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Presented to the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
In/ the
ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE LIBRARY
1980
NORTHERN SPAIN
^^^^1
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NORTHERN f,, SPAIN 'C«
TAINTED AND 'DESCRIBED
BY
EDGAR T. A. WIGRAM
C*6.
vtS
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 ! "
• ••••••a
" Yes," returned the undergraduate, ''it's rather nice than otherwise, when once you're used to it; only it's devilisli difficult to get washed. I like the fresh air and these stars and things."
" Aha ! " said l^eon, " Monsieur is an artist." "Oh, nonsense I" cried the Englishman. "A fellow may admire the stars and be anything he likes."
R. L. Stevenson.
W. A. W.
SAEPE MECUM TEMPUS IN ULTIMUM DEDUCTO
SEGOVIA The Aqueduct.
f
J--i--7 '.'.
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 follow- ing 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 inlding 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 famihes, or com- pelled to hire substitutes in their stead. Others can indeed relish a flitting; but cannot find it in
vai
viii PREFACE
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 dispro- portionate dimensions,* and they are well advised in checking their razzias at San Sebastien, Pan, 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,
PREFACE ix
and none who have been there once can refrain from going again. The author has not found him- self exempt from this common fatahty ; and his notes and sketches, as embodied in this volume, are the fruit of four successive bicycle tours, under- taken sometimes alone, and sometimes in company with a kindred spirit. Of their shortcomings he believes that no one can be so conscious as him- self. But in the hope that they may prove of interest to sympathisers he ventures to expose them to the public gaze.
NOTE j
All Spanish names ending in vowels are pronounced j
with the stress on the penultimate ; and those ending i
in consonants with the stress on the final syllable. ]
Any exception is indicated by an accent. i
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
The North Coast of Castile ..... 1
CHAPTER II
COVADONGA AND EASTERN AsTURIAS .... 24
CHAPTER III
Across the Mountains to Leon ..... 43
CHAPTER IV The Pilgrim Road ....... 64
CHAPTER V The Circuit of GalIcia ...... 89
CHAPTER VI
Western Asturias . . . . • • • .113
CHAPTER VII
Benavente, Zamora, and Toro . . . .132
xi
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER VIII
PAGE
Salamanca . . . . • . . . .152
CHAPTER IX
B^AR. AviLA, AND EsCORIAL . . . . . .171
CHAPTER X
Toledo . . . . . . . . . .192
CHAPTER XI
A Raid into Estremadura ...... 215
CHAPTER XII Seg6via . . 237
CHAPTER XIII B{iRoos 256
CHAPTER XIV
Across Navarre ........ 278
INDEX , ... SOI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Segovia. The Aqueduct ....
2. Castro Urdiales. The Bilbao Coasthne
3. Castro Urdiales. The Harbour
4. Santoiia .......
5. San Vicente de la Barquera
6. The Deva Gorge. La Hermida
7. The Deva Gorge. Urdon
8. Cangas de Onis. The Bridge over the Sella
9. The Sella Valley. Below Arri6ndas
10. Pasana. An Asturian Mountain Village .
11. Llanes. The Harbour ....
12. Leon. An Old Palace Doorway
13. Leon. From the Pajares Road
14. Leon. Church of San Isidoro .
15. Leon. The Market Place, and Casa del Ayuntamiento
16. Astorga. From the South-east
17. The Vierzo. From Ponferrada^ looking towards the
Pass of Piedrafita ....
18. Lugo. The Santiago Gate
xiii
Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
6
10 12 20 22 26 32 38 40 42 50 58 60 62 68
72 78
XIV
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
19- Lugo. Fuente de San Vicente .... 80
20. Santiago de Corapostela. From the Lugo Road . 82
21. Santiago de Compostela. The Cathedral from the
North-east ....... 86
22. Orense. The Bridge over the Miiio ... 92
23. Tuy and Valencia. The Frontier Towns on the Mirio 96
24. Vigo Bay. The Inner Harbour, looking out towards
the Sea . . . . . . . .100
25. Nuestra Senora de la Esclavitud . . . .104
26. Betanzos. A Colonnaded Calle . . . .108
27. The Masma Valley. Near Mondofiedo . . . 110
28. Rivadeo. An Approach to the Harbour . . .114
29. The Navia Valley Il6
30. Cudillero. The Harbour 120
31. Oviedo. A Street near the Cathedral . . .124
32. In the Pass of Pajares. 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 . . . . I60
40. Salamanca. From the left bank of the Tormes . l64
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
XV
FACING PAGE
41. Salamanca. The Puei-ta del Rio, with the Cathedral
Tower l68
42. B^jar. An Approach to the Town . . . .174
43. Bejar. A Corner in the Market-place . . .176
44. Avila. From the North-west . . . . .180
45. Avila. A Posada Patio 184
46. Escorial. From the East . . . . . .188
47. Toledo. Bridge of Alcantara, fi-om the lUescas Road 194
48. Toledo. The Bridge of Alcantara . . . .198
49. Toledo. Puerta del Sol 200
50. Toledo. Calle del Comercio, 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. Plasencia. Puente San Lazaro . . . .216
