Andalusia

“ In this new stir of Spain, it is not wonderful that the land which created Córdoba, Cádiz, Seville, which perfected the Dance and the cante hondo, which gave birth to Gabírol, to Góngora, should lead in the fresh emergence of Spain’s perennial spirit. For Andalús achieved the Spanish Balance without the Castilian rigor; obeyed like every part of Spain the will of Castile to make Spain’s chaos into One and yet contrived to keep that Oneness green. A painter and a poet of modern Andalusia voice so clearly the spirit of the land, that they speak again for the world. ”

“ In Andalusia there is a quality of the air which gives all things a limpid, brilliant softness, the sea of gold poured out upon them voluptuously rounds away their outlines; and one can well imagine that the master deemed it the culmination of his art when he painted with the same aureate effulgence, when he put on canvas those gorgeous tints and that exquisite mellowness. ”

“ She waits in the midst of the fogs of his isle, while he amuses himself under the beautiful sky of Andalusia. Foreigners who visit Spain are all of one accord in anticipating the pleasures they propose to themselves: the beauty of the climate, the bull-fights, the oranges, the boléros, and, especially, their love conquests. ”

“ I flung them open and leaned out over the reja; and all at once, unheralded, the Spain of my dreams leaped into reality. Below, to one side, flowed the murmuring stream of Gibraltar's main thoroughfare; further away the flat-roofed city descended in moonlit indistinctness into the Mediterranean. From a high-walled garden a pebble-toss away and canopied with fragrant fruit-trees, rose the twang of a guitar and a man's clear voice singing a languorous air of Andalusia. ”

“ And from Cadiz I saw the shores of Spain sink into the sea; I saw my last of Andalusia. Who, when he leaves a place that he has loved, can help wondering when he will see it again? I asked the wind, and it sighed back the Spanish answer: 'Quien sabe? Who knows?' The traveller makes up his mind to return quickly, but all manner of things happen, and one accident or another prevents him; time passes till the desire is lost, and when at last he comes back, himself has altered or changes have occurred in the old places and all seems different. ”

“ A child of the sun, of the clear free air, with wealth in his fields and the great ocean smiling all around his coast, where the ships of all nations come to lade and unlade, he yearns for the freedom which strangers hold so carelessly, and is ready to fight and to die for it. So Andalusia is the hotbed of revolution. As the Biscayan is famed for his unyielding nature, the Gallego for his stupidity, so is the Andaluz for his wit. He speaks rapidly and with many gestures, clipping his words—a grave sin against the sonorous Castilian. ”

“ The history of Andalusia, so far as we have told it, has been a series of ups and downs. First we saw a magnificent raid, led by born soldiers, ending in an unexpected conquest. Hardly was the peninsula won, when the jealousies and divisions of the various elements that made up the invading host bade fair to destroy the harvest just reaped by the sword. Then the strong man, the born king, appeared in the person of the first Abd-er-Rahmān, and Andalusia once more became, outwardly, one dominion. "O King, live for ever!" ”

“ Of all parts of Spain, Andalusia is, undoubtedly, the most pleasant, and no part of Andalusia is so attractive as Gelvas and St. Juan d’Alfarache, two adjoining villages, which the famous river Guadalquiver fertilizes with its waters, winding about them in such various meanders, that it appears to quit them with regret. The spot abounds with beautiful gardens, the most delicious fruits and flowers, fountains, grottoes, and cascades. In a word, everything that can flatter the sight, taste, and smell, is here to be met with to admiration. ”

“ But these are all Spanish things, and more than half one's impressions of Andalusia are connected with the Moors. Not only did they make exquisite buildings, they moulded a whole people to their likeness; the Andalusian character is rich with Oriental traits; the houses, the mode of life, the very atmosphere is Moorish rather than Christian; to this day the peasant at his plough sings the same quavering lament that sang the Moor. And it is to the invaders that Spain as a country owes the magnificence of its golden age: it was contact with them that gave the Spaniards cultivation ”

“ 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. ”

“ For eighty years Andalusia was torn to pieces by jealous chiefs, aggressive and quarrelsome tyrants, Moors, Arabs, Slavs, and Spaniards; and though many of the old roots of dissension had been plucked up by time, and the jealousies that arose from memories of tribal glories were sometimes forgotten because men had lost their pedigrees, there were enough rivalries, personal, racial, and religious, to make Andalusia as much a hell upon earth as even the monkish chronicler could have desired for a burial-place for Almanzor. ”

“ Perhaps no other portion of the globe has such a paradisiacal climate as Andalusia, where the inhabitants practically pass all their time in the open air,—on verandahs and in their cosy little galleries, and fragrant orange groves, in whose shade they can spend the hot part of the day, while the nights are cooled by balmy mountain or sea breezes. ”

“ Indeed, all this part of Andalusia abounds with such game-looking characters. They loiter about the towns and villages; seem to have plenty of time and plenty of money; "horse to ride and weapon to wear." Great gossips, great smokers, apt at touching the guitar, singing couplets to their maja belles, and famous dancers of the bolero. Throughout all Spain the men, however poor, have a gentlemanlike abundance of leisure ”

“ The Spirit of Andalusia After one has left a country it is interesting to collect together the emotions it has given in an effort to define its particular character. And with Andalusia the attempt is especially fascinating, for it is a land of contrasts in which work upon one another, diversely, a hundred influences. ”

