself at his majesty's feet, and with tears confess'd his crime, and begg'd his pardon. _philip_, who was of a soft and compassionate nature, mix'd his tears with the duke's, and easily forgave him. but as it would have been very imprudent to have expos'd him to the same temptation a second time, he was order'd to stay at court; part of his estate was also confiscated, the king being sensible, that had he not been too rich, and too powerful, he would never have made an attempt of this kind: and a governour and a garison were plac'd in _saint lucar de barameda_, the town in which the dukes of _medina sidonia_ generally resided. _olivarez_, to persuade the king that his relation's repentance was sincere, advis'd him to send a formal challenge to the duke of _braganza_; which he refus'd at first, objecting that both divine and human laws forbad duels. but _olivarez_ persisting in his resolution of having one sent, _medina_ reply'd, that he could not in conscience come to this extremity with his brother-in-law, unless the king would obtain a bull from the pope, which should secure him from the censure of the church, which always excommunicated duelists. _olivarez_ answer'd him, that this was not a time for scruples of conscience, but that he must now think of satisfying both the king and people of the sincerity of his repentance; that in short it was no matter whether he would fight or not, provided he would not disown a challenge, which he would publish in his name. the duke, who now plainly saw that _olivarez_'s intent was only to amuse the people, consented to it, and the minister drew up one himself. several of them were sent into _portugal_, as well as into most courts of _europe_. a copy of it may probably not be displeasing to the reader, who will be surpriz'd to see a challenge, which by its length, formality, and stile, would better have became a knight-errant of old, than such a prince as the duke of _medina sidonia_ was. [illustration] don _gaspar alonco perez de gusman_, duke of _medina sidonia_, marquiss, earl, and baron of _saint lucar de barameda_, captain general of the ocean, of the coasts of _andalusia_, and of the armies of _portugal_, gentleman of the bed-chamber to his catholick majesty; whom god preserve. _whereas nothing has been more conspicuous to the whole world, than the treasonable practices of ~john~ late duke of ~braganza~; be also_ _his damnable intentions known, of seducing and tainting with disloyalty the faithful family of the ~gusmans~, which ever has been, and for the future ever shall be most true and loyal to the king their master, in whose service so many of them have shed their blood. this usurper has endeavour'd to insinuate into the minds of foreign princes, as well as of his own rebel ~portuguese~, that i would aid and assist him, and enter into his measures; hoping thereby to keep up the spirits of those who have join'd with him, and to put me out of favour with the king my master, (whom god preserve) thinking that by these means he should alienate my duty and affection from my master, and then i should consent to his cursed designs, without that repugnance_ _which he has found in me. and the better to accomplish his design, he has made use of a monk, who was sent by the town of ~daiamonti~ to ~castro-marino~ in ~portugal~, to treat about the ransom of a prisoner: which monk being carried to ~lisbon~, was suborn'd, and persuaded to give out that i was engag'd in the conspiracy, and that i would permit any foreign army to land in ~andalusia~, to favour their designs: and to give the better colour to his story, he shew'd some forg'd letters, and which he pretended to have receiv'd from me._ _all this was done with a design to persuade several princes to send him some forces, and would to god they had, that i might have shewn my loyalty, by destroying them and their_ _ships; which will easily appear to have been my intent, by the orders which i left on all the coasts._ _these things have been a sore affliction to me; but what grieves me still more, is, that his wife should be my sister, whose blood i would gladly shed, since by rebellion tainted and corrupted, that i might give an evident proof of my loyalty to my king, and efface all those suspicions, which these rumours may have imprinted in the minds of the people._ [sidenote: 1641.] _for these reasons therefore i challenge the said ~john~ late duke of ~braganza~, as being a traitor both to god and his king, and invite him to meet me in person, and in single combat try our fortune, with or without seconds, and arm'd in_ _what manner he please; the place shall be near ~valentia d'alcantra~, which is on the frontiers both of ~castile~ and ~portugal~, and where i will wait for him four-score days, from the first of ~october~ to the nineteenth of ~december~ of this present year. the twenty last days i will wait for him in person, and on the time which he shall appoint i will enter the lists; which time, though it be long, i give him, not only that he the said tyrant, but also that all ~europe~, nay, that the whole world may know it. to this end, i will send ten chevaliers a league within ~portugal~; as also, he shall send ten a league within ~castile~, as hostages, and on that day i will shew him the heinousness and baseness of his crime._ _but if he the said ~john~ late duke of ~braganza~, should fail meeting me, to give me gentleman-like satisfaction, and thereby deprive me of the opportunity of shewing my loyalty to the king my master, and the natural hatred which our family has to traitors; i offer (with submission to his catholick majesty, whom god preserve) my good town of ~st. lucar de barameda~, which always has been the seat of the dukes of ~medina sidonia~, to any man who shall kill him. to which end, i beg of his catholick majesty, that i may not have any longer the command of the army which is to march against him, being so transported with rage, that i should not be master of that sedateness and conduct, which are so necessary to_ _a general; but that his majesty would give me leave to be only at the head of a thousand of my own people, on whose courage, as well as my own, i may rely, that in case the said usurper should not accept my challenge, we may bring him dead or alive to his said majesty. and that i may not be thought to be wanting in my duty to my king, i offer one of my best towns to the first governour, or other officer, belonging to the usurper, who will surrender any place to the king my master; never thinking that i can do enough for his service, since to him, and to his glorious ancestors, i owe all that i enjoy._ given at _toledo_ the 29th of _september_, 1641. [illustration] according to his promise, the duke of _medina_ appear'd in the lists, follow'd by don _john de garray_, lieutenant-general of the _spanish_ cavalry; there the duke of _braganza_ was summon'd in a formal manner: but that prince was too prudent to play a part in this farce; or had the thing been of a more serious nature, a sovereign prince was not to venture his life against a subject of his enemy. whilst _olivarez_ amus'd the people in this manner, he was also taking care to turn the resentment of the king and people upon the marquiss _daiamonti_, whom he intended to prove the only guilty person: to this end he flatter'd him with the hopes of a pardon, and that, as well as the duke of _medina_, he should taste the bounties of a merciful prince, provided he would be open in his confession; but that kings, like god, whose images they were, never forgave any, but those who heartily and sincerely repented them of their crimes. the marquiss trusting to this promise, which the duke of _medina_'s example gave him no room to doubt of, sign'd a paper which _d'olivarez_ brought him, and which he immediately put into the hands of those who were to try him. upon this confession of his he was indicted, and condemn'd to be beheaded. when the judge pass'd sentence, he heard it without the least concern, or so much as murmuring at _olivarez_ or the duke. that same night he supp'd as heartily as usual, and when they came to lead him to execution the next morning, he was still asleep. he ascended the block without speaking one word, whilst a contempt of death might be read in his looks, and died with a courage and resolution worthy of a better cause. such was the end of a conspiracy, from which the king of _spain_ escaped meerly by accident, or rather by a decree of providence, which cannot connive at crimes of this nature, and will seldom suffer treachery to prevail. the king of _portugal_ seeing this project miscarry, resolv'd to maintain himself on the throne no longer by such clandestine means, but by open force, and the assistance of his allies. _france_ seem'd particularly to take the house of _braganza_ under its protection, as being the most antient branch of their own royal family. the foreign war so employ'd the _spanish_ forces, that the _portuguese_ had always the advantage over them, and they drove them still farther from their frontiers. the king might easily at that time have enter'd into the very center of _castile_, had he had a good general, and disciplin'd soldiers; but his army was chiefly compos'd of militia, fitter to make sudden incursions into the enemy's country, than to bear the fatigue of a regular campaign. another thing that hinder'd his making a greater progress with his army, was, that he had not money enough to pay them, and consequently not forces enough on foot; for as at his coming to the crown, he had taken off all taxes from the people, that they might the better relish his government, and had only his own estate to defray the expences of the war; nor would he ever venture to lay new taxes upon them. but this want of his was partly recompens'd by the necessity of _spain_, who at that time had no better generals than the _portuguese_, and whose treasures, towards the latter end of _philip_ the fourth's reign, were exhausted. on the sixth of _november_, 1656. died this prince: in all the encomiums and panegyricks made upon him by the _portuguese_, he is celebrated for his piety and moderation. foreign historians upbraid him with cowardice, and report, that he always distrusted both himself and others; that it was a difficult point, especially for the grandees, to get access to him; and that he was free with no one but his ancient domestick servants, especially with one that was always in company with his confessor. in short, from what we can gather of his life, he was a peaceable and religious prince, and endow'd with qualities which would better have became a private gentleman than a monarch; so that we can attribute his being rais'd to the throne only to the inveterate hate which the _portuguese_ bore the _castilians_, and to the ambition, courage, and counsels of his queen, whom by his last will he nam'd regent of the kingdom during his son's minority; not doubting but that one who could raise herself to a throne, would not want courage to preserve it for her children. he left behind him two sons and a daughter; the elder of the sons was don _alphonso_, of a peevish and melancholy temper, who had quite lost the use of one side, and was at the time of his father's death near thirteen years old: don _pedro_, the younger, was but eight: donna _catharina_ their sister, was older than either of them, and was born before the revolution. don _alphonso_ was immediately shewn to the people, and proclaim'd king, and the queen took the regency upon her. this princess would willingly have signaliz'd herself by some glorious action, but the commanders of the _portuguese_ army were fitter for soldiers than generals, and there was not an officer amongst them, who was engineer enough to know how to fortify a place, or besiege a town. nor was there a man in the privy-council, who could be look'd upon as a statesman; most of them could indeed make fine speeches and elaborate discourses upon the necessities of the state, and the misfortunes in which it would probably fall, but never a one of them knew how to prevent or remedy them. * * * * * [sidenote: 1657.] to these evils we must attribute the ill success of her arms before _olivenza_ and _badajos_, where the _spaniards_ obliged them to raise the siege. besides this, they had fallen out with the _dutch_ about the trade to the _indies_; and the _french_, after the _pyrenean_ treaty, seem'd to have forgotten them. the queen finding herself without any regular troops, without able officers or good counsellors, and without foreign alliances, was obliged by her courage, capacity, and application, to supply the want of all these; she herself discharg'd the duty of a secretary of state, and took care to keep a good correspondence with all the courts of _europe_, which might be serviceable to her: in short, had she never encounter'd all these difficulties, she could not have reveal'd all those _hidden vertues, which shun the day, and lie conceal'd in the smooth seasons, and the calms of life_. by such care and diligence for a long time she sav'd _portugal_ from that ruin which threaten'd it; but _spain_ now pouring all its forces in upon her, she found herself unable to resist them, unless she could procure better officers. to this end she cast her eyes upon _frederick_ count of _schomberg_, whose name and valour were already sufficiently known. she would willingly have given him the chief command of the army, but was afraid at this juncture of disobliging her generalissimo; wherefore she order'd the count _de soure_, her ambassador in _france_, to treat with the count _de schomberg_ about his coming into _portugal_, where he should have only the title of lieutenant-general; but in case of the death or resignation of the present commander, he should be made generalissimo of all her forces. the count set out for _lisbon_ with four-score officers, and above four hundred horsemen, all veterans, who perfectly understood the discipline of an army, and would upon occasion make good leaders. before the count went into _portugal_, he made a voyage into _england_, where he saw king _charles_ the second, who was lately restor'd: he had private orders from the regent, to endeavour to discover whether king _charles_ might be brought to marry the infanta of _portugal_. the count negotiated this business with so much address, that he made both the king and chancellor _hyde_ desirous of this alliance. the queen, extremely satisfy'd with what he had done, desir'd him to hasten into _portugal_, and sent the marquiss _de sande_ to conclude the business. [sidenote: _may 31. 1662._] but the king of _spain_, foreseeing what might be the consequence of this match, did all he could to prevent it; he offer'd to give any protestant princess three millions for her portion, provided the king would marry her; and by his ambassador propos'd the princesses of _denmark_, _saxony_, or _orange_. but the chancellor represented to the king how nearly it concern'd him to maintain the house of _braganza_ on the throne, and not let _philip_ become master of all _spain_ and the _indies_. his speech produc'd the desir'd effect, and king _charles_ married the infanta. thus did a protestant statesman persuade his sovereign to marry a catholick princess, whilst a prince of the _roman_ communion, who valued himself in a particular manner upon the title of the most catholick king, offer'd him vast sums of money, to engage him to wed a protestant. shortly after king _charles_, by his mediation, establish'd a treaty of commerce between the states of _holland_ and the crown of _portugal_; after which he sent a considerable number of troops into that kingdom, commanded by the earl of _inchequin_: but having recall'd him, he order'd that the forces should stay under the command of _schomberg_; so that the count shortly saw himself at the head of the chosen forces of three kingdoms. not but that there was a _portuguese_ generalissimo, or at least one who had the title, but the count had all the authority, which he made use of to establish an exact and regular discipline amongst the _portuguese_: he taught them the order of marching, encamping, besieging, and regularly fortifying a town; so that all those places on the frontiers of the kingdom, which were before naked and defenceless, soon became capable of making a vigorous defence. the regent queen, proud of having met with such a general, carry'd the war vigorously on, and her arms were almost every where crown'd with success; never were the _portuguese_ forces better disciplin'd, the people bless'd her government, the grandees continu'd in perfect submission to it through fear and respect: but though fortune favour'd her abroad, she met with domestick cares and troubles, which chang'd the face of every thing. whilst the regent was taking care to place the crown with surety on her son's head, he, on the other hand, endeavour'd to make himself unworthy of it, by his irregular manner of living; he was mean-spirited, melancholy, and cruel, could not bear the authority of his mother, and despis'd the advices of his governours and ministers; he always refus'd the company of the lords of his houshold, and would divert himself with none but negroes, mulattoes, and all the scum of the _lisbonite_ youth: and spite of the care of his governours, he had got a little court compos'd of such like people, whom he call'd his bravoes, with whom he us'd to scour the streets at night, and insult all those who unfortunately fell into his way. this disorder of mind had been first caus'd by a palsy, which had afflicted him when about four years of age, and which had made fatal impressions not only on his limbs, but also on his brain. whilst he was young, his faults had been wink'd at by his tutors, who thought that so infirm a child could never bear the fatigues of a severe education, and hoped that time would both strengthen his body, and sweeten his temper: but this indulgence ruin'd him. 'tis true, that by the assistance of remedies, and help of time, his constitution grew stronger, he could fence, ride, and bear any fatigue; but his temper never became better. his passions encreasing with his age, they soon prevail'd over his reason, which was but weak, and he gave a loose to licentiousness and debauchery. he would bring common prostitutes into the palace, fetch them himself from the stews, and very often spend whole nights amongst them there. the queen, overwhelm'd with grief, and fearing that the irregularity of her son would at once destroy the labours of her whole life, resolv'd several times within herself to have him confin'd, and make his brother reign in his stead; but dreading to excite a civil war, which would have favour'd the _spanish_ arms, she dropp'd the bold design: sometimes she hoped the king might yet be reclaim'd, especially if he was depriv'd of the company of _conti_, a merchant's son, his first favourite, and companion of all his debaucheries. to this end she had _conti_ privately seiz'd, and carry'd on board a ship which was bound for _brazil_, with orders that he should never return to _portugal_ on pain of death. the king at first seem'd very much griev'd at the loss of his favourite, but comforting himself by little and little, he was at last pacify'd, and seem'd very much alter'd for the better, would hearken to advice, and paid the queen an unusual respect, who was congratulated by the ministry and the whole court, upon the extraordinary success of her enterprize. but this apparent tranquillity and alteration of the king's, was only a veil to cover a deep design, and of which his mother never thought him capable; so that this princess, who could read in the very hearts of the most dissembling courtiers, was overreach'd by a half-witted youth. the king had complain'd of _conti_'s banishment to the count _de castel-melhor_, a _portuguese_ nobleman, of an illustrious birth, subtle and insinuating, but fitter to manage a court-intrigue, than a business of importance. the count thought that a fair opportunity offer'd of supplying _conti_'s place in the king's favour; wherefore to ingratiate himself, he deplor'd the exile's misfortune, and promis'd to use his utmost endeavours to have him recall'd. he told the prince at the same time, that it was in his own power to remedy this, or any grievance of the like nature; that he was of age, and had been so a great while; that he might as soon as he pleased take the supreme command upon himself, then recall _conti_, and let him triumph over the queen, and all his other enemies. the king was pleas'd with this advice, and determin'd to follow it; the count was his sole confidant and favourite: however, he desir'd the king that their intimacy should still be a secret, that the queen might not suspect him: but it could not be long conceal'd from this princess, who meeting him one day in the king's train, caught him by the arm, and staring him in the face with that majestick air, which made every one tremble; "i am inform'd, count, _said she_, that the king is wholly govern'd by your counsels; take therefore good care of him, for if he does any thing to thwart me, your life shall answer it." the count, without answering, made a submissive bow, and follow'd the king, who call'd him. as soon as he was alone with him, he gave him an account of what the queen had said: "i suppose, _continued he_, that i shall shorty share _conti_'s fate, but yet with joy should i go to banishment, could i at the same time see my king shake off the authority of an imperious mother, who will let him enjoy the title, but never the power of a sovereign." this artful discourse threw the prince into a violent passion, and he would go immediately and take the royal authority from the queen, by taking the great seal, which is the mark of it; but the count, who knew too well what the consequence of this would be, advis'd him to retire to _alcantra_, and from thence to send couriers to the magistrates of _lisbon_, and to all the governours of provinces, to let them know that he was of age, and had taken the government upon himself. the king approv'd the counsel, and having that evening disguis'd himself, he left the palace, follow'd only by the count and a few friends. that night they arriv'd at _alcantra_, from whence he sent orders to the secretaries of state, and to the _german_ guard, to come to him; and at the same time dispatch'd couriers to every town of _portugal_, to let them know that he was of age, and by consequence the regency of the queen at an end. most of the court set out for _alcantra_, and the queen saw herself in a manner forsaken; notwithstanding which, she resolv'd to lay down her authority as became her: wherefore she wrote to the king, to ask him the reason why he took possession of the throne like an usurper, that had no right to it; and added, that if he would return to _lisbon_, she would lay down her authority in presence of the grandees and the magistrates. the king accordingly return'd, and the queen having summon'd the grandees, magistrates, and others of the nobility, to attend her, in presence of the assembly took the seals out of the great purse, and putting them into her son's hand, "here are, _said she_, the seals, which, together with the regency, were entrusted to my care by the will of my late sovereign lord: i return them to your majesty with all the authority, which they are the emblems of; i heartily pray god that you may make a good use of them, and that your reign may be as prosperous as i can wish it." the king took the seals, and gave them to the first secretary of state; after which the prince, and all the grandees, kiss'd his hand, and acknowledg'd him their sovereign. the queen dowager had given out, that she intended in six months time to retire into a convent, but that six months she would spend at court, to see what measures the young king would take. but the favourite count, who still dreaded that princess, who knew her tow'ring genius, and was sensible of the natural sway which a mother has over the mind of her son, persuaded the king to treat her most inhumanly, that by frequent affronts he might oblige her to leave the court much sooner than she intended. the queen, who was of a haughty temper, could not bear to be thus us'd, but immediately threw herself into a convent; where, being fully satisfy'd of the vanities of human greatness, she spent the remainder of her time, which was scarce a year, in preparing herself for another world, and died on the eighteenth of _february_, 1666. lamented by the whole nation: for never was there a princess of a more extraordinary genius, or more amply endow'd with all the vertues requisite to either the one or the other sex. whilst on the throne, she shew'd a truly great and heroick soul; when she quitted it for a religious life, she seem'd entirely to have forgotten what pomp and grandeur were, and all her ambition then was to deserve heaven. the king, who now saw himself fully at liberty, and no longer fear'd the prudent queen's just reproofs, gave a loose to his passions, and indulg'd his pernicious inclinations. he would scour the streets at night with his bravoes, and abuse every one he met with; nor did the watch fare better than their neighbours. never a night did he ramble, but the next morning tragical histories were publish'd, of several who had been wounded or murder'd in the streets; and people fled before him with greater fear than they would before a hungry lion, just broke loose from his den. the count _de castel-melhor_ was his first minister; he was an intriguing, insinuating courtier, but far from being an able statesman: haughty in prosperity, fawning and timorous in adversity. in his hands were the reins of the government, the king reserving no authority to himself, but that of doing what mischief he pleas'd unpunish'd; nor did the count ever make it his business to reclaim him, well knowing that the king's follies and his authority were inseparable. the _spaniards_ flatter'd themselves with the hopes of easily reducing _portugal_, whilst it had such a monarch as don _alphonso_. to this end they sent a strong army against it, under the command of don _john_ of _austria_, natural son to _philip_ iv. the king of _portugal_ sent _schomberg_ to oppose him, notwithstanding the count _de villa-flor_ had the title of generalissimo. and to the count of _schomberg_'s courage and conduct it was that don _alphonso_ ow'd the preservation of his crown: he beat the _spaniards_ several times, notwithstanding what _villa-flor_ did; who, jealous of his glory, endeavour'd all he could to cross his measures, and had effectually done it, had not _schomberg_'s interest been greater both at court and in the army, which joyfully obey'd the commands of