Gatherings From Spain Part 11

[Sidenote: THE CAPATAZ.]

All sherries are a matured mixture of grape juice; champagne itself is a manufactured wine; nor does it much matter, provided a palateable and wholesome beverage be produced. In all the leading and respectable houses, the wine is prepared from grapes grown in the district, nor is there the slightest mystery made in explaining the artificial processes which are adopted; the rearing, educating and finis.h.i.+ng, as it were, of these wines, is a work of many years, and is generally intrusted to the _Capataz_, the chief butler, or head man, who very often becomes the real master; this important personage is seldom raised in Andalucia, or in any wine-growing districts of Spain; he generally is by birth an Asturian, or a native of the mountains contiguous to Santander, from whence the chandlers and grocers, hence called _Los Montaneses_, are supplied throughout the Peninsula. These Highlanders are celebrated for the length of their pedigrees, and the tasting properties of their tongues; we have more than once in Estremadura and Leon fallen in with flights of these ragged gentry, wending, Scotch-like, to the south in search of fortune; few had shoes or s.h.i.+rts, yet almost every one carried his family parchment in a tin case, wherein his descent from Tubal--respectable, although doubtful--was proven to be as evident as the sun is at noon day.

These gentlemen of good birth and better taste seldom smoke, as the narcotic stupifying weed deadens papillatory delicacy. Now as few wine-masters in Spain would give up the cigar to gain millions, the _Capataz_ soon becomes the sole possessor of the secrets of the cellar; and as no merchants possess vineyards of their own sufficient to supply their demand, the purchases of new wines must be made by this confidential servant, who is thus enabled to cheat both the grower and his own employer, since he will only buy of those who give him the largest commission. Many contrive by these long and faithful services to ama.s.s great wealth; thus Juan Sanchez, the _Capataz_ of the late Petro Domecq, died recently worth 300,000_l._ Towards his latter end, having been visited by his confessor and some qualms of conscience, he bequeathed his fortune to pious and charitable uses, but the bulk was forthwith secured by his attorneys and priests, whose charity began at home.

[Sidenote: BODEGAS OF XEREZ.]

As the chancellor is the keeper of the Queen's conscience, so the _Capataz_ is the keeper of the _bodega_ or the wine-store, which is very peculiar, and the grand lion of Xerez. The rich and populous town, when seen from afar, rising in its vine-clad knoll, is characterised by these huge erections, that look like the pent-houses under which men-of-war are built at Chatham. These temples of Bacchus resemble cathedrals in size and loftiness, and their divisions, like Spanish chapels, bear the names of the saints to whom they are dedicated, and few tutelar deities have more numerous or more devout wors.h.i.+ppers; but Romanism mixes itself up in everything of Spain, and fixes its mark alike on salt-pans and mine-shafts, as on boats and _bodegas_. These huge repositories are all above ground, and are the ant.i.thesis of our under-ground cellars. The wines of Xerez are thus found to ripen both better and quicker, as one year in a _bodega_ inspires them with more life than do ten years of burial. As these wines are more capricious in the development of their character than young ladies at a boarding-school, the greatest care is taken in the selection of eligible and healthy situations for their education; the neighbourhood of all offensive drains or effluvia is carefully avoided, since these nuisances are sure to affect the delicately organised fluids, although they fail to damage the noses of those to whose charge they are committed; and strange to say, in this land of contradictions, Cologne itself is scarcely more renowned for its twenty and odd bad smells ascertained by Coleridge, than is this same tortuous, dirty, and old-fas.h.i.+oned Xerez. Here, as in the Rhenish city, all the sweets are bottled up for exportation, all the stinks kept for home consumption. The new _bodegas_ are consequently erected in the newer portions of the town, in dry and open places; connected with them are offices and workshops, in which everything bearing upon the wine trade is manufactured, even to the barrels that are made of American oak staves. The interior of the _bodega_ is kept deliciously cool; the glare outside is carefully excluded, while a free circulation of air is admitted; an even temperature is very essential, and one at an average of 60 degrees is the best of all. There are more than a thousand _bodegas_ registered at the custom house for the Xerez district; the largest only belong to the first-rate firms, and mostly to Europeans, that is, to English and Frenchmen. A heavy capital is required, much patience and forethought, qualities which do not grow on these or on any hills of Spain. This necessity will be better understood when it is said, that some of these stores contain from one to four thousand b.u.t.ts, and that few really fine sherries are sent out of them until ten or twelve years old. Supposing, therefore, that each b.u.t.t averages in value only 25_l._, it is evident how much time and investment of wealth is necessary.

