Lugo—The Baths—A Family History—Miguelets—The Three Heads—A
Farrier—English Squadron—Sale of Testaments—Coruna—The Recognition—Luigi
Piozzi—The Speculation—A Blank Prospect—John Moore.
At Lugo I found a wealthy bookseller, to whom I brought a letter of
recommendation from Madrid. He willingly undertook the sale of my books.
The Lord deigned to favour my feeble exertions in his cause at Lugo. I
brought thither thirty Testaments, all of which were disposed of in one
day; the bishop of the place, for Lugo is an episcopal see, purchasing
two copies for himself, whilst several priests and ex-friars, instead of
following the example of their brethren at Leon, by persecuting the work,
spoke well of it and recommended its perusal. I was much grieved that my
stock of these holy books was exhausted, there being a great demand; and
had I been able to supply them, quadruple the quantity might have been
sold during the few days that I continued at Lugo.
Lugo contains about six thousand inhabitants. It is situated on lofty
ground, and is defended by ancient walls. It possesses no very
remarkable edifice, and the cathedral church itself is a small mean
building. In the centre of the town is the principal square, a light
cheerful place, not surrounded by those heavy cumbrous buildings with
which the Spaniards both in ancient and modern times have encircled their
plazas. It is singular enough that Lugo, at present a place of very
little importance, should at one period have been the capital of Spain:
yet such it was in the time of the Romans, who, as they were a people not
much guided by caprice, had doubtless very excellent reasons for the
preference which they gave to the locality.
There are many Roman remains in the vicinity of this place, the most
remarkable of which are the ruins of the ancient medicinal baths, which
stand on the southern side of the river Minho, which creeps through the
valley beneath the town. The Minho in this place is a dark and sullen
stream, with high, precipitous, and thickly wooded banks.
One evening I visited the baths, accompanied by my friend the bookseller.
They had been built over warm springs which flow into the river.
Notwithstanding their ruinous condition, they were crowded with sick,
hoping to derive benefit from the waters, which are still famed for their
sanative power. These patients exhibited a strange spectacle as, wrapped
in flannel gowns much resembling shrouds, they lay immersed in the tepid
waters amongst disjointed stones, and overhung with steam and reek.
Three or four days after my arrival I was seated in the corridor which,
as I have already observed, occupied the entire front of the house. The
sky was unclouded, and the sun shone most gloriously, enlivening every
object around. Presently the door of the apartment in which the
strangers were lodged opened, and forth walked the whole family, with the
exception of the father, who, I presumed, was absent on business. The
shabby domestic brought up the rear, and on leaving the apartment,
carefully locked the door, and secured the key in his pocket. The one
son and the eleven daughters were all dressed remarkably well: the boy
something after the English fashion, in jacket and trousers, the young
ladies in spotless white: they were, upon the whole, a very good-looking
family, with dark eyes and olive complexions, but the eldest daughter was
remarkably handsome. They arranged themselves upon the benches of the
corridor, the shabby domestic sitting down amongst them without any
ceremony whatever. They continued for some time in silence, gazing with
disconsolate looks upon the houses of the suburb and the dark walls of
the town, until the eldest daughter, or señorita as she was called, broke
silence with an “_Ay Dios mio_!”
_Domestic_.—_Ay Dios mio_! we have found our way to a pretty country.
_Myself_.—I really can see nothing so very bad in the country, which is
by nature the richest in all Spain, and the most abundant. True it is
that the generality of the inhabitants are wretchedly poor, but they
themselves are to blame, and not the country.
_Domestic_.—Cavalier, the country is a horrible one, say nothing to the
contrary. We are all frightened, the young ladies, the young gentleman,
and myself; even his worship is frightened, and says that we are come to
this country for our sins. It rains every day, and this is almost the
first time that we have seen the sun since our arrival, it rains
continually, and one cannot step out without being up to the ankles in
fango; and then, again, there is not a house to be found.
_Myself_.—I scarcely understand you. There appears to be no lack of
houses in this neighbourhood.
_Domestic_.—Excuse me, sir. His worship hired yesterday a house, for
which he engaged to pay fourteen pence daily; but when the señorita saw
it, she wept, and said it was no house, but a hog-sty, so his worship
paid one day’s rent and renounced his bargain. Fourteen pence a day!
why, in our country, we can have a palace for that money.
_Myself_.—From what country do you come?
