GEORGE SANTAYANA.
The eighth of December is a great day in Spain, but more especially in Seville where they look on the Immaculate Conception as their special feast, symbolized, hundreds of years before the dogma was defined, by their fellow townsman Murillo, in the seraphic purity of his _Concepcion_. The celebration began on the day preceding the eighth with an early-morning peal of bells that lasted half an hour, and was frequently repeated during the day. Nothing can express the mad, exultant peal of Spanish bells: one strong metallic dong backward and forward,--or rather over and over, for the bells are balanced with weights and make the complete circle when in motion,--with a running carillon of more musical minor notes. We mounted to a roof terrace to watch the ringers in the Giralda, who in reckless enjoyment, let the rope of the revolving bell toss them aloft, a perilous feat that has led to fatal accidents, but high up in that Moorish tower, above the palm and orange-growing city, a triumphant tumult filling the air, it must be easy to lose one"s balance of common-sense.
Toward evening of the _Vispera de la Pureza_, every one placed lights along the balconies, which were draped with blue and white, those of the Archbishop"s palace, under the Giralda, being hung in red and yellow, the national colors. A military band played in one of the smaller plazas, and the Seville girls flocked out in full enjoyment, each with the customary rose or bright ribbon in her hair. The people of the upper cla.s.ses entertained their friends in open booths around the square.
Then on the eighth itself, the bells fairly out-did themselves in tumultuous clamor, calling all to the Cathedral, that haunting soul of the city, _La Grandeza_, the n.o.ble, the solemn, its special t.i.tle.
Sevillians love to boast that it is bigger than St. Peters in Rome and cite its 15,642 square meters of ground area to St. Peter"s 15,160. It is truly one of the most imposing churches in the world; vast and dim, the lofty Gothic piers make double aisles as they rise in springing arches to the roof. I have seen tourists enter laughing and chatting, but before they take ten steps instinctively their voices are lowered and they walk reverently with half-bowed heads. This serious temple to G.o.d is worthy of the men of big ideas who decided "to construct a church such and so good it never should have its equal," to accomplish which vow the canons sacrificed their personal revenues, and for a century the Cathedral Chapter ate in common.[30]
December eighth I was in place early, in time to see each lady carry in her own folding chair and set it up in the matted s.p.a.ce between the altar and choir: surely it is in church that the Spanish woman is at her best, in her severe black gown, with her veil draped over a high hair comb and gathered gracefully about the shoulders and waist. When she kneels she makes a sign of the cross, which has national additions.
After the usual sign from forehead to breast, left shoulder to right, she carries her thumb crossed over her first finger to her lips. I am told this is a token of fidelity to the faith of the cross, and is often a way by which Spaniards recognize their countrymen in foreign countries. And since Seville out-does Spain in most customs, here are still other additions. They precede the sign of the cross by making a small cross on the forehead, lips, and breast; and there are many who even precede _this_ by a first regular sign of the cross, thus making two signs of the cross with the gospel symbol between. All this is done so rapidly that it takes several days of close observation to decipher it.
Gradually the church filled for the great feast, until a solid ma.s.s of people knelt or stood in the transepts, covering every foot from which the High Altar could be seen; there was no crowding or impatience, for this was not for them a show, but their daily place of prayer. The onlooking tourist too often forgets this vital difference. In most cases he is ignorant of the meaning of church ritual; mental prayer, meditation on the feast celebrated, the unspeakable spirituality of the Ma.s.s are undivined by him; it is curiosity or aesthetic pleasure that usually brings him there. As I thought later during the Holy Week, it must be a soul weariness to sit during long hours, through ceremonies one cannot follow intelligently. On this festival, first there was a procession round the church to bless the various altars dedicated to the Blessed Virgin ("For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things."
