neighbouring Principality of the Asturias as the average Englishman
knows of the Hebrides. Nor can they judge of the inhabitants of these
provinces from the few individual Galicians who emigrate to Madrid any
more than we in England can form an idea of Italians from the specimens
who perambulate the London streets with a piano organ and a monkey. The
Madrileño comes across a few Galicians in the capital engaged in menial
services, and speaking a harsh, strange patois, which he finds some
difficulty in understanding; but the Gallegan in exile is a very
different person from the man you meet in his own land of rain and mist,
where the scenery is exquisite, the hotels are famously bad, and
devotion is the chief recreation of the community. At home these people
are poor, but hardy; possessing little intelligence, but great capacity
for work; knowing little comfort, but nursing a passionate attachment
for the country of their birth. Many of the young women are remarkably
handsome, but drudgery and hardship early tell their tale, and very few
of them retain their good looks beyond the age of twenty. The country,
for the most part, is poor to barrenness; the peasantry work day and
night for mere subsistance; the cottages, which do duty for bedroom and
nursery, stable, kitchen, rabbit hutch, pigsty and parlour, are damp and
dirty, and destitute of beds or chimneys. The climate is rainy, the
surface is mountainous, and the roads are generally bad. Small wonder is
it that muleteers and commercial travellers constitute the principal
visitors to Galicia--for those who have a soul above scenery, and an
ambition beyond fishing, the country is practically without attraction.
[Illustration: A GALICIAN.]
[Illustration: A GALICIAN.]
The single province of Oviedo, which constitutes the principality of the
Asturias, harbours a people who have remained unconquered alike by Roman
and Moor. There is protection, if not complete safety, in a country of
mountain and valley, of damp and cold; and the Asturians have ever been
able to spread themselves over the land and farm their straggling
holdings in comparative security. They have cultivated maize for their
staple food, poached the hills and rivers for game and fish, cultivated
the art of dancing, and lived in terror of the evil eye from the most
ancient times; and despite damp, hard fare, and harder toil, they have
learnt
[Illustration: REDONDELA (PROVINCE OF PONTEVEDRA)--GENERAL VIEW.]
the secret of longevity and the charm of a gracious civility of manner.
Minerals in abundance are common to both Asturias and Galicia; and while
the former is the richer in coal and iron, the latter has been worked
for gold, silver, and tin from the time of the Roman occupation. It is
on their mineral resources that these provinces will have to depend for
their future prosperity.
[Illustration: IN GALICIA.]
[Illustration: IN GALICIA.]
After the cities of the South--Barcelona, Toledo, Granada, or even
modern Madrid--the Northern towns are small, shabby, and unimportant.
Coruña, the chief seaport of Galicia, though interesting to Englishmen
as being the landing place in Spain of John of Gaunt, and the harbour
from which the invincible Armada sailed to conquer and Romanise Great
Britain, is a place of only secondary importance. The city was founded
by the Phœnicians; its name is probably derived from Columna, the
Phœnician Pharos, or lighthouse; and its famous lighthouse, the Tower of
Hercules, has had its counterpart from the earliest days. The
Phœnicians, who made gain rather than discovery the aim of all their
expeditions, were attracted to Galicia and to the province of Orense
particularly by reason of its rich deposits of tin. Coruña in ancient
days was the principal port of the North-west Coast, and the most
westerly town in Europe. It is still the chief military station in
Northern Spain, and ranks as a commercial city of the first importance.
[Illustration: CORUÑA--GENERAL VIEW TAKEN FROM THE OLD TOWN.]
The hill-girt city of Santiago, though knowing nothing of commercial
prestige, and having no part in the military system of the country, is
to the traveller of far more interest than the capital of the province.
