THE CITY OF THE ARROW-PIERCED SAINT;
We glide smoothly away from St. Jean de Luz and its legends, by the
unlegendary railroad. The track curves southward, with frequent views of
the coast, and it will be but a few minutes before we shall be in Spain.
We instinctively feel for the reassuring rustle of our passports, duly
_viséd_ at Bordeaux. The low mountain that overhangs Fuenterrabia, one
of the nearest Spanish towns, comes closer, and soon the train whistles
shrilly into the long station at Hendaye, the last French village, in
great repute for its delicious cordial. It is on the edge of the
Bidassoa, a placid, shallow river which here lazily acts as the
international boundary. Irun, the first town of the peninsula, is across
the bridge, and after a short delay the train crosses,--and we instantly
feel a hundred miles nearer to the Escorial, a hundred years nearer to
Philip and the _auto-da-fé_.
The change of nationality at these frontier towns is always distinct and
surprising, and more so than elsewhere here in Irun. Within three
minutes we have in every sense passed from France into Spain. Language
not only, but the type of face and dress, have altered in a flash. We
are not conscious, however, of any increased governmental surveillance;
passports are not asked for at all, and the customs-official gives but a
light inspection to trunk and satchels.
But he is in considerable perplexity over the camera. This he is
scrutinizing very suspiciously. We assume that a true Greek compound
should pass current everywhere, if given a proper local termination, and
so confidently hazard, "_photo-grafia_."
[Illustration]
I still believe that the word was skilfully and philologically evolved,
but it seems to fail of its effect. We repeat it, with appropriate
gestures; the official looks puzzled but not enlightened. He inspects
the lens, the bellows, the slides. We fear for the negatives and the
unexposed plates. Prompt action is needed, for already his hand is
approaching them; and boldly withdrawing the closed plate-holders from
the camera we defiantly pocket them before his eyes.
A short, clicking sound caused by the act of withdrawal gives the
inspector an idea. He looks up hopefully.
"_Telegrafo_?" he asks.
We nod with vigor and even more hopefully, and are inspired to add:
"_Si, señor, telegrafo! Americano; caramba!_"
This has the desired effect. The mystery is explained. The government's
hand is stayed, its doubt vanishes; the precious scroll of chalk is
made, and the plates are saved to darkness and to good works.
It is necessary to change cars at Irun. Trains cannot possibly go
through, owing to a difference in gauge,--a difference purposely devised
by moody Spain, in order to impede hostile invasion. There is also a
wait of an hour. The Spaniard does not assent to the equation between
time and money. The lunch at the buffet in the station is ceremonious
and calm; the successive courses are gravely served at its naperied
tables with the same deliberation, the same care and attention to
detail, as at a hotel. It is but a short journey to San Sebastian, and
in half an hour after leaving Irun we are at our destination.
II.
San Sebastian is both a city unto itself, and a summer resort unto
others. As to the latter, it is among the most popular watering-places
in Spain, and is styled "the Brighton of Madrid." As to the former, it
is a home for twenty thousand human beings of its own; it earns a
sufficing competence, chiefly in exchanges with its surrounding
province; and it has a monopoly of centralization over a wide region,
for no other important Spanish city lies nearer than Pampeluna or
Burgos. Burgos is not actually so very remote,--only a short hundred and
fifty miles beyond; and we had spoken of a visit to its renowned
cathedral. But we had not reckoned with Spanish railway speed; it was
found that the time required solely to go and come would be nearly
fifteen hours! Unvisited, we saw, must remain the cathedral within which
the hot-headed Protestant missionary blew out the sacred light that had
burned for three hundred years. Owing to the Hispanian misconception of
horological values, Burgos is practically, if not actually, exceedingly
remote from San Sebastian.
The latter, however, is so fortunately close to the edge of France that
those who come as near as Biarritz or Pau should assuredly make this
brief dip over the border.
San Sebastian is strictly new; its predecessors have been burned five
times, one upon the other, the last being brought to ashes by the
soldiers of Wellington; and it is liable to be burned again whenever
France and Spain begin to fight again across it. It is an excellent
model for that worthy fowl, the phoenix, for it has risen with
undismayed cheerfulness from each holocaust. The present representative
is in three segments. The city itself is composed of two, and the
citadel makes a fairly important third. From a military point of view,
the citadel was once counted first, and the city itself made an
unimportant third,--with no second. But modern gunnery has changed that
estimate.
