two generations they have remained in these
hovels--year in, year out--employed in shoeing horses, shearing, and the
like menial occupations which the Spaniard thinks beneath his dignity.
The women tell fortunes, or dance for the foreigner, or worse. It is a
mere struggle for daily bread. I wondered whether in the spring-time the
young men loved the maidens, or if they only coupled like the beasts. I
saw one pair who seemed quite newly wed; for their scanty furniture was
new and they were young. The man, short and squat, sat scowling,
cross-legged on a chair, a cigarette between his lips. The woman was
taller and not ill-made, a slattern; her hair fell dishevelled on her
back and over her forehead; her dress was open, displaying the bosom;
her apron was filthy. But when she smiled, asking for money, her teeth
were white and regular, and her eyes flashed darkly. She was attractive
in a heavy sensual fashion, attractive and at the same time horribly
repellant: she was the sort of woman who might fetter a man to herself
by some degrading, insuperable passion, the true Carmen of the famous
story whom a man might at once love and hate; so that though she dragged
him to hell in shame and in despair, he would never find the strength to
free himself. But where among that bastard race was the splendid desire
for freedom of their fathers, the love of the fresh air of heaven and
the untrammeled life of the fields?

At first glance also the cathedral seemed devoid of charm. I suppose
travellers seek emotions in the things they see, and often the more
beautiful objects do not give the most vivid sensations. Painters
complain that men of letters have written chiefly of second-rate
pictures, but the literary sentiment is different from the artistic; and
a masterpiece of Perugino may excite it less than a mediocre work of
Guido Reni.

The cathedral of Granada is said by the excellent Fergusson to be the
most noteworthy example in Europe of early Renaissance architecture; its
proportions are evidently admirable, and it is designed and carried out
according to all the canons of the art. 'Looking at its plan only,' he
says, 'this is certainly one of the finest churches in Europe. It would
be difficult to point out any other, in which the central aisle leads up
to the dome, so well proportioned to its dimensions, and to the dignity
of the high altar which stands under it.' But though I vaguely
recognised these perfections, though the spac