Jan took his place in the ticket queue while I, assisted by a friendly porter, looked for seats in a third-class carriage. The carriages were full enough despite the fact that we were in good time. Large numbers of children seemed to be travelling, and many of the passengers were stretched out on the wooden seats, taking a snooze before the train should start. The divisions between the compartments were only breast high, and already animated conversations had begun between the passengers who, from different compartments, shouted remarks to each other. In our compartment were a sandalled peasant stretched at full length, a bearded man with a huge brass plate on his breast and a shot-gun, evidently a gamekeeper, and a smart young man with patent leather boots and a straw hat. The last was reading a hook. On the platform we noted an important priest striding about, his black soutane covered with a silk dust-coat, and an old woman with a posy of bright flowers about twice as big as her head. The train was the centre of an excited crowd, the carriage full almost to bursting-point. As the time for departure came near most of those we had imagined to be our fellow passengers got slowly down on to the platform; all the children disappeared. They had merely been taking advantage of the train's presence in the station to take a rest.
The three strokes on the bell, which denote the starting of the train, had sounded when our carriage door was flung open and a panting bundle of humanity was thrust upwards and amongst us. As the train moved out, it resolved itself into a small woman, very loquacious, carrying in her arms three babies. Talking very excitedly, she laid her brood out on a wooden seat. The woman was-black-haired and her jet eyes sparkled with excitement.
"They are bandits," she exclaimed. "Yes, bandits they are, rushing about like that. I was with my children in Uncle Pepe's donkey-cart. Then they come along. Of course the bullocks in the stone waggon in front wouldn't move quick enough, and so they come tearing across the road, flip us under the axle, and over we all go into the dust. Uncle Pepe strained his wrist and the shaft is broken. And that's the way they treat us just after my poor husband has died of smallpox. It's lucky that nobody was killed and that I didn't lose the train. Murderers, that's what they are."
We noted that she and her babies were covered with dust, and that she was dressed all in black even to her alpagatas. While she had been talking so volubly she had been unpacking a basket which, with the bundles, had been thrust in after her. She got out a bottle of water and a piece of rag. With a moistened rag she tried to wash the babies, but made rather a smeary mess of it. The occupants of the other compartments were leaning over sympathizing with her mishap. But, as she had omitted the cause of the mishap, somebody questioned her.
"Why, motors, of course," she snapped. "It's murderous the way they go rushing about. Not caring for any one, and not waiting to see what damage they have done."
As most of the carriage occupants seemed to be peasantry, they agreed with her. Somebody went on:
"And are those all you have?"
The young woman drew herself up with pride. "No," she answered, "I've got four, and all men too."
The train was rolling with a determined manner down the Murcian valley. On one side the bills drew closer, on the other they were receding. We noted that all the carriage doors were left swinging wide open to admit as much air as possible. Presently there was a noise outside and the ticket-collector scrambled into the carriage. He examined all the tickets in our coach, and swung himself again out on to the footboard, making his way slowly forward. Some of the passengers, too, who had friends in other carriages made visits en route, scrambling along the moving train. And the carriage doors had notices on them saying: "It is dangerous to put the head out of the window."
After an hour or more of sedate travel, we came to Orihuela, which boasts a huge monastery on the hill and a broad zigzag road which looked like an engineering feat. The station was like a flower shop. Vendors were running up and down the train thrusting elaborate bouquets into the windows. Some women dressed in royal blue satin came into our carriage, they stuffed unfortunate live poultry and rabbits, with feet tied up, under the seat and covered the wooden bench of the compartment with magnificent flowers. During the rest of the journey, the monotonous flip, click of their fans as they were opened and shut punctuated the conversation.
We passed through the famous date palm groves of Elche and at last came in sight of the sea at Alicante, which was our terminus. The journey of about forty-five miles had taken us nearly four hours, and we were almost an hour and a half late. Time-tables are more or less ornamental in Spain.
Outside the station at Alicante there was a horde of omnibuses surrounded by a fringe of touts. They were conducting their chaffering for passengers with a reasonable quietness, until they espied us. But perceiving that we were English and, therefore, fair prey, pandemonium broke out. Gradually the omnibuses filled and the babel, for babel it was, consisting of Spanish, Valenciano, bad French and worse English, died down. Two omnibus touts, however, persisted, and at last, in order to prevent battle between them, we chose our man for his looks. He promised to take us to the fonda from which started the motor service to Jijona.
