Northern Spain
by Edgar Thomas Ainger Wigram · English · Gutenberg #44490 · 432,282 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Northern Spain
Author: Edgar Thomas Ainger Wigram
Release date: December 23, 2013 [eBook #44490]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN SPAIN ***
Every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed. No
attempt has been made to correct or normalize the spelling or
anglicization of non-English words. Some typographical errors have been
corrected; a list follows the text. Some illustrations have been moved
from mid-paragraph for ease of reading. (etext transcriber's note)
NORTHERN
SPAIN
_PAINTED AND DESCRIBED_
BY
EDGAR T. A. WIGRAM
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON
ADAM & CHARLES BLACK
1906
"There is, Sir, a good deal of Spain which has not been
perambulated. I would have you go thither."
DR JOHNSON.
"And so you travel on foot?" said Leon. "How romantic! How
courageous!"
* * * * *
"Yes," returned the undergraduate, "it's rather nice than
otherwise, when once you're used to it; only it's devilish
difficult to get washed. I like the fresh air and these stars and
things."
"Aha!" said Leon, "Monsieur is an artist."
"Oh, nonsense!" cried the Englishman. "A fellow may admire the
stars and be anything he likes."
R. L. STEVENSON.
[Illustration: SEGÓVIA
The Aqueduct.]
TO
W. A. W.
SAEPE MECUM TEMPUS IN ULTIMUM
DEDUCTO
PREFACE
It is ill gleaning for a necessitous author when Ford and Borrow have
been before him in the field, and I may not attempt to justify the
appearance of these pages by the pretence that I have any fresh story to
tell. Yet, if my theme be old, it is at least still unhackneyed. The
pioneers have done their work with unapproachable thoroughness, but the
rank and file of the travelling public are following but slackly in
their train.
Year after year our horde of pleasure-seekers are marshalled by
companies for the invasion of Europe: yet it would seem that there are
but few in the total who have any real inkling of how to play the game.
Some seem to migrate by instinct, and to make themselves miserable in
the process. These ought to be restrained by their families, or
compelled to hire substitutes in their stead. Others can indeed relish a
flitting; but cannot find it in their hearts to divorce themselves from
their dinner-table and their toilet-battery, their newspaper, their
small-talk and their golf. To them all petty annoyances and
inconveniences assume disproportionate dimensions, and they are well
advised in checking their _razzias_ at San Sebástien, Pau, or Biarritz.
But, to the elect, the very root of the pleasure of travel lies in the
fact that their ordinary habits may be frankly laid aside. It is a mild
method of "going _Fanti_" which rejoices their primitive instincts: and
they will find both the land and the people just temperately primitive
in Spain.
Many of us have felt the fascination of Italy. But those who have "heard
the East a-calling" tell us that her call is stronger still;--and Spain
is the echo of the East. "Lofty and sour to them that love her not, but
to those men that seek her sweet as summer." Even Italy, with all its
charm, tastes flat to a Spanish enthusiast. He craves no other nor no
better land.
* * * * *
It has been said of Spain, that none who have not been there are
particularly desirous of going, and none who have been there once can
refrain from going again. The author has not found himself exempt from
this common fatality; and his notes and sketches, as embodied in this
volume, are the fruit of four successive bicycle tours, undertaken
sometimes alone, and sometimes in company with a kindred spirit. Of
their shortcomings he believes that no one can be so conscious as
himself. But in the hope that they may prove of interest to sympathisers
he ventures to expose them to the public gaze.
NOTE
ALL Spanish names ending in vowels are pronounced with the stress on the
penultimate; and those ending in consonants with the stress on the final
syllable. Any exception is indicated by an accent.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE NORTH COAST OF CASTILE 1
CHAPTER II
COVADONGA AND EASTERN ASTÚRIAS 24
CHAPTER III
ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS TO LEON 43
CHAPTER IV
THE PILGRIM ROAD 64
CHAPTER V
THE CIRCUIT OF GALÍCIA 89
CHAPTER VI
WESTERN ASTÚRIAS 113
CHAPTER VII
BENAVENTE, ZAMORA, AND TORO 132
CHAPTER VIII
SALAMANCA 152
CHAPTER IX
BÉJAR, ÁVILA, AND ESCORIAL 171
CHAPTER X
TOLEDO 192
CHAPTER XI
A RAID INTO ESTREMADURA 215
CHAPTER XII
SEGÓVIA 237
CHAPTER XIII
BÚRGOS 256
CHAPTER XIV
ACROSS NAVARRE 278
INDEX 301
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Segóvia. The Aqueduct _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. Castro Urdiáles. The Bilbao Coastline 6
3. Castro Urdiáles. The Harbour 10
4. Santoña 12
5. San Vicente de la Barquera 20
6. The Deva Gorge. La Hérmida 22
7. The Deva Gorge. Urdon 26
8. Cángas de Onís. The Bridge over the Sella 32
9. The Sella Valley. Below Arrióndas 38
10. Pasana. An Asturian Mountain Village 40
11. Llánes. The Harbour 42
12. Leon. An Old Palace Doorway 50
13. Leon. From the Pajáres Road 58
14. Leon. Church of San Isidoro 60
15. Leon. The Market Place, and Casa del Ayuntamiento 62
16. Astorga. From the South-east 68
17. The Vierzo. From Ponferrada, looking towards
the Pass of Piedrafita 72
18. Lugo. The Santiago Gate 78
19. Lugo. Fuente de San Vicente 80
20. Santiago de Compostela. From the Lugo Road 82
21. Santiago de Compostela. The Cathedral from the North-east 86
22. Orense. The Bridge over the Miño 92
23. Tuy and Valencia. The Frontier Towns on the Miño 96
24. Vigo Bay. The Inner Harbour, looking out towards the Sea 100
25. Nuestra Señora de la Esclavitud 104
26. Betánzos. A Colonnaded Calle 108
27. The Masma Valley. Near Mondoñedo 110
28. Rivadeo. An Approach to the Harbour 114
29. The Návia Valley 116
30. Cudillero. The Harbour 120
31. Oviedo. A Street near the Cathedral 124
32. In the Pass of Pajáres. Near Pola de Gordon 130
33. Benavente. From above the Bridge of Castro Gonzalo 134
34. Zamora. From the banks of the Duero 140
35. Zamora. Church of Sta Maria de la Horta 144
36. A Spanish Patio 148
37. Toro. From the banks of the Duero 150
38. Salamanca. Arcades in the Plaza de la Verdura 156
39. Salamanca. Church of San Martin 160
40. Salamanca. From the left bank of the Tormes 164
41. Salamanca. The Puerta del Rio, with the Cathedral Tower 168
42. Béjar. An Approach to the Town 174
43. Béjar. A Corner in the Market-place 176
44. Ávila. From the North-west 180
45. Ávila. A Posada Patio 184
46. Escorial. From the East 188
47. Toledo. Bridge of Alcántara, from the Illescas Road 194
48. Toledo. The Bridge of Alcántara 198
49. Toledo. Puerta del Sol 200
50. Toledo. Calle del Comércio, with the Cathedral Tower 204
51. Toledo. The Gorge of the Tagus 208
52. Talavera de la Reina. From the banks of the Tagus 212
53. Plaséncia. Puente San Lazaro 216
54. Plaséncia. The Town Walls and Cathedral 218
55. Cáceres. Within the old Town Walls 222
56. Cáceres. Calle de la Cuesta de Aldana 226
57. Mérida. "Los Milagros," the ruins of the Great Aqueduct 228
58. Alcántara 232
59. Segóvia. Church of San Miguel 238
60. Segóvia. Arco San Estéban 244
61. Segóvia. The Alcázar 248
62. Segóvia. Arco Santiago 252
63. Segóvia. Church of San Estéban 254
64. Búrgos. Arco San Martin 260
65. Dueñas 264
66. Búrgos. Hospital del Rey 266
67. Búrgos. Arco Sta Maria 268
68. Búrgos. Patio of the Casa de Miranda 272
69. Búrgos. From the East 276
70. The Gorge of Pancorvo 282
71. La Rioja Alavesa. Looking Northwards across the Ebro 284
72. Miranda del Ebro. A Corner in the Town 288
73. Pamplona. From the Road to the Frontier 290
74. Olite. The Castle 292
75. Pamplona. A Patio near the Cathedral 296
_Map at end of Volume._
_The design of the Cover is adapted from the façade of the Casa de
las Conchas (House of the Shells) at Salamanca._
_The device on the Title Page is taken from a wrought-iron knocker
of the Cathedral at Toledo._
_The illustrations in this volume have been engraved and printed
in England by Messrs Carl Hentschel, Ltd._
NORTHERN SPAIN
CHAPTER I
THE NORTH COAST OF CASTILE
DEAR E.,--Can you manage to get off some time in May and go bicycling
with me in Norway? Blank's have offered me a passage to Bergen.
* * * * *
DEAR W.,--I can manage your date, but don't quite feel drawn to your
country. Norway is all mountains, and I want a little archæology. I had
been thinking of Provence.
* * * * *
DEAR E.,--No objection to Provence. Blank's will give us a passage in
one of their colliers to Bilbao, and we can ride in across the Pyrenees.
You must allow me some mountains.
* * * * *
DEAR W.,--It's awfully good of Blank's. But once at Bilbao, why not
stick to Spain? Toledo is no further than Toulouse, and Cantabria as
mountainous as the Pyrenees.
* * * * *
DEAR E.,--Very good! Spain first; and Provence second string if
necessary. There's a boat sailing about May 20th.
* * * * *
The casting vote was indisputably the collier's; but our plans were not
quite so inconsequent as this conclusion might lead one to infer. Some
nebulous notion of a Spanish expedition had been miraging itself before
our eyes for several seasons previously; and it is the nature of such
nebulous notions to materialise accidentally at the last. Hitherto we
had been awed by the drawbacks; for Spain had been pictured to us as
positively alive with bugbears. Travelling was difficult--nay, even
dangerous; the people were Anglophobists, the country a desert, and the
cities dens of pestilence. The roads were unridable, and the heat
unbearable. We should be eaten of fleas, and choked with garlic; and to
crown all our other tribulations, we should have to learn a new and
unknown tongue. The knight who plunged into the lake of pitch had hardly
a more inviting prospect; and the fairy palaces beneath it did not
yield him an ampler reward. Provence still waits unvisited; neither have
we now any immediate intention of going there. We still keep going to
Spain.
* * * * *
The owners said she would sail on Thursday; but Wednesday brought down
the captain in a highly energetic condition, and confident of catching
the midnight tide. We had to make a bolt for the docks by the last train
of the evening, and groped our way to the _Amadeo_ through a haze of
coal dust, only to be met by the intelligence that the captain had gone
home to bed! There was nothing for it but to camp in the cabin, where
night was made constantly hideous by the coal roaring into the
after-hold: and next morning found us out in the middle of the dock,
sitting on our tail with our bows pointing to heaven. The coal for the
fore-hold had failed us, and a luckier rival had ousted us from our
berth at the staithes. The morning was occupied in resolving a general
tangle; for every ship in the basin seemed to fall foul of all the
others in turn. Soon a second tide was lost. And when we regained the
staithes there came another break in our procession of coal trucks.
"Oh! the little cargo boats that clear with _every_ tide!"
We flung ashore in despair. But a more hopeful sight saluted us when we
returned. The _Amadeo_ lay out by the dock gates, long and low, with her
main deck but eighteen inches above the water. At last she was fully
laden; and we sailed on the Friday morn.
So long as we remained in Tyne Dock we had not judged ourselves
conspicuously dirty; but we showed as a crying scandal when out in the
clean blue sea. The mate even bewailed the calm weather. If we "took it
green" once we should be clean immediately. But such heroic methods of
labour-saving we very contentedly excused. Meanwhile we made leisurely
progress, for the _Amadeo_ was no greyhound. "She never yet caught
anything with steam in her" according to her despondent engineer.
Saturday's sun set behind Dover--the great cliffs looming darkly over
us, and the town lights showing like pin-holes pricked through the
blackness to the glowing sky beyond. Sunday showed us the grim teeth of
the Caskets; and the weird natural dolmens of Ushant were passed the
following day. But Providence still continued to temper the wind to that
very shorn lamb the _Amadeo_, and the dreaded Bay was as smooth as a
sheet of rippled glass.
About Wednesday evening the captain began to wax very bitter concerning
Spanish lighthouses, and we went below better satisfied that deep water
should last us till dawn! But the first rays of light showed us a long
line of blue peaks high on the horizon to the southward, and within an
hour our voyage was over. "In we came--and time enough--'cross Bilbao
bar."
It was from the sea that I had my first view of Genoa and the Italian
Riviera, and the seaward approach to Bilbao deserves no meaner
comparison than this. The romantic hills reared themselves from the
water's edge, unwinding their veils at the touch of the early sunshine;
and the sparkling villages clinging to the cliffs round the shell-shaped
harbour of Portugalete made a picture which might have been borrowed
from Lugano or Lucerne. A tumult of tossing peaks was piled in disorder
to the eastward, above the smoke of the iron furnaces in the winding
valley of the Nervion; and far away to the westward, ridge upon ridge
fell sloping down into the blue waters of the Atlantic; sometimes
breaking off so sheer at the finish that the ore ships could actually
moor alongside to load. The beauty of the Spanish coast is a favourite
theme of visitors to San Sebástien, but they know not a tithe of the
truth which they are so eager to proclaim. The whole Atlantic littoral
from the Bidassoa to the Miño is teeming with equal attractions, and the
immediate vicinity of Bilbao is a stretch which is second to none.
Neither were our first impressions of the people less favourable than
those of the country. And that though they were formed in the Custom
House, which is scarcely a promising beat. These hospitable officials
were if anything over-considerate; for we were only anxious to pay and
have done with it, while they were all intent on excusing us, if they
could find any justification under the code. At last, however, we were
allowed to purchase our freedom; fled to our machines amid a haze of
reciprocal compliments; and a few minutes later were drifting along the
road to the westward, with no more care for the morrow than flotsam on
uncharted seas.
[Illustration: CASTRO URDIÁLES
The Bilbao Coastline.]
The busy industries of Bilbao have unfortunately gone some way towards
marring its lovely situation. Its valley is choked with smoky factories;
and its mountains are one vast red scar from base to summit, the
entire face having been flayed away for ironstone, and ladled out into
the ore ships along the aërial railways to feed the blast furnaces of
Sheffield and Middlesborough. Our uglier trades seem to take malicious
delight in ruining the prettiest landscapes. But their dominion is but
for a season, and the land will enjoy its Sabbaths in the end. We only
scratch Nature skin-deep, and her wealds will devour our black
countries. "After a thousand years," say the Spaniards, "the river
returns to his bed."
Beyond the blight of the quarries, the scenery is of the type of our own
Welsh highlands--steep, rocky ridges and gullies, thickly clothed with
bracken and scrub oak. Even the railway has a most charming ramble,
hunting its own tail up and down the long, steep, corkscrew gradients of
the inland valleys. But the road clambers along the deeply fissured
coast line, and no free agent will elect to follow the rail. Our first
stage, however, was but a short one, for it was evening when we quitted
Bilbao. Castro Urdiales gaped for us with its cavernous little _calle_,
and we dived in to seek quarters for the night.
Surely a town so close to Bilbao might have been expected to be inured
to visitors! Yet our modest progress through the streets of Castro
created as great a sensation as though we had been "Corsica" Boswell in
his costume of scarlet and gold. The children formed up in procession
behind us. Their elders turned out to take stock of us from the
balconies. And a voluble old pilot (whose knowledge of English was about
equal to our Spanish) came bustling out of a café to conduct us to the
primitive little inn.
It is a fortunate thing that a traveller's needs can be guessed without
much vocabulary; for our first task was to order our supper, and
mistakes may be serious when you have to eat the result. The enterprise,
however, is not so hazardous as one imagines. Like Sancho Panza, you may
ask for what you will;--but what you get is "the pair of cow heels
dressed with chick peas, onions and bacon which are just now done to a
turn." After all, we did not fare badly; mine hostess was a damsel of
resources, and our old pilot prompted us vigorously from the rear. It
was he who suggested the "lamp-post"--a threat at which we jibbed
somewhat visibly. But the girl plunged promptly into the kitchen behind
her and returned displaying the "lamp-post"--which was a lobster. As to
the three weird courses which followed him, our conclusions were not
equally positive. They appeared in cryptic disguises;--_carne_, "meat"
which defied identification. There is no declaration of origin in most
of the dishes of Spain. Yet the traveller need not be nervous. He can
generally trust Maritornes. Let him eat what is set before him, asking
no questions for conscience sake.
One might travel a long way along any coast line before finding a
prettier haven than Castro Urdiales. The nucleus of the town, with the
church and castle, is perched upon a rocky promontory, whose cliffs drop
sheer into the deep water, and whose outlying pinnacles have been linked
up to the mainland by irregular arches so as to form natural wharves. A
little harbour for fishing-craft nestles under the cliff to the
eastward; looking back along the coast to Bilbao, and the bold conical
hill with the watch-tower (reminiscent of Barbary pirates), which guards
the entrance to the harbour of Portugalete. Yet all this fair exterior
hides a hideous secret, and at last we surprised it unaware.
We were well acquainted with sardines in England, and it had not escaped
our cognisance that sardines were commonly bereft of heads. Had it ever
occurred to us that all those heads were somewhere? Well, the dreadful
truth must be acknowledged; they were here. Yes, here at Castro
Urdiales--a mountain of gibbous eyes and a smell to poison the
heavens--awaiting the kindly wave which would eventually garner them in
from the ledge upon which they were stewing, and deliver them over to
the "lamp-posts" in the crevices of the rock below.
Castro Urdiales is a city of ambitions. It is keeping pace with the era,
and in 1901 its most antiquated alley had been already dignified by the
title of "Twentieth Century Street." Since then it has developed a
ponderous steel bridge in the harbour, and thrown out a massive concrete
break-water from the end of the modest jetty. But its progress is not to
be deprecated where it does not interfere with its beauty; and now a
comfortable _Fonda_ has supplanted the humble _Venta_ which was our
first lodging on Spanish soil.
[Illustration: CASTRO URDIÁLES
The Harbour.]
Our road next day still followed the mountainous coast line, and we
descended at noon upon the roofs of Laredo, a delightful little town,
climbing up the steep hillside above its tiny anchorage, and facing the
great mass of Santoña, the "Gibraltar of the North." This imposing
fortress lies across the mouth of an immense land-locked lagoon,
and in size, shape, and situation is almost a replica of the famous
Rock. It has no such strategical value, but is probably equally
impregnable; for it was the only northern city where the French flag was
still waving at the close of that "War of Liberation" which we style the
Peninsular War.
At Laredo we dined, and as Spanish meals are the subject of much
needless apprehension, perhaps we may pause to say a word in their
defence before proceeding further upon our way. We begin with _Desayuno_
or _petit déjeuner_, and here, in a genuinely Spanish _ménage_,
chocolate will generally take the place of the Frenchman's _café au
lait_. It is served in tiny cups, very hot and very thick. It is really
a substitute for butter, and you eat it by dipping your bread in it,
washing it down with a glass of cold water, which you are expected to
"sugar to taste." The peasants, however, eschew this fashion as
new-fangled, and content themselves with a draught of wine or a
thimbleful of "the craythur." This is not recommended by the faculty,
but travellers have sometimes to be content.
[Illustration: SANTONA]
Dinner, or _Comida_, is served about mid-day; the nominal time varies,
but it is always half an hour late. In many districts, however, this
title is transferred to the supper, and then the luncheon is known as
_Almuerzo_--_Déjeuner_. It is a very substantial banquet of some
half-dozen courses, inaugurated (in strictly classical fashion) by an
egg. Next comes a dish of haricot beans, or chick peas, or rice
garnished with _pimientos_, closely pursued by another containing boiled
meat, bacon, and sausages, all which you may tackle separately or
simultaneously, according to your greatness of soul. Then comes a
stew--the celebrated _Olla Podrida_; and then (to the great astonishment
of the stranger) the belated fish. Fish seems to have methods of
penetrating to all spots which are accessible by railway. Hake is the
general stand-by, but in the mountains you get most excellent little
trout. The solid portion of the meal is concluded by a "biftek" and
salad, but there is still an appendix in case you are not satisfied yet.
On Sundays, in superior _Fondas_ you will get caramel pudding, and
always and everywhere cheese, accompanied by a sort of quince jelly
known as _membrillo_, a very excellent institution indeed. Finally
(again classically) comes the fruit; but this is usually rather
inferior, considering how very cheap and excellent it is in the markets
outside. Wine is, of course, supplied _ad lib._ to every diner, and
water in porous earthenware bottles which evaporation keeps deliciously
cool. Olives are eaten steadily at all intervals; and if you have long
to wait between courses, you fill up the intervals with cigarettes! The
evening meal--_cena_--is generally very similar to the mid-day, except
that soup takes the place of the egg.
