notes of a short trip to spain

Irish Jesuit Province

Notes of a Short Trip to SpainAuthor(s): John FallonSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 137 (Nov., 1884), pp. 541-550Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20497190 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 01:46

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Irish Jesuit Province is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Monthly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 01:46:08 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ijp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20497190?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


C 54I )

NOTES OF A SHORT TRIP TO SPAIN

BY JOHN VALLON.

On board a P. and 0. Steamship.

ICTURE your friend steaming away at the mild rate of twelve or fourteen knots an hour, in a warm sunshine, with^a blue sky, and

a sea whose wavelets are as nothing to this big ship. Yesterday afternoon we took leave of England, passing palatial

Netley, formerly an abbey, now a great naval hospital; then queenly Osborne dipped from view; and, as the sun went down, we had a lovely glimpse of the Devon and Cornwall mountains in the far distance, and they looked all purple in the glowing sunset.

To-day we said good-bye to France, off Ushant (Ouessant in Brit tany), its tall black-and-white light-tower being our last landmark.

Ushant enjoys the doubtful honour of having retained several of the practices and beliefs of heathenism longer than any other part of Europe, viz., until the seventeenth century-but this is according to the English guide-books!

And now, with sea and sky encircling us, we are heading steadily for Cape Finisterre in Spain.

Most of my fellow-passengers are officers or civil service men on their way to India: the majority of them have been there before, and having left their touch-me-not English manner behind them in Eng land, they are really very entertaining. Ladies are quite in a small

minority, and are almost unanimously suffering "ie mal de mer" notwithstanding the charming weather and the practically motionless sea. Only one of them, a hardened spinster of experienced years, has appeared above the horizon to-day, and at meals she quite monopo lises the captain-an easy-going victim of about twenty stone weight,

who has done the voyage, out or home, already a hundred and fifty times! Formerly the journey ended at Alexandria; but for many years-thanks to M. de Lessdps and the Suez Canal-it extends to Bombay, or Calcutta, or much farther off. Our brave captain is a living proof, that with prudence and a constitution a man can laugh at its terrors, and enjoy life in spite of them, and of old maids included.

His lieutenants take a seat at table amidst the passengers, in the usual uniform of blue and silver, and their small talk is quite an acquisition. As for the sailors, of course there is a strong infusion of blue jackets amongst them, for duties of responsibility; but quite the majority are Lascars. Now I suppose you have often heard of Lascars. Let me try to describe one, such as I see him before me: a Lascar is a sailor by birth and a Mahometan by profession; he is without

VOL. xi., No. 137. November, 1884. 42



542 Notes of a Short Tri/ to Spain.

caste, which means he has no absurd scruple as to any work he may be put to, and recognises no ridiculous refinement as to the subdivison of labour. But he is fearfully like an ape, sitting on his heels, within an inch or two of the deck, without ever touching it, then running about with feet like hands and hands like feet, all four extremities equally engaged in every work he undertakes. His costume is simple: a red turban, blue belted blouse, white trowsers, bare feet; and I can

truly assure you that, with his dark complexion, raven hair, and small flashing eyes like berries, his monkey-resemblance is irresistible. I hear the Lascar gets as good pay as an Englishman, and is more reliable as you approach the tropics: because he does not indulge in alcohol, and therefore does not desert; and mere heat, instead of oppressing him, rather makes him more lively. His undeniable want of muscle, as compared with an English tar, is supplemented by the donkey-engine; so that, on the whole, he suits for the East. But in our seas, in chill wintry weather, when the sleet or snow are driving before the wind, I should think he must simply collapse: and this is what I am told.

