Gatherings From Spain Part 9

[Sidenote: KILLING A PIG.]

The pigs during the greater part of the year are left to support nature as they can, and in gauntness resemble those greyhound-looking animals which pa.s.s for porkers in France. When the acorns are ripe and fall from the trees, the greedy animals are turned out in legions from the villages, which more correctly may be termed coalitions of pigsties.

They return from the woods at night, of their own accord, and without a swine's general. On entering the hamlet, all set off at a full gallop, like a legion possessed with devils, in a handicap for home, into which each single pig turns, never making a mistake. We have more than once been caught in one of these pig-deluges, and nearly carried away horse and all, as befell Don Quixote, when really swept away by the "far-spread and grunting drove." In his own home each truant is welcomed like a prodigal son or a domestic father. These pigs are the pets of the peasants; they are brought up with their children, and partake, as in Ireland, in the domestic discomforts of their cabins; they are universally respected, and justly, for it is this animal who pays the "rint;" in fact, are the citizens, as at Sorrento, and Estremenian man is quite a secondary formation, and created to tend herds of these swine, who lead the happy life of former Toledan dignitaries, with the additional advantage of becoming more valuable when dead.

It is astonishing how rapidly they thrive on their sweet food; indeed it is the whole duty of a good pig--animal propter convivia natum--to get as fat and as soon as he can, and then die for the good of his country.

It may be observed for the information of our farmers, that those pigs which are dedicated to St. Anthony, on whom a sow is in constant attendance, as a dove was on Venus, get the soonest fat; therefore in Spain young porkers are sprinkled with holy water on his day, but those of other saints are less propitious, for the killing takes place about the 10th and 11th of November, or, as Spaniards date it, _por el St.

Andres_, on the day of St. Andrew, or on that of St. Martin; hence the proverb "every man and pig has his St. Martin or his fatal hour, _a cada puerco su San Martin_."

The death of a fat pig is as great an event in Spanish families, who generally fatten up one, as the birth of a baby; nor can the fact be kept secret, so audible is his announcement. It is considered a delicate attention on the part of the proprietor to celebrate the auspicious event by sending a portion of the chitterlings to intimate friends. The Spaniard's proudest boast is that his blood is pure, that he is not descended from pork-eschewing Jew or Moor--a fact which the pig genus, could it reason, would deeply deplore. The Spaniard doubtless has been so great a consumer of pig, from grounds religious, as well as gastronomic. The eating or not eating the flesh of an animal deemed unclean by the impure infidel, became a test of orthodoxy, and at once of correct faith as well as of good taste; and good bacon, as has been just observed, is wedded to sound doctrine and St. Augustine. The Spanish name _Tocino_ is derived from the Arabic _Tachim_, which signifies fat.

[Sidenote: PORK OF MONTANCHES.]

The Spaniards however, although tremendous consumers of the pig, whether in the salted form or in the skin, have to the full the Oriental abhorrence to the unclean animal in the _abstract_. _Muy puerco_ is their last expression for all that is most dirty, nasty, or disgusting.

_Muy cochina_ never is forgiven, if applied to woman, as it is equivalent to the Italian _Vacca_, and to the canine feminine compliment bandied among our fair s.e.x at Billingsgate; nor does the epithet imply moral purity or chast.i.ty; indeed in Castilian euphuism the unclean animal was never to be named except in a periphrasis, or with an apology, which is a singular remnant of the Moorish influence on Spanish manners. _Haluf_ or swine is still the Moslem's most obnoxious term for the Christians, and is applied to this day by the ungrateful Algerines to their French bakers and benefactors, nay even to the "_ill.u.s.tre Bugeaud_."

The capital of the Estremenian pig-districts is _Montanches_--mons anguis--and doubtless the hilly spot where the Duke of Arcos fed and cured "ces pet.i.ts jambons vermeils," which the Duc de St. Simon ate and admired so much; "ces jambons ont un parfum si admirable, un gout si releve et si vivifiant, qu'on en est surpris: il est impossible de rien manger si exquis." His Grace of Arcos used to shut up the pigs in places abounding in vipers, on which they fattened. Neither the pigs, dukes, nor their toadeaters seem to have been poisoned by these exquisite vipers. According to Jonas Barrington, the finest Irish pigs were those that fed on dead rebels: one Papist porker, the Enniscorthy boar, was sent as a show, for having eaten a Protestant parson: he was put to death and dishonoured by not being made bacon of.

