Spain in 1830 (Vol. 1&2). Henry D. Inglis
if the journey had been performed by sea; nor is the interest with which the traveller afterwards sees Cordova and Seville greatly diminished, by having previously seen Madrid. For, although the aspect of a Spanish town, and the modes of Spanish life are then familiar to him—Cordova, and Seville, and the other cities of the south, possess an exclusive interest, in the remains of the Moorish empire—in the peculiarity of the natural productions around them—in the climate, which exercises an important influence upon the habits of the people—and in the taint of Moorish usages, visible in all those provinces which continued the longest time under the dominion of the Moors. With curiosity therefore on the tiptoe, to see the capital of Spain, and the Spaniards in their capital, I hastened into the streets.
The stranger who walks for the first time through the streets of Madrid, is struck with the sombreness of the prospect that is presented to him: this, he speedily discovers, arises from the costume of the women. It is the varied and many-coloured attire of the female sex, that gives to the streets of other great cities their air of gaiety and liveliness. No pink, and green, and yellow, and blue silk bonnets, nod along the streets of Madrid; for the women wear no bonnets—no ribbons of more than all the hues of the rainbow, chequer the pavement; for the women of Madrid do not understand the use of ribbons. Only conceive the sombreness of a population without a bonnet or a ribbon, and all, or nearly all, in black! yet such is the population of Madrid. Every woman in Spain wears a mantilla, which varies in quality and expense, with the station of the wearer: and, for the benefit of those who, though they may have heard of a mantilla, have an imperfect idea of what it is, I shall describe it. A mantilla, is a scarf thrown over the head and shoulders; behind, and at the sides, it descends nearly to the waist; and falling in front over a very high comb, is gathered, and fastened, generally by something ornamental, just above the forehead, at the lower part of the hair. Of old, there was a veil attached to the fore-part of the mantilla, which was used or thrown back, according to the fancy of the wearer; but veils are now rarely seen in Spain, excepting at mass. Of the rank and means of a Spanish woman, something may be gathered from the mantilla, though this cannot be considered any certain criterion, since Spanish women will make extraordinary sacrifices for the sake of dress. Yet there are three distinct grades of the mantilla: the lady in the upper ranks of life, and most of those in the middle ranks, wear the lace mantilla; some of blond—some of English net, worked in Spain; and these vary in price, from 4l. or 5l. to 20l. The Bourgeoises generally wear the mantilla, part lace and part silk; the lace in front, and the silk behind, with lace trimmings; and the lower orders wear a mantilla wholly of silk, or of silk, trimmed with velvet. Spain is the only country in Europe in which a national dress extends to the upper ranks; but even in Spain this distinction begins to give way. In the streets, no one yet ventures to appear without the mantilla; but French hats are frequently seen in carriages and in the theatre; and the black silk gown, once as indispensible as the mantilla, sometimes gives place to silks of other colours; and even a French or English printed muslin, may occasionally be seen on the Prado.
But although the sombre dress of the women, and the consequent absence of bright colours, seemed at first to give a gloomy cast to the exterior of the population of Madrid, a little closer observance of it disclosed a variety and picturesqueness not to be found in any other of the European countries. The dress of the women, although sombre, bears in the eye of a stranger a character of both novelty and grace. The round turned-up hat and crimson sash of the peasant; the short green jacket and bare legs and sandals of the innumerable water-carriers, who call aqua fresca; the sprinkling of the military costume; and above all, the grotesque dresses of the multitudes of friars of different orders, gave to the scene a character of originality exclusively its own. No feature in the scene before me appeared more novel than the universality of the fan; a Spanish woman would be quite as likely to go out of doors without her shoes, as without her fan. I saw not one female in the streets without this indispensible appendage. The portly dame, and her stately daughter; the latter six paces in advance, as is the universal custom throughout Spain, walked fanning themselves; the child of six years old, held mamma with one hand, and fanned herself with the other; the woman sitting at her stall selling figs, sat fanning herself; and the servant coming from market, carried her basket with one arm, and fanned herself with the other. To me, who had never before seen a fan but in the hands of a lady, this seemed ridiculous enough.