St. Luke i, 48-49). Over the first altar visited hung Luis de Vargas"
celebrated picture of Adam and Eve, the _Generacion_, painted in the sixteen century to symbolize to-day"s doctrine. Before the procession walked officers in uniform, then groups of acolytes, bearing antique silver crosses and the six-foot silver poles that end in handsome candle shrines. Seville gentlemen in dress suits followed, and then the Archbishop in cope and miter, with canons, beneficiaries, and choristers in vestments rich in gold and embroidery. The long imposing train pa.s.sed slowly round the outer aisle. To those who remained before the altar, the chanting of the procession came but faintly, so colossal is the church, though like all well-proportioned things it is only from effects such as this that one realizes its size. The solemn High Ma.s.s proceeded, now the deep magnificently male voice of the organs, now the delicate stringed instruments, with human voices, for the Spaniard fearlessly follows his impulses of worship and presses every talent into the service of the altar. Twenty laymen were grouped in the _coro_ about a priest who led with his baton, and beside them stood the chorister lads who were to dance that afternoon before the tabernacle, as David once danced before the Ark of the Covenant. Their mediaeval dress, a singularly pleasing Russian blouse of blue and white, with white breeches and slippers, was worn with so unconscious a grace that they were a charming sight as they sang in clear childish treble.
The altar, one blaze of light, was approached by twelve steps, up and down which the bishop and canons swept in their gorgeous robes. Below the steps stood twelve silver candlesticks higher than a man, and close by were displayed the priceless flagons and trays used on high feasts.
Every accessory of Seville"s Cathedral is on a vast scale; the _retablo_ of carved scenes towers to a hundred feet; the gilded _rejas_, wrought by the monk of Salamanca in the same disregard for man"s limitations in which the whole Cathedral was built, and whose dark fretwork enhances the brilliant scenes they enclose, all tell of an age of ardent faith when men gave of their best.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LOS SEISES, CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE]
The service over, the Archbishop pa.s.sed to the sacristy which for this day was thrown open to the people, and they thronged in to kiss the episcopal ring, and to gaze at the Murillos and other masters. Then his vestments laid aside, the prelate, accompanied by a dense crowd, crossed the square to his palace, but before leaving the church, he paused by the chapel of Gonsalvo Nunez de Sepulveda, who in 1654 left a fortune to the Cathedral that this Octave of the Immaculate Conception should be fitly celebrated. Even after the three-hour service some people lingered in the side chapels, and the choristers, in their picturesque costume, gathered in the _capilla mayor_ of the partly deserted church to continue their songs of praise: not for outer effect alone had these hymns been taught them, but to glorify One unseen but all-seeing. The spirit of inner worship was not lost in its outward symbolization.
During the Octave, the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, and unceasing were the offices of praise and song. In the late afternoon of each day came the dance of _los seises_ before the Altar, perhaps one of the most poetic customs remaining in Christendom. The Archbishop, in red robes, again entered the chancel surrounded by the canons, and they all knelt, some here, some there, in unconsciously artistic groups,--the strong firm profiles like those of the donors in Italian pictures. Some knelt in meditation, others affectionately watched the dance of the lads; they too, as boys, may have been choristers. It is more a quiet rhythmic stepping to music than a dance, and all the while they sing in their clear, high voices. Twice the music stopped, and for a few seconds the lads moved slowly to the sound of their own castanets. This unique custom commemorates the Christian"s entry into the conquered Moslem town more than six hundred years ago, when the children are said to have danced and sung for joy. These twentieth century Christian lads, their part now over, pa.s.sed up the steps of the altar into a small sacristy behind it; and the musicians continued a lovely concert of sacred music, a last half hour of peace and prayer that seemed like the benediction of the great darkened church on the bowed groups of worshipers.
I came away from the Cathedral every evening with the feeling that there are many and various ways of praising G.o.d. Yet so much criticism has this Seville custom roused, that, a few hundred years ago, the Pope ordered its discontinuance, allowing the dance to go on only as long as the costumes then in use should last, but the people, who love their old usages, succeeded in evading the decision by successive patching of the suits. This is the story. Certainly the graceful costumes to-day show no tatters, and they are worn so carelessly that they make no suggestion of masquerade. For the many who crave a quieter form of worship, the grave cathedral services of Northern Spain may be more congenial, but when as many desire magnificence and display, why should not they too be satisfied? The church allows for all tastes and temperaments, knowing man is not cast in one mold. The Puritan in her midst does not have to turn Dissenter; she has her Salvation Army--so I call the pilgrimage-going crowds; the ascetic fulfils the hard law of his nature side by side with the enjoyer of human affections and graces. Seville"s feast, rich with old traditions, is appropriate in this southern city.
