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Presented to the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY

In/ the

ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY

1980

NORTHERN SPAIN

^^^^1

*"''

NORTHERN f,,
SPAIN 'C«

TAINTED AND 'DESCRIBED

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.

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

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

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

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^:

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

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.

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,

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.

.-■,-

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.

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

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

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>"";'-

-«>»x "-.TZ-

-^J^

'']

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

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

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

82 NORTHERN SPAIN

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

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

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

98 NORTHERN SPAIN

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.

*■

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

NUESTRA S?:N0RA DE LA ESCLAVHTUD

nm^^-'-wmmr-

>"»

,^a^^

«r..

LJ^uertfo. Senorok 4e. lex ^t,ciavil:ud.

:i«&.'i-.

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

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.

fS^-

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.

fet^W^

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

J-

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.

!
i

'If

j£.

ill

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

122 NORTHERN SPAIN

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

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.

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

* \i

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

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 ; par-
ticularly when its original conformation is remorse-

152

THE DUERO VALLEY 153

lessly emphasised by the entire omission of fences
and of trees. The mud which formed the bottom
has settled unevenly ; and the rivers have eroded
it into yawning channels, whose steep sides (so
prominent at Toro) are scarped and furrowed into
myriads of wrinkles by the scouring of the winter
rains. The district is not unfertile, for it is a land
of corn and wine and oil-olive, and water may be
found at no great depth ; yet the surface soil is
parched and dusty, the villages few and far
between, and great tracts of the higher ground
consist of untilled heaths where the ilex and cistus
make their profit out of the heritage unclaimed
by man.

It scarcely seems an interesting district for a
M'alking tour, yet we were barely started before we
fell in with one who thought otherwise. He was
English, of course : — mad as usual, despite his
Spanish domicile ; and we fraternised with him at
a wayside fountain where he recognised us as
compatriots (by our Spanish) directly we saluted
him. Our programmes had something in common,
but his was by far the more onerous, and none but
the veriest devotee of the Wandeidust could have
ventured to undertake it without some inward

qualms. A long solitary tramp, and mostly

154 NORTHERN SPAIN

through desolate country, over mountain and
moorland, from Toro, all the way to Valencia del
Cid. True, he was a naturalist and an antiquary,
and could speak the language like a native ; yet, if
he was proof against boredom, he must have been
very good company to himself. It is not every
traveller who could rely so exclusively on his own
resources. The ideal tramp, like Don Quixote's
ideal knight-errant, needs to be equipped with
"most of the sciences in the world."

Fortunately the cyclist's self-sufficiency is not
tested nearly so highly. He moves both further
and faster than the pedestrian, — covering two days'
march in a single morning's ride. For him the
great Spanish plains are shorn of half their
monotony ; and if he loves Spain he may blame
me for hinting at monotony even here. He finds
something strangely exhilarating in the gorgeous
sunshine, the dry crisp air, the unrivalled immensity
of landscape, and the all -pervading silence, so
grateful after London's maddening din. Spain
is pre-eminently a land of ample horizons, of
panoramas, and bird's-eye views. The hollow
conformation of the plains gives the widest of
scope to the vision, and the pale blue peaks which
enclose them may be as much as one hundred

THE PELLUCID AIR 155

miles away. Standing on the summit of the
Guadarrama passes, we were weUnigh able to
persuade ourselves that the peaks just above us
might disclose a view extending from the
Cantabrian mountains even to the Sierra Nevada ;
— all the kingdoms of Spain and the glory of them
at a single coup-d'ceil.

The purity of the atmosphere indeed is down-
right bewildering, and our first preconceptions of
distances went wandering wildly astray. Even as
far on our way as Madrid, a fortnight later, we
found that we had not yet been schooled to credit
the milestones against the evidence of our eyes.
Madrid lay there before us : we could tell every
house, every window. It was absurd to try and
convince us that it was ten kilometres away ! Yet
we passed nine stony compurgators ere we reached
the Toledo gateway ; and even our own cyclo-
meters professed themselves "all of a tale." The
illusion is accentuated by the great distances which
separate the hamlets, and the absence of any
intervening landmarks on the bare red plains
between.

Meanwhile the details of the landscape are far
from uninteresting. The heath flowers are varied
and plentiful and the butterflies brilliant in the

156 NORTHERN SPAIN

extreme. The whole au' rings with the yeUing of
the cicadas or the croaking of the frogs in the rare
and starvehng streams. Little brown lizards are
numerous even in the mountains, but here on the
plains is a more imposing breed ; great green
monsters fifteen inches in length, who Ue out
sunning themselves in the dust of the roadway,
and scuttle wildly to cover as our shadows sweep
silently by. The natives eat them ; — so possibly
does the tourist also, for many are the unsuspected
ingredients which are involved in the meshes of a
Spanish stew.

The birds also, such as there are, seem exclusively
decorative specimens. First among these are the
hoopoes, with their black and white barred plumage,
and their feather crowns, the gift of Solomon the
Wise. They have a strong fellow-feeling for the
cyclist, and flit fi'om tree to tree along the road
beside him with the most engaging cameradcrie.
If they get too far ahead they will perch and
await him, cocking their crests and hoo-poo-pooing
encouragement ; and once more resume their swift
drooping flight as soon as he draws level. Should
these lines meet their eyes they are assured that
their companionship was much appreciated. The
httle watery gullies where the frogs live are

SALAMANCA
Arcades in the Plaza de la Verdura.

SPANISH WAYFARERS 157

generally picketted by the storks. Magpies too
are alarmingly plentiful in the wild stony districts
along the feet of the mountains. Seven at a time
is all very well, — at least one knows Who to expect
then, — but what grislier horror is portended by
thirteen ? A Grand Inquisitor ?

Men as a rule seem scarcely so numerous as
magpies, and one may ride for miles at a stretch
without encountering a soul ; but those whom you
do meet are admirably in rapport with their
surroundings ; and though their pursuits may be
prosaic their appearance would illustrate a romance.
This solitary horseman, for instance, is probably
a most commonplace personage in reality. We
shall sit next to him at coviida in an hour or two,
and discover that he is an eminently innocuous
bagman. But out here in the midst of the wilder-
ness, clad in his broad-brimmed hat and his ample
black cloak which muffles him up to the eyes, he
might pass as a living embodiment of Roque
Guinart himself, and we rather plume ourselves
on our resolution in venturing to keep to the
road. The Spaniard as a rule wraps himself up
amazingly when he goes a-travelling ; and the
Scotch shepherd sallying out to visit his flock in
a December snowstorm is not more jealously

158 NORTHERN SPAIN

plaided than the CastiHan carrier trudging along
beside his pack mules, with his purple shadow
blotting the dusty roadway at his feet. By way
of contrast one may occasionally see the small
children scampering about outside the cabin doors
without so much as a rag of any description what-
ever— an infinitely more enviable costume.

The greater number of the vehicles are ram-
shackle tilt-waggons, drawn by a goodly an*ay of
mules, five or seven in a string. These have a
horrid habit of pulling en echelon, so that each beast
has a clear view of all the road ahead of him, and
can make up his mind exactly what he means to
shy at. This formation occupies the whole width
of the roadway, and the driver (being a driver) is
of course asleep ; consequently, if you have a rock
wall on one side and an everlasting vertical precipice
on the other, you had better be careful how you
pass. Indeed, it is well to give them a wide berth
in any case, for even the immortal Bayard himself,
" without fear and without reproach," professed
himself anxious about his shins in the neighbour-
hood of a Spanish mule. They are harnessed with
delightful inconsequence in all sorts of gay tags
and fringes, and scraps of old caparisons of yellow
Cordovan leather ; while all deficiencies are eked

THE ARRIEROS 159

out with string. This requires great quantities of
string. The waggons which they draw are equally
patchworky, with their cargoes bulging out on all
sides in an imminently precarious fashion. In the
wine districts they generally carry an " extra " in
the shape of a huge tun slung under the axle
between the lofty wheels.

It is worthy of remark that a Spanish "gee-
upper " ^ is commonly unable to think of any worse
name for a mule than its own. " Arr^ I Mula ! ! "
he cries, and collapses impotently. What more
can he call it ? It is a mule. To do him justice,
however, he seldom resorts to blows to reinforce
his vocabulary ; and the cruelty so often inveighed
against in southern countries is not very noticeable
in northern Spain. The beasts are gaunt, bony,
and ill-kempt, but herein they are no worse off
than their drivers : they are too often worked
when galled or foundered ; yet this is but negative
heedlessness, and positive misusage is rare.

The temper of the beasts is uncertain. The ox
and the ass are phlegmatic, but the horse and mule
(which have no understanding) have decidedly
fidgetty nerves. The mules are frequently gigantic
animals, as high-standing and big-boned as an

^ Arriero, from arr4 ! gee-up !

160 NORTHERN SPAIN

English dray-horse, though much less heavy and
muscular. Mixed teams are frequently requisi-
tioned in the mountain districts. One sample
that we met had a horse for leader, then two mules
tandem, a pair of oxen, and a mule in the shafts ;
another had a mule for shafter, with two more
mules outside the shafts, a fourth ahead, and three
yoke of oxen to lead the way. It is extremely
fashionable to finish off the string with a diminutive
donkey (generally the smaller the better) tacked
on as a sort of afterthought at the head of the
whole cavalcade. He looks as though meant for
a tassel, but is really played as a pace-maker ; for
he is always the fastest walker and the most
enthusiastic worker in the team.

There was a real " little Benjamin " of jackasses
that we met on the road near Segovia. Two men
were coming into the town in charge of a bull ;
and by way of getting the hulk steered with as
little personal attention as might be, it had struck
them to harness this trifle to the monster's spread-
ing horns. Had the bull really resented the
arrangement it would have cost him but a turn of
the head to heave the whole equipage ov^er the
parapet among the tops of the poplars below.
Fortunately, however, he was not actively annoyed

SALAMANCA
Church of San Martin.

^S£^£ rfi^ai^liA S^-S^t.>

WELLINGTON AND MARiMONT 161

— only rather grumpy and puzzled. Every few
steps he would stop, shaking his head and bellow-
ing ; while his little pilot gathered himself together,
drove in his toes, and flung himself into the collar
with the exalted enthusiasm that does not reck of
odds. He fairly squirmed with glee as his charge
condescended to move a step or two forward, and
evidently considered that every yard of progress
was exclusively attributable to himself.

We took our last look at the Cantabrian moun-
tains fi'om the crest of the watershed between the
Duero and Tormes ; and the same hill that con-
cealed them brought us into full view of another
equally imposing range to the southward — the
Sierra de Gredos, whose monarch, the Plaza
Almanzor, is only a few feet inferior even to the
Rock of Ages which dominates Europa Pikes.
But it is to the fallows around us that our first
attention is owing ; — a site which should stir the
imagination of an Englishman as Don Quixote's
was stirred on the Campo de JNIontiel.

Over these bleak, red plough lands for six long

July days in 1812 the armies of Marmont and

of Wellington marched and countermarched and

circled round each other like dancers in some vast

quadrille or chess players fencing for an opening.

162 NORTHERN SPAIN

Neither leader would risk a doubtful action ; for
the French Army of the Centre was rapidly
approaching, and its junction might make or mar
a victory. Almost within speaking distance, they
raced for advantage in position, and scarcely once
did they pause to exchange a blow. It was a
repetition of the old drama enacted centuries before
by Caesar and Afranius upon the plains of Ldrida.
But the Caesar of this production was playing
Afranius' i^ole.

Marmont had the pace of his opponent, and
Wellington pivoted round Salamanca to guard
his communications with Rodrigo. Foiled on the
right, Marmont dashed round to the left, forded
the Tormes and thrust at Salamanca from the
south. Wellington still faced him ; but King
Joseph was now close upon him, and within two
days at furthest the English would be hopelessly
outnumbered by the junction of the hostile hosts.
Retreat was inevitable : had, indeed, already com-
menced ; for the baggage was on the move, and
Wellington was but waiting for nightfall to cover
the withdrawal of his fighting line.

" A silver bridge for a retreating enemy," saith
the Spanish proverb ; but Napoleon's aspiring
young marshal had been trained in a more

BATTLE OF SALAMANCA 163

aggressive school. He knew that his troops were
the speedier, that Joseph's junction would bring a
winning superiority of numbers. If he could but
hold the English to their position for another day
the campaign might be finished at a blow ; — and
he eagerly pushed on his left under Maucune to
command the Rodrigo road. Clausel's brigade,
already wheeling in from the rear, would link the
left to the centre ; and his foe would be in a cleft
stick. But Clausel's march was limed in the thick
web of olive woods which mantles the hills towards
Alba ; the fatal gap yawned conspicuous behind
the hurrying columns ; and in an instant Wellington
pounced upon Maucune.

Well was it for Marmont that the day was now
far spent, and that the fords of the Tormes had been
left unguarded ! For never was victory more rapid
or more complete. In forty minutes Marmont's
magnificent army of forty thousand men were a
horde of disorganized fugitives ; and the whole of
the central pro\dnces lay defenceless at the feet
of his foe.

It seems a little strange that Salamanca should
contain no monument of the great battle which
freed half Spain from the grasp of the invader,
and which, in after years, the mighty victor him-

164 NORTHERN SPAIN

self was wont to regard as his masterpiece — the
Austerhtz of his career. Its only memorials now-
adays are a few forgotten tablets on the walls of
the great cathedral : from the roof of which the
anxious townsfolk once heard the sudden roar of
the closing battle, and watched the great column
of smoke and dust soaring up slowly over Arapiles
into the placid evening sky.

Salamanca shows itself off to best advantage
when approached from the southern side. It
stands upon rising ground on the right bank of
the Tormes, with a fine old Roman bridge leading
up to it across the stream. The river banks are
lined with voluble washerwomen,- — at least a
quarter of a mile of them, fairly elbowing one
another as they chatter over their work ; and
behind them the red-roofed houses of the city are
piled up the slope in picturesque disaiTay. The
most prominent object is the great cathedral, a
sixteenth century Gothic building of the type that
is only to be encountered in Spain. It is of im-
posing proportions, and lavishly ornamented with
a marvellous profusion of delicate carving which
could not possibly have stood the exposure to
the weather in any less favourable clime. Yet
it lacks the deep mouldings and majestic solidity

SALAMANCA
From the left bank ot the Tormes.

f !- :••

•^

RAVAGES OF THE FRENCH 165

of earlier works ; and this somewhat academic
pretentiousness is not nearly so impressive as
the stunted strength of the old cathedral which
nestles under the shadow of its more sho^vy sister
— a typical Romanesque edifice, rude, massive, and
solemn, like an oak beside a poplar colonnade.

No city suffered more than Salamanca from
Napoleon's disastrous invasion ; and what that
implies let her fellow victims testify ! The French
are pleased to regard themselves as the modern
Athenians ; — the modern Vandals is the name
that their neighbours might prefer ! Gaiseric
himself never systematised pillage like Napoleon ;
and who can wonder at the savage retaliation of
the Partidas when he sees the havoc which was
wrought in unhappy Spain ? " Twenty-five con-
vents, twenty-five colleges, and twenty-five arches
to the bridge," was the boast of the citizens of
Salamanca before the days of their visitation. But
no less than twenty colleges and thirteen convents
(amongst them some of the noblest Renaissance
monuments) were razed to the ground by the
remorseless Marmont when he built his three great
redoubts to fortify the town against Wellington
in 1812 ; and a ghastly bald scar in the midst of
the crowded city still marks the spot where the

166 NORTHERN SPAIN

tyrant's hand was laid. It is but poor consolation
to remember that the ramparts erected at this
frightful cost crumpled up like the pasteboard
helmet beneath the stroke of his mightier foe : and
that INIarmont himself reaped a small instalment
of his whirlwind within actual sight of the city
which he had marred.

Perhaps it is hardly too much to assert that at
the end of the eighteenth century Salamanca must
have been the most magnificently housed university
in the world. Even now, after all her losses, I can
think of no other on the Continent which can so
well stand comparison with our own. But, alas !
she has fallen upon evil days. The famous Irish
college had a population of seven (Dons and
Students included) at the time of our visit ; and
the salaries of the professors are such as no master
of a board school would consider adequate in
England. The Augustan age of Salamanca com-
menced in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella ; and
was perhaps already declining when Gil Bias visited
it with his adventurous young mistress masquerad-
ing in her doublet and hose. Then the city had
more students than it has now inhabitants ; and
even Paris and Bologna admitted the superiority of
the Salamanca schools. She was a progressive

COLLEGES AND PALACES 167

university too ; and albeit she rejected Columbus,
she at least accepted Copernicus — a considerable
step on the way. In one respect her example
might inspire present-day universities, for here it
was that a lady first held a professorial chair.

The great gate of the Library is now the chief
relic of these bygone glories : and that gem of the
early Renaissance is worthily supported by the
arcaded quadrangles of some of the colleges and
schools. They are built of the warm golden-
brown stone which is common to most Salamancan
monuments, and their richly-carved parapets and
fantastically-shaped arches have an air of oriental
opulence which is very taking to the eye.

But even apart from its churches, convents, and
colleges, Salamanca would still remain notable by
reason of its palaces alone. First among these is
the Casa de las Conchas, — spangled all over with
the great stone scallop shells from which it derives
its name. It is even more striking and original
than its larger and lordlier rival, the famous
Palacio de 3Io7ite?'ey ; and I owe it a special
acknowledgment for the hberty which I have
taken with it in pirating its facade to serve as
the cover of this volume.

The Castilian and Leonese casas have much in

168 NORTHERN SPAIN

common with the typical Florentine palaces ; and
even their cousins of Aragon only differ from them
in so far as they are brick instead of stone.
Towards the street they present a square and
solemn fa9ade, plain or heavily rusticated, and
pierced with but few windows, which are always
stoutly barred. The entrance is large and plain,
and generally arched over with enormously deep
voussoirs, which have a very imposing effect.
Within is an open patio surrounded by a double
arcade. A fine staircase in a recess gives access to
the upper tier ; and the rooms which are ranged
around the gallery all open direct into the air.
The centre of the patio is occupied by a well or
fountain, and is often filled with flowers. The
type seems exceptionally suitable to a semi-tropical
country ; yet modern builders will have none of it ;
and, though common in all provincial capitals, it is
nowhere to be met with in Madrid.

In a second and smaller type of house the great
entrance doorway occupies practically the whole
of the ground-floor frontage. Obviously it was
generally entered on horseback, and the hall within
(like that of a village posada) served as ante-
chamber both to the living rooms above and to the
stables behind. The family lived on the first and

SALAMANCA
The Puerta del Rio, with the Cathedral Tower.

w^ ^*^.

^aiamonco. Pocrto del Rio.

A SKETCHER^S TROUBLES 169

second floors, while the third was originally a
belvedere. But nowadays the latter has been
enclosed and the ground floor generally converted
into a shop.

It is one of the penalties of sketching in a
crowded city that everybody who has no immedi-
ate occupation of his own becomes consumingly
interested in yours. There is but one spot in
Salamanca where one is quite secure from surveil-
lance, and that is opposite the porch of San Martin,
perhaps the most frequented corner in the town.
Here, balanced gingerly upon a narrow ledge, you
overlook the heads of the bystanders, and even
the most agile urchin can find no foothold in
your rear.

Yet the immunity is hardly worth winning. At

best it is very uncomfortable ; and if you submit

to your heckling, the entertainment is not all on

one side. At the bridge head it even secured me

the offer of a commission. The Boniface of the

little wine-shop was urgent with me to reproduce

my sketch enlarged upon the front of his bar. My

recompense was to comprise full board and lodging

during the operation, — and that would have been

no trifle. But he must have had considerable faith

in the covering capacity of water colours to pit a

170 NORTHERN SPAIN

little twenty-pan paint-box against fifty square feet
of deal boards.

But it was at the Puerta del Rio that I found
my entourage of most practical utility. It had
been snowing overnight in the mountains, and the
Sierra de Gredos was draped from base to summit
in a mantle of dazzling white. In spite of the
brilliant sunshine the wind was incredibly bitter,
and the miserable sketcher would have been frozen
without his human screen. Truly " Winter is not
over till the fortieth of May " within reach of those
icy summits. The Duke of Wellington asserted
that the coldest thing in his recollection was the
wind at Salamanca in July !

CHAPTER IX

BjfejAR, AVILA, AND ESCORIAL

There were " Bulls at Salamanca " (so ran the
placards) on the day when we were to resume our
journey towards the south ; and the Senor Patron
seemed quite crestfallen at realising that we had
no intention of deferring our departure in order to
witness the fun. Bull-fighting was not cruel, he
protested. That was all our inexplicable British
prejudice. And as patrons of prize-fights and
football we ought to be the last to throw stones.
We were rather expected to sympathise with the
national sport of Spain.

His conclusion was truer than his reasoning.
There are certain thrilling forms of playing with
death amiably tolerated by the British public
which are logically no whit better than bull-fight-
ing : and it is not humanity but fashion that dictates
to us which to condemn. Only a few days earlier
an unfortunate woman had been killed at Madrid

171

172 NORTHERN SPAIN

while " looping the loop " on a motor ; and the
Spanish papers (those eager reporters of bull-fights)
were all most properly indignant at the danger-
ous and degrading character of this new-fangled
foreign show. Our British high-toned repugnance
is distinctly less moral than squeamish. But we
did not want our feelings harrowed in the midst
of a holiday tour.

Bull-fighting is one of the many sports that
have been ruined by professionalism. In the days
when the young gallants of the court encountered
the bull themselves, on their own horses, before
the eyes of their lady-loves in the Plaza Mayor,
tliere was a spice of chivalry about the proceeding
that half redeemed its brutality. It was truly a
sport then, albeit a savage one ; but now it is
merely a show.

