Chapter I: Seville

(NOVEMBER 1830-MAY 1831)

POLITICAL CONDITION OF SPAIN--FORD AS A TRAVELLER--LIFE AT
SEVILLE--JOURNEY TO MADRID BY _DILIGENCE_--DON QUIXOTE’S
COUNTRY--RETURN TO SEVILLE

On September 15th, 1830, Richard Ford wrote from London to his friend Henry Unwin Addington, the British Plenipotentiary at Madrid, announcing his intention to winter in Spain. The letter was sent by the hand of Mr. Wetherell, who had been encouraged by the Spanish Government to set up a tannery at Seville. He imported workmen and machinery, and established his premises in the suppressed Jesuit convent of San Diego. But the Government proved faithless, its promises were unfulfilled, the convent was taken from him, and the unfortunate Wetherell, with many of his compatriots, lies buried in the garden near the dismantled tannery.

Cea Bermudez, whose opinion Ford quotes, was at that time the Spanish Ambassador in England. As Prime Minister under Ferdinand VII. he had proved too Liberal for his master (1825); so at a later period (1832-3) he showed himself, in the same capacity, too Conservative for Queen Christina.

LONDON, _September 15 [1830]_.

DEAR ADDINGTON,

Mr. Wetherell will take this to Madrid, on his way to Seville,
where I am shortly bound myself on account of Mrs. Ford’s health.
She is condemned to spend a winter or two in a warm climate, and we
have decided on the south of Spain for this year. We shall sail
very soon, as a friend of mine, Captain Shirreff, who is appointed
Port-admiral at Gibraltar, gives us a passage out.

News we have none, as grass is growing in the deserted streets of
London; other news are not safely sent _por la delicadeza de las
circunstancias politicas_. But with them you are well acquainted by
the newspapers, which, if you could contrive occasionally to send
to me confidentially, and not to be shown, when at Seville, would
be the greatest favour our King’s representative could show to one
of his humble subjects on his travels.

I am in hopes all will be quiet in Spain. Cea Bermudez thinks so,
and hinted to Lord Dudley, who told me, that they were going to do
everything that could be fairly expected by the Liberals. I am
praying the Queen may produce a son.

I have seen much here of the Consul at Malaga, Mr. Mark; if I am
to believe him, Malaga is a second Paradise. The Duke of Wellington
says Granada is charming; he has given us a letter to O’Lawlor, who
manages his property at Soto de Roma. Washington Irving tells us we
shall be able to be lodged in the Alhambra, as he was, which will
tempt me to pass next summer there.

It is a serious undertaking to travel into Spain with three
children and four women, and a great bore to break up my
establishment here, but it must be done.

S[u] S[eguro] S[ervidor],

RICHARD FORD.

Political conditions, at the time when Richard Ford landed in Spain with his wife and children, threatened the outbreak of civil war. In 1812 the Cortes, sitting at Cadiz, then almost the only spot which was not occupied by a foreign force, had promulgated the forms and phrases of parliamentary government. Few praised, few blamed the new Constitution, which was foreign in spirit and founded on French models; few asked the reason why _Plaza de la Constitucion_ was inscribed on the principal squares. To the mass of the Spanish people, constitutions were parchment unrealities. Caring less for theories of government than for the just administration of existing laws, they gained from the action of the Cortes nothing that they desired. Their deepest convictions were loyalty to the Church and to the Crown, and to these prejudices the Constitution only opposed definitions. Every class that suffered by the proposed reforms was mistrustful, if not hostile. The clergy, the functionaries, the nobles, were either outraged in their opinions, or attacked in their interests, or curtailed of their authority.

When Ferdinand VII. returned to power in March 1814, he pressed his advantage home. A restoration is often worse than a revolution. It was so in Spain. Ferdinand rejected the Constitution, removed the restrictions on his despotism, and restored the Inquisition. But he had gone too far. Don Rafael del Riego stirred to rebellion the ill-paid troops assembled on the Isla de Leon for the unpopular expedition to South America. _El Himno de Riego_, the _Marseillaise_ of Spain, written by Evaristo San-Miguel and composed by La Huerta, caught the ears of the people; even the _Tragala_, or _Ça ira_ of Spanish revolutionists, was sung in Madrid, and from 1820 to 1823 the Constitution was forced upon the King. But with the help of France he had regained his despotic authority, and used it with blind ferocity.

In 1829 Ferdinand, till then childless, had married as his fourth wife, Christina of Naples. The expected birth of a child alarmed the retrograde party of extreme clericals and ultra-royalists which had rallied round the King’s brother and presumptive heir, Don Carlos. At the same time, the Constitutionalists or Liberals, encouraged by the French Revolution of 1830, returned from exile, or emerged from their hiding-places, and risings in favour of political reform agitated the North and the South of Spain. The general unrest was increased by the Civil War in Portugal, where the Liberal adherents of Maria da Gloria, the daughter of Pedro IV., waged war against the Absolutists who supported her uncle Dom Miguel.