Three times a day, with convent-like regularity, bells ring for what the Americans call a "s quare meal," in which currie-something is an indispensable item, to please old Indian palates; and you would scarcely believe how we devour: such is the effect of the ozone. We are served, under the guidance of a few English stewards, by a batch of gentlemen from Goa, Creoles, with dark Iberian faces, who call themselves Portuguese, and are Christians. When the lull comes in the fuss of attendants, like the calm after the storm, and they take their places, one by one, against the side partitions, where the silver lamps swing, with their heads just under the oscillating oil-vessels; they look for all the world like Caryatids of dark marble. I ask my self what on earth can they be thinking of, with that far-away pensive expression on their statuesque, motionless features? Is it of their distant homes by the rippling Indian Ocean, or is it of the tiresome nonsense which, in their opinion, we are discoursing ? I fear the latter, but leave the guess to you.

On deck, between one meal and another, the chief amusement seems to be eternally walking up and down, and twenty-one turns to-and fro on the quarter-deck make a measured mile. Some of my fellow travellers have already set themselves to do their three or five, or seven miles a day, on constitutional principles, with military regula rity, and with the precision of convicts on the tread-mill. When this cheerful recreation becomes monotonous, you stroll away to the fore deck, and inspect the cow in her stall, and the black-faced sheep in their pens, and the turkeys and ducks and poultry innumerable in their respective coops. The merest trifles rivet attention on board ship: not because life is stupid, but because one does not expect to

meet such trifles there. For instance, you become much interested



Notes of a Short Trip to Spain. 543

looking at a few fox-terriers, quite contraband on board, hidden away amongst the fowl, like little stowaways, and at a couple of cats, with their juvenile families, going to India, to gladden some distant friend, as a little gift from home.

But to me a far more novel sight is a group of three ayahs (chil dren's nurses), returning to the East after leaving officers' children in England. They sit, or rather lie, coiled on the bare d&eck, in a warm corner, where the sun shines, and the sea-breezes cannot reach. All have chocolate complexions, eyes like jet, and blue-bfack hair; but beyond this they differ widely. Ayah number one is bundled from head to foot in red drapery of chaotic shape. The right side of her nose is pierced by a ring of massive gold, with a ponderous carbuncle set in it. Three more rings decorate each ear, one in the usual place, another midway up the ear, the third at the very top. With this comfortable amount of decoration she looks placid and content. Ayah number two is got up in bright saffron and white, like a daisy. Her ornaments are anchor-shaped tattoo-marks of pale blue, tastefully in laid behind her eyes and between her eyebrows: she limits the ring business to her fingers, on which there are several. Ayah number three is a real "beauty unadorned;" her drapery is all white; she sports no tattoo-marks whatsoever; but she has a Sibylline look which

Corregio would have loved to paint, but which you would not like to trust, for it reminds one of a cobra. Those three Graces are, I under stand, from widely different places, at the foot of the Himalayas; but they have a common language for chattering, and when they are tired they actually lay their raven heads on the bare deck, and thus "dream the happy hours away."

Strange that the word " ayah " should be used, and in the same sense, very nearly, in India and in Spain. Yet not so strange, if you reflect on it; for the conquerors of Hindostan spoke Arabic, and so did the Moors, who left so much of their life-work and language behind them in Spain; and the nobler portion of each conquering race derived ancestry from the same common cradle, where the shepherd-patriarchs roamed of old.

* *

Third day at sea. Early this morning I was roused by a fresh specimen of the crew, in the person of the ship's barber !-an elderly

Hindoo, who comes to ask you in the mildest manner: "W Would the gentleman want a shave?" This professional wears a turban, and has an ebony face, fringed with snow-white whiskers, just like an aged gorilla.

It is another day of warm sunshine, blue sky, and blue sea; but a stiff breeze has sprung up from the south, and a noble swell of long crested waves, each about half a mile from end to end, comes rolling right against us. Still we do not " pitch," but travel steadily along.

Now and again a speck appears above the horizon of sea and sky;



544 Notes of a Short Trif to Spain.

it grows into a ship, then gradually disappears; or it comes across our wake, almost within hailing distance, labouring and plunging in the swelling surf, and we salute it, or pass it coldly, d 'Anglaise, according to its nationality or the company to which it belongs.