We had been warned by our English friend that it was often difficult to get seats on the motor, because the conveyance started from Jijona and many of the passengers booked return tickets. The omnibus tout added to this that there was a fiesta at Jijona, and that many people were going there. However, he said:
"If there are no seats in the motor, we will surely get them on the lorry, which will do just as well and is cheaper."
The omnibus was full with an unsmiling family, but we were crushed in. We were dragged along beneath a magnificent avenue of date palm trees which bordered the deep blue expanse of the Mediterranean, and then into streets of modern and of bad architecture. The family got out and paid the driver. Jan strained his eyes to see how much was the price, for we had foolishly made no bargain with the driver. As far as he could see most was paid in coppers. We then passed up into narrow and steep streets and halted before a wide door. The tout got down, but returned almost immediately, saying that the motor was full for two days.
"The motor-lorry is better," he said.
With some difficulty the bus was turned round in the narrow street and we went downhill again, coming at length to the entrance of another fonda. We passed through its broad entrance and at a small office window interviewed an old man who said that there was room in the lorry but that he did not know when it was going. So we deposited our luggage in the wide entrance, amongst packing-cases, sacks of flour, mattresses and japanned boxes. We then asked the price of the bus from the tout.
"Seven pesetas," he said.
The whole drive had not taken twenty minutes, and Jan was sure that the other family of four had not paid more than two pesetas for the lot. After some argument and much blasphemy from the driver, we paid five pesetas, and the bus drove off vomiting curses at us from both driver and tout. (On the return journey from Jijona we happened on the same bus, but we made our bargain beforehand. The same trip then cost us two pesetas, and was accomplished with smiles instead of curses, and both driver and tout clapped us on the shoulder and wished us: "Vaya con dios.")
This fonda was a typical peasant inn. The entrance door which pierced through a block of buildings was big enough to admit a full-sized traction engine, had there been such a thing in Alicante. This wide passage led into a big courtyard open to the skies. On each side of the courtyard a staircase led to balconies from which opened the doors of the bedrooms, below were the dark stables, and the courtyard itself was filled with the large two-wheeled tilted carts which, dragged by from two to eight draught animals, keep up communications in Spain wherever the railway does not penetrate. To the right of the entrance was the fonda restaurant, and also a huge kitchen with several cooking fires at which the traveller, if he wished, could cook his own meals, and a long dining-table at which he could eat them. We went into the restaurant, for we were hungry. To our table came an old couple. They were at once friendly and told us that they had come from Africa. They were Spanish but had lived more than thirty years in North Africa, and though the old man could neither read nor write he could speak several African dialects quite well. They were making a pleasure tour of the south of Spain for a short holiday. They told us that the fonda was quite clean, and that we could take a room in it without fear. They added that though Murcia was but "a dirty village" the fonda there had been clean also, but that at Guadix they had been eaten alive.
Our dinner finished, we sat ourselves down on a bench in the entrada and looked about us.
To one side of the entrance was a small stall which sold iced drinks. Men and women were sitting in after-lunch ease amid the boxes and sacks which lined the opposite wall, on low chairs, or on the bench with us. A dog, shaved all over its body, partly because of the heat, partly to keep off the fleas with which all Spanish animals are infested, was asleep on our mattress. The proprietor of the fonda was standing in a lordly manner in the middle of the floor. He was dressed in white shirt and flannel trousers, and must have weighed almost sixteen stone, although quite young. He looked as if he had been inflated with air.
We had noticed, though we have not before mentioned, a curious illness which seems prevalent in Spain. In Murcia were large numbers of monstrous children; boys and girls had reached enormous proportions before the age of ten years old. We came to the conclusion that it was a form of illness, because, though the children seemed healthy enough, we have never seen this development of monstrosity elsewhere, nor did large numbers of them appear to survive adolescence, though there were a certain number of excessively fat girls. The proprietor was such a monstrosity grown up. His wife, a dark-eyed beauty, was sitting in a rocking-chair near the kitchen door and her baby of about three years old, standing in its mother's lap, was having a great lark, pretending to catch lice in its mother's head. Thus do our ideas of innocent sports for children differ from those of other nations.
There was some coming and going amongst the fonda visitors. The guests seemed to be all peasants, the men in blouses, the women in pale skirts, black blouses and shawls of paisley pattern over the shoulders. Many had bundles of towels and of bathing dresses. One group we heard saying that they had come down to Alicante for a week's sea bathing.