To linger each evening in the vast church lighted only by solitary candles against each pier, to wander behind the kneeling groups listening to the soaring voices of man and violin, to pause beside a certain tomb in the south transept where four mammoth figures of bronze, ungainly on close view but in a half light majestic, bear on their shoulders a bier which holds the remains of Cristobal Colon,--such hours of loitering quicken the imagination and leave behind them memories of beauty.
HOLY WEEK IN SEVILLE
"A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance."
ECCLES. iii, 4.
An overcrowded picture rises with the thought of Seville"s _Semana Santa_,--glittering lights, statues laden with jewels, weird masked figures in _nazareno_ costume marching to the sound of funeral dirges, cries of street vendors and children,--all is noise, movement, color, a true Andalusian scene. Spectacular effect is the first impression of the week, a gorgeous pageantry that suits the Sevillian"s temperament but is not so congenial perhaps to the northerner, who would have the commemoration of his religion"s solemn hour a more tranquil time of prayer.
Happily there are other memories carried away as well as this chief one of noisy confusion. Never to be forgotten was the Cathedral echoing at midnight to the sound of Eslava"s "Miserere" sung by hundreds of trained voices. Every inch of the vast church was packed. Men and women stood in silence, with upraised faces, as they listened to the music of the old canon who once sat in this choir. The lightest mocker would be awed to silence under those soaring arches. For majesty, for a contagious religious emotion, the Cathedral of Seville at the time of its feasts is only to be rivaled by Santa Sophia during Ramazan, on that memorable Night of Power when eight thousand Mussulmans kneel prostrate under the floating circles of lamps. These two stand supreme; so different in the setting,--the one rich with color, an open blaze of light beneath the wide Byzantine dome, the other dim, mysterious Gothic,--they are alike in the genuine thrill of worship they give the onlooker of every creed.
Familiar with her Cathedral in its every-day aspect, having seen the celebrations of December 8th, the Christmas Midnight Ma.s.s, Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, it was cruel to find its grand tranquillity violated during the Holy Week. It is the processions, called the _pasos_, that are the cause of the disorder. A _paso_ is a huge platform, on which are placed carved statues representing scenes of the Pa.s.sion. Each float is carried by some thirty men, and its weight must be enormous, for besides the statues there are silver candelabra, gold and silver vases, and usually a canopy of embroidered velvet upheld by silver poles. Could one but look on them as mere spectacular shows, they would be most picturesque pageants, but to dissociate them from religion is impossible. The custom is an ancient one and is still prevalent in many towns of Spain, through happily, in the smaller places, its original purpose to edify and rouse the people to rememberance of the holy season, has not been lost sight of in extravagant display as at Seville.
Each of Seville"s numerous parishes has one or two of these _pasos_, and an unworthy rivalry exists between them as to which will make the best show. They are supposed to be scenes of the Pa.s.sion, such as the Flagellation, Christ before Pilate, the Descent from the Cross, but for the most part they consist of single figures--a Crucifixion followed by a _Nuestra Senora de Dolores_, another Crucifixion followed by another single representation of Our Lady, and so on in monotonous sequence, a repet.i.tion that makes the spectator fix his attention, not on the scene represented but on details such as the embroidery of the robes, the display of rare jewels, the elaborate canopy. The _pasos_ struck me as the result of that regrettable tendency in Spain, the accentuated devotion to a special shrine or statue. No doubt it arose in reaction against the Moorish enemy"s hatred of images, but the patriotic tendency has been carried too far. It will ever misrepresent the Spaniard"s innate Christian belief. As these processions blocked the city streets, one heard on every side, not alone from those of differing creed, exclamations of "Pomp! Show! Childishness!" And the criticism was almost justified. Many strangers leave Seville confirmed in the wrong idea that its religion is an affair of tinsel and lights. Spain cares little what outsiders think of her, but here is a case in which she should consider the discredit that a degenerated custom brings on her religion; she should sacrifice an old tradition. Like the processions of Havana, the _pasos_ should go. The northern Spaniard agrees with the stranger in his dislike of the noisy spectacles that so incongruously commemorate the saddest death-scene of the ages, and there are many Andalusians, too, who wish for their abolition. In fact, it is the rabble and the innkeepers who agitate in their favor; these last keep pet.i.tions for their foreign guests to sign, begging that the processions be continued. Seville need not fear she will lose prestige should she drop them, that the tourists will no longer flock to her each spring; she is only beginning to be known for having a winter climate surpa.s.sing that of Rome and Naples; _pasos_ or not, visitors will inevitably increase.
