The Sword of Pizarro

Extract

Madrid is a very modern city. There are, doubtless, ancient things in it, and certainly its palaces, its churches, and its squares are harshly called modern by a colonial visitor. But for all that, Madrid is, I repeat, a modern city. You feel it so. True, you have not to wait long to see an ox-cart pass across the Puerto del Sol and block the traffic of electric cars and automobiles, and there are folk in the Buen Retiro whose souls plainly belong to mediaeval Spain ; but still for all that Madrid is modern. You may be very lonely in Madrid, and that is the real hallmark of a modern city. I do not see how anyone could feel lonely in Toledo or Cordoba, for their very stones cry out, and there are thin ghost voices in the wind, and their bridges and walls are haunted. But it is not so in Madrid. Therefore shall I go to Madrid again for but two things and a third : to visit the Prado once more ; to feast my eyes on the sword of Pizarro ; and to leave with speed for Toledo, Cordoba, and the warm-scented South.

Now of the Prado I do not find that I can write. It is, of course, one of the great European galleries, and I love Spain. Moreover, it is a homely picture-gallery, and there are sixty-seven Velasquez pictures admirably and chronologically hung in one room. But enough : Cook’s Handbook of Spain is written so.