The cooking is by no means deserving of all the strictures that have
been showered upon it; for most nations know how to cook their own
dishes, and only come seriously to grief when they try to imitate
French. The dreaded garlic is used but sparingly; oil is a much more
dominating feature. But then oil has a double debt to pay, because
Spaniards make no butter. At all events the food is plentiful, and "St
Bernard's sauce" will cover a multitude of deficiencies; for appetite is
a blessing that is seldom lacking to the traveller in Spain!
After dinner, the Café. And a Spanish café is a most noteworthy
assemblage. It is comparatively empty in the evenings, for the
Spaniard's homing instincts are much more strongly developed than the
Frenchman's, and he seldom quits his house and his family circle after
dark. But in the early afternoon it is thronged to repletion with all
sorts and conditions of customers, from the general in command of the
garrison to the ragged vine-dresser and muleteer. Here they sit through
the long, sultry hours of siesta-tide in a roomful of shuttered
twilight, chattering like a mill-wheel in flood-time, sipping their
coffee and aniseed brandy,[1] and steadily consuming cigarettes. It
often seems mild dissipation for such very truculent-looking
desperadoes. Fancy an English navvy regaling his carnal appetites on
black coffee and dominoes! Not but that dominoes (as played in a Spanish
café) is an exciting, even an athletic, pastime. It entails alarming
vociferation; and every piece that you play must be slammed down on the
marble table top with all the force at your command. The domino volleys
echo through the café like musketry on a field-day on Salisbury Plain,
and if you feel at all dubious as to your direction when you chance to
be seeking that edifice, you may readily succeed in locating it by
listening in the street for the din.
But the heat of the day is now passing, and the traveller must answer
the call. His road is at least more level than hitherto; for the coast
hills westward of Laredo are gradually losing their mountainous
character, and over their heads to the southward we begin to catch
glimpses of the great rock walls of the Cantabrian Sierras, which grow
ever higher and grander as we near the Asturian march. The environs of
Santander are again disfigured by quarrying; and the soil, where
disturbed, is of a deep red ferruginous hue. Truly "a land whose stones
are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass"; though "rivers
and fountains of water" are not quite so common as we might desire.
Santander itself, however, we will avoid altogether. Like Bilbao, it is
quite a modern city; and the direct road through the mountain glens
behind it brings us down to the sea again at Torrelavega by a very much
pleasanter line.
Meanwhile we pursued our career to an intermittent orchestral
accompaniment--a tune in two keys, like M'Alpin's drone and small pipes,
but far more powerful and piercing than the most brazen-lunged piper
could blow. Occasionally we met the musician. He is only an ordinary
ox-cart--a pair of wheels, a pole, and a plank or two, actuated by a
pair of sleepy kine.
In Galicia the yoke is fastened round the necks of the oxen; but more
generally it is bound with thongs to their horns and finished off with a
bonnet of goat-skin, or in Asturias with a fleecy busby of most imposing
size. The wheels have often only a single spoke, or sometimes three
arranged in the form of the letter H. Altogether it is probably the
simplest, slowest, and most vociferous affair on wheels.
For the amount of lamentation that can be extracted from one dry axle is
a thing that is scarcely credible even when it is heard. The natives
encourage it. They have one theory that it pleases the oxen, and another
(far more probable) that it scares the Fiend. But at any rate it has no
apparent effect upon the Spanish teamster, who lounges along in front
waving his goad like a drum-major's baton; or sleeps--yes, sleeps--on
the summit of his yelling load. Verily the man who first invented sleep
must have been a waggoner! This evening, as we were crossing the ridge
between two parallel valleys, our ears were saluted by the unmistakable
long-drawn scream of an impatient locomotive. Our map showed no railway,
however; and we were just beginning to plume ourselves on an important
geographical discovery, when we caught sight of a single ox-cart--200
feet below and half a mile away! The hill sloped away straight and
smooth before us, and we fled! We felt no shame at the time; yet perhaps
it was rather faint-hearted to shirk the chance of a personal interview
with the most musical axle in the world.
But the bicyclist has one grievance in Spain which is not so easily
avoided as ox-carts, and it is about the end of the second day that the
iron of it begins to enter his soul. Thenceforward for ever he cherishes
a deadly and undying rancour against the Spanish dogs. We had been
partly prepared for the infliction beforehand. The captain had mentioned
them, and had talked of ammonia pistols; but we spurned the suggestion
with humane horror. We knew quite well that all foreign dogs were
brutes, but we were confident in our own benignity and scornful of
"methods of barbarism." And in these noble sentiments we persisted--for
about a day and a half. Next morning we were awakened out of our beauty
sleep by the yellings of some miserable cur in the _Fonda
patio_;--"Hurrah! there's a dog getting hurt," was our simultaneous
comment; and ere we recrossed the frontier we had registered a grim
resolve that next time we would bring revolvers, and strew our path
with carcases from Fuenterrabia to Cadiz. So much for the deterioration
of moral fibre under the strain of Spanish dog.
Well, we are not the first (nor the last) whose amiability has been
ruined by "dogs barking at us as we pass by"; and when every brute in
the countryside, from the toy mongrel to the wolf-hound as big as an
ass-colt, dances yelling and snapping at your heels for half a mile
together, it is not entirely surprising that patience should wear thin.
Of course there are stones. The Guadarrama district in particular
produces a beautiful white quartzose,--hard and heavy, with many sharp
angles,--an excellent article to throw at a dog. But what is a pocketful
among so many? Besides, you often miss them, and never hurt them enough.
Truly I could feel no sure confidence in anything short of a loaded
revolver. But only a very even-tempered man could trust himself with
that _ultima ratio_ within reach of his fingers; and I cherish a rooted
objection to "going heeled" in a civilised land. Perhaps a lion-tamer's
whip with a loaded butt and a bullet at the end of the lash may prove
effective enough to compromise upon.
Meanwhile there is some silver lining to the cloud. There are already
some convertites among the dogs of Spain. The majority pour themselves
upon the cyclist, clamorous and open-mouthed, like the demons in
Malebolge; but a remnant clap their tails between their legs and make a
bee-line for the horizon. We humbly hope that our own modest assiduity
will have effected a small but perceptible increase in the latter class.
Beyond Torrelavega there is again a parting of roadways. One passes
along the coast by Santillana, the birthplace of Gil Blas; and the other
through Cabezon, threading the mountain glens. They reunite at San
Vicente de la Barquera, another minor seaport of Cantabria, less
progressive than Castro, but quite as attractive after its style. The
town lies at the extremity of a tongue of land between two wide
estuaries. It is the meeting-place of the two long bridges which cross
them, and its precipitous acropolis and arcaded market-place afford
endless studies to the lover of the picturesque.
San Vicente had got a hideous secret of its own as well as Castro, only
at San Vicente it was hardly a secret--in fact, they were rather booming
it as a show. An old sunken coasting vessel had recently been recovered
and beached in the estuary, and its hold was positively teeming with
lobsters, like Sir Thomas Ingoldsby's pockets with eels. Truly it was a
gruesome sight; and a novelist in search of an appropriate ending for a
really desperate villain could hardly do better than have him pincered
to death in that crawly inferno by the black clanking monsters which
inhabited it!
The Cantabrian Sierras, already sufficiently majestic, now reach their
culmination in the acknowledged monarchs of the range--the Picos de
Europa, the landmark of all the old navigators who once steered their
Mexican argosies into Gijon or Santander. This vast mass of snow-crowned
peaks forms a most imposing spectacle. They are great "cloud
compellers," and are seldom entirely clear. But they are sometimes seen
unveiled in the calm of the early morning, an apparently impassable
barrier filling half the horizon towards the south.
[Illustration: SAN VICENTE DE LA BARQUERA]
Yet the road which we have taken to guide us aims right at the very
heart of them, and at the little village of Unquera it bears up square
to the left. A copious sea-green river (officially known as the Tina
Mayor, but invariably styled the Deva by the inhabitants) comes hurrying
down at this point from the mountains, and charges the great ridge of
limestone which edges the coast-line like a natural sea-wall. We look in
vain for the outlet: the barrier seems absolutely unbroken. But a
stream that has pierced the Picos recks little of minor obstacles, and
the waves are booming to welcome it but half a mile beyond.
Turning our backs on the sea, we enter a noble valley, walled in by
crags of Alpine grandeur, and populated by families of Imperial eagles
swinging to and fro their eyries, high amid the cornices of rock; but
the pastures at the foot of the steeps are everywhere level and placid,
and from Unquera up to Abándames can scarcely be called an ascent.
There is a waters-meet just above Abándames, and the traveller as he
approaches it begins to experience considerable misgivings concerning
the future of his road. If it will but condescend to follow the valley,
there seems just a chance that it may emerge as a staircase; but when it
bears resolutely to the left to knock its head against the precipices of
the Picos, he resignedly concludes that now there's nothing for it but a
lift. A deep notch in the crags lets out the river, and here the road
slips in. There seems every prospect that it will be promptly confronted
by a precipice and a waterfall; but beyond the first notch is a second,
and beyond the second a third. At every turn the passage grows narrower
and deeper, and the way is never clear before us for more than a few
score yards. Yet the unhoped-for outlet is invariably forthcoming, and
at last we cease to marvel at the unfailing surprise. It is the great
cañon of the Deva, one of the finest passes in the world.
It is but a few miles since we quitted sea level, and we have risen but
little on the way. Yet the cliffs that edge the roadway make but one
leap of it to the clouds, and their tops are streaked with snow. Here
rises a staircase of gigantic terraces; here a fringe of crooked
fingers, black and jagged against the sky; here a range of sheer bluff
bastions, like the _cubos_[2] of a titanic wall; and from time to time
the glittering crest of some remoter peak peers over their shoulders
into the depths of the gulf below. The mountain limestone is as hard as
granite, and has shed but few screes or boulders to obstruct the passage
of the stream, and the road squeezes itself along whichever bank happens
to be widest at the moment, crossing and recrossing as occasion
requires. At one point a magnificent osprey, looking twice as large as
life, came sailing slowly down the chasm, and passed but a few feet
above our heads, regally indifferent to the presence of trespassers in
his domain. But apart from him the passage was practically
solitary--mile after mile of the same stupendous scenery, till our necks
ached from craning up the precipices, and our minds seemed oppressed
with a sort of hopelessness of escape.
[Illustration: THE DEVA GORGE
La Hérmida.]
At the hamlet of la Hermida the valley makes a momentary attempt to
widen; but this little ebullition is promptly squashed in the grip of
the mountains, and the great beetling cliffs once more shoulder in upon
the defile. The effects seemed finer than ever, for the clouds of a
gathering tempest were tearing themselves to ribbons among the jagged
_aiguilles_, and their streamers were pierced and illuminated by the
level rays of the setting sun. Not till we had burrowed our way for some
fifteen miles through the roots of the mountains did we escape at last
into the upland vale of Liebana; and looking back on the snow-wreathed
fangs behind us, wondered (like Ali Baba before his cavern) what had
become of the crevice from which we had just emerged.
CHAPTER II
COVADONGA AND EASTERN ASTURIAS
Far be it from me to disparage Vizcaya or Galicia, but the prize "for
the fairest" must be awarded to Asturias. No other province in
Spain--few even in Italy--can show such wealth of natural beauty; and it
is the district around the Picos de Europa that is the crowning glory of
the whole.
The stranger pays his homage to its scenery, but for the Spaniard it has
a more sentimental appeal. This great mountain citadel is his Isle of
Athelney, the last refuge of the little band of stalwarts who never
bowed the knee to the dominion of Mahound. Here the first gleam of
victory broke the long darkness of disaster; and seven years after the
downfall of Roderic, Pelayo began the redemption of Spain. It still
remains a place of pilgrimage; for Our Lady herself fought from Heaven
against the infidel upon that momentous day. Her miraculous image, in
its extravagant tinsel nimbus and stiff brocaded gown, holds its state
over the High Altar in the _Colegiata_,[3] and its picture adorns the
walls of half the cottages in Asturias. Decidedly no tour would be
complete without a visit to Covadonga.
I had lingered sketching in the rocky labyrinth of the Deva till the
failing light would no longer serve my turn. Darkness would be upon me
ere I could emerge from its recesses; but I had not been caught unaware,
for the gully can boast an occasional _venta_, and I had resolved to
trust the resources of the little inn at Urdon.
Urdon consists of a single house, and that, to be strictly accurate, is
only half a house, for it abuts straight upon the vertical face of the
precipice, and the naked rock is its inner wall. If anything disturbed
that rock (quoth mine hostess airily, as she handed me my candlestick),
Urdon would become an omelet. And perhaps that fate is in store for it
eventually, for the rocks do drop an occasional sugar-plum into the
valley at their feet.
Urdon looks up a bend of the river, and faces southerly; yet for six
months in the year no ray of direct sunshine falls upon that little red
roof. It is only from near the zenith that the sun can peer into so
deep a well. The traveller plumps upon it suddenly round an abrupt
corner, and "here," thinks he, "is the most secluded nook in all the
habitable globe." Yet Urdon is the hub of the universe to Tresviso--its
inn, its post-office, its commercial emporium, the one link that unites
it with the balance of mankind. The pathway to Tresviso struggles up the
tiny gully which debouches upon the main gorge at Urdon; but Tresviso
itself lies high above the cloud wreaths, a good hard three-hours climb.
The Tresvisans aver that there is another village, Sontres, some hours
above them. Perhaps there is something above Sontres;--but this
imagination boggles at.
The little shop was thronged with a company of Tresvisan women. They had
been to the market at Potes to sell their cheeses,--a sort of
gorgonzola, and excellent feeding for a zoophagist,--and had paused at
the stair-foot of their Nephelococcygia to wipe something off the slate
before returning home. Sturdy active figures, clad in patched and
weather-stained garments which had once been bright-coloured, they
formed a striking group which would have attracted attention anywhere.
Their features were hard yet not ill-favoured, and their skins as
brown as mahogany; but there was not a grey hair nor a wrinkle among
them all. Perhaps they were younger than they looked, but they are a
long-lived race in the mountains; and even their octogenarians are
capable of running errands to Urdon.
[Illustration: THE DEVA GORGE
Urdon.]
"'Try not the path,' the old man said." And the path in question was
steep and narrow and stony, wriggling up along the brink of the torrent
and the brow of the precipice; the little party had done some nine
hours' journeying already, and the shades of night had fallen. Yet for
them and their beasts it was but the fag end of their regular Monday
tramp, and they made naught of it. Evidently when the "blue-eyed youth"
flourishes off with his banner a-climbing the Picos, the maiden of
Tresviso is not likely to be vastly impressed. She takes that walk with
her grandfather on Sunday afternoons.
The inn at Urdon may be small, but at least it is commendably early.
They sped their parting guest with the twilight, and I was well clear of
the gorge before I caught my first glimpse of the sun. The mists had not
yet bestirred themselves to gather on the sides of the mountains; and
the whole line of peaks stood out sharp and clear as I crossed the
bridge at Abándames and headed westward up the left bank of the Cares,
which joins the Deva at the waters-meet below the gorge.
Just beyond the gash that marks the exit of the Deva, a prominent peak,
like a small cousin of the Matterhorn, stands out boldly into the centre
of the valley. The river circles round from behind it, and the road once
more plunges in among the roots of the hills.
But that the Deva cliffs still towered overwhelmingly in the memory, one
would have declared it impossible for any ravine to be finer than this.
Indeed, in many respects the Cares is complementary of its rival. Its
rocks may be less terrific, but its slopes are more generously wooded,
and its pale sea-green waters seem of ampler volume than the
sister-stream. The river boils along beside the road in a deep, rocky
trench--a series of rapids and pot-holes--a dangerous river for a swim;
and every turn that it takes opens some new and wonderful vista--huge
buttresses of precipitous limestone, and shaggy floods of pinewood
pouring out of the gaps between.
The Cares gorge is hardly so long as the Deva's; but it ekes out its
interest in an appendix which is not much inferior to the text. The road
begins to heave itself slowly upward along the face of the mountain
towards the saddle at the head of the valley; and every foot that it
rises seems to magnify the grandeur of the opposing heights. Now at last
the upper slopes of the Picos surge into sight above their terraced
pedestal; and far away into the distance behind us ridge after ridge in
endless series radiates out from the great central chaos which towers
close and high across the vale. This final view from the culminating
point of the roadway is one of the most striking of all.
In Spain it seems never permissible to travel entirely for pleasure. The
gossips provide you a business if you have none ready to hand. In the
Rioja district you are branded as a wine-bibber. In the Asturias you are
promptly consigned to the mines. Such was my fate at Carreño, the little
hamlet which sits astride the watershed. An aged crone was squatting on
the hearth in the _Venta_, performing the functions of a meat-jack over
the smouldering embers of the fire. She unhesitatingly diagnosed my
profession, and at once began to reel off the local directory--Don
Jorge, and Don Juan, and Don Jaime and his wife and family--all English
mining engineers in the various villages around. Everybody seems to know
everybody else in Asturias and to speak of them familiarly by their
Christian names. But this latter custom is practically universal in the
Peninsula; and I have surprised myself figuring as Don Edgar on the
strength of a second day's stay.
However, rather to "mine aunt's" bewilderment, I did not linger at
Carreño. The descent to Cángas lay before me, and I was soon speeding on
the way. This valley is of a less daring type of beauty than that which
debouches at Abándames. It is wider, shallower, and shadier, and moulded
in gentler curves. The Picos are still upon the left, but they are now
growing more distant; and the most prominent feature is the parallel
range upon the right, between them and the sea; a fine bold line of
hills some four thousand feet high known as the Sierra de Cuera.
Presently I became conscious of an ox-cart. It was grinding along the
road in front of me. I overhauled it rapidly, and was close up when it
arrived at the turn. But when the road straightened, behold! it was
entirely empty; and a second glance showed the cart-wheels peeping over
the margin, and the driver gathering himself together out of the bushes
beyond. The oxen, maddened by flies, had made a dash for a pool at the
roadside, and the whole equipage had incontinently turned turtle.
The accident was entirely the fault of the beasts, and one would not
have been surprised if the man had been angry. But this rough-looking
fellow took his mishap with admirable equanimity, and thanked me most
impressively for my help in righting his cart. "_Gracias a Dios_ that I
was thrown clear!" said he, crossing himself, as I approached him. And
he even spared some sympathy for his oxen, "Ah! but they annoy them
greatly--the flies." The Spanish peasant is not usually of a surly
temper, and even a double back somersault may leave his manners in
working trim. Once before it had been my lot to witness a similar
accident in England, where the driver, just extricated from beneath his
vehicle, was indignantly demanding his hat. The incident was not without
humour, and was gratifying to a student of Dickens; but it struck me
that "_Gracias a Dios_" was distinctly a happier phrase.
Cángas de Onis, the little town which was the goal of my day's journey,
boasts that it was once the capital of Spain. And so it was--in the
sense that Caerleon was of England--for here Pelayo first established
his modest court when all the rest of the Peninsula was Mahommedan. The
days of its greatness, however, are too remote to have left much trace.
It still retains its lovely situation; but a few rude monastic fragments
are the only relics left by its early kings. It boasts, however, one
striking monument (more modern than Pelayo), in the grand old mediæval
bridge; one of those lofty gable-shaped structures that are so typical
of Southern countries, and perhaps, next to Orense, the finest example
of its kind in Spain. Like most of its class, it is now little used, for
the modern bridge is but a few yards distant. And, indeed, none of them
could ever have accommodated wheel traffic, for they are steep and
narrow, and frequently innocent of parapets. Bar archery, one can well
believe that Diego Garcia de Paredes with his two-handed sword might
have held such a pass against a host; though (in justice to that doughty
warrior's modesty, so highly commended by the curate) I believe his
autobiography never states that he actually did.
[Illustration: CÁNGAS DE ONIS
The Bridge over the Sella.]
A most attractive-looking road leads up the Sella valley, inviting the
traveller to adventure himself for Sahagun; and the view frames itself
delightfully into the great arch of the bridge. It was obviously
impossible to do it justice on a sketching block, and exceedingly
probable that one would get sunstroke in the attempt; but there was no
deferring to the promptings of prudence, and the clouds charitably came
to my rescue before I was quite melted away. The natives at first
watched me in horror from a distance; but they crowded in around me as
soon as the sun retired, and began to volunteer information concerning
the annals of the dale. "One morning in '85," said an old peasant,
tapping the roadway impressively with his cudgel, "the water was over
here!" _Car-r-ramba_, my brother! But that must have been an anxious day
for Cángas de Onis! A twenty-five-foot spate must have wrought pretty
havoc in the valley! It was no mere vaulting ambition that induced the
old architects to build their bridge so high!