The objectionable processions began to march late in the afternoon of Palm Sunday, and it is hardly much of an exaggeration to say they went on marching night and day throughout the following week. They were so long that they took five or six hours to pa.s.s a given spot. Starting back in the narrow streets of the town, they pa.s.sed down the _Sierpes_ which was lined with spectators" chairs, defiled before the City Hall, where the Mayor rose to salute each _paso_ in turn, then went on to the Cathedral,--entering by a west door, crossing before the altar, and leaving by the door near the Archbishop"s palace. With each _paso_ marched the religious confraternity of its parish, a secular brotherhood of men belonging to all ranks, who are banded together for charitable work. The King belongs to one of these fraternities and when in Seville marches in line, but the year of our visit he was represented by the military governor of the province. The officers of the army also marched. Most of these brotherhoods wore Nazarene costume, in white, purple, or black, with the high-peaked head gear through which only the eyes showed. Some walked devoutly, others in disorder. Membership in religious brotherhoods is often hereditary, and it was touching to see a little child of four, in full regalia, marching with the grown men, planting his silver staff at each slow pace with the gravity of a majordomo. A band of music went with each fraternity, and the blare of bra.s.s instruments, the torches, the masked faces, make indeed a confused, wearying spectacle.
Most of the onlookers hired chairs for the week along the streets, on balconies, or in that most chosen spot, the square by the City Hall; the populace thronged to the Cathedral, where the procession could be seen free, and there the crowd was dense to suffocation, chiefly made up of the disorderly element from Triana. The chatter and movement made me ask, could this be a Spanish church, where irreverence is unknown?
Everyone seemed oblivious of the Tenebrae in the _coro_. They buzzed and moved about in an unseemly scramble for seats, so that only faintest echoes of Jeremiah"s gloriously intoned Lamentations could be heard. The s.e.xton rose now and then from the noisy groups on the choir steps to extinguish one by one the candles on the big triangular candlestick, a n.o.ble object of bronze used only at this season. And I had looked forward for months to hearing, in this grand Gothic Cathedral, my favorite service of the church year, the solitary service that haunts one with its subtle beauty from one"s childhood. The disappointment was keen, it gave just the final touch to my dislike of the _pasos_.
There were times when I tried to be just. Seeing the men lift their hats respectfully as each group went by, the women cross themselves with tears in their eyes, the babies look on in awed wonder, I tried to drop prejudice and to see the spectacle as does a southern Spaniard: the noisy scene is so a.s.sociated with his earliest, tenderest memories that he cannot but look at it in a different way. One evening near me, a handsome young countryman,--moved out of all self-consciousness by the _Virgen santisima_ he so loved, in her wonderful robe and jewels, under a canopy richer than any earthly queen"s,--this gallant young _majo_ stood forward suddenly from the crowd and, with his eyes fastened on the glittering ma.s.s, sang a _copla_ of praise with the heart-piercing note of the folk-song. So faultlessly artistic a moment made me look leniently on the _pasos_ for a time, warning me, "Lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them." But to be consistent in this home of untamed personalities is impossible! For soon a float of extravagant bad taste would go by; horses with tails of real hair; clumsy velvet robes hiding the excellent carving of the statues (and some of them are the work of the best sculptor of Seville, Montanes, whose portrait by Velasquez hangs in the Prado); worst of all the _Mater Dolorosa_, covered with inappropriate jewels, some willed her by former generations, others lent by rich Sevillian ladies of to-day, in her hand the lace handkerchief of a coquette: criticism would leap to full life again.