[Sidenote: A MEAT OMELETTE.]

Naturalists have remarked that the rattlesnakes in America retire before their consuming enemy, the pig, who is thus the _gastador_ or pioneer of the new world's civilization, just as Pizarro, who was suckled by a sow, and tended swine in his youth, was its conqueror. Be that as it may, Montanches is ill.u.s.trious in pork, in which the burgesses go the whole hog, whether in the rich red sausage, the _chorizo_, or in the savoury piquant _embuchados_, which are akin to the _mortadelle_ of Bologna, only less hard, and usually boiled before eating, though good also raw; they consist of the choice bits of the pig seasoned with condiments, with which, as if by retribution, the paunch of the voracious animal is filled; the ruling pa.s.sion strong in death. We strongly recommend _Juan Valiente_, who recently was the alcalde of the town, to the lover of delicious hams; each _jamon_ averages about 12 lb.; they are sold at the rate of 7 _reales_, about 18_d._; for the _libra carnicera_, which weighs 32 of our ounces. The duties in England are now very trifling; we have for many years had an annual supply of these delicacies, through the favour of a kind friend at the _Puerto_. The fat of these _jamones_, whence our word ham and gammon, when they are boiled, looks like melted topazes, and the flavour defies language, although we have dined on one this very day, in order to secure accuracy and undeniable prose, like Lope de Vega, who, according to his biographer, Dr. Montalvan, never could write poetry unless inspired by a rasher; "Toda es cosa vil," said he, "a donde falta un _pernil_" (in which word we recognize the precise _perna_, whereby Horace was restored):--

Therefore all writing is a sham, Where there is wanting Spanish ham.

Those of Gallicia and Catalonia are also celebrated, but are not to be compared for a moment with those of Montanches, which are fit to set before an emperor. Their only rivals are the sweet hams of the _Alpujarras_, which are made at _Trevelez_, a pig-hamlet situated under the snowy mountains on the opposite side of Granada, to which also we have made a pilgrimage. They are called _dulces_ or sweet, because scarcely any salt is used in the curing; the ham is placed in a weak pickle for eight days, and is then hung up in the snow; it can only be done at this place, where the exact temperature necessary is certain.

Those of our readers who are curious in Spanish eatables will find excellent garbanzos, chorizos, red pepper, chocolate and Valencian sweetmeats, &c. at Figul's, a most worthy Catalan, whose shop is at No.

10, Woburn Buildings, St. Paneras, London; the locality is scarcely less visited than Montanches, but the penny-post penetrates into this terra incognita.

[Sidenote: THE GUISADO.]

So much s.p.a.ce has been filled with these meritorious bacons and hams, that we must be brief with our remaining bill of fare. For a _pisto_ or meat omelette take eggs, which are to be got almost everywhere; see that they are fresh by being pellucid; beat these _huevos trasparentes_ well up; chop up onions and whatever savoury herbs you have with you; add small slices of any meat out of your hamper, cold turkey, ham, &c.; beat it all up together and fry it quickly. Most Spaniards have a peculiar knack in making these _tortillas_, _revueltas de huevos_, which to fastidious stomachs are, as in most parts of the Continent, a sure resource to fall back upon.

The _Guisado_, or stew, like the olla, can only be really done in a Spanish pipkin, and of those which we import, the Andalucian ones draw flavour out the best. This dish is always well done by every cook in every venta, barring that they are apt to put in bad oil, and too much garlic, pepper, and saffron. Superintend it, therefore, yourself, and take hare, partridge, rabbit, chicken, or whatever you may have foraged on the road; it is capital also with pheasant, as we proved only yesterday; cut it up, save the blood, the liver, and the giblets; do not wash the pieces, but dry them in a cloth; fry them with onions in a teacup of oil till browned; take an olla, put in these bits with the oil, equal portions of wine and water, but stock is better than water; claret answers well, Valdepenas better; add a bit of bacon, onions, garlic, salt, pepper, _pimientos_, a bunch of thyme or herbs; let it simmer, carefully skimming it; half an hour before serving add the giblets; when done, which can be tested by feeling with a fork, serve hot. The stew should be constantly stirred with a _wooden_ spoon, and grease, the ruin of all cookery, carefully skimmed off as it rises to the surface. When made with proper care and with a good salad, it forms a supper for a cardinal, or for Santiago himself.

