Compostella—Rey Romero—The Treasure-seeker—Hopeful Project—The Church of
Refuge—Hidden Riches—The Canon—Spirit of Localism—The Leper—Bones of
Saint James.
At the commencement of August I found myself at Saint James of
Compostella. To this place I travelled from Corunna with the courier or
weekly post, who was escorted by a strong party of soldiers, in
consequence of the distracted state of the country, which was overrun
with banditti. From Corunna to Saint James the distance is but ten
leagues; the journey, however, endured for a day and a half. It was a
pleasant one, through a most beautiful country, with a rich variety of
hill and dale; the road was in many places shaded with various kinds of
trees clad in most luxuriant foliage. Hundreds of travellers, both on
foot and on horseback, availed themselves of the security which the
escort afforded: the dread of banditti was strong. During the journey
two or three alarms were given; we, however, reached Saint James without
having been attacked.
Saint James stands on a pleasant level amidst mountains: the most
extraordinary of these is a conical hill, called the Pico Sacro, or
Sacred Peak, connected with which are many wonderful legends. A
beautiful old town is Saint James, containing about twenty thousand
inhabitants. Time has been when, with the single exception of Rome, it
was the most celebrated resort of pilgrims in the world; its cathedral
being said to contain the bones of Saint James the elder, the child of
the thunder, {378} who, according to the legend of the Romish church,
first preached the Gospel in Spain. Its glory, however, as a place of
pilgrimage, is rapidly passing away.
The cathedral, though a work of various periods, and exhibiting various
styles of architecture, is a majestic venerable pile, in every respect
calculated to excite awe and admiration; indeed, it is almost impossible
to walk its long dusk aisles, and hear the solemn music and the noble
chanting, and inhale the incense of the mighty censers, which are at
times swung so high by machinery as to smite the vaulted roof, whilst
gigantic tapers glitter here and there amongst the gloom, from the shrine
of many a saint, before which the worshippers are kneeling, breathing
forth their prayers and petitions for help, love, and mercy, and
entertain a doubt that we are treading the floor of a house where God
delighteth to dwell. Yet the Lord is distant from that house; He hears
not, He sees not, or if He do, it is with anger. What availeth that
solemn music, that noble chanting, that incense of sweet savour? What
availeth kneeling before that grand altar of silver, surmounted by that
figure with its silver hat and breast-plate, the emblem of one who,
though an apostle and confessor, was at best an unprofitable servant?
What availeth hoping for remission of sin by trusting in the merits of
one who possessed none, or by paying homage to others who were born and
nurtured in sin, and who alone, by the exercise of a lively faith granted
from above, could hope to preserve themselves from the wrath of the
Almighty?
Rise from your knees, ye children of Compostella, or, if ye bend, let it
be to the Almighty alone, and no longer on the eve of your patron’s day
address him in the following strain, however sublime it may sound:—
“Thou shield of that faith which in Spain we revere,
Thou scourge of each foeman who dares to draw near;
Whom the Son of that God who the elements tames,
Called child of the thunder, immortal Saint James!
“From the blessed asylum of glory intense,
Upon us thy sovereign influence dispense;
And list to the praises our gratitude aims
To offer up worthily, mighty Saint James!
“To thee fervent thanks Spain shall ever outpour;
In thy name though she glory, she glories yet more
In thy thrice hallowed corse, which the sanctuary claims
Of high Compostella, O blessed Saint James!
“When heathen impiety, loathsome and dread,
With a chaos of darkness our Spain overspread,
Thou wast the first light which dispelled with its flames
The hell-born obscurity, glorious Saint James!
“And when terrible wars had nigh wasted our force,
All bright ’midst the battle we saw thee on horse,
Fierce scattering the hosts, whom their fury proclaims
To be warriors of Islam, victorious Saint James!
“Beneath thy direction, stretched prone at thy feet,
With hearts low and humble, this day we entreat
Thou wilt strengthen the hope which enlivens our frames,
The hope of thy favour and presence, Saint James.
“Then praise to the Son and the Father above,
And to that Holy Spirit which springs from their love;
To that bright emanation whose vividness shames
The sun’s burst of splendour, and praise to Saint James.”
At Saint James I met with a kind and cordial coadjutor in my biblical
labours in the bookseller of the place, Rey Romero, a man of about sixty.
This excellent individual, who was both wealthy and respected, took up
the matter with an enthusiasm which doubtless emanated from on high,
losing no opportunity of recommending my book to those who entered his
shop, which was in the Azabacheria, {380} and was a very splendid and
commodious establishment. In many instances, when the peasants of the
neighbourhood came with an intention of purchasing some of the foolish
popular story-books of Spain, he persuaded them to carry home Testaments
instead, assuring them that the sacred volume was a better, more
instructive, and even far more entertaining book than those they came in
quest of. He speedily conceived a great fancy for me, and regularly came
to visit me every evening at my _posada_, and accompanied me in my walks
about the town and the environs. He was a man of considerable
information, and though of much simplicity, possessed a kind of
good-natured humour which was frequently highly diverting.