For dead as it now appears to be, with the hand of death on its crooked,
branching streets, and its crazy, deformed squares, which echo the
pilgrims’ footfalls to the deaf ears of the dead, it was at one time the
most celebrated religious centre in Spain--the goal of fanatics from
every corner of Europe, the Mecca of countless thousands of theologians,
and the tomb of one of the personal companions of Christ. Although the
ancient glory of Santiago has departed, although
[Illustration: PONTEVEDRA--GENERAL VIEW.]
its broad-flagged pavements are no longer thronged by the feet of the
devout, and it has been much shorn of its former civil and religious
dignities, the city is still the See of an Archbishop with a cathedral,
two allegiate churches, and fifteen parishes. The cathedral is erected
on the site of the chapel which was erected by Alonso II. to mark the
spot where Theodomer, Bishop of _Iria Flavia_, is said to have
discovered the body of St. James the Apostle; and the city, which sprang
up around the memorial, bears the Spanish name for St. James the Elder.
The original cathedral, which was finished in 879, consecrated in 899,
and destroyed by the Moors in 997, was replaced by the present edifice
in 1078. Whether one believes or not the tradition of the foundation of
the cathedral--which, by the way, is no mere tradition in the mind of
the Galician--one cannot but regard this mighty pile of stone with awe,
and recognise in it the expression of an influence which was once felt
throughout the Christian world. Even to-day it is one of the most
frequented pilgrim-resorts in Europe.
One passes through Pontevedra, a picturesque granite town, with arcaded
streets and ancient houses bearing armorial shields, on the journey to
Vigo. Here, as everywhere on the Galician coast line, the parish priest
goes down to the shore one day in every year and blesses the sea; here
also the oysters are excellent and abundant, and here the watchman’s
night chant is heard in the streets. The call of the _sereno_, or
watchman, who dates from the building of the ancient walls of
Pontevedra, and the chapel of Alonso II. of Santiago, seems to catch the
imagination of the traveller, and hurl him back into the mediæval ages,
when life was a state that men fought to retain, and religion was a
power for which they laid it down. The _sereno_, with his theatrical
cloak wrapped about him, his axe-headed staff, his lantern, his majestic
stalking walk, and his thrilling chant, “_Ave Maria Purissima. Son las
diez y sereno_,” seemed to me impressive, unreal, almost fantastic. At
ten o’clock he passed me in the deserted square, at eleven he was
offering up his quavering invocation beneath my window. Galicia has
little in common with the towns of the South--it retires to rest early
in order to be up betimes.
At Vigo a small fragment of the ancient sea walls yet remain, but the
ruins that Lord Cobham made of the town in 1719 have been obliterated,
and in place of the fortified port, which Drake visited in 1585 and
1589, we have a thriving, modernised town. Vigo is an important place of
call for Mediterranean steamers, it is one of the chief centres of the
cattle trade export to London, and the port of the mineral provinces of
Pontevedra and Orense.
The town of Orense, the capital of its province, is reached by the
magnificent old bridge that spans the river Miño. Though now deprived of
three of its arches, which were removed to give the road more width, and
also of the ancient castle which defended the entrance, it continues to
attract the attention of the traveller on account of its elegant and
bold construction, its ample proportions and majestic appearance.
Tradition says it is Roman, but many learned writers find nothing to
confirm this assertion. It is quite likely that a bridge existed there
previously; but the present one, it would appear, was built by order of
Bishop Lorenzo during the first half of the thirteenth century, and has
since undergone many alterations, including those to the largest arch,
which is more than forty-three metres in width, and the reconstruction
of which was completed about the middle of the fifteenth century. In the
Roman days Orense was celebrated for its warm baths. These three
springs, which are still in existence, flow copiously from fountains one
above another, but the waters have lost their medicinal virtues--it is
[Illustration: VIGO--VIEW FROM THE CASTLE.]
only a supposition that they ever possessed any--and are now used for
domestic purposes. The present cathedral, which is an obvious imitation
of the cathedral at Santiago, was raised in 1220. The cathedral, the
warm springs, and the bridge over the Miño, comprise the three marvels
of the city.
[Illustration: GIJON--THE WHARF.]
Equally ancient, but in many ways more interesting, is the capital town
of Lugo. It boasts a cathedral which shares with San Isidoro of León the
immemorial right to have the consecrated Host always exposed; Roman
walls in an excellent state of preservation that entirely surround the
city, and an establishment of baths. The bath-house contains 200 beds;
and the springs, which contain nitre and antimony, are good for
cutaneous diseases and rheumatism. The river Miño, which is the glory
not only of Lugo but of Galicia, rises in the mountains, some nineteen
miles from the city.
