label that read "Venezia." "Is that," he said, "Venedig?" with a little
gasp. "Yes; Venedig," I responded, "where the streets are water." Slowly
he removed his hat. "Ach, Venedig!" he sighed; and then he stooped down,
and, with the uttermost solemnity, he kissed the label.... And then I
understood the vast impulsion of that _wanderlust_ which has pushed so
many, many Germans southward, to overrun that golden city that is wedded
to the sea. I have forgotten the name of that junction, as I said before;
but I have never been so happy in Munich as in this lonely station where
there is no food.
Speaking of food reminds me of Bobadilla, in southern Spain. Bobadilla
sounds as if it ought to be the name of a medieval town, with ghosts of
gaunt imaginative knights riding forth to tilt with windmills; but there
is no town at all at Bobadilla,--merely two railway restaurants set on
either side of several intersecting tracks. For some mysterious reason,
passengers from the four quarters of the compass--that is to say, from
Cordoba, Granada, Algeciras, or Sevilla--are required to alight here, and
eat, and change their trains. I remember Bobadilla as the place where you
spend your counterfeit money. Many of the current coins of southern Spain
are made of silver; and the rest are made of lead. For leaden five-peseta
pieces there is a local name, "Sevillan dollars," which ascribes their
coinage to the crafty artisans of the capital of Andalucia. These pieces,
which are plentiful, are just as good as silver dollars--when you can
persuade anyone to take them. The currency of any coinage, except gold,
depends entirely upon the faith of those who pass and take it and has no
reference to its intrinsic value; and, in southern Spain, the leaden
dollars serve as counters for just as many commercial transactions as the
dollars made of silver. The only difference is that they are commonly
accepted only after protest. In every Spanish shop, a slab of marble is
built into the counter, and on this slab all proffered coins are slapped
before they are accepted by the merchant. The traveler soon learns to
fling his change upon the pavement; and many merry arguments ensue
regarding the _timbre_ of their ring. I remember how once, in the wondrous
town of Ronda, when a beggar had imposed himself upon me as a guide and
led me into a church where High Mass was being chanted, I gave him a
peseta to get rid of him, and at once he flung it upon the pavement of the
church, and chased it, listening, across the nave. Thereafter, he
protested loudly that the piece was lead, and disrupted the intoning of
the priests. "Very well," said I, "it is, in any case, a gift; if you
don't want it, I will take it back": and he accepted it with bows and
smiles, and allowed the weary priests to continue their intonings. But
Bobadilla is the one place in southern Spain where money is never jingled
upon marble. There is no time between trains to quibble over minor
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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