CLARK'S GAZPACHO. *

Tun volume comprises an account of a tour through Spain, made in the summer months of 1849, without other ostensible object than to vary the Continental excursion by visiting a new region, and seeing what was there to be seen in nature, society, and art. Mr. Clark left London when the " alarming news" of the last emeute in Pa- ris " stood rubric on the walls " ; and, in spite of advice, made his way to Paris by the iron road, reached Bourdeaux in the diligence, and thence traversed Spain from St. Sebastian, to Malaga, Seville, and Cadiz. He performed his journey in various modes. The diligence conveyed him to Madrid ; he visited the Escurial on. horseback ; to Toledo and thence to Granada he used the diligence again ; from Grenada he made a tour through the wild and little frequented district of the Alpujarrez, and another through the Sierra, in which a horse, saddle-bags, and an attendant squire, were matters of necessity; a mayoral took him from Granada to Malaga, where two French gentlemen joined him in a land trip to Gib- raltar; whence he proceeded across country to Seville ; and ended his journey by a steam-voyage to Cadiz.

Although Spain is comparatively speaking new ground, from the difficulties and alleged dangers which attend travelling in the country, the book owes its interest as much to the mind of the au- thor as to the materials. " Gazpacho," Mr. Clark tells us, " is a dish universal in and peculiar to Spain. It is a sort of cold soup, made of bread, pot-herbs, oil, and water. Its materials are easily come by, and its concoction requires no skill " The title and its ex- planation, however, convey an erroneous idea of the work. If Mr. Clark's materials were not gotten by means of riskful adven- ture or severe toil, they were only attainable by a trained obser- • Ga.ps-ho ; or Summer Months in Spain. By William George Clark, M.A., Fel- low of Trinity College, Cambridge. Published by John W. Parker.

vation; and though there is no parade of skill, there is an eye to select the salient points of things, a mind to grasp the truth they contain, and a vivacious spirit to exhibit them vividly to the reader. By passing over the commonplaces, by presenting only what is characteristic, and by an utter carelessness of anything like formal composition, Mr. Clark could make a walk through town or a trip to Greenwich amusing, if somewhat curt : indeed, his journey to Paris is not the least lively passage in the book, and one of the most characteristic of the author.

" Next morning we set sail (metaphorically) for France. The passengers, Omuta to the attempted &mute, were only four in number. There were tiro little French milliners, who, having come to London to see the fashions, (a proud tribute to our advancing civilization,) had been suddenly re- called by the alarming news' aforesaid. One was going back for the love of her husband, the other for company. Il est at vif,' said Adele, tear-

fully ; se battra dans les rues a coup stir." How old is he ? ' I asked. 11 a vingt ans, Monsieur.' Et le mien, au contraire,' said Louise, coldly,

est fres prudent ; restera chez soi.' 'And how old is he ? " Il a, sou- ante ans, Monsieur.' Poor Louise ! The weather was so fine, that if Adele was sick at heart she was at least free from the mal-au-eceur; and La Manche, smooth as satin, floated us in two hours into the harbour of Bou- logne. 'On landing, the gens-d'armea saluted me as Monsieur.' We were not under a Red Republic ; nor, if I might judge from the sentiments of my fellow travellers to Paris, were we likely to be. They purchased chiefly the Assemblee Nationale, and applied more epithets to Ledru-Rollin than I care to record or remember. True it is, I travelled in the first-class; but subse- quent experience convinced me that reactionary views were very generally entertained by the lower classes too,—by cabmen, &c., whose vehicles had been confiscated for barricades, and bakers, who had suffered from the fra- ternal visits of the sovereign mob, breaking bread and windows from house to house. The minds of coachmen were no longer unsettled; the very pos- tillions had forsaken the movement party : one of them, after exhausting his rich national vocabulary, of abuse on a lazy horse, ground his teeth, and shrieked out as a final malediction, Bribon de Respell, va!' "

The Spanish bull-fight has been done so often as to be some- what trite, but Mr. Clark gives variety to it by picturing the audience, as well as the animals in the arena. In the course of his explorations at Seville, however, he lighted upon a new phase of it-.species of rehearsal.