That the _pasos_ violated the quiet of the Cathedral, that they reeked of the baroque period of bad art, these are not the only complaints against them. They turn all Seville into a picnic week. We began to ask ourselves if this noisy excitement commemorated a solemn time, what would the following week of the Fair be like? The Andalusian can hold revelry with zest and vigor for fourteen unbroken days. Easter week was to open with the Italian opera and the first bull-fight of the year; there were to be three days of horse and cattle show, followed by three days of the grand _Feria_, when the whole province pours into Seville, and the nights are one glare of fireworks; _maja_ and _majo_ are then out in all their finery, and the families of the upper cla.s.ses live in open booths on the fair grounds, where they pay visits and dance the national dances in public with the easy democracy of true Spaniards.
Much as we hoped to see this typical feast, it began to dawn on us early in the week that there were limits to endurance. The hurrying crowds, the blocking of the streets, the noise of vendors, of clashing music, made the fatigue indescribable. Sleep at night was out of the question, noisy Triana roamed the streets; bra.s.s bands would sound, and in nervous excitement one would spring to the balcony. The hotels were packed to an uncomfortable extent. By Good Friday all desire to stay over for the Fair week was extinguished; we were very close to physical collapse.
So, taking a night train, we slipped away from the turmoil to have a peaceful Easter Sunday in unspoiled Estremadura. There also they were having _pasos_, but _pasos_ of such simple devotion, humble, and primitive, that one knelt with the crowd in prayer as they pa.s.sed.
Before this final, hasty desertion, however, I had dragged myself, worn out with a sleepless night, to the lengthy services in the Cathedral each morning. There, happily, was nothing to criticise. The Holy Week ceremonies customary to all Catholic Christendom, were carried through with dignity; only, since this was irrepressible Spain, there were some local additions, and most beautiful ones. Such was the waving of a huge flag, black, with a large red cross, like the banner of some military order, before the High Altar, while some special prayers were read; love of country and love of G.o.d seem so inextricably interwoven here. On Palm Sunday the Cathedral was filled with the stately white leaves, six and ten feet long, from the palm forest of Elche; each canon carried one and each verger; the priests and acolytes who served the Ma.s.s bore each his palm, and they waved and swayed around the altar in lovely symbolization of the Entry into Jerusalem twenty centuries before. Pictures like that never fade. A year later in Palestine, it rose vividly before me, while driving out to Bethany, when we pa.s.sed some hundreds of humble Russian pilgrims tramping back from the Dead Sea, each of whom bore a palm. For in very reality they were following the route of entry into the Holy City. Seville Cathedral on Palm Sunday morning was not unworthy to be grouped with that moving scene. The excessively long Gospel was chanted in the customary different keys by three canons, one standing in the Epistle pulpit, one in the Gospel, and the third on a rostrum erected between the two. Near me several Spaniards of the artisan cla.s.s followed in Latin every word of the lengthy chanting. The tourists present who knew not what was read, fretted and moved incessantly. No intelligent person should attend a Holy Week in either Seville or Rome without a special book, picked up anywhere for a couple of francs, in which the services are given in Latin and English, or Latin and French. Without the liturgy to voice these ceremonies, they must be weary hours indeed.
And yet of the hundreds of visitors on this Palm Sunday, literally, not one followed with a book, and many perhaps held themselves competent to criticise what they had seen.
Expectant of the sensational, the tourists filled the great church on Holy Thursday morning, when the white veil was withdrawn: it was done so swiftly, at the opportune words of the Gospel, that there was nothing spectacular about it. Two days later, at the moment in the Ma.s.s when every bell in the city bursts out in joyous acclamation of the Resurrection, the black veil was rent; that we missed seeing. Some days before Holy Week a towering temple of wood, white and gilt, a hundred feet high, had been erected in the nave over the tomb of Columbus" son.