[Sidenote: WINE-MIXING.]

Sherry wine, when mature and perfect, is made up from many b.u.t.ts. The "entire," indeed, is the result of Xerez grapes, but of many different ages, vintages, and varieties of flavour. The contents of one barrel serve to correct another until the proposed standard aggregate is produced; and to such a certainty has this uniform admixture been reduced, that houses are enabled to supply for any number of years exactly that particular colour, flavour, body, &c., which particular customers demand. This wine improves very much with age, gets softer and more aromatic, and gains both body and aroma, in which its young wines are deficient. Indeed, so great is the change in all respects, that one scarcely can believe them ever to have been the same: the baby differs not more from the man, nor the oak from the acorn.

That _Capataz_ has attained the object of his fondest wishes, who has observed in his compositions the poetical principles of Horace, the _callida junctura_, the _omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci_; this happy and skilful junction of the sweet and solid, should unite fulness of body, an oily, nutty flavour and _bouquet_, dryness, absence from acidity, strength, durability, and spirituosity. Very little brandy is necessary, as the vivifying power of the unstinted sun of Andalucia imparts sufficient alcohol, which ranges from 20 to 23 per cent. in fine sherries, and only reaches about 12 in clarets and champagnes. Fine pure sherry is of a rich brown colour, but in order to flatter the conventional tastes of some English, "pale old sherry" must be had, and colour is chemically discharged at the expense of delicate aroma.

Another absurd deference to British prejudice, is the sending sherries to the East Indies, because such a trip is found sometimes to benefit the wines of Madeira. This is not only expensive but positively injurious to the juice of Xerez, as the wine returns diminished in quant.i.ty, turbid, sharp, and deteriorated in flavour, while from the constant fermentation it becomes thinner in body and more spirituous.

The real secret of procuring good sherry is to pay the best price for it at the best house, and then to keep the purchase for many years in a good cellar before it is drunk.

[Sidenote: WINE IN CASK.]

To return to the _Capataz_. This head master pa.s.ses this life of probation in tasting. He goes the regular round of his b.u.t.ts, ascertaining the qualities, merits, and demerits of each pupil, which he notes by certain marks or hieroglyphics. He corrects faults as he goes along, making a memorandum also of the date and remedy applied, and thus at his next visit he is enabled to report good progress, or lament the contrary. The new wines, after the fermentation is past, are commonly enriched with an _arrope_, or sort of syrup, which is found very much to encourage them. There are extensive manufactories of this cordial at San Lucar, and wherever the _arenas_, or sandy soil, prevails. The must, or new grape juice, before fermentation has commenced, is boiled slowly down to the fifth of its bulk. It must simmer, and requires great care in the skimming and not being burnt. Of this, when dissolved, the _vino de color_, the _madre vino_, or mother wine, is made, by which the younger ones are nourished as by mother's milk. When old, this balsamic ingredient becomes strong, perfumed as an essence, and very precious, and is worth from three to five hundred guineas a b.u.t.t; indeed it scarcely ever will be sold at all. All the princ.i.p.al _bodegas_ have certain huge and time-honoured casks which contain this divine ichor, which inspires ordinary wines with generous and heroic virtues; hence possibly their dedication of their tuns not to saints and saintesses, but to Wellingtons and Nelsons. It is from these reservoirs that distinguished visitors are allowed just a sip. Such a compliment was paid to Ferdinand VII. by Pedro Domecq, and the cask to this day bears the royal name of its a.s.sayer. Whatever quant.i.ty is taken out of one of these for the benefit of younger wines, is replaced by a similar quant.i.ty drawn from the next oldest cask in the cellar.

[Sidenote: TASTING WINE.]