JMoreover, even our host admitted that this time
the Corrida would be shorn of its foremost attrac-
tion. It was to have been inaugurated by a bull-
fighting Pier?^ot who was wont to await the first
rush of the monster motionless upon a tub in the
centre of the arena. The bull would charge
headlong upon him, — check, sniff, and turn away.
No doubt he owed his immunity to his apparent
lifelessness ; but it was billed as the " power of the

THE ROAD TO B:^JAR 173

human eye." Alas ! on the last occasion his
programme liad miscarried. Just at the critical
moment a fly had settled on his nose ; and for one
infinitesimal fraction of a second the entire voltage
of the human eye was switched upon that miserable
insect. The effect on the fly was not stated, but
it markedly reassured the bull. Poor Pierrot had
been tossed as high as a rocket, and apparently was
not expected down again in time for the perform-
ance to-day.

The two English visitors to Salamanca also
failed to figure at the function. They had crossed
the bridge very early in the morning, and were
heading for the mountains of Gredos by the high-
way leading to Bejar. The actual battlefield was
passed upon the left, about four miles distant from
Salamanca, subtending the angle formed by the
roads to Alba and Bejar; and the olive woods
which so hampered Clausel spread wide around us
over the hills behind. It was a just Nemesis which
overtook the invaders on this occasion, for the
destruction of olive trees for fuel had been one of
their most gratuitous outrages during the war.
The olive is a slow grower, and a few hours' reckless
cutting might take half a century to repair.

At first the road rises gradually and the country

174 NORTHERN SPAIN

is open and undulating ; but soon it gets deeply
involved in a labyrinth of mountains, and tacks
despairingly backwards and forwards in vain
endeavours to twist itself free from the toils.
Finally it extricates itself by a frantic rush up a
long steep hill, and resumes its journey at first-
floor level along the shoulders of the range. Some
distance further west it manages to discover a
passage across the main ridge into the province of
Estremadura ; but the town of B^jar itself lies
four or five miles upon the hither side.

Hope had told us a flattering tale concerning
the attractions of B^jar. A Salamanca gentleman
to whom we confided our intention of visiting it
had kissed his finger-tips ecstatically at the mere
mention of its name. " Muy bonita ! " ^ he ex-
claimed. '' Preciosa I ! " And truly his adjectives
were excusable ; for a more charming situation
for a mountain township it is almost impossible to
conceive. A long knife-edged ridge is thrown out
from the range at right angles. The one street is
carried along its crest, and the houses cling to
either side of it like panniers on the back of a
mule. A great snowclad peak, one of the minor

^ As in Italian, the diminutive is a sort of endearing form of
supei'lative.

BEJAR
An Approach to the Town.

BlfejAR 175

summits of the Sierra, towers above the head of
the ridge and gravely surveys the street from end
to end ; while the extreme point looks out over
the wild hummocky country towards Ciudad
Rodrigo, with the great masses of the Sierra de
Gata and Pefia de Francia surging up truculently
above the lower hills. B^jar is a fragment of
Tyrolean scenery dropped accidentally on the
borders of Estremadura. Its buildings are nothing
remarkable, but its situation is irreproachably
picturesque.

The town was holding a little Fiesta of its
own upon the day of our visit, and the advent of
two pedlars with knapsacks was naturally accepted
as a part of the show. Several anxious enquirers
stopped us in the street to ascertain " what our
honours were selling " ; and the prevalent notion
appeared to be that we were vendors of edible
snails I Many of the country-folk had come in
from the remoter villages and were attired in the
quaintest of costumes. The women wore very
brief skirts, which gave an exceedingly squat
appearance to their sturdy thick-set figures. The
men had tight black breeches and jerkins adorned
with polished metal buttons ; enormously broad
leather belts something like the cuirasses of the

176 NORTHERN SPAIN

Roman legionaries, and forked leather aprons
loosely strapped down their thighs. This weird
type of dress we had already noticed at Salamanca ;
and for a hot climate it must be about the most
unsuitable ever conceived by man.

The journey from Salamanca to Avila entails a
longer spell of Duero valley scenery than that from
Salamanca to Bejar; and for the best part of a
day we were perseveringly reeling off league after
league of the same dry red plough lands which
had already wearied us in the North. It was not
till towards evening that the road at last began
swerving and plunging upon the great ground-
swell which ripples out into the plain from the
feet of the Sierra de Guadarrama ; and the huge
granite boulders littered about among the stunted
ilex and gorse which clothed the shaggy ridges
apprised us that we had drawn within reach of the
derelict moraines. Still as we held our course each
successive wave bore us higher than its predecessor,
till at last we looked down into a wide upland
basin, and beheld the towers of Avila rising
proudly upon their dais in the midst.

There is no other walled town of my acquaintance
that flaunts its defences quite so defiantly as Avila.
Its circlet of tower and curtain crests its gi'eat

BEJAR

A Corner in the Market-place.

AVILA 177

natural glacis like the substantialised vision of a

mural crown. The walls themselves are only

about twelve feet in thickness, which is, of course,

a mere trifle compared to Lugo and Astorga ; but

it is height that tells, and their commanding

situation gives them an incomparably finer effect.^

Only on the further side has the city begun to

overflow its ancient cincture ; and with its core |

of tightly-packed houses clustering round its great j

cathedral-fortress which crowns the brow of the !

eminence, it still receives its latter-day visitors in

the same garb that it donned for the Cid. Doubt- ,

less the old rebel barons had an eye to its scenic

capabilities when they selected it as the theatre

for their mock deposition of Henrique IV. This

thing was not to be done in a corner, and the

impudent pageant which they enacted under its \

walls must have been visible for miles round. i

But the chief pride and glory of Avila is the
boast that it was the birthplace of Sta Theresa, i

the " seraphic " lady whom a more emotional epoch '^

has preferred to the martial Santiago, and almost \

matched with the Virgin herself as the modem
patroness of Spain.

^ They were built at the end of the eleventh century. A !

singularly fine bit of work for so early a date.

178 NORTHERN SPAIN

Sta Theresa was quite a modern saint; and,
like her contemporary Ignatius Loyola, much
more truly saintly than hagiologists would have
us infer. They would rather persist in belauding
her visionary ecstasies and ascetic self-mortification.
Her practical common-sense and her gentle resolu-
tion are dismissed as earthlier virtues : yet it was
these that made her a power.

She certainly lost no time in beginning the
practice of her profession, for at the age of seven
she persuaded her baby brother to run away with
her to Barbary to get martyred by the Moors.
Being captured and brought home by their dis-
tracted parents, they next decided upon becoming
hermits. But this notable scheme was also vetoed ;
— poor little mites ! Maybe we know other small
children who have started somewhat similarly on
the road to canonization ; but Theresa's romantic
devotion outlasted this fanciful stage. At the age
of sixteen she assumed the veil — a step which in
wiser years she was not so eager to advocate, but
in which she found ample opportunity for the
exercise of her piety and her zeal. Her reform
of the Carmelite nunneries was achieved in the
teeth of great opposition from the hierarchy of
the day ; and her literary work is of an excellence

STA THERESA DE AviLA 179

that places her high among the classical writers of
Spain. It is to such as her and Loyola, rather than
to Torquemada and Ximenes, that the Roman
Church owes its hold upon the people. And by
these she is dowered with the attributes which
belong to Catherine of Siena in another land.

But perhaps the most remarkable honour ever
accorded to her is the fact that two hundred
years after her death she was actually gazetted
commander-in-chief of the Spanish armies in
the Peninsula war ! Certainly Louis XL had
pre\dously honoured Our Lady of Embrun with
the colonelcy of his Scottish Guards. But here
was a popular assembly, in the nineteenth century,
which could " see him and go one better " ; a far
more dehberate extravagance than the whim of a
fetish-cowed king. Of course there was more
method in their madness than appears on the
surface. They did not really want a commander-
in-chief at all. What they did want was a Name
which should fire the enthusiasm of the peasantry,
as the citizens of Zaragoza had been fired by the
name of Our Lady of the Pillar. At the same
time it must be admitted that matters seemed to
move more smoothly when she was superseded by
the Duke of Wellington.

180 NORTHERN SPAIN

The cathedral is a most massive structure of
stern grey granite, with its apse bulging out
beyond the city walls — battlemented, loop-holed,
and machicolated like the profanest bastion of them
all. It looks every inch a castle, and has not
served amiss when so utilised ; for in the great
western tower the infant King Alfonso XL (Father
of Pedro the Cruel) was kept safe from his would-
be guardians during his long minority, by the
Bishop and people of Avila. The interior of the
building is one of the noblest in Spain — severe,
gloomy and solemn ; but furnished with that
surpassing magnificence which only Spanish
cathedrals can boast.

The old town itself is full of quaint nooks and
corners, and most of its streets and houses are as
unalterably medieval as the walls. A county
council inspector would probably play sad havoc
with them, for even if they are sanitary they are
terribly out of repair. There is a smell which
lingers distinctive in these old Spanish township^.
Not indeed altogether unpleasant, but rather
grateful fi*om association, like the smell of the
stone walls of the West country after a summer
shower. It is compounded of many simples, and
its leading ingredient is garhc. But it would be

AVILA
From the North-west.

A ROYAL GRAVE 181

hard to prove its innocency before our stern courts
of hygiene.

A Spaniard, however, takes his risks more
hghtly than an Englishman. Like Sancho Panza,
he argues that the physician is worse than the
disease. Life is a shockingly hazardous business
even on wafers and membrillo, and perhaps, after
all, roast partridge is not quite so deadly as
Hippocrates supposed.

Perhaps the most notable of the many monasteries
and churches of Avila is the Convent of San
Tomas at the foot of the hill to the south. As in
many important Spanish churches, the choir is
placed in a great stone gallery at the west end,
and in this instance the arrangement is balanced
by a similar gallery for the High Altar at the east.
The floor is occupied by the beautiful marble
monument of Prince Juan, the only son of
Ferdinand and Isabella. The Catholic kings,
fortunate in all else, desired in vain that greatest
blessing of all, the happiness of their children.
Juan, the hope of their kingdom, died a few months
after his marriage, and his posthumous child was
still-born. Isabella, their eldest daughter, torn
from the cloister to give an heir to the crown, was
married to the Crown Prince of Portugal. Her

182 NORTHERN SPAIN

young husband was killed by a fall from his horse ;
and though she was again married to his successor,
she died in child-birth ; and her infant son, hen* to
the whole Peninsula, did not long survive. Poor
mad Juana, crazed by the neglect of her worthless
husband, was the second daughter of the ill-starred
family, and the youngest was Catherine of Aragon.

Avila lies at an extremely lofty elevation, three
thousand feet above sea level ; and both here and
at Segdvia snow frequently falls as late as the
middle of May. The mountains immediately
behind it, however, are but the connecting link
between the Sierras of Grddos and Guadarrama,
and all the loftier peaks lie at some distance east
and west. A road leads through the gap to
Talavera de la Reyna (a circumstance, it may be
remembered, which was extremely fortunate for
Sir John INIoore).^ But we, being bound for
Madrid, set our course along the north of the
mountains, heading eastward to join the main road
from Vigo at the little town of Villacastin.

Our course lay over a brown and undulating
moorland, with the Duero plains to the left of us
and the broken ridges of the Sierra rising up

^ Moore was at Salamanca and his artillery at Talavera when
Napoleon reached Madrid.

A MOORLAND ROAD 183

boldly upon the right. The scene might well be
matched in Scotland, Donegal, or Connemara ; for
the granite mountains are very similar in forma-
tion, and the purple hardhead which clothes them
is an excellent imitation of heather, though of a
deeper shade, suggestive of royal mourning. Here
and there great tracts of the moorland, many
acres in extent, are thickly strewn witli gigantic
boulders, singly or in heaps, like huge natural cairns.
Doubtless these are blocs perches^ the relics of
extinct glaciers, like the similar blocks on the road
from Salamanca, or those near Ribadavia above
the Mino vale. The road, as usual, was almost
deserted, but conscientiously patrolled by two
very large and splendid ca?'abineros mounted on
humble asses, which could scarcely raise their
riders off the ground.

At Villacastin we struck the great royal road
for which we had been making, and the mountains
stretched out their arms to receive us as we turned
our faces towards the south. The day had been
well advanced when we quitted Avila, and now it
was nearly dusk. The mountains were of indigo
darkness, and the deep, closed valley into which
we were plunging was as black as the throat of a
wolf But the white road led us on surely and

184 NORTHERN SPAIN

steadily ; and we knew that somewhere in the
chasm before us was the shelter upon which we
were counting for the night.

The Fonda San Rafael is a long, low, straggling
building, very similar to our own old coaching
inns, but much more primitive in style. The
village aristocracy were engaged at dominoes in
the kitchen ; and the time which we wasted in
dining they attempted to utilise more profitably
by mastering the English tongue. They borrowed
our pocket dictionary and started their task with
enthusiasm. But this laudable access of energy
did not win the success it deserved. Unluckily
they commenced operations among the sns — a
combination which no Spaniard can ever pro-
nounce without an antecedent e. And they came
such amazing croppers over " es-na-il,'' " es-nd-ke,''
and ^^ es-ne-ezej' that their bewildered interpreters
got as much at sea as themselves.

The ascent of the Puerto de Guadarrama begins
immediately beyond the village ; a series of long
steep zigzags well shaded by slender pine trees —
the " spindles of Guadarrama," to which Don
Quixote likened Dulcinea. The climb in itself is
not particularly arduous, but no doubt it is an ugly
place in a December snowstorm ; and so Napoleon

AVILA

A Posada Patio.

■^^»

<i '.

I (^0^- f) Pos|»flffi 'Pikio,

..^'jr.

.«aia*a6**-'-^'«Wi*^. •"^■^a^jttixj!'.''-

PASS OF GUADARRAMA 185

found to his cost, when he forced the passage in
1808, rushing northwards from Madrid to fall upon
the adventurous Moore. Marbot has left us a
grisly description of its snow-drifts and precipices ;
and the furious eddies of whirlwind which swept
horse and man to destruction as they struggled
up the icy paths. But probably his account is a
little over -painted ; for precipices should be
perennial both in summer and winter ; but the
steepest which we could identify were about of
tobogganing pitch.

Viewed from the north, the pass is a saddle at
the end of a long deep valley ; but its southern
face forms an embrasure in a great mountain wall.
The whole valley of the Tagus seemed spread
beneath us as we gazed down from the summit ;
the plains all shimmering in a sea of purple heat
haze, and the blue Toledan mountains rising faint
and ethereal upon the further shore. So " Lot
lifted up his eyes and looked and beheld aU the
Vale of Jordan." The text seems singularly
appropriate to many of these vistas of Spain. A
little later in the day, when the haze had been
lifted by the sunshine, every detail of the country
would have shown up as clearly as on a map.

At the foot of the descent we swung to the right

186 NORTHERN SPAIN

along a pleasant undulating road amid trees and
meadows and hedgerows. And here, as in private
duty bound, let us record our gratitude to Don
Fernando, who erected the noble fountain whereat
we refreshed ourselves by the way. Don Fernando's
fountain is a great stone cistern, with the water
gushing into it from an upright pillar behind.
Verily his spirit is at rest if the wayfarers' prayers
may avail him ; for nowhere is water more appreci-
ated than in this land of wine.

Don Fernando {requiescat in pace) is by no
means the only benefactor who has conferred such
a boon on his countrymen. Almost every village
near the mountains is dowered with a tank in the
'plaza, and a generous jet of water beneath which
you may seethe your hissing head. Would that
we were as well off in England ! For our fountains
can furnish no more than a miserable trickle, and
even that is frequently dry. How often have we
raged unsatisfied from one faithless nozzle to another,
while the yokels mocked our agonies with com-
mendations of the beer ! Beer is excellent in its
way — but not when one is thirsty. Then on
revient toujours a ses premiers amours. APIZTON
MEN YAfiP.

The famous palace of Escorial opened suddenly

THE ESCORIAL 187

before us as we rounded a shoulder of the mountain,
and there can be few palaces in the world which
occupy so imposing a site. It is often referred to
as standing upon a plain, but the description is
entirely misleading. It rises upon the lap of the
mountains, high above the level of Madrid. Our
first view, moreover, much discounted our pre-
conceived notions regarding its gloomy appearance ;
for bathed in a flood of southern sunshine, it had
rather a cheerful aspect. But the very sunshine
itself grew chilled as we narrowed the radius ; and
the bare rude walls, vast, grey, and featureless, like
an enormously exaggerated Newgate, seemed to
crush out all the gladness of nature with their cold,
unalterable frown.

" First a tomb, next a convent, last a palace,"
was the ideal at which the founder was aiming;
and the massive asceticism of the building is an apt
reflection of his mood. It boasts itself the finest
of all the great monasteries : and if tested by
weight or by measure, the claim could hardly be
denied. But this vast gloomy prison is a thing
which has nothing in common with the staid beauty
of Poblet,^ or the Aladdin-like brilliance of the
Certosa at Pavia. Yet the extreme severity of its

1 The burial-place of the Kings of Ai-agon.

188 NORTHERN SPAIN

style is by no means inappropriate to the great
church which forms the central feature ; and none
that remember its grim associations would wish to
see the Escorial other than it is.

The memory of Philip the Prudent is still held
in honour by Spaniards, for he reigned in the days
of their glory, and was probably the most powerful
autocrat who ever occupied the throne. But
history's more equable judgment has condemned
the reign as a failure, and the monarch as one of
the scourges of mankind. True, he has not lacked
apologists ; for there is an uncanny fascination
about his grim personality ; and it is not difficult
to show some redeeming quality even in a Louis
XI. or a Richard III. But most of us prefer our
history broadly coloured, with good strong hghts
and shadows. We must be allowed a real villain
occasionally ; and, till such time as we get lago
incarnate, Philip II. will do very sufficiently well.
" A rake in his youth, a monster in his manhood, a
miser in his old age ; " — the bitter epitaph scribbled
up over his deathbed paints his character in three
lines.

And yet none who has once visited the Escorial
will thereafter think of Philip without some
glimmerings of respect. Our loathing for his

ESCORIAL
From the East.

• jsm.

PHILIP II 189

selfish and cruel tyranny is tempered with a kind
of shuddering pity for that other side of his
character ; — his gloomy religious mania, the taint
inherent in his blood. There was something of
gruesome greatness in the mind which could
conceive such a building, "reserving for himself
but a cell in the house he was erecting for God."
The Escorial was Philip's most cherished creation.
Probably he had a large share in designing it ;
certainly he watched it stone by stone as it grew.
Here he dwelt as " Brother Philip," a monk in his
own monastery, " ruling two worlds with a scrap of
paper, from a cell on a mountain side." Here he
was worshipping when he received the news of
Lepanto, and of the destruction of the Armada.
And it was with the same resolute stoicism that he
learned of the victory and of the defeat. Here he
died — the death of Herod Agrippa ; sustaining his
two months' agony with a constancy worthy of de
Seso himself.^ And all that is left of him rests in
the little octagonal chapel beneath the High Altar,
where his sire and his successors share his tomb.
His portrait by Pantoja hangs on the walls of the
library. A dreadful visage, — heartless, deceitful,
obstinate, — miserable beyond the power of words to

1 See p. 261.

190 NORTHERN SPAIN

express. But no picture ever painted, no statue
ever carved, could reveal his character more vividly
than the great gloomy pile of hard grey granite
which he himself has bequeathed as a legacy to
posterity.

Yet on one point the tyrant-hermit claims our
unreserved approbation. He displayed a most
excellent taste in the matter of selecting a site.
Here we can feel no shadow of sympathy for
his critics. His choice was unexceptionable : and
those who impugn it are blind. Indeed, this whole
range of Sierras is a region of singular beauty,
and the charming old towns which lie on the
foot hills beneath it, — Bejar and Plas^ncia,
A\ ila and Segovia, — give it an added interest
which mountain districts do not often possess.
Charles V. was drawn hither to Yuste, as Philip
to Escorial : yet each held an ample dominion and
neither was an incapable connoisseur. The jaded
soldier and statesman could wish for no pleasanter
resting-place than these grave highland solitudes
which form the backbone of Spain.

The road which leads plainwards from Escorial
to Madrid — " that splendid road constructed
regardless of cost for the gratification of a royal
caprice " — seems now scarce worthy of ]\Iacaulay's

MADRID 191

eulogies. Many of the roads to the northward
have had to encounter far greater engineering
difficulties, and show quite excellent results. Yet
this and all other Madrid roads are uniformly
villanous ; and when they amalgamate they
produce the Madrid paving, which is a thing to
remember in bad dreams.

The capital itself, however, does not show up
badly when approached from the northward ; and
the Royal Palace which dominates it, on the hill
above the JManzanares, is an exceedingly imposing
pile. Aranjuez (we were given to understand)
considers itself equal to Windsor; but no one of
our acquaintance would dare mention Buckingham
Palace in competition with the Palacio Real at
Madrid.

CHAPTER X

TOLEDO

There are but three reasons, that I know of, for
anyone visiting INIadrid. First, that the roads
(which are very bad) lead there; second, that the
Prado picture gallery (which was closed) is exceed-
ing magnifical ; and third, that there is a bicycle
repairer — which is an unsatisfactory reason at best.
Smart, well-groomed, busy cities with commodious
mansions and boulevards may be found (by such
as have need of them) within easier distances
than this. And for those who seek old streets,
historic monuments, and that delightful aroma of
medievalism which is the true inward charm
of the Peninsula, — are not the little crooked calles
of Avila and Segovia and Toledo better than all
the carrer^as of Madrid ?

