Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William & Mary Howitt) vol.1 #4 (23 Jan 1847).
Gatherings from Spain. Part I. Murray's Home and Colonial Library. No. 39.
This is quite a delightful book; a worthy companion to the best of Mr. Murray's excellent and cheap publications. It may be enjoyed in two or three different ways; but first and foremost, as an amusing description of a most interesting country, for the edification of a class, which even in these locomotive days is still numerous, namely, the fireside travellers; and of many besides, who have some pretensions to the dignity of actual travellers; for Spain is a country little known beyond its coasts—and no wonder—a look into the chapter on travelling with post-horses, on diligences, etc. will be quite sufficient to explain why a gentleman used to his easy carriage, on the last improved patent springs, or Englishmen in general, accustomed to fly along their railroads, rather shrink from encountering a tour in the Peninsula. Spain was in advance of most European countries as to roads, fifty years ago, but all that time she has stood still, or gone back, from the devastations of war, and is therefore now far behind; and anything like a cross-road, or deviation from the beaten royal roads from Madrid to the frontiers or sea-port towns is nearly impracticable for wheel-carriages, unless the tourist is desirous to prove the strength of his joints. The following extract suggests a very severe test:—
"The Spanish postillions generally, and especially if well paid, drive at a tremendous pace, often amounting to a gallop; nor are they easily stopped, even if the traveller desires it—they seem only to be intent on arriving at their stage's end, in order to indulge in the great national joy of their doing nothing: to get there they heed neither ruts nor ravines, and when once their cattle are started, the inside passenger feels like a kettle lied lo the tail of a mad dog."—P. 54.
As to the diligences, what should any of us think as we took our seats, to see the conductor or guard, "zagal," as he is called, who runs by the side usually in Spain, in a picturesque, jaunty costume, collect a supply of stones to hurl at the leaders' heads, as one means of "getting on;" oaths being the next in efficiency?—
"The start is always an important ceremony, and as our royal mail used to do in the country, brings out all the idlers in the vicinity. When the team (six animals, mules and horses,) is harnessed, the mayoral (coachman) gets all his skeins of ropes into his hand, the zagal his sash full of stones, the helpers their sticks; at a given signal all fire a volley of oaths and blows at the team, which, once in motion, away it goes, pitching over ruts deep as routine prejudices, with its pole dipping and rising like a ship in a rolling sea, and continues at a brisk pace, performing from twenty-five to thirty miles a day."—P. 63.
For all these reasons travelling on horseback is recommended as the best by far for any one who really wants to see Spain in its infinite variety; for its variety is so great, that it presents the aspects of many countries and many climates in one. The central table-land, as it may be called, is of a great elevation, and from it rise mountains crowned with snow. Madrid is 2,000 feet above the level of the sea. Between the arid plains of this central district, abounding in the finest corn, and the regions washed by the Mediterranean sea, basking in a tropical sun, and bearing in luxuriance the fig, the orange, the pomegranate, the aloe and the carob-tree, how great is the transition! and there is, besides, the sea-coast on the east, where the summer is intensely hot and the winter very cold, and the northern mountainous and humid region, furnishing the finest timber of Spain; a country of hill and dale, rich meadows, and numerous streams, and in the valleys an improving dairy produce. As to railroads for a country like this, our author thinks them hopeless speculations, except for very short distances. He argues not only from the difficult nature of the country, but the character of the people:—
"The Spaniard," he says, "a creature of routine, and foe to innovations, is not a moveable, or locomotive; local and a parochial fixture by nature, he hates moving like a Turk, and has a particular horror of being hurried ; long, therefore, here has an ambling mule answered all the purposes of transporting man and his goods."—P. 48.
This looks very hopeless; quite as damping to recent notions of creating "a net-work of rails" in Spain, as the mountains and rocks; but we do not give up the hope yet that though "man" may continue to amble forth on his mule, a day will come when some of his "goods," in the form of the produce of those vast plains, waving with golden corn, may be transported to the coast and shipped on board our merchantmen by means of steam.
