The Story of Seville

Among the men of Seville one sees many slim, lissome, well-proportioned figures of medium height. Some of the majos of Sierpes are of this type, and among the working class there are many good-looking, clean-limbed men. The masculine physiognomies impress me as being much more varied in contour and more expressive than those of the women. Faces that might be English are not uncommon among the men of Seville. But the true Andalusian features are distinctive, and have an Arab cast. The hair is dark, black or brown, and the skin olive or tawny. There is an unshaven look about many of the middle-class men. A majo who dresses in the height of fashion will often go out to parade the streets with a three days' beard on his chin. But his hands will be scrupulously washed several times a day, and the finger nails will be carefully trimmed and polished.

To see Sevillian society out of doors, go to the Parque Maria Luisa and the adjoining Paseo de las Delicias about five in the afternoon. This is the fashionable promenade, and here the élite of the city drive in open carriages daily. The costumes of the señoras are varied and stylish. Some of the ladies wear English gowns and hats, and one sees a few of the latest Paris fashions in dresses. But the majority have not discarded the mantilla of black or white lace, and the fan is in every hand. A 'smart turn-out' is a sort of four-wheeled dogcart, drawn by four mules, with bells, and gay worsted ear-caps and worked bridles. The servants are dressed in London livery, the landaus are of French or English make, and many fine horses may be seen. Caballeros ride upon prancing nags. Under the palms and orange trees there are seats filled with loungers, the women fanning themselves, the men smoking cigars or cigarettes. None but foreigners smoke a pipe in the streets of Seville. A majo would not be guilty of such vulgarity.

Beneath the odorous orange trees, where innumerable nightingales warble, one may watch the afternoon procession of carriages and pedestrians. A breeze blows from the wide Guadalquivir. It is cool by the ornamental water, where roses and camellias are rife. The blue uniform of an officer, the white duck trousers of a dandy, the sunshades of the ladies show amidst the greenery of the avenues. From the cavalry barracks comes the blare of bugles. In the Parque there are peacocks and a den of wild boars.

In April, during the feria week, there is horse-racing on the broad meadows beyond the Paseo de las Delicias. English horses, ridden by English jockeys, sometimes compete in the races. The grand stand is a large one, with a long enclosure. It is well filled on race days with the rank and fashion of Andalusia. One is struck with the gravity of the spectators as contrasted with the animation of a British crowd upon a racecourse. The people are thoroughly enjoying the spectacle; but they do not shout, and there is no ring of bellowing bookmakers. Backers of horses purchase a ticket at a little office in the enclosure. There is only one of these offices, and there are no betting men behind the ropes of the course.

An element of pageant is introduced by the company of cavalry drawn up near the grand stand. When officers of the State arrive upon the course, they are saluted with a flourish of trumpets. A number of mounted men of the Civil Guard keep the course clear of pedestrians. The resplendent dresses of the ladies, the bright uniforms of the soldiers and the costumes of the jockeys make a brilliant scene in the dazzling southern sunshine.

But horse-racing is not the national pastime of Spain. Bull-fighting is deemed the nobler sport, and Seville has been called 'the Alma Mater of the bull-fighter.'7 I do not here propose to describe one of these combats. Such descriptions have perhaps occupied an undue space in many books about Spanish ways and customs. The most reliable accounts of bull-fighting are to be found in Mr. Williams's The Land of the Dons, and in Wild Spain, by A. Chapman and W. T. Buck.

There is a handsome Plaza de Toros at Seville, built in 1870, with seats for fourteen thousand spectators. At Easter, and during the feria festivals in April, there are several fights in the arena, which are attended by immense crowds made up of all classes from the duke to the girls from the cigarette factory. The enthusiasm which bull fights evoke is so great that large crowds collect around the hotels, where the bull-fighters reside during Holy Week and fair time, in order to watch the heroes of the ring start for the Plaza de Toros.

