The pillars of Hercules

Oct. 22nd.

A Moorish house is a square, with blind walls outside, and a court within. A corridor, sustained by pillars, runs round, and affords an opening and light to the rooms: the court is paved with marble, or is in mosaics, the place of meeting of the family. From this type the domestic architecture of Cadiz is derived. The soil upon which the city stands is occupied with those square blocks fitted one against the other, leaving no patch vacant. There is nothing that is not house or street. The houses, however, have windows on that side which faces the street. The roofs are flat, terraced, parapeted, and surmounted by square towers, sometimes three stories high. These roofs are the basse cour. There the poultry is kept, the washing, and all dirty work done, and the linen hung out to dry.[70] Here the inmates ascend, in the summer evenings, to enjoy the breeze, and in the winter days to bask in the sun. Above the sounds and bustle of the city, amid airy terraces, which, but for the want of water, might rival the hanging gardens of Babylon, looking out on the bright sea, and down and around on the shining city, the Gaditanas walk, converse, and observe their neighbours similarly employed on the neighbouring battlements. As the houses adjoin, they are cut off from each other by parapets. Otherwise, the means of communication above would be nearly as complete as in the deep cuts of the streets that divide the masses. But to see Cadiz, you must ascend one of her towers,[71] in the still night, and under the moon.

The aspect from below is scarcely less striking. The streets are very narrow: to exclude the sun, the houses are constructed to keep out the heat. From every window projects an iron cage (rejà) or balcony—many of these glazed round, and resembling an oriel window. These verandas are filled with flowers, or shrouded in a mantle of ivy. The building is relieved by the gayest colours—bright sea-green, red, and yellow. The iron work is green. The houses are separated, as also the floors, by lines of red: a narrow border of yellow runs round the base of each balcony, and of the houses. There is no more charming, urban sight, than that presented in looking down the narrow streets. The verandas approach from the opposite sides, with their lively colours, their shrubs, and flowers. Everything is fresh, and clean, and bright, as if just from the workman’s hands. Within, white reigns alone, above, and around. As you pass by, you have a succession of glimpses into the columned patios, neat, bright, and shiny, embellished with plants, flowers, and fountains.[72]

The doorways are grand and beautiful, and resemble the portals of cathedrals, rather than the entrances to dwelling-houses. In the larger houses the doors are made of slabs of shining mahogany, studded with knobs of brass. The lintels and architraves are ornamented and carved with an elaboration and a variety that afford constant occupation to the stranger in his walks. The Gate belongs, of course, to the land of the Caravan. It is the place of welcome, and its grandeur is the sign of hospitality. The threshold passed, you are in the midst of the dwelling; for the patio is the hall—the hall, as of ancient days—not the mere passage to the dining-room, and the receptacle of hats and walking-canes. We cannot imagine comfort in a court open to the heavens, or elegance in a room with no windows in the walls. New experience awaits us here: when marble is exchanged for brick, and the sun takes the place of fog, shade is comfort, and damp luxury.

The Spanish portal acquired a dignity rather Chinese than Moorish, from the escutcheon. At Valez Malaga I was shown the built-up door in the mansion of a noble, who, being ordered to take down his arms from his door, built up the entrance, leaving the arms, and struck out a hole in the wall beside it.

The cathedral is a graceful and original modern building. There is a great falling off in the parts recently completed. From its top there is a splendid view of the sea-girt city, the bay, and the surrounding lands. It is all marble, and the roof shelves off from the cupola to the edge without parapet, so that you look out on the sea. In winter the spray passes over the building, so that it well merits its arms,—a cross standing on the water.

In the sacristy there were five large marble reservoirs, with the syphon of a fountain over them, for the priests to wash at. My gratification in recognising this relic will be intelligible only to those among Eastern travellers, who have conformed to the manners of the country, and known the secret of washing with running water; and the disgust and aversion that are inspired by our dabbling in a basin full of dirty water. Yet the practice can only have disappeared within two generations.[73] The Russians still wash in this way. This usage, however interesting as a relic, is not fruitful as a practice. The Spaniards are not a cleanly people: in their struggle of seven centuries with their washing and bathing foes, they placed their patriotism on the side of filth.