their brave leader, who always led them to a certain victory. _castel-melhor_ did all he could to persuade the people, that this happy success was owing to him; though if the truth had been search'd into, it would have appear'd that all he could justly boast of, was his being the first man to whom the news was sent. by these means the minister's credit encreas'd, and he actually enjoy'd the sovereign authority. the king was nothing but a piece of clock-work, whose springs he could wind up, and put into what motion he pleas'd. the barbarity of his temper he made use of, to ruin and destroy all those of whom he was jealous; amongst these were the greatest part of the late queen's ministry: so that there was a strange alteration at court, all places were fill'd with the count's creatures; nor could any one hope for favour, but those who took care to please the favourite. _melhor_ went farther than this, for _conti_ being recall'd, he got him banish'd a second time; for no sooner was he landed, but the king sent him an express, to congratulate him upon his safe arrival, and _melhor_, by the same express, sent him orders not to come near the court: such a sway had this minister over his sovereign, that he durst not contradict his orders, but for fear of dipleasing him, was obliged to see _conti_ in private. the count had notice of it, and fearing that should their antient intimacy be renew'd, there would be no place left for him in the king's favour, had him accus'd of a design upon the prince's life; and tho there were no witnesses found, no proofs, no probabilities of his guilt, yet sentence of banishment was pass'd upon him. the count, no longer apprehensive of _conti_, began to consider how he should secure his interest at court, in case of any accident. to this end he endeavour'd to ingratiate himself with don _pedro_, the king's brother, but a prince of a quite different character: his soul was truly great, and his inclinations noble; his actions princely, and his manner of living regular: the _portuguese_ admir'd, or rather ador'd him, for he had not his own vertues only, but his brother's vices also, to set him off. to this end, _melhor_ plac'd a brother of his in the prince's houshold, and bad him do all he could to insinuate himself into his master's favour, as he had into the king's; hoping by these means to govern both the princes. don _pedro_ us'd him with all the civility imaginable, and shew'd him more than common respect; but as for giving him any place in his favour, or confidance, he could not; the whole was taken up. the late queen having always look'd upon her younger son as the hopes and support of her family, she had taken care to put about him none but those, whose wisdom, learning, and integrity might entitle them to a share of the prince's love; such were his governours, and of such chiefly was his houshold compos'd. these had taken care to let the prince know, that he need not despair of one day wearing the crown of _portugal_, for that there was no great likelihood of his brother's ever having any children; but at the same time they told him, that there was nothing but _melhor_ was capable of doing, to keep him from inheriting the crown, since he was well assur'd that he must never hope for any share in the ministry, when don _pedro_ should ascend the throne. by degrees these different views and interests divided the court into two cabals; the count indeed had the greatest number on his side, there being more who love to swim with the stream, than against it. but the ablest statesmen, who plainly saw that so violent and arbitrary a government could not last long, with all the grandees, and the best of the nobility, who would not cringe to such a favourite as the king's was, were always about the prince, to whom they paid their respects as to the heir apparent. the count being sensible that the hope of the adverse faction was founded upon the infirmity of the king, determin'd to destroy it at once, by marrying him; and by his advice a match was propos'd and concluded between the king and _mary-elizabeth-frances_ of _savoy_, daughter to _charles_ duke of _nemours_, and _elizabeth de vendome_. _cæsar d'estrées_, a relation of hers, bishop and duke of _laon_, and known all over _europe_ by the name of the illustrious cardinal _d'estrées_, conducted her into _portugal_, accompany'd with the marquiss _de ruvigni_, the _french_ ambassador, and several other persons of quality. this marriage was celebrated with all the pomp and magnificence imaginable. the whole court admir'd the young queen's extraordinary beauty, but no one was more sensibly affected with it than the prince. the king was the only person who seem'd regardless of her charms, and who by his indifference soon convinc'd the whole nation, that he had taken the name of a husband, but was not capable of discharging the duty of one. count _melhor_ had at first flatter'd himself with the hopes of governing the queen as well as the king, but soon found that she had too great a spirit for such a submission. enrag'd at this, he resolv'd to lose no opportunity of revenging himself, all publick business was carefully hid from her, all her desires were cross'd; her recommendation certainly excluded any person from the place to which she recommended him. shortly after, neither the expences of her houshold, nor her own pensions were paid, under pretence that the war and other necessities of the state had exhausted the royal treasury. and so insolent was this haughty minister to every body, to the prince himself, but especially to the queen, that she has been often seen coming out of the king's apartment bath'd in tears. her beauty, her merits, her misfortunes, and the complaints of all the ladies of the court, and the officers of the queen's houshold, whose salaries were stopp'd, touch'd the hearts of all those who had not an immediate dependence on the minister; and these form'd a third party at court, where nothing now was talk'd of but the improbability of the queen's having any children, tho she had not yet been married a year. what encreas'd every one's suspicion, was the report which was spread of a private door, which by the king's order was made in the queen's chamber, and open'd just against her bed-side, and of which he himself kept the key. the queen was alarm'd at the novelty of the thing, and the danger to which she saw her honour expos'd. and many concluded, that this was an artifice of _melhor_'s, who, notwithstanding the infirmity of the king, was nevertheless resolv'd that the queen should have children. the poor unfortunate princess discover'd her apprehensions to her confessor, with orders to impart them to the prince's. these two religious men advis'd them to unite their cabals, and go hand in hand together in a matter so much the concern of them both. the count of _schomberg_ was easily drawn into this party, and the prince took care to make himself beloved by the magistrates of the city, and all those who had any influence over the people. it would have been a very easy matter to have push'd the king from out his throne, had he not had a minister to support him, who was ambitious, could govern the king as he pleas'd, make him do any thing, and who would spare no pains to preserve himself at the head of affairs; the only way therefore of compassing their ends, was to remove this man, which was at last brought about in this manner. one of his friends was bribed to tell him, that the prince had swore he would sacrifice him, if he continued any longer at court. the count upon this information doubled the guards, arm'd all the officers of the household, and would have had the king go at the head of them, and seize the prince. but as furious as the king was in his midnight-revels and debauches, he had not courage enough to attempt any thing of this nature, justly fearing that he should meet with no small resistance. wherefore he only wrote a letter to the prince, to order him to come to the palace. he excus'd himself, objecting that he could not come whilst the count was at court, who had spread so many stories to his disadvantage, and endeavour'd all he could to blast his reputation; besides which, the count was master of the palace, and that therefore he fear'd he could not be in safety there. several letters pass'd between the king and prince; the former offer'd, that _melhor_ should come, and on his knees beg his pardon. but this was not what the prince wanted, and he openly refus'd to come to court till _melhor_ was banish'd from it. the news of this had put _lisbon_ into a strange confusion, and a civil war was just breaking out; but _melhor_ with grief perceiv'd that _schomberg_ favour'd the other party, and that the grandees of the kingdom had all unanimously declar'd themselves in favour of the prince; who, assisted also by the queen's friends, grew too powerful for him. nay, _melhor_'s very relations, and those whom he had rais'd, forsook him, and told him, that if he must sink, he should sink alone. wherefore disguising himself, he by night escaped from the palace, and retired to a monastery seven leagues from _lisbon_; which he soon after left, to seek a sure refuge in the court of _turin_. upon this the prince immediately came to the palace, to pay his devoirs to the king; every thing fell under his management, and he soon dispersed all the late favourite's creatures. the king, destitute of counsel, lay at the prince's mercy, who had a design upon, but durst not as yet touch his crown, for fear of being thought an usurper; but waited with patience till it should be given him by lawful authority, that is, by a decree of the states of the kingdom. but then it was in the king's power only to call together this assembly of the states, which he was often advis'd to do, there being an absolute necessity of their meeting, to remedy the present grievances of the nation. the king was not so weak, but he plainly perceiv'd that this advice was given him, with a design to transfer the royalty from himself to his brother; wherefore he long refus'd it, but was at last so press'd to it both by his council, and by different petitions from several parts of the kingdom, that he call'd them together, and they were order'd to meet on the first of _january_, 1688. the prince having obtain'd this, which he look'd upon as a sure step to the throne, gave the queen notice, that it was time for her now to appear, and play her part. upon which she immediately retired into a convent, and wrote a letter to the king, to tell him, that she thought herself in conscience obliged to quit the palace, since he was not capable of being her husband; that he was very sensible that their marriage was never consummated, and that therefore she begg'd that he would repay her her portion, and give her leave to return to her country, and amongst her own relations. upon the receipt of this letter, the king in a great rage flew towards the convent, to fetch the queen back to the palace by force; but the prince, who foresaw the effect of her message, took care to be at the convent-door, with all the nobility, and told his brother this was a place too sacred to have any violence us'd in it, and persuaded, or rather forc'd the king to return to the palace, who all the way complain'd of being calumniated, and was for bringing half the prostitutes of _lisbon_ to prove his virility, and swore that he would be reveng'd both on the queen and the prince. [sidenote: _nov. 23. 1667._] but don _pedro_ was not in the least frightned at his menaces, knowing that the whole power of the kingdom was in his own hands; and the next morning (thinking it unsafe to delay the mighty work any longer) order'd the council to assemble, and follow'd by the nobility, the magistracy, and a whole crowd of people, who wanted to see the event of this business, he went into the palace to them; and after a short debate, an order was sent by the prince to arrest the king, who shortly after this sign'd his own abdication. notwithstanding this, the prince would not take any other title, but that of regent; under which name the states of the kingdom took the oath of allegiance to him. [sidenote: _febr. 13. 1668._] the next thing he did, was to secure a peace with _spain_; the king of _england_ made himself their mediator, and _spain_, by a solemn treaty, acknowledg'd the crown of _portugal_ independent of the crown of _spain_. [sidenote: _nov. 22. 1667._] [sidenote: _mar. 24. 1668._] but one thing was still wanting to compleat the regent's happiness: he loved his sister-in-law; who, as soon as she was got into the convent, had presented a petition to the chapter of the cathedral of _lisbon_, to desire them, during the vacancy of the holy see, to declare her marriage void; since, notwithstanding fifteen months cohabitation with her husband, it had not been consummated. the chapter, without waiting for any farther proof, immediately declar'd the marriage void. [sidenote: _march 2. 1668._] [sidenote: _dec. 10. 1668._] by these means the regent saw himself at liberty to marry his sister-in-law; however, he was advis'd, for fear of scandalizing any one, to get a dispensation from the see of _rome_. just at this time the cardinal _de vendome_, legate _à latere_, was order'd by the see to put on the papal dignity, that he might assist as pope at the christening of the dauphin of _france_; from him was the dispensation obtain'd, which mr. _verjus_ arriv'd with in _portugal_ about the time that the chapter pronounced their sentence. all which accidents falling out together, made some people imagine that they were premeditated. the bishop of _targa_, coadjutor to the archbishop of lisbon, married them in virtue of this brief, which was afterwards confirm'd by pope _innocent_ ix. don _alphonso_ was banish'd to the isle of _tercera_, which belongs to the _portuguese_. this something displeas'd the people, who generally pity the unfortunate, and who now cry'd out, that it was enough to rob him of his wife and crown, without driving him from his country; but however, no one dar'd speak to the regent about it. he continued in this exile till the year 1675, at which time the regent recall'd him, being inform'd that there were some discontented people contriving how to fetch him from _tercera_, and reinstate him in the throne. he died not far from _lisbon_, 1683, and at his death don _pedro_ was proclaim'd king; a title he would not, during his brother's life, accept, and the only thing of which he had not depriv'd that unfortunate prince. _=finis=._ [illustration] [illustration] index. a. abdalla, _king of ~morocco~_, 5. acugna, _archbishop of ~lisbon~, his character_, 24. _his speech to the confederate nobility_, 25. _is made lord-lieutenant of ~portugal~ after the revolution_, 65. aiamonti, _a ~castilian~ nobleman, related to the queen of ~portugal~_, 76. _negotiates a business between the king of ~portugal~ and the governour of ~andalusia~_, ibid. _discovers the ~spanish~ plot_, 85. _his character_, 91. _writes to the duke of ~medina sidonia~, to persuade him to revolt_, 92. _is seiz'd as a traitor_, 104. _deceiv'd by ~olivarez~_, 114. _his courage when led to execution_, 115. alba, _the duke of, general to ~philip ii.~ king of ~spain~, conquers ~portugal~_, 12 almada, _a castle near ~lisbon~_, 29 almada, _~antonio~ and ~lewis~, two of the conspirators_, 25 almanzor, _the caliph, conquers ~spain~_, 2 almeida, _one of the chief conspirators, his character_, 24. _is deputed with two more to confer with the duke of ~braganza~_, 30 alphonso vi. _king of ~castile~ and ~leon~, gives ~portugal~ in dowry with his daughter to ~henry~ count of ~burgundy~_, 3 alphonso, _son to the former, first king of ~portugal~_, 4 alphonso vi. _king of ~portugal~, is but thirteen years old when his father dies_, 117. _his character_, 121. _debaucheries_, 122. _retires to ~alcantra~_, 124. _takes the government upon himself_, 125. _marries ~mary-elizabeth-frances~ of ~savoy~, princess of ~nemours~_, 130. _signs his abdication_, 136. _is banish'd to ~tercera~_, 137. _recall'd, and dies near ~lisbon~_, 138 antonio, _grand-prior of ~crato~, pretends to the crown of ~portugal~_, 10. _is proclaim'd king by the people, and defeated by the duke of ~alba~_, 12 aviedo, _the duke of, an officer in ~africa~ under ~don sebastian~_, 9 b. baeze, _a rich ~jew~ of ~lisbon~, drawn into the conspiracy against the king of ~portugal~_, 84. _sends letters for the other conspirators_ _into castile_, ibid. _is examin'd, and confesses_, 88 baynetto, _an ~italian~ nobleman, arrested at ~lisbon~_, 62 braganza, _don ~james~ duke of, claims the crown of ~portugal~ at the death of the cardinal king_, 10. _but does not assert his right by force of arms_, 12 braganza, _~theodossus~, son to the former, his character_, 15 braganza, _don ~john~, grandson to don ~james~, his character_, 15. _stratagems us'd to draw him out of ~portugal~_, 17. _is made governour of that kingdom, and general of the ~spanish~ forces in it_, 18. _~olivarez~'s design to arrest him when on board the admiral's ship_, ibid. _all governours of forts and strong places order'd to seize him_, 19. _he disappoints them_, 20. _comes to ~lisbon~_, 29. _his answer to the confederate nobility_, 32. _is proclaim'd king_, 56. _endeavours to make the governour of ~andalusia~ rebel against the king of ~spain~_, 76. _his death and character_, 116 braganza, _~louisa de gusman~, married to don ~john~, her character_, 33. _her answers to the duke when he talk'd about his restoration_, 36. _her answer to the archbishop of ~lisbon~, when he begg'd the life of a traitor_, 90. _is made regent_, 117. _engages the earl of ~schomberg~ to come and command her forces_, 118. _marries her daughter to king ~charles ii.~ of england_, 119. _her speech to the count ~de castel-melhor~_, 124. _to her son when she resign'd the regency_, 125. _retires into a convent, and dies_, 126 c. camino, _the duke of, assists at the king's coronation_, 72. _conspires against him_, 80. _is arrested_, 86. _executed_, 90 cardenas, _don ~didaco~, lieutenant-general of the ~spanish~ cavalry, is arrested at ~lisbon~ at the time of the revolution_, 62 castel-melhor, _favourite and first minister of state to ~alphonsus vi.~ king of ~portugal~, his character_, 123. _persuades the king to take the government upon himself_, ibid. _to affront the queen his mother, that she might retire from court_, 126. _places his brother near the prince_, 129. _marries the king_, 130. _yet cannot agree with the queen_, 131. _persuades the king to go himself and arrest the prince_, 133. _is forc'd to leave the court, and fly to ~turin~_, 134 catherine _of ~austria~, regent of ~portugal~ during the minority of don ~sebastian~_, 4 catherine de medicis _pretends to the crown of ~portugal~_, 11 catherine, _daughter to king ~john iv.~ of ~portugal~, married to king ~charles ii.~_, 119 castro-marino, _a town in ~portugal~_, 95 challenge _sent to the king of ~portugal~_, 107 cherifs, _a law of theirs_, 5 ciudad-real, _the duke of, enters ~cadiz~ with ten thousand men_, 104. conti, _the son of a merchant of ~lisbon~, ~alphonsus~'s first favourite_, 122. _is banish'd by the regent queen into ~brazil~_, ibid. _recall'd by the king, but banish'd again by ~castel-melhor~_, 128 correa, _a clerk of ~vasconcellos~'s, runs out as the conspirators are coming up to the secretary's apartment_, 56. _and receives several stabs, but does not die_, 57. _conspires against the king of ~portugal~_, 81. _and is executed with the other traitors_, 90 coreo, _a citizen of ~lisbon~, an instrument of the revolution_, 43 coutingno, _don ~gaston~, during the time of the revolution delivers the prisoners_, 63 d. del campo, _governor of the citadel of ~lisbon~, surrenders to the confederate nobility_, 64 diego garcez palleia, _a captain of foot, defends ~vasconcellos~ for some time_, 57 daiamonti, _vid. ~aiamonti~_. e. estrees _related to the young queen of ~portugal~, bishop and duke of ~laon~, and known by the name of the cardinal ~d'estrees~_, 130 evora, _the people of, rise in a tumultuous manner, and declare themselves for the house of ~braganza~_, 16 f. ferdinand de castro, _comptroller of the navy-office, arrested at ~lisbon~ at the time of the revolution_, 62 ferdinand de la cueva, _governour of the citadel of ~st. john~'s, surrenders upon terms_, 71 ferreira, _the marquiss of, is of opinion that all the traitors ought to be executed_, 89 g. goa, _and all the other places in ~india~ and ~africa~, which formerly belong'd to ~portugal~, revolt from the king of ~spain~, and acknowledge the duke of ~braganza~_, 77 garray, _don ~john~, lieutenant-general of the ~spanish~ forces, second to the duke of ~medina~_, 114 george, _brother to the lord ~ranger~, a conspirator_, 25. _reveals the conspiracy to a relation_, 52 h. hamet, _brother to ~muley-moluc~, king of ~morocco~, commands the army_, 8 d'haro, _don ~lewis~, nephew to ~olivarez~_, 103 henry, _count of ~burgundy~, son to ~robert~ king of ~france~, drives the ~moors~ from ~portugal~_, 3 henry, _cardinal and archbishop of ~evora~, succeeds don ~sebastian~_, 10. _refuses to name his successor_, 12 hyde, _chancellor of ~england~, persuades king ~charles ii.~ to marry the infanta of ~portugal~_, 119 i. jews _conspire against the king of ~portugal~_, 82 inchequin, _general of the ~english~ forces in ~portugal~_, 120 inquisitor, _the ~grand~, conspires against the king_, 81. _is arrested_, 86. _and condemn'd to perpetual imprisonment_, 90 john, _don, prince of ~portugal~, son to king ~john iii.~ dies before his father_, 4 john, _don, of ~austria~, natural son to ~philip iv.~ king of ~spain~, and general of the troops sent against ~portugal~_, 127 julian, _an ~italian~ nobleman, invites the ~moors~ into ~spain~_, 2 l. lemos, _a merchant of ~lisbon~, and an instrument of the revolution_, 43 lewis de camara, _a jesuit, tutor to don ~sebastian~_, 4 lewis de castile, _is sent by the duke of ~medina~ to the marquis ~daiamonti~_, 92. _returns back to the duke_, 94 m. margaret _of ~savoy~, dutchess of ~mantua~, vice-queen of ~portugal~_, 14. _complains of ~vasconcellos~'s conduct_, 40. _endeavours to appease the confederate nobility_, 59. _is confin'd_, 61. _removes to ~xabregas~-house_, 67 mattos, _don ~sebastian de norogna~, archbishop of ~braga~, and president of the chamber of ~opaco~_, 24. _conspires against the king of ~portugal~_, 78. _confesses his crime_, 88. _dies in prison_, 90 mello, _lord ~ranger~, one of the conspirators_, 25. _cuts the ~spanish~ guard to pieces_, 55. _acquaints the duke and dutchess of ~braganza~ with the success of their enterprize_, 69 mendoza, _another of the chief conspirators_, 25. _meets the duke of ~braganza~ in a forest, and confers with him_, 39. _goes with ~mello~ to ~villa-viciosa~_, 69 menezes, _~alexis~, governour to don ~sebastian~_, 4 menezes, _~antonio~, his answer to the vice-queen_, 60 medina sidonia, _~gaspar perez de gusman~, duke of, brother-in-law to the king of ~portugal~, resolves to have himself crown'd king of ~andalusia~_, 92. _sends his confidant to the marquiss ~daiamonti~_, 94. _his intent discover'd_, 100. _is sent for to the court of ~spain~_, 103. _and pardon'd_, 104. _he challenges the king of ~portugal~_, 107 monsano, _the count ~de~_, 72 muley mahomet, _flies to the court of ~portugal~ for refuge_, 5. _goes into ~africa~ with don ~sebastian~_, 7. _is drown'd in the river ~mucazen~_, 10 muley moluc, _takes possession of the kingdom of ~morocco~_, 5. _gives the command of the army to his brother ~hamet~_, 8. _dies during the battle_, 9 n. norogna, _one of the confederate nobility, his passionate answer to the vice-queen_, 61 o. olivarez, _the duke of, of the house of the ~gusmans~, first minister to ~philip iv.~ king of ~spain~_, 13. _his policy_, ibid. _orders the duke of ~braganza~ to come immediately into ~spain~_, 47. _his artful way of acquainting the king with the revolution_, 74. _obtains the duke of ~medina~'s pardon_, 104. _and then makes him challenge the king of ~portugal~_, 105 ozorio, _don ~lopez~, the ~spanish~ admiral, has private orders to seize the duke of ~braganza~, and bring him into ~spain~_, 18 p. parma, _the duke of, pretends to the crown of ~portugal~_, 10 pelagus, _founds the kingdom of ~leon~_, 3 pedro, _don, prince of ~portugal~, his character_, 129. _is misused by count ~castel-melhor~_, ibid. _arrests the king_, 136. _is declared regent_, ibid. _marries the young queen_, 137. _after his brother's death is proclaim'd king_, 138 philip ii. _king of ~spain~, claims the crown of ~portugal~_, 10. _takes possession of it by force of arms_, 12 philip iv. _king of ~spain~, his character_, 101. _offers king ~charles~ three millions to marry a protestant princess_, 119 pinto ribeiro, _comptroller of the duke of ~braganza~'s houshold, his policy_, 22. _his answer to a friend_, 56. _is not promoted by the king_, 76 portugal, _its description_, 1. _acknowledg'd to be a kingdom independent of the crown of ~spain~_, 136 portuguese, _their character_, 2 puebla, _the marquiss of, major-domo to the vice-queen, is arrested at the time of the revolution_, 62 r. richelieu, _the cardinal of_, 32 roderick, _the last king of the ~goths~ who reign'd in ~portugal~_, 2 ruvigni, _the marquiss of, the ~french~ ambassador, accompanies the princess of ~nemours~ into ~portugal~_, 131 s. saa, _lord-chamberlain, one of the conspirators_, 25. _shoots ~vasconcellos~ thro the head_, 58 saldaigni, _another of the conspirators_, 62 sancho, _paymaster of the ~spanish~ troops in ~portugal~, is detain'd prisoner there_, 96. _discovers to ~olivarez~ the duke of ~medina~'s intent to revolt_, 100 sande, _the marquiss of, sent into ~england~ by the regent of ~portugal~ to conclude the match between the infanta and king ~charles ii.~_, 119 savoy, _~philibert-emanuel~, duke of, pretends to the crown of ~portugal~_, 10 schomberg, _~frederick~, count of, is invited by the queen of ~portugal~ to be her general_, 118. _takes his way thro ~england~, and treats of a marriage between the infanta and king ~charles~_, 119. _beats the ~spaniards~ during the regent's time_, 120. _as also under the reign of ~alphonso~_, 127 soarez d'albergaria, _the corregidor, is kill'd at the time of the revolution_, 56 soure, _the portuguese ambassador in ~france~, treats with ~schomberg~_, 118 t. tubal, _the ~portuguese~ pretend to be descended from him_, 2 v. vasconcellos, _secretary to the ~spanish~ regency in ~portugal~_, 14. _his haughtiness and cruelty_, 26, 27. _is killed in the revolution_, 58. _his character_, 59 velasco, nicholas de, _of the order of ~st. francis~, is sent by the marquiss ~daiamonti~ into ~portugal~_, 95. _his pride and inconsiderateness_, 96. _discovers his business to ~sancho~, who betrays him_, 99 villa-flor, _the ~portuguese~ generalissimo_, 127 villa-viciosa, _the seat of the dukes of ~braganza~_, 16 villareal, _the marquiss of, assists at the king of ~portugal~'s coronation_, 72. _conspires against him_, 80. _is arrested_, 86. _and executed_, 90 villenes, _her behaviour and speech to her sons_, 54. x. xabregas, _a palace of ~lisbon~_, 67 _the end of the index._ _books printed, and sold, by ~w. chetwood~, at ~cato~'s-~head, russel-street, covent-garden~._ 1. novels, tales, and stories, (never printed in _english_ before) written by that celebrated wit of _france_, the countess _d'anois_, in 2 vol. 12mo. 1. the history of don _gabriel_. 