_Domestic_.—Cavalier, you appear to be a decent gentleman, and I will
tell you our history. We are from Andalusia, and his worship was last
year receiver-general for Granada: his salary was fourteen thousand
rials, with which we contrived to live very commodiously—attending the
bull funcions regularly, or if there were no bulls, we went to see the
novillos, and now and then to the opera. In a word, sir, we had our
diversions and felt at our ease; so much so, that his worship was
actually thinking of purchasing a pony for the young gentleman, who is
fourteen, and must learn to ride now or never. Cavalier, the ministry
was changed, and the new comers, who were no friends to his worship,
deprived him of his situation. Cavalier, they removed us from that
blessed country of Granada, where our salary was fourteen thousand rials,
and sent us to Galicia, to this fatal town of Lugo, where his worship is
compelled to serve for ten thousand, which is quite insufficient to
maintain us in our former comforts. Good-bye, I trow, to bull funcions,
and novillos, and the opera. Good-bye to the hope of a horse for the
young gentleman. Cavalier, I grow desperate: hold your tongue, for God’s
sake! for I can talk no more.
On hearing this history I no longer wondered that the receiver-general
was eager to save a cuarto in the purchase of the oil for the gaspacho of
himself and family of eleven daughters, one son, and a domestic.
We staid one week at Lugo, and then directed our steps to Coruña, about
twelve leagues distant. We arose before daybreak in order to avail
ourselves of the escort of the general post, in whose company we
travelled upwards of six leagues. There was much talk of robbers, and
flying parties of the factious, on which account our escort was
considerable. At the distance of five or six leagues from Lugo, our
guard, in lieu of regular soldiers, consisted of a body of about fifty
Miguelets. They had all the appearance of banditti, but a finer body of
ferocious fellows I never saw. They were all men in the prime of life,
mostly of tall stature, and of Herculean brawn and limbs. They wore huge
whiskers, and walked with a fanfaronading air, as if they courted danger,
and despised it. In every respect they stood in contrast to the soldiers
who had hitherto escorted us, who were mere feeble boys from sixteen to
eighteen years of age, and possessed of neither energy nor activity. The
proper dress of the Miguelet, if it resembles anything military, is
something akin to that anciently used by the English marines. They wear
a peculiar kind of hat, and generally leggings, or gaiters, and their
arms are the gun and bayonet. The colour of their dress is mostly dark
brown. They observe little or no discipline whether on a march or in the
field of action. They are excellent irregular troops, and when on actual
service are particularly useful as skirmishers. Their proper duty,
however, is to officiate as a species of police, and to clear the roads
of robbers, for which duty they are in one respect admirably calculated,
having been generally robbers themselves at one period of their lives.
Why these people are called Miguelets it is not easy to say, but it is
probable that they have derived this appellation from the name of their
original leader. I regret that the paucity of my own information will
not allow me to enter into farther particulars with respect to this
corps, concerning which I have little doubt that many remarkable things
might be said.
Becoming weary of the slow travelling of the post, I determined to brave
all risk, and to push forward. In this, however, I was guilty of no
slight imprudence, as by so doing I was near falling into the hands of
robbers. Two fellows suddenly confronted me with presented carbines,
which they probably intended to discharge into my body, but they took
fright at the noise of Antonio’s horse, who was following a little way
behind. The affair occurred at the bridge of Castellanos, a spot
notorious for robbery and murder, and well adapted for both, for it
stands at the bottom of a deep dell surrounded by wild desolate hills.
Only a quarter of an hour previous I had passed three ghastly heads stuck
on poles standing by the wayside; they were those of a captain of
banditti and two of his accomplices, who had been seized and executed
about two months before. Their principal haunt was the vicinity of the
bridge, and it was their practice to cast the bodies of the murdered into
the deep black water which runs rapidly beneath. Those three heads will
always live in my remembrance, particularly that of the captain, which
stood on a higher pole than the other two: the long hair was waving in
the wind, and the blackened, distorted features were grinning in the sun.
The fellows whom I met were the relics of the band.
We arrived at Betanzos late in the afternoon. This town stands on a
creek at some distance from the sea, and about three leagues from Coruña.