Tobacco and cards have become the order of the day, as interludes for the eternal walking, and a small marquee is specially erected for the players.

Another intellectual amusement is quoits, played on a sort of tar paulin spread on the deck. This shows you how little we are knocked about, and yet we are just crossing the wide mouth of the Bay of Biscay!

And another important personage on board has turned up in the shape of the ship's carpenter, a Chinaman of marked Mongolian type oblique-eyed, apparently bandy-legged, and decidedly dwarfish. The Celestials were famous carpenters from the dawn of history, and this pig-tailed specimen carries his ascendency-air depicted in his ugly countenance; but I saw him called on to do a bit of handy-work to the log to-day, and certainly he is an artist at his trade.

Nor have I yet exhausted the varied catalogue of the crew; for, now and again, from the depths of the engine-room, there emerge hideous heads of negroes, huge and glistening like cannon-balls. Those sons of Africa are specially selected to attend the furnaces. Few would envy them their occupation; but they seem to flourish in it like Salamanders.

* #*

Fourth day. Blue sky and sea again, and already a perceptible rise in the temperature. We passed Cape Finisterre during the night, and are now running parallel to the Portuguese coast, but giving it a vide berth, so that it is not yet in sight.

The stiff breeze and long waves rolling up from the south have given way to a heavy swell, right in from the broad Atlantic. Whence comes this heavy swell, for not a breath of wind is blowing? I can only suppose that some storm has been raging far out in the ocean, and that the excitement of it has spread even hence. And now it becomes apparent that our brave ship, which does not " pitch," can " roll " like a cockle-shell. That is to say, it rocks from side to side like a cradle, and is lifted up like a mere cork on each noble wave, then left bodily down in the trough of the sea, till nothing is seen on any side but water towering round it.

At 10 30 a.m., this being Sunday, the crew are paraded on the quarter-deck, and the roll is called over, preparatory to service. All are in their Sunday best: this, for the negroes, means white; for the Lascars it is white with a red sash round the waist. They stand in single file, in a hollow square, while their names are being called out: or rather they oscillate in the most amusing manner in their attempts to retain perpendicularity. Then theyare marched off to the saloon,

all in a body, the captain and officers following, with most of the



Notes of a Short Tr) to Spain. 545

passengers; and silence reigns on deck, except that the bell tolls slowly, while the captain officiates below. It is not easy to imagine

what set form of prayer can suit such varied forms of faith. Fancy the pupil of Confucius praying with the Hottentots: and the Maho

metan Lascars in unison with Jack Tar ! Both at luncheon and dinner the plates and glasses and decanters

have to be guarded from tumbling off the tables by a contrivance called a "' fiddle." Formerly this was a genuine affair of twine, hence the name; but now it is a civilised matter of mahogany buckled to the table; still the name survives. But no "fiddle" can prevent an occa sional avalanche of nuts into a too well fastened plate of pudding, or an odd cascade of wine from a too well tightened tumbler on to your dearest garments.

And ever amid the mighty swell a flock of small birds follows the

ship with apparent ease and untiring perseverance; they resemble swallows, only they are brownish and plump. Those are the genuine " Mother Carey's chickens," small specimens of the petrel tribe; and right well they justify their generic name of " petrel," for they seem to take a special delight in running up and down the waves like St.

Peter. They follow the ship for the crumbs it throws out or the particles it stirs up; so of course it is an easy matter to catch them with a line and baited hook, but almost shabby. The sporting method is to throw out a ball of cotton and let it unravel itself, holding the free end of the thread. The unsuspecting bird is supposed to entangle itself in the bobbing line, and then get drawn in. All I can say is that I saw it tried several times to-day without success.

As evening drew on, we steered clear of the great swell into com paratively smooth water, and a sunset of transcendent beauty ended a very lively day.