After a year or two trial of the new wines, it is ascertained how they will eventually turn out; if they go wrong, they are expelled from the seminary, and s.h.i.+pped off to the leathern-tongued consumers of Hamburgh or Quebec, at about 15_l._ per b.u.t.t. All the various forms, stages, and steps of education are readily explained in the great establishments, among which the first are those of Domecq and John David Gordon, and nothing can exceed the cordial hospitality of these princely merchants; whoever comes provided with a letter of introduction is carried off bodily, bags, baggage, and all, to their houses, which, considering the iniquity of Xerezan inns, is a satisfactory move. Then and there the guest is initiated into the secrets of trade, and is handed over to the _Capataz_, who delivers an explanatory lecture on vinology, which is ill.u.s.trated, like those of Faraday, by experiments: tasting sherry at Xerez has, as Senor Clemente would say, very little in common with the commonplace customs of the London Docks. Here the swarthy professor, dressed somewhat like Figaro in the Barber of Seville, is followed by sundry jacketed and sandalled Ganymedes, who bear gla.s.ses on waiters; the lecturer is armed with a long stick, to the end of which is tied a bit of hollow cane, which he dips into each b.u.t.t; the subject is begun at the beginning, and each step in advance is explained to the listening party with the gravity of a judicious foreman of a jury: the sample is handed round and tasted by all, who, if they are wise, will follow the example of their leader (on whom wine has no more effect than on a gla.s.s), by never swallowing the sips, but only permitting the tongue to agitate it in the mouth, until the exact flavour is mastered; every cask is tried, from the young wine to the middle-aged, from the mature to the golden ancient. Those who are not stupefied by the fumes, cannot fail to come out vastly edified. The student should hold hard during the first trials, for the best wine is reserved until the last. He ascends, if he does not tumble off, a vinous ladder of excellence. It would be better to reverse the order of the course, and commence with the finest sorts while the palate is fresh and the judgment unclouded. The thirster after knowledge must not drink too deeply now, but remember the second ordeal to which he will afterwards be exposed at the hospitable table of the proprietor, whose joy and pride is to produce fine wine and plenty of it, when his friends meet around his mahogany.

What a grateful offering is then made to the jovial G.o.d, by whom the merchant lives, and by whom the deity is now set from his gla.s.sy prison free! What a drawing of popping corks, half consumed by time!--what a brus.h.i.+ng away of venerable cobwebs from flasks binned apart while George the Third was king! The delight of the worthy Amphitryon on producing a fresh bottle, exceeds that of a prolific mother when she blesses her husband with a new baby. He handles the darling decanter, as if he dearly loved the contents, which indeed are of his own making; how the clean gla.s.ses are held up to the light to see the bright transparent liquid sparkle and phosph.o.r.esce within; how the intelligent nose is pa.s.sed slowly over the mantling surface, redolent with fragrancy; how the climax of rapture is reached when the G.o.d-like nectar is raised to the blus.h.i.+ng lips!

[Sidenote: PRICES OF SHERRY.]

The wine suffices in itself for sensual gratification and for intellectual conversation: all the guests have an opinion; what gentleman, indeed, cannot judge on a horse or a bottle? When differences arise, as they will in matters of taste, and where bottles circulate freely, the master-host _decides_--

"Tells all the names, lays down the law, Que ca est bon; ah, goutez ca."

There is to him a combination of pleasure and profit in these genial banquets, these noctes cnaeque Deum. Many a good connection is thus formed, when an English gentleman, who now, perhaps for the first time, tastes pure and genuine sherry. A good dinner naturally promotes good humour with mankind in general, and with the donor in particular. A given quant.i.ty of the present G.o.d opens both heart and purse-strings, until the tongue on which the magic flavour lingers, murmurs gratefully out, "Send me a b.u.t.t of _amantillado pasado_, and another of _seco reanejo_, and draw for the cash at sight."

An important point will now arise, what is the price? That ever is the question and the rub. Pure genuine sherry, from ten to twelve years old, is worth from 50 to 80 guineas per b.u.t.t, in the _bodega_, and when freight, insurance, duty, and charges are added, will stand the importer from 100 to 130 guineas in his cellar. A b.u.t.t will run from 108 to 112 gallons, and the duty is 5_s._ 6_d._ per gallon. Such a b.u.t.t will bottle about 52 dozen. The reader will now appreciate the bargains of those "pale" and "golden sherries" advertised in the English newspapers at 36_s._ the dozen, bottles included. They are _maris expers_, although much indebted to French brandy, Sicilian Marsala, Cape wine, Devons.h.i.+re cider, and Thames water.