54. Plasencia. The Town Walls and Cathedral , . 218
55. Caceres. Within the old Town Walls . . . 222
56. Caceres. Calle de la Cuesta de Aldana . . . 226
57. Merida. "^Los Milagros," the ruins of the Great
Aqueduct 228
58. Alcantara 232
59. Seg<4via. Church of San Miguel . ... 238
60. Segovia, Arco San Esteban ..... 244
61. Seg6via. The Alcazar . . . . . .248
62. Seg6via. Arco Santiago ...... 252
63. Seg6via. Church of San Esteban .... 254
XVI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
64. Burgos
Arco San Martin
65. Duenas ......
66. Burgos. Hospital del Rey
67. Burgos. Ai'co Sta Maria
68. Burgos. Patio of the Casa de Miranda
69. Burgos. From the East .
70. The Gorge of Pancorvo
71. La Kioja Alavesa. Looking Northwards across the Ebro
72. Miranda del Ebro. A Corner in the Town
73. Pamplona. From the Road to the Frontier
74. Olite. The Castle
75. Pamplona. A Patio near the Cathedral
FACING PAGE 260
264 266 268 272 276 282 284 288 290 292 296
Map at end of Volume.
The design of the Cover is adapted from the facade 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 archaeology. 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
2 NORTHERN SPAIN
is no further than Toulouse, and Cantabria as mountainous as the Pyrenees.
• *••••
Dear E., — Very good 1 Spain first; and Provence second string if necessary. There's a boat saihng 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 pesti- lence. 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
THE VOYAGE 3
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 catch- ing 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
4 NORTHERN SPAIN
trucks. " Oh ! the httle cargo boats that clear with eve7'ii tide ! "
We flung ashore in despair. But a more hope- ful 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
BILBAO HARBOUR 6
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 Ught 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
6 NORTHERN SPAIN
alongside to load. The beauty of the Spanish coast is a favourite theme of visitors to San Sebastien, 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 IMiilo is teeming with equal attractions, and the im- mediate 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.
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
CASTRO URDIALES The Bilbao Coastline.
•M^:
k
IRON QUARRIES 7
summit, the entire face having been flayed away for ironstone, and ladled out into the ore ships along the aerial 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 wdth 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, how- ever, 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 1 Yet our
8 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 cafe 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 M^as 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 some- v/hat 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
CASTRO URDIALES 9
conclusions were not equally positive. They appeared in cryptic disguises ; — came, " meat " which defied identification. There is no declara- tion 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.
10 NORTHERN SPAIN
Had it ever occurred to us that all those heads were somewhere i 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 whicii 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 lirdiales 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 throv,n out a massive concrete break- water from the end of the modest jetty. But its progress is not to be deprecated wdiere it does not interfere with its beauty ; and now a comfortable Fonda has supplanted the humble VeJita which was our first lodging on Spanish soil.
Our load 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 Santona, the " Gibraltar of the North." This imposing fortress lies across
CASTRO URDIALES The Harbour.
SPANISH MEALS 11
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 V alue, 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 dejeuner, and here, in a genuinely Spanish menage, chocolate will generally take the place of the Frenchman's cafe 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, wash- ing 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.
Dinner, or Comida, is served about mid-day ; the nominal time varies, but it is always half an
12 NORTHERN SPAIN
hour late. In many districts, however, this title is transferred to the supper, and then the luncheon is known as Ahnucrzo — Dejeuner. 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 niemhrillo, 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,
SANTONA
"I»:**^''«r
CAFJfiS 18
of course, supplied ad lib. to every diner, and water in porous earthenware bottles which eva- poration 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 Cafe. And a Spanish cafe is a most noteworthy assemblage. It is compara- tively 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
14 NORTHERN SPAIN
sorts and conditions of customers, from the general in command of the garrison to the ragged vine- dresser and nuileteer. Here they sit through the long, sultry hours of siesta-tide in a roomful of shuttered twihght, clkattering like a mill-wheel in flood-time, sipping their coffee and aniseed brandy,^ 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 caf^) 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 conmiand. The domino volleys echo through the cafe Hke 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
1 "Infernal anis,'' says the advertisement, "made from the worst vines of the Priorato, is neither tonic, digestive, nor restorative, and has never been commended at any exhibition."
OX-CARTS 15
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 inter- mittent orchestral accompaniment — a time in two keys, like JNI'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
16 NORTHERN SPAIN
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.