Already a marked shortening of the days is noticeable. Although this is just as it ought to be when moving southwards in summer, it comes on the mind as a sort of paradox; but the explanation is simple with a diagram; and even without one the fact is pretty generally known that, as we move southward, which means we as recede from the arctic regions and approach the equator, we are leaving behind us the region of the summer midnight sun and drawing towards the belt

where daylight and darkness are about equal all the year round.

Fifth day. Land visible in the eastern horizon; at first dim and distant like a blue range of mountains, soon distinctly discernible in

all its details. This is the Portuguese coast: and what think you it is like ? I should have expected verdure, &c., but instead of this it is a rugged and bleak range of the most extraordinary colours, brown, violet, and gray-of every imaginable tint except green.

And now, for at least forty miles southwards, the coast of Portugal continues thus-steep, inhospitable, and apparently uninhabited-fill,



546 Notes of a Short Trip to Spain.

just at luncheon-hour, we round Cape St. Vincent. This famous land mark is a bold and forbidding headland, still- of the same peculiar colouring. Only for this I would compare it to Howth and the Bailey

Rock: but here the outlying rock is like a rhinoceros-tooth, and the

lighthouse is on a lofty plateau of the mainland. The ancients called Cape St. Vincent " promontorium sacrum, " so that

there is a religious halo about the place from the remotest past; but I

suspect the veneration of antiquity was founded rather on fear than devotion, from the heavy toll of victims which the cape exacted from al navigating too near it: and every year still adds one or two more casualties to its long list of wrecks. Colossal water-worn caves indent its steep cliffs, and one can hear their shell-like murmuring as the

water frets within their deep recesses. Such is Cape St. Vincent. Hitherto our course had been always southwards, with a light bend

to the West, which caused watches to have to be put back every day after the taking of the longitude, till we were full forty minutes behind Greenwich time. But immediately on rounding Cape St. Vincent the ship is put about sharply to the East, and soon we lose sight of land, which recedes from us as we steam towards the Straits,

Another most beautiful sunset (and still earlier than yesterday evening). The amber glow spread in everyc direction, forming round the sun a succession of concentric semicircles of varying tints, till it turned positively violet and purple, and thus suffused the sky. I did not conceive that my eyes would ever see such a glory of colour? and even the sailors paused to look.

Royal Hotel, Gibraltar. I had firmly resolved to be on deck at the first light to see the

Straits at sunrise, but only awoke when our vessel stood moored to her buoy, in full front of the famous Rock of Gibraltar.

And when I looked out through the small port window, there was the town, rising in terraces, tier above tier; and there was the whole rock, with its clearly-cut outline, like a huge mouse with its head towards Africa.*

When I went on deck, Africa itself was quite close in view, more close apparently than Howth to Kingstown, though the distance in

miles is greater. All about our ship boats of every size were pulling, some of them painted in bright colours and manned by crews dressed like our Lascars in their neatest Sunday attire.

The small town looks all smiles in the morning sun: cream-coloured houses, with green Venetian shutters outside the windows; roofs covered with tiles of light dove-coloured brown; a huge square old Moorish

tower commanding the town, in silent memorial of the past; some

* Both Spaniards and Arabs compared Gibraltar to a lion, with its head to the

ground, preparing to pounce on its prey: but I can only record personalimpressions;

to me it seemed just like a mouse, from first to last.



Notes of a Short Trzip to Sfiain. 547

dotted specks of green, where tropical plants may be growing, but not a vestige of grass sward : such is the first of Gibraltar from the sea; and everywhere around, as you look out in the offing, significant black and bulldog-looking ships ride at anchor.

And now, an honest good-bye to the captain, and to several friends of a few days' standing, whom I will never meet again, most probably. I take a boat after a few words of bargaining, and soon reach the land ing steps.