[Sidenote: ADULTERATION OF WINES.]

The growth of wine amounts to some 400,000 or 500,000 _arrobas_ annually. The arroba is a Moorish name, and a dry measure, although used for liquids; it contains a quarter of a hundredweight; 30 arrobas go to a _bota_, or b.u.t.t, of which from 8000 to 10,000 of really fine are annually exported: but the quant.i.ties of so-called sherries, "neat as imported," in the manufacture of which San Lucar is fully occupied, is prodigious, and is increasing every year. To give an idea of the extent of the growing traffic, in 1842 25,096 b.u.t.ts were exported from these districts, and 29,313 in 1843; while in 1845 there were exported 18,135 b.u.t.ts from Xerez alone, and 14,037 from the Puerto, making the enormous aggregate of 32,172 b.u.t.ts. Now as the vineyards remain precisely the same, probably some portion of these additional barrels may not be quite the genuine produce of the Xerez grape: in truth, the ruin of sherry wines has commenced, from the numbers of second-rate houses that have sprung up, which look to quant.i.ty, not quality. Many thousand b.u.t.ts of bad Niebla wine are thus palmed off on the enlightened British public after being well brandied and doctored; thus a conventional notion of sherry is formed, to the ruin of the real thing; for even respectable houses are forced to fabricate their wines so as to suit the depraved taste of their consumers, as is done with pure clarets at Bordeaux, which are charged with Hermitages and Benicarlo. Thus delicate idiosyncratic flavour is lost, while headache and dyspepsia are imported; but there is a fas.h.i.+on in wines as in physicians. Formerly Madeira was the vinous panacea, until the increased demand induced disreputable traders to deteriorate the article, which in the reaction became dishonoured. Then sherry was resorted to as a more honest and wholesome beverage. Now its period of decline is hastening from the same causes, and the average produce is becoming inferior, to end in disrepute, and possibly in a return to the wines of Madeira, whose makers have learnt a lesson in the stern school of adversity.

[Sidenote: MANZANILLA.]

Be that as it may, the people at large of Spain are scarcely acquainted with the taste of sherry wine, beyond the immediate vicinity in which it is made; and more of it is swallowed at Gibraltar at the messes, than in either Madrid, Toledo, or Salamanca. Sherry is a foreign wine, and made and drunk by foreigners; nor do the generality of Spaniards like its strong flavour, and still less its high price, although some now affect its use, because, from its great vogue in England, it argues civilization to adopt it. This use obtains only in the capital and richer seaports; thus at inland Granada, not 150 miles from Xerez, sherry would hardly be to be had, were it not for the demand created by our travelling countrymen, and even then it is sold per bottle, and as a liqueur. At Seville, which is quite close to Xerez, in the best houses, one gla.s.s only is handed round, just as only one gla.s.s of Greek wine was in the house of the father of even Lucullus among the ancient Romans, or as among the modern ones is still done with Malaga or Vino de Cypro; this single gla.s.s is drunk as a _cha.s.se_, and being considered to aid digestion, is called the _golpe medico_, the coup de medecin; it is equivalent, in that hot country, to the thimbleful of Curacoa or Cognac, by which coffee is wound up in colder England and France.

In Andalucia it was no less easy for the Moor to encourage the use of water as a beverage, than to prohibit that of wine, which, if endued with strength, which sherry is, must destroy health when taken largely and habitually, as is occasionally found out at Gibraltar. Hence the natives of Xerez themselves infinitely prefer a light wine called Manzanilla, which is made near San Lucar, and is at once much weaker and cheaper than sherry. The grape from whence it is produced grows on a poor and sandy soil. The vintage is very early, as the fruit is gathered before it is quite ripe. The wine is of a delicate pale straw colour, and is extremely wholesome; it strengthens the stomach, without heating or inebriating, like sherry. All cla.s.ses are pa.s.sionately fond of it, since the want of alcohol enables them to drink more of it than of stronger beverages, while the dry quality acts as a tonic during the relaxing heats. It may be compared to the ancient Lesbian, which Horace quaffed so plentifully in the cool shade, and then described as never doing harm. The men employed in the sherry wine vaults, and who have therefore that drink at their command, seldom touch it, but invariably, when their work is done, go to the neighbouring shop to refresh themselves with a gla.s.s of "innocent" Manzanilla. Among their betters, clubs are formed solely to drink it, and with iced water and a cigar it transports the consumer into a Moslem's dream of paradise. It tastes better from the cask than out of the bottle, and improves as the cask gets low.