It is surrounded on three sides by lofty hills. The weather during the
greater part of the day had been dull and lowering, and we found the
atmosphere of Betanzos insupportably close and heavy. Sour and
disagreeable odours assailed our olfactory organs from all sides. The
streets were filthy—so were the houses, and especially the posada. We
entered the stable; it was strewed with rotten sea-weeds and other
rubbish, in which pigs were wallowing; huge and loathsome flies were
buzzing around. “What a pest-house!” I exclaimed. But we could find no
other stable, and were therefore obliged to tether the unhappy animals to
the filthy mangers. The only provender that could be obtained was Indian
corn. At nightfall I led them to drink at a small river which passes
through Betanzos. My entero swallowed the water greedily; but as we
returned towards the inn, I observed that he was sad, and that his head
drooped. He had scarcely reached the stall, when a deep hoarse cough
assailed him. I remembered the words of the ostler in the mountains,
“the man must be mad who brings a horse to Galicia, and doubly so he who
brings an entero.” During the greater part of the day the animal had
been much heated, walking amidst a throng of at least a hundred pony
mares. He now began to shiver violently. I procured a quart of anise
brandy, with which, assisted by Antonio, I rubbed his body for nearly an
hour, till his coat was covered with a white foam; but his cough
increased perceptibly, his eyes were becoming fixed, and his members
rigid. “There is no remedy but bleeding,” said I. “Run for a farrier.”
The farrier came. “You must bleed the horse,” I shouted; “take from him
an azumbre of blood.” The farrier looked at the animal, and made for the
door. “Where are you going?” I demanded. “Home,” he replied. “But we
want you here.” “I know you do,” was his answer; “and on that account I
am going.” “But you must bleed the horse, or he will die.” “I know he
will,” said the farrier, “but I will not bleed him.” “Why?” I demanded.
“I will not bleed him, but under one condition.” “What is that?” “What
is it!—that you pay me an ounce of gold.” “Run for the red morocco
case,” said I to Antonio. It was brought; I took out a large fleam, and
with the assistance of a stone, drove it into the principal artery
horse’s leg. The blood at first refused to flow; with much rubbing, it
began to trickle, and then to stream; it continued so for half an hour.
“The horse is fainting, mon maître,” said Antonio. “Hold him up,” said
I, “and in another ten minutes we will stop the vein.”
I closed the vein, and whilst doing so I looked up into the farrier’s
face, arching my eyebrows.
“Carracho! what an evil wizard,” muttered the farrier, as he walked away.
“If I had my knife here I would stick him.” We bled the horse again,
during the night, which second bleeding I believe saved him. Towards
morning he began to eat his food.
The next day we departed for Coruña, leading our horses by the bridle:
the day was magnificent, and our walk delightful. We passed along
beneath tall umbrageous trees, which skirted the road from Betanzos to
within a short distance of Coruña. Nothing could be more smiling and
cheerful than the appearance of the country around. Vines were growing
in abundance in the vicinity of the villages through which we passed,
whilst millions of maize plants upreared their tall stalks and displayed
their broad green leaves in the fields. After walking about three hours,
we obtained a view of the bay of Coruña, in which, even at the distance
of a league, we could distinguish three or four immense ships riding at
anchor. “Can these vessels belong to Spain?” I demanded of myself. In
the very next village, however, we were informed that the preceding
evening an English squadron had arrived, for what reason nobody could
say. “However,” continued our informant, “they have doubtless some
design upon Galicia. These foreigners are the ruin of Spain.”
We put up in what is called the Calle Real, in an excellent fonda, or
posada, kept by a short, thick, comical-looking person, a Genoese by
birth. He was married to a tall, ugly, but good-tempered Basque woman,
by whom he had been blessed with a son and daughter. His wife, however,
had it seems of late summoned all her female relations from Guipuscoa,
who now filled the house to the number of nine, officiating as
chambermaids, cooks, and scullions: they were all very ugly, but
good-natured, and of immense volubility of tongue. Throughout the whole
day the house resounded with their excellent Basque and very bad
Castilian. The Genoese, on the contrary, spoke little, for which he
might have assigned a good reason; he had lived thirty years in Spain,
and had forgotten his own language without acquiring Spanish, which he
spoke very imperfectly.
We found Coruña full of bustle and life, owing to the arrival of the
English squadron. On the following day, however, it departed, being
bound for the Mediterranean on a short cruise, whereupon matters
instantly returned to their usual course.
I had a dépot of five hundred Testaments at Coruña, from which it was my
intention to supply the principal towns of Galicia. Immediately on my
arrival I published advertisements, according to my usual practice, and
the book obtained a tolerable sale—seven or eight copies per day on the
average. Some people, perhaps, on perusing these details, will be
tempted to exclaim, “These are small matters, and scarcely worthy of
being mentioned.” But let such bethink them, that till within a few
months previous to the time of which I am speaking, the very existence of
the gospel was almost unknown in Spain, and that it must necessarily be a
difficult task to induce a people like the Spaniards, who read very
little, to purchase a work like the New Testament, which, though of
paramount importance to the soul, affords but slight prospect of
amusement to the frivolous and carnally minded. I hoped that the present
was the dawning of better and more enlightened times, and rejoiced in the
idea that Testaments, though but few in number, were being sold in
unfortunate benighted Spain, from Madrid to the furthermost parts of
Galicia, a distance of nearly four hundred miles.