This pseudo-cla.s.sic temple, completely out of touch with the Gothic church, was to serve as the repository of the Blessed Sacrament on Holy Thursday, and it was for the center of such shrines that the old silversmiths of Spain, the de Arfe family, made their priceless silver _monumentos_. Such repositories are customary in all Catholic lands on Thursday of Holy Week, for in the midst of sorrow, the Church celebrates the foundation of the Sacrament that has brought joy and solace to mankind. She commemorates the events of the week chronologically. Before the altars are dismantled for Good Friday, she typifies by lights and flowers, her grat.i.tude for that pa.s.sover supper in the upper room. It is a general Catholic custom to visit a number of these lighted shrines on Holy Thursday, and in Seville this usage leads to one of the charming things of the week, like an oasis of peace in the midst of the arid _pasos_. Everyone pays these visits on foot. During two days not a carriage is allowed in the city, the King himself must walk. Their silk mantillas, black or white, draped high over their combs, wearing jewels and carrying flowers, the ladies of Seville went from church to church, to kneel in graceful groups around the exposed Host, and the men in frock coats and high hats stood in the rear, in simple att.i.tudes of prayer: the Spaniard and the Mussulman are alike in their unconsciousness at their devotions. The next day all would wear deep mourning, but to-day is a feast of rejoicing. Each one goes in quiet composure, as if her mind dwelt on the hours of peace her communions had brought her. Again I felt the same impression that the Christmas midnight Ma.s.s had given me; that the imagination of this people was busy with the past event they were celebrating. Does not lack of comprehension of old usages often mean lack of the shaping power of the imagination?
From one parish church to another I followed these fascinating women.
Here was true Seville, not seen in the Cathedral"s tourist crowd, nor under Parisian hats on the _Paseo_. Wandering through the network of streets north of the _Sierpes_, I paused to look into the spotless patios distant as they ever seem from the fret of life. A touch of summer was in the air; the marble courtyards were decked with flowers, and one heard the notes of singing birds. Two dark-eyed ladies came out from a tranquil patio; they wore white mantillas in honor of their visits to the Blessed Sacrament. They set me dreaming of Seville in its summer aspect, when the skies are blue in the fragrant night. Nowhere on earth are women more alluring and essentially feminine, nowhere has man fashioned his house so fitly for charm and romance.
By chance, on Holy Thursday, I stumbled on another local usage, full of the same racial flavor. Returning from the Cathedral, where, amid a throng of sight seers, the Archbishop had carried the Host to the lighted _monumento_, I happened to drop into the Church of the Magdalena. It was filled with its own parishioners, since most Spaniards leave the Cathedral services of this crowded week to the visitors. Near the door were seated three separate groups of ladies and young girls, belonging unmistakably to the aristocracy; each wore a black mantilla,[31] and in their tight-fitting black gowns and long white gloves, they were indescribably elegant. They were the ladies in waiting of the various altars, their duties to tend them, and like the men"s brotherhoods, to help in the charitable work of the parish. The Magdalena Church is dark, so on the table before these daughters of Eve stood a pair of high candlesticks, between which lay an open tray soliciting contributions for their special shrines or charities. Young beaux entered the church and as they pa.s.sed the table, dropped a _duro_ or a paper bill in the different trays, according as they felt devotion to such and such an altar, or to judge by the glances that pa.s.sed between the givers and receivers, as they felt devotion to its fair caretaker. Unexpected scenes like this, unmentioned in the guide books, give to this city its allurement, enhanced doubly because the actors are so unconscious of their picturesqueness.
And as unpleasant things fade away, leaving only the happier memories, two scenes stand out unforgettable in Seville"s Holy Week: Eslava"s "Miserere," echoing at midnight through the Cathedral whose name is fittingly the _Grandeza_, and that other picture, enchantingly Andalusian, the ladies in mantillas paying their silent visits to the Blessed Sacrament on Holy Thursday. The _pasos_ fade to a blurred background of pomp and glitter.
CADIZ
"Para que yo te olvidara Era menester que hubiera Otro mundo, y otro cielo, Y otro Dios que dispusiera."
CANTAR ANDALUZ.
--"The sea tides tossing free, And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the witchery and beauty of the ships, And the magic of the sea."