As the afternoon drew on and the lorry delayed, we again interviewed the old man, who answered that probably it would not come that day. Accordingly, we spoke to the proprietor, who rather roughly said that we could have a room for two pesetas a night. The room was small, and the bed only just big enough for two. There were two doors, one leading into the interior of the inn, one out on to a balcony. The latter was half of glass and had no lock, and as there was plenty of traffic along the balcony, which was used for drying linen, underclothes and bathing dresses, one only had a chance of privacy by closing the shutters, leaving oneself in the dark, and no chance of sleeping with the window open despite the heat. But Spain does not believe in open windows or doors at night; it has "a robber complex."
We put our small luggage into the bedroom, leaving the large trunk and the roll of mattress in the entrada. We then went out to explore the town and to find a young painter to whom we carried an introduction from Luis. Emilio, for such was his name, was one of the lucky ones of this world. His parents kept a wine-shop which relieved him of a pressing need of earning a living. He could thus study at his ease. Our investigations took us through a shop full of large barrels, up some narrow stairs and on to a landing where two girls were working at pillow lace. Emilio received us with a brusque cordiality, showed us some of his work, which had talent, came back to the inn with us, where he arranged for our transport by the lorry whenever it should arrive, and said that he would also find a carter to take our heavier luggage out on a road waggon. This readiness to help a stranger, often at considerable personal effort, we found characteristic of the parts of Spain which we have visited.
Emilio, having an engagement, left us, and we strolled through the town. To the east lies the older part of the Port clambering up the rugged side of the steep rock, at the top of which lies the castle. The fishing village, at the extreme end of Alicante, is beautiful with its small primitive cubic houses painted in garish patterns. Through steeply sloping streets we came to the beach. Here were Mediterranean fishing boats drawn up in ranks; then, as we returned towards the harbour, more open beach covered with people in gay dresses and children playing on the sands. Then came the bathing establishments built out on piles over the tideless sea. The bathing establishments increased in luxury towards the town and were, for the most part, fantastic wooden erections of Moorish design. We came back to the broad double avenue of palm trees which faced the more luxurious hotels and cafés.
Night came softly on, and one by one amongst the palms the lights of the town threw beams over the chattering people who strolled in ever-thickening processions to and fro beneath the palm trees; mingled with the conversation was the incessant click, click of the fans of the girls and women. We went back to the fonda for supper and afterwards returned to the sea front. The cafés had spread tables beneath the palms, and we sat down enjoying our "Blanco y negro," an iced drink composed half of white cream ice flavoured with vanilla, and half of iced coffee.
Bands of musical beggars assailed us. Most of the mendicants were blind. One group, a veritable orchestra, travelled from café to café clinging to the edges of a bass viol which the one seeing member, the money collector, dragged the way it should go, by the peg-head. There was an old guitarist who played and made queer noises through a small gazoo. Another orchestra of three, guitar, laud and bandurria, the latter instrument a small cousin of the laud, and in this case played beautifully by a blind boy of about nineteen years. There were other beggars too, but the devil of cheap European music had entered into them all. Not one played their own native Spanish music. I suppose nobody would pay to hear it played.
At the end of the palm avenue an artist had set up an easel on a raised dais. His work was illuminated by a strong acetylene gas lamp. The canvas was painted bright sparrow's egg blue and surrounded by a frame of staring gilt.
On the blue canvas he was painting an imaginary landscape, the blue serving as sky and for the waters of a still lake. A drab woman was threading her way to and fro through the crowd which surrounded him, crying out: "The numbers, the numbers. Who would like to win a magnificent picture, framed complete for ten chances a penny?"
Another crowd surrounded a buck nigger who, displaying his magnificent and gleaming teeth, was crying out the virtues of his dentifrice.
A third crowd listened to a quack doctor who, backed by a large picture depicting the jungle, was selling a specific called "African Tonic." The tonic, he said, was derived from essences extracted at enormous expense from the tiger, the elephant, the monkey, and from I know not what else. From time to time he rested his voice by turning on a squeaky gramophone.
Tired from our journey we went to bed betimes.
We got up early. In the waggons, which were lined up in the big courtyard, the families which had slept in them were making their toilet. In the entrada, the old man of the inn, aided by the stable boy, was packing away the hammock beds slung from trestles, on which slept those travellers who, having no waggon, did not wish to pay the expense of a bedroom.
