Murcia

“ In the church at Elche religious plays or mysteries are occasionally performed, with an enthusiasm and solemnity both of actors and spectators equal to that of the Passionspiel of Ober-Ammergau.
MURCIA contains the two provinces, Murcia and Albacete. The first faces the Mediterranean; the second, besides comprising the Sierras of Alcazar and Segura, climbs those boundary mountains, and advances far into the plateau of La Mancha, and thus contains within its limits the sources of the Guadiana as well as those of the Mundo and the Segura. ”

“ For two hundred years it endured the attacks of the Moors of Granada, acting meanwhile as a buffer to the Christian kingdom.
Murcia to-day seems a survival of the Middle Ages. The legend goes that Adam returning to earth recognised the province as the only relic of the world he left. The Murcians are a conservative people, clinging to the beliefs and ideas of their forefathers, untouched by the march of thought. Religion is the changeless background of their lives, and often its picturesque ceremonies completely hold the stage. ”

“ PEASANTS OF LA HUERTA, AND CIGARRERA OF VALENCIA.
The people of Murcia cannot be said to have issued victoriously from the struggle against barren rocks, desiccating winds, and a dry atmosphere. They abandon themselves to a fatalism quite oriental, and make hardly any effort at improvement. Lazily inclined, they take their siesta in and out of time, and even when awake preserve an aspect of impassiveness as if they pursued a reverie. They are not much given to gaiety, and, though neighbours of Andalusia and La Mancha, do not dance. ”

“ It was a clear and windless day, and soon we remarked a characteristic which Murcia exhibited more strongly than any other Spanish town we have visited. Each house had exuded its own smell across the pavement, so as one went along one sampled a variety of Spanish household odours. Some people find an intimate connection between colour and smell. ”

“ Such is the province of Murcia in the twentieth century. When vegetation depended only on the sun and very infrequent rain, the land can have been very little better than an arid wilderness. And yet its possession has from the earliest times been a matter of keen dispute. To the early inhabitants have always been ascribed those{37} simple guileless virtues with which the eighteenth century endowed the noble savage. Like the high-souled inhabitants of More’s “Utopia,” they used the gold and silver, in which their mountains abounded, for the meanest articles of domestic use. ”

“ During our first weeks in Murcia our appearance in the streets invariably caused excitement and shrieks of laughter among young girls and gossips. If we entered a shop the children crowded in with us to listen to our attempts at Spanish. This was not done with deliberate rudeness, but was more the result of unrestrained curiosity. This attitude was not very evident when we went for strolls with Luis: the presence of a fellow-townsman seemed to have a calming influence. At last I found an effective weapon. With mock horror I stared at the feet and ankles of any young woman too malicious. ”

“ The interior of Murcia surprised me as much as the approach to it. I found clean pleasant streets, like those of Seville, and a population not remarkable for poverty and rags. The best commentary upon this assertion, is the fact, that I was not accosted by a beggar during the three days I spent in Murcia. Like Seville too, the convent gardens often skirt the streets, and the walls are over-topped by the heavily laden orange trees, and by the branchy palm. In walking towards the cathedral, I chanced to follow a friar carrying an image of St. ”

“ This coast range terminates abruptly in the Sierra de Montsia (2,500 feet) , close to the delta of the Ebro, and before the pent-up waters of the river had excavated themselves a path to the sea it extended right to the Pyrenees.
All these mountains are for the most part naked, and shrubs appear like black patches upon their whitish slopes. They stand out clearly against the blue and limpid sky, whose transparency has won Murcia the title of the “most serene kingdom.” The climate in the valley of the Segura is even more African in its character than that of Andalusia. ”

“ Murcia, in its higher parts, is very thinly peopled, and in spite of the fertile plains in the lower course of the Segura and the Sangonera, and the rich mining district round Cartagena, has only two-thirds as many inhabitants to the square mile as Valencia. Murcia is perhaps the driest province of Spain, and the one in which the want of water is the most generally felt, yet it is in this province that the floods are the most pernicious and destructive. Year by year the irrigation works become less effective. Ancient dams broken down by the floods are not restored. ”