[Sidenote: STARRED EGGS.]

Another excellent but very difficult dish is the _pollo con arroz_, or the chicken and rice. It is eaten in perfection in Valencia, and therefore is often called _Pollo Valenciano_. Cut a good fowl into pieces, wipe it clean, but do not put it into water; take a saucepan, put in a wine-gla.s.s of fine oil, heat the oil well, put in a bit of bread; let it fry, stirring it about with a _wooden_ spoon; when the bread is browned take it out and throw it away: put in two cloves of garlic, taking care that it does not burn, as, if it does, it will turn bitter; stir the garlic till it is fried; put in the chicken, keep stirring it about while it fries, then put in a little salt and stir again; whenever a sound of cracking is heard, stir it again; when the chicken is well browned or gilded, _dorado_, which will take from five to ten minutes, _stirring constantly_, put in chopped onions, three or four chopped red or green chilis, and stir about; if once the contents catch the pan, the dish is spoiled; then add tomatas, divided into quarters, and parsley; take two teacupsful of rice, mix all well up together; add _hot_ stock enough to cover the whole over; let it boil _once_, and then set it aside to simmer until the rice becomes tender and done. The great art consists in having the rice turned out granulated and separate, not in a pudding state, which is sure to be the case if a cover be ever put over the dish, which condenses the steam.

It may be objected, that these dishes, if so curious in the cooking, are not likely to be well done in the rude kitchens of a _venta_; but practice makes perfect, and the whole mind and intellect of the artist is concentrated on one object, and not frittered away by a multiplicity of dishes, the rock on which many cooks founder, where more dinners are sacrificed to the eye and ostentation. One dish and one thing at a time is the golden rule of Bacon; many are the anxious moments that we have spent over the rim of a Spanish pipkin, watching, life set on the cast, the wizen she-mummy, whose mind, body, and spoon were absorbed in a single mess: Well, my mother, _que tal_? what sort of a stew is it? Let me smell and taste the _salsa_. Good, good; it promises much. _Vamos, Senora_--go on, my lady, thy spoon once more--how, indeed, can oil, wine, and nutritive juices amalgamate without frequent stirring? Well, very well it is. Now again, daughter of my soul, thy fork. _Asi, asi_; thus, thus. _Per Bacco_, by Bacchus, tender it is--may heaven repay thee! Indeed, from this tenderness of the meat arises ease of digestion; here, pot and fire do half the work of the poor stomach, which too often in inns elsewhere is overtaxed, like its owner, and condemned to hard labour and a brickbat beefsteak.

[Sidenote: SALAD.]

Poached eggs are at all events within the grasp of the meanest culinary capacity. They are called _Huevos estrellados_, starred eggs. When fat bacon is wedded to them, the dish is called _Huevos con magras_; not that _magras_ here means thin as to condition, but rather as to slicing; and these slices, again, are positively thick ones when compared to those triumphs of close shaving which are carved at Vauxhall. To make this dish, with or without the bacon, take eggs; the contents of the sh.e.l.l are to be emptied into a pan filled with hot oil or lard, _manteca de puerco_, pig's b.u.t.ter: it must be remembered, although Strabo mentions as a singular fact that the Iberians made use of b.u.t.ter instead of oil, that now it is just the reverse; a century ago b.u.t.ter was only sold by the apothecaries, as a sort of ointment, and it used to be iniquitous. Spaniards generally used either Irish or Flemish salted b.u.t.ter, and from long habit thought fresh b.u.t.ter quite insipid; indeed, they have no objection to its being a trifle or so rancid, just as some aldermen like high venison. In the present age of progress the Queen Christina has a fancy dairy at Madrid, where she makes a few pounds of fresh b.u.t.ter, of which a small portion is or was sold, at five shillings the pound, to foreign amba.s.sadors for their breakfast. Recently more attention has been paid to the dairy in the Swiss-like provinces of the north-west. The Spaniards, like the heroes in the Iliad, seldom boil their food (eggs excepted), at least not in water; for frying, after all, is but boiling in oil.

