LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1748, 26 September 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE BELLE OP SANTA CRUZ. A ‘ Sckimmace’ at Tekeeitfk. [Prom ‘ London Society, ’j How came it to pzss that Teddy O’Grady and I, subalterns both in her Majesty’s Dashers, stationed at Capo Town, found ourselves one November morning, in the year 184—, walking across the grand square of Panta Cruz, Teneriffe, instead of being on the high seas, crowding all sail southward ho for Table Bay ? It occurred on this wise.

About three weeks before, wo, with other passengers, had embarked at Gravesend on board the good ship Lady Fiorilire, John Forteith commander. A succession of heavy autumnal gales, during which her ladyship had|behavcd very badly, pitching and tossing, kicking and plunging, reeling and staggering, had driven us so much out of our course as to place us on a dark, dirty, and worse than ever stormy night, about one hundred miles to the northward of the Canary Islands. Non sine laorymis—not without tares, as O'Grady worded it—had we got even so far, for yards had been carried away, sails split and blown from bolt-ropes, cordage snapped, bulwarks stove in, the cutter lost, and dear old Forteith had been awfully riled, and had angrily desired Howard and Adairs of the Rifles ‘to stow all that chaff’ when asked ‘ how many chips’ of hia Lady Floriline he expected to bo left standing when he sighted the Cape lighthouse. Indeed, matters did look as if little or nothing of the vessel was destined to enter Table Bay, for on the night I have mentioned, and while a regular hurricane was blowing, something or other aloft gave way, her ladyship * broached to,’ took a header down to the very bottom of Davy Jones’s locker, remained for a moment or two buried in that maritime locality, then rose up with her bowsprit dangling about her stern, and tho decollette female figure, glass and toothbrush in hand, which represented the damsel after whom she had been named, swept from Per bows and gone to grace the statue gallery of some sea-gods

A little while, thus tattorid; and torn, she hesitates what next aorobati's' feat to p?.rfotm Then—w-h-i sh I s-pi^s-hf— she makes another plunge fathoms below the waves ; crack! over topples the forsmait; snap! away goes the main topmast, and presently every yard, sail, and rope stretched on these spars is either thrashing and lashi ing alongside, or madly swinging and swaying overhead. Well, we had to work with a will all that livelong night to cut the wreck adrift, and when the last strand was severed, and the carpenter reported that hull and rudder were ‘as sound as a tell.’ we sot about rigging jurymasts, and shaped a course for Teneriffo. After some days of watchful ‘ conning,’ of gingerly ‘ pulling and hauling,’ of careful minding ‘of lulls and weather-helms.’ and of ever so many ‘ b fight looks-out’—for we Were wonderfully and curiously fashioned, and Lady F.’s impromptu sea toilet would not stand much rough handling-—we wriggled, one forenoon, into the lovely roadstead of Santa Cruz, and anchored opposite the old historic town. Then, as soon as Don Fernando de Oaatoroilo, the health officer, bad given us pratique,iO’Grady amljl were over She ship’s side, had landed at the Mole, and, as I began TJy saying, were walking across the square on our way to Dickson’s hotel. Not many minutes did it take ns to find that comfortable caravansera', still less to get established in its- salle-ar-manger, and in a composite language of Latin, French, and Irish—O’Grady’s native tongue—to give our orders for ollas, puoheros—all sorts and doscrip’.ious of Spanish dishes—to an olivecomplexioned buxom dame-d'o comptoir but who, alas, even across a pretty wide buffet, was at once accredited with the perfume of garlic and tobacco Now, as Captain Forteith had told us that his carpenter and half' a- dozen lubberly shipwrights he had got would take fully three weeks to make the Lady Floriline shipshape and ready again for sea, there was nothing to be done fbr that time but to make ourselves at home In Santa Cruz ; to lionise the island ; to ascend its peak ; to see its vine and olive yards to visit its old cities of the Gnaiches ; and to fia'ernise—as much as they would let us—with the cloaked and tomb-a oed senorp, and with the bewitching mantilla-draped, head-veiled, and fan armed senora;—the lords and ladies of the land.