P'or 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, wlio lounges along in front waving his goad like a drum-major's baton ; or sleeps — yes, sleeps — on the summit of his yelling load. \^erily 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, how- ever ; and we were just beginning to plume our- selves on an important geographical discoveiy, when we caught sight of a single ox-cart — 200 feet
DOGS 17
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,
J8 NORTHERN SPAIN
and strew our path with carcases from Fiienterrabia to Cadiz. So much for the deterioration of moral fibre under the strain of Spanish dog.
AVell, we are not the first (nor the last) whose amiahihty 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 tliin. Of course there are stones. The Guadar- rama 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 ultimci 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
SAN VICENTE DE LA BARQUERA 19
the dogs of Spain. The majority pour themselves upon the cycUst. 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 Bias ; 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 tonsfue 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 boom- ing 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
20 NORTHERN SPAIN
lobsters, like Sir Thomas Ingoldsby's pockets with eels. Truly it was a gruesome sight ; and a noveUst 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.
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 Hke a natural sea-wall. We look in vain for the outlet :
. !
SAN VICENTE DE LA BARQUERA
THE PICOS DE EUROPA 21
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 Abandames can scarcely be called an ascent.
There is a waters-meet just above Abandames, 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
22 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 fort li coming, and at last w^e cease to marvel at the unfailing surprise. It is the great canon 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 cubofi ^ 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
^ Literally "Tubs/' the solid semicircular bastions of Spanish town vails.
THK DEVA GORGE
La H(?rniida.
THE DEVA GORGE 23
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.
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.
CHAt'TER TI
COVADONGA AND EASTERN ASTUHIAS
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 tliat 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
24
URDON 26
and stiff brocaded gown, holds its state over the High Altar in the Colegiata,^ 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 labyi-inth 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 dis- turbed 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
^ A collegiate church, intermediate in dignity between a parish church and a cathedral.
4
26 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 imiverse 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
THE DEVA GORGE Urdon.
hm:
'yci^n.
MOUNTAIN VILLAGERS 27
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.
" ' 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 INIonday 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 im- pressed. She takes that walk with her grand- father 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
28 NORTHERN SPAIN
crossed the bridge at Abandames and headed west- ward 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 pea«k, hke 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 over- whelmingly 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
THE CARES RAVINE 29
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 Carrefio, 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
30 NORTHERN SPAIN
else in Astuiias 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 Carreno. The descent to Cangas 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 Abandames. 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 o^ erhauled it rapidly, and was close up when it arrived at the tin-n. But when the road straight- ened, 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 road-
CANGAS DE ONIS 31
side, and the whole equipage had incontinently turned turtle.
'J'he accident was entirely the fault of the beasts, and one w^ould 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 Dies that I was thrown clear ! " said he, crossing himself, as 1 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.
Cangas 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
82 NORTHERN SPAIN
rest of the Peninsula was Maliommedan. 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 mediaeval 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 waiTior's modesty, so highly commended by the curate) I believe his autobiography never states that he actually did.
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
cAngas de onis
The Bridge over the Sella.
COVADONGA 38
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 informa- tion 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-raviha, my brother ! But that must have been an anxious day for Cangas 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 Cangas 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,
5
34 NORTHERN SPAIN
and the valley curling around its foot finishes in a hook acfainst the isthmus which connects it to tlie 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 JMoor ; 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 ! Rut why should the Spanish chroniclers have modestly stopped short at 188,000 ? A full quarter of a million is their standard casualty fist.
It is a pity that tlie 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
THE BATTLE 35
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 ap- proached ; 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.
36 NORTHERN SPAIN
Against a coup de mmn 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 Cavipo 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 destruc- tion 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 Pajares as he was attempting to regain I^eon. The
MEMORIAL CHURCH 37
Moors made no further attempt to establish them- selves 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 w^estern 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 Cangas de Onis, the Sella receives a strong reinforcement from the
38 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 I Yes, he actually did ! He even tried to induce us to do likewise. But we of Arriondas know better. AA'e go angling with shot-guns and bombs."
It seems characteristic oi Asturian rivers that they should keep persistently running into moun- tains 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 tumult- uously across its pathway and appear to prohibit all egi-ess. But the river slips like an eel through the tangle, and its agile windings map out a passage for the road. No one looking down- stream at the view which I sketched fi'om the banks of it would imagine that the sea was within six miles of him and the river tidal up to his feet.
THE SELLA VALLEY Below Arridndas.
vo
.-■,-
THE COAST ROAD 39
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.
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 Cdngas to Abandames.
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
40 NORTHERN SPAIN
have rejoiced in this series of sweet Auburns, with their rustic slirines and Pergolas, their skittle- alleys, and their WHXq' Alamedas ! ^ How he would have lo^'ed to haunt the road at eventide where the village athletes scatter the ninepins with their great wooden discus, and the maidens dance to- gether under the shadow of the trees ! The Corydon and Phyllis of the Eclogues still survive in these odd corners of the globe.
