The Sunny South: An Autumn in Spain and MajorcaClayton, John William
History
The Sunny South: An Autumn in Spain and Majorca
Clayton, John William
Majorca (Spain) -- Description and travel; Spain -- Description and travel
is tarnished in the tug of actual war. Falstaff's wretched band of
followers did not exhibit more diversity in the colour and fashion of
their habiliments than did these followers of an imperial prince.
One poor ragged wretch in a darkly stained red jacket, with a wisp
of clotted canvas round his head, lay on his back helpless, without
arms or legs, and totally blind. A cannon had burst close to him, and
inflicted on him those injuries which must render him henceforward
dependent on the bounty and kindness of others. I was informed that
his mental sufferings from seeing himself reduced to such a miserable
condition were so severe that they had partially affected his mind, and
some fears were entertained that he might never recover the use of his
faculties. His, in fact, was one of those cases in which mental eclipse
would almost be the greatest of mercies. It was sad to see the poor
fellow moving the stumps of his arms to and fro like fishes' fins, as
they appeared to me; while from time to time some rough comrade tended
him gently, and fed him like an infant.
These men, the followers of an emperor, were the intended regenerators
of a barbarous state, the agents of the bright spirit of civilization;
and what was their state now as they lay there, prostrate in filth,
overcome by sorrow, suffering from wounds, and overrun with vermin?
They were all swathed in the foul old clothes they had begged by the
way, or tricked out in faded remnants of old uniforms, some of them
spotted with blood, and others, that had perhaps belonged to officers,
covered with rusty patches of gold lace. It is always a sad sight
to see misery like this that one cannot relieve, and we were glad
when our eyes no longer rested on such illustrations of the pomp and
circumstance of glorious war. We came across them afterwards at Havre,
enclosed in a sort of sheep-pen at a railway station. The mob were
jeering at them through the railings, and the gentle passed them with a
sigh.
After a pleasant passage, we glided quickly into the port of Havre, and
landed amidst a jargon of bad English and worse French, the British
Cockney preferring to explain all manner of difficulties in a foreign
tongue, however imperfectly understood, while the cocked-hatted
individual whom he addressed manfully persisted in his endeavours to
make everything intelligible in his own peculiar mode of speaking
the English language. Here at Le Havre, all good little boys and
girls should remember, Bernardin de St. Pierre, the author of "Paul
and Virginia" was born; also Casimir Delavigne. Here, too, Henry
the Seventh embarked _en route_ for Bosworth Field; and close by is
Honfleur, where most of the new-laid eggs that one gets in London come
from. Two thousand dozen are despatched per week to England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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