To them the " Only Court " is no more than a
convenient "jumping-ofF place"; a head office of
" Cooks' " ; an entrepot of the central roads. The

192

THE TOLEDO ROAD 193

Mecca of their pilgrimage lies fifty miles to the
southward, — Toledo, the ancient stronghold of the
Moor, the Visigoth, and the Roman in the days
when none dreamed of such a kingdom as Castile.

The map showed two roads to Toledo, and already
I had sampled one of them. " The lUescas road,"
I argued, " was as bad as possible " ; and " therefore
the Aranjuez road is the best." My premise had
been quite unassailable, yet after all my deduction
proved fallacious. More just, and equally logical,
was "therefore it has necessarily improved."

The Aranjuez road, to do it justice, starts off

with the most admirable intentions ; and as if it

were really determined to arrive (as it proposes) at

Cadiz. But there is a sad slump in its prospects

before it has got far on the journey. It becomes

stony and bumpy and hummocky, with ruts like

the furrows of a plough ; and to steer a bicycle

along the narrow ribbon of practicable track at the

margin is an operation of some nicety, which is not

at all facilitated by a heavy side wind. Presently

there is a lucid interval of good smooth surface,

which lasts just long enough to put the victim into

good humour ; and the final stage into Aranjuez is

Uke the shingle that is upon the sea-shore.

Such are the habits of a Spanish road ; and in a

194 NORTHERN SPAIN

way its eccentricities are consolatory. However bad
it may be, you can always cherish the hope that it
will reform itself altogether round the next turn.
There is no reason why it should, but it often does.
Of course, " in the alternative " the converse is
equally true, but that is a point which needs gloss-
ing. Unless you foster a sanguine temperament
you will make no progress at all.

I have dwelt at some length on the state of the
road, but, indeed, at this stage there is little else
to dwell upon. A struggling avenue is pluckily
endeavouring to push a line of green pickets across
the dun-coloured plain ; and here and there are a
- few miserly olives, each perched upon the little
hoard of soil clutched by its hungry roots. But
the only things that seem really to flourish are the
gigantic six-foot thistles, and I fear that is an ill-
omened fertility. It is a greener and leafier world
when we descend into the Jarama valley.

Yet those who have heard Aranjuez described as
a Garden of Eden in the midst of a desolate
wilderness are likely to find themselves somewhat
disillusioned by the reality. True, a tree is always
a welcome object in verdureless Castile ; but the
English elms which are the boast of King Philip's
oasis, "they grow best at home in the North

TOLEDO
Bridge of Alcdntara, from the Illescas Road.

■€

^ati

OX'

ifj

ARINJUEZ 195

Countree " ; and though they wear a brave face,
they must envy the ample glades and rich green
turf which their brethren enjoy in the parks of
England. That the much-vaunted palace itself
should prove rather a failure need surprise no one.
The Spanish nobles are town-dwellers, and a
country seat such as Haddon, or Hatfield, or
Burleigh, is quite beyond their ken. Aranjuez
was a first attempt, and is not the right plant for
the soil. Perhaps Hampton Court, enlarged and
remodelled in the style of an Alexandra Palace,
might convey some notion of its cheap tea-gardeny
air : but even the river is uninteresting — a reproach
that can seldom be levelled at the Tagus !

I had been cheering my flagging spirits by the
anticipation of a nice shady road down the Tagus
banks to Toledo : but now an old muleteer regret-
fully mentioned that the road was dead, and truly
it was the spectre of a road to which he introduced
me. The ox-carts had been wallowing in it axle
deep throughout the winter, and the spring sun
had baked it into a chaos of seracs and crevasses
which might have been practicable for a goat. It
was wide and straight indeed, and it boasted a
noble avenue ; but its sole saving feature, from a
practical standpoint, was a grassy footpath at the

196 NORTHERN SPAIN

side. So long as the avenue continued, the track
maintained some semblance of coherency ; but
when that also defaulted, it frankly abandoned all
further interest in life. As a guide it was luckily
needless ; 1 had simply to follow the valley, and as
there were no walls or hedges I could make a bee-
line if I chose. INIoreover, on the further side of
the river a lofty detached hill, with a ruined castle
on the summit, formed a prominent landmark by
which to gauge my progress ; and with plenty of
time before me, I was bound to arrive in the end.

A sympathetic bandit, who found me hauling
my bicycle across a ploughed field, dispassionately
suggested that I might find the railroad better.
This opinion was loyally endorsed by Second Bandit
a mile or so to the rearward ; and Third Bandit
(ever the most practical of the trio) fairly marched
me up the embankment and launched me along
the permanent way. They were quite right — it
was better ; but sleepers and ballast are not a
desirable cycle track, and my well-regulated English
mind revolted against the scandalous impropriety
of the whole proceeding. However, it is sheer
waste of one's scruples to squander them over the
infi'action of Spanish bye-laws. They are humoured
so long as convenient ; but for everything there is

DOWN THE TAGUS VALLEY 197

a season : and nobody dreams of enforcing them
if they chance to be inopportune. There was a
wayside station to pass before I reached Toledo ;
there was a train drawn up at the platform, with
all the officials en evidence, and the passengers, as
usual, profiting by the stoppage to indulge in a
stroll and cigarettes. I dismounted perforce at
the points ; but through the station I rode un-
blushingly : and no one seemed to regard the
circumstance as the least unusual or reprehensible.
No doubt from Aranjuez to Toledo all bicyclists
travel that way.

Meanwhile I had been making fair progress, and
my goal was nearly gained. My castellated beacon
had dropped out of sight behind me ; and in front,
at the end of the valley, silhouetted against the
western sky, rose the great rocky knoll which is
the seat of imperial Toledo. A bend of the river
had brought its waters within easy reach, and
having washed off the dust of travel, I was indulging
in a few minutes' idleness before resuming the road.
Suddenly a herd of cattle plashed down into the
river a few yards away from me ; and their diminu-
tive Corydon — a little brown wisp of humanity in
the costume of a second-hand scarecrow — came
pattering happily at their heels. An English yokel

198 NORTHERN SPAIN

would have been hopelessly flabbergasted by such
an unlooked-for encounter ; but not so my little
Castilian. He bowed, sat down beside nie, and
launched out into conversation with the most
delicious confidence and self-possession, as if it
were all the most natural occurrence in the world.
He accepted a cigarette with becoming gravity,
and made sympathetic murmurs when the matches
refused to light. Our final success was acknow-
ledged with a prim little " Blessed be God I " At
the end of our chat he escorted me back to the
pathway, and made his adieu with a quaint courtli-
ness that conferred a dignity on his rags. Yet
probably he had never set foot outside his village,
nor set eyes on a stranger in his life. Good
manners, hke good looks, are sometimes bred in
the bone.

Hitherto the valley has been wide and open ; but
now the river begins to reveal itself in its true
character, — El Tajo, the Gash,^ — deep and narrow
between its riven walls. Across its path lies the
massive granite barrier of the mountains of Toledo.
The stream drives squarely into them and recoils

^ Such is the meaning of the word, but I would not like to
vouch for the etymology. The derivation is possibly the other
way.

TOLEDO
The Bridge of Alcantara.

■Jiledo foenkt f)l

TOLEDO 199

away sullenly towards the west. But ere it turns
it has bitten deep, and a great outlying bastion is
held in the hollow of its curve. The sun at his
creation shone first upon that rocky dais ! The
dignity of Toledo demands no meaner site !

It is indeed an ideal situation for a medieval
fortress ; in plan a rough approximation to the
shape of a rather square D. The curved line is
formed by the gorge of the Tagus, whose steep,
rocky banks would alone be an adequate defence ;
the straight by the landward face, — also lofty and
precipitous, and crowned with the remnants of
Wamba's ancient walls. And at the two corners
the grand fortified medieval bridges of San Martin
and Alcantara throw their lofty arches across the
stream. The site is very similar to that of Durham :
but the Toledo plateau is larger ; and the Tagus
is all unwooded, and wilder and grander than the
Wear.

The founder, of course, was Hercules. All
Spanish cities were founded by Hercules, except a
few which had been previously founded by Tubal.
No doubt a large man with a club was a some-
what recurrent phenomenon ; and the tale of his
legendary prowess was the sole evidence of identity
that an early Phoenician colonist was likely to

200 NORTHERN SPAIN

require. After the Phoenicians came the Romans.
But the glory of Toledo first reached its height in
the Dark Ages which succeeded the Roman, Avhen
the Visigoth dwelled in the land. Toledo was
the capital of the Visigothic kingdom ; and that
kingdom in the day of its power, during the reigns
of Leovigild and Wamba, was probably the most
potent among all the nations of the West. How
dire must have been the consternation of Austrasia
and Neustria and Lombardy, when, scarcely a
generation later, their protagonist succumbed so
utterly before the onset of the Moors ! — when
the Jews opened the gates of the unwary capital
to admit the hordes of Tarik, and the fall of
imperial Toledo set the seal on the disaster of
Guadalete.

Neither Christian nor Moslem underrated the
catastrophe of that fatal Palm Sunday ; and the
meagre outline of history has been gaudily
coloured by romance. Who has not heard the
tale of the enchanted Tower of Hercules, wherein
the self-willed Roderic sought and learned the
secret of his doom ? The fascinating Shahrazad
won a full night's respite from her dangerous lord
by her catalogue of the loot of the " City of
Labtayt" — the hundred and seventy crowns of

TOLEDO
Puerta del Sol.

a jiiel go'

^f'V;

rf,

4 .**:

ikrr..,.

■■*'jrsi»?ar'i»5>sR«"

l> ^; TrV^ ■dj"''^ ■■< y

LEGENDS OF TOLEDO 201

pearl and jacinth, the magical mirror, and the
emerald table of Solomon !

The Tower of Hercules is no longer alive to
testify : but an old Moorish ruin down by the
water's edge, under the bridge of San Martin, is
still pointed out as the scene of the companion
tale. Here the fair Florinda was bathing in the
Tagus when her beauty cauglit the eye of the
royal Roderic, and fired the passion which brought
unnumbered woes to Spain. It is, indeed, a little
hard upon poor Florinda that she should never
have been forgiven for her share in the disaster.
It was her father, not she, who let loose the INIoors
to avenge her ; and even the legend describes her
as more sinned against than sinning. Yet the
ballads, which can spare pity for Roderic, have
nothing but contumely for her. It is argued, I
suppose, that all the trouble arose out of her
unbridled passion for bathing. But this is a fail-
ing which we northerners regard more leniently.
Arietta's ablutions were under a happier star !

During the palmy days of Moslem dominion,

Toledo had to yield pride of place to Cordova.

But after the fall of the western Caliphate it

disputed the hegemony with Seville ; and it was

with considerable equanimity that Mohammed, the

202 NORTHERN SPAIN

king of Andalusia, saw his fornnidable rival grappled
by the Christians under Alfonso VI. The author
of the Poema del Cid bitterly deplores the fact that
there was no " sacred bard " to immortalise the
chivah'ous incidents of that great two years' leaguer ;
but, at least, the result was satisfactory, and three
hundred and seventy years after its capture Toledo
was won again from the JNIoor. Its fall was well-
nigh fatal to the Spanish Moslems ; for Mohammed
himself was nov/ unable to resist the conqueror ;
and willing to live " a camel-driver in the African
deserts rather than a swineherd in Castile," he
despairingly summoned the Almoravides from
Morocco to his aid. He had sold his kingdom to
save it ; yet the newcomers beat back Alfonso : and
the Cid's newly-won kingdom of Valencia went
under in the flood. But Toledo, once the strong-
hold of Paynimry, was now the bulwark of
Christendom ; and against its iron ramparts the
wave of Moslem reaction spent itself in vain.

Now began the second period of Toledo's great-
ness. The city became the seat of the Spanish
primate and the favourite residence of the Castilian
kings. Some of its importance leaked away south-
ward when Cordova and Seville were reconquered
by Ferdinand III. in 1248. But the first great

EXPULSION OF THE JEWS 203

blow to its prosperity was the inhuman expulsion
of the Jews by Ferdinand and Isabella at the end
of the fifteenth century. Toledo had been one
of their chief asylums ever since the destruction
of Jerusalem ; and though Goth and Moor and
Christian had all alike persecuted them whenever
they became rich enough to make it worth while ,
yet they were now a numerous colony, wealthy,
honoured, and well affected to the cro^vn. But
Torquemada's savage fanaticism overbore the
scruples of the queen. The whole nation was
ruthlessly exiled at a bare six months' notice ;
and perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that
nearly all of them, beggared and hopeless, perished
of hardship by the way.

Toledo was still important enough to play the
leading role in the great revolt of the Communeros
at the beginning of the reign of Charles V. It was
indeed the last city to succumb ; and that resolute
lady, Maria Pacheco, the widow of Padilla, held it
for many months against the imperial forces before
she finally abandoned the struggle and fled from
the realm. The thoroughness with which this
rising was suppressed is perhaps a matter for
regret. The triumph of the crown was too com-
plete ; and Spain, once the most democratic of

204 NORTHERN SPAIN

medieval monarchies, was henceforth an absolute
autocracy.

With this last effort Toledo's prominence upon
the stage of history comes practically to an end.
Henceforth it retired upon its reputation, and let
the busy world go on without it as it chose. It
still turns out a few of those famous sword blades,
" the ice brook's temper," which Othello bore upon
his thigh ; but, for the rest, it is but a quiet country
town, dozing placidly under the cegis of the great
cathedral, which now seems to furnish its only I'aison
detre.

Nearly a thousand years have elapsed since
Toledo was recovered by the Christians ; and,
though but few of its monuments are of genuine
IMoresco workmanship,^ yet to all outward appear-
ance it remains a Moorish city still The trade-
mark of the East is stamped indelibly upon it ; —
steep, narrow, crooked streets ; and square, sombre
palaces, whose grim facades give no hint of the
lovely patios within. Its mazy network of calles
is spread all over the surface of the gi'eat domed
rock upon which it stands ; and the fact that the

1 The tiny mosque of San Crista de la Lnz is the only genuine
Moorish fragment. The Puerta del Sol, the churcli of Sta Maria
la Blanca, etc., are Mudejar work. Cp. note on p. 208.

TOLEDO
Calle del Com6rcio, with the Cathedral Tower.

STREETS OF TOLEDO 205

Calle del Comc^rcio is the widest, longest and
straightest of any, may serve as some indication
of the character of the rest. Street frankly admits
that it is one of the few cities where he could not
find his way without a guide ; and but that I found
all ways equally fascinating, it is higlily probable
that I should have been in the same predicament
myself. Every corner of the stage seems still set
exactly as it was quitted by the heroes and heroines
of Lope de Vega and Calderon. Lazarillo de
Tormes might still be town crier. It might be but
yesterday that the horrified Gil Bias recognised the
comrades of his early escapades walking among the
condemned in the procession of the Auto-da-fe.
One little alley that I discovered in the course of
my wanderings bore the remarkable title of " Calle
del Diablo peiiinece al Ayuntamiento,'' " The-Devil-
belongs-to-the-Corporation Street." He does ! —
to many Corporations! But few are ingenuous
enough to proclaim the fact at the street corners !
And few have such slight cause to lament it ; — he
is generally a Devil of Unrest.

The great Alcazar,^ which is the most prominent
object in the city, is too uncompromisingly cubical
to be strictly picturesque ; and the cathedral,
which is its chief glory, is singularly unobtrusive

1 I.e. " Citadel," Ccesareum.

206 NORTHERN SPAIN

in a general view. The houses shoulder up against
it as though anxious to keep it hidden ; and when,
after much circumnavigation, we do manage at
last to unmask it, behold ! it is bare and feature-
less, only redeemed from meanness by its noble
western tower.

But the moment we pass the portal all cavilling
is awed to silence. Out of the blaze of the
southern sunshine we step into a vast, mysterious
twihght, lit only by the jewelled pictures in the
clerestory overhead. The air is heavy with the
odour of incense ; and the chant of the canons
thunders down the aisles. The style of this great
temple is the purest and most solemn of thirteenth-
century Gothic. Built by the canonized king,
St Ferdinand, out of the spoils of Seville, it is
equal to Rheims in majesty, and ranks next to
Cologne in point of size. But noble as is the
edifice itself, this is but the casket for its nobler
treasures. No other Cathedrals in the world can
compete with the Spanish in the richness of their
furniture ; and here, for more than three centuries,
the richest of all the great Chapters ^ lavished their
wealth upon the adornment of their shrine. The

^ James Howell in 1620 estimates the annual income of Toledo
at £lOO,OOOj a sum equivalent to nearly half a million to-day.

TOLEDO CATHEDRAL 207

skilfulest craftsmen of the Renaissance, — Copin and
Rodrigo, de Arfe and Villalpando, Borgona and
Berruguete, — spent the best years of their Uves
upon its stalls and rejas and custodias} They were
furnished with gold and silver, jasper and alabaster,
with a prodigality worthy of Solomon himself;
and we may well apply to them all the boast that
is recorded of two of them, — that no one can ever
determine who best deserves the palm.

The great masterpieces of the cathedral are
concentrated in bewildering profusion about the
Coro and Capilla 3Iayo?' ; but each and all of the
score of chapels that surround it, is stored with
relics of history and gems of ancient art. Here
lies Alvaro de Luna, the Cardinal Wolsey of
Spanish history. The great Constable died on
the scaffold in the Plaza at Valladolid, and his
vindictive enemies would not spare even his tomb ;
but his beautiful marble monument shows that his
daughter's piety was respected in a later reign.
Here lies the Grand Cardinal JVIendoza, tei^tius rex
to the wedded " kings " who made Spain a nation ;
and his tomb is worthy of a king. Here lie the
early monarchs of Castile,— their sarcophagi caught
up in the tangle of intricate tracery which encloses
the Capilla Mayor. And here, among all these

1 Metal screens and reliquaries.

208 NORTHERN SPAIN

kings and princes, are the monuments of two
others ; — Abu Wahd the JNIoslem, " the good
Alfacpii " who pled for his persecutors against the
wrath of Alfonso VI. ; and the humble shepherd
of the Morena, who led Alfonso VIII. by the
secret pass across the mountains, and died on the
plains of Tolosa in the great victory which his
guidance gained.^ " They buried them in the city
of David among the kings, because they had done
good in Israel." The men of the thirteenth
century were no respecters of persons, and could
understand an honourable reward.

One of the chapels is specially reserved for the
performance of the Mozarabic ^ ritual, the ancient
Use of St Isidore, which had been preserved by the
Toledan Christians throughout the period of their
subjection to the INIoors. At the reconquest the
Romanizers were anxious to suppress it, and after
much controversy the question was referred to
ordeal by battle. Two bulls were appointed
champions for the rival churches ! but the defeat
of the Roman representative left his clients uncon-

^ He has only a statue at Toledo ; but his actual grave has a
scarcely less honourable site in las Hue/gas at Burgos.

2 The Mozdrabes were Christians under the dominion of the
Moors, as Mudejares were Moors under the dominion of
the Christians.

TOLEDO

The Gorge of the Tagus.

A RITUALISTIC CONTROVERSY 209

vinced, and two knights took the place of the
bulls. Again the Toledan was victorious, but
again the argumentative Romanists refused to
accept the result. The arm of tlie flesh was a vain
thing in such a matter ; " the God that answereth
by fire, let Him be God I " The protests of the
Mozdrabes were overborne, and the arbitrary
bonfire was kindled in the triangular Toledan
market-place. The Romanists astutely conceded
the privilege of " first go." They complacently
watched their antagonists commit St Isidore's
precious Missal to the flames. And, behold, it
would not burn! Had the Romanists kept their
heads it might have occurred to them that the old
parchment tome, with its thick oak boards and
solid metal clasps, was about as unpromising a bit
of fuel as mortal bonfire could tackle. But this
third defeat gave them a panic. There was only
a draw to be hoped for, and they dared not expose
their own volume to such an unprofitable risk.
With desperate ingenuity they once more tried to
revive the controversy from the beginning ; but
their opponents were now upon too firm ground,
and their orthodoxy had to be conceded.

In later years, however, the Mozarabic ritual fell

into disuse, and was only rescued from oblivion by

210 NORTHERN SPAIN

the enterprise of Cardinal Ximenes, who collated
and republished it, and founded the chapel wherein
it is still performed. This sounds rather a broad-
minded act for a Grand Inquisitor ; but Ximenes,
an ascetic and a conqueror, a foe to knowledge
and a patron of learning, w^as one of those strange
complex characters whose actions seem consistent
to no one but himself.

One might readily fill a volume with a list of the
glories of Toledo, and not a tithe of its attractions
can be mentioned in these meagre notes. Its
proximity to Madrid renders it somewhat better
known than the majority of Castilian cities, yet
most visitors appear to imagine that they can " do "
it adequately in a day. A cheerful American
whom I met there had come over from Madrid in
the morning, and was returning the same afternoon.
He was seeing Toledo in three hours, and was
spending one of them in dining ! A month might
well prove insufficient ; but a month was not to be
spared. One further visit, however, is incumbent
on every Englishman. A pilgrimage down the
Tagus to the battlefield of Talavera is a duty that
he may not ignore.

The Tagus valley becomes more tame and
domesticated below the grim defiles of Toledo ;

TOWARDS TALAVERA all

and its mountain fences, the Sierras of Grddos and
Guadalupe, face one another at a distance of some
fifty miles. Yet the intervening plains have not
nearly the amplitude of the Duero's, though the
ground is comparatively open and even compara-
tively green. It is a very interesting district ; for
the Tagus was long a frontier river, and its banks
were as diligently fortified as those of our own
Tweed.