We had noted small café stalls near to the market, so, in order to see some more of Alicante life, we took our breakfast there rather than in the fonda. The café stalls were wooden box-like kiosks, and they spread wicker chairs and tables over the open street, and soldiers and workmen were sitting sipping their morning refreshment. Beneath the shelter of the kiosk a lad was making the day's supply of ice cream. The cream is frozen by the amount of heat absorbed from it by the freezing mixture. One might also say that the amount of refreshment to be derived from ice cream seems proportionate to the amount of energy absorbed from the lad who manufactures it: it appeared a fatiguing business. Crowds of people on the way to market passed us, and to where we sat came the cries of the market salesmen. We were not stared at here as we had been in Murcia. Strangers were evidently more common.
A small boy stationed himself near our table gazing longingly at a breakfast roll. To all intents and purposes he hypnotized it from the table into his hand. He broke into unexpected French. His father, like so many Spaniards, had been working at Lyons during the war. He deplored the fact that he had no education, but said that he was trying to learn some English from the sailors who came to Alicante. He had begun with the swear words, of which already he had a fair collection. He said that his father was a bootmaker, out of work, and asked if we had any boots to mend. He wheedled also some cigarettes and a few coppers from us.
Emilio, who had sent off our heavy luggage on the previous night as he had promised, met us, and together we went to a café on the front, where we wrote a letter to Antonio saying that we had left our passports behind by accident. In spite of this oversight we had decided to push on to Jijona and to trust to luck.
After lunch we again sat down in the fonda wondering if the motor-lorry would come. Many peasants also were there. Motor omnibuses drove in, but these were destined for other parts. Opposite the bus office was a gambling machine, into which one pushed a penny and if one were lucky received back twopence, fourpence, sixpence or even tenpence. But this machine had gone wrong, and the bulky proprietor spent the greater part of the afternoon over it with a screw-driver. A drunkard was staggering up and down, now shouting, now singing, now dancing a few unsteady steps. The stable boys were making a butt of him. Presently he sat down on a sack and fell asleep, his head tilted back, his mouth open. The opportunity was too good to miss.
Pulling out his sketch book, Jan began to make a sketch. The old ticket-office man, perceiving what Jan was doing, leaned over his shoulder, and as the sketch developed began to chuckle. Soon there was a double queue of spectators, giggling with suppressed laughter, stretching on each side from Jan to the drunkard across the width of the entrada. When the drawing was finished, the old man exclaimed:
"But that is excellent; will you not give it to me, Señor?"
Jan made of the drawing a rapid tracing which pleased the old man as much as the original.
"I'll keep that," said the old man.
To our horror he walked across the entrada, with a thump in the ribs awoke the drunkard, and showed him the sketch. Gradually, as he realized what had been done, an expression of wrath grew on the drunkard's face. Luckily for us, he became possessed of the idea that the drawing had been done by one of the stable boys. No one undeceived him and, amidst roars of laughter, he addressed a long speech to the stable boy in question.
"The rights of man," said the drunkard, "are inalienable, and of all the rights of man, the greatest right is that of his person. The stable boy has, therefore, transgressed against the most sacred of men's rights. I could have excused most things," went on the drunkard, "but this is inexcusable; to inflict indignity on a man in his own person. Since neither the stable boy nor the spectators of this crime seem sensible of the enormity they have committed, the only act by which I can express the contempt which I feel for the meanness of your natures is that of removing myself from the company of such low mortals."
Having thus delivered himself with the air of a Demosthenes, he literally shook the dust from the soles of his alpagatas and staggered out into the street. Coincident with the departure of the drunkard was the arrival of the Jijona motor-lorry.
The lorry was heavy, with solid tyres. Michelin's motor guide had described the route as: "Cart road bad and very indisposed," and we wondered what the sixteen miles would value as experience. We all scrambled in, arranging our luggage as best we could on our laps or under the narrow wooden benches nailed to the lorry's sides. The centre of the lorry was occupied with cargo, in this case barrels, some full, some empty, standing on end. We thought that we had all fitted in so nicely, but a wail from the courtyard drew our attention to an old woman who, loaded with parcels and almost weeping with despair, had failed to find a seat. We said "Move up" to each other, but no moving up was possible. The old man came out in anger from the ticket-office.