2. the royal ram. 3. the story of _finetta_ the cinder-girl. 4. the palace of revenge. 5. the story of _anguilletta_. 6. the history of don _ferdinand_ of _toledo_. 7. the story of the yellow-dwarf. 8. the story of young-and-handsome. 9. the history of the new gentleman-citizen. 10. the story of the white-cat. 11. the story of _fortunio_ the fortunate knight. 12. the story of the pidgeon and dove. 13. the story of the 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and the forms of warrants. never printed before. adorn'd with various cuts relating to the several games. the sixth edition, with large additions. 5 _s._ _now in the press, and will speedily be publish'd, the following books._ 1. archæology: or, thoughts of the antient philosophers, concerning the original of things. written in _latin_ by dr. _burnet_ of the _charter-house_, author of _the theory of the earth_, and translated by several hands. 2. novels, stories, and tales, written by _margaret de valois_, queen of _navarre_, never printed in _english_ before. 3. the jealous lovers; or, the mistakes: written originally in _spanish_, by that famous dramatick poet _lopez de vega_. 4. the two queens of _brentford_, or _bayes_ no poetaster; being the sequel of the _rehearsal_, a comedy. 5. the _grecian_ heroine, or the fate of tyranny, a tragedy. 6. the triumphs of _bacchus_, an opera. 7. the _athenian_ jilt, or intriguing cullies. 8. the plague of impertinence, or a barber a fury. 9. _socrates_ and _timandra_, or love the best philosopher: with several poems and songs. these 6 last written by mr. _d'urfey_. footnotes: [footnote a: jo. marianæ histor. hispania illustrata. hist. de turquet. reusendius de antiq. monarchia lusitana. connestag. philippus rex lusitaniæ. histoire de portugal, par monsieur de la neufvil. lusitan. vindic. caëtan passar de bello lusita. portugal restaurado de menezes. siry mem. recond. mercure françois. troubles de portugal. mem. d'ablan.] [footnote b: _cardinal_ richelieu.] [footnote c: ad hæc politicas artes, bonos & malos regiminis dolos, dominationis arcana, humani latibula ingenii, non modo intelligere mulier, sed & pertractare quoque ac provehere, tam naturâ quam disciplinâ mirificè instructa fuit. caëtan. passar. de bello lusitan._] [footnote d: macedo _tells us, that it was don_ antonio d'almada.] [footnote e: _the judge in capital cases._] transcriber's notes: gesspert is indicated with = antiqua font is indicated with ~ generously made available by internet archive (http://www.archive.org) note: images of the original pages are available through internet archive. see http://www.archive.org/details/rosinantetothero010672mbp rosinante to the road again by john dos passos * * * * * books by john dos passos _novels:_ _three soldiers_ _one man's initiation_ _essays:_ _rosinante to the road again_ _poems:_ _a pushcart at the curb_ (_in preparation_) * * * * * rosinante to the road again by john dos passos george h. doran company publishers new york copyright, 1922, by george h. doran company printed in the united states of america contents chapter i: _a gesture and a quest_, 9 ii: _the donkey boy_, 24 iii: _the baker of almorox_, 47 iv: _talk by the road_, 71 v: _a novelist of revolution_, 80 vi: _talk by the road_, 101 vii: _cordova no longer of the caliphs_, 104 viii: _talk by the road_, 115 ix: _an inverted midas_, 120 x: _talk by the road_, 133 xi: _antonio machado; poet of castile_, 140 xii: _a catalan poet_, 159 xiii: _talk by the road_, 176 xiv: _benavente's madrid_, 182 xv: _talk by the road_, 196 xvi: _a funeral in madrid_, 202 xvii: _toledo_, 230 rosinante to the road again _i: a gesture and a quest_ telemachus had wandered so far in search of his father he had quite forgotten what he was looking for. he sat on a yellow plush bench in the café el oro del rhin, plaza santa ana, madrid, swabbing up with a bit of bread the last smudges of brown sauce off a plate of which the edges were piled with the dismembered skeleton of a pigeon. opposite his plate was a similar plate his companion had already polished. telemachus put the last piece of bread into his mouth, drank down a glass of beer at one spasmodic gulp, sighed, leaned across the table and said: "i wonder why i'm here." "why anywhere else than here?" said lyaeus, a young man with hollow cheeks and slow-moving hands, about whose mouth a faint pained smile was continually hovering, and he too drank down his beer. at the end of a perspective of white marble tables, faces thrust forward over yellow plush cushions under twining veils of tobacco smoke, four german women on a little dais were playing _tannhauser_. smells of beer, sawdust, shrimps, roast pigeon. "do you know jorge manrique? that's one reason, tel," the other man continued slowly. with one hand he gestured to the waiter for more beer, the other he waved across his face as if to brush away the music; then he recited, pronouncing the words haltingly: 'recuerde el alma dormida, avive el seso y despierte contemplando cómo se pasa la vida, cómo se viene la muerte tan callando: cuán presto se va el placer, cómo después de acordado da dolor, cómo a nuestro parecer cualquier tiempo pasado fué mejor.' "it's always death," said telemachus, "but we must go on." it had been raining. lights rippled red and orange and yellow and green on the clean paving-stones. a cold wind off the sierra shrilled through clattering streets. as they walked, the other man was telling how this castilian nobleman, courtier, man-at-arms, had shut himself up when his father, the master of santiago, died and had written this poem, created this tremendous rhythm of death sweeping like a wind over the world. he had never written anything else. they thought of him in the court of his great dust-colored mansion at ocaña, where the broad eaves were full of a cooing of pigeons and the wide halls had dark rafters painted with arabesques in vermilion, in a suit of black velvet, writing at a table under a lemon tree. down the sun-scarred street, in the cathedral that was building in those days, full of a smell of scaffolding and stone dust, there must have stood a tremendous catafalque where lay with his arms around him the master of santiago; in the carved seats of the choirs the stout canons intoned an endless growling litany; at the sacristy door, the flare of the candles flashing occasionally on the jewels of his mitre, the bishop fingered his crosier restlessly, asking his favorite choir-boy from time to time why don jorge had not arrived. and messengers must have come running to don jorge, telling him the service was on the point of beginning, and he must have waved them away with a grave gesture of a long white hand, while in his mind the distant sound of chanting, the jingle of the silver bit of his roan horse stamping nervously where he was tied to a twined moorish column, memories of cavalcades filing with braying of trumpets and flutter of crimson damask into conquered towns, of court ladies dancing, and the noise of pigeons in the eaves, drew together like strings plucked in succession on a guitar into a great wave of rhythm in which his life was sucked away into this one poem in praise of death. nuestras vidas son los ríos que van a dar en la mar, que es el morir.... telemachus was saying the words over softly to himself as they went into the theatre. the orchestra was playing a sevillana; as they found their seats they caught glimpses beyond people's heads and shoulders of a huge woman with a comb that pushed the tip of her mantilla a foot and a half above her head, dancing with ponderous dignity. her dress was pink flounced with lace; under it the bulge of breasts and belly and three chins quaked with every thump of her tiny heels on the stage. as they sat down she retreated bowing like a full-rigged ship in a squall. the curtain fell, the theatre became very still; next was pastora. strumming of a guitar, whirring fast, dry like locusts in a hedge on a summer day. pauses that catch your blood and freeze it suddenly still like the rustling of a branch in silent woods at night. a gipsy in a red sash is playing, slouched into a cheap cane chair, behind him a faded crimson curtain. off stage heels beaten on the floor catch up the rhythm with tentative interest, drowsily; then suddenly added, sharp click of fingers snapped in time; the rhythm slows, hovers like a bee over a clover flower. a little taut sound of air sucked in suddenly goes down the rows of seats. with faintest tapping of heels, faintest snapping of the fingers of a brown hand held over her head, erect, wrapped tight in yellow shawl where the embroidered flowers make a splotch of maroon over one breast, a flecking of green and purple over shoulders and thighs, pastora imperio comes across the stage, quietly, unhurriedly. in the mind of telemachus the words return: cómo se viene la muerte tan callando. her face is brown, with a pointed chin; her eyebrows that nearly meet over her nose rise in a flattened "a" towards the fervid black gleam of her hair; her lips are pursed in a half-smile as if she were stifling a secret. she walks round the stage slowly, one hand at her waist, the shawl tight over her elbow, her thighs lithe and restless, a panther in a cage. at the back of the stage she turns suddenly, advances; the snapping of her fingers gets loud, insistent; a thrill whirrs through the guitar like a covey of partridges scared in a field. red heels tap threateningly. decidme: la hermosura, la gentil frescura y tez de la cara el color y la blancura, cuando viene la viejez cuál se para? she is right at the footlights; her face, brows drawn together into a frown, has gone into shadow; the shawl flames, the maroon flower over her breast glows like a coal. the guitar is silent, her fingers go on snapping at intervals with dreadful foreboding. then she draws herself up with a deep breath, the muscles of her belly go taut under the tight silk wrinkles of the shawl, and she is off again, light, joyful, turning indulgent glances towards the audience, as a nurse might look in the eyes of a child she has unintentionally frightened with a too dreadful fairy story. the rhythm of the guitar has changed again; her shawl is loose about her, the long fringe flutters; she walks with slow steps, in pomp, a ship decked out for a festival, a queen in plumes and brocade.... ¿qué se hicieron las damas, sus tocados, sus vestidos, sus olores? ¿qué se hicieron las llamas de los fuegos encendidos de amadores? and she has gone, and the gipsy guitar-player is scratching his neck with a hand the color of tobacco, while the guitar rests against his legs. he shows all his teeth in a world-engulfing yawn. when they came out of the theatre, the streets were dry and the stars blinked in the cold wind above the houses. at the curb old women sold chestnuts and little ragged boys shouted the newspapers. "and now do you wonder, tel, why you are here?" they went into a café and mechanically ordered beer. the seats were red plush this time and much worn. all about them groups of whiskered men leaning over tables, astride chairs, talking. "it's the gesture that's so overpowering; don't you feel it in your arms? something sudden and tremendously muscular." "when belmonte turned his back suddenly on the bull and walked away dragging the red cloak on the ground behind him i felt it," said lyaeus. "that gesture, a yellow flame against maroon and purple cadences ... an instant swagger of defiance in the midst of a litany to death the all-powerful. that is spain.... castile at any rate." "is 'swagger' the right word?" "find a better." "for the gesture a medieval knight made when he threw his mailed glove at his enemy's feet or a rose in his lady's window, that a mule-driver makes when he tosses off a glass of aguardiente, that pastora imperio makes dancing.... word! rubbish!" and lyaeus burst out laughing. he laughed deep in his throat with his head thrown back. telemachus was inclined to be offended. "did you notice how extraordinarily near she kept to the rhythm of jorge manrique?" he asked coldly. "of course. of course," shouted lyaeus, still laughing. the waiter came with two mugs of beer. "take it away," shouted lyaeus. "who ordered beer? bring something strong, champagne. drink the beer yourself." the waiter was scrawny and yellow, with bilious eyes, but he could not resist the laughter of lyaeus. he made a pretense of drinking the beer. telemachus was now very angry. though he had forgotten his quest and the maxims of penelope, there hovered in his mind a disquieting thought of an eventual accounting for his actions before a dimly imagined group of women with inquisitive eyes. this lyaeus, he thought to himself, was too free and easy. then there came suddenly to his mind the dancer standing tense as a caryatid before the footlights, her face in shadow, her shawl flaming yellow; the strong modulations of her torso seemed burned in his flesh. he drew a deep breath. his body tightened like a catapult. "oh to recapture that gesture," he muttered. the vague inquisitorial woman-figures had sunk fathoms deep in his mind. lyaeus handed him a shallow tinkling glass. "there are all gestures," he said. outside the plate-glass window a countryman passed singing. his voice dwelt on a deep trembling note, rose high, faltered, skidded down the scale, then rose suddenly, frighteningly like a skyrocket, into a new burst of singing. "there it is again," telemachus cried. he jumped up and ran out on the street. the broad pavement was empty. a bitter wind shrilled among arc-lights white like dead eyes. "idiot," lyaeus said between gusts of laughter when telemachus sat down again. "idiot tel. here you'll find it." and despite telemachus's protestations he filled up the glasses. a great change had come over lyaeus. his face looked fuller and flushed. his lips were moist and very red. there was an occasional crisp curl in the black hair about his temples. and so they sat drinking a long while. at last telemachus got unsteadily to his feet. "i can't help it.... i must catch that gesture, formulate it, do it. it is tremendously, inconceivably, unendingly important to me." "now you know why you're here," said lyaeus quietly. "why are you here?" "to drink," said lyaeus. "let's go." "why?" "to catch that gesture, lyaeus," said telemachus in an over-solemn voice. "like a comedy professor with a butterfly-net," roared lyaeus. his laughter so filled the café that people at far-away tables smiled without knowing it. "it's burned into my blood. it must be formulated, made permanent." "killed," said lyaeus with sudden seriousness; "better drink it with your wine." silent they strode down an arcaded street. cupolas, voluted baroque façades, a square tower, the bulge of a market building, tile roofs, chimneypots, ate into the star-dusted sky to the right and left of them, until in a great gust of wind they came out on an empty square, where were few gas-lamps; in front of them was a heavy arch full of stars, and orion sprawling above it. under the arch a pile of rags asked for alms whiningly. the jingle of money was crisp in the cold air. "where does this road go?" "toledo," said the beggar, and got to his feet. he was an old man, bearded, evil-smelling. "thank you.... we have just seen pastora," said lyaeus jauntily. "ah, pastora!... the last of the great dancers," said the beggar, and for some reason he crossed himself. the road was frosty and crunched silkily underfoot. lyaeus walked along shouting lines from the poem of jorge manrique. 'cómo se pasa la vida cómo se viene la muerte tan callando: cuán presto se va el placer cómo después de acordado da dolor, cómo a nuestro parecer cualquier tiempo pasado fué mejor.' "i bet you, tel, they have good wine in toledo." the road hunched over a hill. they turned and saw madrid cut out of darkness against the starlight. before them sown plains, gulches full of mist, and the tremulous lights on many carts that jogged along, each behind three jingling slow mules. a cock crowed. all at once a voice burst suddenly in swaggering tremolo out of the darkness of the road beneath them, rising, rising, then fading off, then flaring up hotly like a red scarf waved on a windy day, like the swoop of a hawk, like a rocket intruding among the stars. "butterfly net, you old fool!" lyaeus's laughter volleyed across the frozen fields. telemachus answered in a low voice: "let's walk faster." he walked with his eyes on the road. he could see in the darkness, pastora, wrapped in the yellow shawl with the splotch of maroon-colored embroidery moulding one breast, stand tremulous with foreboding before the footlights, suddenly draw in her breath, and turn with a great exultant gesture back into the rhythm of her dance. only the victorious culminating instant of the gesture was blurred to him. he walked with long strides along the crackling road, his muscles aching for memory of it. _ii: the donkey boy_ _where the husbandman's toil and strife_ _little varies to strife and toil:_ _but the milky kernel of life,_ _with her numbered: corn, wine, fruit, oil!_ the path zigzagged down through the olive trees between thin chortling glitter of irrigation ditches that occasionally widened into green pools, reed-fringed, froggy, about which bristled scrub oleanders. through the shimmer of olive leaves all about i could see the great ruddy heave of the mountains streaked with the emerald of millet-fields, and above, snowy shoulders against a vault of indigo, patches of wood cut out hard as metal in the streaming noon light. tinkle of a donkey-bell below me, then at the turn of a path the donkey's hindquarters, mauve-grey, neatly clipped in a pattern of diamonds and lozenges, and a tail meditatively swishing as he picked his way among the stones, the head as yet hidden by the osier baskets of the pack. at the next turn i skipped ahead of the donkey and walked with the _arriero_, a dark boy in tight blue pants and short grey tunic cut to the waist, who had the strong cheek-bones, hawk nose and slender hips of an arab, who spoke an aspirated andalusian that sounded like arabic. we greeted each other cordially as travellers do in mountainous places where the paths are narrow. we talked about the weather and the wind and the sugar mills at motril and women and travel and the vintage, struggling all the while like drowning men to understand each other's lingo. when it came out that i was an american and had been in the war, he became suddenly interested; of course, i was a deserter, he said, clever to get away. there'd been two deserters in his town a year ago, _alemanes_; perhaps friends of mine. it was pointed out that i and the _alemanes_ had been at different ends of the gunbarrel. he laughed. what did that matter? then he said several times, "qué burro la guerra, qué burro la guerra." i remonstrated, pointing to the donkey that was following us with dainty steps, looking at us with a quizzical air from under his long eyelashes. could anything be wiser than a burro? he laughed again, twitching back his full lips to show the brilliance of tightly serried teeth, stopped in his tracks, and turned to look at the mountains. he swept a long brown hand across them. "look," he said, "up there is the alpujarras, the last refuge of the kings of the moors; there are bandits up there sometimes. you have come to the right place; here we are free men." the donkey scuttled past us with a derisive glance out of the corner of an eye and started skipping from side to side of the path, cropping here and there a bit of dry grass. we followed, the _arriero_ telling how his brother would have been conscripted if the family had not got together a thousand pesetas to buy him out. that was no life for a man. he spat on a red stone. they'd never catch him, he was sure of that. the army was no life for a man. in the bottom of the valley was a wide stream, which we forded after some dispute as to who should ride the donkey, the donkey all the while wrinkling his nose with disgust at the coldness of the speeding water and the sliminess of the stones. when we came out on the broad moraine of pebbles the other side of the stream we met a lean blackish man with yellow horse-teeth, who was much excited when he heard i was an american. "america is the world of the future," he cried and gave me such a slap on the back i nearly tumbled off the donkey on whose rump i was at that moment astride. "_en américa no se divierte_," muttered the _arriero_, kicking his feet that were cold from the ford into the burning saffron dust of the road. the donkey ran ahead kicking at pebbles, bucking, trying to shake off the big pear-shaped baskets of osier he had either side of his pack saddle, delighted with smooth dryness after so much water and such tenuous stony roads. the three of us followed arguing, the sunlight beating wings of white flame about us. "in america there is freedom," said the blackish man, "there are no rural guards; roadmenders work eight hours and wear silk shirts and earn ... un dineral." the blackish man stopped, quite out of breath from his grappling with infinity. then he went on: "your children are educated free, no priests, and at forty every man-jack owns an automobile." "_ca_," said the _arriero_. "_sí, hombre_," said the blackish man. for a long while the _arriero_ walked along in silence, watching his toes bury themselves in dust at each step. then he burst out, spacing his words with conviction: "_ca, en américa no se hase na' a que trabahar y de'cansar...._ not on your life, in america they don't do anything except work and rest so's to get ready to work again. that's no life for a man. people don't enjoy themselves there. an old sailor from malaga who used to fish for sponges told me, and he knew. it's not gold people need, but bread and wine and ... life. they don't do anything there except work and rest so they'll be ready to work again...." two thoughts jostled in my mind as he spoke; i seemed to see red-faced gentlemen in knee breeches, dog's-ear wigs askew over broad foreheads, reading out loud with unction the phrases, "inalienable rights ... pursuit of happiness," and to hear the cadence out of meredith's _the day of the daughter of hades_: where the husbandman's toil and strife little varies to strife and toil: but the milky kernel of life, with her numbered: corn, wine, fruit, oil! the donkey stopped in front of a little wineshop under a trellis where dusty gourd-leaves shut out the blue and gold dazzle of sun and sky. "he wants to say, 'have a little drink, gentlemen,'" said the blackish man. in the greenish shadow of the wineshop a smell of anise and a sound of water dripping. when he had smacked his lips over a small cup of thick yellow wine he pointed at the _arriero_. "he says people don't enjoy life in america." "but in america people are very rich," shouted the barkeeper, a beet-faced man whose huge girth was bound in a red cotton sash, and he made a gesture suggestive of coins, rubbing thumb and forefinger together. everybody roared derision at the _arriero_. but he persisted and went out shaking his head and muttering "that's no life for a man." as we left the wineshop where the blackish man was painting with broad strokes the legend of the west, the _arriero_ explained to me almost tearfully that he had not meant to speak ill of my country, but to explain why he did not want to emigrate. while he was speaking we passed a cartload of yellow grapes that drenched us in jingle of mulebells and in dizzying sweetness of bubbling ferment. a sombre man with beetling brows strode at the mule's head; in the cart, brown feet firmly planted in the steaming slush of grapes, flushed face tilted towards the ferocious white sun, a small child with a black curly pate rode in triumph, shouting, teeth flashing as if to bite into the sun. "what you mean is," said i to the _arriero_, "that this is the life for a man." he tossed his head back in a laugh of approval. "something that's neither work nor getting ready to work?" "that's it," he answered, and cried, "_arrh he_" to the donkey. we hastened our steps. my sweaty shirt bellied suddenly in the back as a cool wind frisked about us at the corner of the road. "ah, it smells of the sea," said the _arriero_. "we'll see the sea from the next hill." that night as i stumbled out of the inn door in motril, overfull of food and drink, the full moon bulged through the arches of the cupola of the pink and saffron church. everywhere steel-green shadows striped with tangible moonlight. as i sat beside my knapsack in the plaza, groping for a thought in the bewildering dazzle of the night, three disconnected mules, egged on by a hoarse shouting, jingled out of the shadow. when they stopped with a jerk in the full moon-glare beside the fountain, it became evident that they were attached to a coach, a spidery coach tilted forward as if it were perpetually going down hill; from inside smothered voices like the strangled clucking of fowls being shipped to market in a coop. on the driver's seat one's feet were on the shafts and one had a view of every rag and shoelace the harness was patched with. creaking, groaning, with wabbling of wheels, grumble of inside passengers, cracking of whip and long strings of oaths from the driver, the coach lurched out of town and across a fat plain full of gurgle of irrigation ditches, shrilling of toads, falsetto rustle of broad leaves of the sugar cane. occasionally the gleam of the soaring moon on banana leaves and a broad silver path on the sea. landwards the hills like piles of ash in the moonlight, and far away a cloudy inkling of mountains. beside me, mouth open, shouting rich pedigrees at the leading mule, cordovan hat on the back of his head, from under which sprouted a lock of black hair that hung between his eyes over his nose and made him look like a goblin, the driver bounced and squirmed and kicked at the flanks of the mules that roamed drunkenly from side to side of the uneven road. down into a gulch, across a shingle, up over a plank bridge, then down again into the bed of the river i had forded that morning with my friend the _arriero_, along a beach with fishing boats and little huts where the fishermen slept; then barking of dogs, another bridge and we roared and crackled up a steep village street to come to a stop suddenly, catastrophically, in front of a tavern in the main square. "we are late," said the goblin driver, turning to me suddenly, "i have not slept for four nights, dancing, every night dancing." he sucked the air in through his teeth and stretched out his arms and legs in the moonlight. "ah, women ... women," he added philosophically. "have you a cigarette?" "_ah, la juventud_," said the old man who had brought the mailbag. he looked up at us scratching his head. "it's to enjoy. a moment, a _momentito_, and it's gone! old men work in the day time, but young men work at night.... _ay de mí_," and he burst into a peal of laughter. and as if some one were whispering them, the words of jorge manrique sifted out of the night: ¿qué se hizo el rey don juan? los infantes de aragón ¿qué se hicieron? qué fué de tanto galán, qué fué de tanta invención, cómo truxeron? everybody went into the tavern, from which came a sound of singing and of clapping in time, and as hearty a tinkle of glasses and banging on tables as might have come out of the _mermaid_ in the days of the virgin queen. outside the moon soared, soared brilliant, a greenish blotch on it like the time-stain on a chased silver bowl on an altar. the broken lion's head of the fountain dribbled one tinkling stream of quicksilver. on the seawind came smells of rotting garbage and thyme burning in hearths and jessamine flowers. down the street geraniums in a window smouldered in the moonlight; in the dark above them the merest contour of a face, once the gleam of two eyes; opposite against the white wall standing very quiet a man looking up with dilated nostrils--_el amor_. as the coach jangled its lumbering unsteady way out of town, our ears still throbbed with the rhythm of the tavern, of hard brown hands clapped in time, of heels thumping on oak floors. from the last house of the village a man hallooed. with its noise of cupboards of china overturned the coach crashed to stillness. a wiry, white-faced man with a little waxed moustache like the springs of a mousetrap climbed on the front seat, while burly people heaved quantities of corded trunks on behind. "how late, two hours late," the man spluttered, jerking his checked cap from side to side. "since this morning nothing to eat but two boiled eggs.... think of that. _¡qué incultura! ¡qué pueblo indecente!