Maiden Voyages (40 page)

Before the civil war broke, Málaga was a favourite winter resort of sun-seeking foreigners (perhaps it is so now again). The dirty streets complained of by nineteenth-century travellers have become clean, the hotels are improved. Possibly this is partly due to the winter visits of Queen Victoria (Ena) and her mother Princess Beatrice of Battenberg, who stayed there every year. I dare say even the lower orders are improved too. In 1830 a Mr. Inglis was warned (or so he believed) by the British consul that he could only ascend unaccompanied to the Alcázaba and the Gibralfera, the Phoenician-Moorish forts on the hill above the town, at risk of his life; when he did so one evening he was persuaded that a lurking Malagueño, whose dark face he descried watching him from the shadows of the ruins, meant to rob and assassinate him; he only escaped this fate by fleeing hot-foot and breathless down a path to the city. No such dangers to-day attend the visitor to these now restored
and tidied up forts, except the dangers attendant on a steep climb in the sun. If you brave this, you get a fine sweeping view of Málaga and its bay, the broad basin of its splendid harbour full of the ships of the world—cargo steamers, cruising steamers, Spanish battleships, white-sailed yachts, fleets of fishing boats—a lovely sight. Beyond it stretches the line of coast that curves south-west to the Straits, and it is true that you can faintly see Ceuta and the mountains of Africa.

Walking down the steep narrow streets of the old town that climbs above the long alameda and park and modern frontage that lie along the harbour front, one passes an occasional broken gesture from the Arab past—part of a house, a gateway, an arch. There is, too, the cathedral, though this is not particularly interesting. It is, as Ford observed, a pastiche, since it was begun (on the site of a mosque and of the Gothic church run up just after the conquest, of which only a portal of the Sagrario remains) in 1538, and not finished until late in the eighteenth century. It was a good deal damaged in 1936, but still has a fine showy commonplace Corinthian façade and towers. I did not see the inside, which has, says Baedeker, pictures by Alonso Cano, Ribera and others (but I dare say they were burnt) and some good sculpture. There are other churches in Málaga, and an archæological museum, and a museum of fine arts, all shut. More interesting is the general lie and feeling of the town and port, this oldest Phoenician Mediterranean port of Spain, anciently so powerful and so opulent a fair for Tyre, for Carthage, for Rome, for the Moor, and now again for Spain. Málaga has its industrial quarter, its cotton mills, its sugar refineries, its factories, west of the Guadalmedina, and its port is full of ships carrying grapes, raisins, wine, sugar, cotton, and (one hopes) bananas, sweet potatoes and custard apples, out to sea.

For those who like parks (I do not) there is a handsome modern park along the sea front. For those who like nice crowded bathing beaches (I do not) there is a nice crowded bathing beach. I remembered how Mr. Joseph Townsend, visiting Málaga in 1786, had reported that all the young people bathed for hours by night in summer, and the female section of the sea, carefully segregated from the male, was defended from eager gentlemen by sentinels with loaded muskets. Deaths in such a cause were, no doubt, numerous among Malagueño señoritos. Strange
things were in those days related to visiting Englishmen; Mr. Henry Swinburne, in 1775, was “assured that it was hardly possible to breathe in summer.” This sounds like the kind of assurance made by those patriots who desire to defend their city from any suspicions of chilliness, and was probably made to Mr. Swinburne on a day when the cool
levante
was blowing from the sea, or the icy
terral
from the mountains. Málaga, when I was there, was not too hot, but breezy and pleasant.

But I felt no temptation to stay there: as Murray succinctly expressed it, “one day will suffice,” I went on in the evening to Torremolinos, about eight miles down the western side of Málaga bay. The mountains had withdrawn a little from the sea; the road ran a mile inland; the sunset burned on my right, over vines and canes and olive gardens. I came into Torremolinos, a pretty country place, with, close on the sea, the little Santa Clara hotel, white and tiled and rambling, with square arches and trellises and a white-walled garden dropping down by stages to the sea. One could bathe either from the beach below, or from the garden, where a steep, cobbled path twisted down the rocks to a little terrace, from which one dropped down into ten feet of green water heaving gently against a rocky wall. A round full moon rose corn-coloured behind a fringe of palms. Swimming out to sea, I saw the whole of the bay, and the Málaga lights twinkling in the middle of it, as if the wedge of cheese were being devoured by a thousand fireflies. Behind the bay the dark mountains reared, with here and there a light. It was an exquisite bathe. After it I dined on a terrace in the garden; near me three young Englishmen were enjoying themselves with two pretty Spanish girls they had picked up in Málaga; they knew no Spanish, the señoritas no English, but this made them all the merrier. They were the first English tourists I had seen since I entered Spain; they grew a little intoxicated, and they were also the first drunks I had seen in Spain. They were not very drunk, but one seldom sees Spaniards drunk at all.