[Sidenote: THE ALPISTERA.]

The origin of the name has been disputed; some who prefer sound to sense derive it from _Manzana_, an apple, which had it been cider might have pa.s.sed; others connect it with the distant town of _Mansanilla_ on the opposite side of the river, where it is neither made nor drunk. The real etymology is to be found in its striking resemblance to the bitter flavour of the flowers of camomile (_manzanilla_), which are used by our doctors to make a medicinal tea, and by those of Spain for fomentations.

This flavour in the wine is so marked as to be at first quite disagreeable to strangers. If its eulogistic consumers are to be believed, the wine surpa.s.ses the tea in hygaeian qualities: none, say they, who drink it are ever troubled with gravel, stone, or gout.

Certainly, it is eminently free from acidity. The very best Manzanilla is to be had in London of Messrs. Gorman, No. 16, Mark Lane. Since "_Drink it, ye dyspeptics_," was enjoined last year in the 'Handbook,'

the importation of this wine to England, which previously did not exceed ten b.u.t.ts, has in twelve short months overpa.s.sed two hundred; a compliment delicate as it is practical, which is acknowledged by the author--a drinker thereof--with most profound grat.i.tude.

By the way, the real thing to eat with Manzanilla is the _alpistera_.

Make it thus:--To one pound of fine flour (mind that it is dry) add half a pound of double-refined, well-sifted, pounded white sugar, the yolks and whites of four very fresh eggs, well beaten together; work the mixture up into a paste; roll it out very thin; divide it into squares about half the size of this page; cut it into strips, so that the paste should look like a hand with fingers; then dislocate the strips, and dip them in hot melted fine lard, until of a delicate pale brown; the more the strips are curled up and twisted the better; the _alpistera_ should look like bunches of ribbons; powder them over with fine white sugar.

They are then as pretty as nice. It is not easy to make them well; but the G.o.ds grant no excellence to mortals without much labour and thought.

So Venus the G.o.ddess of grace was allied to hard-working Vulcan, who toiled and pondered at his fire, as every cook who has an aspiring soul has ever done.

[Sidenote: SPANISH INNS.]

CHAPTER XV.

Spanish Inns: Why so Indifferent--The Fonda--Modern Improvements--The Posada--Spanish Innkeepers--The Venta: Arrival in it--Arrangement--Garlic--Dinner--Evening--Night--Bill--Ident.i.ty with the Inns of the Ancients.

[Sidenote: INNS--WHY SO INDIFFERENT.]

Having thus, and we hope satisfactorily, discussed the eatables and drinkables of Spain, attention must naturally be next directed to those houses on the roads and in the towns, where these comforts to the hungry and weary public are to be had, or are not to be had, as sometimes will happen in this land of "the unexpected;" the Peninsular inns, with few exceptions, have long been divided into the bad, the worse, and the worst; and as the latter are still the most numerous and national, as well as the worst, they will be gone into the last. In few countries will the rambler agree oftener with dear Dr. Johnson's speech to his squire Boswell, "Sir, there is nothing which has been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern." Spain offers many negative arguments of the truth of our great moralist and eater's reflection; the inns in general are fuller of entertainment for the mind than the body, and even when the newest, and the best in the country, are indifferent if compared to those which Englishmen are accustomed to at home, and have created on those high roads of the Continent, which they most frequent. Here few gentlemen will say with Falstaff, "Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" Badness of roads and discomforts of _ventas_ cannot well escape the notice of those who travel on horseback and slowly, since they must dwell on and in them; whereas a rail whisks the pa.s.senger past such nuisances, with comet-like rapidity, and all things that are soon out of sight are quicker out of mind; nevertheless, let no aspiring writer be deterred from quitting the highways for the byeways of the Peninsula. "There is, Sir," as Johnson again said to Boswell, "a good deal of Spain that has not been perambulated. I would have you go thither; a man of inferior talents to yours, may furnish us with useful observations on that country."

[Sidenote: CONTINENTAL INNS.]

Why the public accommodations should be second-rate is soon explained.