_ all day only two boiled eggs." "i had business in motril, don antonio," said the goblin driver grinning. "business!" cried don antonio, laughing squeakily, "and after all what a night!" something impelled me to tell don antonio the story of king mycerinus of egypt that herodotus tells, how hearing from an oracle he would only live ten years, the king called for torches and would not sleep, so crammed twenty years' living into ten. the goblin driver listened in intervals between his hoarse investigations of the private life of the grandmother of the leading mule. don antonio slapped his thigh and lit a cigarette and cried, "in andalusia we all do that, don't we, paco?" "yes, sir," said the goblin driver, nodding his head vigorously. "that is _lo flamenco_," cried don antonio. "the life of andalusia is _lo flamenco_." the moon has begun to lose foothold in the black slippery zenith. we are hurtling along a road at the top of a cliff; below the sea full of unexpected glitters, lace-edged, swishing like the silk dress of a dancer. the goblin driver rolls from side to side asleep. the check cap is down over the little man's face so that not even his moustaches are to be seen. all at once the leading mule, taken with suicidal mania, makes a sidewise leap for the cliff-edge. crumbling of gravel, snap of traces, shouts, uproar inside. some one has managed to yank the mule back on her hind quarters. in the sea below the shadow of a coach totters at the edge of the cliff's shadow. "_hija de puta_," cries the goblin driver, jumping to the ground. don antonio awakes with a grunt and begins to explain querulously that he has had nothing to eat all day but two boiled eggs. the teeth of the goblin driver flash white flame as he hangs wreath upon wreath of profanity about the trembling, tugging mules. with a terrific rattling jerk the coach sways to the safe side of the road. from inside angry heads are poked out like the heads of hens out of an overturned coop. don antonio turns to me and shouts in tones of triumph: "_¿qué flamenco, eh?_" when we got to almuñecar don antonio, the goblin driver, and i sat at a little table outside the empty casino. a waiter appeared from somewhere with wine and coffee and tough purple ham and stale bread and cigarettes. over our heads dusty palm-fronds trembled in occasional faint gusts off the sea. the rings on don antonio's thin fingers glistened in the light of the one tired electric light bulb that shone among palpitating mottoes above us as he explained to me the significance of _lo flamenco_. the tough swaggering gesture, the quavering song well sung, the couplet neatly capped, the back turned to the charging bull, the mantilla draped with exquisite provocativeness; all that was _lo flamenco_. "on this coast, _señor inglés_, we don't work much, we are dirty and uninstructed, but by god we live. why the poor people of the towns, d'you know what they do in summer? they hire a fig-tree and go and live under it with their dogs and their cats and their babies, and they eat the figs as they ripen and drink the cold water from the mountains, and man-alive they are happy. they fear no one and they are dependent on no one; when they are young they make love and sing to the guitar, and when they are old they tell stories and bring up their children. you have travelled much; i have travelled little--madrid, never further,--but i swear to you that nowhere in the world are the women lovelier or is the land richer or the cookery more perfect than in this vega of almuñecar.... if only the wine weren't quite so heavy...." "then you don't want to go to america?" "_¡hombre por dios!_ sing us a song, paco.... he's a galician, you see." the goblin driver grinned and threw back his head. "go to the end of the world, you'll find a gallego," he said. then he drank down his wine, rubbed his mouth on the back of his hand, and started droningly: 'si quieres qu'el carro cante mójale y dejel'en río que después de buen moja'o canta com'un silbi'o.' (if you want a cart to sing, wet it and soak it in the river, for when it's well soaked it'll sing like a locust.) "hola," cried don antonio, "go on." 'a mí me gusta el blanco, ¡viva lo blanco! ¡muera lo negro! porque el negro es muy triste. yo soy alegre. yo no lo quiero.' (i like white; hooray for white, death to black. because black is very sad, and i am happy, i don't like it.) "that's it," cried don antonio excitedly. "you people from the north, english, americans, germans, whatnot, you like black. you like to be sad. i don't." "'yo soy alegre. yo no lo quiero.'" the moon had sunk into the west, flushed and swollen. the east was beginning to bleach before the oncoming sun. birds started chirping above our heads. i left them, but as i lay in bed, i could hear the hoarse voice of the goblin driver roaring out: 'a mí me gusta el blanco, ¡viva lo blanco! ¡muera lo negro!' at nerja in an arbor of purple ipomoeas on a red jutting cliff over the beach where brown children were bathing, there was talk again of _lo flamenco_. "in spain," my friend don diego was saying, "we live from the belly and loins, or else from the head and heart: between don quixote the mystic and sancho panza the sensualist there is no middle ground. the lowest panza is _lo flamenco_." "but you do live." "in dirt, disease, lack of education, bestiality.... half of us are always dying of excess of food or the lack of it." "what do you want?" "education, organization, energy, the modern world." i told him what the donkey-boy had said of america on the road down from the alpujarras, that in america they did nothing but work and rest so as to be able to work again. and america was the modern world. and _lo flamenco_ is neither work nor getting ready to work. that evening san miguel went out to fetch the virgin of sorrows from a roadside oratory and brought her back into town in procession with candles and skyrockets and much chanting, and as the swaying cone-shaped figure carried on the shoulders of six sweating men stood poised at the entrance to the plaza where all the girls wore jessamine flowers in the blackness of their hair, all waved their hats and cried, "_¡viva la vírgen de las angustias!_" and the virgin and san miguel both had to bow their heads to get in the church door, and the people followed them into the church crying "_¡viva!_" so that the old vaults shivered in the tremulous candlelight and the shouting. some people cried for water, as rain was about due and everything was very dry, and when they came out of the church they saw a thin cloud like a mantilla of white lace over the moon, so they went home happy. wherever they went through the narrow well-swept streets, lit by an occasional path of orange light from a window, the women left behind them long trails of fragrance from the jessamine flowers in their hair. don diego and i walked a long while on the seashore talking of america and the virgin and a certain soup called _ajo blanco_ and don quixote and _lo flamenco_. we were trying to decide what was the peculiar quality of the life of the people in that rich plain (_vega_ they call it) between the mountains of the sea. walking about the country elevated on the small grass-grown levees of irrigation ditches, the owners of the fields we crossed used, simply because we were strangers, to offer us a glass of wine or a slice of watermelon. i had explained to my friend that in his modern world of america these same people would come out after us with shotguns loaded with rock salt. he answered that even so, the old order was changing, and that as there was nothing else but to follow the procession of industrialism it behooved spaniards to see that their country forged ahead instead of being, as heretofore, dragged at the tail of the parade. "and do you think it's leading anywhere, this endless complicating of life?" "of course," he answered. "where?" "where does anything lead? at least it leads further than _lo flamenco_." "but couldn't the point be to make the way significant?" he shrugged his shoulders. "work," he said. we had come to a little nook in the cliffs where fishing boats were drawn up with folded wings like ducks asleep. we climbed a winding path up the cliff. pebbles scuttled underfoot; our hands were torn by thorny aromatic shrubs. then we came out in a glen that cut far into the mountains, full of the laughter of falling water and the rustle of sappy foliage. seven stilted arches of an aqueduct showed white through the canebrakes inland. fragrances thronged about us; the smell of dry thyme-grown uplands, of rich wet fields, of goats, and jessamine and heliotrope, and of water cold from the snowfields running fast in ditches. somewhere far off a donkey was braying. then, as the last groan of the donkey faded, a man's voice rose suddenly out of the dark fields, soaring, yearning on taut throat-cords, then slipped down through notes, like a small boat sliding sideways down a wave, then unrolled a great slow scroll of rhythm on the night and ceased suddenly in an upward cadence as a guttering candle flares to extinction. "something that's neither work nor getting ready to work," and i thought of the _arriero_ on whose donkey i had forded the stream on the way down from the alpujarras, and his saying: "_ca, en américa no se hose na'a que trabahar y dé'cansar._" i had left him at his home village, a little cluster of red and yellow roofs about a fat tower the moors had built and a gaunt church that hunched by itself in a square of trampled dust. we had rested awhile before going into town, under a fig tree, while he had put white canvas shoes on his lean brown feet. the broad leaves had rustled in the wind, and the smell of the fruit that hung purple bursting to crimson against the intense sky had been like warm stroking velvet all about us. and the _arriero_ had discoursed on the merits of his donkey and the joys of going from town to town with merchandise, up into the mountains for chestnuts and firewood, down to the sea for fish, to malaga for tinware, to motril for sugar from the refineries. nights of dancing and guitar-playing at vintage-time, _fiestas_ of the virgin, where older, realer gods were worshipped than jehovah and the dolorous mother of the pale christ, the _toros_, blood and embroidered silks aflame in the sunlight, words whispered through barred windows at night, long days of travel on stony roads in the mountains.... and i had lain back with my eyes closed and the hum of little fig-bees in my ears, and wished that my life were his life. after a while we had jumped to our feet and i had shouldered my knapsack with its books and pencils and silly pads of paper and trudged off up an unshaded road, and had thought with a sort of bitter merriment of that prig christian and his damned burden. "something that is neither work nor getting ready to work, to make the road so significant that one needs no destination, that is _lo flamenco_," said i to don diego, as we stood in the glen looking at the seven white arches of the aqueduct. he nodded unconvinced. _iii: the baker of almorox_ i the _señores_ were from madrid? indeed! the man's voice was full of an awe of great distances. he was the village baker of almorox, where we had gone on a sunday excursion from madrid; and we were standing on the scrubbed tile floor of his house, ceremoniously receiving wine and figs from his wife. the father of the friend who accompanied me had once lived in the same village as the baker's father, and bought bread of him; hence the entertainment. this baker of almorox was a tall man, with a soft moustache very black against his ash-pale face, who stood with his large head thrust far forward. he was smiling with pleasure at the presence of strangers in his house, while in a tone of shy deprecating courtesy he asked after my friend's family. don fernando and doña ana and the señorita were well? and little carlos? carlos was no longer little, answered my friend, and doña ana was dead. the baker's wife had stood in the shadow looking from one face to another with a sort of wondering pleasure as we talked, but at this she came forward suddenly into the pale greenish-gold light that streamed through the door, holding a dark wine-bottle before her. there were tears in her eyes. no; she had never known any of them, she explained hastily--she had never been away from almorox--but she had heard so much of their kindness and was sorry.... it was terrible to lose a father or a mother. the tall baker shifted his feet uneasily, embarrassed by the sadness that seemed slipping over his guests, and suggested that we walk up the hill to the hermitage; he would show the way. "but your work?" we asked. ah, it did not matter. strangers did not come every day to almorox. he strode out of the door, wrapping a woolen muffler about his bare strongly moulded throat, and we followed him up the devious street of whitewashed houses that gave us glimpses through wide doors of dark tiled rooms with great black rafters overhead and courtyards where chickens pecked at the manure lodged between smooth worn flagstones. still between white-washed walls we struck out of the village into the deep black mud of the high road, and at last burst suddenly into the open country, where patches of sprouting grass shone vivid green against the gray and russet of broad rolling lands. at the top of the first hill stood the hermitage--a small whitewashed chapel with a square three-storied tower; over the door was a relief of the virgin, crowned, in worn lichened stone. the interior was very plain with a single heavily gilt altar, over which was a painted statue, stiff but full of a certain erect disdainful grace--again of the virgin. the figure was dressed in a long lace gown, full of frills and ruffles, grey with dust and age. "_la vírgen de la cima_," said the baker, pointing reverently with his thumb, after he had bent his knee before the altar. and as i glanced at the image a sudden resemblance struck me: the gown gave the virgin a curiously conical look that somehow made me think of that conical black stone, the bona dea, that the romans brought from asia minor. here again was a good goddess, a bountiful one, more mother than virgin, despite her prudish frills.... but the man was ushering us out. "and there is no finer view than this in all spain." with a broad sweep of his arm he took in the village below, with its waves of roofs that merged from green to maroon and deep crimson, broken suddenly by the open square in front of the church; and the gray towering church, scowling with strong lights and shadows on buttresses and pointed windows; and the brown fields faintly sheened with green, which gave place to the deep maroon of the turned earth of vineyards, and the shining silver where the wind ruffled the olive-orchards; and beyond, the rolling hills that grew gradually flatter until they sank into the yellowish plain of castile. as he made the gesture his fingers were stretched wide as if to grasp all this land he was showing. his flaccid cheeks were flushed as he turned to us; but we should see it in may, he was saying, in may when the wheat was thick in the fields, and there were flowers on the hills. then the lands were beautiful and rich, in may. and he went on to tell us of the local feast, and the great processions of the virgin. this year there were to be four days of the _toros_. so many bullfights were unusual in such a small village, he assured us. but they were rich in almorox; the wine was the best in castile. four days of _toros_, he said again; and all the people of the country around would come to the _fiestas_, and there would be a great pilgrimage to this hermitage of the virgin.... as he talked in his slow deferential way, a little conscious of his volubility before strangers, there began to grow in my mind a picture of his view of the world. first came his family, the wife whose body lay beside his at night, who bore him children, the old withered parents who sat in the sun at his door, his memories of them when they had had strong rounded limbs like his, and of their parents sitting old and withered in the sun. then his work, the heat of his ovens, the smell of bread cooking, the faces of neighbors who came to buy; and, outside, in the dim penumbra of things half real, of travellers' tales, lay madrid, where the king lived and where politicians wrote in the newspapers,--and _francia_--and all that was not almorox.... in him i seemed to see the generations wax and wane, like the years, strung on the thread of labor, of unending sweat and strain of muscles against the earth. it was all so mellow, so strangely aloof from the modern world of feverish change, this life of the peasants of almorox. everywhere roots striking into the infinite past. for before the revolution, before the moors, before the romans, before the dark furtive traders, the phoenicians, they were much the same, these iberian village communities. far away things changed, cities were founded, hard roads built, armies marched and fought and passed away; but in almorox the foundations of life remained unchanged up to the present. new names and new languages had come. the virgin had taken over the festivals and rituals of the old earth goddesses, and the deep mystical fervor of devotion. but always remained the love for the place, the strong anarchistic reliance on the individual man, the walking, consciously or not, of the way beaten by generations of men who had tilled and loved and lain in the cherishing sun with no feeling of a reality outside of themselves, outside of the bare encompassing hills of their commune, except the god which was the synthesis of their souls and of their lives. here lies the strength and the weakness of spain. this intense individualism, born of a history whose fundamentals lie in isolated village communities--_pueblos_, as the spaniards call them--over the changeless face of which, like grass over a field, events spring and mature and die, is the basic fact of spanish life. no revolution has been strong enough to shake it. invasion after invasion, of goths, of moors, of christian ideas, of the fads and convictions of the renaissance, have swept over the country, changing surface customs and modes of thought and speech, only to be metamorphosed into keeping with the changeless iberian mind. and predominant in the iberian mind is the thought _la vida es sueño_: "life is a dream." only the individual, or that part of life which is in the firm grasp of the individual, is real. the supreme expression of this lies in the two great figures that typify spain for all time: don quixote and sancho panza; don quixote, the individualist who believed in the power of man's soul over all things, whose desire included the whole world in himself; sancho, the individualist to whom all the world was food for his belly. on the one hand we have the ecstatic figures for whom the power of the individual soul has no limits, in whose minds the universe is but one man standing before his reflection, god. these are the loyolas, the philip seconds, the fervid ascetics like juan de la cruz, the originals of the glowing tortured faces in the portraits of el greco. on the other hand are the jovial materialists like the archpriest of hita, culminating in the frantic, mystical sensuality of such an epic figure as don juan tenorio. through all spanish history and art the threads of these two complementary characters can be traced, changing, combining, branching out, but ever in substance the same. of this warp and woof have all the strange patterns of spanish life been woven. ii in trying to hammer some sort of unified impression out of the scattered pictures of spain in my mind, one of the first things i realize is that there are many spains. indeed, every village hidden in the folds of the great barren hills, or shadowed by its massive church in the middle of one of the upland plains, every fertile _huerta_ of the seacoast, is a spain. iberia exists, and the strong iberian characteristics; but spain as a modern centralized nation is an illusion, a very unfortunate one; for the present atrophy, the desolating resultlessness of a century of revolution, may very well be due in large measure to the artificial imposition of centralized government on a land essentially centrifugal. in the first place, there is the matter of language. roughly, four distinct languages are at present spoken in spain: castilian, the language of madrid and the central uplands, the official language, spoken in the south in its andalusian form; gallego-portuguese, spoken on the west coast; basque, which does not even share the latin descent of the others; and catalan, a form of provençal which, with its dialect, valencian, is spoken on the upper mediterranean coast and in the balearic isles. of course, under the influence of rail communication and a conscious effort to spread castilian, the other languages, with the exception of portuguese and catalan, have lost vitality and died out in the larger towns; but the problem remains far different from that of the italian dialects, since the spanish languages have all, except basque, a strong literary tradition. added to the variety of language, there is an immense variety of topography in the different parts of spain. the central plateaux, dominant in modern history (history being taken to mean the births and breedings of kings and queens and the doings of generals in armor) probably approximate the warmer russian steppes in climate and vegetation. the west coast is in most respects a warmer and more fertile wales. the southern _huertas_ (arable river valleys) have rather the aspect of egypt. the east coast from valencia up is a continuation of the mediterranean coast of france. it follows that, in this country where an hour's train ride will take you from siberian snow into african desert, unity of population is hardly to be expected. here is probably the root of the tendency in spanish art and thought to emphasize the differences between things. in painting, where the mind of a people is often more tangibly represented than anywhere else, we find one supreme example. el greco, almost the caricature in his art of the don quixote type of mind, who, though a greek by birth and a venetian by training, became more spanish than the spaniards during his long life at toledo, strove constantly to express the difference between the world of flesh and the world of spirit, between the body and the soul of man. more recently, the extreme characterization of goya's sketches and portraits, the intensifying of national types found in zuloaga and the other painters who have been exploiting with such success the peculiarities--the picturesqueness--of spanish faces and landscapes, seem to spring from this powerful sense of the separateness of things. in another way you can express this constant attempt to differentiate one individual from another as caricature. spanish art is constantly on the edge of caricature. given the ebullient fertility of the spanish mind and its intense individualism, a constant slipping over into the grotesque is inevitable. and so it comes to be that the conscious or unconscious aim of their art is rather self-expression than beauty. their image of reality is sharp and clear, but distorted. burlesque and satire are never far away in their most serious moments. not even the calmest and best ordered of spanish minds can resist a tendency to excess of all sorts, to over-elaboration, to grotesquerie, to deadening mannerism. all that is greatest in their art, indeed, lies on the borderland of the extravagant, where sublime things skim the thin ice of absurdity. the great epic, _don quixote_, such plays as calderon's _la vida es sueño_, such paintings as el greco's _resurrección_ and velasquez's dwarfs, such buildings as the escorial and the alhambra--all among the universal masterpieces--are far indeed from the middle term of reasonable beauty. hence their supreme strength. and for our generation, to which excess is a synonym for beauty, is added argumentative significance to the long tradition of spanish art. another characteristic, springing from the same fervid abundance, that links the spanish tradition to ours of the present day is the strangely impromptu character of much spanish art production. the slightly ridiculous proverb that genius consists of an infinite capacity for taking pains is well controverted. the creative flow of spanish artists has always been so strong, so full of vitality, that there has been no time for taking pains. lope de vega, with his two thousand-odd plays--or was it twelve thousand?