Tlie 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 even- ing. 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. AMien these are being worked the
1 A public promenade, thickly planted with trees.
PAS ANA An Asiurian Mountain Village.
I.
0
I
STAGE COACHES 41
spars are lowered into a crutch above the heads of the crew.
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 1 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 ex- tensive nodding acquaintance among the tribe has introduced me to few crazier specimens than this.
42 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 to- gether 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 tlie 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 Abandames 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.
LLANES The Harbour.
'«JU4'^-' ""»
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 Grindel- wald. The deep, narrow vale of Liebana comes winding down upon it from the southward, its slopes gay with mountain flowers, and shaggy
48
44 NORTHERN SPAIN
with beech and chestnut, and dotted here and there with quaint Httle red-roofed villages over- hanging 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 our- selves 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 roimd us at the village of \^aldeprado ; and an old neat-herd, driving his cows to the pastures, unfeelingly assured us that the pass was two leagues^ 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 slumber- ing, and the whole caravan had stuck fast in the
1 A Spanish league is about an hour's march, say 3| miles.
OVER THE PASS 45
middle of the road. It seemed a pity to disturb so much unanimity ; and quite an hour later, looking dowai 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 immelted 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 sudden- ness 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
46 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 Cardenas in the Sierra INIorena ; 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
VII-LAGE INNS 47
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 kitcheii, with the hearth in the middle of the floor,^ and the ceiling fimnelled to an aperture in the apex, through which the log-reek escapes as best it can. A third (the smallest) is the guest- room, and the fourth one would call a lumber- room, 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 com- municate 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
^ At one place it consisted of a huge earthenware bowl, 3 feet high and 4 feet in diameter, filled up solid with earth to within 4 inches of the rim.
48 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 leav^e 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 rnia I " and I am sure their fingers itched to explore the inside of our packs. AVere 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
A BOLD PEASANTRY 49
we must not forget that fact because our inter- locutor happens to be wearing rags. He and his may have been as poor as church mice for genera- tions ; — 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 prob- ably no one in history knew their failings better than he. Spain is no " dying nationality," though her day be still rather ''Mariana.'' It is idle to deny a future to so robust and prolific a race.
50 NORTHERN SPAIN
The traveller need not look to fare sumptuously in a Posdila. 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 supereroga- tion. 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 misei'ia ! " Yet e^'en 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.
This last is no inconsiderable ad\'antage 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 Buena- vista, and began our long ride to Leon. Washing arrangements had no share in our Posadas economy, so this mysterious British ritual was cele-
LEON An Old Palace Dooi-way.
f%Jac|o at 1^.
ti i 'lin I - —
cb^
.^m.
A DESOLATE HIGHWAY 61
brated at Saldana, 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 murio^ with the
1 Here died .
52 NORTHERN SPAIN
name and date, — no more. They are generally said to have been erected as a trespass ofFermg 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 grati- fication 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 unpromis- ing 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 denouement in a chance roadside meeting ; but genuine highway nmrders form a very small pro- portion 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
THE CIVIL GUARD 53
themselves bore me witness) are gente muy I'egular, " 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 Alcantara, 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
54 NORTHERN SPAIN
by the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabu- lary, 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 Palencia 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 IMonastery, 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
THE CARLIST 55
retirement ? They were thinking only of Soult at Saldana ; it was their General who had been watch- ing 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 Red- gauntlet that a cause so much tolerated is lost.
Meanwhile the road to Leon did not seem nearer
56 NORTHERN SPAIN
realisation at Saliagun 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 negotiat- ing his own wheel rut, we frequently found our- selves 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 con- gratulate 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. Fortu-
NEARING LEON 67
nately, 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 eventu- ally 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 Avhite 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
8
58 NORTHERN SPAIN
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. Unfortu- nately they are much masked by the surrounding houses ; but they are of most imposing dimensions, about twenty feet in thickness, and strengthened by huge Cuhos 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 northw^ard, 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 monu- ment of stone. It is step-sister to Beauvais and Amiens ; and, on the whole, it need not fear com- parison. But the Spanish builders were not quite at home in dealing with the unfamiliar style. One
LEON From the Pajdres Road.
.%.
LEON CATHEDRAL 59
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?
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 carvdng and tapestry ; and a word may be spared for the Gotho-Renais- sance 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 deli- cately 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 I
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
60 NORTHERN SPAIN
compiled the JNIozarabic ritual ; ^ 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 Avhile 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 Hmbs 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.
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. Burgos and Pamplona have the trophies of the
1 See p. 140.
LEON Church of San Isidore.