The roads from Madrid and Toledo unite at the
castle of Magueda ; and it was at the brook
beneath it that I made the acquaintance of El
Maest7X Pedro and his wife and family, a couple
of Pyrenean bears and a Barbary ape. What an
ungainly group they looked as they came scramb-
ling down the road towards me ! But they were
all true Castilians (at least all the human section),
and offered me a share of their food when they
stopped to lunch at the water side, as all well-bred
wayfarers should : — Would my honour please to
eat ? " Many thanks ! a good meal to your
honours I " is the correct reply to this courtesy : and
therewith I went my way.

And now the military tourist will begin to
recognise that he is approaching a classic neigh-
bourhood. His ear is caught by the names of the

212 NORTHERN SPAIN

villages — Torrijos, Sta Olalla, Alcabon. They are
humble little hamlets enough, yet their names ring
vaguely familiar. They each dropped a card upon
history one hundred years ago.

Now, too, the landscape is pervaded by an
additional feature, which was likewise important
enough to win historical mention on the battle-
field.^ To wit. Pigs. Pigs and pigs and pigs.
Pigs by single spies, pigs in battalions. No fat
and greasy citizens, like their cousins in England,
but sinewy, razor- backed racers of strong sporting
procUvities, who rioted along beside the bicycle in
sheer exuberance of athleticism. There was a big
pig fair toward at Talavera on the morrow, and its
votaries were mustering from all points of the
compass like the sorcerers of Domdaniel when
EbUs summoned them to doom. They were all
washed beautifully clean by a tremendous thunder-
storm which caught us at the bridge over the
Alberche : but the streets and lanes of the city
were reduced to an indescribable state.

Talavera de la Reyna lies upon low ground on
the right bank of the Tagus, which here is com-
paratively wide and shallow, and is crossed by a

' Several such herds were seized by the hungry regiments in
the course of the retreat.

TALAVERA DK LA REINA
From the banks of the Tagus.

BATTLE OF TALAVERA 213

long and very crooked bridge. The town is not
strictly fortified ; but it is walled, and well screened
by its orchards ; and as the plain is here nar-
rowed by outlying hummocks from the mountains,
it forms an effective position for disputing the
passage of the road.

All the main fighting in the battle took place
upon the higher ground to the northward. The
town itself, with its enclosures and orchards, was
occupied by the Spaniards under their obstinate
old Captain-General Cuesta. They had nearly
come to grief two days before in retreating across
the Alberche, but were now entrenched in a
position too strong for assault ; and Jourdan and
Victor directed all their efforts against the left and
centre where the English were drawn up. Here
the ground is more open and more elevated,
sloping up from the flats by the river till it
culminates in the hill of Medellin. The position
(as in most other battlefields) does not seem very
formidable to a layman. But then any position
that did would probably never be attacked.

The battle was one of the bloodiest in the
Peninsula; for the British were heavily out-
numbered, and their raw militia battalions lacked
three years' tempering of the Ironsides of Albuera

214 NORTHERN SPAIN

and Badajoz. But what they lacked in warcraft
they redeemed in staunchness. For two days and
a night they were fighting, and then their assail-
ants sullenly withdrew. Yet, after all, Sir Arthur
Wellesley had won merely a tactical victory. His
strategic position was too perilous to permit him
to garner the fruits. Soult's Galician army corps,
already reorganised after the debacle of the Douro,
was threatening his rear from Plasencia ; and it
was only by an adroit retreat across the Tagus at
Arzobispo that he was able to elude the stroke.

One of the minor incidents of the battle was
an extraordinary piece of marching. The Light
Division, under General Craufurd, was far in the
rear at the commencement of the fighting, and were
eager to get up before the close. The task was
too great, but the attempt was something Homeric.
They covered sixty-two miles in twenty-six hours,
all in full marching order : and lost but seventeen
stragglers by the way ! This was probably a
record for the Peninsula ; though Wellington him-
self thought that it might be paralleled in India ;
and some of Marmont's marches previous to
Salamanca were not far behind. What manner of
men were they who could achieve such feats in
July under a Spanish sun?

CHAPTER XI

A RAID INTO ESTREMADURA

The Estremadura road launches out boldly from
the end of the Segovia bridge at Madrid, and the
fingerpost which points along it laconically observes
that that way you will get to Badajos. But quite
a lot of water will flow under the Segdvia bridge
first, even though it is only the Manzanares which
runs there.

Wherefore, to avoid over-watering this narrative,
we will not begin it at Madrid, nor even at Tala-
vera, but transport ourselves at one stride right
away to the other end of the long line of snowy
mountains which guards the northern side of the
Estremadura road. Here the Sierra de Credos
ends in a forked tail like one of its own falcons,
and between the forks a long, straight valley runs
up into the centre of the range. The great snow-
peaks sit along either side of that long, straight
valley like a Parliament of Gods, with the shaggy

216

216 NORTHERN SPAIN

ilex woods wrapped around their knees ; and at its
mouth, on a slight eminence half encircled by the
new-born waters of the Jerte, stands the ancient
city of Plas^ncia.

I were ungrateful not to retain a warm corner in
my heart for pretty little Plasdncia, for I arrived
there limping and dog- wrecked, and Plasdncia was
kind to me. But he would be an unimpressionable
mortal who could not love her for her beauty alone ;
and I am not sure that even 1 — such is man's
gratitude — would remember her as kindly had she
been less fair. The crumbling walls, the solemn
palaces, the quaint old streets and beautiful situation,
make this little Hesperian township one of the
most charming in Spain. Is she not rightly named
" Pleasaunce " ? Queenly Segdvia herself need not
disdain so fair a cousin.

But Plasdncia should not strictly be included in
the Castilian family circle ; she has married into
Estremadura, and the mountains part her from her
kind. The picturesque Estremenian peasantry
lounge about her squares and plazas, but her site
and her buildings seem still to proclaim her kin-
ship. Like other Spanish wives, she has not quite
dropped her maiden name.

There is not much traffic in the streets of

PLAS^NCIA
Puente San Lazaro.

PLAS^NCIA 217

Plasdncia, neither is much expected. The workmen

patching the cathedral roof were heaving over the

broken tiles on to the pavement without so much

as a prefatory " Heads below ! " Yet the place

looks far from dead, for the balconies are gay with

flower-boxes, and the numerous old palaces still

wear a comparatively prosperous air. The cathedral

stands right upon the ancient walls, which form a

sort of terrace to it upon the southern side.

Internally its effect is marred by a transverse

partition ; but externally, though (like IVIr

Mantelini's countesses) it has no outline, it is

decked with a fanciful miscellaneous finery which

makes it inordinately picturesque. Moreover, it

is an educational centre, and we are indebted

to it for constant processions of demure little

students, clad in black cassocks with a burning

heart worked in crimson upon the breast. They

are beyond comparison the best-behaved children

in the Peninsula, and make most appropriate

figures in the quiet and shady square.

The Fonda where I brought myself to anchor

was situated entirely upon the first floor ; and this

waste of good space was gratuitous, for the ground

floor was all empty vaults. JNIy bedroom was at

the back. To reach it I had to pass through the

218 NORTHERN SPAIN

kitchen ; and incidentally to make myself amiable
to the cook, who was manipulating her pots over a
range of strictly classical construction which might
have been imported from Pompeii. Beyond was
a tiny patio w^here Maria and the Sefiora were busy
at their household duties under the shade of the
vines ; and then came my room. There was no
vvindow except the glazed upper panel of the door ;
and no ventilation when the door was shut, so it
was usually open. I could shut it without getting
out of bed. Our meals were served in the little
comedor adjoining the kitchen. JNJaria waited,
handing round the viands in their native earthen-
ware pipkins, piping hot from the fire. Also she
led the conversation, being a notable authority on
all the latest gossip and scandal ; and the cook
popped her head through the serving-hatch and
chimed in volubly at every suitable opening.
There is a homeliness about these little hostels
which is very delightful ; but it is always a puzzle
to me how tlie women get their meals. They
seldom dine with their men-folk, and, so far as
my observation goes, must subsist entirely on
"tasters."

Of course you seldom get a bill. " This is no
time o' night to use our bills ! With one word of

PLASENCIA
The Town Walls and Cathedral.

THE SE5I0RA'S BILL 219

my mouth I can tell them what is to betall."^
The Senora confined herself literally to one word
when I asked her, and responded " thirty-two," but
I suppose my face must have betrayed some un-
certainty, for " reals ^ not pesetas ! " added the Senora
hastily, knocking seventy-five per cent, off my
mental calculation, and bringing her charges for fidl
board and lodging down to about three shillings a
day. I wonder who was responsible for the libel
that Spanish innkeepers cheat ; any attempt at
overcharging is an almost unprecedented event.

The borderland character of Plasencia is I'cflected
in its surroundings. The Castilian sierras wall it
in upon the east ; but away to the west stretches
the wilderness of Estremadura — vast rugged moors
interlaced with wide belts of olive and ilex, or
small rare patches of cultivated ground. The
lonely road holds steadily upon its way till it
reaches the lip of the Tagus ravine, and then
plunges abruptly down to the level of the river.

There is a marked contrast in the scenery along
the two great rivers of northern Spain. The

^ HeyAvood, Fair Maid of the West.

' The country people invariably reckon in reals — the old
coinage. The piece is no longer struck, but its value is one-
fourth of a peseta.

220 NORTHERN SPAIN

Duero valley is wide and tame, a great unfenced
expanse of Aineyard and cornfield, edged by low
hills of petrified earth ; but the Tagus rift is
narrow and savage, walled in by bare black rock,
and showing few traces of the hand of man. The
road swings down the hill in admirable style, but
startles the traveller by coming to an abrupt and
untimely end about half a mile short of the river ;
and I had to plough my way down through the
shingle to the water's edge to prospect for a con-
tinuation. Far away up stream a few shattered
piers and arches testify to the neglected munificence
of some old Pontifex Maximus of Toledo ; and over-
head the great lattice girders of the railway spring
from pier to pier across the gulf ; but where is there
a passage for a wajd'aring man ? '* It strictly pro-
hibits itself" to use the railway line ; moreover, the
sleepers are laid directly upon the naked girders,
so that the passenger gets a fine bird's-eye view of
the landscape between his toes ; but there is neither
ferry nor ford, — at least none where a stranger can
see them ; and why strain at the strict prohibition
if you can swallow the bird's-eye ^dew ?

Some little way up the further shore I stumble
across the road again. It is getting along capitally,
thank you, and tackles the steep ascent in a most

AN ESTREMENIAN SHEEP-RUN 221

business-like system of curves and gradients with-
out bestowing a thought upon the lamentable
hiatus in the rear. Elsewhere one might reprobate
such conduct, but here one accepts it as natural.
" Cosas de Espana" — It's the way with Spain.

At the top is a wilderness of rocky pasture
powdered with flocks of merino sheep, the great
nomad hordes that migrate every winter into these
southern latitudes, and are now working their way
north again towards the mountains of Leon.
Among them stand the cloaked figures of their
shepherds, tall and motionless,— a hermit race ;
and the pale peaks of Almanzor and his brother
giants far away in the background, survey with
complacent approval a picture as antiquated as
themselves. Presently this desert gives way to
olive woods, and the olive woods to more cultivated
ground. Thick cactus hedges, fringed round with
an edging of blossom, begin to hint at a southern
climate ; and the peasantry are already reaping the
barley harvest, though it is yet but the middle of
May. At last a cluster of towers planted in the
saddle of a low serrated ridge marks the goal of my
day's journey, and with a wide sweep to the right,
to outflank an intervening valley, I enter the town
of Caceres.

222 NORTHERN SPAIN

The tourist who wishes to explore Estremadura
will find that the inexorable laws of geography have
fixed his headquarters at Caceres. But he need have
no grudge against the inexorable laws aforesaid ;
they might have chosen a much worse place. To
begin with, Caceres is a tow^n of resources ; there is
a man in it who owns a bicycle, and who did own
till recently a tube of rubber solution, but this rare
and costly curio has since been acquired by a
foreign collector. Moreover, it is the capital of its
province, and it rejoices in a picturesque and busy
little market ; but the gem of the whole, to an
artist's eyes, is the " old town " which crowns the
rising ground in the centre, a delightful relic of
antiquity all untainted by the contact of to-day.

Nobody seems to go into the old town of Caceres
except the girls with their water pitchers en route
for the Fountain of Council on the further side.
The streets are so steep that they are all stepped,
and so narrow that it is impossible for two loaded
mules to pass. No sound is heard in them but
the clattering of the storks, and the grim old
palaces which w^all them in have an indescribable
air of mystery and romance. I am convinced that
any bold spirit who dared to penetrate into their
flowery patios would find them still inhabited by

CACERES
Within the old Town Walls.

CACERES 223

the old comrades of Cortes and Pizarro and Diego
Garcia de Paredes, the great Estremenian warriors
of yore. No mere modern mortals can dwell
behind those changeless walls. The grey old
ramparts which enclose them must have checked
the march of time.

Four main roads diverge from Caceres towards
the four points of the compass. That towards the
east leads to Trujillo, the birthplace of Pizarro, and
the mountain sanctuary of Guadalupe, which the
Estremenian conquerors enriched with the spoils
of Mexico and Peru. I was scheming in vain to
attain to them, but my fate was most resolutely
hostile. Two sallies resulted in breakdowns, and
at last I reluctantly succumbed. My first success-
ful foray was towards the south.

This road leads over a queer wild country, half
common, half moor, sparsely inhabited, and fringed
with the low, rugged ridges which are such a
feature of the district. It was a notable haunt
of robbers a couple of generations ago. Towards
the south-east rises the Sierra de Montanchez,
which at this point forms the watershed between
the Tagus and Guadiana, and the road gradually
rises to pass over its tail. The Sierra piles itself
up into fine bold masses on the left of the road ;

224 NORTHERN SPAIN

and beneath it on the further side lies the hamlet
of Arroyo Molinos, where three thousand French
soldiers, reputed the best in Spain, were surprised
and crushed by General Hill in 1811.

Girard was retreating before Hill from Cticeres,
and had halted here for the night, leaving
pickets along the road to the northward to give
warning of pursuit. But the pursuers he dreaded
had already outstripped and intercepted him.
Hill had followed the parallel road (which is now
the main one) and lay unsuspected at Alcuesca,
three miles to the south. Not a Spaniard in either
village but knew of the intended coup ; but who
would betray it to a Frenchman ? And no whisper
of his danger reached Girard till the 71st and 92nd
regiments swept the street with fixed bayonets in
the gi'ey of the stormy dawn. Estremadura was
Hill's province, and his other most notable exploit,
the seizing of the bridge of Almaraz, was also
achieved in this locality. Two victories of which
Wellington himself might have been proud.

From the summit of the pass the ground sweeps
away to the southward, an ocean of white-flowered
cistus bushes interspersed with the vivid yellow of
the broom. But this brilliant spectacle does not
continue for many miles ; it soon gives way to the

Ml^RIDA 225

usual jumble of rock and grass and olive; and at
last from this stony upland one looks down across
the sloping cornfields to the distant Guadiana and
the town of IVIerida.

A big red-roofed village with no special feature,
built beside the broad and sandy bed of a great
river, JNIerida from a distance looks commonplace
enough. Yet the wide, smooth cornfields around
it might disclose a different scene. Time was
when the garrison of Augusta Emerita was fifteen-
fold more numerous than her present population,
when her walls were twenty miles in circumference,
and even in her decay her astonished conqueror
could confess that it was " impossible to enumerate "
the marvels she contained. Comparing what she
is with what she was, the wonder is not that so
much has survived, but that so much has dis-
appeared ; and yet in good truth the remains are
ample enough, " equal to Rome," say the Meridans,
and who should know better than they ?

First the great aqueduct (the greatest of three) ;
the bridge of sixty-four^ arches which spans the
Guadiana, and the mighty castle which guards its
townward end. The theatre, still almost perfect ;

^ Some call it eighty-one. But this inckides some arches of
construction in the spandrils, and is not fair counting.

226 NORTHERN SPAIN

the ruins of the Temple of Diana, and of the massive
Arch of Trajan. The amphitheatre is now but an
heap, and the hippodrome can only be traced by its
foundations ; but the whole soil teems with coins
and fragments of pottery, and if ever systematic
excavation could be hoped for in this happy-
go-lucky country, who can guess what treasures
might be revealed ? It is at least an encouraging
symptom that the Meridans are very proud of their
*^ antiguedades,'' and are always eager to act as
showmen ; in which capacity they are equipped
with the most startling archaeological heresies that
have ever been foisted upon an astonished world.

It was a hard-worked little room that was
assigned to me for my lodging at JNIerida. At
night I slept there, but by day it was a tailor's
shop, and between times it was borrowed by
Juanita for the conduct of her little affaires du
coeur. Its many-sidedness was the result of its
situation, for it was on the ground floor, with a
large French window opening direct on to the
pavement, and guarded with a stout iron grille.
To myself this entailed a rather embarrassing
publicity, but it just suited Juanita, who could
interview her lover comfortably through the bars.

Each night as I returned from the cafe I beheld

CACERES
Calle de la Cuesta de Aldana.

LOVERS YOUNG DREAM 227

the same little picture (it was being produced in
replica in half the streets of the town) ; the moon-
light bright upon the Fonda walls, and the black
cloaked figure clinging like a bat to the rails. I
am proud to remember that I always tried to play
the game properly, and glided off unobtrusively
into a side street before I got near enough to
interfere. But I doubt if I ever really escaped
observation, for at my next round the pavement
would be untenanted, and Juanita waiting at the
street door to let me in.

It might be supposed that there was no ostensible
motive why she should not have kept tryst at the
door instead of the window, or *' gone out walking "
with her lover as an English girl would have done.
But no ! that would not be "proper." La Seiiora
Grundy insists upon a barred window. Perhaps
that is one of the reasons why all Spanish windows
are barred.

" Marriage is honourable to all." But in Spain
it is considered expedient to give an elaborately
clandestine flavour to the indispensable preliminary
of courtship ; and during the whole of that period
Romeo is officially tabooed by Juliet's kin. He
may be a most desirable parti, and the bosom
friend of all her brothers. But now he is remorse-

228 NORTHERN SPAIN

lessly "cut." When they meet, they never see
him ; — neither (logically enough) do they ever
notice that cryptic enigma who is "feeding on
iron " at the lattice every evening soon after dark.
So matters continue until the courtship has ripened
and the happy lover can formally demand his lady's
hand. Then he is at once received into all honour
and affection, and the lovers are put on a regular
footing by being formally betrothed, a ceremony
scarcely less binding than marriage itself.

Merida was my southernmost limit, and detained
me somewhat longer than I had intended. But,
indeed, the very origin of the city seems to con-
stitute an invitation to repose. First invaded and
last subdued of all the Roman provinces, Spain was
just witnessing the dawn of her early millennium
when Augustus founded this home of rest for the
veterans of the final campaign. If rest was his
intention, it would rejoice his heart to see how
diligently it is still practised by the descendants of
his original colonists. But my own sojourn was
not entirely voluntary. I had tried once more for
Trujillo, and been forced to put back for repairs.
Even a fate- compelled idleness, however, may
sometimes be found opportune.

The great ruined aqueduct, the headquarters

MERIDA
Los Milagros," the ruins of the Great Aqueduct.

en
0

THE MIRACLES OF MERIDA 2Ji9

of all the storks of the Guadiana, towered over
the Caceres road to the right of nie as I again
bore away to the northward. It had been the
first object to greet my arrival, and was the last to
haunt me as 1 left. The huge gaunt piers and
crumbling arches seem more imposing in their
ruin even than the complete structure at Segovia,
though I believe actual measurements place the
latter first by a short head. " The Miracles," the
townsfolk call them ; and the title is well bestowed.
Yet Estremadura can boast one other miracle more
stupendous even than these.

Once more I sallied forth from Caceres, and set
my face towards the west ; and surely in all the
sohtudes of Estremadura there are none more
solitary than this. JNJile after mile the straight,
white road heaves its long line across the ridges of
the rolling moor. Its dust is seamed with the
trail of the viper, and here and there the eagle
hangs poised above his hunting-ground ; but other
life or landmark there is none for leagues together,
till one feels one has been riding there for ever, and
will probably continue till the end of time. Some-
times a ruined watch-tower will afford a distant
beacon ; sometimes a well-ambushed hamlet, whose
swine are reputed to develop a specially succulent

230 NORTHERN SPAIN

bacon by a strict adherence to a viper dietary.
They appear hke the phases in a dream, and are
swallowed in the immensity of their surroundings.
As well seek a pin in a haystack as a homestead in
this boundless waste.

If there be any faith in the milestones, Alcan-
tara cannot he beyond that great purple combe
ahead of me. Yet how can there be room for
the Tagus valley on the hither side ? But even
as I am flouting their promise, the road dives
gracefully over the lip of an unsuspected hollow,
and the fragments of a crumbling rampart resolve
themselves into the long-sought town. The
gateway admits me to a forlorn and grimy street ;
the houses are ruinous and neglected ; everywhere
is dirt and misery and dilapidation. What went
ye out into the wdlderness to see ?

Just beyond the town, and far below the level
of the moors, the Tagus has carved its deep and
savage glen. Right and left, as far as the eye can
reach, the bare bluff headlands stoop down into the
abyss like the tors on the Devonshire coast ; and at
the bottom, pent between its walls of rock, the
tawny river swirls down the ravine. All is vast
and huge and desolate ; the town itself hardly
shows in such a picture ; yet in the midst one

ALCiNTARA 231

object catches the eye which seems to challenge
comparison even with nature itself, — the work of
Titans rather than men, — The Bridge — A I
Kdntarah.