Travellers should be cautioned against the captivating name of _manteca Valenciana_. This Valencian b.u.t.ter is composed (for the cow has nothing to do with it) of equal portions of garlic and hogs' lard pounded together in a mortar; it is then spread on bread, just as we do a.r.s.enic to destroy vermin. It, however, agrees well with the peasants, as does the soup of their neighbours the Catalans, which is made of bread and garlic in equal portions fried in oil and diluted with hot water. This mess is called _sopa de gato_, probably from making cats, not Catalans, sick.

[Sidenote: GAZPACHO.]

One thing, however, is truly delicious in Spain--the salad, to compound which, says the Spanish proverb, four persons are wanted: a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counsellor for salt, and a madman to stir it all up. N.B. Get the biggest bowl you can, in order that this latter operation may be thoroughly performed. The salad is the glory of every French dinner, and the disgrace of most in England, even in good houses, and from two simple causes; first, from the putting in eggs, mustard, and other heretical ingredients, and, secondly, from making it long before it is wanted to be eaten, whereby the green materials, which should be crisp and fresh, become sodden and leathery. Prepare, therefore, your salad in separate vessels, and never mix the sauce with the herbs until the instant that you are ready to transfer the refreshing result to your plate. Take lettuce, or whatever salad is to be got; do not cut it with a steel knife, which turns the edges of the wounds black, and communicates an evil flavour; let the leaf be torn from the stem, which throw away, as it is hard and bitter; wash the ma.s.s in many waters, and rinse it in napkins till dry; take a small bowl, put in equal quant.i.ties of vinegar and water, a teaspoonful of pepper and salt, and four times as much oil as vinegar and water, mix the same well together; prepare in a plate whatever fine herbs can be got, especially tarragon and chervil, which must be chopped small. Pour the sauce over the salad, powder it with these herbs, and lose no time in eating. For making a much worse salad than this, a foreign artiste in London used some years ago to charge a guinea.

[Sidenote: GAZPACHO.]

Any remarks on Spanish salads would be incomplete without some account of _gazpacho_, that vegetable soup, or floating salad, which during the summer forms the food of the bulk of the people in the torrid portions of Spain. This dish is of Arabic origin, as its name, "soaked bread,"

implies. This most ancient Oriental Roman and Moorish refection is composed of onions, garlic, cuc.u.mbers, chilis, all chopped up very small and mixed with crumbs of bread, and then put into a bowl of oil, vinegar, and fresh water. Reapers and agricultural labourers could never stand the sun's fire without this cooling acetous diet. This was the ?????at?? of the Greeks, the _posca_, potable food, meat and drink, _potus et esca_, which formed part of the rations of the Roman soldiers, and which Adrian (a Spaniard) delighted to share with them, and into which Boaz at meal-time invited Ruth to dip her morsel. Dr.

Buchanan found some Syrian Christians who still called it _ail_, _ail_, _Hil_, _Hila_, for which our Saviour was supposed to have called on the Cross, when those who understood that dialect gave it him from the vessel which was full of it for the guard. In Andalucia, during the summer, a bowl of gazpacho is commonly ready in every house of an evening, and is partaken of by every person who comes in. It is not easily digested by strangers, who do not require it quite so much as the natives, whose souls are more parched and dried up, and who perspire less. The components, oil, vinegar, and bread, are all that is given out to the lower cla.s.s of labourers by farmers who profess to feed them; two cow's horns, the most primitive form of bottle and cup, are constantly seen suspended on each side of their carts, and contain this provision, with which they compound their _migas_: this consists of crumbs of bread fried in oil, with pepper and garlic; nor can a stronger proof be given of the common poverty of their fare than the common expression, "_buenas migas hay_," there are _good crumbs_, being equivalent to capital eating. In very cold weather the mess is warmed, and then is called _gazpacho caliente_. Oh! dura messorum ilia--oh! the iron mess digesting stomachs of ploughmen.

[Sidenote: WATER.]

CHAPTER XII.

