CHAPTER XI.

MALAGA.

THE wind blowing from the north-west,—that is, a land breeze, at Malaga, excites the nervous system so much, that in courts of law it is held to be an extenuating circumstance in case of crime. It is therefore of great importance to know which way the wind blows when you are proposing to kill your neighbor or to commit a forgery. In our country we have hardly got to that point, but in Boston, where easterly winds prevail, the phrenologists set up a plea in behalf of the Malden murderer that was quite as absurd as the Malaga weather. In New York, the doctrine of mental and moral disturbance is held to be an extenuating circumstance in crime. And some of our eminent citizens, merchants, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and ministers have united in representing the strong excitement engendered by stock speculation, as an excuse for forgery. From all of which it is fair to infer that the guilt or innocence of a man in the New World, as well as the Old, depends very much upon the way the wind blows.

Malaga is one of the most celebrated resorts for invalids. It is not a resort of fashion, like Nice and Mentone, and perhaps Sicily is more sought by those whose maladies are partly imaginary and the other part nervous. But Malaga is a place to which intelligent physicians send hundreds of patients who are in a bad way, and yet have a fair chance of getting well if they spend a few winters in this uniform, genial, mild, but not enervating clime. The warm south wind comes in upon it from the sea, on whose shore it lies, and the mountains in the rear shield it from the northern blasts. In an ordinary room, without fire, the thermometer (Fahr.) ranges all winter long from fifty-two to seventy deg., never higher or lower, unless when an extraordinary fit of weather is on, and the average temperature is about fifty-five deg. from November to March. It is six degrees warmer than Rome, which is one of the dampest, chilliest, and most disagreeable places for an invalid to winter in. I tried hard to get well in Florence and Rome and Nice, and then fled to Spain, and found what neither Italy nor Southern France would furnish,—an equable clime; warm, but not debilitating. Nature has a laboratory for making mineral waters that chemists in vain attempt to imitate, and there are peculiar combinations of atmospheric elements in divers places, that must be tried on the spot if you would get the good of them. The invalid who wishes a climate that braces him up without exciting him to cough, will have to breathe in a great many places, perhaps, before he finds those opposite qualities blended, and if an unprofessional opinion is worth any thing, it is here given, that the south of Spain is the paradise desired. But nothing is more important for consumptives than uniformity of climate, and the argument in favor of Malaga is complete, when you learn that the range or variation of its temperature is _less_ than that of any other place on the continent of Europe! Pau, that beautiful little nest in the Pyrenees, so sheltered by the hills that no wind visits it too roughly, has a range of no less than sixty-eight degrees during the year, and Rome has sixty-two, and even Nice, fairest of watering-places for winter, ranges sixty, but Malaga has only a range of forty-nine degrees in the year.

It rained almost every day in Rome. It rains in Florence implacably, just when you wish it would not. Nice is fairer, but not always fair. Malaga is so uniformly pleasant, that a day without sunshine is very unusual in the months of November, December, and January. Good authority says there are not, during the whole year, more than ten days on which rain would prevent an invalid from taking exercise. It seemed to me that the winter weather in Malaga is more nearly like to that of Cairo, in Egypt, than any other place, and there are but four degrees of difference in the average temperature.

But take it summer and winter through, and in the last nine years it has rained only 262 times, or thirty-nine times in the course of each year: and think of it, O ye dwellers in London, or Paris, or New York, it has been foggy or misty but sixteen days in three times three years! And this bright, beautiful atmosphere gives a blue sky so deep and pure, that it would take a poet of more than average fancy power to invent a firmament of superior glory, or to find a sunset in Greece or Italy to be mentioned in the same day with the gorgeous splendors that clothe the skies of Southern Spain at shut of day.

If you have consumption, or bronchitis, or any malady that is working mischief with your breathing apparatus, do not be governed, nor even guided, by the hasty generalizations of a man who writes from what he sees and hears in a tour for health and pleasure through half a dozen countries in the course of a season. The most that he can tell you is that such a climate as this is said to be excellent for those who have consumption already, and is likely to engender it where it is not; and if you cannot reconcile those two sayings of the books and the people, it is well enough to know that a sickly plant may be saved by being cared for in a hot-house, that might have been made to droop if taken in when it was in healthful vigor. Dr. Lee, whose opinion is of great weight, regards the climate of Madeira, Pau, or Pisa better than that of Malaga, for incipient tubercular disease, in persons of an excitable habit. And so much caution is to be used in deciding upon the means to be used for saving life by change of clime, that I would not write a line on this subject if I supposed that any one would be foolish enough to make a voyage on the strength of it.