I got up early next morning and went down the garden path again to bathe. There were blue shadows on the white garden walls, and cactuses and aloes above them, and golden cucumbers and pumpkins and palms. I dropped into the green water and swam out; Málaga across the bay was golden pale like a pearl; the little playa of Torremolinos
had fishing boats and nets on it and tiny lapping waves. Near me was a boat with fishermen, who were hacking mussels off the rocks and singing. The incredible beauty of the place and hour, of the smooth opal morning sea, shadowing to deep jade beneath the rocks, of the spread of the great bay, of the climbing, winding garden above with the blue shadows on its white walls, the golden pumpkins, the grey-green spears of the aloes, the arcaded terrace and rambling jumble of low buildings, was like the returning memory of a dream long forgotten. Lumpy cathedrals, tiresome modern parks, smartly laid out avenidas and alamedas, tented and populated beaches, passed out of mind, washed away in this quiet sea whispering against shadowed rocks. I climbed the ladder to the platform, and went up the vine-trellised garden to my annexe.

I had to go again into Málaga, to cash a cheque and get my exhaust pipe mended at a garage. They sawed off its end, and told me there was nothing to pay. I gave them ten pesetas and some English cigarettes, and told them how kind they were; they said I was
muy simpatica
, and we parted in mutual esteem. I like most Spanish mechanics very much; they are both clever and obliging, and often witty too. For that matter, so are most British and French mechanics; but the Spanish (or is it only the Andalucian?) negligence about payment is attractive.

Going back again through Torremolinos, I picked up a stout and agreeable woman laden with bundles and baskets, who asked me if I could take her to Marbella, twenty-eight miles on, as she had missed the bus. I said yes by all means, if she was not in a hurry and would not mind my stopping to bathe somewhere on the way. She said that she would not mind at all, but strongly advised me to wait till we reached Marbella, which had the best beach in the world. She was a Marbella enthusiast; whenever I showed signs of admiring some sequestered cove or beach she assured me, with much fervour and gesticulation, that it was nothing to Marbella, which had the best beach in the world, and that when I saw Marbella I should never again want to bathe anywhere else. She had me in such a state of pleasant anticipation about Marbella that I sped quickly on. We talked agreeably all the way about her family, the coffee she was taking them, the beauty of her married daughter, the terrible price of food, why I had come to
Spain, why I was alone, why Spanish women did not drive cars nor Spanish little girls ride donkeys in the streets like their brothers; that is to say, she did not really know why, only that it was “costumbre española,” and the other “costumbre extranjera.” She was rather a delightful woman, handsome, stout, loquacious, beautifully mannered, comfortably off; either a peasant or a small Málaga bourgeoise; I liked her a great deal.