Covadonga itself lies at the head of a little lateral valley some seven
miles above Cángas de Onis. The spot is a veritable _cul-de-sac_. The
steep wooded slopes are battlemented with a fringe of _aiguilles_, and
over their tops one catches an occasional glimpse of the pathless Pikes
beyond, their steel-grey summits streaked with wreaths of snow. A huge
semi-detached rock stands out boldly in the centre of this natural
auditorium, and the valley curling around its foot finishes in a hook
against the isthmus which connects it to the hillside. Upon its summit
is the Church of Our Lady of Covadonga, with its attendant buildings,
and behind it, at the end of the hook, is a broad beetling precipice,
coving itself out over its own base--the famous "Cave," sacred for ever
in the legendary annals of Spain.
Here it was that Pelayo and his dauntless 300 made their stand against
the 300,000 who had been sent against them by the Moor; and sallying out
smote them with very great slaughter, in so much that 126,000 were left
dead upon the field and about half as many more killed in the course of
the pursuit! Truly we deal with gorgeous round figures in these early
battles against the infidel! But why should the Spanish chroniclers have
modestly stopped short at 188,000? A full quarter of a million is their
standard casualty list.
It is a pity that the legend should have got so fantastically attired in
buckram, for the facts upon which it is founded are indubitably
historical, and, stripped of extravagances, they reveal a gallant
episode enough.
The Moorish invasion of the Peninsula seemed at the moment invincible,
and the first rush of conquest had carried them even to Gijon. But the
northern provinces were as yet rather overrun than subjugated; and many
bands of broken men had taken refuge in the mountains, where they were
carrying on a _guerilla_ warfare according to the immemorial habit of
Spain. One of the most formidable of these bands was captained by
Pelayo, whose stronghold was the rock of Covadonga, an ideal natural
citadel for a bandit chief. Him it was resolved to suppress; and a
"punitive column"--shall we say ten thousand strong?--was despatched
from Gijon under command of Alxaman for that purpose. What force Pelayo
had at his disposal it is impossible to guess; certainly more than three
hundred, yet far too few to admit of encountering his foe in the open
field. Cornered at last with his back to the wall at the head of the
Covadonga valley, he drew his followers together into his rocky eyrie
and prepared to fight to the death. The nucleus of his force would no
doubt have been posted upon the rock itself and the neck by which it is
approached; others would be scattered along the hillside, lest the foe
should endeavour to crown the heights and deliver the attack from above.
This last, indeed, was the only move to be dreaded. Against a _coup de
main_ the position was practically impregnable. Yet the attempt was
made. Some of the Moors would perhaps have pushed straight ahead to
storm the neck from the valley; but the main column circled around the
base of the rock to take the position in reverse. It was upon these that
the great destruction fell. Their ranks were disordered by the steep and
broken ground, their flanks exposed to the great rock batteries which
the Asturians had prepared upon the slopes above, and a well-timed sally
by the party in ambush in the cave completed their discomfiture. From
such a rout there was no possibility of rally. The whole army, deeply
committed in the intricate recesses of the mountains, was overwhelmed in
irremediable disaster; and on the little _Campo del Rey_ at the foot of
the crag, all cumbered with the bodies of the infidels, the enthusiastic
victors saluted their chieftain with the title of King.
The victory was indeed even more decisive than its magnitude appeared to
warrant. The destruction of Alxaman rendered it impossible for Munuza to
maintain himself at Gijon, and the forces of Pelayo, rapidly increasing
with the prestige of success, overwhelmed his army also in the Pass of
Pajáres as he was attempting to regain Leon. The Moors made no further
attempt to establish themselves beyond the mountains. Their Emirs were
intent upon the invasion of Aquitania; and the civil wars which
succeeded their great defeat at Tours allowed ample time for the
consolidation of the infant kingdom of Asturias, until it finally grew
strong enough to cope with them upon equal terms.
Covadonga has always been sacred to Asturians, but of late some attempt
has been made to excite a more national cult. The new memorial church is
one symptom of this ambition, but it is to be hoped the design will
never develop sufficiently to mar the quiet retirement of this solitary
glen. The church itself is a graceful little building enough, but
contains nothing of antiquarian interest except the miraculous image
before alluded to; and I regret to say that the feature which sticks
most resolutely in my memory is an engraved bronze plate over the
western door, of which the following is a literal translation:--"Out of
respect for the House of God, and the Principles of Hygiene, you are
requested not to enter in wooden shoes, nor to expectorate in this
Sacred Edifice."
At Arriondas, a little below Cángas de Onis, the Sella receives a strong
reinforcement from the Pilona; and thence to the sea it is a fine
copious river--broad swift shallows alternating with deep calm pools in
the very best salmon-stream style. It has the repute of being an
excellent fishing river, as, indeed, its appearance would warrant. Yet I
fear it gets but scurvily treated; for the local piscatorial methods
cannot strictly be classified as "Sport." Once upon a time, saith
tradition, there came a "little Englishman" to Arriondas, and sallied
forth to inveigle the _truchas_ with fragments of feather and wool. "And
he caught some! Yes, he actually did! He even tried to induce us to do
likewise. But we of Arriondas know better. We go angling with shot-guns
and bombs."
It seems characteristic of Asturian rivers that they should keep
persistently running into mountains instead of away from them, and the
Sella below Arriondas is no exception to the rule. The stormy hills of
the Sierra de Cuera throng tumultuously across its pathway and appear to
prohibit all egress. But the river slips like an eel through the tangle,
and its agile windings map out a passage for the road. No one looking
downstream at the view which I sketched from the banks of it would
imagine that the sea was within six miles of him and the river tidal up
to his feet. But at least those six miles through the glens are
picturesque enough for a dozen; and they reach no unworthy conclusion
when they finish at Rivadesella on the little hill-girt harbour where
the Sella meets the sea.
[Illustration: THE SELLA VALLEY
Below Arrióndas.]
All roads are charming in Cantabria: but where there are two to select
from, it is generally best to bear inland in preference to following the
coast. This is rather a cruel observation in connection with so pretty a
ride as that from Rivadesella to Unquera; but nothing short of the
Corniche road should pit itself against the route from Cángas to
Abándames.
If the coast-line could be adequately seen, there might be more doubt
about the verdict: for the bold black limestone cliffs which front the
Biscay rollers would supply as fine a spectacle as anyone need desire.
But it is only here and there that the road allows us a peep at some
sandy beach ensconced between its jagged breakwaters, or some more
distant prospect of cliff and headland where the coast trends forward
beyond the general line. For the greater part of the way the view is
entirely one-sided--the high, steep slopes of the Sierra de Cuera, and
the idyllic villages nestling in the meadows at their feet. How
Goldsmith would have rejoiced in this series of sweet Auburns, with
their rustic shrines and _Pergolas_, their skittle-alleys, and their
little _Alamedas_![4] How he would have loved to haunt the road at
eventide where the village athletes scatter the ninepins with their
great wooden discus, and the maidens dance together under the shadow of
the trees! The Corydon and Phyllis of the Eclogues still survive in
these odd corners of the globe.
The little town of Llanes cannot boast nearly so good a harbour as that
of Rivadesella. It is but a creek in the coast-line through which a
mountain burn makes its exit to the sea. The town is, however, larger
and busier, and full of quaint balconied houses overhanging the harbour
and the stream. Half a dozen fishing boats were unloading their catch
upon the quay in the evening. Some rigged with short masts and long
cross yards carrying square sails; others with two tall spars carrying
lateen sails. The latter are the larger in size and more picturesque in
appearance, but both types are common along the whole Atlantic coast.
They carry large crews, and beside their sails they have sweeps for use
in calm weather. When these are being worked the spars are lowered
into a crutch above the heads of the crew.
[Illustration: PASANA
An Asturian Mountain Village.]
Their catch consisted principally of the ubiquitous hake which forms
such a persistent feature in Spanish bills of fare; but there were also
a few squid, which at first I regarded as wastage, but which proved to
have practical value in the _Fonda_ at _Comida_ time. They were served
up complete, beak and all, with their tentacles drawn up inside
themselves, and looking exactly like boiled parsnips. I tackled one on
principle, having a well-broken palate, and being ambitious to do in
Rome as the Romans: but it tasted of nothing in particular so far as I
was able to make out. They are better stewed, however; and in this guise
a gastronomical companion has pronounced them rather a delicacy; so
perhaps they are yet destined to obtain recognition at Prince's and the
_Maison Chevet_.
There is a mail-coach which works the road between Llanes and San
Vicente de la Barquera--one of those miraculous rattle-traps wherein no
sane person would dream of risking his neck if he were at home. They ply
in all districts whither the railway has not yet penetrated; but an
extensive nodding acquaintance among the tribe has introduced me to few
crazier specimens than this. The fact that its hind wheels are
considerably larger than the front gives a vague resemblance to a
kangaroo; and as it whoops along bounding and lurching behind its five
disjointed mules, it always seems just on the point of resolving into
its ultimate sparables like the deacon's one-horse shay. At our first
meeting I watched it out of sight with some anxiety; but it was still
holding together three years later, and so, no doubt, it is doing still.
Nevertheless its days are numbered. A light railway is being constructed
along the coast to link up the two dead ends at Cabezon and Arriondas,
and soon the visitor to the Picos will be able to reach Unquera by
train.
This last stage has completed our circle and brought us again to the
Deva. Our late-travelled road to Abándames turns off from the end of the
wooden bridge, and again guides us through the gorges into the secluded
vale of Liebana, sheltering behind its Alpine shield. At nightfall we
crept into Potes like a couple of mice from the mountains, and baited at
the little balconied _Fonda_, the first stage on the road to the
south.
[Illustration: LLÁNES
The Harbour.]
CHAPTER III
ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS TO LEON
We had penetrated the loftiest mountains in Cantabria without any ascent
worth mentioning. Consequently it was somewhat disconcerting to discover
that the Pass was still to win.
This preliminary canter had merely admitted us into a great cup, the bed
of an ancient lake. We had entered it through the outlet, but must leave
it over the lip. Within its mountain pale the whole internal area of
Castile and Leon consists of a lofty tableland, two thousand feet and
upwards above the coast-line. It is vain to sue entry on the level:
there can be no dispensation from the climb.
Potes itself lies just above the mouth of the great Gorge, and the
precipices of the Picos dominate it as the Wetterhorn dominates
Grindelwald. The deep, narrow vale of Liebana comes winding down upon it
from the southward, its slopes gay with mountain flowers, and shaggy
with beech and chestnut, and dotted here and there with quaint little
red-roofed villages overhanging the brawling stream. But ever across the
exit the great rock wall frowns gloomy and impassive, its base in the
warm green valley and its battlements in the snow.
We in our sanguine ignorance had fancied ourselves upon the watershed,
and thought that some two hours' collar-work would have earned us a
spell of downhill. But the mountains were still thronging round us at
the village of Valdeprado; and an old neat-herd, driving his cows to the
pastures, unfeelingly assured us that the pass was two leagues[5]
further on. We tried to hope that he was mistaken; but the Castilian
peasant knows his roads well, and is annoyingly accurate in his
estimates of distance. It is seldom indeed that he errs on the merciful
side. Now the road began to ascend in real earnest, climbing coil on
coil up the shoulders of the mountain, and marking its course far ahead
at yet loftier altitudes by faint zigzags traced among the trees. A
couple of easy-going ox-waggons had lost heart at the very first corner.
Their drivers and cattle were all placidly slumbering, and the whole
caravan had stuck fast in the middle of the road. It seemed a pity to
disturb so much unanimity; and quite an hour later, looking down from
the loftier terraces, we could still distinguish their figures in the
same position as before. At last we emerged upon a bare and rocky
saddle, just brushed by the drifting clouds--a pass by courtesy, for it
was almost as high as the peaks, and the snow-wreaths lay unmelted in
the shady spots by the road. A great craggy postern shot us out from the
ridge into the head of an upland valley; and beneath hotter skies,
through a more sunburnt country, we sped towards the plateau of Castile.
The descent on the southern side of the _Puerto_ is nothing like so
formidable as upon the northern; and the mountains, shorn of half their
elevation by the altitude to which we have risen, look much less
imposing than on the seaward side. They eventually come to an end with
startling suddenness a mile or so beyond the village of Cervera; and
from their feet to the southward the great treeless level sweeps away
unbroken--an almost uncanny contrast to the tossing wilderness behind.
We had counted upon finding a road of some kind towards Leon from
Cervera, but the inhabitants evidently needed none and declined to
encourage the idea. A railroad, yes;--the train would start at one
o'clock to-morrow. But the only road went southward. If we followed that
we might possibly find a way round. At all events it was a good road,
sagging steadily down over the moors and marshes, shaded here and there
by rustling poplar avenues, and musical with philharmonic frogs. It
delivered us safely at nightfall in the little village of Buenavista, a
collection of forlorn mud cabins, dumped disconsolately in the tawny
plain.
The _Fondas_ in the larger towns are generally very tolerable, and even
the humbler hostels in Cantabria are presentable after their kind. But
the little _Posadas_ and _Paradors_ of the villages in the interior are
much more primitive institutions, and these are the lot of the traveller
who ventures to take to the road. I should imagine that they have not
changed one tittle since the day when Don Quixote, and the Curate, and
the Barber, and the beautiful Dorothea, and the tattered Cardenio,
foregathered with Don Ferdinand and Dona Lucinda at the _Venta de
Cárdenas_ in the Sierra Morena; and one wonders much how the whole of
that illustrious company were able to find accommodation under its roof.
Externally it suggests an abandoned cowshed, and the wayfarer
introduced to one for the first time will apply for quarters with
something bordering on despair. The gateway admits us into a barn-like
entrance-hall, disordered and unpaved. One of the four rooms opening out
of it is the stable, and the mules stroll sociably through the family
circle in the course of their passage to and fro. Another is the
kitchen, with the hearth in the middle of the floor,[6] and the ceiling
funnelled to an aperture in the apex, through which the log-reek escapes
as best it can. A third (the smallest) is the guestroom, and the fourth
one would call a lumberroom, if any of the others could be called
anything else. The bedrooms are mere attics, reached by a crazy
staircase, and the chinks in the floor communicate freely with the rooms
(or stables) below. The furniture is of the scantiest, and the food of
Spartan simplicity; and the family poultry cackle about between our legs
picking up the crumbs which fall from the table. But at least the dishes
are clean and the sheets obviously washed this very evening; and a
wayworn philosopher can brook a good number of hardships so long as he
is not compelled to wear them next his skin.
The villagers were dancing before the door at the moment of our arrival,
but the ball was at once interrupted to interview such extraordinary
guests. "They came round about us like bees," wrote poor Sir E. Verney
in 1623, "touching one thing and handling another, and did not leave us
till we were abed!" Of course they did! But Sir Edmund was a little
particular; and we suspect old James Howell had some reason for his
strictures anent the stand-offishness of the members of Prince Charles'
suite. Our catechising was conducted by the hostess and her daughter:
What were our names? Whence were we? Whither did we go? They surveyed
the bicycles with gasps of "_Madre mia!_" and I am sure their fingers
itched to explore the inside of our packs. Were we married? No? The
English married very little! And this depressing reflection cost them a
sad little shake of the head. It grew rather wearying at last, but
discourtesy was nowise intended. A stranger in these forgotten villages
is as rare as a blue moon.
Spain is socially the most democratic of countries; but it is an
aristocratic democracy; and we must not forget that fact because our
interlocutor happens to be wearing rags. He and his may have been as
poor as church mice for generations;--that is his misfortune. But he is
as good a gentleman as the king, and, as like as not, fully entitled to
all the proud quarterings that are graven up over his door. "I'm an old
Christian," quoth that powerful thinker, the Governor designate of
Barataria, "a high and dry old Christian, and that's good enough for a
lord." The Castilian peasant regards you as an equal, and expects to be
so treated in return: and I have no doubt that a modern Sancho, if he
found himself in the society of a duchess, would be fully as
unembarrassed as the great original himself. In many points--even in
physiognomical features--he has much in common with that other "foinest
pisantry" the Irish; and it is worth noting that the original Milesians
are traditionally reputed to have come from Spain.
Individually he is "a very fine fellow." The verdict is the Duke of
Wellington's. And probably no one in history knew their failings better
than he. Spain is no "dying nationality," though her day be still rather
"_Mañana_." It is idle to deny a future to so robust and prolific a
race.
The traveller need not look to fare sumptuously in a _Posada_. If he
does not carry his own food with him he must take what comes. Mine host
does not profess to find accommodation for man, only for beast; and
anything he does for the beast's owner is regarded as a work of
supererogation. We cannot lodge with the peasantry without sharing some
few of their holiday hardships; and there can be no doubt that in many
districts they are miserably poor. "There is no milk in the place," said
mine hostess to me on one occasion, in answer to a request for that
commonest of luxuries:--"this village is in _la ultima miseria_!" Yet
even there they seemed cheerful and contented; and the common taunt of
idleness certainly did not apply to them. Spanish townsfolk are by no
means early risers: but the villages are stirring at cock-crow and the
labourers out in the fields with the first rays of the sun.
[Illustration: LEON
An Old Palace Doorway.]
This last is no inconsiderable advantage in a country which gets hot by
eight o'clock in the morning; and the great red disk was but half clear
of the horizon when we bade farewell to Buenavista, and began our long
ride to Leon. Washing arrangements had no share in our _Posada's_
economy, so this mysterious British ritual was celebrated at
Saldaña, on the banks of the Carrion; and being here favoured with a
branch road which made a cast to the westward, we resumed our journey
across the level in the direction of Sahagun.
Strictly speaking this is one of those levels which slope upwards and
downwards a good deal; for the streams coming down from the mountains
have cut themselves good deep valleys, though they seldom supply any
water except on special occasions during the autumn rains. In the dips
are trees and greenery, but the general impression is that of a bleak
red ploughland interspersed with wide stretches of heath. Here and
there, marooned at haphazard, are the casual villages, with their
umber-coloured mud walls and red-tiled roofs, rich blotches of colour
against the blue of the distant hills. And the desolate aspect of the
country is enhanced by the dearth of inhabitants. There is scarcely a
labourer in the fallows, scarcely a traveller on the road.
No! the little squared stones that we keep passing so regularly do not
record the kilometres--only the ordinary roadside murders incidental to
an ancient highway. Upon each is graven the simple fact of the
tragedy:--_Aqui murió_,[7] with the name and date,--no more. They are
generally said to have been erected as a trespass offering by the
remorseful murderer: and their persistent recurrence cannot be said to
make for gaiety;--a large group is even depressing at a specially
desolate spot.
Of course we endeavour to solace ourselves with the reflection that
there is at least one similar monument in England; and we note with
gratification that very few are of recent date. But then that does not
prove that the murders are now less frequent, only that the murderers
have less remorse. Yet, after all, the traveller may take courage; his
position is not quite desperate, however unpromising it may look. Many
of these untimely deaths were the result of ordinary accidents--storm or
sunstroke, falls from horses ("a grave that is always open"), or
drowning in the flooded streams. Sometimes a private vendetta may have
reached its _dénouement_ in a chance roadside meeting; but genuine
highway murders form a very small proportion of the whole. The roads in
Spain are as safe as those in England. And though I have been warned
that "there are men in this village who would not hesitate to cut your
throat for a dollar," yet the country folk generally (as one of
themselves bore me witness) are _gente muy regular_, "a very law-abiding
folk." The only really reliable method of getting murdered upon a
Spanish highway nowadays is to quarrel with the Arm of the Law!
See,--out of one of the dips in the road before us rise the figures of
two horsemen;--big men, well mounted, in white puggarees and smart blue
uniforms, with sabre at saddle and carbine on thigh;--the Civil Guard of
Spain. _Vayan Vs con Dios, Caballeros!_ Spain owes you a debt that is
not to be readily computed. Those who have delivered her from her long
tyranny of lawlessness deserve a niche beside the old knightly orders of
Calatrava and Alcántara, who kept the border in the days of raiding
Moors.
Don Bernardo de Castel Blazo distrusted those who kept company with
_Alguazils_; but it is a highly desirable privilege to be friends with
the Civil Guard. _En passant_ it may be mentioned that it is imprudent
to be otherwise, for they are authorised to shoot at sight, and are
reputed seldom to miss. But this vexatious habit is one which they
seldom indulge in, and so long as you keep the right side of them they
are very good fellows indeed. Should our misguided rulers ever signalise
their ineptitude by the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary, we
shall lose the one body in Europe which is altogether comparable to the
_Guardia Civil_.
Readers of Borrow may perhaps recall his description of a forlorn and
melancholy township halfway between Paléncia and Leon, a hotbed of
Carlism, which he discreetly alludes to as ----. But it seems somewhat
superfluous reticence to throw such a very thin veil of anonymity over a
name which is obviously Sahagun. Once the great Romanesque Monastery,
whose massive square tower forms such an imposing landmark, was first in
wealth and dignity in all the kingdom of Leon. But now it is but the
wreck of its former greatness; and the crazy mud hovels and hummocky
streets which surround it form an abomination of dilapidation that it
would not be easy to match even in Spain. What a fit scene for
disillusion it must have presented to Moore and his army as they here
turned their backs upon victory and commenced their disastrous retreat!