Drinks of Spain--Water--Irrigation--Fountains--Spanish Thirstiness--The Alcarraza--Water Carriers--Ablutions--Spanish Chocolate--Agraz--Beer Lemonade.

In dipping into Spanish liquids we shall not mix wine with water, but keep them separate, as most Spaniards do; the latter is ent.i.tled to rank first, by those who prefer the opinion of Pindar, who held water to be the best of things, to that of Anacreon, who was not member of any temperance society. The profound regard for water of a Spaniard is quite Oriental; at the same time, as his blood is partly Gothic and partly Arab, his allegiance is equally mixed and divided; thus, if he adores the juice of flints like a Moslem, he venerates the juice of the grape like a German.

Water is the blood of the earth, and the purificator of the body in tropical regions and in creeds which, being regulated by lat.i.tudes, enforce frequent ablution; loud are the praises of Arab writers of wells and water-brooks, and great is their fountain and pool worship, the dipping in which, if their miraculous cases are to be credited, effects more and greater cures than those worked by hydropathists at Grafenberg; a Spaniard's idea of a paradise on earth, of a "garden," is a well-watered district; irrigation is fertility and wealth, and therefore, as in the East, wells, brooks, and water-courses have been a constant source of bickering; nay the very word _rivality_ has been derived from these quarrel and law-suit engendering rivers, as the name given to the well for which the men of Gerah and Isaac differed, was called _esek_ from the contention.

[Sidenote: FOUNTAINS.]

The flow of waters cannot be mistaken; the most dreary sterility edges the most luxuriant plenty, the most hopeless barrenness borders on the richest vegetation; the line of demarcation is perceived from afar, dividing the tawny desert from the verdurous garden. The Moors who came from the East were fully sensible of the value of this element; they collected the best springs with the greatest care, they dammed up narrow gorges into reservoirs, they constructed pools and underground cisterns, stemmed valleys with aqueducts that poured in rivers, and in a word exercised a magic influence over this element, which they guided and wielded at their will; their system of irrigation was far too perfect to be improved by Spaniard, or even destroyed. In those favoured districts where their artificial contrivances remain, Flora still smiles and Ceres rejoices with Pomona; wherever the ravages of war or the neglect of man have ruined them, the garden has relapsed into the desert, and plains once overflowing with corn, gladness, and population, have shrunk into sad and silent deserts.

[Sidenote: THIRST.]

The fountains of Spain, especially in the hotter and more Moorish districts, are numerous; they cannot fail to strike and please the stranger, whether they be situated in the public walk, garden, market-place, or private dwelling. Their mode of supply is simple: a river which flows down from the hills is diverted at a certain height from its source, and is carried in an artificial ca.n.a.l, which retains the original elevation, into a reservoir placed above the town which is to be served; as the waters rise to their level, the force, body, and alt.i.tude of some of the columns thrown up are very great. In our cold country, where, except at Charing Cross, the stream is conveyed underground and unseen, all this gush of waters, of dropping diamonds in the bright sun, which cools the air and gladdens the sight and ear, is unknown. Again there is a waste of the "article," which would shock a Chelsea Waterworks Director, and induce the rate-collector to refer to the fines as per Act of Parliament. The fondest wish of those Spaniards who wear long-tailed coats, is to imitate those gentry; they are ashamed of the patriarchal uncivilised system of their ancestors--much prefer the economical lead pipe to all this extravagant and gratuitous splashing--they love a turnc.o.c.k better than the most Oriental Rebecca who comes down to draw water. The fountains in Spain as in the East are the meeting and greeting places of womankind; here they flock, old and young, infants and grandmothers. It is a sight to drive a water-colour painter crazy, such is the colour, costume, and groupings, such is the clatter of tongues and crockery; such is the life and action; now trip along a bevy of damsel Hebes with upright forms and chamois step light yet true; more graceful than opera-dancers, they come laughing and carolling along, poising on their heads pitchers modelled after the antique, and after everything which a Sevres jug is not. It would seem that to draw water is a difficult operation, so long are they lingering near the sweet fountain's rim. It indeed is their al fresco rout, their tertulia; here for awhile the hand of woman labour ceases, and the urn stands still; here more than even after church ma.s.s, do the young discuss their dress and lovers, the middle-aged and mothers descant on babies and housekeeping; all talk, and generally at once; but gossip refresheth the daughters of Eve, whether in gilded boudoir or near mossy fountain, whose water, if a dash of scandal be added, becomes sweeter than eau sucree.

