It has no distinctive traits itself, but it
is a patchwork of all Spain. Every province of the Peninsula sends a
contingent to its population. The Gallicians hew its wood and draw its
water; the Asturian women nurse its babies at their deep bosoms, and
fill the promenades with their brilliant costumes; the Valentians carpet
its halls and quench its thirst with orgeat of chufas; in every street
you shall see the red bonnet and sandalled feet of the Catalan; in every
cafe, the shaven face and rat-tail chignon of the Majo of Andalusia. If
it have no character of its own, it is a mirror where all the faces of
the Peninsula may sometimes be seen. It is like the mockingbird of the
West, that has no song of its own, and yet makes the woods ring with
every note it has ever heard.
Though Madrid gives a picture in little of all Spain, it is not all
Spanish. It has a large foreign population. Not only its immediate
neighbors, the French, are here in great numbers,--conquering so far
their repugnance to emigration, and living as gayly as possible in the
midst of traditional hatred,--but there are also many Germans and
English in business here, and a few stray Yankees have pitched their
tents, to reinforce the teeth of the Dons, and to sell them ploughs and
sewing-machines. Its railroads have waked it up to a new life, and the
Revolution has set free the thought of its people to an extent which
would have been hardly credible a few years ago.
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