--is by no means an isolated instance. perhaps the strong sense of individual validity, which makes spain the most democratic country in europe, sanctions the constant improvisation, and accounts for the confident planlessness as common in spanish architecture as in spanish political thought. here we meet the old stock characteristic, spanish pride. this is a very real thing, and is merely the external shell of the fundamental trust in the individual and in nothing outside of him. again el greco is an example. as his painting progressed, grew more and more personal, he drew away from tangible reality, and, with all the dogmatic conviction of one whose faith in his own reality can sweep away the mountains of the visible world, expressed his own restless, almost sensual, spirituality in forms that flickered like white flames toward god. for the spaniard, moreover, god is always, in essence, the proudest sublimation of man's soul. the same spirit runs through the preachers of the early church and the works of santa teresa, a disguise of the frantic desire to express the self, the self, changeless and eternal, at all costs. from this comes the hard cruelty that flares forth luridly at times. a recent book by miguel de unamuno, _del sentimiento trágico de la vida_, expresses this fierce clinging to separateness from the universe by the phrase _el hambre de inmortalidad_, the hunger of immortality. this is the core of the individualism that lurks in all spanish ideas, the conviction that only the individual soul is real. iii in the spain of to-day these things are seen as through a glass, darkly. since the famous and much gloated-over entrance of ferdinand and isabella into granada, the history of spain has been that of an attempt to fit a square peg in a round hole. in the great flare of the golden age, the age of ingots of peru and of men of even greater worth, the disease worked beneath the surface. since then the conflict has corroded into futility all the buoyant energies of the country. i mean the persistent attempt to centralize in thought, in art, in government, in religion, a nation whose every energy lies in the other direction. the result has been a deadlock, and the ensuing rust and numbing of all life and thought, so that a century of revolution seems to have brought spain no nearer a solution of its problems. at the present day, when all is ripe for a new attempt to throw off the atrophy, a sort of despairing inaction causes the spaniards to remain under a government of unbelievably corrupt and inefficient politicians. there seems no solution to the problem of a nation in which the centralized power and the separate communities work only to nullify each other. spaniards in face of their traditions are rather in the position of the archæologists before the problem of iberian sculpture. for near the cerro de los santos, bare hill where from the ruins of a sanctuary has been dug an endless series of native sculptures of men and women, goddesses and gods, there lived a little watchmaker. the first statues to be dug up were thought by the pious country people to be saints, and saints they were, according to an earlier dispensation than that of rome; with the result that much kudos accompanied the discovery of those draped women with high head-dresses and fixed solemn eyes and those fragmentary bull-necked men hewn roughly out of grey stone; they were freed from the caked clay of two thousand years and reverently set up in the churches. so probably the motives that started the watchmaker on his career of sculpturing and falsifying were pious and reverential. however it began, when it was discovered that the saints were mere horrid heathen he-gods and she-gods and that the foreign gentlemen with spectacles who appeared from all the ends of europe to investigate, would pay money for them, the watchmaker began to thrive as a mighty man in his village and generation. he began to study archaeology and the style of his cumbersome forged divinities improved. for a number of years the statues from the cerro de los santos were swallowed whole by all learned europe. but the watchmaker's imagination began to get the better of him; forms became more and more fantastic, egyptian, assyrian, _art-nouveau_ influences began to be noted by the discerning, until at last someone whispered forgery and all the scientists scuttled to cover shouting that there had never been any native iberian sculpture after all. the little watchmaker succumbed before his imagining of heathen gods and died in a madhouse. to this day when you stand in the middle of the room devoted to the cerro de los santos in the madrid, and see the statues of iberian goddesses clustered about you in their high head-dresses like those of dancers, you cannot tell which were made by the watchmaker in 1880, and which by the image-maker of the hill-sanctuary at a time when the first red-eyed ships of the phoenician traders were founding trading posts among the barbarians of the coast of valencia. and there they stand on their shelves, the real and the false inextricably muddled, and stare at the enigma with stone eyes. so with the traditions: the tradition of catholic spain, the tradition of military grandeur, the tradition of fighting the moors, of suspecting the foreigner, of hospitality, of truculence, of sobriety, of chivalry, of don quixote and tenorio. the spanish-american war, to the united states merely an opportunity for a patriotic-capitalist demonstration of sanitary engineering, heroism and canned-meat scandals, was to spain the first whispered word that many among the traditions were false. the young men of that time called themselves the generation of ninety-eight. according to temperament they rejected all or part of the museum of traditions they had been taught to believe was the real spain; each took up a separate road in search of a spain which should suit his yearnings for beauty, gentleness, humaneness, or else vigor, force, modernity. the problem of our day is whether spaniards evolving locally, anarchically, without centralization in anything but repression, will work out new ways of life for themselves, or whether they will be drawn into the festering tumult of a europe where the system that is dying is only strong enough to kill in its death-throes all new growth in which there was hope for the future. the pyrenees are high. iv it was after a lecture at an exhibition of basque painters in madrid, where we had heard valle-melan, with eyes that burned out from under shaggy grizzled eyebrows, denounce in bitter stinging irony what he called the europeanization of spain. what they called progress, he had said, was merely an aping of the stupid commercialism of modern europe. better no education for the masses than education that would turn healthy peasants into crafty putty-skinned merchants; better a spain swooning in her age-old apathy than a spain awakened to the brutal soulless trade-war of modern life.... i was walking with a young student of philosophy i had met by chance across the noisy board of a spanish _pensión_, discussing the exhibition we had just seen as a strangely meek setting for the fiery reactionary speech. i had remarked on the very "primitive" look much of the work of these young basque painters had, shown by some in the almost affectionate technique, in the dainty caressing brush-work, in others by that inadequacy of the means at the painter's disposal to express his idea, which made of so many of the pictures rather gloriously impressive failures. my friend was insisting, however, that the primitiveness, rather than the birth-pangs of a new view of the world, was nothing but "the last affectation of an over-civilized tradition." "spain," he said, "is the most civilized country in europe. the growth of our civilization has never been interrupted by outside influence. the phoenicians, the romans--spain's influence on rome was, i imagine, fully as great as rome's on spain; think of the five spanish emperors;--the goths, the moors;--all incidents, absorbed by the changeless iberian spirit.... even spanish christianity," he continued, smiling, "is far more spanish than it is christian. our life is one vast ritual. our religion is part of it, that is all. and so are the bull-fights that so shock the english and americans,--are they any more brutal, though, than fox-hunting and prize-fights? and how full of tradition are they, our _fiestas de toros_; their ceremony reaches back to the hecatombs of the homeric heroes, to the bull-worship of the cretans and of so many of the mediterranean cults, to the roman games. can civilization go farther than to ritualize death as we have done? but our culture is too perfect, too stable. life is choked by it." we stood still a moment in the shade of a yellowed lime tree. my friend had stopped talking and was looking with his usual bitter smile at a group of little boys with brown, bare dusty legs who were intently playing bull-fight with sticks for swords and a piece of newspaper for the toreador's scarlet cape. "it is you in america," he went on suddenly, "to whom the future belongs; you are so vigorous and vulgar and uncultured. life has become once more the primal fight for bread. of course the dollar is a complicated form of the food the cave man killed for and slunk after, and the means of combat are different, but it is as brutal. from that crude animal brutality comes all the vigor of life. we have none of it; we are too tired to have any thoughts; we have lived so much so long ago that now we are content with the very simple things,--the warmth of the sun and the colors of the hills and the flavor of bread and wine. all the rest is automatic, ritual." "but what about the strike?" i asked, referring to the one-day's general strike that had just been carried out with fair success throughout spain, as a protest against the government's apathy regarding the dangerous rise in the prices of food and fuel. he shrugged his shoulders. "that, and more," he said, "is new spain, a prophecy, rather than a fact. old spain is still all-powerful." later in the day i was walking through the main street of one of the clustered adobe villages that lie in the folds of the castilian plain not far from madrid. the lamps were just being lit in the little shops where the people lived and worked and sold their goods, and women with beautifully shaped pottery jars on their heads were coming home with water from the well. suddenly i came out on an open _plaza_ with trees from which the last leaves were falling through the greenish sunset light. the place was filled with the lilting music of a grind-organ and with a crunch of steps on the gravel as people danced. there were soldiers and servant-girls, and red-cheeked apprentice-boys with their sweethearts, and respectable shop-keepers, and their wives with mantillas over their gleaming black hair. all were dancing in and out among the slim tree-trunks, and the air was noisy with laughter and little cries of childlike unfeigned enjoyment. here was the gospel of sancho panza, i thought, the easy acceptance of life, the unashamed joy in food and color and the softness of women's hair. but as i walked out of the village across the harsh plain of castile, grey-green and violet under the deepening night, the memory came to me of the knight of the sorrowful countenance, don quixote, blunderingly trying to remould the world, pitifully sure of the power of his own ideal. and in these two spain seemed to be manifest. far indeed were they from the restless industrial world of joyless enforced labor and incessant goading war. and i wondered to what purpose it would be, should don quixote again saddle rosinante, and what the good baker of almorox would say to his wife when he looked up from his kneading trough, holding out hands white with dough, to see the knight errant ride by on his lean steed upon a new quest. _iv: talk by the road_ telemachus and lyaeus had walked all night. the sky to the east of them was rosy when they came out of a village at the crest of a hill. cocks crowed behind stucco walls. the road dropped from their feet through an avenue of pollarded poplars ghostly with frost. far away into the brown west stretched reach upon reach of lake-like glimmer; here and there a few trees pushed jagged arms out of drowned lands. they stood still breathing hard. "it's the tagus overflowed its banks," said telemachus. lyaeus shook his head. "it's mist." they stood with thumping hearts on the hilltop looking over inexplicable shimmering plains of mist hemmed by mountains jagged like coals that as they looked began to smoulder with dawn. the light all about was lemon yellow. the walls of the village behind them were fervid primrose color splotched with shadows of sheer cobalt. above the houses uncurled green spirals of wood-smoke. lyaeus raised his hands above his head and shouted and ran like mad down the hill. a little voice was whispering in telemachus's ear that he must save his strength, so he followed sedately. when he caught up to lyaeus they were walking among twining wraiths of mist rose-shot from a rim of the sun that poked up behind hills of bright madder purple. a sudden cold wind-gust whined across the plain, making the mist writhe in a delirium of crumbling shapes. ahead of them casting gigantic blue shadows over the furrowed fields rode a man on a donkey and a man on a horse. it was a grey sway-backed horse that joggled in a little trot with much switching of a ragged tail; its rider wore a curious peaked cap and sat straight and lean in the saddle. over one shoulder rested a long bamboo pole that in the exaggerating sunlight cast a shadow like the shadow of a lance. the man on the donkey was shaped like a dumpling and rode with his toes turned out. telemachus and lyaeus walked behind them a long while without catching up, staring curiously after these two silent riders. eventually getting as far as the tails of the horse and the donkey, they called out: "_buenos días_." there turned to greet them a red, round face, full of little lines like an over-ripe tomato and a long bloodless face drawn into a point at the chin by a grizzled beard. "how early you are, gentlemen," said the tall man on the grey horse. his voice was deep and sepulchral, with an occasional flutter of tenderness like a glint of light in a black river. "late," said lyaeus. "we come from madrid on foot." the dumpling man crossed himself. "they are mad," he said to his companion. "that," said the man on the grey horse, "is always the answer of ignorance when confronted with the unusual. these gentlemen undoubtedly have very good reason for doing as they do; and besides the night is the time for long strides and deep thoughts, is it not, gentlemen? the habit of vigil is one we sorely need in this distracted modern world. if more men walked and thought the night through there would be less miseries under the sun." "but, such a cold night!" exclaimed the dumpling man. "on colder nights than this i have seen children asleep in doorways in the streets of madrid." "is there much poverty in these parts? asked telemachus stiffly, wanting to show that he too had the social consciousness. "there are people--thousands--who from the day they are born till the day they die never have enough to eat." "they have wine," said lyaeus. "one little cup on sundays, and they are so starved that it makes them as drunk as if it were a hogshead." "i have heard," said lyaeus, "that the sensations of starving are very interesting--people have visions more vivid than life." "one needs very few sensations to lead life humbly and beautifully," said the man on the grey horse in a gentle tone of reproof. lyaeus frowned. "perhaps," said the man on the grey horse turning towards telemachus his lean face, where under scraggly eyebrows glowered eyes of soft dark green, "it is that i have brooded too much on the injustice done in the world--all society one great wrong. many years ago i should have set out to right wrong--for no one but a man, an individual alone, can right a wrong; organization merely substitutes one wrong for another--but now ... i am too old. you see, i go fishing instead." "why, it's a fishing pole," cried lyaeus. "when i first saw it i thought it was a lance." and he let out his roaring laugh. "and such trout," cried the dumpling man. "the trout there are in that little stream above illescas! that's why we got up so early, to fish for trout." "i like to see the dawn," said the man on the grey horse. "is that illescas?" asked telemachus, and pointed to a dun brown tower topped by a cap of blue slate that stood guard over a cluster of roofs ahead of them. telemachus had a map torn from baedecker in his pocket that he had been peeping at secretly. "that, gentlemen, is illescas," said the man on the grey horse. "and if you will allow me to offer you a cup of coffee, i shall be most pleased. you must excuse me, for i never take anything before midday. i am a recluse, have been for many years and rarely stir abroad. i do not intend to return to the world unless i can bring something with me worth having." a wistful smile twisted a little the corners of his mouth. "i could guzzle a hogshead of coffee accompanied by vast processions of toasted rolls in columns of four," shouted lyaeus. "we are on our way to toledo," telemachus broke in, not wanting to give the impression that food was their only thought. "you will see the paintings of dominico theotocopoulos, the only one who ever depicted the soul of castile." "this man," said lyaeus, with a slap at telemachus's shoulder, "is looking for a gesture." "the gesture of castile." the man on the grey horse rode along silently for some time. the sun had already burnt up the hoar-frost along the sides of the road; only an occasional streak remained glistening in the shadow of a ditch. a few larks sang in the sky. two men in brown corduroy with hoes on their shoulders passed on their way to the fields. "who shall say what is the gesture of castile?... i am from la mancha myself." the man on the grey horse started speaking gravely while with a bony hand, very white, he stroked his beard. "something cold and haughty and aloof ... men concentrated, converging breathlessly on the single flame of their spirit.... torquemada, loyola, jorge manrique, cortés, santa teresa.... rapacity, cruelty, straightforwardness.... every man's life a lonely ruthless quest." lyaeus broke in: "remember the infinite gentleness of the saints lowering the conde de orgaz into the grave in the picture in san tomás...." "ah, that is what i was trying to think of.... these generations, my generation, my son's generation, are working to bury with infinite tenderness the gorgeously dressed corpse of the old spain.... gentlemen, it is a little ridiculous to say so, but we have set out once more with lance and helmet of knight-errantry to free the enslaved, to right the wrongs of the oppressed." they had come into town. in the high square tower church-bells were ringing for morning mass. down the broad main street scampered a flock of goats herded by a lean man with fangs like a dog who strode along in a snuff-colored cloak with a broad black felt hat on his head. "how do you do, don alonso?" he cried; "good luck to you, gentlemen." and he swept the hat off his head in a wide curving gesture as might a courtier of the rey don juan. the hot smell of the goats was all about them as they sat before the café in the sun under a bare acacia tree, looking at the tightly proportioned brick arcades of the mudéjar apse of the church opposite. don alonso was in the café ordering; the dumpling-man had disappeared. telemachus got up on his numbed feet and stretched his legs. "ouf," he said, "i'm tired." then he walked over to the grey horse that stood with hanging head and drooping knees hitched to one of the acacias. "i wonder what his name is." he stroked the horse's scrawny face. "is it rosinante?" the horse twitched his ears, straightened his back and legs and pulled back black lips to show yellow teeth. "of course it's rosinante!" the horse's sides heaved. he threw back his head and whinnied shrilly, exultantly. _v: a novelist of revolution_ i much as g. b. s. refuses to be called an englishman, pío baroja refuses to be called a spaniard. he is a basque. reluctantly he admits having been born in san sebastián, outpost of cosmopolis on the mountainous coast of guipuzcoa, where a stern-featured race of mountaineers and fishermen, whose prominent noses, high ruddy cheek-bones and square jowls are gradually becoming known to the world through the paintings of the zubiaurre, clings to its ancient un-aryan language and its ancient song and customs with the hard-headedness of hill people the world over. from the first spanish discoveries in america till the time of our own new england clipper ships, the basque coast was the backbone of spanish trade. the three provinces were the only ones which kept their privileges and their municipal liberties all through the process of the centralizing of the spanish monarchy with cross and faggot, which historians call the great period of spain. the rocky inlets in the mountains were full of shipyards that turned out privateers and merchantmen manned by lanky broad-shouldered men with hard red-beaked faces and huge hands coarsened by generations of straining on heavy oars and halyards,--men who feared only god and the sea-spirits of their strange mythology and were a law unto themselves, adventurers and bigots. it was not till the nineteenth century that the carlist wars and the passing of sailing ships broke the prosperous independence of the basque provinces and threw them once for all into the main current of spanish life. now papermills take the place of shipyards, and instead of the great fleet that went off every year to fish the newfoundland and iceland banks, a few steam trawlers harry the sardines in the bay of biscay. the world war, too, did much to make bilboa one of the industrial centers of spain, even restoring in some measure the ancient prosperity of its shipping. pío baroja spent his childhood on this rainy coast between green mountains and green sea. there were old aunts who filled his ears up with legends of former mercantile glory, with talk of sea captains and slavers and shipwrecks. born in the late seventies, baroja left the mist-filled inlets of guipuzcoa to study medicine in madrid, febrile capital full of the artificial scurry of government, on the dry upland plateau of new castile. he even practiced, reluctantly enough, in a town near valencia, where he must have acquired his distaste for the mediterranean and the latin genius, and, later, in his own province at cestons, where he boarded with the woman who baked the sacramental wafers for the parish church, and, so he claims, felt the spirit of racial solidarity glow within him for the first time. but he was too timid in the face of pain and too sceptical of science as of everything else to acquire the cocksure brutality of a country doctor. he gave up medicine and returned to madrid, where he became a baker. in _juventud-egolatria_ ("youth-selfworship") a book of delightfully shameless self-revelations, he says that he ran a bakery for six years before starting to write. and he still runs a bakery. you can see it any day, walking towards the royal theatre from the great focus of madrid life, the puerta del sol. it has a most enticing window. on one side are hams and red sausages and purple sausages and white sausages, some plump to the bursting like rubens's "graces," others as weazened and smoked as saints by ribera. in the middle are oblong plates with patés and sliced bologna and things in jelly; then come ranks of cakes, creamcakes and fruitcakes, everything from obscene jam-rolls to celestial cornucopias of white cream. through the door you see a counter with round loaves of bread on it, and a basketful of brown rolls. if someone comes out a dense sweet smell of fresh bread and pastry swirls about the sidewalk. so, by meeting commerce squarely in its own field, he has freed himself from any compromise with mammon. while his bread remains sweet, his novels may be as bitter as he likes. ii the moon shines coldly out of an intense blue sky where a few stars glisten faint as mica. shadow fills half the street, etching a silhouette of roofs and chimneypots and cornices on the cobblestones, leaving the rest very white with moonlight. the façades of the houses, with their blank windows, might be carved out of ice. in the dark of a doorway a woman sits hunched under a brown shawl. her head nods, but still she jerks a tune that sways and dances through the silent street out of the accordion on her lap. a little saucer for pennies is on the step beside her. in the next doorway two guttersnipes are huddled together asleep. the moonlight points out with mocking interest their skinny dirt-crusted feet and legs stretched out over the icy pavement, and the filthy rags that barely cover their bodies. two men stumble out of a wineshop arm in arm, poor men in corduroy, who walk along unsteadily in their worn canvas shoes, making grandiloquent gestures of pity, tearing down the cold hard façades with drunken generous phrases, buoyed up by the warmth of the wine in their veins. that is baroja's world: dismal, ironic, the streets of towns where industrial life sits heavy on the neck of a race as little adapted to it as any in europe. no one has ever described better the shaggy badlands and cabbage-patches round the edges of a city, where the debris of civilization piles up ramshackle suburbs in which starve and scheme all manner of human detritus. back lots where men and women live fantastically in shelters patched out of rotten boards, of old tin cans and bits of chairs and tables that have stood for years in bright pleasant rooms. grassy patches behind crumbling walls where on sunny days starving children spread their fleshless limbs and run about in the sun. miserable wineshops where the wind whines through broken panes to chill men with ever-empty stomachs who sit about gambling and finding furious drunkenness in a sip of _aguardiente_. courtyards of barracks where painters who have not a cent in the world mix with beggars and guttersnipes to cajole a little