THE GEOGRAPHY OF GALICIA
Boundaries of Galicia--Spurs of the Pyrenees--The Rias--Exuberant
vegetation--Herds of cattle--Rivers--The “River of Oblivion”--The
Miño and the Sil--Sword-making--Ptolemy--The first map--France and
geographical literature--The finest harbours in Europe--Columbus
and Galicia--Rich in relics of the past
Galicia is bounded on the north by the Bay of Biscay, on the south by
Portugal, and on the east by the provinces of Asturias and Leon. This
province is the most westerly and at the same time the most northerly
part of Spain, and her cape--Finisterre--was once the uttermost part of
the Roman Empire. It was from the Romans that Finisterre received its
name, “the End of the Earth.” The Pyrenees, which extend along the whole
of northern Spain, have their last ramifications in Galicia, meeting the
Atlantic Ocean at Cape Finisterre.[28] If we place our hand flat upon a
table with palm downward and fingers and thumb outstretched, the thumb
pointing northwards and the middle finger due west, we have before us a
rough idea of the configuration of Galicia. The back of the hand, the
highest part, represents the mountains of moderate altitude which form
the centre of the province, while the outstretched thumb and fingers
represent the ridges into which these mountains divide as the Atlantic
Ocean is approached. The waters of the Ocean run inland between each
finger of the Pyrenees, forming a wide and beautiful _Ria_, such as in
Scotland we should call a loch, and in Norway a fjord. But here the
similitude to the human hand ends, for the beautiful bends and curves of
the rias, their snake-like insinuations landward among the mountain
slopes, bear no likeness to the straight lines of the human finger. The
four principal inlets are called _Rias bajas_; they are the Ria de
Muros, the Ria de Arosa, the Ria de Pontevedra, and the Ria de Vigo. The
seacoast formed by these Rias and the smaller inlets to the north of
them is so dangerous to ships that sailors call it “the coast of
death.” Many an English vessel has been lost on that coast--indeed, two
ships from our shores met with disaster there in the year 1907. But a
reform which has long been demanded by England seems at last about to be
carried out. Señor Besada, Minister of Public Works, and one of the most
eminent men in the Conservative party, is, we are told, about to give
instructions for the provision of luminous buoys and fog-signals at the
points of danger. A Commission of Engineers has already been nominated
to study the question. It is here that the furious waves, working like
yeast, break against the half-hidden rocks, and, rising to a stupendous
height, swoop down upon them with thundering noise even in the most
smiling weather. It is here that corpses of unfortunate fishermen are so
constantly washed ashore that the local papers announce such events
almost without comment. It is truly most appropriate that San Telmo, the
patron saint of all Spaniards who go down to the sea in ships, should
have had his birthplace in Galicia,[29] Spain’s breakwater against the
Atlantic.[30]
The last outposts of the Pyrenees advance a considerable distance into
the sea. The Atlantic Ocean alone checks the spread of “the great dorsal
chain which comes down from Tartary and Asia,”[31] whose highest peak
within the boundaries of Galicia is the peak of Guina, in the Sierra de
Ancares, which is only a little over two thousand metres high:[32] many
winters pass without its once becoming covered with snow. A glance at
the map of Galicia will show the reader that this province is entirely
composed of alternating peaks, hills, and valleys. It has often been
called on this account “the Switzerland of Spain.” The rock of which the
mountains and boulders are formed is almost entirely of granite. In
fact, all the higher levels of the province of Pontevedra are so covered
with granite that it is impossible to tell what other formation this
stone has replaced. The rocky soil possesses all the ingredients most
favourable to rich vegetation. Galicia has many different climates,
resulting from the varied heights of the different zones above
sea-level. The differences in temperature and in the humidity of the air
are very considerable. Central Galicia is in the same latitude as
Russian Turkestan, as part of Albania, and as Pennsylvania, but her
climate is infinitely more humid than that of these countries. Heavy and
continuous rains soak through the earth and replenish the innumerable
mountain springs which are the great cause of Galicia’s wonderful
fertility; the springs, themselves perennial, feed in their turn the
countless streamlets, each of which is again a fresh centre of
evaporation. The vigorous vegetation which responds to these extremely
favourable conditions helps to preserve, by the cool moisture of its
rich and abundant foliage, the dampness of the atmosphere, and to the
reunion of these three causes may be traced the remarkable humidity of
the province.