The soldiers were all spoiling for a battle, and the 15th Hussars had
brilliantly opened the scoring. But just as they savoured their
appetiser they were dragged off, disappointed and morose. No wonder they
sulked! How were they to know the true cause of their retirement? They
were thinking only of Soult at Saldaña; it was their General who had
been watching for the rush of Napoleon from Madrid.
There is still a Carlist at Sahagun, because we saw him. The
inhabitants, recognising us as strangers, naturally assumed that we
should be interested in seeing their Carlist, and he was accordingly
fetched and paraded, much as a man who had been "out" in the '45 might
have been shown to Dr Johnson in the Hebrides. He was a white-haired and
mild-mannered old gentleman,--a greatly sobered edition of the dashing
young _guerillero_ who had ranged the mountains of Biscay in 1875. And
though he evidently enjoyed his repute as a fire-eater, I doubt whether
he really considered that the game had been quite worth the candle after
all.
The Carlists of to-day seem much in the same position as the Jacobites
of the reign of George III. They may defiantly show you "King Carlos'"
portrait upon their parlour wall, or even exhibit it for sale in their
shop windows. But all this enthusiasm is rather sentimental than active;
and in their heart of hearts they must feel with Redgauntlet that a
cause so much tolerated is lost.
Meanwhile the road to Leon did not seem nearer realisation at Sahagun
than at Cervera. There was only a "dead road," they told us, and this we
should scarcely have recognised had we not been introduced. The "dead
road" proved a sort of consensus of cart tracks, straying vaguely across
the moorland with a general trend towards the west. It had died in a
most dissipated fashion all asprawl among the boulders and heather: and
as each of us soon grew fully absorbed in negotiating his own wheel rut,
we frequently found ourselves drifting poles asunder, and had to regain
connection by cross-country sprints. The water-courses were ineffably
stony, and, of course, there were no bridges. We had good cause to
congratulate ourselves on the absence of rain in the mountains, for had
the streams been in spate we should have had no resource but to follow
the example of the expectant rustic, and wait for them to run down. The
occasional walled sheepfolds, and the spiked collars of the dogs which
guarded them, hinted broadly at the inroads of wolves in winter-time;
and our only way-fellows, a party of gypsies, savage-looking and
half-naked, with tangled elf locks and skins of negro blackness, formed
a group that to outward appearance seemed scarcely more amenable than
the wolves. Fortunately, however, there was small chance of missing our
direction. We could not stray many miles to our right without coming
upon the railway, nor to the left without striking the high-road from
Mayorga. The one thing needed was to keep our right shoulders to the
mountains; and eventually we emerged sure enough at Mansilla de las
Mulas, where, after twenty miles cross-country, our wilderness came to
an end.
Mansilla lies upon the banks of the Esla, and the mules were grazing
under the ancient ramparts along the margin of the stream. A pretty
picture it made as we crossed the old bridge in the twilight and entered
the long colonnade of poplars that leads towards the city of Leon. The
poplar pollen carpeted the road before us as thick and white as
newly-fallen snow, and the whirl of our wheels flung it up on either
side in little wavelets, as the foam is flung up by the bows of a racing
eight. The effect was quite poetical, but we could not linger to
rhapsodise, for the causeway had been broken by floods in several
places, and unless we made use of the daylight we should be breaking our
necks in the pits. It does not seem to occur to the authorities that
there is any risk in delaying repairs for a year or so. And perhaps we
have no right to grumble, for at least we got safe to our goal.
Leon is a city for which I have acquired a growing affection with each
successive visit, a grave old Gothic capital, all filled with memories
of the past. It was founded originally by the Romans to control the
Cantabrian passes; and the massive walls which surround it still bear
witness to the solidity of their work. Unfortunately they are much
masked by the surrounding houses; but they are of most imposing
dimensions, about twenty feet in thickness, and strengthened by huge
_Cubos_ or solid semicircular bastions, spaced at very frequent
intervals, some two and a half diameters apart.
The city is best viewed from the Pajares road to the northward, but as
it is situated on the level it does not show very conspicuously from
without. Its most prominent object is the delightfully elegant
cathedral; obviously French by inspiration, and of extraordinary
lightness of construction, more like a lantern of stained glass than a
monument of stone. It is step-sister to Beauvais and Amiens; and, on the
whole, it need not fear comparison. But the Spanish builders were not
quite at home in dealing with the unfamiliar style. One problem
evidently routed them, and they have left it still crying for an answer.
How on earth was it possible to reconcile the steep French gables with
the low-pitched Spanish roof?
[Illustration: LEON
From the Pajáres Road.]
The cathedral has been recently restored (not before it was necessary,
according to Street's description); but this difficult work has been
admirably executed, though the newness of the stone still renders it
rather conspicuous to the eye. The interior is gorgeous with carving and
tapestry; and a word may be spared for the Gotho-Renaissance cloisters,
and for the great western portals with the Last Judgment graven over the
doors. Some of the details of the latter are not without suspicion of
humour. A monarch, walking delicately like Agag towards the gates of
Paradise, is remorselessly barred by St Peter, and directed to the
opposite road. One blessed spirit has been set to play the organ--and
another has been deputed to blow it! Truly "one star differeth from
another star in glory"; but an eternity of organ-blowing must rank low
in the scale of bliss!
Scarcely less famous than the cathedral is the Collegiate Church of St
Isidore; not the shepherd saint of Madrid, but the Doctor of Spain who
compiled the Mozarabic ritual;[8] the "second Daniel" of Pope Gregory
the Great. It is a queer patchwork edifice, but mostly of the eleventh
century. The tower forms a bastion in the city rampart; and the little
_Panteon_ Chapel beneath it is the burial-place of the early monarchs of
Leon.
Here in 1065 occurred the strange death scene of the founder, the
warrior monarch Fernando I. of Leon and Castile. Smitten with sore
disease while camping on the marches of Valencia, he had been borne back
to make his dying confession before the altar of his metropolitan
church. There he laid aside his crown and robes, and clad his wasted
limbs in sack-cloth, and for a full day and night lay writhing in ashes
on the pavement till his self-inflicted penance was at last ended by his
death. We are assured that his original sickness really had been mortal
from the first.
[Illustration: LEON
Church of San Isidoro.]
Few capitals of Spain are without some memorial of Las Navas de Tolosa,
the great victory won by Alfonso VIII. in 1212, which crippled the
Spanish Moslems for offensive warfare, and paved the way for the
conquest of Andalusia by Ferdinand III. Búrgos and Pamplona have the
trophies of the fighting; but Leon has only a legend; and it is to
_San Isidoro_ and King Fernando that they are indebted for having
anything at all. For it came to pass on the eve of the battle that a
sound was heard at midnight in the streets of the slumbering city. A
sound as of the passage of a mighty army, the clang of armour and the
tramp of horse and man. The priest who was keeping vigil at the shrine
of St Isidore heard the phantom host halt before the portal and their
thundering summons beat upon the door. "Who knocks?" he cried; and the
ghostly captains answered him, "Ferdinand Gonzalez and Roderic of
Bivar![9] And we are come to call King Fernando the Great, who lies
buried in this holy temple, that he may rise and ride with us to deliver
Spain!" The terrified monk fell fainting on the pavement, and when he
revived the door stood open. The last great recruit had joined the
colours, and the spirit host had passed upon their way.
No doubt we may read in this legend the rebuke of the Church against the
selfish policy of the Crown, for no soldier of Leon drew sword in that
great battle for the deliverance of Christendom. Castile and Navarre and
Aragon were the people that jeoparded their lives in the high places of
the Morena. Nay, the Leonese monarch was even mean enough to seize the
occasion for "rectifying his frontier" at the expense of his brother the
Castilian. And this at a crisis when the very dead could rise from their
graves and forget the feuds of their lifetime in the hour of national
stress!
The main streets of the city are overshadowed by several fine _Solares_,
the mansions of the old _hidalgos_, and, beside all its churches and
monasteries, the town boasts an attractive Guildhall. But perhaps its
most interesting feature is supplied by the crowd that frequents them;
for Leon is the metropolis of a big agricultural population, a grave and
stalwart race attired in the most picturesque old-world costumes. The
dresses of the women are perhaps somewhat lacking in brightness; for
they have a taste for sombre shades, especially a mauve-coloured head
kerchief which does not accord nearly so well with their olive
complexions as the brilliant scarlets and yellows of the girls in
Galicia and the south. But this quakerish tinge in the individual does
not produce much effect in the aggregate, and they look bright enough in
the busy market beneath their forest of umbrella-shaped booths.
They are reputed to "wear _Carambas_ in their hair," but this we cannot
corroborate. They kept them discreetly covered with the
kerchief--perhaps from fear of the police. In any case it is to be hoped
that the fashion will not spread indiscriminately. Imagine a German lady
in a "_Donnerwetter_" _coiffure_!
[Illustration: LEON
The Market Place, and Casa del Ayuntamiento.]
CHAPTER IV
THE PILGRIM ROAD
"HE that is minded to go to _Santiago_ may fare thither in many ways
both by sea and land";--and to continue in Sir John Mandeville's vein we
might add "by the heavens also," for our old friend the Galaxy--Milk
Street as it has been irreverently nicknamed--masquerades in Spain as
the "Santiago road." The Holy Apostle himself stranded at El Padron
(after a rapid passage from Joppa in three days and in a stone coffin);
and the pious pilgrims of our own land were wont for the most part to
take ship to Coruña. But the main pilgrim stream poured along the old
Roman road through Leon and Astorga and the Vierzo passes; and perhaps
when the fame of the shrine was at its height there was no other spot in
Europe which drew so great a throng.
Even to this day we may catch faint echoes of its ancient
celebrity:--"Please to remember the grotto!" our school-children's
August refrain. They do not know what they commemorate; but their date
(by the Julian calendar) and their grotto and candle-ends and
cockle-shells are all the prerogatives of St James.
As we thread the long poplar avenues which radiate from the gates of
Leon, and climb from its fertile valley on to the bald bleak moors, we
might almost persuade ourselves that the days of pilgrimage are not over
even yet. The road is thronged for miles with a steady procession of
country-folk, trooping into the early market in the old Gothic
capital--as picturesque a medley as ever delighted the student of
costume. Market-women stride-legged between their donkey's panniers,
like Dulcinea del Toboso when she was enchanted; bronzed and tattered
countrymen with the sun glinting on their shouldered scythes; long teams
of mules jingling in gaudy trappings; and lumbering ox-carts with their
prodigious loads of chaff. Here and there we met substantial yeomen well
horsed and muffled, with their womenkind a-pillion; and sometimes a
broad-breeched _Maragato_ tramping along beside his loaded wain. The
clear crisp light of the early morning revealed all the landscape in its
brightest colours. To the southward the dun plain sweeps away unbroken
till it is lost in illimitable distance; and the view to the northward
is bounded by the long blue line of the Cantabrian mountains, peak
beyond peak in endless range, like a string of chevrons on the horizon.
No wonder the Spaniards call their mountain chains _Sierras_, "saws."
The wide bed of the Orbigo river is crossed by a long uneven bridge; the
scene of the famous "Pass of Honour," dear to the heart of Don Quixote
and all the annalists of chivalry. In the year of the great Jubilee at
Santiago in 1439 Don Suero Quinones, a valiant Leonese, made a vow to
maintain that bridge for thirty days against all knights who refused to
admit the pre-eminent beauty of his lady-love. In token whereof an iron
collar was riveted round his neck, not to be removed till he had
redeemed his vow. He was a knight of the military order of Santiago,
hailing from what is now the convent of San Marcos.[10] But membership
of the Spanish military orders was no impediment to love-making, or even
to marriage (except in the case of widowers); so that Don Suero (a
Paladin of his day, who was wont to fight Moors with his right arm bare
like King Pentapolin of the Garamantas), was quite in order in paying
these courtesies to the fair.
Now there were many knights going to Santiago for the Jubilee, and Don
Suero and his nine companions enjoyed an extremely busy time. Seven
hundred and thirty combats did they accomplish during those thirty
days--a daily working average of two and a half apiece. Don Suero,
however, duly got rid of his collar, to his eternal honour and glory;
and seeing that even Philip the Prudent had his story republished as a
perpetual example, perhaps it is not surprising that poor Don Quixote
should have taken the pamphlet _au pied de la lettre_.
The bridge itself is long and narrow, with a pronounced kink in the
middle, and if the tilts were actually run upon it, it is easy to
understand the challenger's success. It needed but knowledge of the
ground and a little judicious timing, and he could cut into his
disordered opponent broadside as he rounded the bend. But doubtless this
unworthy suggestion is a libel on the gallant Suero. His lists would
have been fairly pitched in the open plain.
When we crossed the venerable arches they were in the state described
by Mr Chucks as "precarious and not at all permanent." The ox-carts
preferred fording the river. But perhaps this has been "mitigated" by
now.
Another stage across the moorland brings us up under the massive
ramparts of Astorga, standing "four square to all the winds that blow,"
as it stood in the days of that Cæsar Augustus whose name it now so
barbarously mis-spells.[11] "It is absurd to speak of Astorga as a
fortress," wrote the impatient Duke; "it is merely a walled town." And a
walled town it is, most emphatically; but the "merely" seems rather
inadequate, for the walls of Astorga are a trifle of twenty-two feet
thick. They are sadly battered indeed, and mercilessly plundered of
their facing stones; yet their huge rugged nakedness, scowling
truculently across the plain from the crest of their natural _glacis_,
makes them a far more impressive spectacle than their house-encumbered
rivals at Lugo and Leon. They have at all events stood two artillery
sieges; for the citizens held them for two months against Junot in 1810,
and the French for three against Castaños in 1812; yet the old Roman
mason who built them might readily acknowledge them still.
[Illustration: ASTORGA
From the South-east.]
My Santiago pilgrimage was not the first occasion of my visiting
Astorga. I had called the previous year--and incidentally had left my
heart there--but was not aware that my unobtrusive transit had sown any
tender memories to sprout at my return. No sooner, however, had my nose
inserted itself within the Fonda doorway than the señora swooped upon me
out of the kitchen like a hospitable avalanche, and welcomed me back
with as much fervour as if I had been a long-lost son. This pleasure at
the sight of an old face is a very engaging feature in Spanish
character. They are by no means forgetful to entertain strangers even at
first sight; and often upon quitting a café I have found that my bill
has been already paid by an unknown neighbour with whom I had exchanged
a few commonplace remarks. Yet these earlier courtesies are formal; they
are cordial to older acquaintances; and, like the Briton, they are
reserved in their intimacies, and rather inclined to resent a too rapid
advance.
One worthy old gentleman indeed, a frequenter of the café at Astorga,
proved more insistently amiable even than mine hostess herself. He would
no longer have me as a guest, but wished to sign me on as a townsman;
there was no need for me to go further, I might stay and be naturalised
out of hand. He could even supply me with a wife, and would warrant her
"very beautiful!" Had Faustina been the guerdon, I doubt whether my
constancy could have endured!
And Faustina: where meanwhile was Faustina? In vain had we come to
Astorga if we might not have sight of its belle! I remembered her curled
on the window settle, nursing her baby brother. Her raven tresses
flooded her shoulders like a mantle, and her great dark eyes and Cupid's
bow lips--the touchstones of Spanish beauty--were set off by the most
piquant features and the clearest olive skin. Faustina was quite
conscious of her attractions, and seemed by no means averse to
challenging a little flirtation; but this time she was away "in the
country," and the baby brother was as much aggrieved as ourselves. By
now, belike, she is another's. Spanish maidens grow early to womanhood.
Would that I could show future visitors how fair a sight they have
missed!
The broad brown moors which environ the city tilt themselves up toward
the westward till they culminate at the Pass of Manzanal. Their interest
is principally due to their unique population, for they are the
recognised Reserve of the _Maragatos_, that strange self-centred tribe
who were long such a puzzle to ethnologists, but who now seem definitely
identified as direct descendants of the original Berbers who came over
with Tarik and Musa twelve hundred years ago. Astorga is regarded as
their centre, but they are now more readily met with in the neighbouring
villages; and the little hamlet of Combarros produced quite a
respectable crowd. They are carriers by caste: and their burly,
big-framed men, in their wide Zouave breeches and scarlet waistcoats and
garters, had already become familiar to us even on the remoter roads.
But this was the only place where we caught a glimpse of the women, who
were attired in short orange skirts and scarlet cross-overs, with their
hair drawn tight back from their foreheads and knit into trim little
buns. They wore, too, some striking jewelry in the shape of large
filigree earrings. But in point of physique the ladies were scarcely a
match for their lords.
The ascent of the pass upon the eastern side is comparatively gentle,
and its height not very much above the general level of the moors; but
towards the west the ground breaks away more sharply, and the hillside
is scored with deep rocky gulches, which are a source of great
perplexity to the descending road. It is a savage bit of country, and a
fit scene for the thrilling adventure which is furnished to Gil Blas;
for near Ponferrada was the cave of the redoubtable Captain Rolando, who
interfered so masterfully with his intended scholastic career. Our hero
was kidnapped at Cacabellos; he reached Astorga the night after his
escape; and his distressed damsel, the unfortunate Doña Mencia, was
waylaid upon this very road. The robbers must have found it a more
profitable beat in those days than it would be at present, for then
there was no road at Pajares, and even travellers from Oviedo had to
come this way to the south.
The Vierzo basin into which we are now descending is one of the most
interesting districts in the mountains of Northern Spain. It is a great
natural saucer some twenty-five miles in diameter, considerably below
the level of the plateau of Leon, and completely surrounded by a ring of
mountain peaks. Geologically it is the bed of a primeval lake, long
since emptied of its waters through the gorges of the Sil; and its many
ancient monastic establishments, the primitive character of its
peasantry, and the wild and picturesque scenery in the surrounding
mountains, render it an admirable hunting-ground for the vagrant
pleasure-seeker. Mere birds of passage like ourselves could see but
a tithe of its attractions. It should be explored with a guide and a
pack mule, a rod and a gun. And sportsmen need never complain of the
lack of sufficient variety:--the Nimrod whom we encountered was
combining "partridges and bears!" The hills are rugged and precipitous,
the birthplace of unnumbered rivulets, their flanks flooded chin deep
with oceans of white heather, and their feet hidden in primeval forests
wellnigh impenetrable to man.
[Illustration: THE VIERZO
From Ponferrada, looking towards the Pass of Piedrafita.]
At our first view the country seemed hardly in holiday humour, for the
sky was dark and lowering; and though the cloud effects were
magnificent, the landscape beneath them looked eerie and morose. But,
like all southern landscapes, it woke up wonderfully under the witchery
of the sunshine, and donned its brightest colours next morning in honour
of its patroness, Our Lady of the Oak-tree, whose festival was to be
celebrated that day.
Ponferrada, the centre and capital of the district, is a picturesque
little township, situated on a steep bank over the river Sil. Its most
prominent feature is an imposing castle once a preceptory of the Knights
Templar; but this was the evening of the Vigil, and the townfolk were
all thronging into the portals of the church. The vast, gloomy interior
was lit only by two or three tapers, which scarcely served to make
darkness visible; and at first we could discern nothing but the white
snoods of the women, who were kneeling in companies about the great
aisleless nave. But presently the spring blind over the Altar went up
with a sudden snap, and disclosed _Nuestra Señora de la Encina_ herself,
the little black wooden image which is the Palladium of the whole
Vierzo, clad in white satin and tinsel, and set in a halo of
incandescent lamps! This startling modern _finale_ gave a queer jar to
the old-world solemnity of the preliminaries; and the chant which burst
out at the signal scarcely helped to restore the effect. The men's
voices in Spain are frequently powerful and impressive; but here they
were relying entirely on their trebles, who are always terribly shrill
and grating, even to the least musical ear.
The great road which passes through Ponferrada on its way across the
Vierzo has been the track followed by numberless armies from the days of
Rome to our own; and to Englishmen it has a special interest as being
the path of the ill-fated Moore. The second and more arduous stage of
the famous retreat began at Astorga, where Napoleon abandoned the
command of the French armies to Soult. Moore might very possibly have
checked his pursuers on the great natural _glacis_ of Manzanal; but it
was the aim of his strategy to entangle them as deeply as possible in
the Galician mountains, and he did not wish to make a stand too soon.
Accordingly the English army, with Soult hot upon their track, swept
swiftly through the Vierzo. They got abominably drunk in the
wine-cellars at Bembibre and Ponferrada. They had a sharp brush with the
enemy's cavalry at the hamlet of Cacabellos. Then at Villafranca they
were swallowed again by the mountains, and headed for Lugo by the long
and labyrinthine pass.