I was in Seville during the feria of 1902, and I may now attempt to describe the scene on the Prado de San Sebastian. The city was thronged with sight-seers; every hotel and boarding-house was overcrowded, and hundreds of cattle and horse dealers, gipsies and itinerants slept on the fair ground in booths or upon the bare earth. I found the open space on the Prado covered with flocks of sheep and goats, droves of bullocks, horses, mules and donkeys, tended by picturesque herdsmen and muleteers in the dress of several provinces. An English carriage and pair of handsome horses paraded the ground, and changed hands at a high price. Caballeros rode their steeds up and down, to show off their points, and gipsy 'copers' haggled and chaffered. In the long row of refreshment tents was one bearing the sign of Los Boers. I entered one of the booths, and ordered a refresco, a bitter, syrupy decoction, with a tang of turpentine. Men and women were sipping this beverage with much zest, and watching the continual procession of holiday-makers under the trees. Everyone was quiet, orderly and sober. I did not see one drunken or quarrelsome person on either of the fair days, which I think may be taken as a token of the sobriety of the Spaniards. The diversions of the feria struck me as innocent, perhaps childish; but there was none of the coarseness and the squalor of a fair in England. There were only a few shows.

The Gitanas had their tents, where they danced to gorgio audiences, exacting exorbitant fees for each performance. Importunate gipsy dames stood at the doors of their tents, inviting the visitors to enter, and to taste their curious liquors, or to have their fortunes told. It was not easy to escape from these syrens, for they seized one's coat sleeve, and almost dragged one into their shows and booths. Some of the Gitana girls are remarkably handsome, and the gay colours of their clothing lend animation to this part of the feria.

One of the most interesting streets of the fair is that of the casetas, or pavilions of the influential Sevillians, who spend the day in receiving guests, dancing, guitar playing and singing. The doors of the casetas are open. You can look within at the merry company. The old folk sit around on chairs; someone clicks a pair of castanets, and a graceful girl begins to dance. Fans are fluttering everywhere; there is a soft tinkling of guitars. Dark eyes flash upon you, and red lips part in smiles as the hats of majos are raised. Some of the children are dressed in old Andalusian costume, with black lace over yellow silk, and mantillas upon their dark hair. They dance to the castanets, and win handclaps from grandfathers and grandmothers, who recall their own dancing days of forty or fifty years ago.

There is an iron tower in the centre of the fair ground. I ascended it, and gained a view of the bright crowd, the flocks, the prancing horses and the waving bunting everywhere displayed. At night the avenues of booths are illuminated with thousands of fairy lights, electric lamps and Chinese lanterns. The fair is then thronged in every part, and everyone submits to a good-humoured jostling. At this festive time you must be prepared for disturbed nights. The streets are never quiet by day or night, and there is a constant tramping up and down the stairs of the hotels. Long after midnight one hears the revellers in the plazas, singing and dancing to the clapping of hands or the strumming of guitars.

This 'fantastic pandemonium,' as it is called by a Sevillian rhymer, lasts for about eight to ten days. During the three days of the feria, the hotel charges are doubled, and in some cases trebled. The city profits considerably through the influx of visitors at this time, and also during Semana Santa, or Holy Week, when Seville is very crowded.

Nothing can prove so instructive concerning the Spanish devotion to ritual and religious pageant as a visit to Seville at Easter. The processions and celebrations of Semana Santa are exceedingly interesting from the artistic and the antiquarian point of view. All the costly vestments, the rare ecclesiastic treasures of the Cathedral, the works of artists and sculptors, and the sacred images of Christ and the Virgin are then displayed, in the midst of high pomp, to the adoring eyes of the vast crowds lining the streets and filling the windows. It is during these ceremonies that one may catch the spirit of mediævalism still surviving in Spain. Even the religious dances of antiquity are performed in the Cathedral before the high altar on Corpus Christi day. The dancers are boys, sixteen in number, and they are called the Seises. They dress in the costume of the reign of Felipe III.

The pasos or processions of Semana Santa pass through Sierpes to the Plaza de la Constitución, where the mayor of the city is seated on a daïs before the Ayuntamiento. Here there are stands for spectators. The processions are headed by men of the Guardia Civil; mummers dressed as Romans follow, then come masked monks, girls in white raiment, bands of music, and city officials. On Palm Sunday there is a blessing of the palms in the Cathedral by the Cardinal Archbishop, who is clothed in purple canonicals. The procession leaves the edifice by the Puerta San Miguel. At Vespers the sacred banner is elevated, and at six in the evening four pasos parade the streets, in honour of San Jacinto, Santisimo Cristo, San Juan Bautista and San Gregorio.