Of the two parts of the city proper, one is national, the other
international; they do not unite, but adjoin, welded by a central
promenade, the _Alameda_. Each is distinct, and has little to do with
the life of the other. The native population centres wholly in the west
half; we drift first over to this, in our afternoon walk, and scan its
appearance and people with inquisitive though decorous interest. This
section, comprising much of what was the old town, has evidently aimed
to reproduce it; it has been rebuilt with persistent regard to the
former municipal type, and shows to-day a curious combination of bright,
new and well constructed tenements, built on a dark, old and ill
instructed plan. The streets are left narrow,--very narrow. The black
doorways and halls, as we peer in, in passing, are cramped and
forbidding; the projecting balconies approach each other overhead, and
the oblong yellow buildings themselves rise to overshadowing height.
Like soldiers on dress parade they stand, relentlessly regular and
uniform, block after block, and their walled lanes, straight and similar
and uncharacteristic, cross and weave themselves into a stiff,
right-angled check, exasperating and profitless, unrelieved by a hint at
variation of outline, by a picturesque eave or gable, or a single
artistic "bit;"
The cathedral does indeed possess some interest, particularly its carved
front of light-colored stone; and here and there about it are a few old
houses, unsutteed relicts, that have not bowed to the new régime. The
shops in this part of the town are less individual than one would
expect, though we find them not devoid of a certain variety. The
specialty of the place is the enameling of gold and silver upon iron.
Jewelry and small articles are made of this ware in elaborate designs
and with great daintiness and skill. Outside of this, San Sebastian does
not seem to have invented any new wants for humanity, and its shops do
not seek to supply any but the old.
The other half of the town I have called international. This is the
section of the hotels, of wide streets and flagged walks, of massy
squares of business buildings, of villas and a park and the bathing
circle. The sea swings around the projecting cape of the citadel into a
deeply notched bay, small and still, and on its edge which meets the
town you find pavilions and beach-chairs and their usual accompaniment
of idling humanity. The Casino stands boldly up, a little to the right,
and in front of it, on the Alameda, the band will play in the coming
summer evenings for all the élite of Madrid.
The fine Hôtel de Londres is large and well kept, and, like all Spanish
hotels, charges on the good American plan of so much per day. One
gratefully appreciates this, after juggling every few days with
disheartening lists of accumulated coffees and eggs and dinners and
rooms and mineral waters and service and _bougies_, and the others. The
infinitude of microscopic book-keeping made necessary by the Continental
system is a thought to shudder at. For the rest, the hotel is only
unsatisfying because it seems in nowise distinctively Spanish. We almost
wish we had chosen a certain other hostelry equally well spoken of,
which, instead of Hotel, had alluringly styled itself a _Fonda_.
Probably we might have found as little there as here that was pure
Castilian. Save in language and location, San Sebastian is not of Spain,
Spanish. And as with Biarritz, it is not to be sought for its
reminiscences of old age. It is trim and "kempt" and modern, and lives
strictly in the present. We soon come to realize this, cease longing for
the unattainable, and enjoy the place for what it is. Perhaps we shall
recoup the vanished _patina_ to-morrow, when we visit an older and far
different town,--Fuenterrabia.
III.
The Sebastian season is coëxtensive with the summer season at Biarritz;
perhaps rather tardier in its beginnings. Consequently we are still
somewhat in advance of the tide. This is distinctly a disadvantage, as
it was in part at Biarritz. There are places whose very reason for
existence is society. Only in this costume are they rightly themselves;
only in full dress, so to say, should they be called upon. In a true
"sentimental journey," art and nature and history should take but equal
turn with the life of the present. The ideal traveler courts solitude in
a ruin and society in a resort. The spirit of each is differently
divined.
And San Sebastian out of season is a casket without its
jewels,--modern-made casket at that, costly but uncharacteristic, and
with nothing of an heirloom's charm; a casket neither encased in time's
antique leather nor encrusted with true Spanish enamel.
However, we are not wholly out of the season. We are in the van of it,
but day breaks before the sun rises. San Sebastian is partially awake
already and rubbing its eyes. The season's contingent is arriving in
daily portions. The Queen Regent is coming soon, to spend the summer;
this draws an additional number in advance, thus influenced to summer
here themselves. The beach is already mildly popular, and the cabmen
mildly independent. We drive out from the town around the bend of the
little bay, and see opening villas and other marks of awakening life.