"One day I was present at a funcion de novillos—a kind of juvenile bull- fight, in which young beasts are brought to be bullied, and, if possible, killed by young men. It is a kind of parody of a real bull-fight—nothing of its pomp and circumstance and danger; a farce instead of a tragedy—very gro- tesque and ludicrous. For instance, a man in night-gown and night-cap is brought in upon a bed, shamming sickness, and is placed in the middle of the arena. Then a young bull, with his horns sheathed in corks, is let in; of course he rushes at the only prominent object—the bed, and turns it over and over; the sick man taking care so to dispose the mattresses and bolsters that the animal may spend his fury upon them and not upon him. "At another time several men are set upright in round wicker baskets, about five feet high, with neither top nor bottom. The bull charges these, one after the other, knocks them down, and rolls them along with his horns. It is great fun to watch the evident perplexity of the beast when he sees their spontaneous motion. Then, when his back is turned, the attend- ants jump over the barrier and set the baskets on their legs again ; and the same _joke is repeated till one is tired of it. "The unpractised matadors generally fail in attem g the fatal stroke - so the poor defenceless animal has to be despatched means of the media luna, an instrument, as its name imports, shaped like a half-moon, and at- tached to a long pole. Armed with this, a man comes slily behind and ham- strings him; after which he is feloniously slain with a knife plunged through the spinal vertebrie. We could not refrain from loudly expressing our dis- gust at this barbarity to the great amusement of our neighbours, to whom the spectacle was familiar. An English lady was sitting not far off, and looked on without the slightest change of colour. I charitably hoped that she was rouged for the nonce."

At Gibraltar Mr. Clark fell in with a story indicative of a good trait in the character of the Queen of Spam; which, as there are not many of that kind bruited abroad, we quote, as well as for the sample of red-tape coldness or official etiquette.

" In descending, we followed the path to St. Michael's Cave, which had recently been honoured with a visit from the Infanta and her husband. We went on till we got into inner darkness, with the mud oozing over our ankles, and the drops pattering frequent on our hats ; then we held a conclave, voted it possibly romantic, but decidedly uncomfortable ; and so retreated and emerged into the sunlight. The visit of the Infanta had taken place about a month before, and the rock was still echoing with the fame thereof. She was received by the Governor with genuine courtesy and kindness. At first she appeared constrained and reserved; but when at dinner Sir Robert proposed. Queen Isabel's health in a hearty Anglo-Spanish speech, she thawed at once into geniality. When the Queen heard of the reception given to her sister, she immediately sat down, and with her own hand wrote to Narvaez, requesting that the Grand Cross of Carlos Tercero should be sent to the Go- vernor of Gibraltar. This susceptibility of generous impulses is a noble trait in the Queen's character, and is a-brighter ornament to her crown than any diamond there. She has been known in default of money, to throw a costly bracelet to a beggar. That monarch ' is twice a monarch who ceases to be slave to a master of ceremonies. So the Grand Cross was sent forthwith ; but the powers that move men like puppets with their red tapes forbade its acceptance. Truly, etiquette and courtesy are not always synonymous ; rather, shall we say, etiquette is courtesy in a strait-waistcoat."

Although religious indifference prevails among the rising genera- tion, the party of Progress has not made much advance in the way of banishing prejudices and getting rid of an ignorance worthy of the darkest ages. This story of Jew's tails is incredible except in a " good story."