“ Even Murcia was peopled by Catalans in 1266, but this province really is part of the Castilian conquest, and accordingly the Castilian element took the upper hand and absorbed the dialect of the earlier colonists. The river Segura, which falls into the Mediterranean in the neighbourhood of Orihuela, a little to the north of Murcia, is as nearly as possible the southern boundary of the Catalan domain; westward the boundary coincides pretty exactly with the political frontier, the provinces of New Castile and Aragon not being at all encroached on. ”

“ The huerta around Orihuela, on the Lower Segura, cannot boast of a palm forest like that of Elche, but is more productive. The inhabitants of Murcia, higher up on the same river, though they enjoy similar advantages, have failed to profit by them to the same extent. Their huerta, which contains a third of the total population of the province, is fertile, but cannot compare with that of their neighbours. Nor do the fields of Lorca equal them. They have not yet recovered from the bursting of a reservoir, the freed waters of which carried destruction as far as Murcia and Orihuela. ”

“ In Murcia, all the silk is prepared by hand labour, and cannot, therefore, enter the market with the Valencia silk, which is for the most part, produced by machinery. The only other manufacture of Murcia, is a coarse cloth, which, to a certain extent, is sure of a market. The city lives almost entirely by agriculture; but the prosperity of the agriculturist, here as in Granada, has greatly decreased since the loss of the colonies has created a necessity for the imposition of new burthens upon land. ”

“ Murcia, also known as Cartagena. See also Cuenca. Murcia was a seat of one of the early tribunals, comprising the sees of Murcia and Cartagena. Cuenca, which was attached to it in the redistribution by Ximenes in 1509, was separated about 1520. Oran, some time after its conquest by Ximenes, was placed under the jurisdiction of Murcia. The see of Orihuela, although belonging to Valencia, on its suppression about 1510, was united to that of Cartagena and thus fell under the tribunal of Murcia, where it remained after the restoration to episcopal honors in 1564. ”

“ The road passed through a dull and uninteresting country, traversing a grey volcanic region for a considerable distance across the mountain, without vegetation, when the fruitful valley of Murcia appeared of a sudden, not unlike an oasis in the desert. The irrigated valley is prolific in orange, lemon, mulberry, and other trees. The city contains forty thousand inhabitants; it is very quiet, being the residence of many aristocratic families, as may be seen from the armorial bearings on the fronts of the houses. The streets are narrow, and the buildings fancifully painted. ”

“ In thy death it seems as if we had lost the last treasure left to us, the voice of the Spanish race. In thy death Spain has become mute. Yet let me believe that thou respondest, 'She will speak again.'"
The coming of the body to the capital was a triumphal progress. A large escort of friends, who had made speed to Murcia from all parts of the Peninsula, accompanied it, and 236 there were crowds at the stations, even in the mid-hours of the night, with tears, handfuls of roses, wreaths, and poems of farewell. ”

“ Murcia, the chief city, is an irrigated plain on the Segura, has a population of 91,000. It is one of the chief seats of silk cultivation in Spain. Lorca (52,000) , on the Sangonera, offers another example of the extreme fertility that can be obtained by irrigation in a suitable climate. Cartagena (75,000) , with its grand harbour and docks, is one of the three naval arsenals in Spain; but has greatly fallen from its ancient wealth and importance. ”

“ In the year 1475 of the Christian era, that portion of the Spanish Peninsula bounded by the Christian provinces of Cordova and Murcia, by the Sierra Elvira and the sea, was the richest and most highly civilized region of corresponding area on the globe. Every advantage of soil, of climate, and of geographical position contributed to multiply its resources and increase its power. ”