Nature and the natives have long combined to isolate still more their Peninsula, which already is moated round by the unsocial sea, and is barricadoed by almost impa.s.sable mountains. The Inquisition all but reduced Spanish man to the condition of a monk in a wall-enclosed convent, by standing sentinel, and keeping watch and ward against the foreigner and his perilous novelties;[7] Spain thus unvisited and unvisiting, became arranged for Spaniards only, and has scarcely required conveniences which are more suited to the curious wants of other Europeans and strangers who here are neither liked, wished for, nor even thought of, by natives who seldom travel except on compulsion and never for amus.e.m.e.nt; why indeed should they? since Spain is paradise, and each man's own parish in his eyes is the central spot of its glory. When the n.o.ble and rich visited the provinces, they were lodged in their own or in their friends' houses, just as the clergy and monks were received into convents. The great bulk of the Peninsular family, not being overburdened with cash or fastidiousness, have long been and are inured to infinite inconveniences and negations; they live at home in an abundance of privations, and expect when abroad to be worse off; and they well know that comfort never lodges at a Spanish inn; as in the East, they cannot conceive that any travelling should be unattended by hards.h.i.+ps, which they endure with Oriental resignation, as _cosas de Espana_, or things of Spain which have always been so, and for which there is no remedy but patient resignation; the bliss of ignorance, and the not knowing of anything better, is everywhere the grand secret of absence of discontent; while to those whose every-day life is a feast, every thing that does not come up to their conventional ideas becomes a failure, but to those whose daily bread is dry and scanty, whose drink is water, every thing beyond prison-fare appears to be luxury.

In Spain there has been little demand for those accommodations which have been introduced on the continent by our nomade countrymen, who carry their tea, towels, carpets, comforts and civilization with them; to travel at all for mere pleasure is quite a modern invention, and being an expensive affair, is the most indulged in by the English, because they can best afford it, but as Spain lies out of their hackneyed routes, the inns still retain much of the same state of primitive dirt and discomfort, which most of those on the continent presented, until repolished by our hints and guineas.

[Sidenote: THE FONDA.]

In the Peninsula, where intellect does not post in a Britannic britzcka and four, the inns, and especially those of the country and inferior order, continue much as they were in the time of the Romans, and probably long before them; nay those in the very vicinity of Madrid, "the only court on earth," are as cla.s.sically wretched, as the hostelry at Aricia, near the Eternal City, was in the days of Horace. The Spanish inns, indeed, on the bye-roads and remoter districts, are such as render it almost unadvisable for any English lady to venture to face them, unless predetermined to go through roughing-it, in a way of which none who have only travelled in England can form the remotest idea: at the same time they may be and have been endured by even the sick and delicate. To youth, and to all men in enjoyment of good health, temper, patience, and the blessing of foresight, neither a dinner nor a bed will ever be wanting, to both of which hunger and fatigue will give a zest beyond the reach of art; and fortunately for travellers, all the Continent over, and particularly in Spain, bread and salt, as in the days of Horace, will be found to appease the wayfarer's barking stomach, nor will he who after that sleeps soundly be bitten by fleas, "_quien duerme bien, no le pican las pulgas_." The pleasures of travelling in this wild land are cheaply purchased by these trifling inconveniences, which may always be much lessened by _provision_ in brain and basket; the expeditions team with incident, adventure, and novelty; every day and evening present a comedy of real life, and offer means of obtaining insight into human nature, and form in after-life a perpetual fund of interesting recollections: all that was charming will be then remembered, and the disagreeable, if not forgotten, will be disarmed of its sting, nay, even as having been in a battle, will become a pleasant thing to recollect and to talk, may be twaddle, about. Let not the traveller expect to find too much; if he reckons on finding nothing he will seldom be disappointed; so let him not look for five feet in a cat, "_no busces cinco pies al gato_." Spain, as the East, is not to be enjoyed by the over-fastidious in the fleshly comforts: there, those who over a.n.a.lyze, who peep too much behind the culinary or domestic curtains, must not expect to pa.s.s a tranquil existence.

[Sidenote: THE FONDA.]

First and foremost among these refuges for the dest.i.tute comes the _fonda_, the hotel. This, as the name implies, is a foreign thing, and was imported from Venice, which in its time was the Paris of Europe, the leader of sensual civilization, and the sink of every lie and iniquity.