The vegetation varies with the height; wheat, maize, and rye thrive in
the basins of the valleys and in all the spots on a level with the sea.
The peasants raise two crops a year on the same ground, but many writers
who have studied the question say that these double harvests often
result in more harm than good--the blind ambition of the ignorant
peasants leading them to dry their rye too soon in their hurry to get
the maize planted.
Right down to the seashore the ground is remarkable for its spontaneous
vegetation, which is in itself a cause of the richness of the soil.
Every kind of fruit tree known to Europe thrives upon the lower slopes
of the ever-verdant valleys, the fruit upon the higher slopes ripening
twenty days later than that upon the sea-level. Woods of oak and
chestnut cover the hillsides, and pines dominate the loftiest crags of
the mountain peaks. Within a radius of ten miles my eyes have rested
upon pine-clad mountain scenery wild and beautiful as that of Norway,
and upon a riviera of vegetation like that of Mentone, embracing the
orange, the cactus, the olive, the fig, and even the lemon tree laden
with its ripening fruit. The sides of the narrow and undulating valleys
are often entirely vine-clad; the steeper slopes, cut into terraces, are
planted with potatoes, cabbages, or bristle-pointed oats. Sometimes a
mountain-side appears as if it were provided with a majestic flight of
verdant steps cut in its side from base to summit.
High up among the mountains the peasants breed large herds of cattle,
which graze upon the fertile plains and slake their thirst in the
crystal water of the running brooks. “As one travels through Galicia,”
wrote a monk of Osera in the seventeenth century, “one experiences at
every mile--nay, at every step, let me say--a change of air, a change of
sky, and a change of scene sufficient to create the impression that one
has entered another country. Every kind of fruit, every kind of
vegetable will thrive in Galicia; and if any particular kind is wanting,
its absence must not be put down to any fault of the soil and climate,
but to the laziness of the inhabitants in failing to cultivate it. It is
true that one country may excel another in the quality of one
particular fruit, but it is nevertheless certain that, not only in all
Spain, but, without any exaggeration, in all Europe, there is not a
province that equals Galicia in the fertility of its soil.” I may add
that all who have studied the subject from that day to this have added
their testimony to that of this monk of Osera as to the extraordinary
capabilities of the Gallegan soil.
The principal rivers of Galicia have kept the names given to them by the
ancients--because the land through which they flow was never, like the
rest of Spain, conquered by the Moors. Galicia is the best-watered
territory in the Peninsula. The river Limia, known to the ancients as
Lethes, or Oblivionis, was mentioned by Pliny as running between the
Miño and the Duero, and Silius Italicus said of it--
“Inique super gravios lucentes volvit arenas,
Infernae populis referens oblivia Lethes.”[33]
The name of Limia was thought by Florez to be derived from the Greek
word λιμνη, a lake; Pliny called it Limæa, and said that some
called it _Flumen oblivionis_--“river of forgetfulness.” This river
rises in the lake of Antela in the province of Orense, and, after
flowing through a fertile valley to which it has given its name, and
receiving the waters of two smaller streams, the Ginzo and the Salas,
enters Portugal at Landoso, and at length flows into the Atlantic Ocean
at Vianna de Castello.[34] The Greeks and Romans seem to have persuaded
themselves that this river had the power of making people forget, in a
moment and for ever, everything connected with the past; they
consequently regarded it with positive terror--
“Formidatumque militibus flumen oblivionis.”[35]
Strabo tells how an allied army of Celts and Bætians who had joined
forces for some particular expedition quarrelled after passing the
Limia, and killed in the fray their common leader, after which they one
and all, forgetting what was the object of their expedition and whither
they were bound, became scattered, and each man returned home
independently of the others.[36] Decimus Junius Brutus was the first
Roman who dared to cross the river, and Livy relates that when Brutus
ordered his soldiers to cross it they refused to do so, in fear lest by
so doing they might lose all memory of their country; whereupon Brutus,
seizing the flag from his standard-bearer, waded into the river alone,
and, having reached the opposite bank, returned to his soldiers and
entreated them to follow him across, which they, overcoming their
superstition, eventually did. More than one Portuguese poet, charmed by
the beauty of the Limia’s winding banks and by the gentle flow of its
limpid waters, and above all by its historic name--“river of
forgetfulness”--has crystallised the legend of its miraculous power in
musical verse, such as--
“O’ que inveja vos hei a esse correr,
Pola praia de Lima abaixo e’ arriba
Que tem tanta virtute de esquecer!”