hot food out of soft-hearted soldiers at mess-time. convent doors where ragged lines shiver for hours in the shrill wind that blows across the bare castilian plain waiting for the nuns to throw out bread for them to fight over like dogs. and through it all moves the great crowd of the outcast, sneak-thieves, burglars, beggars of every description,--rich beggars and poor devils who have given up the struggle to exist,--homeless children, prostitutes, people who live a half-honest existence selling knicknacks, penniless students, inventors who while away the time they are dying of starvation telling all they meet of the riches they might have had; all who have failed on the daily treadmill of bread-making, or who have never had a chance even to enjoy the privilege of industrial slavery. outside of russia there has never been a novelist so taken up with all that society and respectability reject. not that the interest in outcasts is anything new in spanish literature. spain is the home of that type of novel which the pigeonhole-makers have named picaresque. these loafers and wanderers of baroja's, like his artists and grotesque dreamers and fanatics, all are the descendants of the people in the _quijote_ and the _novelas ejemplares_, of the rogues and bandits of the lazarillo de tormes, who through _gil blas_ invaded france and england, where they rollicked through the novel until mrs. grundy and george eliot packed them off to the reform school. but the rogues of the seventeenth century were jolly rogues. they always had their tongues in their cheeks, and success rewarded their ingenious audacities. the moulds of society had not hardened as they have now; there was less pressure of hungry generations. or, more probably, pity had not come in to undermine the foundations. the corrosive of pity, which had attacked the steel girders of our civilization even before the work of building was completed, has brought about what gilbert murray in speaking of greek thought calls the failure of nerve. in the seventeenth century men still had the courage of their egoism. the world was a bad job to be made the best of, all hope lay in driving a good bargain with the conductors of life everlasting. by the end of the nineteenth century the life everlasting had grown cobwebby, the french revolution had filled men up with extravagant hopes of the perfectibility of this world, humanitarianism had instilled an abnormal sensitiveness to pain,--to one's own pain, and to the pain of one's neighbors. baroja's outcasts are no longer jolly knaves who will murder a man for a nickel and go on their road singing "over the hills and far away"; they are men who have not had the willpower to continue in the fight for bread, they are men whose nerve has failed, who live furtively on the outskirts, snatching a little joy here and there, drugging their hunger with gorgeous mirages. one often thinks of gorki in reading baroja, mainly because of the contrast. instead of the tumultuous spring freshet of a new race that drones behind every page of the russian, there is the cold despair of an old race, of a race that lived long under a formula of life to which it has sacrificed much, only to discover in the end that the formula does not hold. these are the last paragraphs of _mala hierba_ ("wild grass"), the middle volume of baroja's trilogy on the life of the very poor in madrid. "they talked. manuel felt irritation against the whole world, hatred, up to that moment pent up within him against society, against man.... "'honestly,' he ended by saying, 'i wish it would rain dynamite for a week, and that the eternal father would come tumbling down in cinders.' "he invoked crazily all the destructive powers to reduce to ashes this miserable society. "jesús listened with attention. "'you are an anarchist,' he told him. "'i?' "'yes. so am i.' "'since when?' "'since i have seen the infamies committed in the world; since i have seen how coldly they give to death a bit of human flesh; since i have seen how men die abandoned in the streets and hospitals,' answered jesús with a certain solemnity. "manuel was silent. the friends walked without speaking round the ronda de segovia, and sat down on a bench in the little gardens of the vírgen del puerto. "the sky was superb, crowded with stars; the milky way crossed its immense blue concavity. the geometric figure of the great bear glittered very high. arcturus and vega shone softly in that ocean of stars. "in the distance the dark fields, scratched with lines of lights, seemed the sea in a harbor and the strings of lights the illumination of a wharf. "the damp warm air came laden with odors of woodland plants wilted by the heat. "'how many stars,' said manuel. 'what can they be?' "'they are worlds, endless worlds.' "'i don't know why it doesn't make me feel better to see this sky so beautiful, jesús. do you think there are men in those worlds?' asked manuel. "'perhaps; why not?' "'and are there prisons too, and judges and gambling dens and police?... do you think so?' "jesús did not answer. after a while he began talking with a calm voice of his dream of an idyllic humanity, a sweet pitiful dream, noble and childish. "in his dream, man, led by a new idea, reached a higher state. "no more hatreds, no more rancours. neither judges, nor police, nor soldiers, nor authority. in the wide fields of the earth free men worked in the sunlight. the law of love had taken the place of the law of duty, and the horizons of humanity grew every moment wider, wider and more azure. "and jesús continued talking of a vague ideal of love and justice, of energy and pity; and those words of his, chaotic, incoherent, fell like balm on manuel's ulcerated spirit. then they were both silent, lost in their thoughts, looking at the night. "an august joy shone in the sky, and the vague sensation of space, of the infinity of those imponderable worlds, filled their spirits with a delicious calm." iii spain is the classic home of the anarchist. a bleak upland country mostly, with a climate giving all varieties of temperature, from moist african heat to dry siberian cold, where people have lived until very recently,--and do still,--in villages hidden away among the bare ribs of the mountains, or in the indented coast plains, where every region is cut off from every other by high passes and defiles of the mountains, flaming hot in summer and freezing cold in winter, where the iberian race has grown up centerless. the pueblo, the village community, is the only form of social cohesion that really has roots in the past. on these free towns empires have time and again been imposed by force. in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the catholic monarchy wielded the sword of the faith to such good effect that communal feeling was killed and the spanish genius forced to ingrow into the mystical realm where every ego expanded itself into the solitude of god. the eighteenth century reduced god to an abstraction, and the nineteenth brought pity and the mad hope of righting the wrongs of society. the spaniard, like his own don quixote, mounted the warhorse of his idealism and set out to free the oppressed, alone. as a logical conclusion we have the anarchist who threw a bomb into the lyceum theatre in barcelona during a performance, wanting to make the ultimate heroic gesture and only succeeding in a senseless mangling of human lives. but that was the reduction to an absurdity of an immensely valuable mental position. the anarchism of pío baroja is of another sort. he says in one of his books that the only part a man of the middle classes can play in the reorganization of society is destructive. he has not undergone the discipline, which can only come from common slavery in the industrial machine, necessary for a builder. his slavery has been an isolated slavery which has unfitted him forever from becoming truly part of a community. he can use the vast power of knowledge which training has given him only in one way. his great mission is to put the acid test to existing institutions, and to strip the veils off them. i don't want to imply that baroja writes with his social conscience. he is too much of a novelist for that, too deeply interested in people as such. but it is certain that a profound sense of the evil of existing institutions lies behind every page he has written, and that occasionally, only occasionally, he allows himself to hope that something better may come out of the turmoil of our age of transition. only a man who had felt all this very deeply could be so sensitive to the new spirit--if the word were not threadbare one would call it religious--which is shaking the foundations of the world's social pyramid, perhaps only another example of the failure of nerve, perhaps the triumphant expression of a new will among mankind. in _aurora roja_ ("red dawn"), the last of the madrid trilogy, about the same manuel who is the central figure of _mala hierba_, he writes: "at first it bored him, but later, little by little, he felt himself carried away by what he was reading. first he was enthusiastic about mirabeau; then about the girondins; vergniau petion, condorcet; then about danton; then he began to think that robespierre was the true revolutionary; afterwards saint just, but in the end it was the gigantic figure of danton that thrilled him most.... "manuel felt great satisfaction at having read that history. often he said to himself: "'what does it matter now if i am a loafer, and good-for-nothing? i've read the history of the french revolution; i believe i shall know how to be worthy....' "after michelet, he read a book about '48; then another on the commune, by louise michel, and all this produced in him a great admiration for french revolutionists. what men! after the colossal figures of the convention: babeuf, proudhon, blanqui, bandin, deleschize, rochefort, félix pyat, vallu.... what people! "'what does it matter now if i am a loafer?... i believe i shall know how to be worthy.'" in those two phrases lies all the power of revolutionary faith. and how like phrases out of the gospels, those older expressions of the hope and misery of another society in decay. that is the spirit that, for good or evil, is stirring throughout europe to-day, among the poor and the hungry and the oppressed and the outcast, a new affirmation of the rights and duties of men. baroja has felt this profoundly, and has presented it, but without abandoning the function of the novelist, which is to tell stories about people. he is never a propagandist. iv "i have never hidden my admirations in literature. they have been and are dickens, balzac, poe, dostoievski and, now, stendhal...." writes baroja in the preface to the nelson edition of _la dama errante_ ("the wandering lady"). he follows particularly in the footprints of balzac in that he is primarily a historian of morals, who has made a fairly consistent attempt to cover the world he lived in. with dostoievski there is a kinship in the passionate hatred of cruelty and stupidity that crops out everywhere in his work. i have never found any trace of influence of the other three. to be sure there are a few early sketches in the manner of poe, but in respect to form he is much more in the purely chaotic tradition of the picaresque novel he despises than in that of the american theorist. baroja's most important work lies in the four series of novels of the spanish life he lived, in madrid, in the provincial towns where he practiced medicine, and in the basque country where he had been brought up. the foundation of these was laid by _el arbol de la ciencia_ ("the tree of knowledge"), a novel half autobiographical describing the life and death of a doctor, giving a picture of existence in madrid and then in two spanish provincial towns. its tremendously vivid painting of inertia and the deadening under its weight of intellectual effort made a very profound impression in spain. two novels about the anarchist movement followed it, _la dama errante_, which describes the state of mind of forward-looking spaniards at the time of the famous anarchist attempt on the lives of the king and queen the day of their marriage, and _la ciudad de la niebla_, about the spanish colony in london. then came the series called _la busca_ ("the search"), which to me is baroja's best work, and one of the most interesting things published in europe in the last decade. it deals with the lowest and most miserable life in madrid and is written with a cold acidity which maupassant would have envied and is permeated by a human vividness that i do not think maupassant could have achieved. all three novels, _la busca_, _mala hierba_, and _aurora roja_, deal with the drifting of a typical uneducated spanish boy, son of a maid of all work in a boarding house, through different strata of madrid life. they give a sense of unadorned reality very rare in any literature, and besides their power as novels are immensely interesting as sheer natural history. the type of the _golfo_ is a literary discovery comparable with that of sancho panza by cervántes. nothing that baroja has written since is quite on the same level. the series _el pasado_ ("the past") gives interesting pictures of provincial life. _las inquietudes de shanti andia_ ("the anxieties of shanti andia"), a story of basque seamen which contains a charming picture of a childhood in a seaside village in guipuzcoa, delightful as it is to read, is too muddled in romantic claptrap to add much to his fame. _el mundo es así_ ("the world is like that") expresses, rather lamely it seems to me, the meditations of a disenchanted revolutionist. the latest series, _memorias de un hombre de acción_, a series of yarns about the revolutionary period in spain at the beginning of the nineteenth century, though entertaining, is more an attempt to escape in a jolly romantic past the realities of the morose present than anything else. _césar o nada_, translated into english under the title of "aut cæsar aut nullus" is also less acid and less effective than his earlier novels. that is probably why it was chosen for translation into english. we know how anxious our publishers are to furnish food easily digestible by weak american stomachs. it is silly to judge any spanish novelist from the point of view of form. improvisation is the very soul of spanish writing. in thinking back over books of baroja's one has read, one remembers more descriptions of places and people than anything else. in the end it is rather natural history than dramatic creation. but a natural history that gives you the pictures etched with vitriol of spanish life in the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century which you get in these novels of baroja's is very near the highest sort of creation. if we could inject some of the virus of his intense sense of reality into american writers it would be worth giving up all these stale conquests of form we inherited from poe and o. henry. the following, again from the preface of _la dama errante_, is baroja's own statement of his aims. and certainly he has realized them. "probably a book like _la dama errante_ is not of the sort that lives very long; it is not a painting with aspirations towards the museum but an impressionist canvas; perhaps as a work it has too much asperity, is too hard, not serene enough. "this ephemeral character of my work does not displease me. we are men of the day, people in love with the passing moment, with all that is fugitive and transitory and the lasting quality of our work preoccupies us little, so little that it can hardly be said to preoccupy us at all." _vi: talk by the road_ "spain," said don alonso, as he and telemachus walked out of illescas, followed at a little distance by lyaeus and the dumpling-man, "has never been swept clean. there have been the romans and the visigoths and the moors and the french--armed men jingling over mountain roads. conquest has warped and sterilised our iberian mind without changing an atom of it. an example: we missed the revolution and suffered from napoleon. we virtually had no reformation, yet the inquisition was stronger with us than anywhere." "do you think it will have to be swept clean?" asked telemachus. "he does." don alonso pointed with a sweep of an arm towards a man working in the field beside the road. it was a short man in a blouse; he broke the clods the plow had left with a heavy triangular hoe. sometimes he raised it only a foot above the ground to poise for a blow, sometimes he swung it from over his shoulder. face, clothes, hands, hoe were brown against the brown hillside where a purple shadow mocked each heavy gesture with lank gesticulations. in the morning silence the blows of the hoe beat upon the air with muffled insistence. "and he is the man who will do the building," went on don alonso; "it is only fair that we should clear the road." "but you are the thinkers," said telemachus; his mother penelope's maxims on the subject of constructive criticism popped up suddenly in his mind like tickets from a cash register. "thought is the acid that destroys," answered don alonso. telemachus turned to look once more at the man working in the field. the hoe rose and fell, rose and fell. at a moment on each stroke a flash of sunlight came from it. telemachus saw all at once the whole earth, plowed fields full of earth-colored men, shoulders thrown back, bent forward, muscles of arms swelling and slackening, hoes flashing at the same moment against the sky, at the same moment buried with a thud in clods. and he felt reassured as a traveller feels, hearing the continuous hiss and squudge of well oiled engines out at sea. _vii: cordova no longer of the caliphs_ when we stepped out of the bookshop the narrow street steamed with the dust of many carriages. above the swiftly whirling wheels gaudily dressed men and women sat motionless in attitudes. over the backs of the carriages brilliant shawls trailed, triangles of red and purple and yellow. "bread and circuses," muttered the man who was with me, "but not enough bread." it was fair-time in cordova; the carriages were coming back from the _toros_. we turned into a narrow lane, where the dust was yellow between high green and lavender-washed walls. from the street we had left came a sound of cheers and hand-clapping. my friend stopped still and put his hand on my arm. "there goes belmonte," he said; "half the men who are cheering him have never had enough to eat in their lives. the old romans knew better; to keep people quiet they filled their bellies. those fools--" he jerked his head backwards with disgust; i thought, of the shawls and the high combs and the hair gleaming black under lace and the wasp-waists of the young men and the insolence of black eyes above the flashing wheels of the carriages, "--those fools give only circuses. do you people in the outside world realize that we in andalusia starve, that we have starved for generations, that those black bulls for the circuses may graze over good wheatland ... to make spain picturesque! the only time we see meat is in the bullring. those people who argue all the time as to why spain's backward and write books about it, i could tell them in one word: malnutrition." he laughed despairingly and started walking fast again. "we have solved the problem of the cost of living. we live on air and dust and bad smells." i had gone into his bookshop a few minutes before to ask an address, and had been taken into the back room with the wonderful enthusiastic courtesy one finds so often in spain. there the bookseller, a carpenter and the bookseller's errand-boy had all talked at once, explaining the last strike of farm-laborers, when the region had been for months under martial law, and they, and every one else of socialist or republican sympathies, had been packed for weeks into overcrowded prisons. they all regretted they could not take me to the casa del pueblo, but, they explained laughing, the civil guard was occupying it at that moment. it ended by the bookseller's coming out with me to show me the way to azorín's. azorín was an architect who had supported the strikers; he had just come back to cordova from the obscure village where he had been imprisoned through the care of the military governor who had paid him the compliment of thinking that even in prison he would be dangerous in cordova. he had recently been elected municipal councillor, and when we reached his office was busy designing a schoolhouse. on the stairs the bookseller had whispered to me that every workman in cordova would die for azorín. he was a sallow little man with a vaguely sarcastic voice and an amused air as if he would burst out laughing at any moment. he put aside his plans and we all went on to see the editor of _andalusia_, a regionalist pro-labor weekly. in that dark little office, over three cups of coffee that appeared miraculously from somewhere with the pungent smell of ink and fresh paper in our nostrils, we talked about the past and future of cordova, and of all the wide region of northern andalusia, fertile irrigated plains, dry olive-land stretching up to the rocky waterless mountains where the mines are. in azorín's crisp phrases and in the long ornate periods of the editor, the serfdom and the squalor and the heroic hope of these peasants and miners and artisans became vivid to me for the first time. occasionally the compositor, a boy of about fifteen with a brown ink-smudged face, would poke his head in the door and shout: "it's true what they say, but they don't say enough, they don't say enough." the problem in the south of spain is almost wholly agrarian. from the tagus to the mediterranean stretches a mountainous region of low rainfall, intersected by several series of broad river-valleys which, under irrigation, are enormously productive of rice, oranges, and, in the higher altitudes, of wheat. in the dry hills grow grapes, olives and almonds. a country on the whole much like southern california. under the moors this region was the richest and most civilised in europe. when the christian nobles from the north reconquered it, the ecclesiastics laid hold of the towns and extinguished industry through the inquisition, while the land was distributed in huge estates to the magnates of the court of the catholic kings. the agricultural workers became virtually serfs, and the communal village system of working the land gradually gave way, now the province of jaen, certainly as large as the state of rhode island, is virtually owned by six families. this process was helped by the fact that all through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the liveliest people in all spain swarmed overseas to explore and plunder america or went into the church, so that the tilling of the land was left to the humblest and least vigorous. and immigration to america has continued the safety valve of the social order. it is only comparatively recently that the consciousness has begun to form among the workers of the soil that it is possible for them to change their lot. as everywhere else, russia has been the beacon-flare. since 1918 an extraordinary tenseness has come over the lives of the frugal sinewy peasants who, through centuries of oppression and starvation, have kept, in spite of almost complete illiteracy, a curiously vivid sense of personal independence. in the backs of taverns revolutionary tracts are spelled out by some boy who has had a couple of years of school to a crowd of men who listen or repeat the words after him with the fervor of people going through a religious mystery. unspeakable faith possesses them in what they call "_la nueva ley_" ("the new law"), by which the good things a man wrings by his sweat from the earth shall be his and not the property of a distant señor in madrid. it is this hopefulness that marks the difference between the present agrarian agitation and the violent and desperate peasant risings of the past. as early as october, 1918, a congress of agricultural workers was held to decide on strike methods and, more important, to formulate a demand for the expropriation of the land. in two months the unions, ("_sociedades de resistencia_") had been welded--at least in the province of cordova--into a unified system with more or less central leadership. the strike which followed was so complete that in many cases even domestic servants went out. after savage repression and the military occupation of the whole province, the strike petered out into compromises which resulted in considerable betterment of working conditions but left the important issues untouched. the rise in the cost of living and the growing unrest brought matters to a head again in the summer of 1919. the military was used with even more brutality than the previous year. attempts at compromise, at parcelling out uncultivated land have proved as unavailing as the mausers of the civil guard to quell the tumult. the peasants have kept their organizations and their demands intact. they are even willing to wait; but they are determined that the land upon which they have worn out generations and generations shall be theirs without question. all this time the landlords brandish a redoubtable weapon: starvation. already thousands of acres that might be richly fertile lie idle or are pasture for herds of wild bulls for the arena. the great land-owning families hold estates all over spain; if in a given region the workers become too exigent, they decide to leave the land in fallow for a year or two. in the villages it becomes a question of starve or emigrate. to emigrate many certificates are needed. many officials have to be placated. for all that money is needed. men taking to the roads in search of work are persecuted as vagrants by the civil guards. arson becomes the last retort of despair. at night the standing grain burns mysteriously or the country house of an absent landlord, and from the parched hills where gnarled almond-trees grow, groups of half starved men watch the flames with grim exultation. meanwhile the press in madrid laments the _incultura_ of the andalusian peasants. the problem of civilization, after all, is often one of food calories. fernando de los ríos, socialist deputy for granada, recently published the result of an investigation of the food of the agricultural populations of spain in which he showed that only in the balkans--out of all europe--was the working man so under-nourished. the calories which the diet of the average cordova workman represented was something like a fourth of those of the british workman's diet. even so the foremen of the big estates complain that as a result of all this social agitation their workmen have taken to eating more than they did in the good old times. how