From the top of the cathedral I had observed some old ruins, and a circular tower, that looked Roman. It was the Moorish castle, and afforded me the opportunity of verifying a point which previously had been to me doubtful. These ruins are so built on, and so covered up, that it is difficult to trace them; but I made out Moorish walls, with square stones joined with lime. It has been a small castle standing by itself, opposite the water-gate of the town, and not part of a circuit of walls. One round tower still stands, about forty feet high. There is a portion of wall exposed, of between thirty and forty feet in thickness, in stone and lime. The chamber in the principal tower is, like all those in Moorish towers, neatly arched and ornamented. The staircase is in the substance of the wall, not in the centre of the tower.

At Porta St. Maria, opposite Cadiz, I found a similar Moorish ruin. This is the point of embarkation of Xeres, or the Port of Sherry. It is the place for tasting wines,—the Pacharete, Montillado, and most noble Mansanilla. The cellars are worth seeing—if spacious and lofty edifices can be so called.

The people of Cadiz neither put their bodies in graves nor their wines in cellars: the dead are built up in walls, resembling bins of a wine-cellar; their wines are deposited in structures like cathedrals. The niches are like the dwellings of the living, some for ever and a day, others for a term of years; after which the fragments of the former tenant are ejected, and the place swept clean for another.

I observed, on a placard, the two following signs of progress and civilization, in titles of new works: “The defender of the fair sex,” and “The Ass, a beastly periodical.” The words were, “Il Burro, periodico bestial.”

You may see a long row of boys, very small at one end and full grown at the other, dressed out in the sprucest and gayest uniforms—blue coat, single breasted, with standing collar and large flaps; gold buttons and lace; white trousers most mathematically cut, and strapped down on very camp-like boots; and, on inquiring what military institution this belongs to, you are answered, “It is a boarding-school!”

They have, in connection with schools, a practice which might suit “Modern Athens”—I mean the hyperborean one. A person from each school goes the round of the town, calling for the boys in the morning, and dropping them in the evening; just as sheep, goats, or cows are collected by a common herd.

The “Hospicio” is at once a Poor-house, a house of Industry, a School, a Foundling Hospital, a Hospital, and a Mad-house;—that is, it supplies the places of all these Institutions. It is imposing in its form, embellished in its interior, and as unlike, in all its attributes and effects, as anything can be, to the edifices consecrated to the remedying of human misery, by our own charity and wisdom.

The church of St. Philippo Negri deserves a visit. It is a lofty oval hall. The altar is in a deep recess, and two narrow galleries run round it at a considerable height. In this church, in a back street of an out-post almost cut off from Spain, some unknown and self-designated politicians wove, in 1812, out of the threads of the philosophy of France, a tissue which was to clothe the nakedness of Spain, and to regenerate her. At that moment she was engaged in a desperate war with France. By those very doctrines her despot trampled on the liberties of France, and then converted her into the slavish instrument of his evil passions and lawless purposes against Spain. Up to the time when this constitution was proclaimed, faction, which had divided and distracted, for a century and a half, the other countries of Europe, had still in Spain been unknown.

St. Philippo is thus a spot associated with greatness—but greatness of an easy kind. It is easier to kill a camel than—sometimes—to catch a flea.

Cadiz, Oct. 26th.

I made an excursion yesterday, in a Calesa, to the mainland, or rather, to the Isla St. Leon, which adjoins it. After travelling about four miles along the narrow ridge of sand that joins Cadiz to the main, you turn to the left, round the bottom of the bay, and enter on the salt pans, which extend throughout the Isla. There were ditches, tanks, and reservoirs, cut out in all shapes and dimensions. Heaps of salt were scattered about like pyramids; some, twenty feet high. I expected to obtain data respecting the evaporation of the Mediterranean, but was disappointed: neither is the water allowed to deposit in one place, nor are there successive fillings of water into the same basin before the salt is made. In either case, the rate of evaporation would have been furnished exactly; but the water passes through successive pans, becoming more and more charged as it advances to the inner tanks, where the crystallization is ultimately effected,—a process even then attended with difficulty.[74] There are, in the Isla, twelve government and seventy-two private works; the produce of the first is 12,000, of the other, 40,000 lasts. The cost is six quarts the Fanega; it is sold at fifty-two reals. The salt made at the private works is for exportation, and is taken off by the English, Americans, and French.