Spain is the land of bridges. In all Europe they
have few rivals, but here they own a King. Since
the day when Caius Julius Lacer finished his great
work for the Emperor Trajan, and was laid to
rest beside it, no other bridge has ever challenged
comparison with his ; — a work to vie with the
pyramids of Egypt, or the Flavian Amphitheatre
at Rome.

It is long before the eye can learn to grasp its
full dimensions ; all around it is rock and mountain,
there is nothing to give scale. We are warned of
it first by the camera, for the lens will not look at
so wide an angle ; and then by the size of the
archway flung across the road at the centre pier.
Presently, as we peer over the parapet into the
depths of the gulf below us, we realise that there
is a man down there walking by the waterside, and
a dog which seems to bark though we cannot hear
the sound. Our eye slowly sizes up the voussoir
above which we are standing ; it is a twelve-ton
block of granite ; and the huge vault with its eighty
such voussoirs seems to T\qden and deepen beneath

232 NORTHERN SPAIN

us as we gaze ; for the brook that it spans is the
river Tagus, whose waters have their source three
hundred miles away.

Thus hint by hint we have pieced together
the astonishing conchision that the span of each
of the two great central arches is rather wider,
and nearly as high as the interior of the dome
of St Paul's ; and that the height of the railway
lines above the Firth of Forth is sixty feet less than
that of the road above the Tagus ! What must the
scene be like in winter, when the waters are foam-
ing against the springer stones one hundred and
fifty feet above their summer level ! How vast the
strength of these massive piers which for eighteen
hundred years have defied the fury of the floods I

Where now is the great Via Lata that ran from
Gades to Rome ? Where are the famous cities
which it threaded on the way ? The vine and
olive grow in the forum of Italica, and the Miracles
of Merida are a dwelling for the stork. But here
at the wildest point of all its wild journey our eyes
may still behold a memorial which nature has
assailed in vain : — " Pontem perpetui mansurum in
saBcula mundi," — the monument of Caius Juhus
Lacer, more enduring even than Wren's.

We English, I regret to say, were responsible for

ALCANTARA

c
d
w

MILITARY ALERTNESS 233

blowing up one of the smaller arches in 1809 ; and

our makeshift restoration, — a suspension bridge

made out of ships' cables, probably the earliest

introduction of the type to Europe, — lasted till

the time of the Carlist wars. Then it was again

destroyed, and the Spaniards were long content

with a ferry. Now, however, they have restored it

in its native granite, a feat of which they are justly

proud. Only, seeing that no cement at all was

used in the original building, it was really a little

too bad of them to insist upon pointing the joints 1

It seems rather farcical to make a parade of

military secrecy about a structure that has been

famous for eighteen centuries ; but there is a

sentry assigned to it to make sure of preserving its

privacy, and I think I acted kindly towards him in

providing one culprit for the year. Our re-arrival

in the town to interview the Teniente created quite

a little sensation, particularly as that official was

not to be found at his office, and had to be hunted

through the parish by packs of importunate boys.

The Teniente was eventually run to earth in his

bedroom, in a state of great deshabille, but as

polite as if he had been attired in full court uniform.

His house and his goods were at my service, and

himself only too anxious to do anything in the world

234 NORTHERN SPAIN

to oblige me ; but I must not sketch within twenty-
five miles of the frontier without a special permit
from the Minister of War at Madrid ! The travelling
Englishman (when not admittedly mad) is always
an object of suspicion. But it must be confessed
that his vagaries are generally humoured in Spain.
He only gets gently restrained in remote and
inaccessible places, where the official (never having
seen a stranger before) naturally feels it incumbent
upon him to do something, but it is not quite
certain what. I made no attempt to protest. It
would, of course, have been entirely useless ; and
my Spanish had been already heavily strained in
compliments. Moreover, in this instance the
genius loci had benignantly decreed that I should
have got the horse before they locked the stable
door.

Meanwhile I had been left some consolation.
The bridge is not quite the only lion at Alcantara,
and the grand Benedictine convent of its old
mihtary monks rises most imposingly upon the
edge of the impending moors. It is now ruinous
and dismantled, its fine church perfect but empty,
and its cloisters used as a cart-shed by the thrifty
usurpers of its halls. Beyond this feature, however,
the town has little attraction. It was mercilessly

A DEAD END 235

sacked in the spring of 1809 by General I^apisse, —
killed three months later while striving to rally his
division during the great assault at Talavera, — and
since that crushing disaster it has never had spirit
to raise its head. There comes a stage when ruin
ceases to be picturesque and becomes only depress-
ing. It is rather in this connection that I
remember Alcantara and Sahacfun.^

It is not altogether surprising, in such an in-
consequent country, to discover that by crossing
Alcantara you will arrive — Nowhere ! and that the
only traffic across that stupendous edifice is limited
to a few flocks of sheep and some casual mules. I
had hoped to return to Plas^ncia by way of Cdria.
It is no great distance. Alcantara is in Cdria
diocese, and there are no special obstacles beyond
the river ; but there is no vestige of a road. No,
I must return from Alcantara to Caceres, and
from Caceres to Plas^ncia, and from Plasencia I
might find a road to Cdria — perhaps. Which is
the reason why Cdria is now bracketted with
Trujillo and Guadalupe as one of the places I
hope to see some day. I returned, therefore, to
Plasencia the same way that I had come ; and
passing round the end of the Sierra de Grddos, took

^ Cp. p. 55.

236 NORTHERN SPAIN

my farewell of tliese " extrema Durii " ^ from the
summit of the Pass of Bejar.

I have since learned that " nothing but a lively
historical curiosity, and a keen sympathy with the
lonely melancholy of the heaths, could have enabled
me to endure wdth equanimity the privations to
which I was exposed."

It is astonishing how little I realised my fortitude
at the time.

^ The province derives its name from the conquests " beyond
the Duero " won in the earher stages of the struggle with the
Moors.

CHAPTER XI r

SEGOVIA

Few streams are so mercilessly bantered as the
hapless Manzanares, and it is rough on an honest
little river to rag it because it is poor. It is
" navigable at all seasons for a coach and six " ; it
is mockingly urged " to sell its bridges for water " ;
and it labours under a gross imputation (not to be
whispered in the presence of touchy Madrilenos),
that upon one occasion when it happened to be
sufficiently copious to float a mule's pack-saddle,
the enthusiastic citizens turned out to capture the
"whale." Even its few partisans show a calcu-
lated gaucherie in their compliments. " Duke of
streams and viscount of rivers " is quite a preposter-
ous flight. But perhaps the bitterest tribute is the
gibe of a jealous young sportsman (a Toledan, and
consequently part-proprietor of the Tagus) who
had fainted from heat at a bull-fight, and to whom
his neighbours were kindly proffering a pitcher of

237

238 NORTHERN SPAIN

water : — " Pour it into the Manzanares," gasped
the Spanish Sidney, " it needs it more than 1."

No one would have had an ill word to say of it
had it clung to its lowlier destiny. It reaps the
reward of the tuft-hunting which sent it to visit
Madrid. A mile above the Iron Gate it is as
pretty and secluded a little brooklet as anyone
need desire ; — a clean shingly bed, and broken
banks fringed with brushwood and poplars, beneath
whose shade we very contentedly dozed through
the hot hours of siesta-time, cooling our toes in
the water and restfully contemplating the distant
summits of the Sierra de Guadarrama, — faint
opalescent outlines above the tree-tops in the glen.
We had ridden in that morning from Toledo ; and
to push on across the mountains the same afternoon
was too heavy a task to be seriously contemplated.
No ; we would take matters easily during the heat,
and drift on in the evening towards the foot of
the pass. We should find lodging — of a sort — at
some little village posada, and could tackle the
long ascent in the cool of the early dawn.

The sun was sinking as we passed las Rozas,
but there was still an hour of daylight before us,
and it seemed a pity to waste such a beautiful
evening, so we launched out venturously on to the

SEGOVIA

Churcli of San Miguel.

THE MOORLAND NEAR MADRID 239

moors. At first we had fellow - voyagers ; — a
liomeward ploiiohman with his yoke of oxen, — a
shepherd with his whip— (is there any other region
where shepherds use whips ?) — and his droop-
necked flock earing the ground towards their fold.
But soon the dusk won its will, and the darkling
track lay empty. The only survivor astir was the
habitual belated ai^riero, with his team outspanned
for the night and his waggon beached upon the
margin of the road. The stars had already begun
to flicker up in the heavens, and we could see that
Torrelodones, the next village, must be Hobson's
choice for ourselves.

At Torrelodones, saith the proverb, are twenty-
four burgesses and twenty-five thieves (the twenty-
fifth being the curate) ; yet there is no innkeeper
among so many. Bread and wine, however, were
forthcoming at one of the cabins, and eggs at a
second, which we got cooked at a third ; and if
anyone wanted to wash himself, was there not the
fountain on the village green ? Beds, however,
were a different matter. A muleteer would have
rolled himself up on the floor in his blanket ; but
we had no blankets, and did not fancy the floor.
As for the reputation of the villagers, no doubt
that was wholly unmerited ; but we thought of

240 NORTHERN SPAIN

the fresh air of heaven, and the scent of the clean
sweet herbage was borne in to us upon the breeze.

It w^as ah'eady dark when we quitted the hamlet,
and the distant lights of Madrid were twinkling
up at us from the misty plain below. But another
beacon rose in sight as w^e breasted the surge of
the moorland — a large brilliantly-lighted building,
apparently right in front of us and only a few hundred
yards away. What was it ? Evidently no ordinary
farmstead — the lights were so many and so small.
But anyway it would not do to camp right under
its windows, so the question was shelved un-
answered. We wheeled aside from the roadway,
and picked out a bedroom under the lee of a huge
boulder which promised us shelter from the wind.

Anyone who has ever tried the experiment must
be perfectly well aware that the delights of an
extemporary bivouac are better imagined than
endured ; but we had not bargained to take our
discomfort in exactly the form that it came. The
last few nights we had spent at Toledo kicking the
last sheets off our beds in a vain endeavour to get
reposefully cool.^ But the boot was on the other
leg up here in the lap of the mountains. In vain

^ Noche Toledana is proverbial in Spanish as equivalent to a
sleepless night.

CAMPING OUT 241

did we empty our knapsacks ; we could not get
the clothes to keep us warm. About midnight
the wind veered. Our faithless boulder no longer
gave us shelter ; and as we rose to shift our berth,
behold, there was that brilliantly lighted building
still shining in front of us as steadily as before.
What could it be, keeping this night-long vigil
when all the rest of the world was asleep? But
now the mist had cleared and our eyes had grown
accustomed to the starlight, and the true solution
of the riddle flashed suddenly across our minds.
A dozen miles off at the least, on the further side
of the intervening valley, the thousand windows
of the Escorial were staring out unwinkingly into
the night !

The stars seemed to travel very slowly across the
zenith as we dozed through the dog-watches in our
chilly nest. But at last a lightening in the east
heralded the approach of dawn ; and no sooner was
there enough light to swear by than we were again
upon the road, thankful for the excuse to work
some warmth into our shivering limbs. Our teeth
fairly chattered as we dipped into the cold shadowy
hollows ; but the level rays of the rising sun caught
us as we topped the ridges, and cheered us with an

ample promise of a warm time to come. It was

242 NORTHERN SPAIN

not long before our troubles were forgotten, and a
big bowl of hot coffee at Villalba sent us to the
pass like giants refreshed.

The Puerto de Navacerrada is one thousand feet
higher tlian that of Guadarrama, and the road, being
less frequented, is unfortunately not so well kept.
But for all that it can be cordially recommended
to the traveller, for it boasts far finer scenery as a
reward for the extra toil. To our right the shadowy
dome of the Great Iron Head cut a bold arc of
purple out of the glowing eastern sky, while to our
front and left lay the long serrated ridge of the
Seven Pikes, a prominent landmark to travellers
across the northern plains. The hillsides were
draped from foot to summit with the rich purple
mantle of the flowering hard-head, variegated with
vivid splashes of gold where the broom had ousted
its hardier rival ; and every here and there the slope
was broken by groves of pine, or jutting crags of
grey granite, with the cool blue shadows sleeping
at their feet. Looking back over our left shoulders
along the southern face of the mountains, our eyes
were caught by the towers of the Escorial rising up
nobly from the lower slopes, and scarcely dwarfed
even by their mountain background ; while, a little
nearer, the Vigo road — a pyramid of persevering

PASS OF NAVACERRADA 243

zigzags — was struggling up the face of the range to
reach the Puerto de Guadarrama.

Our own pass rejoices in the possession of a
multitude of summits, and the sixth or seventh of
these (upon which we had really pinned our faith)
disappointed us bitterly by abdicating in favour of
another, distant at least an hour away. This last,
however, was guaranteed genuine by the inevitable
hall-mark of a caminei^os hut, and was, moreover,
on such intimate terms with the Seven Pikes that
we felt there was no room for deception.

The gradient of the northern face is distinctly
steeper than the southern, and the road zigzags
down sharply through the shadowy pine-woods
which clothe all this portion of the range. Not a
soul crossed our path as we threaded their silent
alleys ; and the only house is a solitary Venta
midway down the descent, which rejoices in the
ominous title of INIosquito Tavern. We thought
of Polonius at supper and did not risk a meal.
Deep down in the dingle beneath us a mountain
stream was chattering towards the plain ; and as we
neared the outlet of the valley, and felt that we
had broken the back of our day's journey, we began
to cast envious glances at the inviting waters.

Our bedroom had not proved altogether a

244 NORTHERN SPAIN

success, but our bathroom was worthy of Diana.
The clear cold stream gushed smoothly over its
pebbly bed, and the pines which thronged its
mossy banks spread a green network against the
blaze of the noonday sun. A skein of brilHant
blue dragon-flies flashed to and fro across the
ripples ; and at the head of the glade a solitary
peak rose clear and sharp against the sky. The
beautiful Dorothea cooling her crystal feet in the
limpid water was the sole thing lacking to com-
plete the pictiu'e. And even she would have been
an embarrassment from a practical point of view.
How much they miss who travel through Spain
by railway, and grumble (legitimately enough) at
the difficulty of obtaining baths at their hotels !
The wayfarer has happier fortune ; — but not an
Eresma every day !

At the mouth of the valley stands the royal
palace of La Granja, built by Philip IV. as a rival
to Versailles. The structure is not nearly so fine,
though the site and the fountains are finer. But
who goes to Spain to see copies of things French ?
And we swung disdainfully past the gateway, and
headed our course for the great cathedral tower
that marks the position of Segovia.

We were dra^Wng quite close to the city when

SEGOVIA
Arco San Est^ban.

THE LOT OF THE CAPTIVE 245

we overtook a party of four, — two carahineros and
two civilians, — sauntering arm in arm along the
roadway and amicably sharing cigarettes. But a
hideous blight descended upon this innocent idyll
when they drew up with us at the Fielato} The
car^abineros shouldered their rifles and gave an
extra twirl to their mustachios, — the civiUans
meekly held out their wrists for the handcuffs, —
and Law and Order with their miserable captives
strutted inspiringly into public view. Evidently
Segovia demanded a certain amount of style, and
we two vagabonds eyed each other dubiously.
But the Eresma had given us a " clean slate." No
one would have guessed from our looks that we
had spent the night in the open and ridden across
the mountains since the dawn. " Nevertheless,"
quoth one of us sententiously, " what with the
bad night, and the early start, and the long ride,
and the hot sun, and the bathe, and the pine-
woods, and the comida which we are going to eat,
I expect there'll be more siesta than sight-seeing
for us this afternoon."

There are a certain number of towns in Europe
which form a class by themselves — a class of pro-
fessional models for the delectation of the artist.

^ The Octroi officCj to receive the city tolls.

246 NORTHERN SPAIN

They do not necessarily possess the most interest-
ing monuments, but they are blessed with a certain
genius for assuming graceful poses, for wearing
harmonious colours, and framing themselves into
pictures from whatever point they are viewed.
They are a very select company, — even Florence
and Nuremburg can scarcely be included, — but
Venice is one, and Bruges, and Rothenburg-a-
Tauber ; and Segdvia ranks with them.

The principal lion of the city was lying in wait
at the gates thereof, — the huge granite Aqueduct,
one of the wonders of Spain. Its mighty piers
go striding like colossi across the valley, and the
little puny houses " peep about under their huge
legs." By whom it was built is a matter of
some question ; possibly by Augustus,— more
probably by Trajan^; so at least say the learned,
who are wofuUy wrong-headed about such things.
The true story is that it was erected by the Devil
in a single night, out of his love and affection for
a fair damsel of Segdvia, to save her the trouble
of going down the hill to draw water. Her towns-
women unto this hour are profiting by her sump-
tuous love-token. But her poor suitor was not so

^ Trajan was a Spaniard born, and his reign an extremely
prosperous period for Spain.

SEG6vIA 247

fortunate. His Delilah found one stone a-missing,
and took advantage of the flaw to repudiate her
contract.

Beneath its broad shadow we dived in among
the crazy patchwork houses of the Azoquejo, the
once disreputable " Little Market " where Don
Quixote's rascally innkeeper had been wont to
" practise knight-errantry " in his callow days. A
steep crooked street led us up under the toppling
balconies, past the beautiful Romanesque arcades
of the Church of San Martin, and the heavily
rusticated fa9ade of the sombre Palace of Pikes.
Truly this was a captivating city ; we made the
confession immediately. And as yet all the
grounds of our verdict were a few steps inside the
back door.

Segovia is Queen of Castilian cities, as Toledo is
the King of them. But Segovia does not lend her
countenance to those who approach from the south.
She sits with her face to the northward towering
over the road from Valladolid : — an unforgettable
vision, the fairy city of our dreams.

Spain seems to take a delight in concentrating
her fascinations. For mile after mile she will trail
you over a dull and spirit-quelling country, till all
your enthusiasm is properly subdued. Then she

248 NORTHERN SPAIN

will suddenly overwhelm you with a whole cargo of
accumulated perfections, an extravagance of beauty
which leaves admiration aghast. And never was
coup de thcdt7'e more artfully developed than this
great spectacle of Segdvia. A far-distant glimpse
of a little group of turrets bristling upon the base
of the mountains at the foot of the Seven Pikes ;
a tardy approach up the valley of the Eresma,
whose trees and rocks impede all further view.
The valley becomes a trench ; and a vision of
towers and cliffs begins to stir our anticipation ;
while the trench narrows down to a gullet, with
sides so straight and smooth that they might have
been cut by hand. Then comes a sudden turn ;
the rock gates swing wide open, and all in a
moment the marvel stands revealed.

Perched upon the precipitous cliiFs of a long
wedge-shaped promontory between two confluent
gorges, Segdvia has been aptly likened to a ship
stranded sidelong on the mountains with its bows
slanting towards the plain. The sharp prow and
lofty forecastle are formed by the heights of the
Alcazar ; a little further aft is the " bridge," —
the high ground round the Plaza Mayo7\ where
stands the cathedral, the central feature of the
whole. And if one is to run the comparison to

SEGOVIA ■!

The Alcizar ;

L«

'i X

THE CITADEL OF SEG6vIA 249

death, I suppose the funnel would be represented
by the cathedral campanile, and the stern galleries
by the aqueduct arcades. The likeness is un-
deniable, but altogether too prim and pedantic.
As well might one picture a fairy in a tailor-made
costume.

There is something almost life-like in the sweep
of the tilted strata as the great cliff leaps above the
summit of the poplars. It seems like the " station
of the herald INIercury " ; — arrested motion rather
than repose ; — a great wave petrified in the act of
breaking, with spires and gables for the spray upon
the crest. Beneath it curves the green and fertile
valley, the " terrestrial Paradise " of the Monks of
El Parral ^ ; and the richness, brilliance and daring
of the whole wonderful composition form a theme
which is the despair both of pen and pencil alike.

The Alcazar, which is poised upon the extremity
of the precipice, was gutted by fire some forty years
ago, and is consequently largely a restoration ; but
it harmonises so admirably with the lines of nature
that one hardly realises that it has not grown of its
own accord. It has always been a royal stronghold,
but never played any very important part in the

1 "The V^ineyard," a lovely dismantled monastery planted
beside the Eresma, just underneath the town.

250 NORTHERN SPAIN

tumultuous drama of Spanish history; our friend
the enemy, with commendable discretion, having
commonly preferred to gather his laurels from
some less inaccessible bough. It has, however,
attained a minor celebrity through the carelessness
of a nursemaid. This sounds but a threadbare
method of achieving greatness ; but the girl who
accidentally dropped an heir-apparent out of a
window of the Alcdzai' at Segovia must be allowed
to have fixed the standard at the very highest con-
ceivable peg.

But the proudest day in its annals was that upon
which Isabella the Catholic (newly apprised of the
death of her brother King Henry) rode forth from
its gateway to claim the homage of Castile and
Leon. The moment was critical, for her succes-
sion was disputed ; but Segdvia stood firmly in her
favour, — a worthy birthplace for the worthiest era
of Spain. The site seems designed for such a
pageant ; but it bore its own bane in the setting :
for from the little convent of Sta Cruz, below the
gateway of San Esteban, Torquemada was drawn
to sway his nobler Queen.

Torquemada was Isabella's evil genius — the
demon who was to turn all her blessings to a curse.
It is but just to him to admit that he was honest in

THE SPANISH INQUISITION 251

his wrong-headedness ; that he believed as sincerely
in the wickedness of an unauthorised conscience as
in the righteousness of persecution, and would have
gone to the stake himself in support of his tenets
with as much resolution as any of his victims. It
is the standing puzzle with such men how they
could fail to recognise in their own spirit the con-
demnation of their own methods. Persecution
they would have derided if applied to them by
others. Why should they credit its efficacy when
applied to others by them ? And an even saner
thought they might have gleaned from the old
essayist ^ : — " When all is done it is an over-valuing
of one's convictions by them to cause that a man
be burned alive."