We got to Marbella, which had a large, hot, quiet beach with a river running into it. The house which my companion was visiting was down by the shore; she invited me into it for refreshment, but I refused. Instead I drove down a track to the sands, undressed in the car, and bathed. The beach and sea were pleasant enough, but, after all my anticipations, I was disappointed, and did not think Marbella all it had been cracked up to be. It was once important both as trading port and coast stronghold, and in the days when, as old engravings show, it was ringed about with towered Moorish walls, gradually falling to ruin, it must have been a very picturesque city, standing before the sea with the fruitful mountains behind it. It was then full of convents and churches, had a fine alameda of trees watered by fountains; and its port was full of ships being loaded with wines, figs and raisins. But “the present inhabitants,” wrote a traveller of the 1770’s, “bear the character of an uncivil, inhospitable people, many of them descendants of the Moors, who still seem to resent the ill treatment of their forefathers; hence the Spanish proverb ‘Marbella es bella, pero no entrar en ella.’ ” The Marbellians seem in these days to have improved in civility, so perhaps they have now forgotten the ill treatment of their forefathers. The town is guarded by two forts, but in vain, for African barbarians crossed the sea in
A
.
D
. 170 and devastated it, with Málaga and the other towns on the Bætican shore, and the Moors took it quite easily in the eighth century, and the Catholic Monarchs, though with more difficulty, in the fifteenth. It was after that peopled with Christians. The Moriscos made some trouble there later, but were expelled, and after that, says the
Crónica
, the inhabitants of Marbella devoted themselves to art, industry and agriculture, leading lives happy and tranquil, rich in the abundant fruits of their soil and sea. Fishermen drew from the liquid element nets laden with the most savoury and delicious fish in
Spain; the sardines in particular are of exquisite taste. In few ports does one enjoy such beautiful sea, and such a variety of admirable objects. Opposite one may observe the mountains of the Riff, on the right the Rock of Gibraltar. The countryside (the description continues) is covered with vines and olives, oranges, pomegranates, wine presses, farmhouses, orchards. In the Plaza de la Constitución is a magnificent stone fountain. There is much trade and manufacture, and iron mines in the hills, and Marbella flourishes greatly. Obviously a remarkable place. On first seeing it, Isabella the Catholic threw up her hands and exclaimed, “Que mar tan bella!” like my companion of the road. But the mar, anyhow the Mediterranean mar, is always bella.

I drove three kilometres on, to the half-ruined hamlet of San Pedro Alcantara, where a steep stony road turned up into the mountains for Ronda, thirty-five miles away. For the first twenty miles this track was covered with loose flints; apparently it was being mended. It climbed up in steep zigzags above tremendous ravines; a great basin of pine-clad mountains opened out, range beyond range, on my left, brown and indigo and purple and softly mauve, stretching into hyacinth-blue distance. Over the ravine great birds flew with wide wings. On my right the rocky precipice rose sheer. They were silent mountains, and a silent track, till, as I rounded a sharp bend, three roadmenders hailed me, black-a-vised, unshaven, wanting a lift to “dieciocho,” the eighteenth-kilometre stone, ten miles on. They got in: I thought their weight would make it bad for the tyres over the sharp flints, but it proved all right. They were very kind roadmenders. One of them got out at a spring he knew of and filled my earthen pot with fresh water; they kept collecting things they had hidden behind bushes along the track. They left me at dieciocho, where a path to their village went down into the ravine. If ever in the future, one of them said, they could do anything to repay me for my kindness, I was to let them know at once. I said that I would; I hope that an opportunity may offer. Meanwhile, I went on through the mountains. The road became good for the last ten or fifteen miles before Ronda. The mountains presently levelled out into a spacious amphitheatre, in which Ronda stood high on a sheer rock.

Barbaric, emphatic, noble-looking, yet questionable city: a chasm yawns across its face and across its history. For before the Moors made
it known to the mediæval world, under the name of Ronda, its existence is dubious. There have even been those who have said that the Moors built it new, quarrying material for it out of the ruined site now called Ronda la Vieja, seven miles north. But the Moors seldom built new cities; they enlarged and Arabized the Visigothic, Roman and Iberian cities and villages that they found. The present site of the Moorish half of Ronda, magnificently poised on its tremendous gorge, in the heart of that mountainous and embattled country, where peace never was, where turbulent tribes for ever warred with one another and with whatever dominant powers ruled them, cannot have been neglected either by Iberians, Romans or Visigoths. Indeed, Ronda is full of Roman relics and fragments; and the mosque on which the chief Christian church was built by the Christian conquerors was itself built on an earlier Visigoth temple. Ronda must always have been a place of importance; but under what name is unknown. Research has, I understand, dismissed Arunda and Acinipo (once held to be Ronda’s Roman ancestors) from that district of Spain. One cannot enter this trodden and obscure field of controversy. Enough that before me rose the Ronda of the Moors, the Ronda of twelve centuries of known and turbulent history, famed Ronda, the Mecca of American tourists and of many English, the Ronda of the Great Gorge. It had, said a fifteenth-century chronicler, at the time of the conquest a hundred mountain towns round it (mostly vanished long since), but Ronda was the queen of the
serranía
, and known as the strongest fort of Andalucia. Ronda, says a much later chronicler, is combated by the north wind, and also by those from east and west, by this last with so much strength that on various occasions it tears up by the roots even the most corpulent trees. Yet it is a healthy climate, the ailments in winter being mainly lung affections and constipation, in summer intermittent fevers produced by excess in eating fruit.