S>"";'-
J
-«>»x "-.TZ-
|
-^J^ |
''] |
|
.^ |
h |
|
1 |
1 1 |
A LEONESE LEGEND 61
fighting ; but Leon has only a legend ; and it is to Sa?i 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 ! ^ 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
1 See p. 140.
62 NORTHERN SPAIN
that jeoparded their hves 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 Castihan. 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 Solar es, 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-
LEON The Market Place, and Casa del Ayuntamiento.
LEONESE COSTUME 63
shaped booths. They are reputed to "wear Cai'ambas in their hair," but this we cannot cor- roborate. 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 I
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 INIandeville's vein we might add " by the heavens also," for our old friend the Galaxy — INlilk 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 Corufia. 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
64
I LEONESE MARKET-FOLK 65
grotto ! " our school - children's August refrain. I
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
66 NORTHERN SPAIN
colours. To the soutliward the dun plain sweeps away unbroken till it is lost in illimitable dis- tance ; 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 Sie?Tas, "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 re- moved 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 JSIarcos.^ But membership of the Spanish military orders was no impediment to love-making, or even to
^ This monastery is a very notable Leonese monument, a master- piece of P/alcrescp/e, somewhat similar to the Otto Hcinnchs Bnu at Heidelberg, and formerly the property of the knights of Santiago.
THE PASS OF HONOUR 67
marriage (except in the case of widowers) ; so that Don Suero (a Paladin of his day, who was w^ont to fight JNIoors with his right arm bare hke King Pentapohn 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 com- panions 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 republislied 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 pro- nounced 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
68 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 Caesar Augustus whose name it now so barbarously mis-spells.^ '* 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 Castafios in 1812; yet the old Roman mason who built them might readily acknowledge them still.
1 Astorga = Astnricsi Augnsta..
ASTORGA
From the South-east.
ASTORGA 69
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 senora 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 forget- ful to entertain strangers even at first sight ; and often upon quitting a caf^ I have found that my bill has been already paid by an unknown neigh- bour with whom I had exchanged a few common- place 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 cafe 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
70 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 woman- hood. 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 JNIanzanal. Their interest is principally due to their unique population, for they are the recognised Reserve of the Maragatos^
MARAGATOS 71
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 meUj 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 descend-
72 NORTHERN SPAIN
ing road. It is a savage bit of country, and a fit scene for the thrilling adventure which is furnished to Gil Bias ; 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 dis- tressed damsel, the unfortunate Doiia 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 descend- ing is one of the most interesting districts in the mountains of Northern Spain. It is a gi-eat natural saucer some twenty-five miles in diameter, con- siderably 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 admir- able hunting-ground for the vagrant pleasure-
THE VIERZO From Ponferrada, looking towards the Pass of Piedrafita.
THE VIERZO 73
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.
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 sun- shine, 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 dis- trict, 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
10
74 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 Nuesta Senoj'a 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 ^^ierzo 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
PASS OF PIEDRAFITA 75
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 JNlanzanal ; 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 JVIoore ; yet even now it would be no pleasant journey in January, with the snowdrifts 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
76 NORTHERN SPAIN
reached the " fixed stone " which is the boundary of Leon and Galicia, and entered the head of the Ndvia 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, howe^'e^, 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 INloore's retreat. Hundreds lay dying of cold, hunger, and exhaustion ; and the army treasure-chests, contain- ing 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, w^as checked by Paget in a sharp action at the old Roman bridge of Con- stantino, which spans a rocky gorge half-way up the hill ; and JNIoore 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
NEARING LUGO 77
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
78 NORTHERN SPAIN
cottages were extr^nely 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 Miiio, 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, I^ugo 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 mediaeval 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 practi- cally 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.
LUGO The Santiago Gate.
- ij!^<^'j^*i^rto> ^|»tiogo.
••
FOUNTAINS 79
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 gate- way 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
80 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 assem- blage 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
LUGO Fuente de San Vicente.
WATER PITCHERS 81
pitchers at Caceres are of " Forty Thieves " design. The Httle 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.
Next comes a great tribe of metal pitchers of various shapes and sizes, used by the inhabitants of Villafranca, Plas^ncia, and Leon ; and the very last ride I took on Spanish soil, in the neighbour- hood of Santander, introduced me to a round- bellied, long-necked bottle of rough green glass, which opens a new vista of possibilities. Alas 1 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
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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.
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA
From the Lugo Road.
LEGEND OF SANTIAGO 83
" 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 aeons before amid his weapons and his wives, was
84 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 un- tamed 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
AL MANZOR'S RAID 86
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 Cordova, led his ever-victorious army across the Vierzo passes, and carried off the very bells from the steeple to adorn the Ceca ^ 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,
1 Literally the " House of Purification," i.e. the Great Mosque of Cordova.
86 NORTHERN SPAIN
«
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 Arch- bishop 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 taw^dry 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.^ Externally the structure is completely cased in late Spanish Renaissance or " Churrigueresque " work. This is not a beautiful type, — overloaded, bizarre,
1 There is something of the same flavour about the inscription on the Gates of the Hospital del Rcy at Burgos ; " Blessed is the man that provideth for the sick and needy, St James (!) shall deliver him in the time of trouble."
