68 



from Madrid to the slopes of the Guadarrama, and then gives way only to 

 a veritable wilderness of huge, weather-worn granite boulders. 



ANDALUSIA AND GRANADA. 



On the evening of the 18th of October we left Madrid for Southern Spain, 

 where lie the fairest and in many ways the most interesting provinces of the 

 Peninsula. For it is here that the Moors lingered longest before their final 

 expulsion in 1609, and it is here that are to be found in greatest profusion 

 the architectural relics of their domination and those progressive agricultural 

 methods imposed by them on a semi-barbarous people. For was it not the 

 Moors who taught the Spaniards that wherever running water is available 

 the desert may be made to blossom like the rose ? And the five centuries 

 that now separate us from the period of their ignominious expulsion, and all 

 the terrors of the holy inquisition have not sufficed to efface the imprint of 

 their footsteps. My earlier days had made me tolerably familiar with the 

 Moors and Arabs of Northern Africa, some of whom, indeed, were the direct 

 descendants of these unfortunate Andalusian Moors. For to this day is 

 to be found in the Moorish quarter of Tunis a street known as the " Street 

 of the Andalusians." It was here that, centuries ago, these flying Andalu- 

 sians found a haven of refuge amidst their kindred, carrying with them the 

 keys of their abandoned Spanish dwellings, keys which to this day their 

 descendants cherish as sacred heirlooms in the vain hope that the day may 

 yet dawn when they will serve to drive back the time-rusted bolts. And 

 now, at Seville, had I not known that the Moors had held sway here cen- 

 turies ago, the very circumstances that surrounded me would have revealed 

 it. The Christian Andalusians of the present day, their general appearance, 

 their habits of life, their street cries, even to their personal idiosyncrasies, 

 were all strangely familiar to me, and strongly reminiscent of the impressions 

 and sensations of other days. The Arab's idea of music is certainly not 

 our own, and although from the minaret top he will demonstrate freely 

 enough that he has some notions of voice production, he does not deem it 

 art to avail himself of it in the droning of his melancholy chants. The Arab 

 in singing barely opens his mouth, and hums out in a minor key his nasal 

 melodies from perfectly expressionless features. This is his special idio- 

 syncrasy, peculiar to him, I take it, in all the world. And yet here in Seville 

 was the same trick of execution, the same melodies, and, for all I know, 

 the same words. The spirit of the vanished Moor still broods over the land. 



BULLFIGHTS AND LOAFERS. 



Whilst I was in Andalusia I was informed that bull-fighting was very largely 

 responsible in Southern Spain for the existence of a vast number of hope- 

 lessly incorrigible loafers, who were fast becoming a menace to the com- 

 munity. From their earliest days country youths aspire after the honors and 