"But this is ridiculous," he shouted; "there is room, there are so many seats on the lorry, I sell so many seats, therefore there must be room."
Slowly the elucidation of the mystery dawned on us. Three of our passengers were of such girth that each ought in common fairness to have booked two seats for himself. So with much effort we squeezed and shoved into the fat men until we gained a narrow slit of seat into which the little old woman was dropped. But immediately the active pressure was released the resilience of fat reasserted itself, and the little old woman spent the first part of the journey moaning out that she was being crushed to death. Most of the voyagers were peasants; one or two were travellers going to the fiesta; one was dressed in soldier's uniform, but he seemed to be neither officer nor private. We discovered later that he was a veterinary surgeon. Our musical instrument caused some attention and our fellow voyagers smiled at us with sympathy and kindness.
"Are you artists?" they asked.
"Yes," we replied.
"Then we will come to your concert," said they.
The road was indeed "indisposed." We rolled, rocked, and bumped along miles of dusty road, by the side of which the trees were so drenched in dust that they were but ghosts of themselves; the herbage below seeming like the delicate clay work of a magic potter, having no hint of green for the eye. Nor can empty barrels be considered good travelling companions. If the lorry were toiling uphill the barrels sidled down the floor with a seeming leer. One snatched one's toes out of the way without ceremony. On reaching the end of the lorry, the barrels spread themselves sideways, crushing the knees of the sitters. When the lorry reached the top of the hill and began to thunder down the new slope the barrels bounced and bumped to the other end of the lorry, bruising everybody in their passage. Finally the young soldier sat on one of the centre barrels and tried to quell their antics, without much success.
The lorry climbed into the mountains, round roads which curved like a whiplash. At one spot the young soldier remarked: "The motor-bus fell over here once; six of the passengers were killed."
The sun beat down on the canvas top of the lorry, and the large white porous water-jug hanging at the end was in constant demand. We halted at a small and lonely house where beer was for sale. The passengers also bought beans pickled in salt and handed them to each other.
The dusty miles rolled off, at one moment through grey cliffs which shone in the evening light, and another over deep water courses, along the bottom of which ran serried terraces of vines. Presently a pretty girl, whom we took to be the daughter of a wealthy farmer, and who had spent the better part of the journey flirting with the young soldier, exclaimed: "Mira! Shishona!"[20]
Through a cleft between two mountains we caught a glimpse of distant houses clustered up the side of a hill towards an old Saracen ruin which gleamed ochreous against the evening sky.
In spite of the presence of a couple of factories, the entrance of Jijona from the south is one of the most romantic sights we have seen in Spain. Ancient Spanish buildings sprang from the edge of a ravine covered with prickly pear, and faced a steep cliff, along the precipitous face of which ran water courses. Old houses stood step above step, on a hill so steep that the roadways were all staircases and the houses had two entrances, the front into the lowest story and the back into the upper, and often the back-yard was higher than the roof. A white stone bridge carried the road with a noble curve across the ravine, and round this curve we swung, the passengers waving hands and shouting greetings, into the town.
Our destination was a casa de huespedes (half inn, half boarding-house) called "La Vinaigre," and the name was not altogether unsuitable. But our first reception was as cordial as we could have wished. Owing to our friend's mattress, which the old hostess had recognized, we were welcomed with open arms.
CHAPTER XXI
JIJONA—THE FIESTA
The only fiesta we had hitherto experienced in Spain had been a small peasant feast during an afternoon at Verdolay. We had gone to it; but finding that we as foreigners constituted the chief centre of interest, we had run away to the seclusion of our house. At the big fiesta of Jijona were so many strangers that we were almost overlooked.
The family at the "Vinegar" consisted of an old bent-backed father peasant, sandalled; a mother, in black with black shawl; several sons, reaching towards mercantile gentility owing to the turron factory, which was in the cellars of the house; and several daughters, most of whom had married personages of importance in the little town. In fact the "Vinegar" family was upon the up-grade. They promised us a week of unparalleled amusement.
First, they said the town was crammed with people—a most necessary concomitant to Spanish enjoyment. In no other country in the world is the gregarious nature of man so plainly exhibited. The man who plays his lonely golf matched with an imaginary colonel would not be understood; your solitary pleasurer would find no sympathizers. Crowds, crowds, form the oil in the salad of Spanish amusement. Secondly: that very night the priests were giving a free public cinema entertainment. Thirdly: "They will loose a cow on the streets to-morrow night. Oh, it is precioso. It is a wonderful diversion. The cow gallops, the men try to catch her. They are tossed right and left, others come to the rescue. Magnificent! Eh?" Fourthly: the old drama of the Moors and Christians was to be performed.