The road across the Pass of Piedrafita is a very different thing
nowadays to what it was in the time of Moore; yet even now it would be
no pleasant journey in January, with the snow-drifts blocking the narrow
"prison vale." Gradually ascending the left bank of the river Valcarce,
we passed through several picturesque but grimy villages romantically
placed amid the rocky and wooded hills. The ascent became steeper and
more tortuous as the road climbed up towards the saddle; and at last, on
the very summit, we reached the "fixed stone" which is the boundary of
Leon and Galicia, and entered the head of the Návia valley, which guided
us down the long descent.
The western portal of the Pass a little above Nogales is guarded by a
solitary watch-tower, perched upon the point of an isolated boulder in
the centre of the V-shaped vale. This outlet, however, does not get us
clear of the mountains; for another lofty ridge rises immediately beyond
it, and it was at this point that some of the most terrible scenes
occurred in the course of Moore's retreat. Hundreds lay dying of cold,
hunger, and exhaustion; and the army treasure-chests, containing 150,000
dollars, were rolled down the hillside into the river gully, to save
them from falling into the hands of the French. The closeness of the
pursuit, however, was checked by Paget in a sharp action at the old
Roman bridge of Constantino, which spans a rocky gorge half-way up the
hill; and Moore was enabled to reach Lugo without much further loss.
We spent the night at the mountain village of Becerrea, high up near the
summit of the ridge--a night of the most brilliant moonlight, which
showed up the distant mountains almost as clearly as the day. Next
morning, however, found the village buried in clouds; and through these
we laboriously groped our way, with the trained fog-craft of Londoners,
till at last we succeeded in rising above them, and emerging on the
summit of the ridge. The scene was such as seldom falls to the lot of a
cyclist, for the vapour choked all the valleys beneath us, and the
mountain peaks that reared themselves out of it showed like so many
islands in a sea of cotton-wool. The gorse and bracken around us were
silver with the webs of the gossamer spiders, and the moisture that
still hung to the tree-twigs sparkled like jewels in the rising sun.
Before us a great pale mist-bow was outlined upon a paler curtain; and
it cost us some regret to desert so striking a spectacle and plunge
again into the cold cloud-bath that awaited us on the other side.
The series of parallel ridges which the road crosses upon its journey
westward sink gradually lower and lower, till the environs of Lugo
appear comparatively level. The valleys are green and well wooded with
tall timber trees; and as the sun got the better of the clouds some
hours before mid-day, we had good cause to remember them in a favourable
light. Many of the wayside cottages were extremely pretty--irregular
old stone shanties with shadowy eaves and balconies, and rude verandahs
heavily draped with vines; and the distant prospect of plain and
mountain forms a delightful background to the views.
Lugo stands upon one of the minor ridges which help to compose what
Galicia calls a plain; and the river Miño, broad and placid like the
Thames at Richmond, flows far beneath it in a deep, well-wooded vale.
Like many of the Galician mountain townships, Lugo is roofed with rough,
grey slating, and this fact at the first glance gives it a curiously
un-Spanish air; yet there is no town in all the Peninsula more
thoroughly national in tone.
The massive walls of the city are its greatest and most impressive
feature. They are probably of genuine Roman workmanship, for they are
built of square stones, instead of the random courses which were the
fashion in mediæval days, and of such portentous thickness as only a
Roman could conceive. At Astorga the walls are battered and incomplete:
but at Lugo the facing is still practically intact; and one might drive
a horse and trap round the top the full circuit of the town, without
apprehending any particular difficulty if one met another horse and trap
coming the other way.
[Illustration: LUGO
The Santiago Gate.]
The cathedral is situated just inside the gate of Santiago. It is a
thirteenth century building, but--like many other Galician
churches--completely cased externally in late Renaissance days. Its
three tall towers form a very conspicuous group from all quarters of the
city; and it was a great grief of mind to my friends at the Santiago
gateway that I had not included them all in my sketch. It was evidently
a slight upon Lugo to insinuate that it had only one steeple. A
Spaniard's idea of a "fine view" is invariably a panorama.
But the true charm of Lugo consists in its squares and fountains and the
picturesque Gallego peasantry eddying in the narrow streets. The
fountains in particular are a perpetual delight to an artist, and it is
in the last hour before dusk in the evening that they may really be seen
at their best. Then the entire feminine population of the city sally
forth to obtain their water supply,--a kaleidoscopic medley of colour,
and a babel of chattering tongues. An unfortunate _alguazil_ is usually
told off to keep order and preserve some kind of a _queue_. But no one
thinks of taking the _alguazil_ seriously except himself, for the girls
are all in the highest spirits, and regard the whole function as a sort
of glorified game of Tom Tiddler's ground, with the _alguazil_ as a
semi-official "he." The aim of every player is to slip in out of her
turn. And directly she scores her first point, and the exasperated
official rushes round to expel her, there is, of course, a gap left for
number two. The sparkle and gaiety of the crowd is a standing reproach
to us Northerners. It would be a very dour and drab-coloured assemblage
if it had to be managed by us. Macaulay's artistic New Zealander will
never make much of a picture out of the Hebes of Seven Dials filling
their buckets in Trafalgar Square.
The pitchers which are seen at the fountains would require a monograph
all to themselves, for the designs are always strictly local, and in no
two districts are they ever fashioned alike. The big peg-top-shaped jars
of red earthenware are peculiar to Lugo itself. Vigo prefers them white,
and shapes them like an exaggerated teapot, with no lid and a very
rudimentary spout; their rude resemblance to a hen--(any relation, I
wonder, to the "tappit hen" of Scotland?)--is an idea which is often
exploited by a potter of artistic mind. The black oval keg shown in the
sketch of Rivadeo is monopolised by western Asturias; Pajares boasts an
elegant three-handled speciality; and the pitchers at Caceres are
of "Forty Thieves" design. The little wooden buckets are less
susceptible of variety, yet even of these there are several kinds. The
commonest type (much wider at the base than at the top) are hooped with
three metal bands about two and a half inches wide. In Asturias these
hoops become very broad indeed, leaving only about half an inch of wood
showing between; they are kept brightly polished, and make a very
handsome show on a cottage dresser, but must be rather heavy on the
head. At Pamplona the hoops are equally wide, but there are only two of
them; and at Pontevedra we saw a queer jug-shaped bucket which we never
encountered elsewhere.
[Illustration: LUGO
Fuente de San Vicente.]
Next comes a great tribe of metal pitchers of various shapes and sizes,
used by the inhabitants of Villafranca, Plaséncia, and Leon; and the
very last ride I took on Spanish soil, in the neighbourhood of
Santander, introduced me to a round-bellied, long-necked bottle of rough
green glass, which opens a new vista of possibilities. Alas! that among
all these delightful old vessels one should see so many outsiders in the
shape of common cheap pails of galvanised and enamelled iron! One thinks
with a shudder of the lean kine in the vision which eventually devoured
all the rest.
The three tall towers of Santiago de Compostela salute the traveller
from afar off across the wild moors that flank the Lugo road. The city
is deceitfully situated--for when we are once within it we imagine
ourselves on an eminence; but, viewed from without, it is undeniably in
a hole. Yet there is no lack of impressiveness in this first view of
"the city of our solemnities." The early pilgrim used to prostrate
himself at the sight of it, and many would finish the last stage of the
journey upon their knees. Such thoroughgoing devotion is probably very
rare nowadays, but we would not like to assert that it is yet entirely
extinct. For once in the little town of Briviesca, on the furthest
confines of Castile, we did indeed come across a genuine pilgrim, with
his "cockle hat" and rusty gabardine, his staff, his gourd, and his
"sandal shoon," all quite complete. The retinue of urchins which
followed him proved that he was not altogether a common spectacle; but
in what other country than Spain could one look for such a survival at
all? It is consoling to think that among his own people St James is not
quite without due honour even yet.
[Illustration: SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA
From the Lugo Road.]
"Ballads are too old to lie," said Sancho Panza, and I love to think the
same of legends. The mere fact that they have passed current for
centuries should be a bar to further investigation of title; and a spot
which has been held sacred by fifty generations of pilgrims does not
need to be hall-marked by Dr Dryasdust. Nevertheless when a blind man is
bent upon going into a dark room to look for a black cat, it is but
charity to inform him that it isn't there, and the pedantically-minded
may be glad to receive the assurance that the whole proof of Santiago's
identity is entirely visionary.
It is related by a monkish chronicler of the English Abbey of St Alban,
how one night in the fourteenth century it was revealed in a dream to
one of the brethren that the relics of Saint Amphibalus were awaiting
the quest of the faithful beneath a certain barrow on the Watling
Street. Which barrow being reverently opened, there were discovered
(sure enough) the bones of Amphibalus, and of sundry of his disciples,
and the axe where-with he was martyred, and various other articles of
great interest and sanctity. Whereby it came to pass that some grim old
neolithic chieftain, buried æons before amid his weapons and his wives,
was piously installed as a tutelary in the Abbey Sanctuary. And much
dumfoundered he must have been at it all, if he was present in spirit at
the ceremony. "Oh, Bottom! how thou art translated!"
It was evidently something very similar that happened in the ninth
century at Santiago de Compostela. But the Spanish chroniclers have been
lacking in the Englishman's regard for circumstantial detail; so whether
it was an untamed Cantabrian or a Roman Centurion who was annexed as
_hero eponymus_ for the basilica of Iria Flavia it is now impossible to
guess. Be that as it may, the bones were certainly lost not long after
they were beatified, and the authorities had to account for their
disappearance by protesting that Archbishop Gelmirez had built them, for
safety's sake, into the foundations of his great cathedral. This
delightfully incontrovertible statement was the sole satisfaction
provided for the medieval pilgrims. But we are now no longer permitted
to build our faith upon such a stolid foundation. The relics were
rediscovered little more than a generation ago.
This, however, is, of course, rank heresy. If any had ever doubted the
genuineness of the original relics, their cavilling was speedily
silenced by the direct interposition of Santiago himself. Sword in hand,
upon his white horse, he rallied the Christian host at the crisis of the
battle of Clavijo, mowing down the astonished Moslems ten thousand to a
swathe. That day made his fortune for ever: but it was by no means his
only exploit. Through many generations of warfare there was hardly a
battle contested without his appearance in the ranks.
The warrior Saint, however, was not allowed to score all the tricks in
the rubber; and one fancies that the hated infidel must have fairly
wiped out the adverse balance on the day when Al Manzor, the great
Vizier of Córdova, led his ever-victorious army across the Vierzo
passes, and carried off the very bells from the steeple to adorn the
_Ceca_[12] of Mahound. None had ventured to bar his progress, for the
very name of "The Conqueror" spelt despair to the Christians of that
day. The walls were unguarded, the city deserted,--man, woman, and child
had escaped to the mountains lest they should be consumed. But as the
Vizier spurred his charger through the cathedral portal, behold, before
the tomb of the Apostle there knelt a solitary monk. "What dost thou
here?" the Moor demanded. The monk raised his eyes to the terrible
soldier whose face none else had dared to look upon. "I am praying," he
answered. And for the sake of that one brave simple-minded man, the
conqueror bade spare the shrine. Christian monarchs were not always
equally scrupulous; for Gelmirez himself had to use his cathedral as a
fortress; and Pedro the Cruel murdered Archbishop Suero on the very
steps of the sanctuary--his motive being solely robbery, as usual with
that royal ruffian.
The interior of the cathedral is disappointing. It is a large and
imposing Romanesque building; but the furniture is tawdry and
uninteresting when judged by a Spanish standard; and the colossal image
of Santiago over the High Altar, though genuinely ancient, has rather a
heathenish air.[13] Externally the structure is completely cased in late
Spanish Renaissance or "_Churrigueresque_" work. This is not a beautiful
type,--overloaded, _bizarre_, and extravagant: but everything that
can be said in its favour may be said of the cathedral of Santiago; and
it must be a source of no little surprise to a purist that so poor a
style can produce such a splendid result. The west front is indeed
Churriguera's masterpiece; and a noble conception it is, had it but been
erected elsewhere! But it is almost a blot at Compostela, for it hides
the great Romanesque Portal "_de la Gloria_," which (as Ruskin might
say) is the only really perfect thing of its kind in the world.
[Illustration: SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA
The Cathedral from the North-east.]
The cathedral is most admirably situated, for it forms the central mass
to four great quadrangles which keep a clear space in front of it on
each of the four façades. And colleges, hospitals, and palaces are
grouped around the quadrangles, like a party of lordly vassals assembled
to do honour to a king.
The streets of the city are narrow, paved with great slabs of granite;
and in most cases arcaded, as protection against, not the sun, but the
rain. For Santiago is notoriously the rainiest spot in the Peninsula,
and is heartily bantered in consequence by all who are envious of its
complaint. There is a tale told of a preaching friar who was making a
round of the churches, and whose sermons upon the delights of Heaven
drew large congregations in every country-side. Beneath the _nebulæ
malusque Jupiter_ of Santiago he discoursed upon warmth and sunshine,
and won all the hearts of his hearers by the tale of such fabulous
bliss. But he needed a different bait when he reached the far end of his
circuit. The scene and the season were altered, and the unfortunate
Franciscan, _sub curru nimium propinqui solis_, was sizzling on the
fiery plains of Murcia. Like Horace, he was still faithful to his text,
but his reading of it had altered, and his song was now all of a Heaven
that was deliciously moist and cool! Our much-maligned English climate
has at all events got compensations. Let a man have a surfeit of
sunshine and he learns to think tenderly of the rain.
CHAPTER V
THE CIRCUIT OF GALICIA
LUGO is the hub of Galicia. It lies at the mouth of the Pass of
Piedrafita, on the great main road which enters the province from Leon;
and which at this point trifurcates southward, westward, and northward
to Orense, Santiago, and Coruña. Sir John Moore had reserved his option
to the last, and up to this point his pursuers could not tell for
certain whether he were bound for Coruña or Vigo. Here then he paused to
re-form his straggling regiments, and boldly offered battle upon the
eastern front of the town. But Soult was too cautious to fight till he
had concentrated his whole army; and Moore having gained his two days'
rest, made a last spurt for Coruña after nightfall on the second day. We
shall come across his traces later, as we work our way around the
northern coast; but first we would see something further of Galicia, and
turn to chase the Miño to the sea.
There are many parts of Galicia in which the scenery has an English
flavour, and the Miño valley at Lugo is one of the cases in point. The
fields are green and well-wooded, fenced with rough stone walls or
sometimes with slabs set edgewise. The hilltops, rounded and heathy, are
plentifully studded with Celtic and Roman earthworks; and when we mount
to their summits (an event which happens more frequently than is quite
agreeable to the cyclist) it is only like straying from Dorset to Exmoor
or the Yorkshire fells. The moist climate of Galicia gives the
vegetation a chance that it does not obtain in the interior, and of
which it avails itself enthusiastically. The trees in the village
_alamedas_ are planted so thickly that they would seem doomed to
suffocation. Yet they flourish luxuriantly, plaiting their branches
together till the foliage forms a thick matted blanket over the whole
area; and beneath them is "darkness that may be felt," so dense and
solid that one feels one might dig a way in.
Our first stage from Lugo brought us to Monforte--a real "strong mount,"
not unlike St Michael's, but standing in the centre of a great plain
encircled by a ring of lofty hills. Thence we proceeded up a long,
winding mountain roadway; through the vine-clad villages that covered
the lower slopes, and over the bare wild moorland that rose above them
to the crest of the ridge.
A big Celtic camp was planted commandingly upon the summit, and here we
paused like mariners out of their bearings as we peered over into the
valley which yawned for us on the further side. Surely this could not be
the Miño! We had parted from it yesterday at Lugo--a domesticated and
navigable-looking river, quite different from the uncivilised little
torrent that we now saw far beneath us, tearing along the bottom of this
V-shaped glen. The map was a little ambiguous, but it offered no
plausible alternative; and when, after several very crooked miles, the
road at last succeeded in curling itself down alongside, behold! it was
the Miño, sure enough.
The Miño is undoubtedly the most beautiful of all the great rivers in
Northern Spain, and the variety of its moods is, perhaps, its most
attractive feature. Nothing could be wilder than the glen by which it
forces the mountains, unless it be the sister-glen by which the Sil
comes down to unite with it, brimming with the waters from the Vierzo
springs. Yet from the confluence to Orense it flows through an Eden of
fertility, its hilly banks festooned with vine and olive, and the
meadows beneath them teeming with corn and maize. Then comes a sterner
stretch amid the mountains along the Portuguese frontier--more majestic,
yet scarcely less fertile,--till it emerges at last in the broad, rich
valley of Tuy, and circling under its ramparts glides slowly onward to
the sea.
Orense, the capital of the district, lies a little back from the river
on the crest of a slight eminence, an offshoot of the neighbouring
hills. Its fine old Romanesque cathedral would of itself be enough to
dignify any town; but the great lion of Orense is its magnificent
bridge. This mammoth structure was the work of the mediæval bishops,
whose reverence for the memory of St Christopher did not entirely expend
itself in frescoes on their cathedral walls. It is the greatest of all
the gable bridges, and its main central span, one hundred and fifty feet
from pier to pier, is the widest of any in Spain. Neither Martorell nor
Toledo can quite equal it; but Almaraz is considered superior, and it
has neither the dizzy height nor the stupendous bulk that might rank it
as a rival to Alcántara.
[Illustration: ORENSE
The Bridge over the Miño.]
The bridge of Orense was the pivot of the French operations when Soult
led his power from Coruña to renew the subjugation of Portugal. His
earlier attempts to cross the Miño at Tuy were foiled by the
flooded river, the bad watermanship of his landlubbers, and a little
plucky opposition from the further shore. Orense gave him an opening,
and the country was for a moment at his mercy. But the respite had been
invaluable--he had now but a short time. Within two months his army was
reeling back from Oporto, without hospital, baggage, or artillery, in a
worse plight even than Moore's. He had wrestled his first fall with the
great antagonist who was destined to beat him from the Douro to
Toulouse.
And while he was clutching at Portugal, and Ney at western Asturias,
Galicia had slipped from their fingers and the heather was aflame. The
outlying garrisons were captured, the foragers waylaid and massacred,
even the camps and columns incessantly sniped from the hills. One noted
_guerrillero_ assured Freire that he had personally superintended the
drowning of seven hundred French in the waters of the Miño. Probably it
is permissible to discount his arithmetic; but the ugly boast is a
sufficient indication of the spirit in which the struggle was carried
on.
The invaders were finally drawn away by Wellington's advance up the
Tagus valley; but indeed their whole scheme of occupation had been
foredoomed to failure from the first. "It is impossible for any army to
hold Galicia," wrote Soult to his imperial taskmaster. The mountains and
irreconcilables were too much for any force that could be spared.
The Galician methods of viniculture have at least the merit of elegance,
and the Miño is still undisciplined by the stiff formal terraces of the
Rhine. The vines are trained over light rustic _pergolas_, the
horizontal sticks being fixed at a height of about six feet above the
ground, so that there is just room for a man to walk beneath them. The
whole area of the field is thus covered with a leafy awning, and in most
instances the old stone cottages are half surrounded with verandahs
constructed in similar style. These are certainly the prettiest
vineyards with which we have yet made acquaintance, but they are seldom
seen beyond the limits of Galicia. The vines of the Duero are ground
vines, and the landscape gets very little profit out of them.
The local _vins ordinaires_ of the Northern Provinces are generally
somewhat similar to Burgundy, but their quality varies greatly in the
different districts. Often they are really excellent, but sometimes
exceedingly harsh and rough--attuned to the "hard stomachs of the
reapers," and flavoured with the pitch which is used in dressing the pig
skins in which they are stored. The most famous of all is Sancho's
beloved Valdepeñas from the arid plains of La Mancha; but the Miño wines
also are excellent, and our hostess had good reason for confidence when
she produced "her own wine" so proudly at La Cañiza. Old James Howell
refers very affectionately to the "gentle sort of white wine" which is
grown at Ribadávia; and he might without any injustice have extended his
approval to the red. At all events it was nobly thought of by Don
Francisco de Toledo, commandant of the _Tertia_ of the Miño, who sailed
in the Spanish Armada, for he shipped an ample stock of it on board the
_San Felipe_. Whereby it chanced that three hundred convivial Zeelanders
were carried incontinently to the bottom as they were carousing in the
battered derelict.
The truly accommodative traveller should drink, like the natives, _a
trago_, out of the regulation glass teapot or time-honoured "leather
bottle." These experts hold the vessel well above their heads, and
squirt the thin jet of liquid straight into their open mouths. But the
art needs a long apprenticeship, and is painfully hazardous to a
novice. It should not be essayed before strangers, nor in any elaborate
get-up.