From the first yard on shore you feel the change of latitude. Quite near the old rampart gate by which you enter, growing vigorously in the open air, there is a fine specimen of the palm-tree, and a splendid " Bella 8ombra," like a huge Portugal laurel, with diminutive leaves, and a black-pepper tree with graceful, waving foliage, like an acacia, all three in their full pride of growth and throwing their welcome shadows over whole beds of the richest crimRon flowers growing

beneath. After a sumptuous dejeuner, including southern fruit of choicest

kind, we sally out for a climb up to the batteries and the signal station, armed with a permit from the town-major, and escorted by a gunner. We are also accompanied by a courier, far more aristocratic looking than any of us, who brings blue lights to show us St. Michael's cave.

By the way, " we " and " us " me an a young Cambridge student doing the tour of Spain like myself, and two young men from Man chester, enjoying their short holiday out here, inistead of wasting it in the big Babylon at home.

Ascending the steep, narrow streets, the buzz of children's voices attracts my attention to the right, and I see " Loretto Coonvent " on a brass plate affixed to a door, which explains it all.

Very soon the town is beneath us, and we pass close under the square Moorish tower which I had noticed from the sea. It is full of arched recesses, and is built of dove-coloured concrete, faced with bricks. In Ireland such a building would crumble before fifty years; but here it stands defying time, and already it reckons eleven centuries and a half I

A little more climbing and we reach the batteries- about four hun dred feet above the sea. They may be best described as invisible externally, for they consist of small caves scooped inside the rock, each opening on some point of vantage, and communicating one with another by tunnels and sheltered passages which make no outward show. Each of these caves is called a "1 hall," and to each is attached the name of some military celebrity of the British army. All contain guns of heavy calibre, ready pointed, and a stock of conical ammuni tion piled alongside. But outside, dwarf palms (palmettos) and luxu riant ferns grow to their very mouths, so that the eye would seek them almost in vain from below.



548 Notes of a Short Trif to Spain.

The view from those " halls " is most varied and charming. From one we had the rare good-luck to see three of the rock monkeys, run ning about in a most inaccessible place, within stone's throw of us. Sometimes people are a whole year at Gibraltar without seeing them, so that we were especially fortunate. They have no tails, they stand from two to three feet high, they are covered with brown hair, and they are not very ugly. Where we saw them, they were manifestly feeding on the roots of the palmettos, which grow wild all over the

mountain. There is some wind which sends them clustering into a sheltery nook, and then they can be counted. I am told that there are not more than a couple of dozen on the whole rock, and it is ostracism to anyone who dares to molest them.

What a dropping and converging fire might be sent from those invisible " halls " on any doomed ships that might attempt a duel with them from below I Ancd again, what a view of the Straits, of the town, and of everything.! AnLd while we gaze, far away out below us two eagles or huge brown hawks are soaring in the placid air; and all this monkey-and-eagle wilderness, although it seems only a few

minutes since we left the garrison town. Again ascending, by steep, zig-zag, and giddy paths, fringed at in

tervals with hedge-rows of prickly pear, we push our way, under the pitiless rays of an almost noonday sun, up to the signal station. Here the view on every side, through the vapourless ether, is absolutely superb. On the north it is the Sierra Nevada-object of all my long ings-rearing itself in blue and white. On the south, beyond the seemingly narrow Straits, where the black-faced war-ships ride at anchor, it is Gibraltar's African pendant, Ceuta; and, in the dim dis tance beyond it, a mysterious range of palest blue mountains; those are the outspurs of the Atlas range, the nearest of which is forty leagUeB away. Distance, like time, hides but little in this wonderfully clear atmosphere. Not the smallest barge can cross the Straits with osit being signalled from here, and whole conversations are carried on with passing ships by means of flags, and flashed on to London by means of electric wire. We saw our own vessel steaming off for Malta, and a rowing-boat making frantic efforts to overtake it, all in vain. That boat, as we afterwards found, contained some of our fellQw-passengers, who had merely landed to have a view of the place, but had forgotten that time and tide wait for no one.