Jijona lies in territory once captured by the Moors. They say that the original name was Saracena, and to-day locally it is pronounced "Shishona." It owes its considerable wealth to the extensive terrace cultivation of almonds, by means of which the hard-working Moors converted the mountains from barrenness to fertility.
"There is a castle of boards erected in the plaza," said the Vinegars; "this will be stormed first by the Moors, then by the Christians. It is very luxurious. Not so luxurious as last year, perhaps, because the captains of the fiesta are not so wealthy as those of last year, and owing to the tobacco famine, the Contrabandistas will omit their drama of tobacco smuggling. Yet it will exhibit much lujo."[21]
At supper we tasted for the first time the famous turron of Jijona. This was manufactured by our hosts. It is a crisp, dry, almond sweetmeat, probably Moorish in origin, for it is not unlike Halva de Smyrne and carries behind its almond flavour a queer but not unpleasant taste resembling the smell of an over-heated chair. Supper over, we went out to the plaza. The first need of Spanish amusement had been fulfilled. The streets were crowded. A few of the more sophisticated visitors were even wearing hats.
At the far end of the plaza, dimly, could be seen the wooden castle, in shape not unlike one of those quaint wood cuts from an old edition of Froissart; some distance in front of it, high in the air, was the sheet on which the free "pictures" were to be thrown from the topmost pinnacle of the castle. As the time of the performance drew near, the people came bringing chairs with them until both before and behind the screen the plaza was crammed. The performance was not a success. The illumination was dim; the sheet stretched high above the people's heads. In addition, a young moon in its first quarter intruded from above the mountain-tops. This intrusive crescent, shining almost through the centre of the sheet, sometimes took the place of the heroine's head, sometimes of the hero's waistcoat. After straining our eyes for a while, having reflected on gift-horses and teeth we went back to the Vinegars' and to bed. As we went we wondered what those spectators who were on the wrong side of the sheet and who in consequence could not read the legends—if they were able to read—would construe out of those dim dramas.
We awoke on the morrow eager to see what the "Studio" of our friend was like. Father Vinegar had gone before us, but Mother Vinegar took the road and showed us up through tortuous and romantic staircases of streets, up—up—until we reached the highest level of the town. But our friend's house was yet higher. We clambered up a zigzag path over a widening hill-side to the crest of the ridge. There on the top, fronting the ruins of the old Saracen fortress, was our friend's house "El Torre de Blay." It was a long house of one story, backed by a round tower of three stories. The tower was claimed to be Saracen in origin: it overlooked a walled yard, which was filled with chickens, rabbits and turkeys, for the Vinegars were using the house during the absence of our friend. A pile of almond shells was in the entrada and a back door led out into a terraced garden full of pomegranate, pear, fig, almond and olive trees and grape vines. Old Vinegar, called locally "Père Chicot," led us round, discoursing on the beauty of the house, which was indeed cool, large and airy. But the clou of the house Père Chicot kept till the last. With a gesture of profound pride he swung open a small door.
"Señor and Señora," he exclaimed, "I will warrant that there is not a W.C. to compare with this in the whole province of Alicante."
Mother Vinegar, talking in a high-pitched, querulous voice, was complaining of the rise in prices, of the hardness of the season. The garden of the Torre, she said, was not worth looking after, there were no grapes, and as for the almonds, she went on, pointing to a small heap, that was the whole crop for the year. She added that only a little while ago somebody had broken into the yard and had stolen two hundred and fifty pesetas' worth of poultry and rabbits.
It occurred to us that some of her cordiality to us came from the fact that she looked on us to make up some of that lost money. So I gently led her on to the question of ways and means. She said:
"Oh, El Señor used this place as a working place only. He lived and slept at our house, and for that he paid ten pesetas a day."