The streets of Madrid present a totally different aspect, at different hours of the day: before one o’clock, all is nearly as I have described it; bustling and busy, and thronged with people of all ranks, of whom the largest proportion are always females; for the women of Madrid spend much of their time in the streets, going and coming from mass, shopping (a never failing resource,) and going and coming from the Prado. But from one o’clock till four, the aspect of every thing is changed: the shops are either shut, or a curtain is drawn before the door; the shutters of every window are closed; scarcely a respectable person is seen in the street; the stall-keepers spread cloths over their wares, and go to sleep; groups of the poor and idle are seen stretched in the shade; and the water-carriers, throwing their jackets over their faces, make pillows of their water casks. But the siesta over, all is again life and bustle; the curtains are withdrawn, the balconies are filled with ladies, the sleepers shake off their drowsiness, and the water-carriers resume their vocation, and deafen us with the cry of aqua fresca. These water-carriers are a curious race, and are as necessary to the Spanish peasant as the vender of beer is to the English labourer: with a basket and glass in the right-hand, and a water jar on the left shoulder, they make incessant appeals to the appetite for cold water, and during the summer, drive a lucrative trade; and so habituated is the Spaniard to the use of cold water, that I have observed little diminution in the demand for it, when the morning temperature of the air was such as would have made even an Englishman shrink from so comfortless a beverage.
Frequently, while in Madrid, I walked out early in the morning, that I might hear the delightful music that accompanies the morning service in the Convento de las Salesas; and then the streets wore a different appearance—flocks of goats were bevouacked here and there to supply milk to those who cannot afford to buy cows’ milk. Porters, water-carriers, stall-keepers, and market people, were making a breakfast of grapes and bread; and here and there a friar might be seen, with his sack slung over his back, begging supplies for his convent. One morning, I had the curiosity to follow a young friar of the Franciscan order the whole length of the Calle de Montera; he asked upwards of forty persons for alms, and entered every shop, and only two persons listened to his petition—one of these was an old lame beggar, sitting at a door, who put half a quarto into his hand; the other was an old gentleman with a cocked hat, and certain other insignia of holding some government employment.
In my first perambulation of the streets of Madrid, I remarked, with astonishment, the extraordinary number of shops appropriated to the sale of combs. Throughout Spain, but especially in Madrid, the comb is an indispensible and important part of every woman’s dress, and a never failing accompaniment of the mantilla. A fashionable Spanish comb is not less than a foot long, and eight or nine inches broad; and no woman considers from nine to fifteen dollars (from 2l. to 3l.) too much to give for this appendage; accordingly, every tenth shop, at least, is a comb shop. Another very numerous class of shops appeared to belong to booksellers; and a third—shops filled with remnants and shreds of cloth of all kinds and colours, which partly accounts for the patched appearance of the garments of the lowest orders, who doubtless find in these repositories the means of repairing their worn-out clothes. I had one day the curiosity to walk leisurely through two of the principal commercial streets, and to take a note of the different shops they contained. In the Calle de Carretas, I found sixteen booksellers, ten venders of combs, three jewellers, two hardware shops, two gold and silver embroiderers, two chocolate shops, two fan shops, six drapers and silk mercers, one woollen draper, one hatter, one perfumer, one fruiterer, one print shop, one wine shop, and one stocking shop. In the Calle de Montera, I found eight drapers and silk-mercers, eight jewellers, five hardware shops, four watch-makers, three china and crystal shops, three grocers, five embroiderers, three booksellers, three perfumers, three pawnbrokers, three chocolate shops, two fan shops, four comb shops, four provision shops, two money changers, two venders of ornaments for churches, two glove shops, two shoemakers, two gunsmiths, three venders of cocks and hens, and two of singing birds.
Walking through the streets