Madrid,
Saturday, Jan. 6, 1872
[1872/01/06]
Dearest Ellen:
[EES]
At Grenada I wrote Rachel a long letter which I have not mailed yet, but will give this and hers to our Secretary of Legation to mail along with his official dispatches. I had intended to postpone my Madrid letter till tomorrow, but as this day is very wet & rainy I can better spare the time now & make use of Sunday for seeing what is necessary in this Capital of Spain. After a fair & full visit to the Alhambra of Grenada we took our departure for Cordova, passing over a part of our former route, viz from Grenada back to Bobadillo, where we got the Malaga train for Cordova, which we reached at 1 P.M. We went to the Hotel de Suisse and immediately got a carriage & guide, who took us straight to the "Mosque", now converted to a Grand Cathedral. Cordova lies on the banks of the Guadalquivir, in a fertile valley well cultivated in wheat & barley, with fine orchards of Olive trees, some grapes and a few Orange trees, though these looked sickly and out of latitude. The place is very old, and is only famous for its Roman & Moorish antiquities. The Moors left a Mosque which has been converted into a Grand Cathedral, and this is the object of interest at Cordova. We got out of the carriage opposite a high wall, dingy & mouldy with time, knocked at a small door in a larger one, and were admitted by a Porter, who got his fee of one pesota, 20 cts. We found ourselves in a large Court paved all round, a rectangle with a scraggly orange trees & fountain from which women were carrying pots of water just as they doubtless did a thousand years ago. One side of this Rectangle forms the front of the Mosque -- which originally was open but all the openings but the center one have been bricked up, and through the middle one we entered the Mosque, which was a space of 400 × 500 feet, the vaulted roof about 30 feet high, sustained by more than one thousand pillars of marble, jasmine &c. in rows. These pillars are said to have been brought from Africa, Rome, Egypt &c. and from their apparent antiquity, the various orders of architecture, their colors &c, it is plain that they were collected from various sources, and some of them are very fine. These pillars with their capitals did not look more than 12 or 14 feet high. From one to the other sprang an arch of brick, and above that arch came the ceiling, which is consequently composed of about 30 or 40 parallel arches. At the very extreme of the middle row of pillars was a sanctuary of the Moors, the holy of holies, ornamented most beautifully with the Arabesque walls peculiar to the Alcazar of Seville & Alhambra of Grenada. This the Moorish Altar has been spared by the Christians and now stands as an object of great interest to antiquaries -- but all round the walls have been arranged the private Chapels peculiar to the Churches of Spain. Each Chapel is railed off -- with a locked gate, but through this railing can be seen the Altars, Statuary & pictures by which they have been embellished. For a fee we saw such of these as our curiosity opened -- But the Center of this great Mosque has been transformed into a Christian Church with its Grand Altar & Choir in the form of a Cross, but in the vast interior space of the Mosque the Church seems small, though the altar is large and the Choir has two fine organs. Whilst we were there the Priests and boys were singing Vespers all to themselves for there were no people present. We spent an hour or so in this Cathedral, still called the "Mosque" & then passed out again into the inner court, across it to the tower or Steeple, up which we toiled our way to the Belfry, from which we had a fine view of the town at our feet and the valley of the Guadalquivir. Then we descended to our Carriage and crossed a Bridge said to have been built by the Romans. It rests on solid stone pins & arches about the size of the Washington at Zanesville & just below the Bridge is a dam on which are three flour mills -- one at each end of the dam & one in the middle. These identical mills are the same that ground flour for the Army of Ferdinand & Isabella when at war with the Moors of Grenada, and truly look old enough to have been there at the beginning of the Christian Era. We had daylight enough to drive around & through this old City of Cordova, within which we could not hear of a single individual who spoke English. By night we returned to our Hotel, got dinner, went to bed and were called at 2 A.M. for the cars to Madrid. At 3 A.M. the cars started, but we could see but little till we passed Anjular, Andujar, where the road bends south and passes the Mountain range of Sierra Moreno, by some fine Mountain scenery. This mountain ramp divides Southern Spain from the high plateau of the Center. Oranges cease altogether, the Olive becomes more scarce and wheat & barley seem the chief products. The cars run very slowly & stop long at the stations. They have no conveniences and are cold & disagreeable. We thus travelled through towns of some historic interest such as Alcazar, Aranjuez &c to Madrid, which we reached at 10 o'clock at night. Our Charge of Legation Mr. Adee met us at the depot & conducted us to this Hotel de Russie, where I have a room with an alcove bed. Audenreid & Fred have another. In each is a stove of original design, with a pipe about as large as a gas pipe. The fire is simply a bucket of charcoal seated inside and the heat given off is of doubtful quantity. Indeed I am glad that I did not attempt to bring Minnie to Spain, as I know she would have actually suffered for a fire, which is something hardly comprehended here or anywhere in Spain, though the climate is exactly like that of San Francisco, beautiful & fine when the sun shines but raw & cold at night & during the periods of drizzling rain, such as now prevails. Yesterday Mr. Adee took us to see the Museum of Paintings which is one of the finest in the world. There are some 3000 original works of Murillo, Velesque, Raphael, &c, &c, so that one actually tires in seeing so many. We afterward called on Gen. Sickles' family, composed of his mother & daughter, the General being absent in the U. S. on his bridal tour. We also called to see the British Minister, a Mr. Layard, the same who explored the ruins of Ninevah & published an interesting book thereon some twenty years ago. Tonight we are booked for a dinner at Mr. Layard's, tomorrow we visit the King -- at 2 P.M. by his own appointment & dine with the Sickles. The next day we propose, if the rain ceases, to visit the Palace of the Escorial some 20 miles off, and on Tuesday will resume our journey to France via Saragossa & Barcelona. My object is to reach Nice about the 15 or 20 instant where we will rejoin our ship the Wabash, & then shape our future course. There also we expect to meet our first letters from home, and the time has been so long that I really begin to wonder if you are all well, though I might ascertain the fact promptly by telegraph, though a message costs about a dollar a word, including date & address. We get the papers here occasionally -- and the Madrid papers occasionally allude to the U. S. about as our papers do of China. Cuban matters here excite some political feeling, and it is universally believed that we of the U. S. are at the bottom of the Cuban Rebellion.