Figures by Montañez, the celebrated ecclesiastical sculptor, are borne in these processions. One of the most imposing objects of veneration is the immense crucifix, carried on a stand by thirty concealed bearers. It is followed by musicians playing the solemn funeral music of Eslava.

Miguel Hilarion Eslava, the composer, was born in 1807, near Pampeluna, in the north of Spain. He sang in the cathedral choir of that city, and afterwards played the violin in services. First a priest, he became chapel-master at Seville, in 1832, where he composed a great number of pieces of church music and masses. His chief work is Lira Sacro Hispaña, a collection of sacred music from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, with brief biographies of the composers. This magnum opus is in ten volumes.

Eslava also wrote secular music, and his operas of Il Solitario, La Tregura di Ptolemaide and Pedro el Cruel were first produced at Cadiz. The eighth volume of the Lira contains only Eslava's music, and the Museo Organico Español embodies some of his own organ compositions. This famous composer spent many years of his life in Seville. He lived in a house in the Calle del Gran Capitan, now used as the Colegio de San Miguel, a school for boys. Over the gateway is an inscription announcing that Eslava lived in this house. The courtyard is extremely quaint, and should be seen.

The solemn strains of Eslava's Miserere may be heard in the Capilla Mayor of the Cathedral during Holy Week, upon the day of 'rending the Veil of the Temple.' This ceremony is accompanied by peals of artificial thunder. On the Saturday after Good Friday, the Velo Negro (black curtain) is torn amidst the clanging of bells and claps of thunder. On the same day a candle, twenty-five feet in height, is consecrated.

There is a similarity in the processions of Semana Santa, and they are less sumptuous than in bygone times. But they are still popular, and the visitor should endeavour to obtain a favourable point of view for watching the ceremonials in the streets and in the Cathedral. The figure of the Virgin is always the same in Spain; an image clad in black velvet, trimmed with lace, and adorned with diamonds, while the tableaux of the Saviour upon the Cross are often very realistic and ghastly. On Good Friday the large image of the Virgin is carried by thirty-five men, and there is a representation of Christ in the throes of death upon a splendid cross of tortoiseshell and silver.

An interesting rite is performed on Thursday afternoon, when the Cardinal Archbishop washes the feet of twelve poor persons, who are given new clothes and a substantial meal. In the evening the Miserere of Eslava is again sung in the Cathedral by a chorus of one hundred and fifty voices, accompanied by ninety instrumentalists.

During Holy Week a lamb fair is held in the Feria del Rastro. The lambs are bought and given to children, who lead them about the streets.

The Corpus Christi festivals, or La Fiesta del Santisimo Corpus, are less gorgeous than those of Semana Santa, but they are not without interest to the student of religious custom. The dancing of the Seises in the Cathedral is certainly a curious spectacle. Blanco White says that among the treasures carried in the Corpus Christi procession of his day were the tooth of St. Christopher, the arm of St. Bartholomew, the head of one of the eleven thousand virgins, a part of the body of St. Peter, a thorn from the crown of the Saviour, and a fragment of the True Cross.

Special services and pageants are also celebrated on All Saints' Day and at Christmas (La Natividad). The pilgrimages are another Andalusian custom dating from early Christian times. These romerias are of a festal character. The people resort to Rocio in Almonte on Whit Sunday, dressed in holiday garb, and riding in carriages decked with banners. Dancing, singing and feasting are the chief attractions of these semi-religious fêtes. La Consolación de Utrera is celebrated on September 8, when excursion trains are run from Seville to Utrera. In October there are romerias on each Sunday at Salteras, eight miles from the city. The festivities usually end with a display of fireworks.

Passion plays are still represented in Seville. At Easter the drama of the 'Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ, with the Glorious Resurrection' is acted at the Teatro Cervantes. The Teatro de San Fernando is the home of opera and spectacle, and there is a summer theatre, the Eslava, in the Paseo de la Puerta de Jerez.