Threatened on the one side by reactionary tendencies, and on the other by political innovations, the weak and bankrupt Government rested securely on the torpor of the Spanish people. With all his faults, Ferdinand, fat, good-natured, jocose in a ribald fashion, affecting the national dress, feeding on _puchero_, an eager sportsman, devoted to smoking his thick Havana cigars, and to his beautiful queen, had few personal enemies. He knew the temper of his country well. He did nothing, and it was the interest of neither party to precipitate the impending crisis. He was “the cork in the beer bottle,” as he said himself, and only when he was “gone, would the beer foam over.” On October 10th, 1830, his daughter Isabella was born. In her favour the Salic law of succession was set aside. Don Carlos retired to Portugal, and the Cortes swore to Isabella the oath of allegiance as Princess of the Asturias and heiress to the throne. Three months later (September 29th, 1833), Ferdinand died. Isabella was proclaimed Queen, under the guardianship of her mother, Doña Christina. Civil war at once broke out, the Liberals supporting Christina, and the Carlists fighting under the standard of legitimacy.

But, apart from disturbed political conditions, the moment at which Ford visited the country was exceptionally favourable. Entrenched behind the Pyrenees, isolated from the rest of Europe, Spain, in lazy pride, watched from her Castle of Indolence the progress of other nations. Few travellers crossed her borders. Travelling carriages were unknown luxuries; it was only possible to post from Irun to Madrid. The system of passports and police surveillance was vexatious. Except on the main lines, the inns were bad, the by-roads were almost impassable for wheeled carriages, the country was infested with robbers, and all these obstacles were magnified by literary travellers. Thus Spain, repelling intercourse with other nations, was thrown back upon herself. Yet this isolation did not unite the separate provinces in any community of national feeling. The contrary was the case. Bound together in provincial clanship, the inhabitants knew themselves and their neighbours, not as Spaniards, but as Arragonese or Castilians, Andalusians or Catalans. The climate, soil, and products of the barren dusty centre did not present more striking variations from those of the rich luxuriant south than did the distinctive dress, language, customs, and habits of the natives of the respective provinces. Here were the sandals, the wide breeches, the bright sash, the many-coloured plaid, the gay handkerchief of the half-oriental Valencian; here the red cap of the Catalan, trousered to the armpits; here the broad-brimmed hat, figured velvet waistcoat, richly worked shirt, and embroidered gaiters of the Leonese; here the filigree buttons, silver tags and tassels which studded the jacket of the Andalusian dandy, who starved for weeks on a crust and onion that he might glitter in a gay costume, for a few hours on a saint’s day, under his blue sky and brilliant sun. And everywhere, in the foreground of every rural scene, stood the ass, the companion and the helpmate of the Spanish peasant.

Distinctions of dress were but the outward expression of a variety of deeper differences. To the artist, the historian, the sportsman, and the antiquary,--to the student of dialects, the observer of manners and customs, the lover of art, the man of sentiment, Spain in 1830 offered an enchanting field, an almost untrodden Paradise. In Ford all these interests were combined, not merely as tastes, but as enthusiasms. He revelled in the country and its people with the unflagging zest of his richly varied sympathies. He learned to speak the Spanish of the place in which he happened to be, and of the people with whom he chanced to be talking. The inveterate exclusiveness of the aristocracy, the ingrained mistrust of the lower orders, the professional suspicion of the bandit or the smuggler broke down before the charm of his manners and appearance. Quick to observe, and prompt to adopt, the customs, ceremonies, and courtesies of Spanish society, he found the houses of the grandees at his disposal. Rural Dogberries, jealous of their authority, who could not be driven by rods of iron, submitted to be led by the silken thread of his civility. José Maria, the bandit King of Andalusia, made him free of his country, and over his wide district Ford rode for miles, if not by his side, at least under his personal protection. Even the smuggler, by the fireside of a country inn, laid aside his blunderbuss, and, over a bottle of wine and a cigar, gave him his confidence. He was, in fact, a born traveller. If necessary, he was master of every intonation with which the mule driver of La Mancha can pronounce the national oath. But with him these occasions were rare. He knew that money made the mare and the driver to go, and that a joke, a proverb, or a cigar, was the best oil for reluctant wheels. Travelling mainly on horseback, he was independent of roads. Mounted on “Jaca Cordovese,” threading his way by bridle-paths and goat-tracks, he penetrated to the most inaccessible of the towns which were plastered like martins’ nests against the tawny rocks of Spain. Never looking for five feet in a cat, or expecting more from Spanish inns than they could offer, he encountered every inconvenience with good temper, and accumulated in his wanderings the mass of insight, incident, and adventure, which he stored in his note-books and embodied in his _Handbook to Spain_.