" Let me say a few words about an honest man, by way of contrast, one Senor Vazquez, who, during those burning mid-day hours, when prudent people stay in-doors and only fools rush out, came to teach me Spanish. He was a native of Castile, and had spent twenty years in England, so he was able both to speak his own language and interpret it; a rare combination in the South of Spain. The worthy man, in conjunction with a buxom Anda- lucian helpmate, was just organizing an English boarding-house in the Calle San Anton; which I cordially recommend to my countrymen. He had be- come thoroughly Protestantized and Anglicized, and had imbibed some of that contempt for his own country and the things thereof which is so ob- serveable in travelled Spaniards. " He told me some quaint stories illustrative of the ignorance and preju- dice still lingering in the land. For instance, one day he was in company with some respectable persons of the middle class, when the conversation _ - turned on an event which had just occurred at Granada. A young man of the Jewish persuasion had avenged the cause of Shylock byoff with the daughter of a Christian. ' What a shame ! ' said one ; very. • ely the poor innocent children will have tails.' Some sceptic present interposed with a doubt as to whether Jews had tails really or not. The majority held. that it was unquestionable; but as one or two still questioned it, the dispute was referred to Senor Vazquez, a travelled man. He quietly decided the matter in the affirmative ; For,' said he, when I was in London, I saw Baron Rothschild, who is a Jew of a very high caste, and he had a tail as long as my arm.' So the sceptics were silenced, and smoked the cigar of acquiescence."

Nor has Liberalism altogether banished the use of the knife in private quarrel ; nor will it, perhaps, until a government of prompt and impartial justice be established.

"One day in my rambles, which were desultory, like my book, I fell in with a faded clerical-looking person, who I found had been a friar and was still a mendicant. He begged me to go with him and see some I went with him accordingly across the Court of Oranges to a little chi 1, adjacent to the cathedral. I expected to see a picture or a statue ., but there, to my horror, was a corpse, with the face uncovered and smeared with clotted blood. It was wrapped in white and some tapers were burning at the head and feet. It was a man who had been killed in the Alameda the preceding evening, whether by accident or design I did not learn. Apropos to this, my conductor proceeded to give me some appalling statistics of assas- sination. How far he had means of knowing, and how much credit his as- sertions were entitled to, I cannot say. He informed me that in the past month there had been nineteen murders and attempts to murder in Seville alone ; and that during the May of 1848, there were as many as thirty. If this be true, considerable deductions must be made from my two friends' enthusiastic praise of the lower orders of Andalucia. The frequency of the crime may be partly accounted for, not palliated, by the habit of carrying a long knife, persisted in, in defiance of prohibition. Yet this same people of Seville, who took no notice of the murders at their own doors, read and can- vassed with eager interest the details of a murder in London, which then constituted the 'English news' of the Spanish papers."

Notwithstanding the rapid, lively, touch-and-go manner of Mr. Clark, we question if his example is not even better than his book. He has shown with how much safety, pleasure, and profit,' Spain.. may be traversed by a tourist who can undergo a little fatigue and put up with a few privations; while even the privations Mr. Clark underwent might be reduced by sticking to the main roads and the diligence. At the same time, to do much more than see, a man must have the language, or Mr. Clark's active-minded industry to improve or acquire it at odd hours. He should. also, to travel ad- vantageously among the Dons, have more regard to other people's prejudices, and even their follies, than the generality of English- men are disposed to show. We suspect that Mr. Clark's recipe to win a Spanish innkeeper is capable of a wider application. "It was not yet dark when we got to Coronil, a considerable place, with its ruined castle of course; and what was more to my. purpose, a decent Nude, entitled 'Del Paid,' The burly host was reposing on a atone scat before the door as we rode up. He made no sign of welcome ; but I had long found that the only way of conciliating an innkeeper was to do by de- sign what Don Quixote did in madness—to treat his house as if it were a castle, and him as if he were the lord thereof. The truth is, every man is above his trade, and would hold his dignity sullied by showing the least empressement towards a customer. Necessity compels him to open his door; but, in revenge, he intrenches himself behind a breastwork of reserve. Dismount and approaeh, he consents to parley ; salute with grave courtesy, he accepts a truce ; addrm in your stateliest Castilian, his flattered wor- ship' surrenders at discretion ; present a Gibraltar cigar, the lord of the castle is merged in the idolater of tobacco, and becomes the humblest of your slaves.

"I tried this plan of attack at Coronil with eminent success, and was im- mediately put in possession of such resources for supper and sleep as the van- quished foe could command."