Now El Señor (our English friend) had told us that he paid seven pesetas. Our suspicions were correct. I am afraid that in the end Mrs. Vinegar, like the undertaker in Tcheckov's story, counted us amongst her losses. Her manner changed gradually from cordial to chilly: she had promised to help me to shop, but she put obstacles in my way and also, I believe, tried to prevent us from finding a servant. Finally we made an arrangement that Mrs. Vinegar should supply us with meals at two pesetas fifty each. Remembering that Elias had fed us in Murcia for one peseta fifty I struggled to reduce the price to two pesetas for less food, but Mrs. Vinegar said that Jijona was far more expensive than Murcia (as a matter of fact it was, if anything, cheaper), and that the reputation of her house would not stand a lower price. Finally, to her disgust, I announced that we could not afford more than three meals a week at that rate, and we were accordingly scrawled down, heavily underlined, with red ink, amongst the stolen chickens and rabbits.
But the idea of the cow chase through the streets excited us. As in the well-known story, the cow turned out to be a bull; nor was the chase to be in the narrow winding streets, but in the plaza, the entrances of which had been blocked up with extempore barricades of wooden beams. The women and the less courageous of the men were to fill the balconies, and places in a balcony had been found for us by the Vinegar girls, who were quite different in manners from their parents. The bulls were stabled at the back of the town; and, like a wasp in a spider's web, plunging at the ends of long ropes tied to its horns, the bull was dragged to the plaza, when it was insinuated into a rough bull-pen erected near the castle. There were three bulls, and a second was thus dragged up and penned in. The third, however, was tied to a tree, and pads, like boxing-gloves, were fixed solidly to its murderous horns. Then with some precautions the bull was loosened. The game was a sort of ticky-touchwood. Home in this case was anywhere out of reach of the bull's tossing capacity: open doors, the ironwork of windows, water pipes, trees, the barricades of the streets, lamp posts, a fountain—around which one could dodge—and a wall topped by a rickety pailing, and the woodwork of some swing-boats near the castle.
Jan had gone down into the plaza to get some photos. From the balcony the game was exciting, though not furious. Some of the boys showed considerable pluck; and it was amusing to watch the strange concavities shown in the back of one running away who thought that the bull was close behind and who could feel in imagination those horns prodding his spine.
But the fun was not furious enough to bear long watching from the balcony. So I went down into the square and joined Jan. I had several reasons for this action. I was bored, and thought it would be more exciting below. But the chief idea I had was that by this manœuvre I would be able to introduce myself to Jijona en bloc. I should be universally known, and would thus escape the continual shrieks and giggles with which strangers greeted my appearance. So I went down into the plaza.
A loud gasp went up from the crowds.
Some youths ran up to me.
"Señora, Señora," they cried, "you mustn't stay here. It is dangerous!"
"Why?" asked I.
"But don't you understand? The bull! He might get you."
"But," I answered, "he might get you too."
"Oh, but we can run."
"Well, I can run also."
At this moment theory turned hurriedly into practice. The bull came charging down upon us. Jan and I with a number of youths made a run for the wall, clambered on to it, and clung there, hanging on its rickety pailings, while the bull smelt our toes.
"Curse you! Curse you!" screamed out an old man who was dancing with rage on the other side of the pailings. "Get down. Can't you see that in a minute you'll bring the whole place down? Get off at once."
But the boys merely gave him retort for curse. The bull turned on to another baiter and dashed away. This boy sprang into the branches of a young tree. The bull, going full speed, hit the stern of the sapling with his forehead, and the youth was shot off, describing a graceful parabola, and landing with a thump on to the ground. Gradually the game drifted to the other end of the plaza and we came down from the fence.
"Señora," said an anxious voice, "I have here a balcony. It is quite respectable, for my wife is there. Pray do not risk your life any longer."
The speaker was the husband of one of the Vinegar girls, one of the nicest men we met in Jijona. He was short and plump, and even as he spoke to me he gazed anxiously towards the end of the plaza. While he was still urging me, the bull made a movement in our direction, and he bolted. This time we sought shelter in an open doorway, accompanied by two priests. One lad tripped and the bull rolled him over with its padded horns, but other lads ran up, one flapped a handkerchief before the animal's nose, another hung on to its tail. Somehow we could not help wondering what would have happened to the bull had twenty public schoolboys been loosed in that plaza!
At last the light faded. First the bull, then the boys grew tired. The animal, captured with ropes, was led away to become meat for future Jijona dinners—eating a playmate, it seemed to me.