The cruelty for which we chiefly condemn them is
a crime for which they were not wholly responsible.
The age was cruel,—" the most cruel of all ages,"
wrote the grave Montaigne :— and the Inquisition
did but deal with heresy as treason was dealt with
by the State. Its secrecy was its new and horrible
feature and the one most deeply resented at the
time.

For at first, even in Spain, the Inquisition was
not tamely accepted ; and some of the noblest

^ Montaigne.

252 NORTHERN SPAIN

churchmen were loudest in its rebuke.^ It sinned
against the hght. It was a thing of devils ; an
atrocity only to be paralleled by the witch-doctors
of Ashanti and Benin.

These grisly reflections are the inevitable Nemesis
of all romantic and chivalrous associations ; but
they seem as sadly out of place in this sunny Eden
as the trail of the serpent in its prototype. Isabella
was a generous patroness to the little convent, and
her own mottoes and badges figure in its delicate
carving. She needed no such piety to keep her
memory green.

The ^^alladoiid road skirts the foot of the
precipice on the larboard side and doubles back
into the city, where the slope is easiest at the stern.
But the straight patli is taken by an irresponsible
little bye-way, which rushes the steep ascent along
the feet of the beethng ramparts, and succeeds in
winning a footing inside the Santiago gate. Here
the elegant horse-shoe arches look as if they might
have been borrowed from the Alhambra ; and as
we issued fi-om under their shadow we were con-
fronted by the graceful campanile of the Church
of San Esteban, a work of the thirteenth century,

^ E.g. Talavera, first Archbishop of Grenada, and Peter Martyr,
the Confessor and Biographer of Isabella.

SEGOVIA
Arco Santiago.

|rco . AAofr&<jo*-*-4

SIGHTS OF SEG6vIA 253

and unique in Spanish architecture, though it may
be mated in Provence. Were confronted, alas !
for I fear it now stands no longer. The tower
was badly cracked when first we saw it, and on the
occasion of my second visit was being taken down
as dangerous. As to its ultimate destiny it is quite
impossible to prophesy : but Spaniards are capable
restorers should they happen to think it worth
while. It may be as reverently revived as the
work at Leon Cathedral, or {Dl vielioral) razed
with as little compunction as the late leaning tower
at Zaragoza.

The gateway of San Esteban is a little abaft the
church, and, like its neighbour of Santiago, has
distinctly a Moorish air. Not so the Arco San
Andres, the other great gate, to the starboard.
That is uncompromisingly Gothic, and large and
massive enough to balance both the other two.

Upon this side the city is bounded by the little
bourn of the Clamores, a scantier stream than the
Eresma, but equally romantic and picturesque. It
flows in a straight-sided gully like a natural moat,
the upper reaches becoming gradually shallower
and wider till they expand into the broad valley
which is crossed by the aqueduct arcade. Here
the most prominent feature is the cathedral, which

254. NORTHERN SPAIN

surges up out of the medley of houses, overtopping
even the pinnacles of the Alcazar. It is the latest
important Gothic monument ever erected upon
Spanish soil, a sister church to the new cathedral
of Salamanca, and, like it, of imposing and elegant
proportions, though its details are less elaborately
ornate.

We are far from exhausting the subject, but
it is vain to continue the catalogue. The true
fascination of the town must be felt and not
described. I am afraid that even the Segdvians
are not fully appreciative ; for our host considered
that we were wasting our time there, and wished
to pack us off to la Granja to see the fountains
play. " It was a shame," he said, " to spend every
day in Segovia." SegcSvia I — where every street
corner is worth a wilderness of fountains !

When Gil Bias was imprisoned in the "tower
of Segovia," his kind-hearted gaoler assured him
that he would find the view from his window very
fine — when he cared to look. This casual remark
gains significance from the fact that it is about
the only allusion to scenery in all that veracious
biography.^ For any hint to the contrary the

^ The beautiful Htierta of Liria is the only district actually
praised.

SEGOVIA

Church ot" San Est^ban.

A TRIBUTE TO SEG6vIA 255

Cantabrian mountains might be mole-hills, and
Grenada itself as commonplace as Valladolid.
Le Sage dealt with men, not with scenery, and
no doubt, like Dr Johnson, would have preferred
Fleet Street ; but Segdvia wrings a tiny tribute
even from him.

Gil Bias, it may be remembered, was not
impressed by the prospect. He had a very bad
fit of the blues, and could only observe that there
were nettles by the stream. But doubtless he
saw better ere leaving. His character (never much
to boast of) was at least vastly improved by his
involuntary sojourn, and perhaps it is not too
fanciful to suggest that "the view from the
window" may deserve some of the credit of the
cure.

" There are none of beauty's daughters with a
magic like thee," sings Byron to one of his hour is ;
and the same whole-hearted allegiance to Segdvia
will be paid by most of those who have once come
under her spell. Grenada, perhaps, may equal her.
So does Albarracin, in tertio-decimo : and the
situation of Cuenca is probably the grandest of
all. But even Grenada herself will not steal her
admirers from Segdvia ; and Cuenca, for all its
brilliance, is a gem of fewer facets than this.

CHAPTER XIII

BtlRGOS

Last but not the least among the merits of Segovia
is to be reckoned the fact that it pays some atten-
tion to its roads, for these are decidedly the best in
all the central provinces. No doubt they owe
something to their proximity to the Sierra de
Guadarrama, which supplies them with their
granite metalling, and even vouchsafes them an
occasional shower. Yet there is a balance of
credit to be shared among the worthy caminej^os, —
those humble " pawns " who are posted at long inter-
vals along the roadway (each with his donkey and
his dog), diligently trimming the margins and
spreading the tags of herbage o\ev the surface of the
road. The method seems somewhat original, but at
least it has the merit of success ; for the scraps of
turf serve to catch the dews at night-time — and
moisture is the chief desideratum upon every
Spanish road.

266

SEG6vIAN pine forests 257

The wide tawny plains which spread themselves
northward from Segovia are chequered with mighty
pine-forests, the homes of solitude and shade. These
rich green masses form a striking contrast to the
bare red earth around them, and the pale blue of
the distant mountains which show faintly upon the
horizon beyond. For miles at a stretch the road
burrows through these colonnades of tree-stems, —
all plentifully blazed for resin, and festooned with the
little earthenware pipkins in which it is collected ;
— and seldom indeed is either man or beast en-
countered to give a touch of life to the shadowy
depths around. At one point we passed a vener-
able padi^e, faithfully conning his breviary as he
trudged behind his mule ; at another a small
brown damsel lording it over a herd of gigantic
kine. But the only other living creature was a
large snake dusting itself in the roadway, over
whom we narrowly escaped riding, for we were
right upon him before we saw what he was.

Once clear of the pine-belt, the country quickly

relapses into the monotony typical of the Duero

vale. One may partly avoid it by taking the road

to the eastward, and making straight for Burgos

by Sepiilveda and Aranda de Duero across a region

of wild and lofty moors. But of the two roads to

258 NORTHERN SPAIN

V^alladolid there is little to choose between Olmedo
and JNIedina del Campo, and we may as well
follow the more direct.

It is easy to understand, as we cross these great
limitless levels, in what manner the Moors were so
long able to maintain their supremacy against the
hardier races of the North. The whole district is
an ideal battle-field for the light-armed cavalry in
which their strength consisted ; and to set a
medieval man-at-arms, cased in full panoply, to
do a hard day's fighting under that roasting sun
is a conception worthy of Perillus himself. The
battles with which History concerns itself, however,
are of a later age. The disconsolate little walled
town of Olmedo (once one of the keys of Castile)
has given its name to two desperate conflicts in the
interminable civil wars which ravaged the peninsula
in the middle of the fifteenth century. Here it
was that Alvaro de Luna ^ gained his great victory
over his confederate enemies in the reign of John
II. Here, too, in the following reign, was fought a
bloody fratricidal action between Henrique IV. and
Alfonso, the brothers of Isabella the Catholic.

On the eve of this latter battle, Arclibishop
Carillo of Toledo- (as usual "agin the government")
1 Cp. p. 207. 2 cp. p. 151.

OLMEDO 259

sent a courteous message to his special enemy, the
king's favourite, apprising him that forty knights
had bound themselves by an oath to fight neither
with small nor great, but only with him, the
following day. Don Beltran de la Cueva, how-
ever, though he might not deserve his honours,
at least knew how to wear them gallantly. He
countered by remitting a full description of his
horse and armour, so that the forty knights
might make no mistake ; — rode into battle as
advertised ; — and escaped unscathed. His spirit
deserved no less :- — perhaps even Carillo thought
so. But one would hke to know what became
of the forty knights.

Olmedo figures also in fiction, but not in so
martial a vein. Hither, in fear of his life along
the road from Valladolid, fled our old friend Gil
Bias — ex-assistant to Dr Sangrado— with more
murders on his conscience than even that seasoned
article felt quite easy under, and the avenger of
blood at his heels in the shape of an enraged
Biscayan. We followed the track of his agitated
Hegira, but, of course, in the reverse direction,
dropping gradually down to the level of the Duero
by a bare and undulating road. The broad river-
basin looks comparatively green and well-wooded

260 NORTHERN SPAIN

when viewed from the heights above Simancas ; yet
as one crosses it, it is arid enough ; and the steep,
flat-topped hills which bound it seem absolutely
Saharan, whether looked at from above or below.
The Duero itself at this point flows in a trench
between crumbling yellow banks ; and the village
near it, where Gil Bias struck up acquaintance
with the barber and the strolling actor, lingers in
our memory as the scene of our most decisive
victory over our enemies the dogs. Our pockets
were fairly bulging with ammunition as we
descended into the melee, and whatever we missed
on the volley seemed fated to catch the licochet.
Our last missile was expended absolutely at
random on the sound of a dog behind us. But
to judge from the yell which followed it, it was
none the less effective for that.

Valladolid has the general unfinished air befitting
a town that has made several unsuccessful attempts
to establish itself as a Capital ; and its failure to
support that dignity is perhaps less surprising than
the fact that it should have been cast for the roh'
It stands upon no important river, on no com-
manding hill. There is hardly a village in the
plain around it but might equally well have drawn
a prize in the lottery which decreed its eminence.

BURGOS
Arco San Martin.

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VALLADOLID 261

In strategical position it is inferior to Burgos — to
Toledo in historical prestige.

Its memories, too (even apart from Dr Sangrado),
are none of the most cheerful ; for it was one of
the chief seats of the dreaded Inquisition, and no
city save Seville can boast a blacker fame. The
wretched Jews and JNIoors fill up the roll of the
Quemadero,^ but there were many scholars and
nobles among the victims of the Plaza Mayo7^ at
Valladolid. Here died the noble San Roman, the
first of the Spanish reformers. His ashes were
collected by the very soldiers that guarded his
pyre and were brought to I>.ondon by the English
Ambassador, — a foretaste of evil to come. Here
it was that Don Carlos de Seso, his limbs mangled
by torture and disfigured by the ghastly San
Benito, paused as he passed the royal dais, and
sternly demanded of Philip, " as one gentleman
of another," how he could have the heart to
tolerate such atrocities in his domain. " I would
slay mine own son were he as thou art," was the
bigot's answer. And so, to do him justice, he
would ; — on even less provocation ; — as a certain
grave in the Escorial can testify unto this day.
But surely even Philip's conscience can not have

^ The place of execution at Seville.

262 NORTHERN SPAIN

been appeased by such a rejoinder. The memory
of that awful indictment must have haunted him
years afterwards in the long terrible days when he
was himself meeting a yet more hideous death
with equally resolute fortitude.

There was one at least of the judges who sickened
at his share in that day's butchery : for when, many
years afterwards, Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo,
himself fell under the suspicion of the Holy Office,
the remorse which he felt for de Seso was imputed
to him for a crime. And the spirit which such a
man could inspire in his fellows may be judged
from young Julian Sanchez, w^ho suffered the same
day. The flames burnt the cords which bound
him, and in his agony he wrenched himself free.
The fi'iars sprang forward to hear his recantation.
But Julian's eye fell upon the heroic figure
of his leader, still steadfast amid his sufferings,
and with the cry, " Let me die like de Seso ! " he
flung himself back into the flames.

Nowhere in Europe had Protestantism nobler
martyrs than the Spaniards : and numbers of them
were men of eminence ; for their very judges
lamented that the learned men whom they had
sent to confute foreign heretics were returning to
preach the fiiith which they were commissioned to

THE PISUERGA VALLEY 263

destroy. But against such persecutors their cause
was hopeless. PhiHp and Valdez were men with
hands of iron.

Valladolid has many fine monuments, but they
are scattered and lost among newer and less in-
teresting surroundings. Even the old arcaded
plaza is becoming deplorably modernised ; and the
old-world charm of Toledo and Segovia may here
be sought in vain. The Pisuerga river (upon
which the city stands) forms the eastern boundary
of the Tierra de Campos, as the Esla forms the
western.^ And the scenery of the two valleys is
so nearly identical that a traveller dropped unex-
pectedly in either might be puzzled to say which.
There are the same wide basin, the same crumbling
yellow cliffs, the same troglodyte villages, the same
Nilotic-looking stream. The only speciality of
the Pisuerga is the extreme dustiness of the roads.

Duenas is one of the most typical little towns
of the district. Perched in full sunshhie on one
of the bare hills that flank the valley, it looks as
thoroughly baked as a pie-crust, in spite of the
poplared meadows at its feet. Here Ferdinand
and Isabella first started their housekeeping, on
a very modest scale indeed, with scarcely enough

1 Cp p. 132.

264 NORTHERN SPAIN

capital to guarantee to-morrow's dinner. " Saving
a crown, he had nothing else beside," sings the
Scottish lassie of her suitor in the old ballad. But
the royal lovers' crowns were still in abeyance ;
and the then wearer of the Castilian diadem had
very different matrimonial plans for his high-spirited
sister. Wherefore he, whom History remembers
as the austere and politic Ferdinand, stole secretly
across the hostile frontier, disguised as groom to
his own attendants, at the imminent risk of a broken
head ; and the knot was safely tied in the cathedral
at Valladolid, with the connivance of a few of
Isabella's staunchest partisans.

The little cathedral town of Pal^ncia lies a
little off the direct road ; but it is most con-
veniently situated as a half-way house to Burgos.
The cathedral is a singularly fine one, though
rather ramshackle externally ; and, like a true
Spanish cathedral, it is crammed with works of
art. The streets are all quaintly colonnaded ; but
we were somewhat taken aback when we were
shown the entrance to the Fonda, a miserable rat-
hole in a blank and dirty wall. We had expected
something better of Paldncia: — yet nothing quite
so good as the delicious shady patio which we
found at the end of the passage ; for the hotel is

DUENAS

PALJ^NCIA 265

really an excellent one, and its true entrance is
from a street at the back. On the whole, we have
nothing but commendation for Palencia. Only
we \\ish that the httle sisterhood, '' Sie?'vas de
3Ia?ia, ministi^as para los enfeiTCvos,''' ^ would mind
— not their p's and q's, but their m's and n's. A
little ambiguity in the final syllable is so extremely
compromising !

We quitted Palencia early on midsummer morn-
ing, and soon regained the Burgos road. The
villages that lay before us were vomiting such
volumes of smoke that we concluded Torquemada
must be justifying its title by the celebration of
an Auto-da-fe. But it proved to be only lime-
kilns ; and Torquemada is pretty enough to deserve
a gentler name. Here the Pisuerga is crossed by
a long crooked old bridge ; and in the fields near
by occurred the incident which forms the subject
of Pradilla's famous picture, when poor mad Juana,
escorting her husband's body from Burgos to
Grenada, elected to spend the night in the open
sooner than shelter the faithless corpse in a con-
vent of nuns. An incident worthy of Lear 1

Now we deserted the Pisuerga to follow the

^ The ambiguity would not be apparent to a Spaniard. To
him Inviemo, "Winter," is the assonym to Injierno, "Hell."

266 NORTHERN SPAIN

Arlanzon, a greener and narrower valley, though
still somewhat dreary at times. The poppies were
blazing in the brilliant sunshine with a splendour
that dazzled the eye. They grow best where blood
has been spilled, if we are to credit old folklore ;
and the Arlanzon valley may well bear out the
assertion, for every stage in the journey — Torque-
mada, Quintana del Puente, Venta del Pozo —
was the scene of some fierce skirmish during
Wellington's retreat from Burgos in 1812. His
army suffered terribly hereabouts ; for the roads
were wellnigh impassable in that rainy autumn, and
the sulky troops broke out of all control. At one
time there were twelve thousand of them all drunk
together in the wine-vaults at Torquemada ! The
result was almost disaster. But fortunately the
stock of wine was a large one, and they left enough
for the French. It may be urged in extenuation
that the country vintages are more heady than one
would think, especially for exhausted and starving
men.

Our own difficulties arose not from rain but from
sunshine, and the last few miles over the hilly ground
were distinctly exhausting. But at these high levels
even the sultriest sun is tempered by a crisp and
bracing air. The traveller who starts early can

BURGOS
Hospital del Rey.

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~ .'n'ik-jyim

ENVIRONS OF BURGOS 267

generally ride out the morning, and the leafy
avenues of Burgos were our haven at mid-day.

Burgos shows itself off at best advantage when
seen from the eastern side, but the approach from
the west is not unworthy of the Capital of Old
Castile. First we pass the beautiful Plateresque^
gateway of the Hospital del Rey. Then the
towers of Las Huelgas, the most famous Nunnery
in Spain. The convent was founded by Alfonso
VIII., — a trespass offering after his great defeat by
the Miramamolin ^ at Alarcon. And his atonement
was accepted ; for twenty years later he was able
to hang up over the High Altar the sacred banner
captured at Las Navas de Tolosa, the great victory
which extinguished for ever the long domination
of the Moor.

Under its folds the young Prince Edward
of England knelt watching his arms on the eve
of his knighthood in 1254. Here he was married
— a boy bridegroom — to his girl - bride, the
Princess Leonora of Castile ; and hence he carried
her away with him to his home in his northern

1 The " Silversmith style/' or early Spanish Renaissance.
So called from the Cellini-like carving which is its leading
characteristic.

2 The Emperor of Morocco ; at this time the martial Yakub I
aben Yussef. |

268 NORTHERN SPAIN

island, where as the "' dear Queen " of the Eleanor
Crosses her name is held in honour to this day.

" Laws go as Kings wish," says the Spanish
proverb ; otherwise it is difficult to imagine how
the nuns could have ever permitted such a shock-
ing thing as a wedding in their own Conventual
Church. When we peeped into it, the very effigies
of the kings on the royal tombs were jealously
shrouded — for propriety's sake ! Formerly ten
thousand dollars dowry and sixteen quarterings were
indispensable to the lady who wished to renounce
the vanities of the world in this exclusive cloister !
But now the sisterhood is sadly reduced, and takes
in "paying guests," — to wit, another sisterhood,
with whom they live (it is said) in peace and amity.
I mention this because an old French cur^, who
visited the convent %\4th us, seemed to regard it
as the most astounding miracle that Burgos had to
boast.

The main entrance to the city is formed by the
magnificent Arco de Sta JNIaria at the head of
the bridge over the Arlanzon. It was erected to
propitiate Charles V. after the revolt of the
Communeros ; and that monarch's effigy conse-
quently occupies the most conspicuous niche. He
is surrounded by all the local heroes of Burgos ; —

BURGOS
Arco Sta Maria.

"MY CID^ 269

Diego de Porcelos, Fundator noste?', whose German
son-in-law erected the Burg, — Lain Calvo, chief
of the early " Judges,"— and Fernan Gonzalez, the
great count who founded the kingdom of Castile.
But of course the greatest of all the city demi-gods
is their '' Champion Chief," my Cid Ruy Diaz of
Bivar. Doubtless he would have been their patron
saint if the Pope could have been induced to
canonize him ; — a queer type of saint perhaps ; —
but there are queer types in the Calendar.

*' My Cid " flourished about the time of our
Norman Conquest, and from his youth upward was
recognised as the doughtiest warrior in Spain. He
was the sword-arm (according to legend) of three
successive Castilian sovereigns ; and his services
culminated in the conquest of Toledo, where (again
according to legend) he was commander-in-chief.
Afterwards he fell into disgrace ; — chiefly owing
to his invincible ignorance of the dogma that you
ought to stop killing JVIoors as soon as your king
has made peace with them; and Alfonso VI.
arranged the difficulty by banishing him from
Castile, — to kill more Moors. *' My Cid " now
obtained letters of marque (or their equivalent)
from the INIoorish King of Zaragoza, and proceeded
to carve out a kingdom for himself by the conquest

270 NORTHERN SPAIN

of Valencia. This enterprise required money, and
" My Cid " raised it from the Jews, leaving in
pawn a sealed chest full of gravel, which purported
to contain his family gems. Apparently he was
indignant with the Hebrews because they would
not accept his bare word ; and it never occurred to
either party that they were, in fact, accepting his
bare word in the matter of the sealed chest. As a
commercial transaction it seems a little bewildering ;
but it all came right in the end ; and " My Cid "
loyally redeemed his chest of gravel at full face
value when Valencia was subdued.