The Iberians were decided water-drinkers, and this trait of their manners, which are modified by climate that changes not, still exists as the sun that regulates: the vinous Greek Athenaeus was amazed that even rich Spaniards should prefer water to wine; and to this day they are if possible curious about the latter's quality; they will just drink the wine that grows the nearest, while they look about and enquire for the best water; thus even our cook Francisco, who certainly had one of the best places in Seville, and who although a good artiste was a better rascal--qualities not incompatible--preferred to sacrifice his interests rather than go to Granada, because this man of the fire had heard that the water there was bad.

[Sidenote: INTENSE HEAT.]

The mother of the Arabs was tormented with thirst, which her Hispano-Moro children have inherited; in fact in the dog-days, of which here there are packs, unless the mortal clay be frequently wetted it would crumble to bits like that of a figure modeller. Fire and water are the elements of Spain, whether at an _auto de fe_ or in a church-stoop; with a cigar in his mouth a Spaniard smokes like Vesuvius, and is as dry, combustible, and inflammatory; and properly to understand the truth of Solomon's remark, that cold water is to a thirsty soul as refreshing as good news, one must have experienced what thirst is in the exposed plains of the calcined Castiles, where _coup de soleil_ is rife, and a gentleman on horseback's brains seem to be melting like Don Quixote's when Sancho put the curds into his helmet. It is just the country to send a patient to, who is troubled with hydrophobia. "Those rayes," to use the words of old Howell, "that do but warm you in England, do roast you here; those beams that irradiate onely, and gild your honey-suckled fields, do here scorch and parch the c.h.i.n.ky gaping soyle, and put too many wrinkles upon the face of your common mother."

Then, when the heavens and earth are on fire, and the sun drinks up rivers at one draught, when one burnt sienna tone pervades the tawny ground, and the green herb is shrivelled up into black gunpowder, and the rare pale ashy olive-trees are blanched into the livery of the desert; then, when the heat and harshness make even the salamander muleteers swear doubly as they toil along like demons in an ignited salitrose dust--then, indeed, will an Englishman discover that he is made of the same material, only drier, and learn to estimate water; but a good thirst is too serious an evil, too bordering on suffering, to be made, like an appet.i.te, a matter of congratulation; for when all fluids evaporate, and the blood thickens into currant jelly, and the nerves tighten up into the catgut of an overstrung fiddle, getting attuned to the porcupinal irritability of the tension of the mind, how the parched soul sighs for the comfort of a Scotch mist, and fondly turns back to the uvula-relaxing damps of Devon!--then, in the blackhole-like thirst of the wilderness, every mummy hag rushing from a reed hut, with a porous cup of brackish water, is changed by the mirage into a Hebe, bearing the nectar of the immortals; then how one longs for the most wretched _Venta_, which heat and thirst convert into the Clarendon, since in it at least will be found water and shade, and an escape from the G.o.d of fire! Well may Spanish historians boast, that his...o...b..at the creation first shone over Toledo, and never since has set on the dominions of the great king, who, as we are a.s.sured by Senor Berni, "has the sun for his hat,"--_tiene al sol por su sombrero_; but humbler mortals who are not grandees of this solar system, and to whom a _coup de soleil_ is neither a joke nor a metaphor, should stow away non-conductors of heat in the crown of their beavers. Thus Apollo himself preserved us. And oh! ye our fair readers, who chance to run such risks, and value complexion, take for heaven's sake a parasol and an _Alcarraza_.

[Sidenote: SPANISH WATER-SELLERS.]