Ford’s second letter to Addington (November 27th, 1830) announces his arrival, and is dated from “Plazuela San Isidoro, No. 11, Seville,”--the Athens and the Capua of Spain. The house which he occupied seems to have belonged to the Mr. Hall Standish who left to Louis Philippe the fine collection of Spanish pictures which were formerly deposited in the _Musée Standish_ at the Louvre.

We are all safely arrived at Seville, in spite of the Bay of
Biscay, and all the dangers and perils

[_To face p. 9._

“I [R. F.] rode more than 2000 miles on this Horse.”]

supposed to abound in this quiet country by the good people in
England. We had rather a long passage--twenty days--but were in a
good ship with a good captain, an old friend of mine, who is now
employed in cleaning that Augean Stable of jobs and
mismanagement--the Bay of Gibraltar. We were as comfortable as the
wretched nature of ships will allow of; man-cook, doctor, cow,
sheep, and chickens contributed thereunto.

We were right glad to be landed at the Rock, and spent eight or ten
days there very agreeably in seeing the lions and monkeys, guns and
garrisons, and in going to balls and batteries. When I come to
Madrid, I will let you into a few of the secrets I heard at the
Rock. The old general[1] and his lady (an old friend of my
mother’s) were very civil and good-natured to us. We found their
house very agreeable. Having clambered all over the Rock, we began
to feel the epidemic under which the garrison labours, namely,
_bore_, and the feeling of being shut up on so small a space. We
therefore took an English brig and proceeded to Cadiz.

By the way, before you leave Spain, you should see the Straits of
Gibraltar. I never yet have seen any scenery to equal the African
coast, so bold and mountainous. Cadiz is charming, clean and tidy,
abounding in all good things, the result of _a free trade_,[2] if
you and the Spaniards would but think so. Thence in the steamer to
Seville, where we are finally settled in an excellent house which I
have taken of Mr. Hall Standish. It has the advantages of a garden,
a fireplace, and a southern exposure, which make it perfectly warm;
the climate delicious, everybody very civil.

We have brought letters to all the governors and grandees, and one
from a gentleman who was of some consequence, the Duke of
Wellington, to his old friend, the Marquis de las Amarillas, the
_beau idéal_ of a Spanish caballero.[3] We intend spending the
winter here.

I am in treaty for a _grande chasse_ near this place, where the
_assistente_ goes, and also am about to take the best box at the
theatre. You will think I have discovered a mine of gold; but all
this may be done for much less than the weekly bills in London, and
I hope to save at least half my income.

Pray consider this house at your disposal if ever you may be
inclined to come to Seville; I think we shall be able to make you
comfortable.

At Seville Ford remained for the next six months. There he laid the foundations of his unrivalled knowledge of Spanish life. There, sketchbook in hand, he studied the various styles of architecture, both ecclesiastical and civil, of which the city was an epitome, sketching the Prout-like subjects which every turn of the labyrinthine streets afforded. There he studied the ceremonial, origin, and meaning of the religious functions, nowhere more magnificent, and especially of the quaint pageants of Holy Week. He learnt by heart the pictures in the cathedral, the churches, the university, the museum, the private galleries, and picked up for himself not a few of the treasures of Spanish art. Under the crumbling battlements and long arches of the aqueduct at the _Plaza de la Carne_ he watched the Easter sales of paschal lambs, reminded of Murillo by living originals, as the children led off their lambs decorated with ribbons, or as shepherds strode by, holding the animals by the four legs so as to form a tippet round their necks. With much gossip and cigar-smoking he ransacked the shop of the Greek Dionysio, the tall, gaunt bookseller in the _Calle de Genoa_, for rare volumes, or chaffered with the jewellers in the arcades of the _Plaza_ for Damascene filigree and cinque-cento work, or bargained at the weekly markets of _La Feria_ among the piled-up stalls of fish, fruit, flesh and fowl. At Seville he learned the useful art of ridding himself of the importunity of beggars. There also he masqueraded at the carnivals, flirted with the Andalusian beauties in the _Plaza del Duque_, and mastered, in the best of schools, the intricacies of the art of bull-fighting. At the fair of Mairena he noted every detail of the glittering dresses of the _majos_, the dandies who there displayed their finest dresses and feats of horsemanship. He revelled in the colours and costumes, the grouping and attitudes of the washerwomen, who screamed and chattered in the _Corral del Conde_. He followed with the keenest interest every step in the national _bolero_ at the theatre, every movement of the wilder saraband, danced to the accompaniment of castanets and tambourines by the gipsies in the suburb of _Los Humeros_. Among the horse-dealers, jockeys, and cattle-dealers, who thronged the _Alameda Vieja_, he had many friends, and from them probably learned some of the secrets of horse-keeping which he knew to perfection. For his pencil he found endless subjects on the sunny flats beyond the Moorish walls in the groups of idlers, who, under the vine trellises, played cards the livelong day for wine or love or coppers; or in the suburb of _La Macarena_, the home of the agricultural labourer, where the women, clad in the rainbow rags of picturesque poverty, and the naked urchins, rich in every variety of brown and yellow, gathered in front of their hovels behind their carts and implements and animals.

