Approaching to-night by train was less exciting and romantic. Still it was Barcelona, and the porters calling out the syllables in their soft Spanish set our heart beating.
It was a certain disappointment to find our favourite Four Nations--at that time one of the best hotels in Spain--closed. We had to put up with the Falcon, not by any means the same thing. It is pleasant to return to familiar quarters and people who welcome you as old habitués. The atmosphere of the Falcon was also more commercial and had no repose about it. Yet it was on the Rambla, and the next morning we awoke to the well-known cries of Barcelona, the old familiar scene.
A very Spanish scene, with its broad imposing thoroughfare and double row of well-grown trees rustling in the wind, glinting in the sunshine, filling the air with music and flashes of light. As the morning went on, the broad road became more crowded. Stretching far down, under the trees, were flower-stalls full of lovely blossoms. Roses, violets and hyacinths scented the air. It was delightful to see such profusion in November; to find blue skies and balmy airs rivalling the flowers. This land of perpetual summer is highly favoured. If a cold wind arises, turning the skies to winter, it is only for a short interval. Though it be December, summer soon returns, and the sunny clime is all the lovelier by contrast.
Like the Hôtel Falcon, the element of Barcelona is, we have said, commercial. It is perhaps the most flourishing and enterprising of all the towns of Spain. There are immense ship-building yards, and all sorts of ironwork is made, but the town itself has no sign or sound of manufacturing. It has been called the Manchester of Spain, yet its skies are for ever blue, the air is clear and untainted: a peculiar brilliancy and splendour of atmosphere not often met with even in the sunny South.
The country for many miles around is beautiful and undulating; beyond the immediate hills it has often a wild and savage grandeur that sometimes reaches the sublime. Year by year the town grows in extent. Well-organised tramways carry you to and fro through endless thoroughfares. The richer merchants have built themselves streets of palatial residences that stretch away into suburbs. Few cities are so brilliantly lighted. If Spain is a poor country, Barcelona seems to have escaped the evil. There is animation about it, perpetual movement, a quiet activity. For it is quiet with all its business and energy, and so far has the advantage over Madrid, where the commercial element was less evident but the noise infinitely greater. There people seemed to like sound for its own sake. In Barcelona they were intent upon making money, and as far as one can see, gained their object. Everything prospered. It was delightful to go down to the fine harbour and watch the vessels loading and unloading, the flags of all nations vividly contrasting with the brilliant blue sky as they flashed and fluttered in the wind. The port is magnificent. Its waters are blue as the heaven above them, and a myriad sun-gleams light up its surface. Nothing can be more exhilarating and picturesque. The faintest outline of a ship possesses a nameless charm; suggests freedom, wide seas, infinite space: speaks of enterprise, danger, and courage, yet is an emblem of absolute repose; hours and days and weeks where the world cannot reach you, and its cares and worries are non-existent.