Further north in Spain they have a variant of this game. A young bull is put into a wide circle formed of carts. The bull's horns are not padded, and this game is quite dangerous. A Polish painter, a friend of ours, once entered such a ring. He was chased by the bull and to escape sprang for a cart. He was not quite quick enough. With the upward toss the bull thrust a horn through the seat of his trousers, as the painter was in mid-air. Luckily the trousers were an old pair, the seat came out wholesale and the painter tumbled head first into the cart. He says that for the rest of the day he went about with his hat clapped behind him.
The bull-baiting over, we called upon the doctor to whom we carried an introduction from Luis. Then we scrambled up to our Torre, taking with us provisions and candles. We made up our mattress on the floor and slept the more soundly for our hard bed.
We had one joy at Jijona—there were no mosquitoes, and the nights were deliciously cool. Our windows were far enough from the ground to allow the most timid of Spanish women to sleep secure from robbers. The sun streaming in at our windows awoke us before six—we dressed and breakfasted, looking down on the town, which still lay in the shadow. Immediately beneath our windows were two hundred yards of stony hillside; then began the houses, small and closely crowded as though they feared the rough arid expanse of the towering hills of rock. We looked down upon an almost Moorish succession of flat roofs, plunging downhill into the valley. The surrounding country was like a rough sea suddenly frozen, in front of us the mountains seemed almost to curl over. A violet smoke was rising from Jijona chimneys, a smoke which drifted a sweet scent to our nostrils, a scent of sage and of fir. From the middle of the village the church tower covered with blue and white tiles suddenly chimed the hour with discordant bells.
Mrs. Vinegar was to take me the round of the shops. She had previously tried to impress me with the dreadful price of provisions in Jijona, and this time she prevented me from buying eggs. The greengrocer's shop, kept by a gay woman named Concha, was only an entrada filled with baskets. Mrs. Vinegar had refused to change a note of 100 pesetas for me, and we discovered later that notes of any magnitude greater than twenty-five pesetas are difficult to change in villages. But Concha changed the money cheerfully and earned my gratitude. Opposite Concha's shop, frowning on the main street with grated windows, was the prison, of which somebody said:
"Heavens! The Jijona men are so good that there hasn't been a soul in the prison for the last five years. It is full of chickens and rabbits."
We bought a frying-pan, having to choose between one very small and one very large. The latter was thick in rust, and must have been I don't know how many years on the shelves of the shop. We chose it on condition that the shop man could get it clean, and he at once put the whole of his family to work on it, including a prospective daughter-in-law, a French-African girl just arrived from Morocco. The customers were whispering one to another, and at last one more bold than the others addressed me:
"I saw you yesterday go down amongst the bulls. Were you not terribly frightened? I thought that my heart was going to stop."
We went to buy drinking glasses. The china shop was deserted and we had to shout loudly before we could get anybody to serve us. The woman did not know the price of the glasses.
"But no matter," she said, "you can pay any time you like. And weren't you terribly frightened yesterday, going down into the bulls? I couldn't draw my breath when I saw you jump on to the wall."
There were children crowded at the shop door. As we came out I heard murmurs, which gradually we made out as:
"La Valiente, La Valiente, La Valiente!"
I was known by this name during the whole of my stay in Jijona.
On Sunday we dined at the Vinegars' and in the afternoon the doctor took us to the Casino. I believe there is gambling at these Casinos, but this takes place upstairs, and on the ground floor they perform the function of the local club. On Sunday afternoons and in the evenings the aristocracy of the place collect here to sip ices while the local pianist rattles off the latest music which has reached the town.
After supper we walked through the streets, feeling our way up and down hill, for lights were few and the streets full of rocks and unexpected steps. We heard the sound of guitars and at once climbed towards it. At the top of a staircase we came to a shop in front of which a family was sitting. A woman with a rough voice began to chaff us.
"Ah, yes," she exclaimed, "you are the English of the Torre de Blay. And the lady is the valiant one who is not afraid of bulls. Ha ha! What? You are going to see the dancing—well, let's all go."
The family heaved itself to its feet, surrounded and escorted us down a narrow lane which ended at a platform which hung on the cliff's edge. Three men were sitting on the doorstep of a house, two playing guitars, one playing the bandurria. A crowd, young men in blouses and girls, with light skirts and shawls, were standing about or dancing. Three couples were dancing a Valencian jota. Some of the movements of the dance seemed intricate, but they danced with a fine natural grace, and there was a beautiful balance of body which echoed the movement of the music. A woman standing behind me said:
"Now, Señora, I will teach you the jota one of these evenings. And you will take my baby, because I have lots and they say you have none."