We had hoped that our mountaineering experiences would cease for a while
at Orense--that our road would consent to abide by the Miño, and accept
its guidance to the sea. We had got no further than Ribadávia, however,
before we found ourselves again going up to the heavens, and the little
riverside towns between Ribadávia and Tuy are only to be approached by
branch roads which drop upon them from above. The hillsides are clothed
with pine woods, plentifully sugared with huge boulders as big as
ordinary cottages; and if (as seems probable) these are indeed _blocs
perchés_, the ancient glaciers of Galicia must have been of respectable
size. All over the lower slopes they are scattered in lavish profusion,
and the topmost are gingerly balanced on the very summits of the
_arrêtes_.
[Illustration: TUY AND VALENCIA
The Frontier Towns on the Miño.]
The clouds were massing ominously upon the heights above us as we rose
clear of the pine woods, and our further impressions of the landscape
were merged in the universal deluge that swallowed us when we reached
the top. But the little mountain village of La Cañiza rescued us, and
fed us and dried us, and made itself agreeable to us next morning
ere it set us again on our way. La Cañiza was preparing a _Fiesta_; and
a fact that excited our interest was that fresh figs were selling in the
market at sixteen a penny--or indeed over twenty a penny, with allowance
for the rate of exchange. We hope they were favoured with fine weather,
but the outlook was not altogether assuring; and we were glad when we
found ourselves across the _Puerto_ and dropping once more into the
summer-like climate of the deep rich vale beyond.
Tuy is the frontier town of the Miño, and the Portuguese fortress of
Valencia confronts it across the river like some "deadly opposite" in an
interrupted duel. But its quaint old houses and cathedral do not now
wear a very martial appearance; and as I was allowed to sketch
uninterrupted under the very nose of a sentry, it would seem that the
rival cities have agreed to differ without any unnecessary parade.
Vigo (to our surprise) proved quite unknown to all the inhabitants of
Tuy. "Bigo" they knew; but they rejected any other designation. And that
with a firmness which would be warmly approved at "Balladolid." The
consonants _b_ and _v_ seem everywhere at odds for supremacy; and it
rather adds to the perplexity of the stranger that they often get
written as pronounced. "_Villar_," at the first glance, is not at all
suggestive of "Billiards"; and "_Aqui se bende bino_" would be so much
more comprehensible if it were "spelt with a we." "'_Vivere_' is the
same as '_bibere_' to a Spaniard," laughs Martial; so the provincialism
is at all events of respectable antiquity. Yet it is not countenanced in
the Cloisters of Toledo, where the "Sir Oracle" of classical Castilian
is reputed to hold his court. At the same time we must confess that when
we visited those hallowed precincts we did not hear so much as a
syllable of any language at all.
Vigo lies about twenty miles from Tuy, on the further side of a wall of
pointed hills; and our first intimation of our approach to that famous
seaport was a procession of barelegged fishwives with their big dripping
baskets balanced upon their heads. Untrammelled by their burden, they
came swinging down the road towards us at a good five miles an hour, the
elderly and grizzled among them as upright and elastic as the girls. If
ever the craze for pedestrianism should culminate in an international
team race for ladies, the fishwives of Vigo would be a "very strong
tip." Indeed, if we felt quite sure that they would not get
disqualified for "lifting," we might even venture to pronounce them a
"moral cert."
A Galician woman thinks nothing of a moderate-sized haystack as her
ordinary walking head-dress; and any article she may carry, from an
umbrella to a harmonium, is invariably poised upon her head. No doubt
they considered us extremely foolish not to do the same with our
knapsacks, for the theory of equilibrium comes as natural to them as
their breath. Walking or sitting, standing or stooping, they never so
much as raise a hand to steady their baskets or their pails. And the
lifelong habit has certainly given them a most stately carriage. A
duchess who is ambitious of walking worthy of her vocation could hardly
do better than go into training with them.
The Spanish peasant girls may not be classically beautiful, but they are
well-built, strong and active; a healthy-looking, open-air race. The
chamber-maids of the hotel at Vigo seemed to spend the whole of their
existence carrying buckets of water upstairs on their heads to the
bedrooms. The hotel was five storeys high; and their labour was as the
"Well of Ronda."[14] Yet these cheerful Danaids were quite unconcerned
about their task. Even the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, it may be
remembered (upon identification), proved capable of heaving the crowbar
as well as the lustiest young fellow of the village, and her remarks to
the reapers could be heard at a distance of half a league.
Nature has dowered Vigo with the most magnificent natural harbour in
Europe; but Vigo is only a fishing port, "a place for the spreading of
nets." The economist who chances to wander thither will weep his eyes
out over neglected opportunities; but an artist may use his to better
purpose. Seldom can he feast them upon a more delightful spectacle than
that great landlocked mountain-girt firth, with its deep blue waters
bosomed amid the luxuriant vegetation of the hills. My sketch was taken
looking seaward from the extreme end of the inner harbour; where Admiral
Rooke sank the "Silver Fleet" in 1702, and where many generations of
treasure-seekers have since groped over the muddy bottom in their vain
endeavours to recover the "pieces of eight." Beyond the bottle-necked
entrance lies the outer harbour upon which the town is situated; and
further still, out of sight in the extreme distance, the natural
breakwater of the Islas de Cies repels the ocean from the bay.
[Illustration: VIGO BAY
The Inner Harbour, looking out towards the Sea.]
But in the town itself the most attractive feature is indubitably the
fishing quarter. The throng of picturesque fishing craft elbowing each
other in the crowded basin; the crazy old arcaded houses that ring the
harbour round; the sailors staggering up the inclines with their baskets
full of gleaming silver; the women sitting along the quay and deftly
decapitating sardines with their thumbs. The mess, the noise, the crowd,
the bustle, the glitter, form one of the most brilliant pictures that a
painter could possibly conceive. And as for the smell, we do declare
upon our veracity that it is distinctly perceptible at a distance of
five miles.
There are many such _Rias_ as Vigo along the coast to the northward; and
the road rising sharply over the intervening ridges, finds in each
successive valley a fresh garden of delight. The huge mountain groynes
push themselves far out into the ocean; and their precipitous headlands,
Vilano, Toriñana, and Finistierra, form the mighty spur stones of the
sea-borne traffic to the south. Between them lie the gleaming estuaries,
each a harbour fit for a navy, and the deep verdant valleys well watered
by the streams from the hills. Perhaps there is no plant in the world
which could not be induced to grow here with a little attention; for the
range from palms to heather is a wide one, but they flourish as if to
the country born. "It is the Paradise of Spain," exclaimed an
enthusiastic Astorgan. And one can well imagine how such a picture would
appeal to a native of the arid plateaus of Leon.
Yet Galicia has a plague of its own lest the angels should prefer it to
heaven; for the Lord of that land is Beelzebub, and its children are
fodder for his flies. On the dry, lofty plains of the interior these
pests are less virulent than one might expect in a tropical country; but
in Galicia even the ordinary house-fly thinks nothing of transfixing a
worsted stocking, and our shanks were soon spotted like currant
dumplings with the scars of their innumerable bites. The chief
tormentors, however, are the horse-flies--the "clegs" of the Highlands
of Scotland--a terror even to the thick-skinned mule and pony, and
cordially anathematised by the Galician muleteer. Their only redeeming
quality is a certain bull-dog tenacity, which is all in favour of the
avenger; though death is no adequate penalty for such horribly venomous
bites.
The village granaries in this district are a very insistent feature.
There is one in nearly every cottage garden--a little stone ark raised
on six lofty legs. In Asturias they are much larger, built of wood and
capped with a pyramidical roof. There no one could mistake them for
anything but what they are; but here their shape, and their size, and
the little stone crosses on their gables, are all so irresistibly
suggestive of a sarcophagus, that at first we could not imagine that
they had any other purpose to serve. The average Gallego's fancy seems
to turn on thoughts of funerals. His peculiar local type of bullock-cart
also was manifestly derived from a coffin on wheels.
At El Padron we turned inland past the local shrine of _Nuestra Señora
de la Esclavitud_. (_Penal_ servitude, I regret to say, for it was a
noted sanctuary for criminals.) The west front is a modest imitation of
that of Santiago Cathedral, and the niche under its great stairway
enshrines a beautifully cool fountain, which we could recommend more
confidently if it did not issue from the churchyard. At this point it
was that Borrow left the main track on his weird journey to Corcuvion;
but we pushed straight ahead for Santiago de Compostela; and once more
threaded its arcaded _Ruas_ in search of the Coruña road.
The coach that runs daily from Santiago to Coruña prides itself upon
possessing the most numerous team of any vehicle in Spain. We were
assured that sixteen mules were frequently requisitioned to drag it over
the snowy hills in winter-time; but from our own personal observation
(in August) we cannot vouch for more than ten. The passengers were just
stowing themselves into it as we passed them. They had a ten hours'
journey before them, and it promised to be a roasting day. Yet the
"insides" were packed like sardines in a basket; and some brave spirits
were even occupying the roof among the interstices of the baggage, where
they were all corded down together under a general tarpaulin! We
wondered what they would look like when they emerged from their
travelling oven at the other end!
The road is rather homelike in character, remote alike from coast-line
and mountain: and more than one stage of the journey might have been
borrowed from Hindhead or Rake Hill. Yet we gleaned passing hints of our
latitude from the picturesque figures of the husbandmen, with their mild
little cream-coloured oxen, their mattocks, and their primitive
ploughs.
[Illustration: NUESTRA SEÑORA DE LA ESCLAVITUD.]
These last are of Adamite construction, made entirely of wood and so
light that the long-suffering women can carry them upon their heads.
Such was the pattern known to Hesiod and to Virgil. Such an one was
Wamba using when the lords of the Visigoths came to summon their
Cincinnatus to the throne of Toledo, and the haft blossomed in his hand
in token that their tidings were true.
We have continued gradually rising for the greater part of our journey;
but the ground breaks away suddenly and sharply a few miles short of the
coast. The view from the crest is delightful. A wide expanse of green
undulating woodland maps itself out beneath us at the foot of the deep
descent; and beyond gleam the still blue waters of the ocean, and the
little saucepan-shaped city of Coruña standing out boldly in the centre
of its bay.
What a welcome sight it must have presented to Moore and his soldiers as
they struggled over the Puerto Bello, a few miles along the ridge to the
east! Barefoot, ragged, and hungry, and drenched by the pelting tempest,
like Xenophon's harassed ten thousand, at last they were in sight of
the sea. The long night march from Lugo had been the most trying and
disastrous of any. Yet there was no slackness when they turned to bay;
and near Betánzos even the stragglers proved that they retained
sufficient cohesion to repulse a cavalry charge.
Dropping in long steep sweeps from the heathery heights to the woodland,
the road gradually settles itself down beside the banks of the Mero
river; and just as the streamlet widens into an estuary we dip across
the mouth of a little lateral valley, where the village of Palávia
nestles between two parallel hills. The bones of three thousand men lie
buried along that little valley, and the trim villas and gay gardens of
the Coruña suburbanites cover the ground where French and English fought
out their desperate struggle a hundred years ago. The focus of the
fighting, however, was not at Palávia, but higher up the valley towards
our left, where the ground was more favourable to the assailants, and
where the defenders had no river to protect their flank. Here Soult made
his grand attack under the fire of his great battery; here Moore fell
mortally wounded on the slopes above Elviña at the very moment when he
felt assurance of success.
Moore's grave is in the citadel of Coruña. An unpretentious monument,
but now well kept, and the centre of a charming little walled garden.
Like many another faithful servant of his country, he had been set to do
impossibilities, and was vilified by the impatient stay-at-homes,
because they could not grasp the measure of his success. They had sent
out a gallant army; and it was restored to them hungry and naked, broken
by cruel marches, and reeking from a stricken field. They had never
before realised what war was, and they blamed their general for
revealing it. Indeed, as even Condé admitted, the details are ugly in
Spain.
Moore's famous victory was not the only one achieved by British arms in
this neighbourhood. Over two centuries before, in the year after the
Spanish Armada, Drake and Norreys landed an expeditionary force to
chastise the port from which it had sailed. They captured and plundered
the town, and upon the very margin of Moore's battle-field they stormed
the bridge of El Burgo and defeated the Spanish militia who had
assembled for its relief. Of these they slew "a thousand," while they
lost but three of their own men. From which it may be inferred that
Drake and Norreys had been reading the exploits of Santiago, and
thought that a little local colour in their dispatches would serve as a
guarantee of good faith.
We had intended to make but one stage of it from Coruña, and encompass
the bay to Ferrol. But our plans were all blown to the winds when we
spied the little town of Betánzos clustered together upon its conical
hill in a loop of the Mendo river,--far too attractive a spectacle to be
skipped with a casual call. It won our hearts at first sight, as we
stooped to the vale from the uplands: and our affections were confirmed
the moment we entered the gates. A delightful little township, with none
of its lines parallel and none of its angles right angles; and a whole
population of models grouping themselves in its ramshackle arcades.[15]
[Illustration: BETÁNZOS
A Colonnaded Calle.]
We had been commended to Betánzos by Valentina, the waitress at
Santiago. Betánzos was Valentina's _pueblo_, and "a very gay place" (so
said Valentina). Betánzos played up to its reputation by an improvised
ball in the evening; and few set ballets in a theatre could provide
so pretty a sight. The _Plaza_ is paved with cobbles, which are
disadvantageous for dancing. But the fountain which stands in the centre
acts as hub to a multitude of smooth flagged pathways; and up and down
these, in to the centre and out again, the couples swung unwearyingly in
a great vibrating star. The electric lamps (oh yes! they have electric
lamps in Betánzos) only partially illuminated the area; and the patches
of light and shadow gave an additional variety to the effect.
The Galician peasant woman's costume is one of the prettiest in the
Peninsula. As usual, it is very simple; a skirt and bodice, a kerchief
tied over the head, and another crosswise over the shoulders. But the
charm is in the colouring, and the Galician women wear the brightest of
colours: brave reds and yellows for the kerchiefs, with something rather
quieter for the skirt. They almost all go barefoot; a spendthrift use of
commodities, but doubtless extremely convenient so long as the wear does
not tell. The foot will grow coarsened in time; but the girls have not
any misgivings,--and the beggar maid probably profited when she came
before King Cophetua. It is rather humiliating to compare the
square-toed natural foot with the narrow, artificially pointed article
which has been evolved for us by our boot-makers. Verily we have small
cause to laugh at the fashions of the Chinese!
The men wear loose "white" shirts with dark-coloured breeches and
stockings, and a _cummerbund_ wrapped round the loins. Sometimes there
happens to be a waistcoat, or a cloak slung over the shoulder; and the
costume is usually completed by a battered broad-brimmed hat.
"Capital stuff, this," cried Ferdinand the Catholic, with reference to
the royal jerkin, "it has worn out three pairs of sleeves!" And his
highness's predilection for patching still appeals to the lieges of
to-day. So piously do they practise his precept that it is often
difficult to determine whether any part of their garments was original;
and they all appear (justly enough) to have clung to a working
hypothesis that the matching of colours is hazardous, but there is
always safety in contrast. The picturesqueness of the result, however,
is as obvious as its economy. Perhaps some day an English Ferdinand will
revive the example for us.
[Illustration: THE MASMA VALLEY
Near Mondoñedo.]
The beautiful bay of Coruña lay still within the curve of our advancing
roadway, and every re-entering angle was filled with a gleaming creek.
To our right rose rugged hills, plentifully besprinkled with
farmsteads; and more than one rustic township punctuated the stages of
the way. The last and most important of the inlets was the great
bottle-necked lagoon of Ferrol; and the famous arsenal itself lay half
concealed at the mouth of it, close under the guardian headlands that
form the gateway to the bay.
Ferrol surrendered to Soult without a blow after Coruña, and the
pusillanimity of its governor probably robbed it of a creditable
success. With half the spirit of Gerona or Zaragoza it would have proved
impregnable, in the light of subsequent events. The Galicians were taken
unaware when Moore drew the war into their mountains, and were stunned
before they were aroused. The season, too, was winter, when a
_guerrilla_ was almost impracticable. They showed a better spirit when
their torpor was thawed in the spring.
From Ferrol the road heaved us aloft to the crest of the great moorland
plateau where the Miño hoards its fountains, and from which we looked
out westward and northward over an almost limitless length of
coast-line, with the dark upland ridges running out between the creeks
like the ribs of a fan. How high we had risen we scarcely realised till
we came to descend again, and saw the long, deep, highland glen
dropping visibly before us mile beyond mile. Yet when we reached the
corner, the little cathedral town of Mondoñedo still lay far below us;
for what show as mountains over the Masma valley are really only the
edges of the moor. We eventually came down to the sea at the estuary of
Foz a little before sunset; and just as the dusk was turning to darkness
we ran into the narrow streets of Rivadeo, and the arms of the motherly
old hostesses who rule the "Castilian Hotel."
CHAPTER VI
WESTERN ASTURIAS
A BUXOM old lady who was occupying the shadow of a large umbrella in the
centre of Rivadeo marketp-lace greeted us volubly as we emerged from the
_Fonda_ door. "A good day to your honours! It seems then that they are
upon a journey? Ah! without doubt they are going to Castropol. Yes,
there is a road there, but it is a long way round the _Ria_. They will
save an hour,--two hours,--by taking a boat!" Our honours, indeed, had
already come to the same conclusion; neither were they altogether
surprised when their friend's eloquence culminated in the announcement
that she herself (thank God) was a Castropolitan, and her boat in
waiting at the quay below. A small black-eyed damsel was hastily
installed commandant of the big umbrella, and the old lady sallied forth
to rout out her boatman and steer us down to the shore.
This spirited attempt to corner the entire passenger traffic was hotly
resented by a partner in a rival firm; an unprincipled operator who
endeavoured to gain control of the market by the most shameless
rate-cutting. He would take us across for six _reals_! for five _reals_!
for four!! He followed us down the street, waving his arms and
gesticulating and pitching his voice a tone higher at every bid. But the
old dame resolutely headed off all his attempts to get at her convoy;
silenced his feebler abuse with broadsides of the bitterest sarcasm; and
finally expressed her scorn for competition and equilibrium by a dance
of derision executed upon the poop as the boat shoved off into the bay.
It was truly a lovely morning, and the view was worthy of the sunshine.
Behind were the white walls and shiny slate roofs of Rivadeo scrambling
one above the other up the steeply sloping cliff; before us Castropol
rose from the water's edge in a pyramid of purple shadow,--for the sun
was dead behind it,--and between the two lay the glassy _Ria_, a long
narrow fiord, winding away inland, reach beyond reach, till it lost
itself in the bosom of the hazy hills. Evidently the path before us was
at least cast in pleasant places.
[Illustration: RIVADEO
An Approach to the Harbour.]
We had made bold to confide somewhat in fortune when we embarked on
this stage of our campaign. The map gave no pledge of a road, and the
guide-books were equally uncommitted. Borrow, indeed, had traversed the
province, with his honest guide, Martin of Rivadeo; but Borrow made his
journey on horseback, and his description did not lead one to infer that
there was any opening for wheels. Yet our trust in the chapter of
accidents brought a suitably generous reward.
Take the mountains of the Lake District, and double their height; plant
them under an Italian sky behind a Cornish coast; add plenty of old
broad-eaved, balconied houses, not unlike Swiss chalets, a primitive
picturesque population clad in bright colours, and draught cattle,
ploughs, waggons, pack mules, and other appointments _en suite_. Such a
picture is fairly typical of the scenes that awaited us upon our way.
Here the road dipped to carry us past the end of a rocky inlet, where
the waves were breaking upon the chesil beach some fifty yards away.
Here it rose again to disclose a panorama of sea and mountain, with the
thin blue smoke of the charcoal burners' fires trailing lazily across
the plateau or wreathing itself around the shoulders of the hills. To
Borrow's eyes it had all seemed gloomy and desolate; but he had
traversed it in the mists of a stormy autumn, and beneath the halcyon
skies of summer it is a veritable fairyland.
The _Ria_ at Návia is scarcely worthy of the name, for it is merely the
mouth of a little tidal river, not a harbour for sea-going ships, like
the firth of Rivadeo. Yet it is a beautiful valley, and the
queerly-cropped poplars give a very _bizarre_ effect to the view. A
little further on is a more striking feature. A huge serrated ridge,
known as the Sierra de Rañadoiro, flings itself out at right angles to
the _cordillera_, and stands like a wall across the plateau which
divides the mountains from the sea. Just before it reaches the coast it
branches off into a number of smaller ridges, ravelling out like the
strands of a cable; and the last group in the series are the seven
_Bellotas_, which proved such formidable obstacles to Borrow and his
guide.
There is no chance of "shirking the fences." Each ridge terminates in a
bold and lofty headland, each valley in a rocky creek; and seventy years
ago those deep narrow gorges must have been ugly places enough. But
Borrow's stony bridle-path is now a fine broad roadway, his "miserable
venta" is a comfortable inn; and he certainly would not have
troubled to push on to Muros had he found such good entertainment as did
we.