“ The silk-throwsters, who work at their own houses, and are paid in the great, that is, according to the quantity of work they perform, are very numerous in Murcia; but they perform the business there in a very slovenly way. ”

“ Curiously enough, this same Catalan was not the language used in Aragon itself, a fact which no doubt had a strong determining influence in the choice of Castilian at the time of the unification of the two kingdoms. Why Orihuela alone clung to its old Castilian tongue in despite of the Conqueror is not clear, unless it was owing merely to the proximity of Murcia.
In character the Valencians are superstitious, revengeful, relentless in hate. “Ni olvido ni perdono” is their motto. They love the colour and joy of life. Dancing and love-making are their chief delights. ”

“ So great a proof of love must compel your majesty's subjects to testify their gratitude by their submission and fidelity. This city, which has always been distinguished for its zeal, will, at this time, give a greater proof of it in immediately obeying your majesty's commands. God preserve the royal and Catholic person of your majesty! In the municipal council of Murcia, February 16th, 1568. ”

“ 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. ”

“ O’Shea charges the Murcian people is groundless and unjust.
A visit to the Cathedral will exhaust the architectural sights of Murcia. Even this is not of first-class interest. Dating in parts from 1386 and Gothic in style, the west front is Churrigueresque, though fortunately not in the most florid style of that unhappy architect. The earthquake of 1829 and a fire in the middle of the last century have greatly damaged the interior, but the general effect is sufficiently striking. The choir-stalls of carved walnut are very beautiful, but the reredos is poor. ”

“ During this, the most flourishing era of the Saracen empire, the Peninsula presented the aspect of a highly cultivated and extraordinarily productive garden. The graceful and delicious plants of the Orient grew everywhere side by side with the indigenous flora of less favored Europe. The semi-tropical region embraced by the provinces of Valencia and Murcia, thickly settled as they are, then supported a far [611] more numerous population than now clusters in their fertile valleys. ”

“ CHAPTER XXVI LORCA
We still had money for another three weeks, although we had been four months in Spain. The weather in Murcia was very cold; damp, chilling winds blew down the valley. We decided to go westwards, to explore Lorca, which we had heard was both fine pictorially and also which was called "the City of the Sun." On suggesting the idea to some of our Murcian friends, they advised us not to go. "It is a town of bad people," they said; "they are all gipsies." We had heard before of these towns of bad people. One lay on the far side of the Murcian valley ”

“ Having hardly any men left in the city, for the youth of Murcia had fallen in the field, he made the women put on male attire, arm themselves with helmets and long rods like lances, and bring their hair over their chins as though they wore beards. ”

“ The Valencia Estancia, a horse-breeding one, was far away inland—not one of those nearer Buenos Ayres and civilisation,—it belonged to a native. The proprietor, Vincino, was paralysed from a bad fall, and the place was run by a ruffian called Murcia. I did not mind roughing it; it’s a splendid climate, and I liked the life itself well enough. I got my fill of riding, and a little shooting—duck, and a sort of partridge—and I appreciated the freedom from the tall hat and visiting card. ”

“ Slavonic. Yet it is not safe to refer the one to the other. The soil and climate of Andalusia—the favoured valley of the most southern river in Spain—have also their peculiarities.
In Grenada the habits are ruder, and Grenada is chiefly a mountain range.
Murcia [3] has the credit of being the Bœotia of Spain. It has less than its share of Arab, and, perhaps, a considerable amount of Gothic, blood.
Valencia has been unfavourably described; the physiognomy of its population being the most Moorish in Spain, and the temper dangerous. ”

“ Valencia and Murcia found far more favour in their eyes; a far more fertile soil, and wealthier inhabitants, were better calculated to entice them; there was a prospect of plunder, and likewise a prospect of safety and refuge, should the dogs of justice be roused against them. If there were the populous town and village in those lands, there was likewise the lone waste, and uncultivated spot, to which they could retire when danger threatened them. ”