I was walking late one night alone in the _alameda_ of Saint James,
considering in what direction I should next bend my course, for I had
been already ten days in this place; the moon was shining gloriously, and
illumined every object around to a considerable distance. The _alameda_
was quite deserted; everybody, with the exception of myself, having for
some time retired. I sat down on a bench and continued my reflections,
which were suddenly interrupted by a heavy stumping sound. Turning my
eyes in the direction from which it proceeded, I perceived what at first
appeared a shapeless bulk slowly advancing: nearer and nearer it drew,
and I could now distinguish the outline of a man dressed in coarse brown
garments, a kind of Andalusian hat, and using as a staff the long peeled
branch of a tree. He had now arrived opposite the bench where I was
seated, when, stopping, he took off his hat and demanded charity in
uncouth tones and in a strange jargon, which had some resemblance to the
Catalan. The moon shone on grey locks and on a ruddy weather-beaten
countenance which I at once recognized. “Benedict Mol,” said I, “is it
possible that I see you at Compostella?”
“_Och_, _mein Gott_, _es ist der Herr_!” {382a} replied Benedict.
“_Och_, what good fortune, that the Herr is the first person I meet at
Compostella!”
_Myself_.—I can scarcely believe my eyes. Do you mean to say that you
have just arrived at this place?
_Benedict_.—Ow yes, I am this moment arrived. I have walked all the long
way from Madrid.
_Myself_.—What motive could possibly bring you such a distance?
_Benedict_.—Ow, I am come for the _Schatz_—the treasure. I told you at
Madrid that I was coming; and now I have met you here, I have no doubt
that I shall find it, the _Schatz_.
_Myself_.—In what manner did you support yourself by the way?
_Benedict_.—Ow, I begged, I bettled, {382b} and so contrived to pick up
some _cuartos_; and when I reached Toro, I worked at my trade of
soap-making for a time, till the people said I knew nothing about it, and
drove me out of the town. So I went on and begged and bettled till I
arrived at Orense, which is in this country of Galicia. Ow, I do not
like this country of Galicia at all.
_Myself_.—Why not?
_Benedict_.—Why! because here they all beg and bettle, and have scarce
anything for themselves, much less for me, whom they know to be a foreign
man. Oh, the misery of Galicia! When I arrive at night at one of their
pigsties, which they call _posadas_, and ask for bread to eat in the name
of God, and straw to lie down in, they curse me, and say there is neither
bread nor straw in Galicia: and sure enough, since I have been here I
have seen neither, only something that they call _broa_, and a kind of
reedy rubbish with which they litter the horses: all my bones are sore
since I entered Galicia.
_Myself_.—And yet you have come to this country, which you call so
miserable, in search of treasure?
_Benedict_.—Ow _yaw_, but the _Schatz_ is buried; it is not above ground;
there is no money above ground in Galicia. I must dig it up; and when I
have dug it up I will purchase a coach with six mules, and ride out of
Galicia to Lucerne; and if the _Herr_ pleases to go with me, he shall be
welcome to go with me and the Schatz.
_Myself_.—I am afraid that you have come on a desperate errand. What do
you propose to do? Have you any money?
_Benedict_.—Not a _cuarto_; but I do not care now I have arrived at St.
James. The _Schatz_ is nigh; and I have, moreover, seen you, which is a
good sign; it tells me that the _Schatz_ is still here. I shall go to
the best _posada_ in the place, and live like a duke till I have an
opportunity of digging up the _Schatz_, when I will pay all scores.
“Do nothing of the kind,” I replied; “find out some place in which to
sleep, and endeavour to seek some employment. In the mean time, here is
a trifle with which to support yourself; but as for the treasure which
you have come to seek, I believe it only exists in your own imagination.”
I gave him a dollar and departed.
I have never enjoyed more charming walks than in the neighbourhood of
Saint James. In these I was almost invariably accompanied by my friend
the good old bookseller. The streams are numerous, and along their
wooded banks we were in the habit of straying and enjoying the delicious
summer evenings of this part of Spain. Religion generally formed the
topic of our conversation, but we not unfrequently talked of the foreign
lands which I had visited, and at other times of matters which related
particularly to my companion. “We booksellers of Spain,” said he, “are
all liberals; we are no friends to the monkish system. How indeed should
we be friends to it? It fosters darkness, whilst we live by
disseminating light. We love our profession, and have all more or less
suffered for it; many of us, in the times of terror, were hanged for
selling an innocent translation from the French or English. Shortly
after the Constitution was put down by Angoulême and the French bayonets,
{384} I was obliged to flee from Saint James and take refuge in the
wildest part of Galicia, near Corcuvion. Had I not possessed good
friends, I should not have been alive now; as it was, it cost me a
considerable sum of money to arrange matters. Whilst I was away, my shop
was in charge of the ecclesiastical officers. They frequently told my
wife that I ought to be burnt for the books which I had sold. Thanks be
to God, those times are past, and I hope they will never return.”