SANTIAGO UK COMPOSTELA The Cathedral from the North-east.
Son^iougo de C^^JWMJfe-*'**
SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL 87
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 Uttle 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 I 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.
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 fa9ades. 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
88 NORTHERN SPAIN
sermons upon the delights of Heaven drew large congregations in every country-side. Beneath the nebulce 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, siib curru nimiuvi pi'opinqui soils, 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 Gahcia. It hes 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 Coruiia. 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 Coruiia or Vigo. Here then he paused to re-form his straggling regiments, and boldly offered battle upon the eastern fi'ont 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 Coruna 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 Miilo to the sea.
89 12
90 NORTHERN SPAIN
There are many parts of Galicia in which the scenery has an English flavour, and the JMifio 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 e\'ent 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 ;
THE RIVER MI5J0 91
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 Miiio ! 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 Mino, sure enough.
The Mino 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
92 NORTHERN SPAIN
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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 mediasval 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 Alcantara.
The bridge of Orense was the pivot of the French operations when Soult led his power from Corufia to renew the subjugation of Portugal. His earlier
OREiVSE The Bridge over the Mino.
THE FRENCH INVASION 93
attempts to cross the Miiio at Tuy were foiled by the flooded river, the bad watermanship of his landkibbers, and a httle pkicky 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 JNloore'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 way- laid 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 Mino. 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
94 NORTHERN SPAIN
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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 Mifio is still undisciplined by the stiff formal terraces of the Rhine. The vines are trained over light rustic pe?'golas, 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 con- structed 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 ordinai7^es of the Northern Provinces are generally somewhat similar to Burgundy, but their quality varies greatly in the different districts. Often they are really excellent,
THE COUNTRY WINES 95
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 A'aldepenas from the arid plains of La jNIancha ; but the Mino wines also are excellent, and our hostess had good reason for confidence when she produced " her own wine " so proudly at I^a Cafiiza. Old James Howell refers very affectionately to the " gentle sort of white wine " which is grown at Ribadavia ; and he inight 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 JNIino, 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,
96 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 experi- ences would cease for a while at Orense — that our road would consent to abide by the Miiio, and accept its guidance to the sea. We had got no further than Ribadavia, however, before we found ourselves again going up to the heavens, and the little river- side towns between Ribadavia 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 prob- able) these are indeed blocs perches, 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 arretes.
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 Caniza rescued us, and fed us and dried us, and made itself agreeable to us next morning
TUY AND VALENCIA The Frontier Towns on the Mifio.
TUY 97
ere it set us again on our way. La Cafiiza was preparing a Fiesta; and a fact that excited our interest was that fresh figs were selHng 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 Mifio, and the Portuguese fortress of Valencia confronts it across the river like some *' deadly opposite " in an inter- rupted 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 h and v seem
everywhere at odds for supremacy ; and it rather
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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 b'mo " would be so much more comprehensible if it were " spelt with a we." " ' Vivere ' is the same as ' bihere ' 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
VIGO FISHWIVES 99
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 train- ing 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 w^as as the "Well of Ronda."^ Yet these cheerful
^ The fate most dreaded by the Spanish prisoners in the Moorish wars.
100 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 mag- nificent 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 oppor- tunities ; 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
VIGO BAY The Inner Harbour, looking out towaids the Sea.
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VIGO HARBOUR 101
breakwater of the Islas de Cies repels the ocean from the bay.
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 Bias as \\go 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 head- lands, Vilano, Toriiiana, 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
102 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 I^eon.
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.
UP THE WEST COAST 103
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 sarco- phagus, 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 Senora 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 re- commend 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
104 NORTHERN SPAIN
for Santiago de Compostela ; and once more threaded its arcaded Ruas in search of the Coruna road.
The coach that runs daily from Santiago to Coiiifia prides itself upon possessing the most numerous team of any vehicle in Spain. We were assured that sixteen mules were frequently requisi- tioned 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 occupy- ing 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
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LJ^uertfo. Senorok 4e. lex ^t,ciavil:ud.
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C0RU5fA BAY 105
cream-coloured oxen, their mattocks, and their primitive ploughs.
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. Sucli 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 Coruna 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
14
106 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 Betanzos 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 Palavia 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 Corufia 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 Palavia, 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 Elvifia at the very moment when he felt assurance of success.