long it will be before the final explosion comes no one can conjecture. the spring of 1920, when great things were expected, was completely calm. on the other hand, in the last municipal elections when six hundred socialist councillors were elected in all spain--in contrast to sixty-two in 1915--the vote polled in andalusia was unprecedented. up to this election many of the peasants had never dared vote, and those that had had been completely under the thumb of the _caciques_, the bosses that control spanish local politics. however, in spite of socialist and syndicalist propaganda, the agrarian problem will always remain separate from anything else in the minds of the peasants. this does not mean that they are opposed to communism or cling as violently as most of the european peasantry to the habit of private property. all over spain one comes upon traces of the old communist village institutions, by which flocks and mills and bakeries and often land were held in common. as in all arid countries, where everything depends upon irrigation, ditches are everywhere built and repaired in common. and the idea of private property is of necessity feeble where there is no rain; for what good is land to a man without water? still, until there grows up a much stronger community of interest than now exists between the peasants and the industrial workers, the struggle for the land and the struggle for the control of industry will be, in spain, as i think everywhere, parallel rather than unified. one thing is certain, however long the fire smoulders before it flares high to make a clean sweep of spanish capitalism and spanish feudalism together, cordova, hoary city of the caliphs, where ghosts of old grandeurs flit about the zigzag ochre-colored lanes, will, when the moment comes, be the center of organization of the agrarian revolution. when i was leaving spain i rode with some young men who were emigrating to america, to make their fortunes, they said. when i told them i had been to cordova, their faces became suddenly bright with admiration. "ah, cordova," one of them cried; "they've got the guts in cordova." _viii: talk by the road_ at the first crossroads beyond illescas the dumpling-man and don alonso turned off in quest of the trout stream. don alonso waved solemnly to lyaeus and telemachus. "perhaps we shall meet in toledo," he said. "catch a lot of fish," shouted lyaeus. "and perhaps a thought," was the last word they heard from don alonso. the sun already high in the sky poured tingling heat on their heads and shoulders. there was sand in their shoes, an occasional sharp pain in their shins, in their bellies bitter emptiness. "at the next village, tel, i'm going to bed. you can do what you like," said lyaeus in a tearful voice. "i'll like that all right." "_buenos días, señores viajeros_," came a cheerful voice. they found they were walking in the company of a man who wore a tight-waisted overcoat of a light blue color, a cream-colored felt hat from under which protruded long black moustaches with gimlet points, and shoes with lemon-yellow uppers. they passed the time of day with what cheerfulness they could muster. "ah, toledo," said the man. "you are going to toledo, my birthplace. there i was born in the shadow of the cathedral, there i shall die. i am a traveller of commerce." he produced two cards as large as postcards on which was written: antonio silva y yepes universal agent import export national products "at your service, gentlemen," he said and handed each of them a card. "i deal in tinware, ironware, pottery, lead pipes, enameled ware, kitchen utensils, american toilet articles, french perfumery, cutlery, linen, sewing machines, saddles, bridles, seeds, fancy poultry, fighting bantams and objects _de vertu_.... you are foreigners, are you not? how barbarous spain, what people, what dirt, what lack of culture, what impoliteness, what lack of energy!" the universal agent choked, coughed, spat, produced a handkerchief of crimson silk with which he wiped his eyes and mouth, twirled his moustaches and plunged again into a torrent of words, turning on telemachus from time to time little red-rimmed eyes full of moist pathos like a dog's. "oh there are times, gentlemen, when it is too much to bear, when i rejoice to think that it's all up with my lungs and that i shan't live long anyway.... in america i should have been a rockefeller, a carnegie, a morgan. i know it, for i am a man of genius. it is true. i am a man of genius.... and look at me here walking from one of these cursed tumbledown villages to another because i have not money enough to hire a cab.... and ill too, dying of consumption! o spain, spain, how do you crush your great men! what you must think of us, you who come from civilized countries, where life is organized, where commerce is a gentlemanly, even a noble occupation...." "but you savor life more...." "_ca, ca_," interrupted the universal agent with a downward gesture of the hand. "to think that they call by the same name living here in a pen like a pig and living in paris, london, new york, biarritz, trouville ... luxurious beds, coiffures, toilettes, theatrical functions, sumptuous automobiles, elegant ladies glittering with diamonds ... the world of light and enchantment! oh to think of it! and spain could be the richest country in europe, if we had energy, organization, culture! think of the exports: iron, coal, copper, silver, oranges, hides, mules, olives, food products, woolens, cotton cloth, sugarcane, raw cotton ... couplets, dancers, gipsy girls...." the universal agent had quite lost his breath. he coughed for a long time into his crimson handkerchief, then looked about him over the rolling dun slopes to which the young grain sprouting gave a sheen of vivid green like the patina on a pompeian bronze vase, and shrugged his shoulders. "_¡qué vida!_ what a life!" for some time a spire had been poking up into the sky at the road's end; now yellow-tiled roofs were just visible humped out of the wheatland, with the church standing guard over them, it's buttresses as bowed as the legs of a bulldog. at the sight of the village a certain spring came back to telemachus's fatigue-sodden legs. he noticed with envy that lyaeus took little skips as he walked. "if we properly exploited our exports we should be the richest people in europe," the universal agent kept shouting with far-flung gestures of despair. and the last they heard from him as they left him to turn into the manure-littered, chicken-noisy courtyard of the posada de la luna was, "_¡qué pueblo indecente!_... what a beastly town ... yet if they exploited with energy, with modern energy, their exports...." _ix: an inverted midas_ every age must have had choice spirits whose golden fingers turned everything they touched to commonplace. since we know our own literature best it seems unreasonably well equipped with these inverted midases--though the fact that all anglo-american writing during the last century has been so exclusively of the middle classes, by the middle classes and for the middle classes must count for something. still rome had her marcus aurelius, and we may be sure that platitudes would have obscured the slanting sides of the pyramids had stone-cutting in the reign of cheops been as disastrously easy as is printing to-day. the addition of the typewriter to the printing-press has given a new and horrible impetus to the spread of half-baked thought. the labor of graving on stone or of baking tablets of brick or even of scrawling letters on paper with a pen is no longer a curb on the dangerous fluency of the inverted midas. he now lolls in a morris chair, sipping iced tea, dictating to four blonde and two dark-haired stenographers; three novels, a couple of books of travel and a short story written at once are nothing to a really enterprising universal genius. poor julius caesar with his letters! we complain that we have no supermen nowadays, that we can't live as much or as widely or as fervently or get through so much work as could pico della mirandola or erasmus or politian, that the race drifts towards mental and physical anæmia. i deny it. with the typewriter all these things shall be added unto us. this age too has its great universal geniuses. they overrun the seven continents and their respective seas. accompanied by mænadic bands of stenographers, and a music of typewriters deliriously clicking, they go about the world, catching all the butterflies, rubbing the bloom off all the plums, tunneling mountains, bridging seas, smoothing the facets off ideas so that they may be swallowed harmlessly like pills. with true anglo-saxon conceit we had thought that our own mr. wells was the most universal of these universal geniuses. he has so diligently brought science, ethics, sex, marriage, sociology, god, and everything else--properly deodorized, of course--to the desk of the ordinary man, that he may lean back in his swivel-chair and receive faint susuration from the sense of progress and the complexity of life, without even having to go to the window to look at the sparrows sitting in rows on the telephone-wires, so that really it seemed inconceivable that anyone should be more universal. it was rumored that there lay the ultimate proof of anglo-saxon ascendancy. what other race had produced a great universal genius? but all that was before the discovery of blasco ibáñez. on the backs of certain of blasco ibáñez's novels published by the casa prometeo in valencia is this significant advertisement: _obras de vulgarización popular_ ("works of popular vulgarization"). under it is an astounding list of volumes, all either translated or edited or arranged, if not written from cover to cover, by one tireless pen,--i mean typewriter. ten volumes of universal history, three volumes of the french revolution translated from michelet, a universal geography, a social history, works on science, cookery and house-cleaning, nine volumes of blasco ibáñez's own history of the european war, and a translation of the arabian nights, a thousand and one of them without an hour missing. "works of popular vulgarization." i admit that in spanish the word _vulgarización_ has not yet sunk to its inevitable meaning, but can it long stand such a strain? add to that list a round two dozen novels and some books of travel, and who can deny that blasco ibáñez is a great universal genius? read his novels and you will find that he has looked at the stars and knows lord kelvin's theory of vortices and the nebular hypothesis and the direction of ocean currents and the qualities of kelp and the direction the codfish go in iceland waters when the northeast wind blows; that he knows about gothic architecture and byzantine painting, the social movement in jerez and the exports of patagonia, the wall-paper of paris apartment houses and the red paste with which countesses polish their fingernails in monte carlo. the very pattern of a modern major-general. and, like the great universal geniuses of the renaissance, he has lived as well as thought and written. he is said to have been thirty times in prison, six times deputy; he has been a cowboy in the pampas of argentina; he has founded a city in patagonia with a bullring and a bust of cervantes in the middle of it; he has rounded the horn on a sailing-ship in a hurricane, and it is whispered that like victor hugo he eats lobsters with the shells on. he hobnobs with the universe. one must admit, too, that blasco ibáñez's universe is a bulkier, burlier universe than mr. wells's. one is strangely certain that the axle of mr. wells's universe is fixed in some suburb of london, say putney, where each house has a bit of garden where waddles an asthmatic pet dog, where people drink tea weak, with milk in it, before a gas-log, where every bookcase makes a futile effort to impinge on infinity through the encyclopedia, where life is a monotonous going and coming, swathed in clothes that must above all be respectable, to business and from business. but who can say where blasco ibáñez's universe centers? it is in constant progression. starting, as walt whitman from fish-shaped paumonauk, from the fierce green fertility of valencia, city of another great spanish conqueror, the cid, he had marched on the world in battle array. the whole history comes out in the series of novels at this moment being translated in such feverish haste for the edification of the american public. the beginnings are stories of the peasants of the fertile plain round about valencia, of the fishermen and sailors of el grao, the port, a sturdy violent people living amid a snappy fury of vegetation unexampled in europe. his method is inspired to a certain extent by zola, taking from him a little of the newspaper-horror mode of realism, with inevitable murder and sudden death in the last chapters. yet he expresses that life vividly, although even then more given to grand vague ideas than to a careful scrutiny of men and things. he is at home in the strong communal feeling, in the individual anarchism, in the passionate worship of the water that runs through the fields to give life and of the blades of wheat that give bread and of the wine that gives joy, which is the moral make-up of the valencian peasant. he is sincerely indignant about the agrarian system, about social inequality, and is full of the revolutionary bravado of his race. a typical novel of this period is _la barraca_, a story of a peasant family that takes up land which has lain vacant for years under the curse of the community, since the eviction of the tenants, who had held it for generations, by a landlord who was murdered as a result, on a lonely road by the father of the family he had turned out. the struggle of these peasants against their neighbours is told with a good deal of feeling, and the culmination in a rifle fight in an irrigation ditch is a splendid bit of blood and thunder. there are many descriptions of local customs, such as the tribunal of water that sits once a week under one of the portals of valencia cathedral to settle conflicts of irrigation rights, a little dragged in by the heels, to be sure, but still worth reading. yet even in these early novels one feels over and over again the force of that phrase "popular vulgarization." valencia is being vulgarized for the benefit of the universe. the proletariat is being vulgarized for the benefit of the people who buy novels. from valencia raids seem to have been made on other parts of spain. _sonnica la cortesana_ gives you antique saguntum and the usual "aves," wreaths, flute-players and other claptrap of costume novels. in _la catedral_ you have toledo, the church, socialism and the modern world in the shadow of gothic spires. _la bodega_ takes you into the genial air of the wine vaults of jerez-de-la-frontera, with smugglers, processions blessing the vineyards and agrarian revolt in the background. up to now they have been spanish novels written for spaniards; it is only with _sangre y arena_ that the virus of a european reputation shows results. in _sangre y arena_, to be sure, you learn that _toreros_ use scent, have a home life, and are seduced by passionate baudelairian ladies of the smart set who plant white teeth in their brown sinewy arms and teach them to smoke opium cigarettes. you see _toreros_ taking the sacraments before going into the ring and you see them tossed by the bull while the crowd, which a moment before had been crying "hola" as if it didn't know that something was going wrong, gets very pale and chilly and begins to think what dreadful things _corridas_ are anyway, until the arrival of the next bull makes them forget it. all of which is good fun when not obscured by grand, vague ideas, and incidentally sells like hot cakes. thenceforward the casa prometeo becomes an exporting house dealing in the good spanish products of violence and sunshine, blood, voluptuousness and death, as another vulgarizer put it. next comes the expedition to south america and _the argonauts_ appears. the atlantic is bridged,--there open up rich veins of picturesqueness and new grand vague ideas, all in full swing when the war breaks out. blasco ibáñez meets the challenge nobly, and very soon, with _the four horsemen of the apocalypse_, which captures the allied world and proves again the mot about prophets. so without honor in its own country is the _four horsemen_ that the english translation rights are sold for a paltry three thousand pesetas. but the great success in england and america soon shows that we can appreciate the acumen of a neutral who came in and rooted for our side; so early in the race too! while the iron is still hot another four hundred pages of well-sugared pro-ally propaganda appears, _mare nostrum_, which mingles ulysses and scientific information about ocean currents, amphitrite and submarines, circe and a vamping theda bara who was really a german spy, in one grand chant of praise before the mumbo-jumbo of nationalism. _los enemigos de la mujer_, the latest production, abandons spain entirely and plants itself in the midst of princes and countesses, all elaborately pro-ally, at monte carlo. forgotten the proletarian tastes of his youth, the local color he loved to lay on so thickly, the habañera atmosphere; only the grand vague ideas subsist in the cosmopolite, and the fluency, that fatal latin fluency. and now the united states, the home of the blonde stenographer and the typewriter and the press agent. what are we to expect from the combination of blasco ibáñez and broadway? at any rate the movies will profit. yet one can't help wishing that blasco ibáñez had not learnt the typewriter trick so early. print so easily spins a web of the commonplace over the fine outlines of life. and blasco ibáñez need not have been an inverted midas. his is a superbly mediterranean type, with something of arretino, something of garibaldi, something of tartarin of tarascon. blustering, sensual, enthusiastic, living at bottom in a real world--which can hardly be said of anglo-saxon vulgarizers--even if it is a real world obscured by grand vague ideas, blasco ibáñez's mere energy would have produced interesting things if it had not found such easy and immediate vent in the typewriter. bottle up a man like that for a lifetime without means of expression and he'll produce memoirs equal to marco polo and casanova, but let his energies flow out evenly without resistance through a corps of clicking typewriters and all you have is one more popular novelist. it is unfortunate too that blasco ibáñez and the united states should have discovered each other at this moment. they will do each other no good. we have an abundance both of vague grand ideas and of popular novelists, and we are the favorite breeding place of the inverted midas. we need writing that shall be acid, with sharp edges on it, yeasty to leaven the lump of glucose that the combination of the ideals of the man in the swivel-chair with decayed puritanism has made of our national consciousness. of course blasco ibáñez in america will only be a seven days' marvel. nothing is ever more than that. but why need we pretend each time that our seven days' marvels are the great eternal things? then, too, if the american public is bound to take up spain it might as well take up the worth-while things instead of the works of popular vulgarization. they have enough of those in their bookcases as it is. and in spain there is a novelist like baroja, essayists like unamuno and azorín, poets like valle inclán and antonio machado, ... but i suppose they will shine with the reflected glory of the author of the _four horsemen of the apocalypse_. _x: talk by the road_ when they woke up it was dark. they were cold. their legs were stiff. they lay each along one edge of a tremendously wide bed, between them a tangle of narrow sheets and blankets. telemachus raised himself to a sitting position and put his feet, that were still swollen, gingerly to the floor. he drew them up again with a jerk and sat with his teeth chattering hunched on the edge of the bed. lyaeus burrowed into the blankets and went back to sleep. for a long while telemachus could not thaw his frozen wits enough to discover what noise had waked him up. then it came upon him suddenly that huge rhythms were pounding about him, sounds of shaken tambourines and castanettes and beaten dish-pans and roaring voices. someone was singing in shrill tremolo above the din a song of which each verse seemed to end with the phrase, "_y mañana carnaval_." "to-morrow's carnival. wake up," he cried out to lyaeus, and pulled on his trousers. lyaeus sat up and rubbed his eyes. "i smell wine," he said. telemachus, through hunger and stiffness and aching feet and the thought of what his mother penelope would say about these goings on, if they ever came to her ears, felt a tremendous elation flare through him. "come on, they're dancing," he cried dragging lyaeus out on the gallery that overhung the end of the court. "don't forget the butterfly net, tel." "what for?" "to catch your gesture, what do you think?" telemachus caught lyaeus by the shoulders and shook him. as they wrestled they caught glimpses of the courtyard full of couples bobbing up and down in a _jota_. in the doorway stood two guitar players and beside them a table with pitchers and glasses and a glint of spilt wine. feeble light came from an occasional little constellation of olive-oil lamps. when the two of them pitched down stairs together and shot out reeling among the dancers everybody cried out: "_hola_," and shouted that the foreigners must sing a song. "after dinner," cried lyaeus as he straightened his necktie. "we haven't eaten for a year and a half!" the _padrón_, a red thick-necked individual with a week's white bristle on his face, came up to them holding out hands as big as hams. "you are going to toledo for carnival? o how lucky the young are, travelling all over the world." he turned to the company with a gesture; "i was like that when i was young." they followed him into the kitchen, where they ensconced themselves on either side of a cave of a fireplace in which burned a fire all too small. the hunchbacked woman with a face like tanned leather who was tending the numerous steaming pots that stood about the hearth, noticing that they were shivering, heaped dry twigs on it that crackled and burst into flame and gave out a warm spicy tang. "to-morrow's carnival," she said. "we mustn't stint ourselves." then she handed them each a plate of soup full of bread in which poached eggs floated, and the _padrón_ drew the table near the fire and sat down opposite them, peering with interest into their faces while they ate. after a while he began talking. from outside the hand-clapping and the sound of castanettes continued interrupted by intervals of shouting and laughter and an occasional snatch from the song that ended every verse with "_y mañana carnaval_." "i travelled when i was your age," he said. "i have been to america ... nueva york, montreal, buenos aires, chicago, san francisco.... selling those little nuts.... yes, peanuts. what a country! how many laws there are there, how many policemen. when i was young i did not like it, but now that i am old and own an inn and daughters and all that, _vamos_, i understand. you see in spain we all do just as we like; then, if we are the sort that goes to church we repent afterwards and fix it up with god. in european, civilized, modern countries everybody learns what he's got to do and what he must not do.... that's why they have so many laws.... here the police are just to help the government plunder and steal all it wants.... but that's not so in america...." "the difference is," broke in telemachus, "as butler put it, between living under the law and living under grace. i should rather live under gra...." but he thought of the maxims of penelope and was silent. "but after all we know how to sing," said the _padrón_. "will you have coffee with cognac?... and poets, man alive, what poets!" the _padrón_ stuck out his chest, put one hand in the black sash that held up his trousers and recited, emphasizing the rhythm with the cognac bottle: 'aquí está don juan tenorio; no hay hombre para él ... búsquenle los reñidores, cérquenle los jugadores, quien se précie que le ataje, a ver si hay quien le aventaje en juego, en lid o en amores.' he finished with a flourish and poured more cognac into the coffee cups. "_¡que bonito!