Once, as we were walking through the streets of Saint James, he stopped
before a church and looked at it attentively. As there was nothing
remarkable in the appearance of this edifice, I asked him what motive he
had for taking such notice of it. “In the days of the friars,” said he,
“this church was one of refuge, to which if the worst criminals escaped,
they were safe. All were protected there save the _negros_, as they
called us liberals.” “Even murderers, I suppose?” said I. “Murderers!”
he answered, “far worse criminals than they. By-the-by, I have heard
that you English entertain the utmost abhorrence of murder. Do you in
reality consider it a crime of very great magnitude?” “How should we
not?” I replied. “For every other crime some reparation can be made; but
if we take away life, we take away all. A ray of hope with respect to
this world may occasionally enliven the bosom of any other criminal, but
how can the murderer hope?” “The friars were of another way of
thinking,” replied the old man; “they always looked upon murder as a
_friolera_; but not so the crime of marrying your first cousin without
dispensation, for which, if we believe them, there is scarcely any
atonement either in this world or the next.”
Two or three days after this, as we were seated in my apartment in the
_posada_, engaged in conversation, the door was opened by Antonio, who,
with a smile on his countenance, said that there was a foreign gentleman
below who desired to speak with me. “Show him up,” I replied; whereupon
almost instantly appeared Benedict Mol.
“This is a most extraordinary person,” said I to the bookseller. “You
Galicians, in general, leave your country in quest of money; he, on the
contrary, is come hither to find some.”
_Rey Romero_.—And he is right. Galicia is by nature the richest province
in Spain, but the inhabitants are very stupid, and know not how to turn
the blessings which surround them to any account; but as a proof of what
may be made out of Galicia, see how rich the Catalans become who have
settled down here and formed establishments. There are riches all around
us, upon the earth and in the earth.
_Benedict_.—Ow _yaw_, in the earth, that is what I say. There is much
more treasure below the earth than above it.
_Myself_.—Since I last saw you, have you discovered the place in which
you say the treasure is deposited?
_Benedict_.—Oh yes, I know all about it now. It is buried ’neath the
sacristy in the church of San Roque.
_Myself_.—How have you been able to make that discovery?
_Benedict_.—I will tell you. The day after my arrival I walked about all
the city in quest of the church, but could find none which at all
answered to the signs which my comrade who died in the hospital gave me.
I entered several, and looked about, but all in vain; I could not find
the place which I had in my mind’s eye. At last the people with whom I
lodge, and to whom I told my business, advised me to send for a _meiga_.
_Myself_.—A _meiga_! {386} What is that?
_Benedict_.—Ow! a _Haxweib_, a witch; the Gallegos call them so in their
jargon, of which I can scarcely understand a word. So I consented, and
they sent for the _meiga_. Och! what a _Weib_ is that _meiga_! I never
saw such a woman; she is as large as myself, and has a face as round and
red as the sun. She asked me a great many questions in her Gallegan; and
when I had told her all she wanted to know, she pulled out a pack of
cards and laid them on the table in a particular manner, and then she
said that the treasure was in the church of San Roque; and sure enough,
when I went to that church, it answered in every respect to the signs of
my comrade who died in the hospital. Oh, she is a powerful _Hax_, that
_meiga_; she is well known in the neighbourhood, and has done much harm
to the cattle. I gave her half the dollar I had from you for her
trouble.
_Myself_.—Then you acted like a simpleton; she has grossly deceived you.
But even suppose that the treasure is really deposited in the church you
mention, it is not probable that you will be permitted to remove the
floor of the sacristy to search for it.
_Benedict_.—Ow, the matter is already well advanced. Yesterday I went to
one of the canons to confess myself and to receive absolution and
benediction; not that I regard these things much, but I thought this
would be the best means of broaching the matter, so I confessed myself,
and then I spoke of my travels to the canon, and at last I told him of
the treasure, and proposed that if he assisted me we should share it
between us. Ow, I wish you had seen him; he entered at once into the
affair, and said that it might turn out a very profitable speculation:
and he shook me by the hand, and said that I was an honest Swiss and a
good Catholic. And I then proposed that he should take me into his house
and keep me there till we had an opportunity of digging up the treasure
together. This he refused to do.
_Rey Romero_.—Of that I have no doubt: trust one of our canons for not
committing himself so far until he sees very good reason. These tales of
treasure are at present rather too stale: we have heard of them ever
since the time of the Moors.