Of society in Seville he saw as much as there was to be seen. Writing to Addington in November or December 1830, he says:

This place is dull enough for people inclined to balls and dinners;
but we are very well pleased. The climate delicious beyond
description, open doors and windows, with the sun streaming in. We
have had a good deal of rain, but no cold. I have a good fireplace
in my sitting-room, which is a rarity here, and indeed is not much
wanted. The habits of the natives are very unsocial, never meeting
in each other’s houses, and only going to the theatre Thursdays and
Mondays. Politics, and a want of money, contribute much to this,
and, more, their natural indolence and love of hugger-muggery at
home in their shawls and over the _Brasero_. Their customs are
droll and inconvenient. Nothing more so than that of visiting in
grand costume, white gloves and necklaces, from 12 to 2; then they
dine, and what they do afterwards, God knows. The day is pretty
well consumed in doing nothing. However, we dine at half-past 5,
and contrive to get a morning for walking, sketching, reading, etc.

The principal people are very civil, especially the _Assistente_,
Arjona, and a General Giron, Marquis of Amarillas, a friend of the
Duke of Wellington. They talk politics to _me_; but that is a
subject nobody touches on here.

As far as I can see, mixing much with bankers, _canonigos_, and
grandees, there is no appearance whatever of anything unpleasant,
and I am sure at Cadiz still less; either they do not talk about
these matters, or do not care. I am inclined to think the latter. I
saw a captain of an English brig yesterday, twelve days from
Plymouth, who says that everything is quite quiet in the south-west
part of England--no burnings or meetings.

I have had no news yet from my _Whig friends_ in London. Now would
be the time for me to be looking out for something; but there are
ten Pigs no doubt for every Teat, and the Whigs are much more
hungry from long abstinence than the Tories who have been sucking
away this fifty years. I will venture to opine that they will not
meddle with you. Lord Palmerston is a great friend of Lord Dudley’s
and they were in office together, and I am sure Lord D. is a good
friend of yours. I hope they won’t for all sorts of reasons, and a
selfish one of looking forward to paying you a visit at Madrid next
April.

I am going on Sunday to the Coto del Rey for a week’s shooting, the
_Assistente_ having ordered an officer to go with me and see that I
have the best of it and good lodgings in the _Palacio_.

Mr. Williams[4] has a very fine collection of pictures of the
Spanish school, which I own disappoints me, a sort of jumble of
Rubens and Carlo Maratti. However, I have not seen much yet.

My wife is better already, and the children in a wonderful state of
health; we positively live in the open air; the air is good, the
water better, and the bread superlative. I don’t see what they want
here except money, which is after all something, but nothing to so
_rich_ a man as your very humble servant is in Seville.

A later letter (January 1st, 1831) is in the same strain:--

Many thanks for the Galignanis, always most acceptable, whether
early or late, many or few. One can’t expect in Spain to keep pace
with the march of intellect and English mail. I trust civilisation
will be long getting in here, for it is now an original Peculiar
People, potted for six centuries, as was well said. Luckily the
robbers and roads will stop much advance of improvement. I have too
much respect for Ambassadors and their privileges to presume to
expect anything out of the way. _La forme, il faut s’y tenir._ If
you can get me a Galignani, well; if not, well. I have a great mind
to write to Paris at once, as I see they never touch any of my
letters. If they did I should go to Arjona, who is a great friend
of mine.

I am just returned from a shooting excursion at the _Coto del Rey_,
where he sent me, with a captain to attend on me; a magnificent
sporting country and full of woodcocks.

We go on in our humdrum manner, for there is absolutely no society
whatever; dinners of course not, but not even a _Tertulia_ [“at
home” or _Conversazione_]. They meet twice a week at the theatre.
The great bore is the visiting for all the _fine ladies_ (what
would Lʸ. Jersey or Lʸ. Cowper think of them?). They have
condescended to quit their _braseros_ and call on my wife, partly
to see the strange monster they conceive her to be, and partly to
show their laces, white gloves, and trinkets. They call about 2
o’clock, dressed out for a ball, with fans, and all their wardrobe
on their back; visits interminable. Some bring Mr. Fernando White
as their dragoman, which is rather droll, as his English is
infinitely less intelligible than their Spanish. Then we return the
visits, my wife in mantilla and white gloves, according to
etiquette. What a contrast between these fine ladies at home and
abroad! No Cinderella changes more rapidly. There they are,
squatting over their _brasero_, unwashed, undressed, cold and
shivering, and uncomfortable, wrapped up in a shawl in their great
barnlike, unfurnished houses; a matted rush and a few chairs the
inventory of their chattels. A book is a thing I have not yet set
eyes on, nor anything which indicates the possession of those
damnable, heretical accomplishments, reading and writing. They are
very civil and gracious, and everything is at our disposition,
especially as they see we have eyes, hands, and faces, like other
mortals. Of course I am considered to be a milor, and am known by
the name of the Don Ricardo.