Coruña stands on a peninsula, having on one side the sea, and on the
other the celebrated bay, generally called the Groyne. It is divided
into the old and new town, the latter of which was at one time probably a
mere suburb. The old town is a desolate ruinous place, separated from
the new by a wide moat. The modern town is a much more agreeable spot,
and contains one magnificent street, the Calle Real, where the principal
merchants reside. One singular feature of this street is, that it is
laid entirely with flags of marble, along which troop ponies and cars as
if it were a common pavement.
It is a saying amongst the inhabitants of Coruña, that in their town
there is a street so clean, that puchera may be eaten off it without the
slightest inconvenience. This may certainly be the fact after one of
those rains which so frequently drench Galicia, when the appearance of
the pavement of the street is particularly brilliant. Coruña was at one
time a place of considerable commerce, the greater part of which has
latterly departed to Santander, a town which stands a considerable
distance down the Bay of Biscay.
“Are you going to Saint James, Giorgio? If so, you will perhaps convey a
message to my poor countryman,” said a voice to me one morning in broken
English, as I was standing at the door of my posada, in the royal street
of Coruña.
I looked round and perceived a man standing near me at the door of a shop
contiguous to the inn. He appeared to be about sixty-five, with a pale
face and remarkably red nose. He was dressed in a loose green great
coat, in his mouth was a long clay pipe, in his hand a long painted
stick.
“Who are you, and who is your countryman?” I demanded; “I do not know
you.”
“I know you, however,” replied the man; “you purchased the first knife
that I ever sold in the market-place of N---.”
_Myself_.—Ah, I remember you now, Luigi Piozzi; and well do I remember
also, how, when a boy, twenty years ago, I used to repair to your stall,
and listen to you and your countrymen discoursing in Milanese.
_Luigi_.—Ah, those were happy times to me. Oh, how they rushed back on
my remembrance when I saw you ride up to the door of the posada. I
instantly went in, closed my shop, lay down upon my bed and wept.
_Myself_.—I see no reason why you should so much regret those times. I
knew you formerly in England as an itinerant pedlar, and occasionally as
master of a stall in the market-place of a country town. I now find you
in a seaport of Spain, the proprietor, seemingly, of a considerable shop.
I cannot see why you should regret the difference.
_Luigi_ (dashing his pipe on the ground).—Regret the difference! Do you
know one thing? England is the heaven of the Piedmontese and Milanese,
and especially those of Como. We never lie down to rest but we dream of
it, whether we are in our own country or in a foreign land, as I am now.
Regret the difference, Giorgio! Do I hear such words from your lips, and
you an Englishman? I would rather be the poorest tramper on the roads of
England, than lord of all within ten leagues of the shore of the lake of
Como, and much the same say all my countrymen who have visited England,
wherever they now be. Regret the difference! I have ten letters, from
as many countrymen in America, who say they are rich and thriving, and
principal men and merchants; but every night, when their heads are
reposing on their pillows, their souls _auslandra_, hurrying away to
England, and its green lanes and farm-yards. And there they are with
their boxes on the ground, displaying their looking-glasses and other
goods to the honest rustics and their dames and their daughters, and
selling away and chaffering and laughing just as of old. And there they
are again at nightfall in the hedge alehouses, eating their toasted
cheese and their bread, and drinking the Suffolk ale, and listening to
the roaring song and merry jest of the labourers. Now, if they regret
England so who are in America, which they own to be a happy country, and
good for those of Piedmont and of Como, how much more must I regret it,
when, after the lapse of so many years, I find myself in Spain, in this
frightful town of Coruña, driving a ruinous trade, and where months pass
by without my seeing a single English face, or hearing a word of the
blessed English tongue.
_Myself_.—With such a predilection for England, what could have induced
you to leave it and come to Spain?