_Benedict_.—He advised me to go to the Captain-General and obtain
permission to make excavations, in which case he promised to assist me to
the utmost of his power.
Thereupon the Swiss departed, and I neither saw nor heard anything
further of him during the time that I continued at Saint James.
The bookseller was never weary of showing me about his native town, of
which he was enthusiastically fond. Indeed, I have never seen the spirit
of localism, which is so prevalent throughout Spain, more strong than at
Saint James. If their town did but flourish, the Santiagans seemed to
care but little if all others in Galicia perished. Their antipathy to
the town of Corunna was unbounded, and this feeling had of late been not
a little increased from the circumstance that the seat of the provincial
government had been removed from Saint James to Corunna. Whether this
change was advisable or not, it is not for me, who am a foreigner, to
say; my private opinion, however, is by no means favourable to the
alteration. Saint James is one of the most central towns in Galicia,
with large and populous communities on every side of it, whereas Corunna
stands in a corner, at a considerable distance from the rest. “It is a
pity that the _vecinos_ of Corunna cannot contrive to steal away from us
our cathedral, even as they have done our government,” said a Santiagan;
“then, indeed, they would be able to cut some figure. As it is, they
have not a church fit to say mass in.” “A great pity, too, that they
cannot remove our hospital,” would another exclaim; “as it is, they are
obliged to send us their sick poor wretches. I always think that the
sick of Corunna have more ill-favoured countenances than those from other
places; but what good can come from Corunna?”
Accompanied by the bookseller, I visited this hospital, in which,
however, I did not remain long, the wretchedness and uncleanliness which
I observed speedily driving me away. Saint James, indeed, is the grand
lazar-house for all the rest of Galicia, which accounts for the
prodigious number of horrible objects to be seen in its streets, who have
for the most part arrived in the hope of procuring medical assistance,
which, from what I could learn, is very scantily and inefficiently
administered. Amongst these unhappy wretches I occasionally observed the
terrible leper, and instantly fled from him with a “God help thee,” as if
I had been a Jew of old. Galicia is the only province of Spain where
cases of leprosy are still frequent; a convincing proof this that the
disease is the result of foul feeding, and an inattention to cleanliness,
as the Gallegans, with regard to the comforts of life and civilized
habits, are confessedly far behind all the other natives of Spain.
“Besides a general hospital, we have likewise a leper-house,” said the
bookseller. “Shall I show it you? We have everything at Saint James.
There is nothing lacking; the very leper finds an inn here.” “I have no
objection to your showing me the house,” I replied, “but it must be at a
distance, for enter it I will not.” Thereupon he conducted me down the
road which leads towards Padron {389} and Vigo, and pointing to two or
three huts, exclaimed, “That is our leper-house.” “It appears a
miserable place,” I replied. “What accommodation may there be for the
patients, and who attends to their wants?” “They are left to
themselves,” answered the bookseller, “and probably sometimes perish from
neglect: the place at one time was endowed, and had rents, which were
appropriated to its support, but even these have been sequestered during
the late troubles. At present, the least unclean of the lepers generally
takes his station by the road-side, and begs for the rest. See, there he
is now.”
And sure enough the leper, in his shining scales, and half naked, was
seated beneath a ruined wall. We dropped money into the hat of the
unhappy being, and passed on.
“A bad disorder that,” said my friend. “I confess that I, who have seen
so many of them, am by no means fond of the company of lepers. Indeed, I
wish that they would never enter my shop, as they occasionally do to beg.
Nothing is more infectious, as I have heard, than leprosy. There is one
very virulent species, however, which is particularly dreaded here—the
elephantine: those who die of it should, according to law, be burnt, and
their ashes scattered to the winds, for if the body of such a leper be
interred in the field of the dead, the disorder is forthwith communicated
to all the corses even below the earth. Such at least is our idea in
these parts. Law-suits are at present pending from the circumstance of
elephantides having been buried with the other dead. Sad is leprosy in
all its forms, but most so when elephantine.”
“Talking of corses,” said I, “do you believe that the bones of Saint
James are veritably interred at Compostella?”
“What can I say?” replied the old man; “you know as much of the matter as
myself. Beneath the high altar is a large stone slab or lid, which is
said to cover the mouth of a profound well, at the bottom of which it is
believed that the bones of the saint are interred; though why they should
be placed at the bottom of a well is a mystery which I cannot fathom.
One of the officers of the church told me that at one time he and another
kept watch in the church during the night, one of the chapels having
shortly before been broken open and a sacrilege committed. At the dead
of night, finding the time hang heavy on their hands, they took a crowbar
and removed the slab, and looked down into the abyss below; it was dark
as the grave; whereupon they affixed a weight to the end of a long rope,
and lowered it down. At a very great depth it seemed to strike against
something dull and solid, like lead: they supposed it might be a coffin;
perhaps it was, but whose? is the question.”