"The central table-lands of Spain are perhaps the finest wheat growing districts in the world; however rude and imperfect the cultivation—for the peasant does but scratch the earth, and seldom manures—the life-conferring sun comes to his assistance; the returns are prodigious, and the quality superexcellent; yet the growers, miserable in the midst of plenty, vegetate in cabins composed of baked mud, or in holes burrowed among the friable hillocks, in an utter ignorance of furniture, and absolute necessaries. The want of roads, canals, and means of transport, prevents their exportation of produce, which from its bulk is difficult of carriage in a country where grain is removed for the most part on four-footed beasts of burden, after the oriental and patriarchal fashion of Jacob, when he sent to the granaries of Egypt."
An indolent and vicious government, and the ravages of war, have thus done for Spain, what a continuance of our restrictive policy would have done for us. Spain has no corn-laws, but her roads have been suffered to fall into decay, her resources to be wasted, and the effect is the same.
The description of the peasantry instantly suggests the Irish to our minds; and were there space, the parallel could be carried through many other views of them. In accounting for the desolation of Spain, however, there would be no risk of falling into the Malthusian doctrine. The cry of "over population" will not explain everything there. Spain was once a kind of terrestrial paradise, rich, and covered with beauty and abundance, and then it was thickly peopled. Now wide tracts, once cultivated like gardens, have returned to a state of nature, and bear harvests of fragrant thyme for the wild bee. Man has disappeared from them. Certain disciples of the over-population theory would do well to think of these things.
"Silent, sad, and lonely is her face," says the author, describing the general aspect of the country, "on which the stranger will too often gaze; her hedgeless, treeless tracts of corn field, bounded only by the low horizon; her uninhabited uncultivated plains, abandoned to the wild flower and the bee, and which are rendered still more melancholy by ruined castle or village, which stand out like bleaching skeletons of a former vitality. The dreariness of this abomination of desolation is increased by the singular absence of singing birds, and the presence of the vulture, the eagle, and lonely birds of prey."
Such are the descriptions of a rich and luxuriant country, with a fine native population ruined by the dormancy or misdirection of its national energies, the continual ravages of revolutions and of wars, and by a government which combines in itself all these elements of disorder and inertia.
Poems and Snatches of Prose. By T. Denham. London: Smith and Elder.
We have gone through this book with great interest, and with a sad and sympathizing heart. We will let the writer speak for himself, for he can do it well:—
"On the night of the twenty-ninth of October, 1844, and after a day's vexation (with such I am well acquainted), we—that is, my wife, myself, and children—were in bed. They slept, I could not, but lay revolving many painful things in my mind, wondering would I ever get a blink of hale-hearted happiness. I had often thought of Professor Wilson; had even written two letters to him, which were given in despair to the flames—for I am a man of no education, never being farther than the Testament when at school. I am, even now, at the writing; have bought 'Chambers' Arithmetic,' but my mind is too unsettled to make progress, and can but find delight in the attempt at verse-making, which I write with almost the facility of prose. Well, I wondered if I might show him some of my pieces—wondered if he would read them, or laugh at them; wondered again if it might be possible he would think them decent; and if I might print a volume; get as much profit as would clear my debts, and enable me to taste, for the first time in seven years, an easy mind."
The poems which he wrote the professor not only condescended to read, but to praise; and the little volume before us is the result of those words of praise and encouragement. Whether it will enable him to pay his debts, or, as is too often the case, sink him only deeper, is a question which we fear may find a doubtful answer. The poems abound with a manly spirit, evince great power of language and feeling, and reveal, at the same time, that sad and bitter experience of life which too often makes the existence of the superior-minded artizan a burden and a sorrow. This stanza has great truth and significance in it:—
"They speak o' slaves in ither states,
And muckle gear they gie them;
But O! there's some within our gates:
We're oure familiar wi' them.
Wha, think ye, is the greatest slave?
It's no the man o' jet, sirs;
It's him amang the free and brave—
The honest man in debt, sirs."