We have had many letters from England; all seem very uncomfortable
there about the way things are going on. After all, it will turn
out, as I said in England, the only place to be quiet in is Spain.
Lady Jersey is broken-hearted; Lady Lyndhurst ruined,--they have
just £1200 a year, which won’t pay her coiffeur. Lord Lyndhurst[5]
expected to the last to have been Chancellor; Lords Carnarvon,
Dudley, and Radnor indignant. The new Ministry thought to be very
Grey, too much so.[6] They will cut down all the good things, till,
as old Tierney said, it will be a losing concern to come in. Lord
Castlereagh used to say, in the good old times, in the dark days
of Nicolas, that “the cake was not then too large for the wholesome
aliment of the constitution.”

Great doings in the cathedrals, churches, and convents: much
bell-ringing, processions, great consumption of incense, torches,
and tapers. I wonder how the lower orders manage to keep
themselves, as every day seems to be a holiday. The most active
branch of commerce is the sale of the water of the Alameda, which
seems to agree with the Sevillian as well as it would with a trout.

Everything appears to me to be in a state of profound repose, all
dead and still.

An enthusiastic sportsman, Ford found that the neighbourhood swarmed with game--with partridges, hares, rabbits, quail, curlew, and plover. Snipe and woodcock abounded. Within a mile from Seville, he could with ease kill ten couple of snipe in a morning: in every half-acre copse he counted on flushing five or six woodcock. Behind a pasteboard horse, or concealed in a country cart, he stalked the bustards drawn up in long lines on the plains that bordered the Guadalquivir. The Coto del Rey, a royal preserve about thirty miles from Seville, abounded not only with the smaller game of the country, but also deer and wild boars. With most of the smaller winged game he had the field to himself, and his skill, armed with a double-barrelled Purdey, and using detonators, seemed to the countrymen almost demoniacal. The natives themselves rarely fired at game in motion, partly because ammunition was extravagantly dear, partly because, with their flint and steel guns, a quarter of a minute elapsed between pulling the trigger and the discharge of the piece. Spaniards shot rather for the pot than for sport. In partridge shooting decoys were used, and the birds killed on the ground. Hares were shot in cleared runs or on their forms, and rabbits as they paused in creeping to the edges of woods.

In the occupations and amusements which Seville and its neighbourhood afforded, Ford passed his time agreeably enough. Though not yet the vehement Tory that he became in later life, he congratulated himself on having left England, then in the throes of Parliamentary Reform. Nor was he alone in his gloomy forebodings. Even the prospects of Spain seemed to him, by comparison, peaceful. Yet already revolutionary movements were on foot within his immediate neighbourhood. In his next three letters from Seville (February 2nd; February, undated; March 25th, 1831), he refers to the attempts of General Torrijos to stir up a Liberal rising in Andalusia, their failure, and their punishment.

From his safe refuge at Gibraltar, Torrijos had issued a proclamation, calling on the Spanish people to rise against the tyranny of the Government. On January 24th, 1831, he followed up this manifesto by landing near Algeciras with two hundred followers. Confronted by superior numbers, he was compelled to re-embark for Gibraltar. Six weeks later, March 3rd, 1831, his emissaries won over six hundred of the sailors and soldiers quartered at Cadiz. A riot took place: the Governor, Oliver y Hierro, was killed; the movement threatened to become general. But the rising was soon quelled. The mutineers endeavoured to join Manzanares in the hills round Ronda. On their march they were attacked by Quesada, the Captain-General of Andalusia, at Vejer, a Moorish town scrambling up the rocky cliffs from the river Barbate, sixteen miles from Cadiz. “Prodigies of valour” were performed by the royalist troops, whose losses were one man killed, two wounded, and two bruised. The rebels were defeated. A few escaped to the coast; the majority were either killed with arms in their hands or as prisoners. The followers of Manzanares had dwindled to twenty men; Manzanares himself was murdered by a goatherd, and his companions were spared at Quesada’s request. The only results of these badly planned invasions were the creation of courts martial, the multiplication of spies, wholesale executions, and the establishment of a reign of terror.