Who has not heard of the charm of Andalusian dancing? Seville is the home of the bailarin, the artist of the bolero, olé, Sevilliana, and other dances. On every evening in summer, the inhabitants dance in their patios to the guitar and castanets, while the street lads perform their Oriental antics in the plazas and bye-streets. The cleverest professional dancing is to be seen at the Café de Novedades, at the end of the Calle de las Sierpes, where it is joined by the Calle de Campana. There are other cafés in Sierpes where national and gipsy dancing may be witnessed, but perhaps the most characteristic performances are those of the Novedades. You may obtain a seat, just in front of the stage, for half a peseta. The entertainment usually opens with a representation of gipsy or flamenco dancing, which is a strange exercise and difficult to describe. A number of women sit in a semi-circle on the stage, and in the centre of the dancers is a male guitar player. Nothing happens for some time, but the spectators evince no impatience. They sip coffee, smoke, and chat contentedly.

Presently one of the flamenco women quits her chair, and begins to strike extraordinary postures. At one moment she might be trying to impersonate Ajax defying the lightning; in the next she is apparently fleeing from a satyr. Her hands are held high above her head, and there is a continual movement of the fingers. She writhes and wriggles rather than dances, and the feet play no part, except that the heels now and then thump the stage. Meanwhile her seated companions drown the sound of the guitar with the clapping of their hands and cries of anda!

One after another the women go through these curious contortions to the delight of the audience. I believe that there are subtle fascinations in these dances when one understands the drama which they represent; but to the casual spectator they are somewhat tedious, and they do not make much appeal to the imagination or to one's sense of the graceful in movement. Most visitors will prefer the Andalusian dancing. The dancers of the Novedades are extremely nimble in the bolero, one of the prettiest and most joyous of dances. Their shapely, lissome feet skim and bound in bewildering and intricate steps, to the clicking of ribbon-decked castanets. They spring into the air, hover, and bound again; they move rapidly on their toes, float, glide, and almost fly. It is a wonderful sight. One is sorry when the troop leave the stage. There is an intoxication in watching such grace, lightness and agility.

The singing of coplas (couplets) is one of the attractions at this café. This form of vocalisation is very Andalusian. I can only describe it as a prolonged tremolo; the singer appears to sing a verse without drawing breath, and the effort often seems painful. A 'star' in this art is exceedingly popular, and his singing is sure to be followed by loud plaudits.

Gitana dancing of a more pronounced sort may be studied in the suburb of Triana, where there is a colony of gipsies. Those who have read George Borrow's The Zincali: An Account of the Gypsies of Spain, will discover an increased interest in their visit to the Gitana quarter. Some of the Triana gipsies are the swarthiest and weirdest of their race. A hag, who might be a hundred, clutches your arm, and looks into your face with her cunning black eyes as she begs for alms. She has the features of an Egyptian, coal black hair, and a skin like the calf-binding of an old book. A nude brown boy rolls in the road, a Cupid in sepia.

Here is a lovely girl of fourteen, with a lithe figure, feline movements, huge dark eyes, jet locks, and a rich olive tinting of the skin. She is conscious of her beauty, and will not cease to insist upon receiving a coin for the pleasure that her charms afford the admiring Gentiles. Whatever you give her, she will ask for more. But she is very beautiful, and most beauties are exacting. Some of these Romany people are almost as swarthy as negroes. There is hardly one who would not make a splendid model for an artist. Their graceful unstudied pose is most alluring to the painter, while the mystery of their glowing eyes, their strange lore, and secret speech invest them with romance and poetry that appeal to Mr. Leland and Mr. Watts-Dunton.

George Eliot must have experienced the spell of these tawny folk during her visit to Spain. Her 'Spanish Gypsy,' is a 'creation' but it was to the Gitanas of the highways that the poet owed her inspiration. 'Gypsy Borrow' found the race irresistible; the tongue, the customs, the esoterics of the Zincali of Spain were to him a subject of fascinating study.