At Valencia he reigned in great glory, reconciled
to the king and victorious against all assaults of
the Moors. There he made an edifying end,
serenely indifferent to the gathering of the mighty
host which his foes were assembling for their final
effort. Thence he sallied for the last time at the
head of his comrades, — a ghastly figure, stiff in
death, but clad in full armour, and mounted on
Bavieca, as he was wont to ride of yore ; and all
the ]Moors that beleaguered him fled at the sight
of him, so that the spoil that he took at his death
was more than he had ever taken in his life.
Ximena, his widow, bore back his body to Burgos,
as he had bidden her ; and his bones are exhibited

OLD HOUSES AT BI^RGOS 271

to inquisitive strangers in the Town Hall at a
peseta a head ! How could the Burgalese have the
heart to ravish them from his own monastery of
San Pedro de Cardena, where he slept with Ximena
and Bavieca, like the tough old Berseker that he
was ?

Of all the cities of Northern Spain, Burgos is
probably the best known to the average tourist ;
but though the English language (for which one
acquires a very keen ear after a month's abstinence)
may be occasionally heard in tlie environs of the
cathedral, yet the quaint old calles and palaces are
still much less visited than they deserve. Many of
the latter are particularly fine examples of their
class, especially the stern old Casa del Cordon, which
takes its name from the great cord of St Francis,
sculptured over the portal, — a common embellish-
ment in the palaces of that date ; and the more
graceful Casa Miranda^ built (as we may surmise)
by some relative of the " prudent " Don Diego,
Don Quixote's hospitable host. This last is a
lovely old building of Italian delicacy of ornament,
but, now, alas I sadly mutilated and partitioned off
into squalid tenements, not entirely innocent of
fleas.

" It is never hot at Burgos," we had been told

272 NORTHERN SPAIN

by a friendly mentor : and I can testify that it is
often cold there, for the place stands high, and the
mountains of la Demanda rear their snowy crests
at no great distance away. Yet the local saying,
" Nine months of Winter, and three of H — 1 " ^ is
distinctly a more impartial summary, and this
month was apparently one of the three. The
narrow streets blazed white and scintillating under
the flood of sunshine. The wayfarer edged his way
gingerly along the shady margin, and picked out
the narrowest point before he would venture to
cross. Then, after a timid pause, he would draw a
deep breath and make a bolt for it. The sun
caught him in transit like the blast from the mouth
of a furnace ; and he scuttled gasping into shelter,
and cooled off on the further side. The Spanish
shade temperature may perhaps be matched on a
hot day in England, but it needs the Piazza at
Venice to rival the fury of the sun.

There are, indeed, some few Salamanders who
do not appear to mind it. A party of tonsured
Franciscans were unconcernedly challenging it to
do its worst. But most of the saner inhabitants
wisely keep indoors till the evening ; and whoso
wishes to see Burgos Society taking its airing, let

^ Cp. note on p. 265.

BURGOS
Patio of the Casa de Miranda

BX^RGOS CATHEDRAL 273

him seat himself after dusk in front of the Cafe
Suizo upon the Espolon. Then all the beauty and
fashion turn out to promenade upon a regulation
hundred yards of pavement, under the eyes of their
fathers and brothers, who sit sipping their coffee
and anis beneath the trees. A very handsome
company they are ; but, alas ! their hats and frocks
are mostly Parisian creations. That most graceful
of all head-dresses, the mantilla, is reserved for state
occasions, such as High Masses and Bull-fights.
" Nothing is sacred to a sapper," — nor to a milhner,
unless it is new.

There is a cathedral at Burgos ; and we feel
ourselves justified in mentioning it, because we
heard it frankly admitted that it was " a vurry fine
church for such a small town." Our Amurrican
Ruskin seemed to think it hardly class enough for
Chicago ; but in contests of this description the
battle is not to the millionaire. The builder of
the Escorial, for all his great possessions, knew that
it was not for his craftsmen to rival the Cartuja
tombs. ^

Indeed, there is something overwhelming about
the magnificence of Burgos. It is rather German
in character, as Leon is rather French. Yet

1 See p. 281.

274 NORTHERN SPAIN

though Juan de Colonia was a Rhinelander and
Archbishop Maurice an Enghshman, there is too
much pure Spanish at Burgos to assign all the
credit to them. The building ranks as one of the
wonders of Europe : — a cathedral perhaps as large
as Canterbiny, but finished throughout with the
delicate extravagance of the bijoii chapel of Roslin ;
— which, of course, is really Spanish also, if Scotch-
men will excuse my saying so.

And, moreover, the splendour of the fiu'niture is
fully in keeping with the fabric : particularly the
gorgeous metal ?^ejas,— for what other craftsmen in
Europe could vie with the Spanish smiths ? Riches
which might deck out a whole church among us
lovers of bare walls are here found packed within
the compass of a single chapel ; and little gems of
carving and inlay are thrust aside like lumber into
corners where they can be scarcely seen. The
whole is a dream of magnificence unsurpassable
even in Italy : yet it is the gorgeous gloom of
Toledo which still springs first to the memory
when we contrast our own chaste chilly churches
with the opulence of the shrines of Spain.

The cathedral stands upon steeply sloping
gi'ound well above the level of the Arlanzon.
A long broad flight of steps leads up from the

THE CASTLE OF BURGOS 275

street to the south transeptal entrance ; and from
the pavement of the northern transept the noble
stau'case of Diego de Siloe chmbs up to another
street level upon the further side. Beyond it
and above are piled the quaint red-roofed houses,
clambering tier upon tier up the flanks of the
escarpment ; yet for all their aspirations the bare
steep mound di-aws clear of them, and " Dubreton's
thundering citadel " frowTis alone upon the crest.

This castle has rather an unsatisfactory interest
for Englishmen, for it was the obstacle which
checked the advance of Wellington in his great
campaign of 1812. It stands at the tip of a long
tongue of high groimd which runs up to the river
almost at right angles ; and this extreme end is
separated from the rest of the ridge by a deep
depression, so that it forms a sort of semi-detached
hillock, shaped like a gigantic mole-hill some three
hundred and fifty feet high. The castle is included
within the circuit of the city walls ; and the cathedral
is so close beneath it that it is wonderful that it
escaped destruction during the bombardment. Yet
even the stained glass which once adorned the
clerestory was only destroyed by the explosion
which occurred the following year. The castle
was once the royal residence of Castile : but

276 NORTHERN SPAIN

nothing now remains of it except a few lines of
grass-grown earthworks, which are utihsed as rope-
walks by the peaceful Biirgalese. The modern
fortress is on the hill of San Miguel, on the otlier
side of the depression.

In Wellington's day San Miguel was merely an
outwork. Its capture was a preliminary operation,
and it was stormed early in the siege. With
modern artillery such a coup would have been
decisive. The citadel itself would have been blown
over the pinnacles of the cathedral without more
ado. But in those times the old line-of-battle
ships fought their thirty-two pounders muzzle to
muzzle, and "three or four feet between the
mouths of your pistols " was considered "as good
as a mile."

Wellington was, moreover, miserably provided
with artillery, and the guns of the castle were far
superior to his own. His troops were endeavouring
to "tear down the ramparts with their naked
hands " ; and the conspicuous pillar which over-
looks three counties from the lonely heights of
Malvern, records the fate of the young heir
of Eastnor who was killed while directing the
approaches. A month's siege and five desperate
assaults left the castle still unwon when the French

BURGOS
From the East.

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H-ISii^.-w*

THE SIEGE OF BURGOS 277

armies had gathered to reHeve it : and the besiegers
with muffled wheels stole away over the bridges
in the night-time. The campaign which began so
gloriously at Salamanca ^ had ended in another
retreat.

Yet the labour and carnage were not wasted.
Joseph had neither time nor money to spend upon
repairing the battered fortress, and next year the
tide of war rolled back like the surge of the sea.
Wellington, riding at the head of his troops across
the hills from the westward, was saluted by the
thunder of a terrific explosion which darkened the
heavens above him and shook the ground beneath
his feet. Then first, with stern elation, he recog-
nised the presage of Vitdria. His foes had de-
spaired of resisting him. The castle of Burgos was

no more.

1 Seep. 161.

CHAPTER XIV

ACROSS NAVARRE

It must give some flavour of unreality to our
impressions of the Peninsula that we should not
allude to the beggars until the ultimate chapter of
all. And our only excuse for our negligence will
sound like an aggravation of the error ; for we
hold that the Spanish beggar has been much over-
advertised and does not (on his merits) deserve any
more prominent place. The number of beggars in
Spain varies directly in proportion to the number
of tourists. They are most persistent at Burgos ;
there is a moderate superfluity at Segovia and
Toledo : but in the out-of-the-way districts there
is only the fundamental residue, and that (to
speak frankly) we should be rather loth to spare.

" His honour the beggar, your brother " — the
authorised official beggar — is a gentleman. He
is frequently distinguished by a badge, like old
Edie Ochiltree ; and his resemblance to that
worthy philosopher does not terminate with the

278

THE SPANISH BEGGAR 279

badge. He is seldom unduly importunate. He
begs " in God's name " ; and when " in God's
name" you implore him to excuse you, he seems
to resignedly argue that such an adjuration would
never be refused on insufficient grounds. His
station is in the church porches ; but he some-
times goes stumping the calles, and breathing a
supplicating ''■Ave Maria'' into every open door
— an invocation which generally brings a very
peppery blessing rattling down the staircase from
the busy housewife overhead. And in fine, his
entire demeanour is so eminently high-bred and
dignified that it seems a privilege to oblige him.
You feel as if you were conferring an obol on
Belisarius, and are consequently on the best of
terms with yourself for all the rest of the day.

This " Lord High Vagabond of the Stocks " is,
however, not quite pushing enough for the era.
In be-touristed cities he is swamped by an army
of interlopers. These are perhaps most frequently
children ; but the tribe is bewrayed by their
cry, — " Pei^rita por pan ! ^ — Sefioi^-e-e-to ! una

1 "A ha'penny for bread.'' The perrita or "httle dog" = a
halfpenny, and the j^erro gordo or fat dog = a penny. Thus
" Two reals minus a little dog " is 45 centiinos. The animal
irrelevantly called a "dog " is the lion on the reverse of the coin.

280 NORTHERN SPAIN

perj'-e-e-ta ! " a capital phrase for a beggar's whine I
A small initiate was squatting beside me all the
time I was sketching the Casa Miranda. She was
engaged in coaching the baby — these were to be
his first words. The baby being unresponsive, she
maintained the refrain herself, at intervals of five
minutes, in an uninterested semi-detached tone.
If she got the perrita that would be so much
profit ; but slie would not be depressed if she
didn't — she was not so keen about the pan. The
benevolent stranger is misled by their bare feet
and rags and persistency, and imagines that they
are all on the brink of starvation ; but if he wants
to see real poverty let him penetrate to the remoter
villages — and he will find no beggars there. There
more than once I have been humbled to the
dust at having my " tip " politely spurned by the
dignified ragamuffins who have rendered me some
trifling service. And lest I should ruin their
self-respect with coppers, I have been forced to
undermine their constitutions with cigarettes.

The last beggars whom we encountered at
Burgos, however, were "right" beggars. They
were clustering round the entrance of the gi-eat
monastery of La Cartuja ^ de Miraflores, awaiting

^ Certosa. Charterhouse.

APPROACHING THE MOUNTAINS 281

their daily dole. Everybody visits La Cartuja to
see the marvellous tombs w^hich Isabella erected
for her father and brother — the masterpieces of
el mcestre Gil ; yet not the least attractive feature
are the white-robed Carthusian brethren them-
selves, and the ragged mendicants " coming for
their soup" according to the immemorial usage
of old.

The convent stands about two miles from
Burgos, on a slight eminence to the right of the
Pancorvo road, and was the last of the great
monuments of the city that we passed on our
departure towards the east. The road had been
rising almost imperceptibly all the way from Valla-
dolid. Gradually the fields had got greener and
the trees more plentiful as we left the dun plains
behind ; and now a fine row of big shady elms
introduced a welcome variety to the everlasting
poplars and half-grown acacias which had been our
only solace for many a sultry mile. The country,
moreover, now begins to assume a more mountainous
character. Away to the right rises the desolate
Sierra de la Demanda, the northern outpost of
the rugged ranges round Sdria, — perhaps one of
the wildest districts in all western Europe at the

pi'esent day. The wolf and the boar still roam

282 NORTHERN SPAIN

at will through its untrodden valleys, though I
believe the bear now only survives in the Western
Cantabrians and the Pyrenees. Here the vener-
able monastery of Silos lay securely hidden even
from tlie sacrilegious Moors ; and here in later
years the dreaded partidas of Mina the giierille7'o
were able to defy the utmost efforts of the French.

Our road passes only over the merest outskirts
of these mountains, and leads us on through
Briviesca by a long, gradual, and monotonous
descent. Yet the gates of Castile are still before
us, and we do not quit that most Spanish of
provinces without seeing it once more in its
sternest and wildest mood. North of the road lies
the long level-topped ridge of the Montes Obarenes,
a range not dissimilar to our own Mendips, and,
like them, cleft with an unsuspected pass. For
some distance we skirt the base of the hills ; and
then with a sharp turn to the left we dive suddenly
into the grim defile of Pancorvo, a Deva gorge in
miniature, where road, river, and railway jostle each
other through a maze of fantastic limestone crags.

These mountain ramparts, pierced with their
deep natural posterns, are a most characteristic
feature of the Castilian frontiers ; and probably
that " Land of Castles " owes its name as much to

THE GORGE OF PANCORVO

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"^1

GORGE OF PANCORVO 283

them as to its man-built donjons and citadels.
Indeed, it requires no very vivid imagination to
discover the outlines of towers and battlements
among the sheer bare weather-beaten stones. One
magnificent imitation overshadowed our road in
the Serrania of Cuenca, with keep and watch-
tower and ballium as complete as a Chateau
Gaillaj-d. Another more ambiguous specimen we
caught sight of in this very district ;— one of those
isolated conical hills crowned with a square rocky
tooth, which are not uncommon in the neighbour-
hood of Pamplona. First it seemed that it was a
rock, — then that it was a castle ; and the balance
of probability appeared to change every half mile.
The road led straight up to our landmark and
circled around the base, so that we saw it fairly
close, and from three different sides ; but whether
it was really a rock or a castle we are not quite
positive even to this day. There can be little \

doubt that it is to some of these Fate 3£o7'gane
that we owe the old proverb concerning castles
in Spain.

The northern face of the Montes Obarenes is
much more broken than the southern ; and as we
run down from the pass into the pretty little town
of Miranda, we may see, far away on our right,

284 NORTHERN SPAIN

that other great notch to the eastward where
the Ebro forces its passage out into the Rioja
plains. The Ebro is but young up here in the
Vizcayan highlands ; yet it is already a fine
broad river ; and the massive old stone bridge
of Miranda, flanked by quaint houses and
churches, makes a singularly attractive sample of
Spanish scenery to the tourist newly arrived from
Bayonne.

The river breaks through the mountains some
ten miles lower, by a gap between two rocky head-
lands, known as the cliffs of Bilibio and Buradon ;
and beyond are the tawny undulating plains
around Haro, — a famous wine-growing district,
whose vintages usually reach the English market
under the name of Bordeaux, though they taste
just as good under their own. The view (given in
the illustrations as La Rioja Alavesa) is one which
is very typical of Spanish inland scenery. But a
special local touch is given by the Navarrese
villages bunched together at the tops of their
conical hills, like so many hedgehogs with their
bristles out. Navarre was a buffer state in
medieval times, and anyone who had nothing else
to do used to kill time by invading it. The
Navarrese villages were always upon the defensive.

LA RIOJA ALAVESA
Looking Northwards across the Ebro.

,i"*

Ve^.di

THE ENGLISHMEN'S HILL 285

and evidently acquired the habit of arranging
themselves to suit.

Meanwhile our road to Pamplona keeps still to
the northward of the mountains, and, crossing the
Ebro at Miranda, makes straight for the heights
of Puebla and Morillas, which answer to the ISIontes
Obarenes on the opposite side of the vale. The
little river Zadora comes rippling out to meet us ;
and the gap from which it issues admits us into a
wide level basin some ten miles in diameter, to
which the Zadora itself forms a somewhat irregular
chord. The ground on the left bank of the river
rises considerably higher than on the right, and
culminates in a little shaggy knoll which stands
close beside our road. Watch for it, and do not
pass it unnoticed ; it is the " Englishmen's Hill."
Well has it earned that name, for it has been twice
baptized in the blood of our nation. Once when
a detachment of the Black Prince's army, under
the command of Sir Thomas Felton, fell fighting
valiantly against thirty times their number on
the eve of the battle of Navarrete.^ Again when
Picton's "fighting devils" came like a storm

^ This incident has been utilised by Conan Doyle in his
White Company. But that story rather exaggerates the height
and steepness of the hill.

286 NORTHERN SPAIN

against it in the crisis of the battle of Vitdria,
cutting their path through the centre of King
Joseph's tottering array.

Salamanca was Wellington's most brilliant
victory, but Vit()ria was unquestionably the ablest
of his campaigns. This invasion was not like those
that had gone before it — no mere sally from his
impregnable mountain lines. At last he could
wield an undivided command and an army as
numerous as his opponents ; and as he crossed the
little frontier river Agueda, lie had looked back to
Portugal with a confident "adieu." Hill to the
right and Graham to the left had already been
slipped on their quarry ; and against such a sweep-
ing combination neither Tormes, Duero, nor
Carrion could provide any adequate defence.
Madrid was abandoned before him, — Burgos was
dismantled. And the retreating French convoys,
with all their baggage, plunder, and munitions,
were jammed in the city of Vitdria at the head of
the road to Bayonne.

Joseph sought to bar the advance at Pancorvo,
and thought the defile was impregnable. He
looked for assault from the southward, but the
storm broke upon him from behind. Wellington
had shifted his base by sea from Lisbon to

BATTLE OF VIT6rIA 287

Santander ; and sweeping Reille and JMaiicune
before him, came pouring down the Ebro from the
north. The stroke was a coup de Jarnac, as fatal
as it was unexpected. The heights of Obarenes
and Morillas were no longer barring the way ; and
Joseph hastily fell back to the hills behind the
Zadora, the only remaining position which he
could possibly hope to defend.

As it was in the days of Las Navas de Tolosa,
so was it also in this " crowning mercy " of the
Peninsular War. It was a peasant wlio led
Kempt's brigade over the unguarded bridge at
Tres Pontes, and fell, like his prototype of the
Morena, at the moment of the victorious attack.
Clinging in desperation to each successive thicket
and farmstead, the French were pushed remorse-
lessly backward into the chaos of transport behind.
And even more fatal than the fi'ontal onset was
the blow struck far to the left on the very confines
of the plain. There Graham stormed the village
of Gamarra Mayor, and shut off the flying army
from the use of the great royal road. Nothing that
ran upon wheels could go along the branch road to
Pamplona. Guns, ammunition, treasure, baggage,
and plunder all fell entire into the hands of the
victors ; and probably at the moment Joseph was

288 NORTHERN SPAIN

very well contented that the prize was sufficiently
valuable to effectually hamper the pursuit.

The battle was the ruin of Napoleon, as well as
of his cause in the Peninsula. The struggle had
sapped his strength for years, and the catastrophe
came at the very crisis of his fate.^ Among all
his enterprises there had been none more thoroughly
inexcusable ; — wantonly conceived, treacherously
undertaken, ruthlessly carried out. As great a
blunder in statecraft as it was an outrage on
humanity. " The Spanish canker destroyed him " ;
and so in bare justice it should.

Our route follows the track of the flying army
along a deep green Navarrese valley between lofty
and cliff-like hills. By its side runs the single line
which connects Madrid with the frontier ; but this
turns off to the north about halfway to Pamplona,
making for San Sebastien and Irun.

The villages are much devoted to Pelota - ; and
few are too poor to possess some species of primi-
tive court. Those in the larger towns are most
imposing erections ; but any bare wall will do, and
some of the churches have hoisted pathetic petitions
that the parishioners will not practise against the

^ During the sitting of the Congress of Dresden.
2 A highly developed form of Fives.

MIRANDA DEL KBRO

A Corner in the Town.

^T»S::;.^r-.:>;-^ ■■ "^9^*1, ■ - v- . : ^ ■ -^ .

NAVARRESE VILLAGES 289

walls during the hours of divine service. The
houses themselves seem almost built with a view
to the pastime, for they are solid square stone
buildings, shouldering close up against the roadway ;
and their blank expanses of ashlar are persistently
commandeered by the boys.

Pelota is exclusively a Basque game. In
Castile and Leon the men are content with
skittles, and the boys are generally engrossed in
the enacting of miniature bull-fights — a game in
which the star performer invariably elects to play
bull. Dancing is, of course, an amusement
which is common to all provinces and to both
sexes : but a game in the English significance is
an institution which seldom appeals to the southern
mind.

In this district, however, the cyclist provides a
good deal of salutary exercise for the conscientious
toll-keeper. For the Basque roads are not national
but provincial, and the provinces maintain them
by taking tolls. The stranger, however, is not
generally aware of this custom ; and as the toll-
bars are quite unobtrusive, he rides innocently past
them on his way. His first intimation takes the
shape of a breathless and howling caminero

sprinting desperately along the road behind him,

290 NORTHERN SPAIN

and smarting under the conviction that he is being
wilfully bilked.

Some little distance before we reach Pamplona
we pass one of the most remarkable examples of
rock formation that is to be met with even in
Spanish hills. Here the deep glen of Larraun
debouches upon the main valley, and across its
mouth is drawn a huge natural wall of precipitous
limestone which can hardly be less than a thousand
feet high. The top is serrated, but both faces are
equally sheer ; and the thickness at the base is not
relatively greater than one would expect in an
artificial masonry dam. Probably, indeed, it was
a natural dam originally, retaining a vast reservoir
in the vale behind ; but now it is cleft in the centre
from top to base with a huge gash, clean-cut and
narrow ; and through this stupendous portal the
little river issues from the vale.