This clay utensil--as its Arabic name _al Karaset_ implies--is a porous refrigeratory vessel, in which water when placed in a current of hot air becomes chilled by evaporation; it is to be seen hung up on poles dangling from branches, suspended to waggons--in short, is part and parcel of a Spanish scene in hot weather and localities; every _posada_ has rows of them at the entrance, and the first thing every one does on entering, before wishing even the hostess Good morning, or asking permission, is to take a full draught: all cla.s.ses are learned on the subject, and although on the whole they cannot be accused of teetotalism, they are loud in their praises of the pure fluid. The common form of praise is _agua muy rica_--very rich water. According to their proverbs, good water should have neither taste, smell, nor colour, "_ni sabor, olor, ni color_," which neither makes men sick nor in debt, nor women widows, "_que no enferma, no adeuda, no enviuda_;" and besides being cheaper than wine, beer, or brandy, it does not brutalize the consumer, nor deprive him of his common sense or good manners.

[Sidenote: WANT OF CLEANLINESS.]

As Spaniards at all times are as dry as the desert or a sponge, selling water is a very active business; on every alameda and prado shrill voices of the sellers of drinks and mouth combustibles--_vendedores de combustibles de boca_--are heard crying, "Fire, fire, _candela_--Water; who wants water?"--_agua; quien quiere agua?_ which, as these Orientals generally exaggerate, is described as _mas fresca que la nieve_, or colder than snow; and near them little Murillo-like urchins run about with lighted ropes like artillerymen for the convenience of smokers, that is, for every ninety and nine males out of a hundred; while water-carriers, or rather retail pedestrian aqueducts, follow thirst like fire-engines; the _Aguador_ carries on his back, like his colleague in the East, a porous water-jar, with a little c.o.c.k by which it is drawn out; he is usually provided with a small tin box strapped to his waist, and in which he stows away his gla.s.ses, brushes, and some light _azucarillos_--_pa.n.a.les_, which are made of sugar and white of egg, which Spaniards dip and dissolve in their drink. In the town, at particular stations water-mongers in wholesale have a shed, with ranges of jars, gla.s.ses, oranges, lemons, &c., and a bench or two on which the drinkers "untire themselves." In winter these are provided with an _anafe_ or portable stove, which keeps a supply of hot water, to take the chill off the cold, for Spaniards, from a sort of dropsical habit, drink like fishes all the year round. Ferdinand the Catholic, on seeing a peasant drowned in a river, observed, "that he had never before seen a Spaniard who had had enough water."

At the same time it must be remembered that this fluid is applied with greater prodigality in washing their inside than their outside. Indeed, a cla.s.sical author remarks that the Spaniards only learnt the use of _hot_ water, as applicable to the toilette, from the Romans after the second Punic war. Their baths and _thermae_ were destroyed by the Goths, because they tended to encourage effeminacy; and those of the Moors were prohibited by the Gotho-Spaniards partly from similar reasons, but more from a religious hydrophobia. Ablutions and l.u.s.tral purifications formed an article of faith with the Jew and Moslem, with whom "cleanliness is G.o.dliness." The mendicant Spanish monks, according to their practice of setting up a directly antagonist principle, considered physical dirt as the test of moral purity and true faith; and by dining and sleeping from year's end to year's end in the same unchanged woollen frock, arrived at the height of their ambition, according to their view of the odour of sanct.i.ty, insomuch that Ximenez, who was himself a shirtless Franciscan, induced Ferdinand and Isabella, at the conquest of Granada, to close and abolish the Moorish baths. They forbade not only the Christians but the Moors from using anything but holy water. Fire, not water, became the grand element of inquisitorial purification.

[Sidenote: CHOCOLATE.]

The fair s.e.x was warned by monks, who practised what they preached, that they should remember the cases of Susanna, Bathsheba, and La Cava,--whose fatal bathing under the royal palace at Toledo led to the downfall of the Gothic monarchy. Their aqueous anathemas extended not only to public, but to minutely private washings, regarding which Sanchez instructs the Spanish confessor to question his fair penitents, and not to absolve the over-washed. Many instances could be produced of the practical working of this enjoined rule; for instance, Isabella, the favourite daughter of Philip II., his eye, as he called her, made a solemn vow never to change her shift until Ostend was taken. The siege lasted three years, three months, and thirteen days. The royal garment acquired a tawny colour, which was called _Isabel_ by the courtiers, in compliment to the pious princess. Again, Southey relates that the devout Saint Eufraxia entered into a convent of 130 nuns, not one of whom had ever washed her feet, and the very mention of a bath was an abomination.