These and the other salt-works of Galicia, the Asturias, &c., are farmed for 12,000,000 reals, by a singular adventurer of the court and the exchange,—M. Salamanca.

The observatory at St. Fernando is, of course, like all observatories; and, being built to look at the heavens, affords a good view of the earth. From the top of it I inspected this labyrinth. There was, in front, Cadiz, hanging by its narrow isthmus. The Isla de Leon is a low marsh, which forms the bottom of the bay. In the island is St. Fernando, situated on broken ground. I could trace the salt river from its source, or mouth, in the sea, to its other source, or mouth, in the bay. At the sea-entrance, I could distinguish the small island or knoll of St. Petri. Here stood the Altars of Hercules. It was to visit this spot that I had started from Cadiz; and finding it impracticable, from the time of day and the roughness of the weather, I had, with great reluctance, given up the project. It was some compensation to see, at least, the spot. An antique bridge joins the Isla to the mainland: it stands about half-way between the bay and the sea. It was rather a causeway, with arches, than a bridge, and was said to be Phœnician.

At Cadiz, one is in the midst of a town, and the very type and essence of towns. The eye has no scope, and the mind no sight, for anything but itself. It is impossible to think of it as Gades, or to recall Circe’s smile, or Cerberus’ growl; but here I recovered myself, and yielded to the intoxication which, on certain spots, the mists of past things produce. Cadiz did again become Gades. Behind appeared, on the side of a hill, or rather, close to its summit, Medina Sidonia, recalling, in one name, the Phœnician and the Moor. The salt marshes could be transmuted to the ancient groves and gardens, by the aid of some palm-trees scattered over the broken ground.

But that islet, now shrouded by the spray from an easterly storm, with its temple, where Hannibal offered sacrifice before departing to live on Italy for fourteen years—where Cæsar was fired with the love of the purple, by the sight of the statue of the victor of Darius—was the magnet of the scene. Who built this temple? What was it? The temple of Phœnicians,—of idolaters? yet idols were excluded. There was a sacrifice, but not to idols; there was an altar, but no groves or high places. Wines were forbidden, which were not forbidden in Phœnicia or Egypt. Women were excluded from the sacrifices; the sacred flame was kept burning; the priests served barefoot. When they entered, their faces were veiled, and their heads covered with white linen. This, then, was a temple of the Hebrews, and not of idolaters.[75] Amongst the dwellers in Canaan, there were those who had preserved primeval light, and are called in scripture “worshippers of the true God.” Balaam was a prophet, and the book of the Arab Job is one of the books of Scripture.

From St. Fernando I could command the field where Tarik triumphed, and where Roderick fell. The sudden extinction of the Gothic empire has led to the inference that it was rotten: the valour with which that field was contested forbids that conclusion. The factions, and the contests for the crown amongst the Goths, differed little from those amongst the Saracens; the people were not divided, and had lost nothing of their valour and their warlike spirit.[76] The Arabs triumphed in Spain in like manner as Islamism did in Africa. The Goths were not the only inhabitants; the original population was still in existence, and identified with that of Hispania Transfretana. To these the Saracens were deliverers, not invaders. They were invited over by the Jews, a numerous, and then a warlike people, preserving many ties with the Arab population of both countries, and forming the link between them and the old Iberians. It is not extraordinary that there should have been native Spaniards in the armies of the Goths, without the fact being recorded. So uncertain are all our data, that it is disputed whether Count Julian was a Mussulman or a Christian; whether Tarik was a Breber, a Persian, or an Arab. In periods nearer to our own, when European literature flourished, omissions and mistakes of a similar kind are not uncommon. For instance, at the battle of Angora the contest, as it is supposed, was between the Turks and the Tartars; but the body of the troops of Bajazet were neither Turks nor Mussulmans, but Servians.

