All the World Over: Interesting Stories of Travel, Thrilling Adventure and Home Life
9781465669902
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
PERHAPS one of the most vivid impressions which the tourist receives upon his entrance into any Spanish city whatsoever, is of its muscular beggars—men of enormous size, with their ruffianly swaggering strength exaggerated by the national cloak. This garment is of heavy, tufted woollens, long and fringed, almost indestructable, and is frequently worn to muffle half the face; and the broad slouch hat, usually with a couple of rough feathers stuck in its band, does not tend to soften the general brigandish effect. These beggars are licensed by the government, which must reap a goodly revenue from the disgraceful crowd, as they are numerous, and therefore they pursue their avocation in the most open manner. They will frequently follow the traveller a half-mile, especially should they find him to be ignorant of that magic formula of dismissal which is known to all Spaniards: Pardon, for God’s sake, Brother! This appeal is constantly on the lip of every Spanish lady. She utters it swiftly, without so much as a glance, a dozen times of a morning on her way to church, as a dozen gaunt, dirty hands are thrust in her face as she passes; and hearing it, the most persistent fellow of them all is at once silenced, and falls back. Coming in from their kennel-homes among the ruins and the holes in the hills outside, it is the custom to make an early morning tour of the city before they take up their stations for the day at the various church and hotel doors. Each seems to be provided with “green pudding,” in his garlic pot, and he eats as he goes along, and prays as he eats, stopping in front of the great oval patio or court gates of iron lattice, which guard the mansions of the rich. At these patio doors he makes a prodigious racket, shaking the iron rods furiously, and all the while muttering his prayers, until some one of the family appears at a gallery window. Then instantly the mutter becomes a whine, a pitiful tale is wailed forth, and alms are dolefully implored “for the love of God.” But although such mottoes as “Poverty is no Crime” are very often painted on the walls of their fine houses, the probability is that the unmoved Señorita will murmur a swift “Pardon, for God’s sake, Brother!” and retire, to soon appear again to silence another of the fraternity with the same potent formula. However, each of the countless horde is sure to gather in centimes sufficient for the day’s cigarettes and garlic, and, in the long run, to support life to a good old age.