Quesada, in spite of his magniloquent bulletin, was a man of mark. Under Queen Christina’s regency he was appointed Captain-General of Madrid. Borrow, who speaks of him as “a very stupid individual, but a great fighter,”[7] was yet stirred to enthusiasm by the energy and courage of the “brute bull,” to whom he devotes some of his most picturesque pages. Almost single-handed, Quesada repressed the military riots at Madrid (August 11th and 12th, 1836). “No action,” says Borrow, “of any conqueror or hero on record is to be compared with this closing scene of the life of Quesada; for who, by his single desperate courage and impetuosity, ever stopped a revolution in full course? Quesada did; he stopped the revolution at Madrid for one entire day, and brought back the uproarious and hostile mob of a huge city to perfect order and quiet. His burst into the Puerta del Sol was the most tremendous and successful piece of daring ever witnessed. I admired so much the spirit of the ‘brute bull’ that I frequently, during his wild onset, shouted ‘Viva Quesada!’”[8] A few days afterwards Quesada was murdered by the nationals at a village near Madrid. Portions of his body were brought back to the city, and in the coffeehouse of the _Calle del Alcalá_ the mangled fingers and hand of the murdered man were stirred in a huge bowl of coffee, which was drunk to the accompaniment of a grisly song.

_February 2, 1831._

I send you a proclamation issued this morning. People do not seem
inclined to believe it, and think Torrijos had at least two
thousand men. If he had, there must have been a vast propagation
going on in the bay this winter, and armed revolutionists must have
sprung out of the seaweed like so many soldiers of Cadmus. When I
was there, I heard much of them from General Don, the Town Major,
and Shirreff (the Captain of the Port, who brought us out), and the
outside number was computed at six hundred, without arms or money.
I believe the people would have no objection here to a change, if
it could be accomplished by the act of God, or anyhow without
putting them to expense or trouble. They are afraid of everything,
I am told--hot water, cold water, shaving, talking, or indeed doing
anything. As for their ignorance, it is the result of leaving the
mind constantly fallow, and the sharpest Spaniard would get dull,
with their 2-o’clock dinners and habits of living. I find them all
_slow_ in the movements of mind and body. The climate of this place
is most delicious; the rains are over, and the last ten days have
been more charming than any July in England, the sun so warm as
really to be almost oppressive. Spring is coming on rapidly; the
trees are budding, and the vegetation makes gigantic strides. We
have not had above ten days’ cold all the winter, and that a degree
of cold varying between 36 and 46.

I have had many letters from England, and fear that people are very
uncomfortable there. The tone and feeling I collect from the mass
of letters are far from satisfactory. I believe we are now in the
only quiet place. If ever you should see any real clouds in the
horizon, pray give me a timely hint, as I have a wife and three
children here, and Gibraltar is a very snug place in stormy
weather. I am going to write to Shirreff, and will beg him to let
me know the rights of this Spanish business at Gibraltar, and
communicate them to you.

There is nothing doing; we live a humdrum life, never going out,
neither to the theatre, which is really insupportably dull, nor to
the _Alameda_. We dine late, and are much occupied with those
damnable heretical inventions--reading and writing, with those
incomprehensible ones to Spaniards--drawing and music, for not even
the guitar is played. I have made a large collection of drawings of
this most picturesque old town; my wife is hard at work with her
guitar, and will play you some real Spanish airs when she gets to
Madrid.

There is no such thing as a _drawing master_. The natives are
interested and surprised at all our proceedings, and verily believe
we have all arrived from the moon.

_February_ (undated) 1831.

We are here blockaded by the waters, and almost cut off from all
communications. The country from the top of the Giralda looks like
Venice, and in many of the streets people go about in boats. The
state of the poor is very lamentable, and they are distributing
bread, etc. Still, the suburb of Triana has risen, and a troop of
soldiers has been obliged to be sent there. However, the rain has
ceased, and there is a prospect of better weather. I hear
occasionally from England, where things are settling down, but
people seem to expect a continental war, in consequence of the
Polish revolution. However, you are much more in the light than I
can possibly be. Is it true that Sir Frˢ. Burdett is dead? I hope
not, as he is a great friend of mine and a most agreeable and
perfect gentleman, tho’ _not_ a Tory, _con licencia de usted_
[begging your Honour’s pardon]. People seem to think Parliament
will be dissolved after all.

This is a sad, dull town for news, as I see nobody, and nobody sees
anybody. I have got into a mess by asking some of the _Grandees_ to
dinner, and giving them a Spanish dinner and using some _Spanish_
plates. God knows I have neither plates nor plate. They have
thought what I meant as a compliment was meant to turn them into
ridicule. However, I have gravely explained the matter, and stand
right again, _rectus in curia_, having afforded conversation to
this excellent and industrious Capital for some few days.

Certainly to us who have seen England, France, Germany, and Italy,
this _is_ a curious country, and the people are not attainted by
the march of intellect. However, I am much inclined to like them
better than the French, the Germans, or the Italians.