In the old days the Romany fared ill in the Peninsula. He was a pariah, a suspect, an object of persecution. But to-day Sevillian gentle-folk are inclined to pet the Gitanas, and it is quite 'good form' to use Romany phrases, and to appear a little gipsyish. The sons of wealthy families are the patrons of the flamenco dances; they are enthralled by the loveliness of the lithe nut-brown maids, with piercing eyes, carmine lips, and pearly teeth. But it all ends in admiration. No bribe will tempt the Gitana lass to swerve from the strict code of chastity laid down by the tradition of her class.

To see the Gitanas at their best, or living under primitive conditions, take a trip down to Coria on the Guadalquivir. A steamboat starts daily from the Triana Bridge at about half-past seven in the morning. The voyage is interesting, and you can return in time for evening dinner. You pass two or three villages with landing-stages, and gain views of the distant marshes towards the mouth of the river, while on the right bank are slopes clothed with olives and vines. Pottery is made from the red clay of the foothills, and a number of gipsies work at this industry.

At Coria you will be an object of curiosity, for very few strangers visit the little village. The Gitanas inhabit 'dug-outs,' or caves, in the hillside. These dens are only lit by the doorway, but they are not so dark within as one might expect. Nor are they unwholesome, for the gipsies appear to take pride in keeping their habitations clean. Most of the cooking is done outside the burrow. There is quite a warren in the hill, which is honeycombed with dwellings of this savage kind.

Strange to say, not a single Gitana begged from me when I visited the colony. But the Gentile population of Coria were somewhat importunate when our party embarked for the return journey to Seville, and most of the lads of the village congregated on the landing-stage to beg for centimos.

Macarena and Juderia, the poor barrios or suburbs of Seville, are not like our English slums. There is no sign of abject want, though the people have a keen struggle for subsistence. The houses are all white-washed without, and the little courts have their climbing roses or a grape vine trained to pillars. There are malodours here and there, owing to the insanitary practices of the people; but the inhabitants of these quarters are seldom ragged, and they do not appear dejected, dirty and degraded.

Now and then, a mischievous boy will throw a stone at the foreigner, or a group of idlers will break into derisive laughter when you pass by. On the other hand, ask a question civilly of these people, and they will put themselves to trouble to assist you in finding the church or the monument of which you are in quest. Beware, however, of the soft-tongued, amiable loafer who persists in dogging your heels and offering his services as a guide.

Begging, which is such an intolerable nuisance in some of the Spanish towns, has been almost suppressed in Seville by the rigorous municipal laws. The mendicant is not extinct; some of the order are sure to be encountered in the neighbourhood of the Cathedral, but they do not pester the visitor incessantly as in Toledo and Granada. A number of the idle and vicious inhabitants of Seville appear to be homeless. In this balmy Southern climate, the al fresco life of the tramp is not unendurable; still I am told that beggars sometimes die in Spain by the roadside from sheer want.

The Plaza Nueva is a favourite nocturnal resort of the gamins and vagabonds of the city, and at one in the morning the space presents a scene resembling that of Trafalgar Square in the days when unfortunate 'out-of-works' camped there nightly.

In the Macarena quarter is the market street of the Feria. This thoroughfare should be seen. It is the home of metal-workers, whose beaten brass, iron and copper ware is interesting and artistic in workmanship. Peripatetics here display a jumble of second-hand articles upon the ground, such as books, old pictures, brass candlesticks, tools, buttons, pistols, rusty swords, harness, and mule bells. There are stalls of fruit, coloured kerchiefs, hats and caps, shoes, and common china ware. The scene is bustling and bright.

Here the young and unknown artists of Seville were wont to sell their pictures in former times. Murillo and many another painter of renown stood here anxiously awaiting chance purchasers for their works. These 'fair pictures' were often daubs; but sometimes, no doubt, a buyer secured the work of a young genius for a trifling sum. If a purchaser wished a picture altered to his taste, the artist would retouch it upon the spot.

These were hard days for young painters. But many who hawked their religious pictures and portraits of the Virgin and the saints for pesetas rose to fame, and gained wealth in their later days. A pintura de la Feria became a term in Spain for a meretricious picture. Some of the Feria paintings were still-life subjects, and others were sargas, large screens or banners used in sacred processions.