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
In the midst of the warm Seville winter the thought of sea breezes tempted us to Cadiz for a week. The hundred miles" run down there was through a charming corner of Andalusia, with orange groves, olive plantations, woods of stone pines, hedges of cactus, in the meadows herds of most royal bulls. It was the eighteenth of January, yet the fruit trees were in blossom, and over the streams floated a lovely white-flowering verdure. We pa.s.sed Jerez, source of English sherry, where on our return to Seville we stopped some hours to see the bodegas and sample the native wine. As we neared the coast big pyramids of salt covered the marshes, telling of another industry; in fact, every part of Andalusia which I saw was well cultivated, despite the guide book laments over its backwardness.
Soon came whiffs of the sea air. The first view of Cadiz, set right out to sea, is very striking. Only a narrow strip of sand, eight miles long, connects it with the mainland, and as we skirted the coast, past San Fernando,--where there is a naval station and an astronomical observatory,--the compact, st.u.r.dy little city out in the Atlantic made a stunning picture; the sea so very blue, the town so dazzlingly white.
And inside the treble line of walls and moats that defend its one land-entrance, the "silver dish," as its citizens love to call it, has as individual a character as its distant prospect. It is miraculously clean, its streets seem swept and scrubbed like a Dutch village. Down these narrow lanes you catch the gleam of the sea to east, to north, to west. When it rains, Seville turns into a muddy distress, but well-drained Cadiz grows more proper still in wet weather. The patio of the rest of Andalusia is not found here, for being confined to its ledge of sh.e.l.ls, the town could not spread itself about, but had to build itself up in the air. On top of the high houses, whose vivid green balconies add to the general air of trig neatness, are _miradores_, small towers formerly built by the merchants as look-outs from which they could spy their returning galleons. The view of Cadiz from a _mirador_ is like nothing else ever seen: the clean whiteness of hundreds of roof terraces, the church towers of colored tiles and a host of other _miradores_, made it seem like a second city in itself, suggestive of the Orient; a strange city set in the blinding blue circle of the ocean.
The town is almost surrounded by high sea walls, four miles of them, and on the Atlantic side the surf breaks in thundering eternity, throwing up spray twenty feet high. There is something splendidly plucky about Cadiz. One of the few spots in Europe forced to battle for her existence, with a devouring enemy at her door, she thrives and continues century after century. She is the oldest town in Spain, founded by Ph[oe]nician mariners more than a thousand years before the Christian Era.
"Ah when the crafty Tyrian came to Spain To barter for her gold his motley wares, Treading her beaches he forgot his gain, The Semite became n.o.ble unawares."
Spain has influenced them all, all the strangers, the heterogeneous throng, that have gone to the making of the Spanish race. Ph[oe]nician, Roman, Iberian, Goth, Jew, and Moor, she has imprinted on them all her own distinguishing mark, has breathed into them her own intense soul.
For this psychological reason it is true to say that Seneca was a Spaniard, that the wonderful Jew Maimonides and the Moor Averroes, and the Gothic bishop, Isidoro, Doctor of the Church were all of them Spaniards. The Catalan, Ramon Lull rang out the national note with no uncertain sound, mystic hermit and active missionary. And with the centuries "christened in blood and schooled in sacrifice," the spirit grew more convincingly apparent: Domingo de Guzman, Francisco Ximenez, Gonsalvo de Cordova, Luis de Leon, Inigo de Loyola are very brothers with a like high fealty that tells what majestic mother nurtured them on her battlefield of ages.
Cadiz, the oldest spot in Spain, has known each of the conquering races in turn. She was four hundred years old when Rome was founded. She has had tremendous ups and downs of fortune; at her height during the age of the Caesars, who saw her importance as key to Andalusia, then with the fall of Rome dropped into insignificance, her name almost forgotten. She rose again with the discovery of the New World, whose ships of treasure anch.o.r.ed off her ramparts. A strange outlook on the pa.s.sing of power lies in the statement that in 1770 this town was a wealthier place than London. With the loss of the Colonies, Cadiz has sunk back to be a mediocre city in the world, but she is contented and self-respecting.