My wife is _pretty_ well; she did not expect such a tremendous
visitation of rain and damp as we have undergone. As soon as she is
delivered of her precious burden, she will set out for Madrid, and
hopes to find your Excellency there. In spite of all our Whig
friends, I am a rank Tory in hoping to see you at your post, and am
not quite sure that some of the Tory principles I imbibed in very
early youth do not remain, in spite of Brooks’s, and the dangerous
company I have kept since marriage. I am not sure if I should not
prefer the Canning System to all others; you will despise that as a
half-measure. However, here I have no politics, nor care much to
have any anywhere.

_March 25, 1831._

At length I am able to announce the safe confinement of my wife,
who on the 22nd presented me with another boy to consume my
substance in these hard times. My wife had an excellent time, and
everything was managed in the Spanish fashion, much to her
satisfaction. She is doing quite well. Owing to her confinement
having taken place so much later than we expected, I am afraid she
must give up all thoughts of coming to Madrid, as the journey is
too long for one so newly confined. I think of coming myself after
the raree show of the Holy Week here is over, so very likely may
set out in the _diligence_ about the 7th or 8th of April.

We are all very quiet here. The Captain-General is come back, so I
conclude all the row near Gibraltar is put down. Indeed, the thing
seems to be rather ridiculous. We have a flaming account of the
_bizarria_ and wonderful gallantry of the troops--how they stood
firm under a most tremendous fire, the result of which was one man
killed, two wounded, one horse ditto, and two men with contusion.
They were in a sad stew the night the news of the assassination of
the Cadiz Governor arrived; but since that all has been most
tranquil, and now Quesada is come back, the Liberals will be in
such a fright as will even surprise a Spaniard.

Many thanks for the Galignanis. The debates are most interesting.
It is a sweeping measure, and if the Ministry go out on it, the
country will go with them. Those who succeed will not be on a bed
of roses. I hardly think they can carry it, with the present state
of the House.

I am in hopes, now Quesada is come back, that they will let the
processions go on as usual. There was some talk that this year
they would not; it would be a hard case not to see the whole game
played.

I have just seen a friend of mine, Captain Bigge, who was very
ill-used at Cadiz, and threatened with arrest unless he left the
town. Quesada, the Captain-General here, is very civil to him. The
people in Madrid must be crazy to offend such a man as Quesada,
whose presence and name _only_ put down the affair at Cadiz. Here
they say that they have refused him the pardon he asked for for
some of the revolutionists. He is so annoyed that they expect he
will resign; if so, the Lord have mercy upon the ruling powers. As
long as he is here all will go right. They are arresting and
shooting away in Cadiz, and they say an order is arrived for all
those settled there since 1822 to leave the place in forty-eight
hours; they will all join José Maria or turn Liberals. Some low
rumours are afloat that Cadiz will no longer be a free port. _Quem
Deus vult perdere, prius dementat_. The only man to conciliate and
consult is Quesada, as far as this part of the world goes, as he is
a fair straightforward man of common sense, and equally respected
by all parties, and his name alone is a host in a country where
everybody is afraid of everything and everybody.

Many thanks for your hospitable offer. I shall certainly come
alone to Madrid, and may Providence protect your Excellency from
the reductions of the Whigs for many a year! Depend upon it, the
general feeling in Andalusia is against these cold-blooded military
executions, and no one more so than Quesada, who is the _magnus
Apollo_ here, and the only person of whom the Spanish Government
might say _sic me servavit_. The processions of the Holy Week are
all stopped,--much to my sorrow, as I am told they were most
curious, delightful relics of superstition, which I am very fond
of, very picturesque and barbarous.

In April 1831 Ford paid his proposed visit to Addington at Madrid. The two following letters announce his intended departure (April 2nd) and his safe return to Seville (May 14th).

The _diligences_, though only introduced into Spain in 1821, were admirably managed. Travelling over excellent main roads, drawn by teams of eight, twelve, or sometimes fifteen mules, they were lighter, more roomy, and faster than those in France. As compared with English stage-coaches, a traveller[9] considered them to be more comfortable than our own, and equally regular in their working. Posting was almost unknown, and people who in England would have hired post-horses, travelled by the public coaches. Even royal personages did not disdain their use. The journey from Seville to Madrid occupied four and a-half days, a few hours every evening being allowed for sleep on the journey. The fares varied with the places, ranging from £9 in the _berlina_ to £5 10_s._ on the outside.