But we sigh for music on the quiet plaza; hope in vain for a concert or
ball in the Casino; and, above all, mourn and refuse to be comforted,
for there is no bull-fight. After Wellington, whose way to Waterloo left
here its fiery track, we exclaim: "O for August or Madrid!" In Madrid,
they are holding bull-fights even now in June; in August, they will be
holding them here.
IV.
As to the citadel, sight-seers are not solicitously catered to by the
authorities. I stroll up there in the afternoon. The citadel hill is
known as the Monte Orgullo. The spirals of the road lead out to and
around the edge of the promontory to its ocean side, and curve steadily
upward during a rise of four hundred feet. There are pleasant views of
the sea,--the Spanish main in literal fact,--and of the hills across the
little notch of water that turns in at the left toward the town. I near
the summit, pass under an untended gateway, work upward still by a
narrow lane shut in with high stone walls, and finally reach the foot of
a long flight of stone steps and see the citadel looming above. It is
Spain, and my passport is at the hotel. They are said to be very
suspicious in Spain; to act first and investigate afterward. My whole
vocabulary has already been employed at the custom-house, and consists
of "_Americano_," "_caramba_," and "_Si, Señor_." It won the day at
Irun. Will it win the day here?
Boldly I begin ascending the steps. They are many and wide, confined by
the same high walls, and commanded from above by the battlements of the
fort. There is commotion on the parapet at the unmuffled sound of the
foreigner's foot-fall, and armed figures at once appear at the edge.
I pause half-way, and look expectantly upward.
"_Caramba_?" I inquire.
A soldier shakes, his head.
"_Americano_," I insinuate, sweetly.
Another shake, more decided.
I grieve for a somewhat fuller technical familiarity with the Spanish
military idiom. Undismayed, however, I resort to the sign language, and
make gestures to signify that I want to ascend.
Either the proposal is rejected or it is not comprehended, and I act it
out again, with a cajoling "_Si, Señor_." Then, to make the idea
clearer, I move on up the steps.
But now there is a vigorous negative. More armed figures, appear at the
parapet, and, while I pause again, one of them explains his position in
a few well-chosen and emphatic phrases, and illustrates his views by a
pointed gesture toward his gun. The illustration at least is definite
and unmistakable.
International complications are never to be recklessly brought on. But
shall the assailing traveler quail before a gesture? My store of Spanish
passwords is exhausted, but there is one solvent yet remaining,--the
universal countersign. With undiminished cheerfulness, I select from my
pocket a stamped silver disk of well-known design, hold it significantly
a moment in full view, and then confidently proceed up the staircase.
The armed figures vanish from view. There is a foreboding silence as I
near the heavy entrance-way at the top. But before I can pound for
admittance, the great door swings deferentially open, a guard within
salutes still more deferentially, I advance, friend, and proffer the
countersign,--and the Monte Orgullo is won!
The view from this hill of Mars well merits the climb and any attendant
risk to the home State Department. The air is warm and still. In front,
the sea stretches to the horizon, smooth as the fair Glimmerglass loved
by Deerslayer. To the right flows a clear, quiet river, the Urumea, to
meet it,--a river on whose nearer bank below us lies buried many a brave
English soldier, their graves marked by white headstones; and from the
farther shore of which once flew leaden rain and iron hail from
conquering English guns. Behind us lies the city, asleep in the warm
afternoon haze, and in the distance are the forms of purplish Pyrenees
hills; while farther around opens the bright little bay,--the _Concha_
or Shell, happily so called,--with villas fringing it's curve, and an
islet-pearl in its centre. A wistful touch of peace and sunshine is over
all the scene, as one views it, in the irony of fact, from this
storm-centre of war.
There are barracks within the walls, and monster guns and other usual
martial furnishings, and the fortifications themselves have, to some
extent, been put in touch with modern requirements. The garrison's life
is not hard, and they live contentedly through drill and evolution,
ration and routine, and stroll down to the Alameda and Casino in hours
of leave. But theirs is a post of honor and danger, nevertheless. San
Sebastian lies foremost in the route of possible invasion. It could not
be ignored nor left untaken. And the very isolation of this fortress,
once its strength, is now its weakness. It might serve to delay an
onrushing army for a saving moment,--a dog thrown out to check the
wolves. It could accomplish little more against the terrific artillery
of to-day; and,--as with the dog,--the interval would prove a period of
marked unrest to the fated garrison.
However, war is now at last, if never hitherto, extinct for all time, so
trusts the world at peace. And barrack-life is dreamy and easy, and the
stroll down to the Alameda very pleasant, these fair days of summer.
