A Feast for the Senses
A Journey to Gibraltar. By Robert Henrey. (Dent. I2S. 6d.) Tins is a very unusual book. It is the account of a journey taken last year by a British journalist from England to Lisbon, Madrid, G braltar and Tangier, but it is utterly unlike the usual kind of travel book. The author speaks little of himF..lf directly, but he reveals his strange perceptive personality in every word he writes. He is interested in what I for one, call the real things of the world— men and women, children, clothes, foods, shops, drinks, books, houses, restaurants, fruits and especially flowers. This is no conventional hard-bo.led newspaper correspondent, but a highly civilised per- sonality, gifted with a subtle, perceptive mind, and a vivid sensibility for whom travelling is a rich experience. You will find here no glib political generalisations or vague, facile cliches about what the people are thinking in these countries he travels through about the Allies or the Axis. But what you will find is exactly what it is they eat, drink and wear, what they can and cannot buy, and what they actually do day by day during the war at Lisbon, Madrid, Gibraltar and Tangier. Mr. Henrey fulfils here the first duty of a good wr:ter ; he tells you not what he thinks will interest you (fatal obsess:ow of the dull!), but only what interests him, with the result that every word holds out attention. He flies to an aerodrome near Lisbon, then drives into the city through 25 kilometres of country: " I was elated to see the olive-trees and the vineyards, the honey- suck.e covering the hedges like veils of yellow gossamer and sending out its sweet scent. The wheat was ripe for cutting, and poppies and cornflowers grew between the ears. Women passed us clothed all in black. and carrying pitchers of baked clay on their heads ; children darted out of the village streets and looked at us with big wondering eyes, their faces broyened with the sun. In the lanes wizened old men passed us riding their sure-footed donkeys."
At the Hotel Europa, where accommodation. hard to secure, had been pre-arranged, he found his room " large, airy, with full-length mirrors and a modern bathroom. Big french windows opened out on a narrow balcony, from which, if I looked round the corner, I could see the Tagus. . . . The honey- suckle I admired on the way from Cintra was as potent in the streets of the city as in the hedgerows."
After a bath he took a taxi to explore the city, and told the drive: to turn into one of the three. main streets, the Rua Augusta.
" He was to follow me slowly while I got out and walked. I must say he seemed very agreeable to this whim of mine. . . . The Rua Augusta was a woman's paradise. Soon I was to discover that it was the same in all the main shopping arteries in Lisbon. . . . There was perfume, lipstick, powder, cream, eye-black and other artifice to beauty produced before the war by the great French perfumery and dressmaking houses. The windows were stocked with the perfumes and beauty preparations of Guer:ain, Lanvin and Chanel, and eves), other great name. . . . There were displays of stockings of every shade. There were the most lovely leather bags and hand-made blouses in chiffon, in lace and in satin. . . . I tried to find out how prices compared to London. I had been given about zoo escudos to the. pound, so that silk stockings worked out at about six shillings a pair and one could buy quite a good pair of shoes in excellent leather for twenty-five shillings. . . . The big cinemas were nearly all showing American pictures, and I was surprised that except for a few short news reels the Axis appeared to have no influence over the film world. There were pastry-cooks still open and their shops were filled with jam tarts and cakes and chocolates The fruiterers delighted the eye, for there were masses of strawberries and cherries, oranges, lemons, bananas and pineapples. Here were the night clubs and the smart restaurants. The avenue is very wide, and between the two main traffic lines there are gardens in which the Portuguese take coffee or sip iced drinks under coloured parasols that are brilliantly lit at night. I thought it would be a good idea to stop a moment that we might take a cup of coffee our- selves. I felt I owed him that. I did not know that his petrol ration was now so small that this assignment with its frequent interruptions was extremely congenial to him. He would be able to charge me by the hour and not by the distance covered. He drew up beside the kerb, and we took a table by a little lake with water-lilies and a sort of artificial babbling brook. It was very pleasant sitting out in the evening air, but I suddenly realised that there were only men around me."
Everywhere Mr. Henrey goes his eye notes significant detail. He is unusually sensitive to atmosphere, to the fragrance of the air, to the innumerable little sensuous details which make all the difference between delight and boredom. He knows what makes a house, or a city, a restaurant, or a farm enchanting and invigorating, and what makes them dull and depressing. It is these primary stimulating and restorative sense-values which we miss in so much contemporary writing today. In this trip through neutral Europe Mr. Henrey seems a representative of the great_French-cultural tradition, remind- ing us of the true values which, if lost, will take all the savour out of life for the individual, no matter how assiduously our social re- formers plan. -What is- it that makes .a city delightful to live in? Read Mr. Henrey's contrast of La Lina with Algeciras, and you wil be enlightened in a way none of our town-planners seem able enlighten us. But perhaps the best thing in the book is the realistic description of a train journey from Madrid towards Gibraltar, from which an airman flying home one.night took a lemon and a banant for Mr. Henrey's baby in England the next morning.
W. J. TURNER.
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