“ Andalusia, to cite a single province, is a paradise; Seville, Cadiz, and Granada are splendid cities."
"How? Do you like the houses of Seville and Cadiz, with walls that whiten a poor devil from head to foot whenever he happens to touch them? Do you like those streets along which one can hardly pass after a good dinner? And do you find the Andalusian women beautiful with their devilish eyes? Come, now, you are too indulgent. They are not a serious people. They have summoned Don Amadeus, and now they don't want him. They are not worthy of being governed by a civilized man." ”

“ The laurels, the holm oaks, the cork, and the fig-trees, with their varnished and metallic-looking foliage, have about them something free, robust, and wild, which indicates a climate in which nature is more powerful than man, and in which she can do without him.
Before us extended the fine country of Andalusia, unfolding itself to our view, like an immense panorama. The scene possessed the grandeur and appearance of the sea: chains of mountains, which distance confounded with the sky itself, succeeded one another, with the gentlest undulations, like long rows of billows of azure. ”

“ I have never seen so many beggars as in Andalusia; at every church door there will be a dozen, and they stand or sit at each street corner, halt, lame and blind. Every possible deformity is paraded to arouse charity. ”

“ A prouder distinction is that Sevilla is the capital of Andalusia, that gayest and most diversified province of Spain; the native ground of the bull-fight and breeder of the best bulls; a region abounding in racy customs and characteristics. The sea-going Phœnicians, who bear down on us from so many points of the historical compass, found in Andalusia an important trading field. Its mountains are still stored with silver, copper, gold, lead, which have yielded steady tribute for thousands of years. ”

“ For in the days when writers like Rojas were consecrating Castilian prose, much of Andalusia still spoke Arabic.
There is a reason therefore for the vigor of this land. The cells that make the newborn body are old as the world. Youth inheres in the fresh fusing. In new environment and combination, they are renewed. So Andalusia, ancient of parts, has this organic youth. In this birth, the great factor is Castile. Castile came down with its fanatic will to make Spain one—to make Spain a theodicy in Christ. ”

“ Coming down to make this youngest Spain, Castile caught the rejuvenation.
The body of Andalusia is bright with morning. The ancient capitals reflect this dawn. But the small town is its best image. Villages in Andalusia are gems of white and orange on the green breast of the huerta. Men and women live in a mirage of which their houses are the crystal setting. They seem to know that any day their Saint (or Our Lady) will lift them into heaven. (These villages would fit well into heaven.) They live—and their stone world lives—in an expectant mood. Life be{83}comes a symbol and a pageant. ”

“ The Andalusians have a passion for gorgeous raiment and for jewellery. They must see themselves continually in the brightest light, standing for ever on some alpine eminence of vice or virtue, in full view of their fellow men. ”

“ 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.
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. ”

“ An Andalusian poet may be excused entering into hyperbolical praise of his countrywomen, but we find an English traveller almost as hyperbolical in praise of them also. “It is beyond the power of language to describe those slow and surpassingly graceful movements which accompany every step of the Andalusa; her every attitude is so flowing, at the same time so unforced, that she seems upborne by some invisible power that renders her independent of the classically moulded foot she presses so lightly on the ground.”—Murray’s Cities and Wilds of Andalusia. ”

“ In fact it is so difficult to lie systematically and well that the ardour of the Andalusians in that pursuit can be ascribed only to an innate characteristic. Their imaginations, indeed, are so exuberant that the bald fact is to them grotesque and painful. They are like writers in love with words for their own sake, who cannot make the plainest statement without a gay parade of epithet and metaphor. They embroider and decorate, they colour and enhance the trivial details of circumstance. They must see themselves perpetually in an attitude; they must never fail to be effective. ”

“ Not for its booksellers' shops, for its demolished convent, or for its vulgar Atlantic did this Puerto, which the guide-books pass curtly by as "uninteresting," impress me as interesting, but for two features that no seasoned traveller could, would, or should overlook; its female population is the most attractive in Andalusia, and it is the seat of an agreeable English colony. ”

“ In Andalusia, till a few years ago, there were practically no high roads, and even now they are few and bad. The chief communication from town to town is usually an uneven track, which none attempts to keep up, with deep ruts, and palmetto growing on either side, and occasional pools of water. A day's rain makes it a quagmire, impassable for anything beside the sure-footed mule.
I went on, meeting now and then a string of asses, their panniers filled with stones or with wood for Carmona; the drivers sat on the rump of the hindmost animal, for that is the only comfortable way to ride a donkey. ”

“ Each head of a family guards preciously the key of the paternal house in Spain, the same with which his ancestors locked their doors when they fled at the time of the expulsion of their race from the peninsula. Every one of the Moors of Nédroma expects some day, when the great bell sounds the tocsin of revenge, to return and take up life anew in Andalusia. ”

“ Of course he can control his observations by asking the opinion of foreigners long resident in the country; but curiously enough in Andalusia precisely the opposite occurs from what elsewhere is usual. Aliens in England, France, or Italy, with increasing comprehension, acquire also affection and esteem for the people among whom they live; but I have seldom found in Southern Spain a foreigner—and there are many, merchants, engineers and the like, with intimate knowledge of the inhabitants—who had a good word to say for the Andalusians. ”