The living portions of the equipage were picturesque in the extreme. The mules, whose harness was adorned with skeins and tassels of gay-coloured worsted, were shorn smooth, except on the flanks and cruppers, where the hair was allowed to grow in fantastic patterns. The driver wore a sugarloaf-shaped, broad-brimmed hat over a bright silk handkerchief, tied round his head so that the tails hung down behind. He was clothed in a short jacket of brown cloth, embroidered on the back and arms with vases and flowers, and breeches of blue plush, adorned with stripes and filigree buttons, bound at the knees with cords and tassels of silk. His neck was open, with a turn-down collar, and a gaudy tie passed loosely through a ring. His waist was girt with a yellow sash. His legs were encased in stockings and embroidered gaiters, and his feet shod with brown boots of untanned calfskin. Mounting to his perch, gathering the skein of reins in his hand, cracking his whip, calling on each of the mules by her high-sounding name, he set his team in motion,--his helper, a humble imitator of his master in the matter of dress, running by the side of the animals, encouraging, reviling, or pelting them, with unerring aim, from the stones with which he had filled his sash. So the _diligence_ rattled past the Tobacco Factory out of the city gate, under the Moorish wall, through an arch of the Roman aqueduct, and on to the great high road to Madrid.

One part of the journey, at least, was full of interest to Ford. He carried _Don Quixote_ with him on all his travels, knew the book by heart, and now found himself passing through the barren district of La Mancha. Here was Argamasilla de Alba, the village of Don Quixote, and the site of the prison in which, as tradition wrongly asserted, Cervantes wrote his book. Here, with its neighbouring well, was the _Venta de Quesada_, scarcely changed in external aspect since it was the scene of the knighting of the “lantern-jawed” Don; here was El Toboso, where Dulcinea lived; here the Sierra, where the knight did penance; here, at the mouth of the gorge of Despeña-perros, was the Venta de Cardenas, which perhaps suggested the name of Cardenio for the “Ragged one of the Sorry Countenance,” and, above the pass, was the spot where he told his tale. Valdepeñas was still littered with the wine-swollen pig-skins, which Don Quixote attacked; the waterless uplands bristled with windmills; and in every village toiled numbers of brown-clad, sandal-shod Sancho Panzas.

_April 2 [1831]._

I venture to take up a moment of your time, to say that I have
taken my place in the _diligence_ for Thursday next, and shall, in
due time, God willing, arrive in Madrid on _Monday the 11th_. I
accept with great thankfulness the offer you make of giving me a
room in your house, and will give you no trouble, I assure you.

No doubt you have had a long protest, etc., etc., from
Brackenbury[10] on the subject of Captain Bigge’s ill-usage at
Cadiz. Now, as Bigge is an old friend of mine, I can tell you _en
confidence_ something about it. In the first place, he thinks
neither of Liberals nor Constitutions, but only where he can get
the best cigars. He was dining with me, and talking of his Cadiz
adventures, when he let out that he was a friend of Torrijos and
Calderon; that his passport was signed the _3rd of March_, the
fatal day; that he had told a girl he was dancing with in Cadiz
last Carnival to beware of the Ides of March, and not to venture
out on the 3rd. Now, all this being duly reported to the police, in
such a moment as this, was enough to make them treat him as a
suspected person,--very unjustly, but, still, on these sort of
matters Spaniards do not understand how _young_ men talk in
England. I just mention all this to put you _au courant_.

We have also here a Captain Cook, a navigator[11] (but not _the_
Captain Cook). He is a great geologist and stuffer of little birds,
a tall, stiff man, with a sort of philosophical hat, that Buckland
or Cuvier might wear. Now you know what you have to expect in
Madrid.

I have had a most civil letter from General O’Lawlor, of Granada
(having sent him a letter his master, the great Duke, gave me). He
has procured me the refusal of the Alhambra; but it is represented
to be in a ruinous condition, and, as my children and English
servants have no taste for the Moorish picturesque, but a great
notion of the more humble gratification proceeding from a
comfortable house and well-appointed kitchen, I am rather inclined
to put up with the unromantic reality of some good ready-furnished
house.

Meantime _vive valeque_! I hope very shortly to pay my personal
respects to your Excellency.

SEVILLA, _May 14_.

I arrived safely this morning here after a very prosperous journey,
and rather an interesting one, through Talavera, Merida, and
Badajoz. Talavera, a very curious old _Spanish_ town in a most
picturesque state of dirt and decay; Merida, where I remained two
days, full of Roman remains, an aqueduct grander than anything I
ever saw in Italy; Badajoz, well worth seeing, a magnificent
position, and fine old castle, which we have pretty well knocked
about. They were all rather in a fuss there (as being the frontier
town) as to what was going on in Portugal, and very particular
about all strangers coming in and going out. Thence to Sevilla over
the Sierra Morena, a glorious, wild, uncultivated, uninhabited
country, full of hawks, partridges, and cistus. The hills, being
covered with the white flower, looked like _Epinards sucrés_. I
found my spouse much better than I expected.

Messrs. de Custine[12] and de Barbe are, I believe, still here.
They have been taking a great many people up here lately for
political reasons, but no executions.