Descending by another zig-zag path, amid Mediterranean heather, palmettos and prickly pears, we reach St. Michael's Cave, and here the blue lights are brought into requisition. The cave is like the interior of a Gothic cithedral: the stalactites and stalagmites meet and form vertebrated columns, tall and slender, and the sound of dropping water is heard from below. This cave leads into deeper recesses, often ex

plored with British daring and scientific skill, but never to the end; there is a legend that it spreads under the Straits to Ceuta, and that



Notes of a Short Tr:y to S5azn. 549

it was thus the apes came from Barbary. Ceuta, in olden times, was called Abyla, which Londoners can mispronounce into " ape-hill," and thus confirm the tradition.

All the world knows that Gibraltar itself was called Calpe by the

Greeks and Romans, and that Calp6 and Abyla were the pillars of Hercules, the Gebel Tarik and Gebel Mousa of the Moors. But it is not so generally known that Kalp6 is a Greek corruption for

Alyb6 (Alyba): so that Alyba and Abyla were the -real Phoenician names for the twin rocks.

And now pictuire us back in the town. As the afternoon draws on towards evening, Waterport-street, in which our hotel stands, becomes a perfect study of varied nationality. I take no stock of the British element, which rules and governs, but forms an intrusive minority by no means picturesque. But the graceful Spaniards are here, walking about or presiding behind their counters, like ladies at a bazaar. And

Moors from Tangiers are met at every step-tall, handsome, dignified looking-in flowing garments of red, amber, and white, with turbans

which are sure to be of the latter colour if their wearers have accom plished the pilgrimage to Mecca. That pilgrimage is an assurance of paradise, and makes them "H adjis;" and I am told that the lHadjis grow a single lock of hair on the top of the head, whereby the Prophet or the Archangel Gabriel may draw them up to heaven when their time comes. Meantime they sell tomatoes, and peaches, and luscious fruit of kinds unknown to me, and wonderful piles of " pampooshes "

(slippers) run into one another, and rising quite three or four feet into the air; ancd they look very picturesque and very jolly.

* # X

Next morning, at a most ungodly hour (resisting the temptation of a trip to Tangiers and Tetuan, because it would have retarded travel ling in real Spain by a whole week), I found myself out in one of those skiffs with tall lateen sails which almost resemble wings. The crew consisted of two men and a boy, the latter fast asleep in the keel, and his seniors did not disturb him. But presently he woke up of his own accord and commenced warbling a strange air in a minor key, evidently setting it to impromptu words of his own, as if giving expression to his pent-up feelings. The notes ran thus:

_ ra o r r f te y I

A Pr I 1rrrrr - and it was strange how every dark feature of the young minlstrel



550 In Memoriam Sister Mary Rose, O.S.D.

brightened up and expanded under the charm of his own simple

melody. A gentleman on board the coasting steamer, which we soon

reached, told me that such airs are heard constantly in Algeria: so we may stamp it as African, and call it Moorish; and indeed it sounded like the sigh of regret for departed greatness.

The mouse-shaped outline of the rock of Gibraltar looked most conspicuous as we steamed away towards Cadiz; and the small town, with its green latticed windows, looked lovely in the morning sun shine.

IN MEMORIAl! SISTER MARY ROSE, O.S.D.

(EMILY DIDioN BRADY.*)

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lus perpetua luceat eis."

I.

"C TERNAL rest and endless light," So prays, 0 Lord, thy Church on earth For those who wait the second birth

Within the tomb's apparent night.

And is not this a prayer inspired? In simple words how much expressed I " Eternal light and endless rest "

What more remains to be desired?

Rest for the busy hand and brain, Rest for the weary toil-stained feet; For the poor heart that rest complete

It ever sought on earth in vain.

And light-God's primal gift of old All life's strange problems now explained, All knowledge without toil attained,

All mysteries as a scroll unrolled.

* Died August 25th, 1884, at the Dominican Convent, Sion Hill, Blackrock, D ublin.-REI.P.



notes of a short trip to spain

Documents