When a miserly client attempted to get an opinion out of a lawyer by asking him at dinner, “What would you advise me to do in such and such a case?” the lawyer answered, “I should think the best thing you could do would be to take advice.” And this is what I advise.

No finer grapes than those of Malaga do we enjoy at home in the winter season, and the trade in raisins is enormous. We have been familiar with a raisin-box, but it was something quite novel to see extensive factories making nothing else but these rude little cases, all to be used for packing raisins. The raisin stores or depots where the boxes are waiting to be exported were so vast as to astonish me, but when one thinks of the extent to which they are distributed throughout the civilized world, it is only wonderful that the trade is not far greater.

The country around is flowing with wine and oil. It might easily be made to yield cotton and sugar enough to supply the market of Europe. But it is in _Spain_, and nothing thrives in Spain but Romanism and its sister.

Through a succession of streets so narrow that no wheel carriages can pass, and designed only for bipeds and quadrupeds to go on foot, reeking with smells that made fragrant the memory of Cologne, we wound our way, meeting Moors from Morocco, in their picturesque costume, caps, togas, or shawls, with bare legs and sandals; meeting gypsy women and gypsy men whose home is Spain, and whose story is part of life in Spain, we plied our devious walk on Sunday into the little square in front of the Malaga Cathedral. Built of white stone, on the site of a mosque, and still retaining part of the old Mahometan structure, it rises in a mass about three hundred feet square, to the height of 130 feet, and the tower rises 220 feet above the roof. High mass was celebrated when we entered, and few worshippers were present: most of these were women of some “religious” order, and some priests, not serving at the altar but on their knees before it, on the beautiful pavement of blue and white marble. Perhaps the interior is too light and florid: the various decorations have been added at periods so remote from each other that they lack harmony. But what is wanting in severity and solemn majesty is made up in the variety of ornament, portals, statues, and wood carvings.

The tribes of Jordan, in Palestine, once held this city and region, reigning and rejoicing in the climate, the soil, and the sea. They sent the luscious grapes away to China, and Ibu Bathula, who was here in 1630, was quite as delighted with what he had to eat and see as we are, who come 230 years after him, for he says: “I have seen eight pounds of grapes sold for twopence; its pomegranates are like rubies, and unequalled in the whole world; its courts have no rivals in beauty, and are shaded by wonderful groves of oranges.” He adds that he saw a preacher collecting money to ransom some Moors whom a Spanish fleet had captured. He rejoiced in the wine of Malaga, and all the more, it is probable, because its use was forbidden by the Koran: for we have the highest authority to say that stolen waters are sweet. And is it not Al-Makkari who tells the story of a dying Moor who prayed: “O Lord, of all things which thou hast in Paradise, I only ask for two; grant me to drink Malaga and Muscat wine!”

The old fortress once stood here, from which the beautiful Florinde threw herself into the sea, and by her death roused the rebellion that was headed by her father, and drove from the throne her betrayer, Roderick, the last of the Gothic kings. But all these stories, are they not written in the chronicles of Washington Irving, and is there any one so incredulous as to doubt the truthfulness of the thousand-and-one legends of that fascinating and most learned historian? For my part, since I have been dreaming here in the Alhambra, I have no more doubt of the Spanish tales that he told than I have of the verities of the Arabian Nights or the legend of Sleepy Hollow.

What travel was in Spain before the invention of _diligences_ I know not, but probably the rich rode on horse or mule back, and the poor footed it; now that railroads have brought distant cities near each other, it is only occasionally that you are treated to an old-time ride in a coach, and perhaps you may be glad that once at least, in Spain, it was necessary for us to undergo this species of locomotion.

Between Malaga, a great seaport, and Granada, the ancient and glorious city of the Alhambra, there is no communication except by _diligence_. The time is fourteen hours. And the hour for starting is six in the evening! You have before you this luxury, of one long, jolting, execrable night ride, with no rest, no change from dewy eve till morn. You may be a delicate lady, or a feeble old man, or a middle-aged invalid, seeking rest and finding none; but you must go by the diligence, and go in the night and all night, or hire a carriage for yourself, and then there is no certainty that you will ever get to the other end of your journey.

The Spanish _diligence_ is divided into two inside compartments, the _berlina_ or _coupe_ of three seats in front, and interior of six. By waiting over a day or two, we were able to get possession of the three seats in front, and though the fare was more than in the interior, we had the comfort of escaping suffocation by tobacco smoke, and of seeing the fun ahead.