[Illustration: THE NAVIA VALLEY]
Mine host was a stout and jovial yeoman with a loud voice and a hearty
laugh. He sat very wide at the head of the table, and promised us that
we should have our cutlets raw. "What! Were we not Englishmen? And
should he set cooked meat before Englishmen? No, indeed; that perfectly
comprehended itself. _Spaniards_ ate cooked meat, but _Englishmen_
devoured it raw." Of course (as a special concession) _we_ might have
them cooked--"_á la Española_." But this without prejudice to the
eternal verity that "_á la Inglesa_" was "raw." We struggled in vain to
persuade him that we knew as much about England as he did. An Asturian
dalesman is commonly reputed capable of driving a nail into a wall with
his head. But so long as his principles were not controverted he
certainly was excellent company for his guests. He regaled us with a
capital white wine, "_Vino Castellano_" (I suppose from the Medina del
Campo district, which is the only place where I know of white wine in
Castile); he discoursed to us on the beauties of Právia and the
excellence of Asturian cider; and sped us at parting with the assurance
that there were very few hills on the road. But this last piece of
information (as we subsequently discovered) was to be accepted in a
strictly Asturian sense.
Luarca and Cudillero, the two little coast towns of the district, are
twin brothers in situation, but moving in different sets. Luarca is
aspiring to the dignity of a watering-place:--it must have quite a dozen
visitors in the season even now. Cudillero is a fishing village pure and
simple, and is content to leave vanities alone. Each town lies nestling
in a deep narrow notch of the lofty coast-line, with its quaint shanties
spilling themselves pell-mell down the precipitous escarpments in all
shapes, sizes, and positions, like rubble shot out of a cart. The
brawling waters of a little brook go tumbling down the middle; and the
tiny creek at the bottom is lined with a sturdy array of quays and
breakwaters, where the fishing fleet can shelter itself from the
tempests of the Bay. Perhaps of the two Luarca has the prettier harbour;
but the unabashed raggedness and dilapidation of Cudillero, and the
old-world simplicity of its people, will appeal more strongly to an
artist's eye.
The main road drops in to call at Luarca, but it is quite unaware of the
existence of Cudillero, and but for the directions of an auspicious
waggoner we might have strayed past it altogether. A break-neck descent
of a mile or so eventually brought us on to the roofs of some houses;
and it presently transpired that the town was "underneath." Down we
plunged into it by a ricketty corkscrew street, as steep as that at
Clovelly; ducked under the weather-beaten old church which is plugged
like a bung in the outlet; and eventually emerged at the waterside,
where the fishwives were sitting in a long parti-coloured fringe along
the edge of the quay, armed with their large flat baskets, and awaiting
the return of the boats.
The _Fonda del Comércio_ was a poky and primitive little hostelry, but
they had plenty of fresh sardines; and his lot is not entirely pitiable
who sups upon fresh sardines. We slept in tiny alcoves curtained off
from our dining-room; and our last recollections were connected with
parties of happy fishermen in the street without, singing rollicking
ditties in honour of "_amor_."
I was down in the harbour early in the morning for the purpose of
sketching, and so also were a goodly contingent of the townsfolk, intent
on their morning dip. It is a libel on the Spanish nation to imagine
that they do not wash. Perhaps it is true of the central plains,--poor
people, they lack the water, but all along the coast they are much
given to bathing. The women stroll unconcernedly down to the beach,
armed with a huge towel and a sort of glorified sack which serves as a
bathing costume. The huge towel, spread over their heads, envelopes them
completely, and under cover of it they make their toilet. At Cudillero
the beach where the boats were drawn up was reserved for the women, and
the men bathed off the rocks a little distance away. But neither party
made any pretence of privacy; and there is an air of primitive innocency
about the whole proceeding which forbids all notion of offence.
Another primitive sight, though of a different character, was awaiting
me as I re-entered the town. It was Sunday morning, and the early Mass
was being celebrated in the church at the stairfoot of the roadway. The
building was crowded even beyond its utmost capacity, for a long _queue_
of kneeling worshippers had thrust itself out from the open door, like
bees hanging from a hive when they are about to swarm. Whatever may be
the case in the cities, it is certain that the peasantry are as devout
as ever in their religious observances; and once or twice upon holy
days we have found the highway itself absolutely blocked with a crowd of
worshippers intent on their orisons before some wayside shrine.
[Illustration: CUDILLERO
The Harbour.]
We regained the high road above Cudillero by a long winding ascent; and
leaving far below us on our left the beautiful estuary of Muros, bore up
into the mountains for the secluded vale of Právia at the confluence of
the Narcea and the Nalon. "Právia is better than Switzerland," our host
at Bellotas had informed us, and we do not wish to deny it. But the
comparison could only be made by one who had never seen Switzerland, for
there is nothing in common between the two. Our own Lake District would
supply a nearer parallel; but I know nothing quite like Právia except
Právia itself; a meeting-place of many valleys with vistas of mountain
scenery opening out on every side. Yet the heart of the range still
holds remote and invisible. It is not till we have progressed some
distance up the Nalon valley, and are drawing near to Oviedo, that we
get acquainted with the higher peaks. Then, indeed, the scale becomes
truly Alpine, and the valleys which lie across our path would not
discredit Piedmont or Savoy.
Oviedo is not a town for which I have ever been able to acquire much
enthusiasm. A traveller newly landed from France might find it
delightfully Spanish, but to one who is fresh from the interior it has a
flavour of underdone French. It lies amid beautiful scenery, but just
out of sight of the best of it; and perhaps, as it is bent upon a career
of commercial enterprise, this retirement is creditable to its taste.
Yet its situation is by no means commonplace, its atmosphere not
generally smoky, and its fine old palaces and narrow cobbled _calles_
must be allowed to weigh something in the balance against its boulevards
and tram-lines and plate-glass.
The cathedral is a fine building, though it hardly can rank with the
finest; and it seems to be somewhat infected by the prevailing
Frenchified air. Yet in sanctity it is pre-eminent; for it boasts the
holiest relics in the Peninsula--all the miracle-working treasures which
the kings of the Visigoths had hoarded in their temple at Toledo, and
which the faithful bore away with them into the mountains when they fled
from the invading Moors. Some splendid specimens of early jewellery may
be seen among the caskets and monstrances; and the reredos behind the
High Altar is quite in the best Spanish style.
The children seem afflicted with an uncontrollable mania for getting
their pictures taken. Perhaps there is thought to be luck in it, for
even their elders are not entirely exempt. This fact accounts for the
presence of the venerable _Sereno_ in the foreground of my drawing of
the cathedral. He insisted on shaking hands with me for my kindness in
putting him there, although I had conceived the obligation to be all on
my side.
These quaint old watchmen are a sort of hall-mark of municipal
respectability. No Spanish city "of any degree of _ton_" would think of
dispensing with its _Serenos_. Indeed, in some instances the _Sereno_
has survived where the city is now little more than a name. Fine
picturesque old figures clad in cloaks and slouch hats, and armed with
javelins and lanterns,--(the towns are all lighted by electricity, but
that is a detail),--they give a deliciously old-world flavour to the
deserted streets at night. It is questionable whether they would be much
use in a row; for like our own late lamented "Charlies," they are often
aged and infirm. But their pictorial effect is incomparable: and they
are real good Samaritans to the belated reveller, for they carry the
keys of all the street doors on their beat, so that the errant
householder can always steal quietly to cover, after he has awakened
half the parish in summoning "_Ser-êno-o!_"
Light sleepers abominate the whole tribe; for they have powerful voices,
and their melodious bellow, "Twelve o'clock, and all serene!"--(the
refrain to which they owe their title)--is sure to arouse all the dogs
that happen to have stopped barking since eleven. It sounds such
gratuitous worry to make night hideous because the weather is fine.
But it seems quite a passion with Spaniards to know how the time is
progressing--not from any regard of its monetary value, but merely from
an altruistic and dilettante point of view. They adopt at least three
bases of reckoning--the local time, the Madrid time, and the Western
European (by which the trains do _not_ start). All the clocks are at
variance with all of them: and the whole system seems solely contrived
for the bewilderment of the foreigner, for the _habitué_ impartially
ignores the lot.
The people of Oviedo,--and, indeed, all Asturians and Gallegans,--are
esteemed an inferior race by your true Castilian. The prejudice is
rather puzzling: for "the mountains" are the cradle of the oldest and
bluest blood in Spain. But it is of very old standing; for even the Cid
Campeador, when administering the oath to Alfonso VI. (who was suspected
of complicity in King Sancho's murder[16]), could devise no more
humiliating adjuration than "If you swear falsely, may you be slain by
an Oviedan!"
[Illustration: OVIEDO
A Street near the Cathedral.]
Perhaps the early warriors who sallied forth to achieve the reconquest
despised those who remained quietly behind in the mountains. And when in
later days royalty and chivalry made their home in the south, the
simpler northerners would come to be regarded as boors. Even to this day
the Asturian peasant seems to lack something of the formality of the
Castilian. He is less punctilious in enquiring "how you have passed the
night" of a morning; less prompt with the regular roadside greeting,
"May your honour go with God!" The slurring of these little niceties may
possibly be sufficient to brand him as a "bounder"; and there is no
stigma more hard to obliterate than this.
For all these courteous trifles are the _shibboleth_ of high breeding to
a Spaniard, and a terrible stumbling-block to the blunt-spoken
Englishman,--so apt to give unwitting offence. The Spanish generals
always waited on Wellington to ask how he had slept, even when they knew
that he had watched all night in the trenches. If they omitted the
ceremony they feared he would deem himself slighted. "On the contrary,"
quoth Alava drily, "he will be very much obliged."
The Asturian monarchs had good reason for fixing their capital at
Oviedo; for it guards the main gateway of their kingdom, the chief of
the passes to the south. It lies not indeed at the actual mouth of the
valley, but a little on one side of it. Our road has to struggle over a
couple of thousand-foot ridges ere it can lay its course straight for
its goal. These two preliminary mountains we resolved to put behind us
in the evening, and keep a clear day for the Pass of Pajares itself.
Our overture was by no means a trifle. It was dark when we began the
second descent, and the iron furnaces of Miéres glowed up out of the
black profundity beneath us like little volcano craters anxious to win
themselves fame. Miéres is a village of ironworkers, and rather shabby
and grimy in consequence: yet we were glad to gain its shelter, for the
sky had long been threatening, and the storm broke soon after our
arrival--a true mountain tempest, with the rain roaring on the roof like
a cataract, and incessant flashes of lightning illuminating the valley
with the brightness of day.
Storm succeeded storm throughout the night, and the outlook next
morning was far from promising. But we took our courage in both hands
and started at the first break in the downpour. The valley was choked
with mist, and the road in a state of unutterable slabbiness: yet our
enterprise was soon rewarded, for the weather had done its worst in the
darkness, and the sunshine brought the vapours steaming up out of the
meadows and banished them with the clouds across the summits of the
hills.
The symptoms of industrial activity do not extend far above Miéres, and
Lena is but the quiet head village of a peaceful mountain glen. Lena is
famous for the possession of the precious little eighth-century church
of Sta Cristina, perhaps the most notable of the group for which the
Oviedo district is renowned; and the scenery amid which it is situated
is very similar to that of our own Welsh or Cumberland Highlands, though
planned on a larger scale.
Hitherto the ascent has been gradual; but now the road takes to the side
of the mountain, and heaves itself up from shoulder to shoulder in a
vast skein of steadily rising zigzags; while the railway which has so
far accompanied it wanders off by itself into remote lateral valleys,
groping for an easy gradient to help it up its four-thousand-foot
climb. Twenty miles by road from Lena, and over thirty by rail, the
approach to the summit is long and arduous, though redeemed by most
lovely views. We have a vivid recollection of the glass of water which
was bestowed upon us by the woman in charge of the level crossing at the
foot of the final ascent. She was a Navarrese woman, and the water was
the most delicious in the world!
At the final pitch the railway takes to a tunnel; and the road scrambles
alone to the saddle, rewarding its clients with the most magnificent
panorama,--looking out over the abysmal valley to the wilderness of pike
and fell on the westward, where the rigid outlines of the Peña Ubiña are
seldom destitute of snow. A rock-climber might break his neck very
satisfactorily among these savage crags. One great _aiguille_ in
particular seems to challenge him by its sheer inaccessibility--a rocky
splinter torn apart from its parent precipice, like another Napes
Needle, but probably a thousand feet high. When the Alps have become
unbearably Roshervilled, perhaps these untrodden fastnesses may solace
the _blasé_ mountaineer.
The step which carries us across the Pass of Pajares is one of the most
decisive of any we have yet taken. It spans the frontier of Leon and
Asturias, the boundary of the realms of cloud and sun. The ridge parts
not merely two provinces but two climates, and we seem to enter the
tropics at a stride. Behind lies the green and flowery valley, and the
heathery slopes half veiled in tender haze; before are the hot bare
rocks, and the parched grass toasting itself under the stare of the
sunshine; and though the Atlantic clouds bank thick upon the northward,
it is only an occasional straggler who ventures across to the south.
The scenery is perhaps less attractive, but on the whole even more
striking; for the rocks, as in all Spanish landscapes, take most daring
and original forms. The most remarkable example is near the foot of the
descent, just before arriving at the village of Pola de Gordon. Here the
limestone strata have been tilted up absolutely vertical, hard layers
alternating with soft, like the fat and lean in a piece of streaky
bacon. The principal hard layer forms the precipitous face of a
mountain, and stretches for a mile or more along the river, like a huge
surcharged retaining wall. The complementary layers are at first buried
in the mass behind; but presently the ridge dips to give passage to the
river, and rises again beyond in a bold conical hill, so that all the
layers become at once exposed. The soft strata at this point are
entirely weathered away, and the hard remain, like huge parallel
cock's-combs, rising as straight and steep as the parapets of a gigantic
stairway. These razor-back limestone ridges are a very characteristic
feature of Spanish mountain scenery; but nowhere else have I seen them
quite so strongly marked as here.
We were not to escape from the Pass without one final downpour, but
luckily it caught us within reach of shelter at Pola de Gordon. A black,
oily cloud glued itself onto the mountain above the village, the windows
of Heaven were opened, and the deluge fell. It only lasted some thirty
minutes; but by that time the village was paddling, and all the
bye-lanes had converted themselves into foaming torrents which had piled
great dykes of shingle at intervals across the street. Yet all the while
we had been able to see the sky clear and brilliant under the fringe of
the storm-rack towards the southward; and three miles away, the road was
dry and dusty, and even the river that ran beside it was unconscious of
the coming flood.
[Illustration: IN THE PASS OF PAJÁRES
Near Pola de Gordon.]
We finally slipped from the valley at the village of La Robla, and
mounted onto the bare, brown moorlands that slope towards the city of
Leon. The mountains come to a halt behind us as abruptly as if they were
toeing a line; and the vast level sweeping away from their feet to the
southward is broken only by the deeply grooved valleys of the Esla's
tributary streams. The effect is somewhat similar to the line of the
Merionethshire mountains breaking down into the Morfa. But this
remarkable emphasising of primary physical features is specially
characteristic of the geology of Spain. Leon itself lies low beside the
river, and only comes into view when we are close upon it; but the
cathedral spires are just high enough to overtop the upland, and form a
solitary landmark for several miles around.
CHAPTER VII
BENAVENTE, ZAMORA, AND TORO
The Esla valley runs down broad and level from Leon towards the south; a
monotonous umber-coloured valley, very different from the wild glens
whence its waters are derived. The road is straight and featureless,
though its newly-planted acacia avenues give some promise of ultimate
redemption; and the mud-built wayside villages have a forlorn and
collapsible air.
Occasionally one lights upon a regular troglodyte settlement, a group of
bee-hive cellars excavated in the hillside, with the chimneys struggling
out among the sparse herbage which covers them. These caves have no
windows, and are lit only through the open doors, yet they continued to
be the homes of the peasantry till within comparatively recent days.
Indeed, in some few instances they are still inhabited; but generally
they are utilised only as storehouses and stables, while the population
has migrated bodily into the more modern cottages which have sprung up
to form the village at their side.
The Esla itself is the most interesting item in the scenery. It flows
parallel with the road some two or three miles to the left, close under
the crumbling yellow cliffs which overlook the vale. Its course is
marked by trees and greenery, chiefly the inevitable poplar; and its
thin line of verdure, shot with flashes of sparkling water, is a welcome
relief to the dun and dusty plain. The riverside hamlets plastered upon
the face of the cliffs are so weather-nibbled and irregular, and so
exactly the colour of the grounding, that they might be taken for some
weird growth of parasitic fungus; and the whole scene has a most
convincingly Nilotic air.
A short distance from Benavente occurred one of the few mishaps which it
was our lot to occasion. An old countryman was jogging sleepily along
the road before us with a mule and a donkey, when the animals suddenly
took fright at our approach. A Spaniard is commonly a good
horseman--when he is riding a horse. But he does not think it worth
while to ride a donkey, so he merely sits on it,--sans reins, sans
stirrups, with both his legs on one side, and no more control over his
mount than a sack of turnips. For a few strides our victim bounded
wildly between his panniers like an animated shuttlecock; and then
toppled over in ruin, while his beasts stampeded across the fields. We
recaptured his fugitives for him, and purchased his broken eggs; but I
fear that it somewhat soured our sympathy when we found him doing
nothing but wring his hands and bewail his losses meanwhile. We could
not help feeling that the "language" of an English teamster would have
furnished a much more satisfactory solution of his woes.
Benavente stands upon a tongue of high ground between the Esla and
Orbigo valleys. The extreme tip is occupied by the old castle of the
Counts of Benavente, one of whom is immortalized by Velasquez in the
Prado gallery, clad in suit of armour which seems capable of reflecting
your face. But his once splendid palace is now a ruin,--plundered and
burnt by the stragglers of Sir John Moore's army; and the poor old town
itself, though it contains some interesting churches, has grown wofully
battered and threadbare since its _seigneurs_ were driven from their
home.
[Illustration: BENAVENTE
From above the Bridge of Castro Gonzalo.]
Yet Benavente is not without honour among us Englishmen. Its name
figures upon a clasp of the Peninsular medal, and upon the colours of
the 10th Hussars. Here the leading squadrons of Napoleon just got
into touch with the rearguard of the retreating Moore;--and received a
smart buffet for their forwardness, which was not at all to the
Emperor's taste. The cavalry of the Imperial Guard had unexpectedly
forded the river; and were wellnigh overwhelming the pickets, when Paget
and his horsemen swooped upon them from behind the houses, rolled them
up with the loss of half their number, and captured their general,
Lefebre Desnouettes. Had Napoleon been an hour or two earlier he might
himself have been an eye-witness of their discomfiture from the high
ground above the Esla, the point from which my sketch was made. And it
is a pity he missed the opportunity; for it was not till Waterloo that
he would again see British cavalry in action, and it was the same Paget
who was to lead them on that momentous day.
The _mêlée_ took place on the broad poplared plain which lies between
the town and the river, and the old bridge of Castro Gonzalo spans the
torrent a little below the Frenchmen's ford. It is a long, uneven stone
structure, with three timbered spans to remind us of the work of Moore's
sappers; and the steep bank which rises above it is famed for a humbler
scuffle, but one which was no less creditable to the parties chiefly
concerned. Three days before the cavalry skirmish, when the French were
known to be approaching, Privates Walton and Jackson of the 43rd were
posted here at nightfall with orders that, if attacked, one should hold
his ground and the other run back to call the picket. The night was dark
and squally, and the flood of foemen poured over them before they were
aware. Jackson ran back: but the horsemen were close behind him, and he
was cut down even as he gave the alarm. But when the picket stormed up
and the assailants were swept back into the darkness, they had not yet
finished with Walton,--that sentry was still at his post. His uniform
was pierced in twenty places and his bayonet was twisted like a
corkscrew; but like the "brave Lord Willoughby"[17] he was scrupulously
holding his ground!
A finger-post and a kilometre stone stood side by side on the branch
road at the summit. The former said "To Zamora," and the latter "38
kilos"; whereat we rejoiced and set our pace more leisurely, for the
daylight would last us for nearly another three hours. Yet presently as
the tale of _kilos_ petered out we began to experience misgivings. The
bare wide plateau of the _Tierra de Campos_ still rolled away before us
fold beyond fold; the sun was already close upon the horizon; and where
was the Duero valley wherein Zamora lies?
Three _kilos_ more,--and still no sign of our haven.--Two
_kilos_,--one,--and our hopes were dashed to the ground. Our road shot
us out into one of the most desolate stretches of the great highway from
Madrid to Vigo; and a venerable shepherd who suddenly materialised out
of the empty landscape blandly informed us that Zamora was just "four
leagues." Our mistake was obvious enough. The 38 _kilos_, had of course
been reckoned from the junction with the highway. But a couple of wary
continental travellers should have been on their guard against so stale
a trap.