And a piquant attractive set were the feminines generally, walking with a springy Oaks-filly kind of step, such as they say no women but Span'.ah move with, and throwing about their eyes and'their fans-in a way that no other daughters of Eve can, or do, rival them —so much the better, perhaps. They’ll tell yon, these Castillian dames and damsels, that from earliest days of childhood anxious mamma has taught them to amble thus in their gait ; has shown them how to open and shut and whirl and twirl their fans, makingthese pieces of stick and painted paper organa of speech and organs of sight; and that when they have mastered these accomplishments, and learnt to sing love-songs to the strumming of a ribbon-decked guitar, then the educational course of Dolores, Juanita/ or Christobel Is completed, and that she may ‘go in and win.' Add, however, to the curriculum the smoking of cigarettes,- the drinking of-over-sweet spice-flavoured chocolate, and the rather too free indulgence’in pungent esoulents—ngh!—and we found the young lady perfect l . However, spite of non-aromatlo herbs and strong niootene, we managed to hit it off: pleasantly enough with the pretty sonoras aad senoritas, who took kindly tt> ‘los officiaUs Jnglcses,’ possibly as a pleasant change from their every-day stereotyped admirers. Bat the dons and hidalgoes—their male belongings—hated the very-sight of ns; and although assuring ns, after the manner of the country, that their houses and contents were at our disposal, that they kissed onr hands and feet, that they hopod we might live a thousand years, and so on, wers wishing ns all the time at Jericho, in the Bed Sea,, anywhere rather ■ than ■ parading thostreets and strands of- Santa Cruz, and lounging in the saloons and gardens of their large moresco-looking, but somewhat dilapidated, houses Dolores, Christobel, or Juanita aforesaid being then and there onr companions. ‘Be jabus,’ says O’Grady one day. ‘a moigbty proud set of spalpeens these oisland dons, but as poor as a Dooblin keyarmau. Why, look ye, there’s that Don Pedro de Povero Diabolo, the man we wid oight or noine paces of ribbnn tacked on to his coat, the Intendente Militarlo they call him, the husband, ye moinde, of- that noice leetle senora you’ve now and again sain me walking on the Meerena wid. Whoy, the beggar has onnly four or foive doubloons the month, • matter of some twelve or fifteen pounds ; and as for the oasa [house]. which be is always putting a la diapoaiclon de ustedes—at our deesposal—bedad !: three anld cheers, a sqneer table, a sleep of keyarpet on a polished flure. and hoigh back rikety sofa of the toime of Coloombus, and on which Inez and he can’t seet widout squazing; .begorrah, that’s all, or narely all, the foorniture oi’ve sain in the house foruse or for show!'

Now this Don Pedro to whom O’Grady alluded was no end of a< Teneriffe swd<, his impeonniosity notwithstanding. He was a Knight of Saint Fernando,, of Isabella, of Calatrava, of goodness only knows what besides ; he had the blue blood of Castille’s best grandees circulating in-, his veins ; and although past the sixties in age, and well into ‘the sere and yellow leaf,’ was as frisky, and peppery as the youngest sub In the King of Spain’s army. An neste, he was a wizened, sapless, tobacoo dried-up old soldier, of whom yon never saw more than his forage-cap, thin colourless face, and his boots, the rest of his person being always enveloped in his large military regulation, cloak. Inez, his wife—the blooming May to this faded December—was about twenty, slight, graceful, fairer than most of her country-women, with large, black, sparkling eyes, a rosy laughing month, pearly teeth (Havannahs notwithstanding), and a glorious profusion of glossy jet hair crowning a head which no other coif than a lace veil, fastened by a high tortoise shell comb, was ever permitted to cover.