The association of the people of Spain with those of Mauritania, while both were Christians, is further established by the use of Arabic in the old Spanish church. It is recorded with wonder that their works on theology were in that tongue, and that a large proportion of its priesthood knew no other. This Arabic literature dates from a time anterior to the Arab conquest. It was from Africa that Spain received Christianity. But modern Spanish writers would be careful to conceal or disguise the early association of Spain with the people and the system against which raged their fanaticism. It is the suppression of all this that has made the conquest of the Arabs appear like a fable.

Cardonne estimates, at the battle of the Guadalete, the Goths at 100,000, and the Arabs at 12,000. Gibbon makes the Arabs less. Another writer says:—“It was no longer the terrible Goths, whose valour had overthrown the Roman empire, that had penetrated from the shores of the Euxine to those of the Atlantic. The youth, enervated with peace and luxury, had abandoned the exercise of arms. The chiefs, impelled by jealousy, revenge, or ambition, betrayed their monarch to those who sought his ruin.” And presently we have,—“The two armies fought long and with equal ardour. The uncertain victory was decided in favour of the Mussulmans by a horrible treason. Opas, Archbishop of Seville, collecting his vassals, joined the ranks of the Mussulmans and attacked the Christians. The Spaniards were immediately broken,” &c.

How could there be a struggle in an open country by 12,000 against 100,000, where arms and courage were equal—where both were warlike? The Goths were engaged in continual warfare between themselves; they were making incursions into France; they were at the very time masters, by recent triumphs, of the sea, and possessors until that very year, of strong places in Africa, whence they were carrying on aggressive war against the Moors! We have therefore to look for some other cause than the effeminacy of the one, and the valour of the other. Count Julian could put the Moors in possession of Ceuta, and in joining them draw all his adherents with him,—the Archbishop of Seville could quit the camp with all his followers, a fact which has no parallel, and join the invading Mussulman:—there existed, then, links between the two people not to be found in the romances of the Spanish writers, or in the phrases of Gibbon. Thus, the enterprise ceases to be a fable, and regains its just station as one of the most hardy and successful of human achievements.

In speaking of the burning, by Cortes, of his vessels on the coast of Mexico, Robertson remarks:—“Thus, by an act of magnanimity to which history offers nothing to be compared, did 500 men consent to shut themselves up in a hostile land, covered with nations numerous and unknown, and after destroying their means of retreat, remained with no other resource than their valour and their perseverance.” He forgot horses, gunpowder, and artillery. But the Spaniards in the New World only repeated the lesson they had learnt from the Moors in the Old, and the Moors only repeated what the Sicilian Agathocles had already performed in his wonderful home-thrust against Carthage. The Moorish chief, at the head of 7,000, or—as Gibbon makes them—5000 men, sent, Scipio-like, to invade the powerful and warlike peninsula (that was itself invading Africa), adopted the same expedient, and induced his more numerous followers, in face of a far greater danger, to submit to the same alternative. They burnt their vessels in the port of Gibraltar. They thus cut off their retreat, in case of a repulse, as effectually as if the whole Atlantic spread between them and their native land. The address of Tarik to his followers was,—“The enemy is before you, the sea is behind,—follow me.”

After the victory, the Moors, instead of advancing, as in a hostile country, dispersed, as after the defeat of a usurper, to take possession. One body marched upon Ecija, a strongly-fortified place; the whole population perished in the defence, or after the capture: another upon Corduba; it was surrendered by the inhabitants; the governor of the garrison, however, preferred death to submission. Another body took possession of Granada; Tarik himself marched on the capital, Toledo. All these places made separate capitulations, and preserved the exercise of their religion: they were to pay only such taxes as were paid to their kings; they were to preserve their laws, and their magistrates. The churches were generally divided between the Mussulman and the Christian. The same conditions, excepting double tribute, were granted to the cities that made the most desperate resistance. It was on a system that they acted, and not upon emergency—by a rule, and not according to circumstances or expediency.[77]

The valour of the Goths was desperate and self-devoted. The division of the churches between the two religions shows the rapidity with which conversion accompanied, or rather had prepared, their triumph. The Goths were originally but an army that entered Spain, to protect its inhabitants. When Spain afterwards recovered herself from the Saracens, she was altogether Gothic, with no trace of the old population, except in the Basque provinces, where neither the Goths had penetrated before, nor did the Saracens after. The remainder of the original—that is, the Iberian—population had, therefore, become Mussulmans.