But the white headstones on the river slope come out into view again,
for a time, as I wander back down the spiral road toward the town and
think on these things; a cloud drifts across the sun and dims their
brightness; then the light pours down as before.
V.
Wellington fought his way over this region in 1813, and took San
Sebastian,--took it by storm and thunder-storm,--took it in fire and
hail, at fearful cost, and over the dead bodies of a quarter of his
stormers. The place blocked his northward way to meet the Man of
Destiny. Destiny decreed its fall. For seven weeks, the siege,
octopus-like, wound its long tentacles about its victim, sucking away
the life. On the last day of summer, the assault was let loose. The
attack seemed irresistible; the defence impregnable. All that furious
morning, column after column of British troops swarmed up the river
bank, pressed on into the breaches, or hurled themselves to the top of
the walls. Column after column melted back, under the torrent of fire
from the parapet and from the batteries in the citadel. "In vain," says
Napier,[10] "the following multitude covered the ascent, seeking an
entrance at every part; to advance was impossible, and the mass of
assailants, slowly sinking downwards, remained stubborn and immovable on
the lower part of the breach ...
[10] _Peninsular War_.
"The volunteers, who had been with difficulty restrained in the
trenches, 'calling out to know why they had been brought there if they
were not to lead the assault,' being now let loose, went like a
whirlwind to the breaches, and again the crowded masses swarmed up the
face of the ruins, but reaching the crest line they came down like a
falling wall; crowd after crowd were seen to mount, to totter and to
sink, the deadly French fire was unabated, the smoke floated away, and
the crest of the breach bore no living man."
The British artillery, from a near elevation, now reinforced the attack
with a raking fire, and new regiments plunged across the stream and
rushed to join the attack. "The fighting now became fierce and obstinate
again at all the breaches, but the French musketry still rolled with
deadly effect, the heaps of slain increased, and once more the great
mass of stormers sank to the foot of the ruins, unable to win; the
living sheltered themselves as they could, but the dead and wounded lay
so thickly that hardly could it be judged whether the hurt or unhurt
were most numerous.
"It was now evident that the assault must fail unless some accident
intervened, for the tide was rising, the reserves all engaged, and no
greater effort could be expected from men whose courage had been already
pushed to the verge of madness. In this crisis, fortune interfered. A
number of powder-barrels, live shells, and combustible materials which
the French had accumulated behind the traverses for their defence,
caught fire, a bright, consuming flame wrapped the whole of the high
curtain, a succession of loud explosions was heard, hundreds of the
French grenadiers were destroyed, the rest were thrown into confusion,
and while the ramparts were still involved with suffocating eddies of
smoke, the British soldiers broke in at the first traverse. The
defenders, bewildered by this terrible disaster, yielded for a moment,
yet soon rallied, and a close, desperate struggle took place along the
summit of the high curtain; but the fury of the stormers, whose numbers
increased every moment, could not be stemmed. The French colors on the
cavalier were torn away, by Lieutenant Gethin of the eleventh regiment.
The hornwork and the land front below the curtain, and the loopholed
wall behind the great breach, were all abandoned; the light-division
soldiers, who had already established themselves in the ruins on the
French left, immediately penetrated to the streets; and at the same
moment the Portuguese at the small breach, mixed with the British who
had wandered to that point seeking for an entrance, burst in on their
side.
"Five hours the dreadful battle had lasted at the walls, and now the
storm of war went pouring into the town. The undaunted governor still
disputed the victory for a short time with the aid of his barricades,
but several hundreds of his men being cut off and taken in the hornwork,
his garrison was so reduced that even to effect a retreat behind the
line of defences which separated the town from the Monte Orgullo was
difficult; the commanders of battalions were embarrassed for want of
orders, and a thunder-storm, which came down from the mountains with
unbounded fury immediately after the place was carried, added to the
confusion of the fight.
"Many officers exerted themselves to preserve order, many men were well
conducted; but the rapine and violence commenced by villains soon
spread, the camp-followers crowded into the place, and the disorder
continued until the flames, following the steps of the plunderer, put an
end to his ferocity by destroying the whole town."
* * * * *
It is beyond imagination, this sunny June afternoon, that the shining
city about us has gasped in smoke and ruins, has been pierced with
arrows unto death as was its patron saint of old; that this contentful
droning of the shore and the street deepened once to the roar of war and
rose to the shriek of suffering.