BATTLEFIELD OF C0RU5JA 107
Moore's grave is in the citadel of Corufia. 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 Conde 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
108 NORTHERN SPAIN
had been reading the exploits of Santiago, and thought that a httle local colour in their dispatches would serve as a guarantee of good faith.
We had intended to make but one stage of it from Coruna, and encompass the bay to Ferrol. But our plans were all blown to the winds when we spied the little town of Betanzos 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.^
We had been commended to Betanzos by Valentina, the waitress at Santiago. Betanzos was Valentina's pueblo, and " a very gay place " (so said Valentina). Betanzos played up to its reputation by an improvised ball in the evening ; and few set ballets in a theatre could provide so
1 Borrow stigmatises Betanzos as a filthy and evil-smelling pest-house. But then his horse broke down there. So much depends upon the point of view !
BETANZOS
A Colonnaded Calle.
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1
I.
BETAnZOS 109
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 vi- brating star. The electric lamps (oh yes ! they have electric lamps in Betanzos) 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 com- modities, 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
110 NORtHERN SPAIN
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 stuffs 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 work- ing 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.
The beautiful bay of Corufia 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 be-
THE MASMA VALLEY Near Mondonedo.
FERROL 111
sprinkled 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 Coruiia, 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 SLguei'yilla 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 Mino 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
112 NORTHERN SPAIN
long, deep, highland glen dropping visibly before us mile beyond mile. Yet when we reached the corner, the little cathedral town of Mondonedo still lay far below us ; for what show as mountains over the JMasma 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
AVESTERN ASTURIAS
A BUXOM old lady who was occupying the shadow of a large umbrella in the centre of Rivadeo market- place greeted us volubly as we emerged from the Fonda door. " A good day to your honours I 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
us 15
114 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 7^eals ! for five reals ! for four ! I 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 Riay 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.
We had made bold to confide somewhat in
RIVADEO Au Approach to the Harbour.
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ASTURIAN COAST LINE 115
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 open- ing 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 traihng lazily across the plateau or wreathing itself around the shoulders of the hills. To Borrows eyes it had all seemed gloomy and desolate ; but
116 NORTHERN SPAIN
he liad traversed it in the mists of a stormy autumn, and beneath the halcyon skies of summer it is a veritable fairyland.
The Ria at Navia 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 Ranadoiro, flings itself out at right angles to the cordiile?'a, 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 Borrows stony bridle-path is now a fine broad roadway, his " miserable venta " is a comfortable inn ; and he certainly would not
THE NAVIA VALLEY
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LAS BELLOTAS 117
have troubled to push on to Muros had he found such good entertainment as did we.
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 — " a la Espanola.'" But this without prejudice to the eternal verity that " a 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 Pravia and the excellence of Asturian cider ; and sped us at parting with the assurance that there were very few hills on the road. But
118 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 diflerent 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 brawhng 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 break- waters, where the fishing fleet can shelter itself from the tempests of the Bay. Perhaps of the two I^uarca has the prettier haibour ; 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 du'ections of an auspicious waggoner
CUDILLEIIO 119
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 pre- sently 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 Comercio 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
120 NORTHERN SPAIN
hick tlie water, but all along the coast they are much given to bathing. The women stroll un- concernedly down to the beach, armed with a huge towel and a sort of glorified sack wliich serv^es 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 t\vice
CUDILLERO
The Harbour.
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OVIEDO 121
upon holy days we have found the highway itself absolutely blocked with a crowd of worshippers intent on their orisons before some wayside shrine.
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 Prc4via at the confluence of the Narcea and the Nalon. " Pravia is better than Switzerland," our host at Bellotas had informed us, and we do not wisli 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 T^ake District would supply a nearer parallel ; but I know nothing quite like Pravia except Pravia 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
16
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newly landed fi'om France might find it delightfully Spanish, but to one who is fresh from the interior it has a flav^our 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 credit- able 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 some- what 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
THE SEHENOS 123
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 Serena 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-eno-o ! "
124 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 soimds 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 INIadrid 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 habitue 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
OVIEDO A Street near the Cathedral.
SPANISH PUNCTILIO 125
murder ^), could devise no more humiliating adjura- tion than "If you swear falsely, may you be slain by an Oviedan ! "
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 stumbhng-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
^ See page 142.
126 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 JNlieres glowed up out of the black profundity beneath us like little volcano craters anxious to win themselves fame. Mieres 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 hghtning illuminating the \alley with the brightness of day.
Storm succeeded storm throughout the night,
PASS OF PAJARES 127
and the outlook next morning was far from promis- ing. But we took our courage in both hands and started at the first break in tlie 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 JNIieres, 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
128 NORTHERN SPAIN
to help it up its four-thousand-foot cHmb. 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, re- warding 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 PenaUbina 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 blase mountaineer.
