Appendix
The traveller to Toledo will be glad, perhaps, of some practical information. A guide for a short stay is indispensable. I did not claim the services of any, so cannot speak from personal experience, but the proprietor of the Hotel Castilla assures me that his German guide can be recommended. His charge is ten pesetas a day, nominally eight shillings, but often considerably less owing to the rate of change. My friend and guide, the Spanish painter, who came fifteen years ago to Toledo lo sketch and has since never been able to leave the witching city, highly recommends a young Italian guide, G. Borraino, who speaks several languages and knows his Toledo to the last stone. His charge, I imagine, is less, and he dwells up in the little Plaza de las Carmelitas, above the Puerta del Cambron, with amiable Italians who make and sell plaster casts.
There are four hotels in Toledo; the Castilla, the Norte, the Lina, and the Imperial. The Castilla is the best hotel of Spain, admirably situated, overlooking, behind, the broad Vega and the long serpentine Tagus curled upon the landscape. The table is French and good, the rooms are fine, the service quite modern, the whole fitted up with luxury and taste. The building is extremely handsome and spacious, with every modern comfort, and cost the marquis who built it a fortune. He rashly spent his money, but he is the benefactor of travellers to Toledo, and such is now the reputation of this first-class hotel that newly married couples from Madrid, and embassadors in search of distraction, come here instead of going abroad. Murray’s guide-book describes it as dear, which is not true, for such accommodation and service are cheap enough at fifteen pesetas a day. Older travellers who have had to put up with the older hotels give appalling accounts of their experience, so that for the sake of a few shillings it is the height of folly to be miserable while sight-seeing, when for very little more, you may enjoy comfort, harmony, and an excellent table, with the most scrupulous cleanliness.
The churches should be visited early; tips are everywhere indispensable but small. A plan of Toledo will be found very useful.
Footnotes
1 Tubal, grandson of Noah, son of Japhet his son, peopled Spain, that I know for sure. And he was the first King from whom the name of Tubalia. And this first King through fright, made his seat in Toledo, because of the waters he did not dare to settle in the plain, but chose the rocky heights. This was forty and three and a hundred years more after the great and savage deluge. And after Tubal reigned Ibero, from whom is said Iberia. Entered Tago with courage, who peopled the South, and much enlarged Toledo and the Tagus, and in conclusion, to his kingdom gave the name of Taja.
Hijo, de Japhet su hijo,
Poblo à España, cierto sé,
Y es el primer rey que fué,
Por quien Tubalia se dijo.
Y esto primer rey de miedo
Hizo su assiento en Toledo
Que pon las aguas no ha ossado
En lo llano hacer poblado
Sino en alto y en roquedo.
“Esto fué a quarenta y tres
Y mas cien años despues
Del diluvio grande, y fiero,
Y tras Tubal reyno Ibero,
Por quien dicha Iberia es,
Entra Tajo, con denuedo,
Que poblo en el meridion,
Y aumento mucho a Toledo,
Y al Tajo y su reyna ledo
Nombro Taga en conclusion.”
2 A document exists purporting to be the original letter sent by the Jews of Toledo to their co-religionists of Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion. It is addressed: Levi archisinagogo é Samuel Joseph, omes bonos de la aljama de Toledo à Eleazar mint gran sacerdote é à Samuel Ecaniet, Annas y Caiphas, omes bones de la aljama de la terra sancta, salud en el Dios de Israel. It is signed: De Toledo à XIV. dais del mes de Nizan era del César XVIII. y de Augusto Octaviano LXX. But the “omes bonos” of the Holy Land had settled the question before the lengthy epistle of the “good men” of Toledo reached them.
3 Conde de Mora: “Historia de Toledo.”
4 “Bib. Nat.,” p. 16, v. 21
5 It was chiefly in other Gothic towns that Wamba’s fortifications were demolished. Toledo comparatively escaped.
6 My notes from the Chronicle says a hundred thousand workshops, but this in revision seems a slip of the pen. Such a number of workshops even at so flourishing an hour would have encumbered Toledo very seriously, I imagine.
7 Dozy regards Count Julian as an authentic historical figure though both his rank and authority are undefined. He believes he was neither a vassal nor a Spanish subject, and consequently no traitor. But was he a Berber, a Greek, an independent prince or tributary of Spain or of the Emperor of Constantinople? Dozy suggests he may have been an Arabian governor of Ceuta, under the Byzantine emperor, while Arabian authors describe him as a mere merchant.
8 Mr Stanley Lane Poole in his “Moors in Spain” (wherein he accepts the old-fashioned but improbable legend of Julian or Florinda as history) suggests that Rodrigo was drowned and washed out by the great ocean, and describes the last of the Goths as a kind of legendary Arthur, enfolded in mystery and awaited by his mourning subjects like the Irish Knights who in mediæval times were expected to return from some dim region of rest to take up again the burden of our life, and lead their followers to victory and prosperity.
9 Rasis el Moro, Spain, MS. Bib. Pro.—Toledo.
10 Abou-l-Hasan: Dozy, Recherches sur l’histoire et la littérature d’Espagna.
11 “Histoire de Philippe II.” by H. Fornaron.
12 The Archbishop of Zamora, Antonio de Acuña, a fierce comunero, commanded in the absence of Padilla, and was mighty profane in his method of war for an archbishop. After leading his troops against the King’s Castle of Aguila, he resolutely stormed the Cathedral gates and maltreated the resident canons. The insurgents held the cloisters and prevented the celebration of any church office during their stay. The unfortunate chapter was kept for three entire days and nights from sleeping or eating. What an incredible scandal in hieratic Toledo!
13 Complaining at the Hotel Castilla to a Spanish painter of my daily persecution at the hands of the beggars of Toledo, I threatened to visit the Governor and make my plaint. The artist, something of a humorist, gravely said, “His Excellency the Governor will listen to you with all courtesy and attention, and when you have finished, he will hold out his hand with a graceful gesture, and say: Da mi una limosna tambien (Give me also alms).
14 Bibliotica provincial de Toledo.
15 MS. correspondence of Lope de Vega in possession of Señor Menendez y Pelayo.
16 Street’s visit to Toledo was unfortunately hurried, or he would have been forced to change many of his views. Had he seen the cathedral from Nuestra Señora de la Valle, considerably above the bridge of San Martin, he would have found it prominent.
17 De Toletano Hebraeorum Templo, MS. Bib. Pro. Toledo.
18 MS. correspondence of Lope de Vega, in possession of Señor Menendez y Pelayo.
19 MS. De Toletano Hebraeorum Templo, Bib. Provincial, Toledo.
20 Galiana of Toledo
Most beautiful and marvellous!
The Moor the most celebrated
Of all the Moorish race.
Mouth of rosy pinks,
High bosom that palpitates,
Ivory forehead adorned with
The flaming gold of Tyre.
21 Wamba, Gothic King, restored the walls of this city, and offered them in Latin verses to God and the saints, its patrons; the Moors effaced them and placed instead blasphemies and errors in Arabian letters. King Philip II., in religious zeal and to preserve the memory of the departed Kings, ordered Gutierrez Tello, city magistrate, to efface them and place, along with the patron saints, the verses of King Wamba.