Madrid is a city about the size of Baltimore. Its streets are crooked but much wider than those of Seville, Grenada, &c. They are well paved, and the stores seem full of all sorts of goods. The dwellings are entirely different from ours, being mostly over stores & shops -- full of gilded stairways & stuccoed ceilings, but not comparable with ours for the comfort of living. Wood & coal are so scarce that of necessity they depend on clothing for warmth. There are some fine carriages but the stables are on the ground floor, & such things as front or back yards are not known. Everybody goes of an evening to walk in some park or Paseo, when they want to see grass or trees. I wish you would write to Phil and tell him I have carefully sought for a portrait of Christopher Columbus in Cadiz, Seville, Grenada & now in Madrid, and I assure you he is unknown. The bookstores in Logan or Lancaster contain more books & engravings for sale than the whole of Spain. Mark Twain's descriptions are perfect -- you can see thousands of Saints sculptured and pictured but no plain mortal who has done some act of historic merit like Columbus. He & Cortes & Pisarro are unknown in the land of their origin, while saints by the million are as cheap as dirt. I do not say this to hurt your feelings, but it is holy truth that everybody must corroborate. The great Museum I visited yesterday, worthy the praises it has received, shows nothing of historic interest to us. -- portraits of Kings & Queens that we never heard of, & Saints of every conceivable name, but Columbus is unknown, unnoticed. Indeed when I saw the look of utter surprise of the intelligent man who guided us through the Grand Museum of
Jan. 7th
3000 paintings by the great painters who were the contemporaries of Columbus or of the succeeding age, I realized that even he was not appreciated, though every act of Isabella is chronicled, registered, painted, & sculptured. But you remember Columbus was a Genoese by birth, though married & settled in Spain, and I am told there is a fine public monument to him in Geno?a, where probably I can find what Phil wants, though I doubt if in all Europe there is a better or more accurate likeness of Columbus than the Artist Kauffman has in Washington at his studio on Pennsylvania Avenue. If you or the children want any special thing you must write & ask me for it, for I am so situated that in the vast accumulation of things I cannot select without a cost of thousands of dollars which I cannot afford of course. Even as it is expense will compel me to curtail my visit, for go where I may I am thrown among the rich and extravagant. Last night I dined at the British Minister's, today, Sunday, am to be presented to the King, & tonight the dinner at Sickles, at all of which places we meet of course the richest & best dressed people of this Capital of Spain. Last night after the dinner at Mr. Layard's, Audenreid & I went to the Opera, which is an elegant theater, well filled with a fashionable audience, & we heard the latter part of the Opera of the Huguenots. This morning we find the sky clear & the promise of good weather which will enable us to see the place & all its chief curiosities by Tuesday, when we propose to resume our journey. Before I left the Wabash I agreed with Alden to meet the ship at Nice by the 15 or 20 of January, and we also agreed to be in Rome at the Carnival Feb. 18. So that if you have anything special you can write me care of U. S. Minister Rome. After that I hardly know how letters will reach me, as we propose to go to Naples, Sicily, Genoa and Egypt, but letters sent to me at Nice will be forwarded. As we return toward France in the Spring it will be easier for me to arrange for letters. I wish you would have some proper person to dig about the roots of our Grapevines in February, and to trim them carefully. In this way we can be sure of a good crop of grapes this Summer. Also tell Jack Sherman to see my tenant Heinrich & collect the rent of the 14th Street lot every three months, at the rate of $200 a year. Heinrich has my last receipt, which shows to what date he last paid with Jay Cooke & Co. so that I can draw from it as I want. I had a pretty rough turn of cold & asthma at Gibraltar but feel that it is now nearly gone and I hope I will escape it for the present season as in travelling it is impossible to avail myself of the usual remedies. Audenreid & Fred are very hearty & well. The former writes home pretty often, but the latter but rarely, and I have no doubt Mrs. Grant will be sending to you for news pretty often, and you may assure her that if anything goes wrong with him I will promptly advise the President, and that she may always take no news to be good news.
I suppose by this time you are in the midst of snow & winter, but you may feel sure that with your house & comforts you need not envy the richest Grandees of Spain, for though they have little snow and generally a bright sky, yet their heavy stone houses, marbled floors and painted walls seem cold and cheerless compared with ours. The narrow streets & horses stabled below give an odor to the Palaces here that overcome the few flowers with which they decorate the windows and the interior courts & Patios. The only thing in Spain that you could admire are the Churches and Cathedrals, on which for Centuries have been lavished the labor & toil of thousands of architects -- grand in design, elaborate in ornamentation & finish, but cold and devoid of all semblance of reverential devotion. The Church & soldiers are however the main props of the Government and are therefore liberally provided for, whilst the people look & act just as they are described in Gil Blos & Don Quixote. All the tools of trades & agriculture look like the time of Moses, and such a thing as a McCormick reaper for their wheat, or a Thresher for cleaning it would be an innovation that would create a riot among the laborers. Even the Railroad seems barely to be tolerated whilst all travel is on mules. And the ass is still the beast of burden. My next letters will be from the neighborhood of Marseilles & Nice in France, until which time goodbye -- Love to all the young folks.
Yrs
W. T. Sherman
[WTS]