Limia, in Portuguese, is spelt Lima, and the Lima of Peru was named
after this river. Another point of interest in connection with this
river of classic fame is the discovery that has recently been made by
Dr. Marcelo Macias of the exact site upon which there once stood a great
city, mentioned by Ptolemy as φορος λιμιχῶν and by later Roman
writers as _Civitas Limicorum_.
Another of Galicia’s rivers, the Miño, is one of the six largest rivers
in Spain. Its present name was given to it by the Romans; it is a Latin
word meaning vermilion,[37] and was chosen on account of the metallic
yellow its waters left upon their banks. St. Isidore and Justin both
give this explanation of the name. Pliny says its mouth was four (Roman)
miles wide, and Strabo adds that it was navigable for a distance of
about eight hundred stadia. In the present day it is not navigable for
even half that distance--“a great loss,” remarks Florez, “to commerce.”
Florez, however, is convinced that the ancients called by the name of
Miño the river that is now called the Sil--because the Sil is the river
whose banks receive the vermilion. Orosius, moreover, speaks of Monte
Medulio as situated above the Miño, whereas it is now above the Sil, at
the point where that river enters Galicia, and the earth there is said
to be of a reddish hue. Besides, the Sil runs into the sea, receiving
the waters of many other streams, but it does not flow into any river.
Molina, however, whose description of Galicia was first published in
1550, goes still further, and says he is sure the Gallegans changed the
names of the two rivers because the Sil was a foreign river, rising
outside Galicia, whereas the Miño was a native! Molina believed that the
Miño got its name from Miñan, the spring which is its source. The Miño
rises near the town of Lugo, flows through the province of Orense, and,
while forming the natural boundary between Galicia and Portugal, flows
into the Atlantic a little beyond the town of Tuy. The beauty of the
scenery through which the Miño passes after it has left the town of
Orense is hardly to be surpassed in the whole of Spain.
Two other important rivers are the Sar and the Tambre, called by the
ancients “Sars” and “Tamaris.” Both of these rivers are historically
famous. Pliny mentions only two rivers in Spain as possessing the
properties that temper iron--the Bibilis and the Turrafo. But Silius
Italicus mentions the river Calybe as one whose waters were used to
temper the metal of Spanish arms, and immediately afterwards he refers
to the arms made in Galicia, and to their excellent quality. He supports
the opinion of Justin, that Gallegan arms were alone found worthy to be
used by the great Hannibal, whom the Spaniards presented with a complete
suit of armour ornamented with tiny pictures of Dido and Æneas, of which
each piece had been tempered by the waters of the Calybe and decorated
with gold from the sands of the Tagus.
The river Calybe now bears the name of Cabe: it rises in the hills of
Cebrero and flows into the Sil at the foot of the vine-clad mountain on
which stands the ruined monastery of San Esteban. St. Isidore thought
that this river gave the name of Calybis to iron, but the ancient
Calybes of the east (afterwards called Chaldeans, according to Strabo)
are said to have been the first people to employ iron; so the Gallegan
river must surely have derived its name from them.
Another important river is the Eo, which, rising in Galicia above
Salvatierra, divides this province from that of Asturias, and is the
natural boundary line between Lugo and Oviedo. Galicia has upon her
coast some of the finest harbours in Europe. Vigo, for one, has often
been described as the finest natural harbour in the world; while Ferrol,
once so famous as the Arsenal of Spain, is likely to become ere long, in
the hands of English shipbuilders, one of the world’s greatest
dockyards, and to supply ironclads to all the nations. One of the ships
with which Columbus set sail to discover America was called _La
Gallega_, and a book has been written to prove that not only did the
great discoverer set sail from the harbour of Pontevedra, but his ship,
_La Gallega_, was built in her dockyards with the wood of Gallegan
pines.[38]
Many of the beautiful trees and shrubs that help to make Galicia’s
gardens so beautiful in our day were imported by Jesuits who had gone as
missionaries to the New World. In
[Illustration: THE RIVER SIL, ORENSE]
short, if the traveller really wishes to understand and appreciate
Galicia or any other part of Spain, it is imperative that, side by side
with the objects of interest that present themselves to his view, he
should become acquainted with the story of Spain’s glorious past. All
who have studied Galicia are unanimous in their opinion that she
contains more relics of that past and more trophies of antiquity than
any other part of the Peninsula.