Here was exposed the imbecility of the supposition that Islamism was propagated by the sword. It was Islamism that aided the conquests of the Saracens. Its force lay in applying the dictates of religion directly as a restraint upon the conduct of government, rendering the king, as well as his humblest vassal, equally subjects of the law.

Within a few months from the battle of Guadalete, the Moorish troops had passed beyond the Pyrenees, and were encamped at Carcassone. There the tide of victory was arrested, not by the hammer of Martel, but by orders from Damascus. It was the project of the Saracen chief to conquer France, and thence to march to the attack of the Greek empire in the rear. When the Saracens did invade France, it was after the generation of conquerors had passed away—when France was recovering from the lethargy of her Merovingian race, and when a schism had been established between Spain and the Caliphate.

The empire established by this victory is the most remarkable instance of prosperity that the world has ever seen. The town of Corduba contained 200,000 houses; in its public library there were 600,000 volumes. It had 900 public baths. On the banks of the Guadalquivir there were 12,000 villages; and such were the fruits they drew from the soil, such the profits of their industry, which furnished to the East luxuries and arms, that the public revenue of Spain in the tenth century was equal to the collective revenues of all the other kings of Europe. Twelve millions of dinars—a sum of gold which, calculating the dinar at 10s., and multiplying by ten, to give the difference of the value of gold, is equal to £60,000,000 of our present money.

Five centuries and a half later, this plain was again the theatre of great events: the Christian principalities had again regained strength, the Mussulmans expending themselves in internal wars in Spain, and between the Peninsula and Morocco. The battle of Las Navas de Tolosa had taken place. St. Ferdinand had entered their capital and taken Seville, when the elevation of his son Alfonso the Sage—but in his early years designated the Brave—to the crown of Castile, gave promise of a speedy emancipation of the Peninsula, aided as he was by the valiant James of Aragon, who had successfully contested against them no less than thirty fields.

Alfonso retook from the Mussulmans, Xeres and all the surrounding towns; but, very soon absorbed in the vain expectation of becoming Emperor of Germany, and less successful than his successor, Charles V., or England’s candidate for the Spanish crown, Charles VI., he squandered the means of his subjects in a project that was hateful to them; lost the time and the occasion of following up his successes, and brought upon Spain new dangers from Africa. This was the first time that Spain appeared influencing the relations of Europe, and mingling in its councils. Squandering her treasures to sway the elections of Frankfort, and moving Africa by his intrigues in Germany, the successful competitor was Rudolph, the founder of the imperial house of Austria.

Xeres was soon retaken by the Moors; and on that occasion, a Spanish commander distinguished himself by a trait of heroism not less signal than that, the memory of which is preserved at Tarifa. The soldiers on the wall having all fallen, the governor, Don Garcia di Gomez, maintained the place alone, and refused to surrender, though himself covered with wounds: the Moors, struck with admiration, determined to preserve his life in spite of himself; lifted him off the wall with hooks, and then cured him of his wounds.

I found the astronomer at the observatory, M. de Sercera, a person no less interesting in his general conversation than distinguished for his scientific acquirements; and I received from him and from others some most unexpected information respecting a recent event which has had most important consequences for Europe. I refer to the revolt of the Isla de Leon, and the proclamation there of the Constitution of 1812, on the 1st January, 1820. It appears that the plot was undisguisedly conducted by Russia; that the Bailiff de Tatischeff,[78]—then the representative of Russia at Madrid,—came down himself to watch over the conspiracy, and openly used his predominating influence at court to sacrifice those superior officers who endeavoured to enlighten the government regarding what was there in progress. It was this revolution which matured and brought forth those dissensions which have since distracted the Peninsula; and afforded the occasion which was taken by Russia at the Congress of Verona, to constrain, or rather cheat, France into the invasion of 1823, the parent of subsequent reactions and endless troubles.