_ how pretty!" cried the old hunchbacked woman who sat on her heels in the fireplace. "that's what we do," said the _padrón_. "we brawl and gamble and seduce women, and we sing and we dance, and then we repent and the priest fixes it up with god. in america they live according to law." feeling well-toasted by the fire and well-warmed with food and drink, lyaeus and telemachus went to the inn door and looked out on the broad main street of the village where everything was snowy white under the cold stare of the moon. the dancing had stopped in the courtyard. a group of men and boys was moving slowly up the street, each one with a musical instrument. there were the two guitars, frying pans, castanettes, cymbals, and a goatskin bottle of wine that kept being passed from hand to hand. each time the bottle made a round a new song started. and so they moved slowly up the street in the moonlight. "let's join them," said lyaeus. "no, i want to get up early so as...." "to see the gesture by daylight!" cried lyaeus jeeringly. then he went on: "tel, you live under the law. under the law there can be no gestures, only machine movements." then he ran off and joined the group of men and boys who were singing and drinking. telemachus went back to bed. on his way upstairs he cursed the maxims of his mother penelope. but at any rate to-morrow, in carnival-time, he would feel the gesture. _xi: antonio machado: poet of castile_ "i spent fifty thousand pesetas in a year at the military school.... _j'aime le chic_," said the young artillery officer of whom i had asked the way. he was leading me up the steep cobbled hill that led to the irregular main street of segovia. a moment before we had passed under the aqueduct that had soared above us arch upon arch into the crimson sky. he had snapped tightly gloved fingers and said: "and what's that good for, i'd like to know. i'd give it all for a puff of gasoline from a hispano-suizo.... d'you know the hispano-suizo? and look at this rotten town! there's not a street in it i can speed on in a motorcycle without running down some fool old woman or a squalling brat or other.... who's this gentleman you are going to see?" "he's a poet," i said. "i like poetry too. i write it ... light, elegant, about light elegant women." he laughed and twirled the tiny waxed spike that stuck out from each side of his moustache. he left me at the end of the street i was looking for, and after an elaborate salute walked off saying: "to think that you should come here from new york to look for an address in such a shabby street, and i so want to go to new york. if i was a poet i wouldn't live here." the name on the street corner was _calle de los desemparados_.... "street of abandoned children." * * * * * we sat a long while in the casino, twiddling spoons in coffee-glasses while a wax-pink fat man played billiards in front of us, being ponderously beaten by a lean brownish swallow-tail with yellow face and walrus whiskers that emitted a rasping _bueno_ after every play. there was talk of paris and possible new volumes of verse, homage to walt whitman, maragall, questioning about emily dickinson. about us was a smell of old horsehair sofas, a buzz of the poignant musty ennui of old towns left centuries ago high and dry on the beach of history. the group grew. talk of painting: zuloaga had not come yet, the zubiaurre brothers had abandoned their basque coast towns, seduced by the bronze-colored people and the saffron hills of the province of segovia. sorolla was dying, another had gone mad. at last someone said, "it's stifling here, let's walk. there is full moon to-night." there was no sound in the streets but the irregular clatter of our footsteps. the slanting moonlight cut the street into two triangular sections, one enormously black, the other bright, engraved like a silver plate with the lines of doors, roofs, windows, ornaments. overhead the sky was white and blue like buttermilk. blackness cut across our path, then there was dazzling light through an arch beyond. outside the gate we sat in a ring on square fresh-cut stones in which you could still feel a trace of the warmth of the sun. to one side was the lime-washed wall of a house, white fire, cut by a wide oaken door where the moon gave a restless glitter to the spiked nails and the knocker, and above the door red geraniums hanging out of a pot, their color insanely bright in the silver-white glare. the other side a deep glen, the shimmering tops of poplar trees and the sound of a stream. in the dark above the arch of the gate a trembling oil flame showed up the green feet of a painted virgin. everybody was talking about _el buscón_, a story of quevedo's that takes place mostly in segovia, a wandering story of thieves and escapes by night through the back doors of brothels, of rope ladders dangling from the windows of great ladies, of secrets overheard in confessionals, and trysts under bridges, and fingers touching significantly in the holy-water fonts of tall cathedrals. a ghostlike wraith of dust blew through the gate. the man next me shivered. "the dead are stronger than the living," he said. "how little we have; and they...." in the quaver of his voice was a remembering of long muletrains jingling through the gate, queens in litters hung with patchwork curtains from samarcand, gold brocades splashed with the clay of deep roads, stained with the blood of ambuscades, bales of silks from valencia, travelling gangs of moorish artisans, heavy armed templars on their way to the sepulchre, wandering minstrels, sneakthieves, bawds, rowdy strings of knights and foot-soldiers setting out with wine-skins at their saddlebows to cross the passes towards the debatable lands of extremadura, where there were infidels to kill and cattle to drive off and village girls to rape, all when the gate was as new and crisply cut out of clean stone as the blocks we were sitting on. down in the valley a donkey brayed long and dismally. "they too have their nostalgias," said someone sentimentally. "what they of the old time did not have," came a deep voice from under a bowler hat, "was the leisure to be sad. the sweetness of putrefaction, the long remembering of palely colored moods; they had the sun, we have the colors of its setting. who shall say which is worth more?" the man next to me had got to his feet. "a night like this with a moon like this," he said, "we should go to the ancient quarter of the witches." gravel crunched under our feet down the road that led out of moonlight into the darkness of the glen--to _san millán de las brujas_. * * * * * you cannot read any spanish poet of to-day without thinking now and then of rubén darío, that prodigious nicaraguan who collected into his verse all the tendencies of poetry in france and america and the orient and poured them in a turgid cataract, full of mud and gold-dust, into the thought of the new generation in spain. overflowing with beauty and banality, patched out with images and ornaments from greece and egypt and france and japan and his own central america, symbolist and romantic and parnassian all at once, rubén darío's verse is like those doorways of the spanish renaissance where french and moorish and italian motives jostle in headlong arabesques, where the vulgarest routine stone-chipping is interlocked with designs and forms of rare beauty and significance. here and there among the turgid muddle, out of the impact of unassimilated things, comes a spark of real poetry. and that spark can be said--as truly as anything of the sort can be said--to be the motive force of the whole movement of renovation in spanish poetry. of course the poets have not been content to be influenced by the outside world only through darío. baudelaire and verlaine had a very large direct influence, once the way was opened, and their influence succeeded in curbing the lush impromptu manner of romantic spanish verse. in antonio machado's work--and he is beginning to be generally considered the central figure--there is a restraint and terseness of phrase rare in any poetry. i do not mean to imply that machado can be called in any real sense a pupil of either darío or verlaine; rather one would say that in a generation occupied largely in more or less unsuccessful imitation of these poets, machado's poetry stands out as particularly original and personal. in fact, except for the verse of juan ramón jiménez, it would be in america and england rather than in spain, in aldington and amy lowell, that one would find analogous aims and methods. the influence of the symbolists and the turbulent experimenting of the nicaraguan broke down the bombastic romantic style current in spain, as it was broken down everywhere else in the middle nineteenth century. in machado's work a new method is being built up, that harks back more to early ballads and the verse of the first moments of the renaissance than to anything foreign, but which shows the same enthusiasm for the rhythms of ordinary speech and for the simple pictorial expression of undoctored emotion that we find in the renovators of poetry the world over. _campos de castilla_, his first volume to be widely read, marks an epoch in spanish poetry. antonio machado's verse is taken up with places. it is obsessed with the old spanish towns where he has lived, with the mellow sadness of tortuous streets and of old houses that have soaked up the lives of generations upon generations of men, crumbling in the flaming silence of summer noons or in the icy blast off the mountains in winter. though born in andalusia, the bitter strength of the castilian plain, where half-deserted cities stand aloof from the world, shrunken into their walls, still dreaming of the ages of faith and conquest, has subjected his imagination, and the purity of castilian speech has dominated his writing, until his poems seem as castilian as don quixote. "my childhood: memories of a courtyard in seville, and of a bright garden where lemons hung ripening. my youth: twenty years in the land of castile. my history: a few events i do not care to remember." so machado writes of himself. he was born in the eighties, has been a teacher of french in government schools in soria and baeza and at present in segovia--all old spanish cities very mellow and very stately--and has made the migration to paris customary with spanish writers and artists. he says in the _poema de un día_: here i am, already a teacher of modern languages, who yesterday was a master of the gai scavoir and the nightingale's apprentice. he has published three volumes of verse, _soledades_ ("solitudes"), _campos de castilla_ ("fields of castile"), and _soledades y galerías_ ("solitudes and galleries"), and recently a government institution, the residencia de estudiantes, has published his complete works up to date. the following translations are necessarily inadequate, as the poems depend very much on modulations of rhythm and on the expressive fitting together of words impossible to render in a foreign language. he uses rhyme comparatively little, often substituting assonance in accordance with the peculiar traditions of spanish prosody. i have made no attempt to imitate his form exactly. i yes, come away with me--fields of soria, quiet evenings, violet mountains, aspens of the river, green dreams of the grey earth, bitter melancholy of the crumbling city- perhaps it is that you have become the background of my life. men of the high numantine plain, who keep god like old--christians, may the sun of spain fill you with joy and light and abundance! ii a frail sound of a tunic trailing across the infertile earth, and the sonorous weeping of the old bells. the dying embers of the horizon smoke. white ancestral ghosts go lighting the stars. --open the balcony-window. the hour of illusion draws near... the afternoon has gone to sleep and the bells dream. iii figures in the fields against the sky! two slow oxen plough on a hillside early in autumn, and between the black heads bent down under the weight of the yoke, hangs and sways a basket of reeds, a child's cradle; and behind the yoke stride a man who leans towards the earth and a woman who, into the open furrows, throws the seed. under a cloud of carmine and flame, in the liquid green gold of the setting, their shadows grow monstrous. iv naked is the earth and the soul howls to the wan horizon like a hungry she-wolf. what do you seek, poet, in the sunset? bitter going, for the path weighs one down, the frozen wind, and the coming night and the bitterness of distance.... on the white path the trunks of frustrate trees show black, on the distant mountains there is gold and blood. the sun dies.... what do you seek, poet, in the sunset? v silver hills and grey ploughed lands, violet outcroppings of rock through which the duero traces its curve like a cross-bow about soria, dark oak-wood, wild cliffs, bald peaks, and the white roads and the aspens of the river. afternoons of soria, mystic and warlike, to-day i am very sad for you, sadness of love, fields of soria, where it seems that the rocks dream, come with me! violet rocky outcroppings, silver hills and grey ploughed lands. vi we think to create festivals of love out of our love, to burn new incense on untrodden mountains; and to keep the secret of our pale faces, and why in the bacchanals of life we carry empty glasses, while with tinkling echoes and laughing foams the gold must of the grape.... a hidden bird among the branches of the solitary park whistles mockery.... we feel the shadow of a dream in our wine-glass, and something that is earth in our flesh feels the dampness of the garden like a caress. vii i have been back to see the golden aspens, aspens of the road along the duero between san polo and san saturio, beyond the old stiff walls of soria, barbican towards aragon of the castilian lands. these poplars of the river, that chime when the wind blows their dry leaves to the sound of the water, have in their bark the names of lovers, initials and dates. aspens of love where yesterday the branches were full of nightingales, aspens that to-morrow will sing under the scented wind of the springtime, aspens of love by the water that speeds and goes by dreaming, aspens of the bank of the duero, come away with me. viii cold soria, clear soria, key of the outlands, with the warrior castle in ruins beside the duero, and the stiff old walls, and the blackened houses. dead city of barons and soldiers and huntsmen, whose portals bear the shields of a hundred hidalgos; city of hungry greyhounds, of lean greyhounds that swarm among the dirty lanes and howl at midnight when the crows caw. cold soria! the clock of the lawcourts has struck one. soria, city of castile, so beautiful under the moon. ix at a friend's burial they put him away in the earth a horrible july afternoon under a sun of fire. a step from the open grave grew roses with rotting petals among geraniums of bitter fragrance, red-flowered. the sky a pale blue. a wind hard and dry. hanging on the thick ropes, the two gravediggers let the coffin heavily down into the grave. it struck the bottom with a sharp sound, solemnly, in the silence. the sound of a coffin striking the earth is something unutterably solemn. the heavy clods broke into dust over the black coffin. a white mist of dust rose in the air out of the deep grave. and you, without a shadow now, sleep. long peace to your bones. for all time you sleep a tranquil and a real sleep. x the iberian god like the cross-bowman, the gambler in the song, the iberian had an arrow for his god when he shattered the grain with hail and ruined the fruits of autumn; and a gloria when he fattened the barley and the oats that were to make bread to-morrow. "god of ruin, i worship because i wait and because i fear. i bend in prayer to the earth a blasphemous heart. "lord, through whom i snatch my bread with pain, i know your strength, i know my slavery. lord of the clouds in the east that trample the country-side, of dry autumns and late frosts and of the blasts of heat that scorch the harvests! "lord of the iris in the green meadows where the sheep graze, lord of the fruit the worms gnaw and of the hut the whirlwind shatters, your breath gives life to the fire in the hearth, your warmth ripens the tawny grain, and your holy hand, st. john's eve, hardens the stone of the green olive. "lord of riches and poverty, of fortune and mishap, who gives to the rich luck and idleness, and pain and hope to the poor! "lord, lord, in the inconstant wheel of the year i have sown my sowing that has an equal chance with the coins of a gambler sown on the gambling-table! "lord, a father to-day, though stained with yesterday's blood, two-faced of love and vengeance, to you, dice cast into the wind, goes my prayer, blasphemy and praise!" this man who insults god in his altars, without more care of the frown of fate, also dreamed of paths across the seas and said: "it is god who walks upon the waters." is it not he who put god above war, beyond fate, beyond the earth, beyond the sea and death? did he not give the greenest bough of the dark-green iberian oak for god's holy bonfire, and for love flame one with god? but to-day ... what does a day matter? for the new household gods there are plains in forest shade and green boughs in the old oak-woods. though long the land waits for the curved plough to open the first furrow, there is sowing for god's grain under thistles and burdocks and nettles. what does a day matter? yesterday waits for to-morrow, to-morrow for infinity; men of spain, neither is the past dead, nor is to-morrow, nor yesterday, written. who has seen the face of the iberian god? i wait for the iberian man who with strong hands will carve out of castilian oak the parched god of the grey land. _xii: a catalan poet_ _it is time for sailing; the swallow has come chattering and the mellow west wind; the meadows are already in bloom; the sea is silent and the waves the rough winds pummeled. up anchors and loose the hawsers, sailor, set every stitch of canvas. this i, priapos the harbor god, command you, man, that you may sail for all manner of ladings._ (_leonidas in the greek anthology._) catalonia like greece is a country of mountains and harbors, where the farmers and herdsmen of the hills can hear in the morning the creak of oars and the crackling of cordage as the great booms of the wing-shaped sails are hoisted to the tops of the stumpy masts of the fishermen's boats. barcelona with its fine harbor nestling under the towering slopes of montjuic has been a trading city since most ancient times. in the middle ages the fleets of its stocky merchants were the economic scaffolding which underlay the pomp and heraldry of the great sea kingdom of the aragonese. to this day you can find on old buildings the arms of the kings of aragon and the counts of barcelona in mallorca and manorca and ibiza and sardinia and sicily and naples. it follows that when catalonia begins to reëmerge as a nucleus of national consciousness after nearly four centuries of subjection to castile, poets speaking catalan, writing catalan, shall be poets of the mountains and of the sea. yet this time the motor force is not the sailing of white argosies towards the east. it is textile mills, stable, motionless, drawing about them muddled populations, raw towns, fattening to new arrogance the descendants of those stubborn burghers who gave the kings of aragon and of castile such vexing moments. (there's a story of one king who was so chagrined by the tight-pursed contrariness of the cortes of barcelona that he died of a broken heart in full parliament assembled.) this growth of industry during the last century, coupled with the reawakening of the whole mediterranean, took form politically in the catalan movement for secession from spain, and in literature in the resurrection of catalan thought and catalan language. naturally the first generation was not interested in the manufactures that were the dynamo that generated the ferment of their lives. they had first to state the emotions of the mountains and the sea and of ancient heroic stories that had been bottled up in their race during centuries of inexpressiveness. for another generation perhaps the symbols will be the cluck of oiled cogs, the whirring of looms, the dragon forms of smoke spewed out of tall chimneys, and the substance will be the painful struggle for freedom, for sunnier, richer life of the huddled mobs of the slaves of the machines. for the first men conscious of their status as catalans the striving was to make permanent their individual lives in terms of political liberty, of the mist-capped mountains and the changing sea. of this first generation was juan maragall who died in 1912, five years after the shooting of ferrer, after a life spent almost entirely in barcelona writing for newspapers,--as far as one can gather, a completely peaceful well-married existence, punctuated by a certain amount of political agitation in the cause of the independence of catalonia, the life of a placid and recognized literary figure; "_un maître_" the french would have called him. perhaps six centuries before, in palma de mallorca, a young nobleman, a poet, a skilled player on the lute had stood tiptoe for attainment before the high-born and very stately lady he had courted through many moonlight nights, when her eye had chilled his quivering love suddenly and she had pulled open her bodice with both hands and shown him her breasts, one white and firm and the other swollen black and purple with cancer. the horror of the sight of such beauty rotting away before his eyes had turned all his passion inward and would have made him a saint had his ideas been more orthodox; as it was the blessed ramón lull lived to write many mystical works in catalan and latin, in which he sought the love of god in the love of earth after the manner of the sufi of persia. eventually he attained bloody martyrdom arguing with the sages in some north african town. somehow the spirit of the tortured thirteenth-century mystic was born again in the calm barcelona journalist, whose life was untroubled by the impact of events as could only be a life comprising the last half of the nineteenth century. in maragall's writings modulated in the lovely homely language of the peasants and fishermen of catalonia, there flames again the passionate metaphor of lull. here is a rough translation of one of his best known poems: at sunset time drinking at the spring's edge i drank down the secrets of mysterious earth. deep in the runnel i saw the stainless water born out of darkness for the delight of my mouth, and it poured into my throat and with its clear spurting there filled me entirely mellowness of wisdom. when i stood straight and looked, mountains and woods and meadows seemed to me otherwise, everything altered. above the great sunset there already shone through the glowing carmine contours of the clouds the white sliver of the new moon. it was a world in flower and the soul of it was i. i the fragrant soul of the meadows that expands at flower-time and reaping-time. i the peaceful soul of the herds that tinkle half-hidden by the tall grass. i the soul of the forest that sways in waves like the sea, and has as far horizons. and also i was the soul of the willow tree that gives every spring its shade. i the sheer soul of the cliffs where the mist creeps up and scatters. and the unquiet soul of the stream that shrieks in shining waterfalls. i was the blue soul of the pond that looks with strange eyes on the wanderer. i the soul of the all-moving wind and the humble soul of opening flowers. i was the height of the high peaks... the clouds caressed me with great gestures and the wide love of misty spaces clove to me, placid. i felt the delightfulness of springs born in my flanks, gifts of the glaciers; and in the ample quietude of horizons i felt the reposeful sleep of storms. and when the sky opened about me and the sun laughed on my green planes people, far off, stood still all day staring at my sovereign beauty. but i, full of the lust that makes furious the sea and mountains lifted myself up strongly through the sky lifted the diversity of my flanks and entrails... at sunset time drinking at the spring's edge i drank down the secrets of mysterious earth. the sea and mountains, mist and cattle and yellow broom-flowers, and fishing boats with lateen sails like dark wings against the sunrise towards mallorca: delight of the nose and the eyes and the ears in all living perceptions until the poison of other-worldliness wells up suddenly in him and he is a christian and a mystic full of echoes of old soul-torturing. in maragall's most expressive work, a sequence of poems called _el comte arnau_, all this is synthesized. these are from the climax. all the voices of the earth acclaim count arnold because from the dark trial he has come back triumphant. "son of the earth, son of the earth, count arnold, now ask, now ask what cannot you do?" "live, live, live forever, i would never die: to be like a wheel revolving; to live with wine and a sword." "wheels roll, roll, but they count the years." "then i would be a rock immobile to suns or storms." "rock lives without life forever impenetrable." "then the ever-moving sea that opens a path for all things." "the sea is alone, alone, you go accompanied." "then be the air when it flames in the light of the deathless sun." "but air and sun are loveless, ignorant of eternity." "then to be man more than man to be earth palpitant." "you shall be wheel and rock, you shall be the mist-veiled sea you shall be the air in flame, you shall be the whirling stars, you shall be man more than man for you have the will for it. you shall run the plains and hills, all the earth that is so wide, mounted on a horse of flame you shall be tireless, terrible as the tramp of the storms all the voices of earth will cry out whirling about you. they will call you spirit in torment call you forever damned." night. all the beauty of adalaisa asleep at the feet of naked christ. arnold goes pacing a dark path; there is silence among the mountains; in front of him the rustling lisp of a river, a pool.... then it is lost and soundless. arnold stands under the sheer portal. he goes searching the cells for adalaisa and sees her sleeping, beautiful, prone at the feet of the naked christ, without veil without kerchief, without cloak, gestureless, without any defense, there, sleeping.... she had a great head of turbulent hair. "how like fine silk your hair, adalaisa," thinks arnold. but he looks at her silently. she sleeps, she sleeps and little by little a flush spreads over all her face as if a dream had crept through her gently until she laughs aloud very softly with a tremulous flutter of the lips. "what amorous lips, adalaisa," thinks arnold. but he looks at her silently. a great sigh swells through her, sleeping, like a seawave, and fades to stillness. "what sighs swell in your breast, adalaisa," thinks arnold. but he stares at her silently. but when she opens her eyes he, awake, tingling, carries her off in his arms. when they burst out into the open fields it is day. but the fear of life gushes suddenly to muddy the dear wellspring of sensation, and the poet, beaten to his knees, writes: and when the terror-haunted moment comes to close these earthly eyes of mine, open for me, lord, other greater eyes to look upon the immensity of your face. but before that moment comes, through the medium of an extraordinarily terse and unspoiled language, a language that has not lost its earthy freshness by mauling and softening at the hands of literary generations, what a lilting crystal-bright vision of things. it is as if the air of the mediterranean itself, thin, brilliant, had been hammered into cadences. the verse is leaping and free, full of echoes and refrains. the images are sudden and unlabored like the images in the greek anthology: a hermit released from nebuchadnezzar's spell gets to his feet "like a bear standing upright"; fishing boats being shoved off the beach slide into the sea one by one "like village girls joining a dance"; on a rough day the smacks with reefed sails "skip like goats at the harbor entrance." there are phrases like "the great asleepness of the mountains"; "a long sigh like a seawave through her sleep"; "my speech of her is like a flight of birds that lead your glance into intense blue sky"; "the disquieting unquiet sea." perhaps it is that the eyes are sharpened by the yearning to stare through the brilliant changing forms of things into some intenser beyond. perhaps it takes a hot intoxicating draught of divinity to melt into such white fire the various colors of the senses. perhaps earthly joy is intenser for the beckoning flames of hell. the daily life, too, to which maragall aspires seems strangely out of another age. that came home to me most strongly once, talking to a catalan after a mountain scramble in the eastern end of mallorca. we sat looking at the sea that was violet with sunset, where the sails of the homecoming