At the first blush it seemed as though we were destined to fare every
bit as badly as we merited. The last glow was dying out of the sky
behind us, and a grumbling thunderstorm was nursing its wrath for us
ahead. But our good luck came to our rescue, and found us a city of
refuge:--the little hamlet of Montamarta, which was ambushed in a dip of
the road.
By this time we had learned not to be too dainty about our quarters; yet
the _Parador_ at Montamarta was so very unassuming that at first we gave
it the go-by; and the landlord was an unshaven ruffian who seemed fully
capable of the blackest crimes. But the dingy little den to which he
ushered us was full of familiar faces:--Velasquez' jolly "Topers"
beaming over their wine-cups, the matchless "Booby of Cória," and wild
ragged goatherds and vine dressers, with whom Salvator Rosa might have
joined in "painting _jabeques_."[18] Rough as they looked, they were all
in the mildest of humours. It was a sight to see our murderous-looking
landlord truculently dandling his infant; while the mother crouched upon
the great hearth in the centre, supervising a multitude of pipkins which
were simmering in the glowing embers of the fire. "It is good, isn't
it?" she asked eagerly, as we essayed her stew: and she watched every
mouthful down our throats with affectionate solicitude to be sure that
we did justice to our meal. The kitchen was both dining and
sitting-room, and our garret was shared with the children, but our hosts
were determined to make us comfortable, and we forgot their
deficiencies in their zeal. There is no gilded luxury in a _Parador_,
but at least we felt sure we were welcome. One barely obtains toleration
in a _Metropole_ or a _Grand_.
With dawn we were again on our journey, dodging our way past the
cavalcade of country-folk who were pouring along to market from the
various villages around. It was an easy stage. We had nearly made port
yester even. Within a few miles we were at Zamora gates.
In our Protestant ignorance of times and seasons we were unaware that
the day was the festival of Corpus Christi; consequently the apparition
of a fifteen-foot pasteboard giant lurching deviously down the main
thoroughfare occasioned us a little mild bewilderment. This wandering
ogre, however, was fully entitled to liberty. All respectable Spanish
cities retain a team of giants as part of their ordinary municipal
outfit, and Corpus Christi day is the great occasion for parading them.
The tourist should always arrange to spend that festival in some good
old-established city where the choicest breeds are preserved.
Zamora itself is quite old enough for the purpose. Its fine old
Romanesque cathedral was built by no less a person than the Bishop Don
Hieronymo, "that good one with the shaven crown," who so ably
represented the Church militant among the companions of the Cid. But
long before his day the old frontier fortress had made itself a name by
many a desperate resistance to the Moor, and the boast that "Zamora was
not won in an hour," still clings to the old dismantled ramparts which
were once its justification.[19]
Moreover, the story of the greatest leaguer of all, is it not written in
the book of the Chronicle of the Cid, and as famous in Spanish annals as
the siege of Troy? For it came to pass that in the eleventh century King
Fernando the Great,[20] on his deathbed, divided his kingdoms among his
children; and the immediate and obvious consequence was a five-cornered
family duel which set all the said kingdoms by the ears. Sancho of
Castile had quickly dispossessed his brothers Garcia and Alfonso of
Galicia and Leon; and his sister Elvira had yielded to him her town of
Toro. Only Urraca his elder sister still held her patrimony; and
Zamora was too important a pledge to be left in any hands but his own.
[Illustration: ZAMORA
From the banks of the Duero.]
"So King Sancho drew near and beheld Zamora how strongly it was built,
upon a cliff, with many massy towers and the river Duero running at the
foot thereof." It was no light task to reduce it, and he proffered
Valladolid in exchange. But my lady was in no mood to barter her
beautiful stronghold for commonplace Valladolid, and doubtless regarded
the offer from the same standpoint as her practical councillors,--"He
who assails you on the rock would soon drive you from the plain."
The Castilian army lacked the aid of its champion: for Ruy Diaz had been
bred up with the princess at Zamora in Don Arias Gonzalo's household,
and would not fight against her in person "for the sake of old times."
Yet King Sancho was very competent to manage his own battles; and though
his assaults were abortive, he soon began to feel more sanguine of
blockade. Zamora was reduced to the last extremity when Vellido Dolphos,
a knight of the princess's, put into practice against King Sancho the
old ruse of Gobryas and Sextus Tarquinius. He feigned desertion, won the
confidence of the king, and assassinated him under the walls in the
course of a pretended reconnaissance, escaping again to the city when
the deed was done. Less fortunate than his prototypes who gained credit
for their services, Vellido Dolphos has ever since been held up to
execration as the very type and pattern of a traitor; and Don Diego
Ordoñez gave voice to the wrath of the Castilians by issuing a formal
challenge to the whole city of Zamora,--man, woman, and child, the babe
unborn, and the fishes in the river:--which even Don Quixote considered
was going a trifle too far. Yet the city was saved; for the heir to the
throne was Alfonso, and his return from exile put an end to the civil
war.
It is a shame to tell the story in prose. Yet we cannot refrain from
recalling how Don Arias Gonzalo, the princess' foster-father, pointed
out to Don Diego Ordoñez what a very serious thing he had done in
challenging a whole cathedral city. How (no doubt with a grim chuckle)
he produced the Rules for such case made and provided, whereby it
appeared that the challenger must meet five champions in succession, and
be declared disgraced if he failed against any one;--which was
considerably more than Don Diego had bargained for! Nevertheless he put
a bold face on the matter and gallantly met and slew his two first
antagonists. But the third contest was indecisive; so honour was
declared satisfied, and all imputations withdrawn. The old chivalrous
legend makes a capital sauce for our musings as we pace the still
formidable ramparts from which Doña Urraca once looked down upon her
foes; or gaze up from the fortified bridge at the rock-built city above
us, towering over the waters of the Duero like the very embodiment of
romance.
But meanwhile it is still Corpus Christi day; and the giants are
becoming impatient. We found them all four at the bridge-head, attended
by a large retinue of loiterers, and waiting outside a church door, like
camels at the eye of a needle. The show had not really begun. But as we
approached to investigate, there suddenly gushed upon us out of the
church itself as strange a medley as that which encountered Don Quixote
on a similar anniversary in the chariot of the Cortes of Death. First,
four minor giants--great goggling pumpkin-headed Prince Bulbos--and the
drum and fife band of Falstaff's ragged regiment. Then the processional
cross and candlesticks, and Our Lady gorgeous in a white silk frock,
borne shoulder-high on a litter, with her canopy bucketting along behind
her about half a length to the bad. More saints, also on litters--the
boys struggling and fighting for the honour of acting as bearers, and
getting cuffed into a shortlived sobriety by their indignant elders. And
finally the Host itself in its silver ark surrounded by chanting priests
with banners and tapers. The giants closed in behind it as it issued
from the door and beamed serenely down the long procession from their
commanding elevation in the rear.
Whether the spectacle were a sacrament or a circus, seemed at first an
open question; but it was soon resolved. At once every head was
uncovered and every knee was bowed, and "_His Majesty's_"[21] progress
through the kneeling throng seemed all the more impressive for its
incongruous trappings.
Beyond the bridge the procession received its final embellishment in the
accession of a mounted guard of honour; and throughout the rest of the
day it continued to parade the streets and call at the various churches,
while the populace thronged the balconies, crossing themselves, and
cheering, and showering their paper flowers impartially upon saints and
giants and the bald heads of the accompanying priests--an attention
which did not appear at all gratifying to the cavalry horses of the
escort.
[Illustration: ZAMORA
Church of Sta. Maria de la Horta.]
The last we saw of them was in the market square at evening. The giants
were standing at the corners; and in the centre sat Margaret of Antioch,
Virgin and Martyr, on a grand practicable dragon which could wag its own
head and tail. She was understood to be an "Extra," the exclusive
property of Zamora, and not to be met with in less favoured localities.
But precisely what she was doing in this galley we could not ascertain.
As for the giants, they are allegorical, and typify the four quarters of
the globe;--concerning which explanation one can only say that it is
little better than none.
The very Highest of High Masses was celebrated in the cathedral in
honour of the occasion. The priests were in their most gorgeous
vestments; the altar almost buried under a pyramid of silver plate; and
the walls of the cloisters draped with magnificent pieces of old Spanish
tapestry--Corah, Dathan and Abiram going down into the pit on horseback
like true _caballeros_, and Pharaoh pursuing the Israelites in a coach
and four. The service as usual was rather of a go-as-you-please
character; for the _Coro_ and _Capilla Mayor_[22] being completely
enclosed, it is only possible to watch the proceedings from the
transepts at the intersection. The congregation generally seem to treat
the affair like a "Caucus Race." They look on when they like, and leave
off when they like, and spend the intervals strolling round the aisles.
You are of course requested not to spit, or wear wooden shoes (which
seem equally obnoxious to Roman Catholics and Orangemen[23]). But
otherwise there are no restrictions: and there are certainly great
attractions in the side shows; for the chapels are a museum of medieval
art.
The silver ark in which the Host made its progress was on show in one of
the aisles. All Spanish cathedral bodies are inordinately proud of this
piece of furniture (which is generally modern and tawdry); and there is
no nearer way to the sacristan's heart than to tell him that his
specimen is a finer one than that which you saw last at some rival
town--Salamanca, for instance. There is a warm neighbourly hatred
between Zamora and Salamanca; and once when I incautiously admitted
that the Salamanca people had told me there was nothing to see here, I
thought I should have produced an _émeute_.
Wherefore I would exhort future travellers not to be misled by those
Salamanca people. For Zamora is not merely ancient; it is even (in some
ways) up to date. It is somewhat of a shock to an antiquarian to
discover that the town is fully equipped with electric light; still more
so to realise that the power station is established in the old church of
Sta Maria de la Horta, with the dynamos purring among the arcades, and
the chimney tucked in behind the tower. But one soon gets reconciled to
these little incongruities. In Spain they are really so common that one
learns to expect them from the first.
The town of Toro stands some twenty miles further up the river than
Zamora, and makes a capital partner for its neighbour. Indeed, at first
sight it seems even more imposingly situated, for it rises on a much
loftier hill. But its cliffs are only of soft alluvial deposit instead
of solid rock; and its walls built only of mud, which has now nearly
crumbled away. In other respects they are not ill-matched, for the
streets of Toro are fully as picturesque as those of Zamora, and its
great collegiate church not unworthy of comparison with the cathedral.
The streets, as in most Spanish towns, are empty and deserted during the
heat of the afternoon; the houses closely shuttered, and the people
within doors. But as soon as the shadows have lengthened across the
roadway, they turn out unanimously on to the pavement, where they sit
spinning, sewing, and gossiping, in a sort of semi-publicity. In
unsophisticated districts the women (like mermaids) are much addicted to
combing each other's hair. The operator sits on a low chair or doorstep,
while her subject settles herself upon the ground at her feet, with her
head thrown back upon the other's lap, and her thick black mane flooding
out over her knees. A very pretty and poetical little group they
make--_if you do not pry too curiously into the details_. The younger
women have frequently magnificent hair; for they are quite innocent of
"transformations," yet their brows are most copiously crowned. One girl
at Salamanca wore a thick black pigtail that was positively tapping her
heels; and the beauty of Astorga (who was also of pigtail age) was not
many inches inferior.
[Illustration: A SPANISH PATIO]
The majority of the houses in the town are probably not more than a
couple of centuries old; but amongst them are a few genuine _Solares_,
once the homes of _hidalgos_ and grandees. It was to one of these that
the "_Conde Duque_" of Olivares, the celebrated minister of Philip IV.,
retired upon his disgrace and banishment from court; philosophically
busying himself with the cultivation of cabbages,--those gawky
long-stalked abortions, uncannily suggestive of Encrinites, which still
fill all the gardens round the town. Here he was visited by Gil Blas,
his quondam secretary, who flattered him with smug allusions to
Diocletian. Here also he used occasionally to entertain a more worthy
guest,--the painter Velasquez, who was too high-minded to desert his old
patron merely because he was under the displeasure of the king.
Politically Olivares was as worthless and corrupt as any of his rivals,
yet he evidently had an attractive personality. Quevedo, imprisoned four
years in the Leonese dungeon for lampooning him, would probably remember
him in a less amiable light!
The lofty situation of the city gives it an immensely extensive outlook;
for the left bank of the Duero is flat and low-lying, and but for the
interposition of the high heathy ground about Fuentesauco, one would
almost certainly be able to descry the spires of Salamanca itself.
Doubtless Marshal Marmont used frequently to pace the terrace of the
collegiate church when his headquarters were established here in the
summer of 1812; gazing out over his future battleground and planning
those intricate manoeuvres which were to close in disaster and
disgrace.
The scene of that final catastrophe is too far distant to be visible.
But a scarcely less notable conflict actually takes its name from the
town. This was the famous battle of Toro, which put an end to the civil
war at the opening of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and seated
the Catholic kings firmly upon their throne. The rebellious nobles had
fortified themselves by an alliance with Alfonso of Portugal, and both
Toro and Zamora were in their hands. Alfonso's headquarters were at
Toro, but Zamora was besieged by Ferdinand, and Alfonso marched to its
relief. Seeing that both towns stand on the northern bank of the river,
it is difficult to understand what the Portuguese king could hope to
effect by advancing on the south. Perhaps he fancied that Zamora still
commanded the bridge and that he would thus be able to enter
unopposed. But Ferdinand's grip was too close; the bridge was in his
hands, and Alfonso had no choice but to return.
[Illustration: TORO
From the banks of the Duero.]
Ferdinand hurried his forces across the river in pursuit. His own army,
as usual in medieval days, could not be maintained at fighting strength
for many weeks together, and he was now nowise loth "to put it to the
touch to gain or lose it all." He came up with his foe a little distance
short of Toro. Mendoza was leading; and headed the charge against the
troops of his brother prelate the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, with a
breezy vehemence worthy of old Picton at Vitória, "Come on, you
villains! I'm as good a Cardinal as he!" The weary, overmarched
Portuguese were unable to sustain the onset; and their only retreat to
Toro lay over the narrow patchwork bridge. Alfonso himself escaped, but
there was no further fighting. The Catholic kings commemorated their
victory by the erection of the great church of San Juan de los Reyes at
Toledo, and the revolted nobles hastened to "come in" upon the best
available terms.
CHAPTER VIII
SALAMANCA
Spain is far poorer in lakes than in mountains: and the deficiency has
compensations, as it discourages the breeding of flies. But it offers a
rare opportunity for the disquisitions of a militant geologist, for the
lakes must have swamped all other physical features in the days when the
hills were young. Liebana and the Vierzo have been already conceded, but
he regards these as drops in the ocean. Now he claims the whole basin of
the Duero from the Cordillera of Cantabria to the Sierras of Grédos and
Guadarrama, from the highlands of la Demanda and Moncayo to the rocky
barrier on the frontiers of Portugal, through which the pent-up waters
at length cleft their passage to the sea.
Now the dry bed of an ancient lake is not in itself an ideal foundation
for a landscape; particularly when its original conformation is
remorselessly emphasised by the entire omission of fences and of trees.
The mud which formed the bottom has settled unevenly; and the rivers
have eroded it into yawning channels, whose steep sides (so prominent at
Toro) are scarped and furrowed into myriads of wrinkles by the scouring
of the winter rains. The district is not unfertile, for it is a land of
corn and wine and oil-olive, and water may be found at no great depth;
yet the surface soil is parched and dusty, the villages few and far
between, and great tracts of the higher ground consist of untilled
heaths where the ilex and cistus make their profit out of the heritage
unclaimed by man.
It scarcely seems an interesting district for a walking tour, yet we
were barely started before we fell in with one who thought otherwise. He
was English, of course:--mad as usual, despite his Spanish domicile; and
we fraternised with him at a wayside fountain where he recognised us as
compatriots (by our Spanish) directly we saluted him. Our programmes had
something in common, but his was by far the more onerous, and none but
the veriest devotee of the _Wanderlust_ could have ventured to undertake
it without some inward qualms. A long solitary tramp, and mostly
through desolate country, over mountain and moorland, from Toro, all the
way to Valéncia del Cid. True, he was a naturalist and an antiquary, and
could speak the language like a native; yet, if he was proof against
boredom, he must have been very good company to himself. It is not every
traveller who could rely so exclusively on his own resources. The ideal
tramp, like Don Quixote's ideal knight-errant, needs to be equipped with
"most of the sciences in the world."
Fortunately the cyclist's self-sufficiency is not tested nearly so
highly. He moves both further and faster than the pedestrian,--covering
two days' march in a single morning's ride. For him the great Spanish
plains are shorn of half their monotony; and if he loves Spain he may
blame me for hinting at monotony even here. He finds something strangely
exhilarating in the gorgeous sunshine, the dry crisp air, the unrivalled
immensity of landscape, and the all-pervading silence, so grateful after
London's maddening din. Spain is pre-eminently a land of ample horizons,
of panoramas, and bird's-eye views. The hollow conformation of the
plains gives the widest of scope to the vision, and the pale blue peaks
which enclose them may be as much as one hundred miles away. Standing
on the summit of the Guadarrama passes, we were wellnigh able to
persuade ourselves that the peaks just above us might disclose a view
extending from the Cantabrian mountains even to the Sierra Nevada;--all
the kingdoms of Spain and the glory of them at a single _coup-d'oeil_.
The purity of the atmosphere indeed is downright bewildering, and our
first preconceptions of distances went wandering wildly astray. Even as
far on our way as Madrid, a fortnight later, we found that we had not
yet been schooled to credit the milestones against the evidence of our
eyes. Madrid lay there before us: we could tell every house, every
window. It was absurd to try and convince us that it was ten kilometres
away! Yet we passed nine stony compurgators ere we reached the Toledo
gateway; and even our own cyclometers professed themselves "all of a
tale." The illusion is accentuated by the great distances which separate
the hamlets, and the absence of any intervening landmarks on the bare
red plains between.
Meanwhile the details of the landscape are far from uninteresting. The
heath flowers are varied and plentiful and the butterflies brilliant in
the extreme. The whole air rings with the yelling of the cicadas or the
croaking of the frogs in the rare and starveling streams. Little brown
lizards are numerous even in the mountains, but here on the plains is a
more imposing breed; great green monsters fifteen inches in length, who
lie out sunning themselves in the dust of the roadway, and scuttle
wildly to cover as our shadows sweep silently by. The natives eat
them;--so possibly does the tourist also, for many are the unsuspected
ingredients which are involved in the meshes of a Spanish stew.
The birds also, such as there are, seem exclusively decorative
specimens. First among these are the hoopoes, with their black and white
barred plumage, and their feather crowns, the gift of Solomon the Wise.
They have a strong fellow-feeling for the cyclist, and flit from tree to
tree along the road beside him with the most engaging _cameraderie_. If
they get too far ahead they will perch and await him, cocking their
crests and _hoo-poo-pooing_ encouragement; and once more resume their
swift drooping flight as soon as he draws level. Should these lines meet
their eyes they are assured that their companionship was much
appreciated. The little watery gullies where the frogs live are
generally picketted by the storks. Magpies too are alarmingly plentiful
in the wild stony districts along the feet of the mountains. Seven at a
time is all very well,--at least one knows Who to expect then,--but what
grislier horror is portended by thirteen? A Grand Inquisitor?
[Illustration: SALAMANCA
Arcades in the Plaza de la Verdura.]
Men as a rule seem scarcely so numerous as magpies, and one may ride for
miles at a stretch without encountering a soul; but those whom you do
meet are admirably in rapport with their surroundings; and though their
pursuits may be prosaic their appearance would illustrate a romance.
This solitary horseman, for instance, is probably a most commonplace
personage in reality. We shall sit next to him at _comida_ in an hour or
two, and discover that he is an eminently innocuous bagman. But out here
in the midst of the wilderness, clad in his broad-brimmed hat and his
ample black cloak which muffles him up to the eyes, he might pass as a
living embodiment of Roque Guinart himself, and we rather plume
ourselves on our resolution in venturing to keep to the road. The
Spaniard as a rule wraps himself up amazingly when he goes a-travelling;
and the Scotch shepherd sallying out to visit his flock in a December
snowstorm is not more jealously plaided than the Castilian carrier
trudging along beside his pack mules, with his purple shadow blotting
the dusty roadway at his feet. By way of contrast one may occasionally
see the small children scampering about outside the cabin doors without
so much as a rag of any description whatever--an infinitely more
enviable costume.
The greater number of the vehicles are ramshackle tilt-waggons, drawn by
a goodly array of mules, five or seven in a string. These have a horrid
habit of pulling _en échelon_, so that each beast has a clear view of
all the road ahead of him, and can make up his mind exactly what he
means to shy at. This formation occupies the whole width of the roadway,
and the driver (being a dr
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