The step which carries us across the Pass of Pajares is one of the most decisive of any w^e have
WEIRD ROCK FORMATION 129
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 lime- stone 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
17
130 NORTHERN SPAIN
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.
We finally shpped from the valley at the village
N ¥
IN THE PASS OF PAJArES Near Pola de Gordon.
THE STEPPES OF LEON 131
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 some- what similar to the line of the INIerionethshire 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 land- mark for several miles around.
CHAPTER VII
BENAVENTE, ZAMOEA, 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 popula-
132
BENAVENTE 133
tion 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
134 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 ex- treme 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 IVIoore'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.
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
BENAVENTE * From above the Bridge of Castro Gonzalo.
PAGET'S SKIRMISH 135
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 earUer 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 oppor- tunity ; 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 melee 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
186 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 niglitfall 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 dark- ness, 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 liOrd Willoughby"^ 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
1 " Who would not give a foot of ground For all the Devils in Hell."
— Ballad of Lord Willoughby.
ANY PORT IN A STORM 137
another three hours. Yet presently as the tale of kilos petered out we began to experience misgivings. The bare wide plateau of the Tier^ra 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 ^^igo ; 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 JMontamarta, which was ambushed
in a dip of the road.
18
138 NORTHERN SPAIN
By this time we had learned not to be too dainty about our quarters ; yet the Parador at JMontamarta 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 Cdria," and wild ragged goatherds and vine dressers, with whom Salvator Rosa might have joined in " painting jabequesy ^ 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 comfort-
^ A cant term for knifing. The Neapolitan had a standing feud with Spain.
ZAMORA 139
able, 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 3Ict7'opole 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, how- ever, 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 pur- pose. Its fine old Romanesque cathedral was built by no less a person than the Bishop Don
140 NORTHERN SPAIN
Hieronymo, "that good one with the shaven crown," who so ably represented the Church mihtant 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.^
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,^ on his deathbed, divided his kingdoms among his children ; and the immediate and obvious conse- quence was a five-cornered family duel which set all the said knigdoms by the ears. Sanclio 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 patri-
^ The proverb is still quite current. A carrier of whom we inquired the distance to Zamora oracularly answered that " It could never be gained in an hour."
2 See p. 60.
ZAMORA From the banks of the Duero.
'^t'S- *rr.:Wgm-^^' xtrntr'-ii i
• M,I.Z ^
-fe
^1
* \i
A
SIEGE OF ZAMORA HI
mony ; and Zamora was too important a pledge to be left in any hands but his own.
"So Kinsf Sancho drew near and beheld Zamora how strongly it was built, upon a chff", with many massy towers and the river Duero ruiming 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 Velhdo 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
142 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 Ordonez gave voice to the wrath of the CastiHans 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 can- not refrain from recalling how Don Arias Gonzalo, the princess' foster-father, pointed out to Don Diego Ordonez 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 consider- ably 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.
CORPUS CHRISTI DAY 143
But the third contest was indecisive ; so honour was declared satisfied, and all imputations with- drawn. The old chivalrous legend makes a capital sauce for our musings as we pace the still formidable ramparts from which Dona 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 embodi- ment 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
144 NORTHERN SPAIN
saints, also on litters — the boys struggling and fight- ing 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 " ^ 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 ^ The recognised Spanish title for the Host.
ZAMORA Church of Sta Maria de la Horta.
ZAMORA CATHEDRAL 145
appear at all gratifying to the cavalry horses of the escort.
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 INIartyr, on a grand practic- able 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
19
146 NORTHERN SPAIN
3Ini/o?'^ 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^). But otherwise there are no restrictions : and there are certainly great attrac- tions 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
^ Presbytery.
2 "Here's to the glorious, pious and immortal memory of the great and good King William, who delivered us from Popery, brass money, and wooden shoes ! "
TORO 147
Zamora and Salamanca ; and once when I incautiously admitted that the Salamanca people had told me there was nothing to see here, 1 thought I should have produced an emeute.
Wherefore 1 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 some^vhat 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 fii^st sight it seems even more imposingly situated, for it rises on a much loftier hill. But its chiFs 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
148 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 after- noon ; 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-pubhcity. In unsophisticated districts the women (Uke 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 httle group they make — if you do not pry too cuiiously 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.
A SPANISH PATIO
AN AMPLE OUTLOOK 149
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 Diique " 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 Bias, 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 dis- pleasure 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
160 NORTHERN SPAIN
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 head- quarters 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
TORO From the banks of the Duero.
BATTLE OF TORO 161
unopposed. But Ferdinand's grip was too close ; the bridge was in his hands, and Alfonso had no choice but to return.
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 Vitdria, '• Come on, you villains ! I'm as good a Cardinal as he I " 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 figliting. 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 dis- courages the breeding of flies. But it offers a rare opportunity for the disquisitions of a miUtant 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 Gre^dos 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