_Luigi_.—I will tell you: about sixteen years ago a universal desire
seized our people in England to become something more than they had
hitherto been, pedlars and trampers; they wished, moreover, for mankind
are never satisfied, to see other countries: so the greater part forsook
England. Where formerly there had been ten, at present scarcely lingers
one. Almost all went to America, which, as I told you before, is a happy
country, and specially good for us men of Como. Well, all my comrades
and relations passed over the sea to the West. I, too, was bent on
travelling; but whither? Instead of going towards the West with the
rest, to a country where they have all thriven, I must needs come by
myself to this land of Spain; a country in which no foreigner settles
without dying of a broken heart sooner or later. I had an idea in my
head that I could make a fortune at once, by bringing a cargo of common
English goods, like those which I had been in the habit of selling
amongst the villagers of England. So I freighted half a ship with such
goods, for I had been successful in England in my little speculations,
and I arrived at Coruña. Here at once my vexations began: disappointment
followed disappointment. It was with the utmost difficulty that I could
obtain permission to land my goods, and this only at a considerable
sacrifice in bribes and the like; and when I had established myself here,
I found that the place was one of no trade, and that my goods went off
very slowly, and scarcely at prime cost. I wished to remove to another
place, but was informed that, in that case, I must leave my goods behind,
unless I offered fresh bribes, which would have ruined me; and in this
way I have gone on for fourteen years, selling scarcely enough to pay for
my shop and to support myself. And so I shall doubtless continue till I
die, or my goods are exhausted. In an evil day I left England and came
to Spain.
_Myself_.—Did you not say that you had a countryman at St. James?
_Luigi_.—Yes, a poor honest fellow, who, like myself, by some strange
chance found his way to Galicia. I sometimes contrive to send him a few
goods, which he sells at St. James at a greater profit than I can here.
He is a happy fellow, for he has never been in England, and knows not the
difference between the two countries. Oh, the green English hedgerows!
and the alehouses! and, what is much more, the fair dealing and security.
I have travelled all over England and never met with ill usage, except
once down in the north amongst the Papists, upon my telling them to leave
all their mummeries and go to the parish church as I did, and as all my
countrymen in England did; for know one thing, Signor Giorgio, not one of
us who have lived in England, whether Piedmontese or men of Como, but
wished well to the Protestant religion, if he had not actually become a
member of it.
_Myself_.—What do you propose to do at present, Luigi? What are your
prospects?
_Luigi_.—My prospects are a blank, Giorgio; my prospects are a blank. I
propose nothing but to die in Coruña, perhaps in the hospital, if they
will admit me. Years ago I thought of fleeing, even if I left all behind
me, and either returning to England, or betaking myself to America; but
it is too late now, Giorgio, it is too late. When I first lost all hope,
I took to drinking, to which I was never before inclined, and I am now
what I suppose you see.
“There is hope in the Gospel,” said I, “even for you. I will send you
one.”
There is a small battery of the old town which fronts the east, and whose
wall is washed by the waters of the bay. It is a sweet spot, and the
prospect which opens from it is extensive. The battery itself may be
about eighty yards square; some young trees are springing up about it,
and it is rather a favourite resort of the people of Coruña.
In the centre of this battery stands the tomb of Moore, built by the
chivalrous French, in commemoration of the fall of their heroic
antagonist. It is oblong and surmounted by a slab, and on either side
bears one of the simple and sublime epitaphs for which our rivals are
celebrated, and which stand in such powerful contrast with the bloated
and bombastic inscriptions which deform the walls of Westminster Abbey:
“JOHN MOORE,
LEADER OF THE ENGLISH ARMIES,
SLAIN IN BATTLE,
1809.”
The tomb itself is of marble, and around it is a quadrangular wall,
breast high, of rough Gallegan granite; close to each corner rises from
the earth the breech of an immense brass cannon, intended to keep the
wall compact and close. These outer erections are, however, not the work
of the French, but of the English government.
Yes, there lies the hero, almost within sight of the glorious hill where
he turned upon his pursuers like a lion at bay and terminated his career.
Many acquire immortality without seeking it, and die before its first ray
has gilded their name; of these was Moore. The harassed general, flying
through Castile with his dispirited troops before a fierce and terrible
enemy, little dreamed that he was on the point of attaining that for
which many a better, greater, though certainly not braver man, had sighed
in vain. His very misfortunes were the means which secured him immortal
fame; his disastrous route, bloody death, and finally his tomb on a
foreign strand, far from kin and friends. There is scarcely a Spaniard
but has heard of this tomb, and speaks of it with a strange kind of awe.
Immense treasures are said to have been buried with the heretic general,
though for what purpose no one pretends to guess. The demons of the
clouds, if we may trust the Gallegans, followed the English in their
flight, and assailed them with water-spouts as they toiled up the steep
winding paths of Fuencebadon; whilst legends the most wild are related of
the manner in which the stout soldier fell. Yes, even in Spain,
immortality has already crowned the head of Moore;—Spain, the land of
oblivion, where the Guadalete {245} flows.