Its _fondacco_, in the same manner, served as a model for the Turkish _fondack_. The _fonda_ is only to be found in the largest towns and princ.i.p.al seaports, where the presence of foreigners creates a demand and supports the establishment. To it frequently is attached a cafe, or "_botilleria_," a bottlery and a place for the sale of liqueurs, with a "_neveria_," a snowery where ices and cakes are supplied. Men only, not horses, are taken in at a _fonda_; but there is generally a keeper of a stable or of a minor inn in the vicinity, to which the traveller's animals are consigned. The _fonda_ is tolerably furnished in reference to the common articles with which the sober unindulgent natives are contented: the traveller in his comparisons must never forget that Spain is not England, which too few ever can get out of their heads. Spain is Spain, a truism which cannot be too often repeated; and in its being Spain consists its originality, its raciness, its novelty, its idiosyncrasy, its best charm and interest, although the natives do not know it, and are every day, by a foolish aping of European civilization, paring away attractions, and getting commonplace, unlike themselves, and still more unlike their Gotho-Moro and most picturesque fathers and mothers. Monks, as we said in our preface, are gone, mantillas are going, the shadow of cotton _versus_ corn has already darkened the sunny city of Figaro, and the end of all Spanish things is coming. _Ay! de mi Espana!_

Thus in Spain, and especially in the hotter provinces, it is heat and not cold which is the enemy: what we call furniture--carpets, rugs, curtains, and so forth--would be a positive nuisance, would keep out the cool, and harbour plagues of vermin beyond endurance. The walls of the apartments are frequently, though simply, whitewashed: the uneven brick floors are covered in winter with a matting made of the "_esparto_,"

rush, and called an "_estera_," as was done in our king's palaces in the days of Elizabeth: a low iron or wooden truckle bedstead, with coa.r.s.e but clean sheets and clothes, a few hard chairs, perhaps a stiff-backed, most uncomfortable sofa, and a rickety table or so, complete the scanty inventory. The charges are moderate; about two dollars, or 8_s._ 6_d._, per head a-day, includes lodging, breakfast, dinner, and supper.

Servants, if Spanish, are usually charged the half; English servants, whom no wise person would take on the Continent, are nowhere more useless, or greater inc.u.mbrances, than in this hungry, thirsty, tealess, beerless, beefless land: they give more trouble, require more food and attention, and are ten times more discontented than their masters, who have poetry in their souls; an aesthetic love of travel, for its own sake, more than counterbalances with them the want of material gross comforts, about which their pudding-headed four-full-meals-a-day attendants are only thinking. Charges are higher at Madrid, and Barcelona, a great commercial city, where the hotels are appointed more European-like, in accommodation and prices. Those who remain any time in a large town bargain with the innkeeper, or go into a boarding-house, "_casa de pupilos_," or "_de huespedes_," where they have the best opportunity of learning the Spanish language, and of obtaining an idea of national manners and habits. This system is very common. The houses may be known externally by a white paper ticket attached to the _extremity_ of one of the windows or balconies. This position must be noted; for if the paper be placed in the _middle_ of the balcony, the signal means only that lodgings are here to be let. Their charges are very reasonable.

[Sidenote: CHANGES IN SPANISH INNS.]

Since the death of Ferdinand VII. marvellous improvements have taken place in some _fondas_. In the changes and chances of the mult.i.tudinous revolutions, all parties ruled in their rotation, and then either killed or banished their opponents. Thus royalists, liberals, patriots, moderates, &c., each in their turn, have been expatriated; and as the wheel of fortune and politics went round, many have returned to their beloved Spain from bitter exile in France and England. These travellers, in many cases, were sent abroad for the public good, since they were thus enabled to discover that some things were better managed on the other side of the water and Pyrenees. Then and there suspicion crossed their minds, although they seldom will admit it to a foreigner, that Spain was not altogether the richest, wisest, strongest, and first of nations, but that she might take a hint or two in a few trifles, among which perhaps the accommodations for man and beast might be included.

The ingress, again, of foreigners by the facilities offered to travellers by the increased novelties of steamers, mails, and diligences necessarily called for more waiters and inns. Every day, therefore, the fermentation occasioned by the foreign leaven is going on; and if the national _musto_, or grape-juice, be not over-drugged with French brandy, something decent in smell and taste may yet be produced.