Pamplona stands in the centre of an amphi-
theatre of mountains, rising out of the level arena
on a sort of dais covered with walls and spires. It
is the chief of the northern frontier fortresses ; but
its bastions date mostly from the days of Vauban,
and its strength (from a modern military stand-
point) must depend on the forts which cap the
neighbouring hills. The cathedral is an interesting

PAMPLONA
From the Road to the Frontier.

""*** \.ir^

PAMPLONA 291

building, and possesses a most lovely cloister ; but
the town generally is not very attractive to the
artist, though it forms a good " jumping-off place"
for exploring the country around.

The bare, windy wastes that stretch away from
the city towards the Pyrenean foot-hills are not
altogether so tenantless as they seem to a casual
view. Several of the villages still bear traces of
ancient prosperity; — Estella, charmingly situated
in a rocky hollow ; Sangiiesa, with its noble
monastery ; OHte, once the Windsor of Navarre.
The last-named might almost rank as a working
model for an antiquarian. Its lanes are packed
with the decaying mansions of the long-departed
courtiers, and dominated by the huge ruined castle
which was the home of the warrior kings. This
palatial stronghold is noted as one of the finest
examples in the Peninsula : a match for our own
Bamburgh or Warkworth, and consequently with
few rivals in the world.

As the capital of Navarre, Pamplona has, of
course, been pre-eminent for its sieges ; and it was
in one of these that Ignatius Loyola received
the wound which converted him from a dandy
into an ascetic, and led to the foundation of the
Order of Jesuits. But the siege which possesses

292 NORTHERN SPAIN

the greatest interest for an Englishman is that
undertaken by the Duke of Welhngton after
Vitdria ; the enterprise which led to that series
of desperate struggles usually lumped together
vaguely as " the Battles of the Pyrenees."

The sieges of San Sebastien and Pamplona had
been undertaken simultaneously ; but neither made
very rapid progress, and Soult was not the man
to let them fall without an attempt to come to
their aid. He had re-formed the wrecks of Joseph's
army on the French side of the frontier ; and
advancing towards the passes of INIaya and Ronces-
valles, he assailed them both suddenly the same
day. The detachments which guarded them were
overpowered after a most resolute resistance, and
Soult pushed down the valleys towards Pamplona,
reuniting his forces on the road. Wellington had
expected that the blow would be aimed at San
Sebastien. He was momentarily outwitted ; but
he recovered just in time. Soult found his path
barred at the fatal ridge of Saurauren, — just out-
side the Pamplona basin, and Uterally within sight
of his goal. The beleaguered garrison heard the
roar of that furious battle ; they could watch the
smoke -wreaths curling above the intervening
ridge. But no French standards appeared in the

OLITE
The Castle.

-i

BATTLE OF SAURAUREN 293

mouth of the pass in the evening. When the
battle was renewed two days later, the English
were the assailants ; and Soiilt and his beaten
army could barely find safety in flight.

Saurauren was Wellington's last great battle on
Spanish soil. A few weeks later the two great
fortresses had fallen, and — first of all the allied
Generals — he carried the war into France. Five
years previously he had landed in Portugal — a
" Sepoy General," little more distinguished than
Cornwallis or Eyre Coote. But those five years
in the Peninsula had fixed his reputation for ever ;
and the giant who crossed the Bidassoa had but
little to add to his stature on the field of Waterloo.

There is a choice of two roads from Pamplona
to the frontier. The kilos are reckoned from
Maya ; but Roncesvalles bears the more historic
name. In point of scenery there is little to choose
between them ; but perhaps JVIaya is the harder
journey, for Maya includes Vellate, and this extra
pass is the loftiest of the three.

The country towards Roncesvalles is at first much
less mountainous in character than that towards
Vitdria ; for the high peaks of the Pyrenees lie in
the centre of the range, to the eastward ; and those
immediately before us, though wild and rugged,

294 NORTHERN SPAIN

do not show up very imposingly above the lofty
levels upon the Spanish side. Near Pamplona the
meadows are green and civilised, but the view
becomes sterner and more barren as we draw near
to the feet of the hills ; and presently we enter a
long, narrow, rocky gully — the bed of a mountain
river — whose steep, bare sides are dotted with trim
little bushes of box. How hot it was in that
narrow gully ! The sun's rays poured vertically
into the breathless hollow, and their heat was
radiated by every burning stone. Even the six-
inch shadows of the box bushes were quoted at
fancy values ; and shedding our outer garments
one after another, we eventually emerged at the
further end in an almost aboriginal state.

"Are you thinking of resuming the garb of
civilisation ? " enquired one vagabond of another,
as we halted for a moment on the little bridge
near the village of Burguete. " I am thinking of
resuming the garb of Adam," retorted his comrade
desperately, as he glared into the pool beneath.
It was rather a public place for a bathe ; but there
are no passengers on a Spanish road at Comida
time. And as that meal is invariably unpunctual,
we knew that the little Fonda could be reached in
plenty of time.

PASS OF RONCESVALLES 295

Burguete stands in the centre of a little cup-like
valley ; and prominent upon the further lip rises
a big domed hill, one of the flankers of the pass.
It is a sleek, smooth mountain, upholstered with
green turf, and spangled with grazing sheep ; and
the big round beeches and chestnuts herd together
all over its crest, as domesticated as on an English
lawn. Yet the little hillock beneath it was the
scene of one of the greatest of tragedies ; for there
stood the abbey of Roncesvalles, the sepulchre of
Charlemagne's slaughtered Peers.

A good deal of controversial ink has been spilt
over Charlemagne's famous Spanish expedition :
and all the confusion of history has been worse
confounded by romance. The French Epics tell
of it as a glorious and successful crusade, under-
taken in the cause of Christendom against the
insolence of the Moors. The Emperor dictated
his own terms in his enemy's palace at Cdrdova,
and it was only the treachery of Ganelon that led
to the regrettable incident at the end. Very
different is the story of the Spanish ballads. Their
bards were most wofuUy sceptical of religious and
disinterested invasion ; they wished to be left to
fight out their own quarrels with their own infidels,
and felt no sort of satisfaction at the prospect of

296 NORTHERN SPAIN

Spain becoming a province of the Franks. It was
their own native heroes, Bernardo del Carpio and
the chivahy of Leon, who overthrew the Paladins
at Roncesvalles. Is not Roland's " Durandal " in
the armourj'^ of Madrid to this day, to prove that
the Spaniard was the better man ?

In truth the expedition was directed against the
newly-estabUshed Caliphate of Cordova, in alliance
with Suleiman Ibn-al-Arabi, the Moorish king of
Barcelona, who was jealous of Abderahman's
growing power. Charlemagne captured Pamplona
(which was Christian), and obtained some ac-
knowledgment of suzerainty from the Sheikhs of
Gerona and Huesca. But Zaragoza held out
against him with all its traditional obstinacy : the
ill-matched allies could by no means pull together ;
and the campaign fizzled out abortively without
any substantial gain. As for the dolorous rout
which concluded it, that was the work of neither
Goth nor Moor, but of the angry Basques of the
mountains, a nation whom Charlemagne had not
regarded, and whom he probably despised. They
had seen their country pillaged, their capital
Pamplona taken ; and now, when the rearguard
was entangled in the mountains, they at last got
the chance of plunder and revenge. No doubt

PAMPLONA
A Patio near the Cathedral.

THE DOLOROUS ROUT 297

they trapped them in that long rocky defile —
straggling, way-worn, and cumbered with plunder
and baggage — a position as hopeless as Elphin-
stone's in the Koord Kabul. The disjointed line
was toiling painfully along the gullet ; the slippery
screes rose unscalable on either side ; and the
jutting crags that frowned at every corner afforded
both ramparts and missiles to the unweariable
mountaineers. None but the doughtiest warriors
could have succeeded in breaking out into the
basin of Burguete. And here their superior arms
and discipline would enable them to fight their
way across to the further side. Only one short
ascent still remained to be surmounted ; but their
active enemy was before them, and the task was
beyond their power. Wounded and exhausted,
they drew together in a rallying square upon the
little hillock ; and there, fighting desperately, they
were cut down to a man.

The course of that fight is retold in the very
conformation of the valley, yet somehow the picture
is inadequate. The drama is not quite worthily
staged. The place is too homely and pastoral for
the scene of that great Saga which Taillefer chanted
between the embattled hosts at Hastings ; and

which has since thrilled the hearts of generations

298 NORTHERN SPAIN

of warriors, as Sidney's was thrilled by the tale of
Chevy Chase. We need a more rugged environ-
ment for the memory of a departed demi-god.
" He who aspires to be a hero," said Dr Johnson,
" should drink brandy ! " And perhaps, while he
is about it, he might get killed in a Deva gorge.

There is a softer lay for the minstrel who would
linger by the braes of Burguete ; a tale of two true
lovers, who, as usual, were distressingly ill-starred.
Their story is even more ancient than the doughty
deeds of arms that we have just been rehearsing ;
for it relates to the days of Charlemagne's illustrious
grand-sire, Charles JMartel. Othman ben Abu
Neza, the Moorish warden of the marches, had
espoused a Christian bride, Lampegia, daughter of
Duke Eudo of Aquitaine ; and fleeing with her
across the mountains to seek refuge from his
indignant suzerain, was overtaken in the pass of
Roncesvalles, and slain in his lady's arms. The
unemotional historian is convinced that the mar-
riage was political, and hints that both Eudo and
Othman were conspiring against their respective
liege lords. But at least he will grant us a
certificate as to the authenticity of the final catas-
trophe : and he flatly declines to go further even
for Roland and his Peers.

THE FINAL STAGE 299

Battlefields lie thick in Navarre, and even the
Vale of Thorns is not absolutely the last of them.
A second battle of Roncesvalles was contested upon
the heights of Altobiscar, at the very crest of the
Pass, in 1813. Here the British had been posted
for six weeks, covering the blockade of Pamplona ;
and had greatly vexed the soul of their general by
persistently deserting in twos and threes every
night.

Why these seasoned soldiers, at this very hour
of their triumph, should have been seized with so
strange an epidemic, is a problem which might
take a good deal of arguing. The only con-
temporary theory was the suggestion that they
were finding things slow ! But their fighting
qualities did not seem to have got much affected.
Soult finally attacked them in person with much
superior numbers : and they offered a most resolute
resistance, only giving ground after night-fall, when
it was evident they were being outflanked. Cole,
the hero of Albuera, led them stubbornly back
along the mountain ridges towards Pamplona ; and
the act was played out at Saurauren, where he
arrived just in time to seize the hill.

The ascent of the Pass upon the Spanish side is
but trifling. A few brisk turns in the track, and

300 NORTHERN SPAIN

we have climbed from the abbey ruins to the
summit of the col behind. Before us the road to
France drops coil below coil into the deep green
valley, a long descent of over three thousand feet.
The actual frontier is some dozen miles further, at
the village of Valcarlos ; where a modest little
bridge, shepherded by a horde of sentries, spans
the waters of the infant Nive. But the spirit of
Spam lags behind us up here upon this breezy
saddle. Here is the true parting of the nations ;
and as we turn our faces plainwards, we feel that
we are taking our leave.

Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies !

Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain !
For we've received orders to cross the salt Avaters ;

We hope before long we shall see you again !

INDEX

Abdndames . 21, 28, 30,39, 42
Abderahman I., Caliph of

Cordova .... 296
Abu Walid, Alfaqui of Toledo 208
Alarcon, Battle of . . . 267
Alba de Tormes . . 163,173
Albarracin .... 255
Alberche, River . . 212-213
Alcantara . . . 230-235
Bridge . . 92, 231-235

Monastery . . -53? 234
Alfonso VI. of Castile and

Leon 124-125, 140, 142, 202,

208, 269
Alfonso VIII. of Castile 60, 208,

267
and
. 180
1 50-1 5 1
258, 281
53, 79, 2o

of Castile

Alfonso XI

Leon
Alfonso V. of Portugal .
Alfonso, Prince of Castile
Alguazils
Al Manzor, Vizier of Cordova 85-86
Mountain . . . 161, 221
Almaraz, Bridge . . 92, 224
Almoravides .... 202
Altobiscar, Mountain Ridge . 299
Alxaman, Moorish Emir . 35

Andalusia

Aragon .

Ar^njuez

Arapiles .

Arlanzon, River

Armada, The .

Arriondas

Arroyo Molinos, Battle of

Arzobispo, Bridge .

PAGH

60, 202
. 61, 168

191, 193-195

. 164

266, 268, 274

95, 107, 189

• 37-38,42

224

214

ASTORGA . 68-71, 75, 78, 177

Asturias, Eastern . 15-16, 24-42
Western . . 93, 113-131
Augustus, Emperor 68, 228, 246
Autos da Fi . . 205, 261-262
AviLA . . 176-183, 190, 192

Barcelona

. 296

Basques .

. 289, 296

Bathers .

. 120

Bavieca .

. 270-271

Becerrea.

76-77

Beggars .

. 278-280

B^JAR .

173-176, 235

Bellotas .

. 116

Bembibre

• 75

Benavente .

. 133-136

Battle of .

• 134-135

301

302

INDEX

Berruguete, Alonzo, Sculptor . 207
BetAnzos . .106, 1 08- 1 10
Bidassoa, River . . 6, 293
Bilbao .... $-7, 9
Birds (Wild). Eagles, 21, 229;
Falcons, 213; Hoopoes,
156; Magpies, 157;
Ospreys, 22-23 ; Par-
tridges, 73 ; Storks i 57, 222,
229, 232
Biscay, Bay of . . 5-7, 39
Bivar, Rodrigo Diaz de. See

Cid.
Borgoiia, Felipe de. Sculptor . 207
Borrow, George 54, 103, 10% note,

11S-117
Briviesca . . .82, 282
Buenavista . . .46, 48, 5°
Bull Fights 171-173, 208, 273, 289
Burgos 60,257,264-277,280-281

286

Castle .
Cathedral .
Monasteries
Palaces
Siege .
Burguete

. 275-277

• 273-274

267-268, 280-281

. 270

. 275-277
294-295, 297-298

19, 42

72,75

81, 221-224, 229, 235

13-14, 69-70, 273

Cabezon .
Cacabellos
CACERES
Cafe's

Calderon, Pedro, Dramatist . 205
Camps, Celtic and Roman 90-91
Cangas de Onis . 30-33, 37, 39
Cantabrian Mountains 15,19-
20, 43, 66, 152, 161, 282

PAGE

Cares, River , , . 28-29
Cardena, San Pedro de,

Monastery . . . 271
Carillo, Archbishop of Toledo 151,

258-259
Carlists .... 54-55

Carpio, Bernardo del . . 296
Carranza, Archbishop of

Toledo . . . 262
Carreno .... 29-30
Carrion, River . . 51,286
Castaiios, General ... 68
Castile, Kingdom . 60-61, 202, 207
Old 7-23,43-45,176-185,243-
258, 266-284
New . . 185-214, 237-243
Castles. Benavente, 134;
Burgos, 275-276;
Magueda, 211; Merida,
225 ; Olite, 291 ; Pon-
ferrada, 73 ; Segovia,
249-250 ; Toledo . 205

in Spain . . . 282-283
Castro Gonzalo, Bridge . 135-136
Castropol . . . 113-114
Castro Urdiales . 7-10, 19
Cathedrals. Avila, 180; Bur-
gos, 273-275 ; Leon,
58-59 ; Lugo, 79 ;
Orense, 92 ; Oviedo,
122 ; Palencia, 264 ;
Pamplona, 290 - 291 j
Plasencia, 217 ; Sala-
manca, 164-165 ; Sant-
iago, 86-87 ; Segovia,
253-254; Toledo, 205-
208 ; Tuy, 97 ; Zamora

145-146

INDEX

303

PAGE

Catharine of Aragon, Queen

of England . . . 182
Cervera del Pisuerga . . 45
Cervantes, Miguel. See

Quixote, Don.
Charlemagne, Emperor . 295-298
Charles V., King of Spain and

Emperor of Germany 190,
203, 268
Charles, Prince of Wales

(Charles I.) . . . 48
Charles Martel, Mayor of the

Franks . . . 298

Churriguera, Architect . . 87

Cicadas 156

CiD, The. Rodrigo Diaz de

Bivar 61, 124-125, 140-143,
177, 202, 269-271

Cies, Islas de .
Clamores, River
Clausel, General
Clavijo, Battle of

. lOI

• 253

163, 173

. 85

Climate 129, 170, 182, 266-267, 272,

294
Cole, General. . . . 299
Colonia, Juan de, Architect . 274
Combarros . . . .71
Communeros^ Revolt of 203-204,

268
Constantino, Bridge . . 76
Corcuvion . . . .103
Cordova . . 85, 201, 295-296

Cdria 235

Corpus Christi, Festival of 139,

143-146

Cortes, Hernando . . . 223

CORUNA 64, 89, 104-105, 108, no

Battle of . 92, 106-108, III

Costume 49, 62-63, 65, 71, 109-110
157-158, 175-176

Courtship
COVADONGA .

Battle of

Nuestra Senora de
Craufurd, General .
Cubos

CUDILLERO .
Cuenca .

CUERA, Sierra de .
Cuesta, Captain General

. 226-228

• 25, 33-37

24-25, 34-37

24-25, 34, 37

. 214

22, 58

118-121

25s, 283

30, 38-39

. 213

Cueva, Don Beltran de la .259
Cuidad Rodrigo . 162-163, '75

Dancing . 40, 48, 108-109, 289

De Arfe, Metal worker . . 207
Deva, River . . 20-21, 28, 42

Gorge 22-23, 25-28, 42, 43, 298
Dogs . . . 17-19, 216, 260
Dorothea. See Quixote, Don.
Douro, Battle of the . 93, 214
Drake, Sir Francis . . 107

Dubreton, General . . 275

Duenas . . . 263-264
DUERO, River 94, 141, 149, 259-

260

Valley 137, 152-153, 176, 182,
211, 220, 257
Dulcinea del Toboso. See
Quixote, Don.

Ebro, River . . 284-285, 287
Edward, Prince of England

(Edward I.). . . 267

"The Black Prince" . . 285

El Burgo, Bridge . . . 107

304.

INDEX

Eleanor of Castile, Queen of

England . . 267-268
Electric Lighting . . 109, 147
El Padron . . . 64, 103

Elvina 106

Elvira, Princess . . .140
Encina, Nuestra Senora de la

73-74
Eresma, River . 243-245, 248
ESCLAVITUD, Nuestra Senora

de la . . . . 103
EscORiAL 186-190, 240-242, 261
Esla, River 57, 131, 132-135, 263

Estella 291

Estremadura . . 175, 215-236
Eudo, Duke of Aquitaine . 298
EUROPA, Picos de 20-21, 27-29,

30, 33, 161

Felton, Sir Thomas . . 285
Ferdinand I. of Leon and

Castile . 60-61, 140

in. of Castile and Leon 60, 202,

206

of Aragon (The Catholic) i ro,

1 50, 263-264

and Isabella of Castile,

"The Catholic Kings" 150,

166, 181-182, 203, 263-264

Ferrol . . 108, 1 1 1

Finistierra, Cape . . . loi

Fishing Ports 9-10, 19-20, 40-41

loo-ioi, 118-119

Rivers .... 38

Fishwives . . 98, loi, 119

Flies .... 31, 102

Florinda (La Cava) . . 201

PAGE

Flowers (Wild). Broom, 224,

242 ; Cactus, 221 ;

Cistus, 153, 224 ;

Hardhead, 183, 242 ;

Heather, ^^ 102 ;

Poppy . . . 266

Fountains 79-81, 108, 186, 222, 239

Foz 112

Francia, Peiia de . . .175

Galicia . 15,24,62,76-112,140

Gamarra Mayor
Ganelon . . . ,
Garlic . . . .
Gata, Sierra de
Gelmirez, Archbishop

Santiago
Gerona . . . ,
Gigantes
Gijon

. 287

. 295

13, 180

• 175
of

84, 86

111,296

139, 143-145
20, 35-36

Gil BlaS de Santillana. Birth-
place, 19 ; Captain
Rolando, 72 ; Dr
Sangrado, 259-261 ;
Flight from Valladolid,
259-260; Don Bernardo
de Castel Blazo, 53 ;
at Salamanca, 166;
Imprisonment, 254-
255 ; at Toledo, 205 ;
Visit to Olivares, 149 ;
Liria . . .254 note
Girard, General . . , 224
Gonzalez, Count Fernando 61, 269
Gonzalo, Don Arias . 141 -142
Graham, General . . 286-287
GREDOS, Sierra de 161, 170, 173-
174, 182,211,215,221,235

INDEX

305

Grenada

Guadalete, Battle of the

Guadalupe, Monastery .

Sierra de .
GUADARRAMA, Sierra de
176, 182,

Puerto de .
Guadiana, River
Guardia Civil
Guerrilleros .

184-185,

• 223,

53-54,

93-94,

PAGE

255, 265

. 200

223, 235

211

18, 155,
238,256
242-243
225, 229
183, 245
III, 282

Haro 284

Henrique IV. of Castile 177, 250,

258
Hercules (at Toledo) . 199-201
Hieronymo, Bishop of Zamora 139
Hill, General . . 224, 286
Howell, James . 48, 95, 206 note
Huesca 296

lUescas 193

Inns 8-9, 25-27, 29, 46-48, 50, 69,

138-139, i8zi, 217-219, 226-
227, 264-265
Inquisition . 250-252, 261-263
Isabella of Castile (The

Catholic), 250, 252, 281.

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