At least a hundred ladies and gentlemen, evidently of the higher class, assembled at the coach office to take leave of some one who was going to Malaga to hold an office under government. It was a genteel and decorous company, and a sight quite peculiar to the country. In America or England, men are often escorted to and from the station, but this was a social, rather than a public ovation, and was a quiet and handsome farewell to a popular man in society.

Wherewithal shall I give you an idea of the team that took us out of Malaga that lovely winter evening! Ten mules, the most refractory, ill-mated, and discordant beasts that have served a master since the days of Balaam, were hitched together and to the diligence with rope harness of primitive construction. On one of the leaders rode a postilion: by the side of the midway pairs ran a man whose duty and privilege it was to beat them; and the wheel mules were guided by reins in the hands of the driver on the top of the diligence. The driver thrashed the mules at his feet; the whipper thrashed the three pairs in the middle of the team, and the postilion thrashed the leaders. All thrashing at once as fast and as hard as they could. All shouting at once at the top of their voices, the lumbering vehicle is at last fairly launched and away it goes. The postilion on the forward beasts blows his horn to signal the people in the narrow and crooked streets that the thing is coming. The driver snaps his whip like a revolver, and after the snap brings the lash around the flanks of the lazy brutes: the whipper is now on one side and now on the other; whip, whip, whip all the while; kicking, punching, shouting, the mules spread themselves all abroad, never pulling in concert, but each one on his own hook, and as we got along out of the suburbs and into the broader ways of the country, the rebellious creatures seemed to grow frantic under the ceaseless blows rained upon them by their tormentors, and plunged and kicked till one of them made confusion all confounded by turning a somerset out of his harness and bringing the whole concern to a standstill. It was a short process, putting him in again, and then away they all scampered, more like a drove of cattle than a harnessed team, but the beating was redoubled the more they ran, till I really began to think it was time for these dumb beasts to open their mouths and speak some words of remonstrance. And yet how soon we became so demoralized, as rather to enjoy the excitement and frolic of the ride.

Night was drawing on. We begin to ascend the mountains behind Malaga. The city lies at their feet, all glorious in the golden light of a setting sun. The bay is a lake of loveliness; and the sea, unbounded, stretches off under the southern sky. Orchards of olives, always green, and hills that are vineyards in the season of grapes, and orange-trees, are around us,—evidence of a rich and fertile country. Yet every half mile or so an armed patrol guards the road to make it safe for travellers, and we have two or three on the top of the diligence with their guns loaded to give a welcome to any “gentleman of the road” who might be disposed to make free with unsuspecting travellers. And so, with the excitement of the novel mode of transportation, and listening with ears erect to the tales of robbers with which Antanazio beguiled the mortal hours, we passed a long and wretched night, winding among craggy mountains on the verge of precipices, and crossing deep ravines.

It was three o’clock in the morning when we reached Loja, where we were to stop for refreshments! out of the _diligence_ tumbled a miserable set of people, sleepy but sleepless, cross and hungry, and made a general rush to the hostelry—by courtesy called an inn. Nobody was up, but in the course of ten or fifteen minutes a dirty old man brought in a pot of chocolate and put a plate of cakes in the middle of a table which had been spread with a cloth overnight. I noticed little black spots around on the cloth, and putting my finger at one of them, away hopped a flea, and a flock of them were soon in motion. The chocolate was good, and the fleas were stimulating. In twenty minutes we were caged again, and, with fresh teams and good spirits, set off for Granada.

About six o’clock in the morning we were passing through Santa Fé,—a large town—in the streets of which hundreds of men and women were seen standing, about to march off in gangs to distant fields to work. The inhabitants do not live in scattered houses over the country,—here and there a farmer’s cottage, as with us,—but, dwelling for safety in villages, they must go miles and miles away to and from their fields of daily labor. This Santa Fé has a history. It was built by Ferdinand and Isabella while laying siege to Granada, and here Columbus came and successfully made his plea for their royal favor and help to go out into the ocean in search of a new world. He found it that same year. Granada fell in 1492, and the last of the Moorish strongholds yielded to Spanish power.

As we rode across the wide and fertile plain that lies in front of Granada, the lofty mountains appeared; the east was in shadow, and the west tinged with the rising sunlight. Soon the city on a hill rose on the right, crowned with the Alhambra. One could not fail to be excited as the dreams of childhood and youth were becoming real. An hour more and we were in peaceful possession of Granada, and comfortably lodged within the grounds of the Alhambra.