As the centre of a beautiful and variegated country, which affords good
sport for the angler, and scenery of enchanting loveliness to attract
the artist, Oriedo, the capital of the Astionas, has its charms; but the
seaport of Gijon, with its tobacco manufactory, its railway workshops,
its iron foundry, and glass and pottery works, is a much more thriving
and important town. Gijon, like Santander, is a flourishing port; and
both have gained immensely in importance of late years. While the
latter, with its handsome modern houses, makes a more splendid show, its
drainage and sanitary arrangements leave much to be desired, and the
harbour at low water is sometimes most offensive. Both towns are of
Roman origin, but Gijon is the most pleasantly situated on a projecting
headland beneath the shelter of the hill of _Santa Catalina_, and the
harbour is the safest on the North Coast. It exports apples and nuts in
enormous quantities, coal, and iron, and jet; while its shores are much
frequented by bathers during the summer months.
[Illustration: SANTANDER--THE PORT.]
[Illustration: SANTANDER--GENERAL VIEW.]
It is currently believed, and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of
the statement, that if a visitor in any town in England stops the first
native he meets and inquires as to the objects of interest that the
place possesses, he will be referred immediately to the principal
hostelry of the town. If you wander in London, and ask your way about,
you will be directed right across the city by references to
public-houses, which are the only landmarks that the Cockney ever dreams
of studying. In Spain, cathedrals are as ubiquitous as inns are in
England. You may be sure of finding comfortable accommodation for man
and beast in most English towns, and in the Peninsula you can be quite
as confident of “bringing up” against a cathedral--if nothing else. In
León, the capital of the province of the same name, and in Salamanca,
the second city in the province, we find the same state of things
existing--the cathedral first and the rest nowhere. Yet these two
cities boast of a noble history of ancient splendour and old-time
greatness, and with this--and their cathedrals--they appear to be
content. León, in the time of Augustus, was the headquarters of the
legion that defended the plains from the Asturian marauders; and when
the Romans withdrew, it continued as an independent city to withstand
the continued attacks of the Goths until 586. The city yielded to the
Moor, was rescued by Ordoño I., and retaken by the Arabs with every
accompaniment of inhuman atrocity. Its defences were rebuilt by Alonso
V. nearly 400 years later, its houses were repeopled, and it continued
to be the capital of the Kings of León until the court was removed to
Seville by Don Pedro. Its present miserable condition is a lamentable
appendix to such a history. Its streets are mean, its shops are
miserable, and its inns are worse. Nothing is left to it but its
cathedral.
[Illustration: LEÓN--THE CATHEDRAL.]
This temple is truly an architectural wonder, combining the delicacy of
the purest Gothic style with a solidity which has stood for centuries;
the manner in which the problem of
[Illustration: LEÓN--CLOISTER IN CATHEDRAL.]
stability was solved is wonderful, the immense weights seeming to have
no solid bases. The finest and most beautiful chiselled work is visible
everywhere, and careful study is necessary in order to understand how
the weight and strain of the arches were made to rest on their elegant
buttresses. The origin of this magnificent temple is not quite clear,
but many archæologists believe that it was founded in the time of King
Ordoño II. It is of irregular form, but the cathedral or nave, transept,
and presbytery are in the form of a perfect Latin cross.
[Illustration: LEÓN--THE CATHEDRAL CHOIR STALLS.]
The windows are of colossal dimensions, and the ratablos and sculptures
are notable. Among its many famous works the cloister must not be
forgotten. It is an example of the transition style from ogive to
renaissance, with large galleries, interesting groups of sculpture, and
a beautiful door leading into the temple.
[Illustration: LEÓN--VIEW TAKEN FROM THE CEMETERY.]
Among all the choral stalls treasured in Spanish churches those in the
cathedral at León stand out prominently. Unfortunately, the names of the
master who designed them, and of the artists who assisted him to carry
that marvel of ogive art into effect, are not known; but it must have
been executed during the last thirty years of the fifteenth century, for
it is known that in 1468 the necessary bulls were obtained from his
holiness through Archbishop Antonio de Veneris in order to arrange means
for meeting the cost of the stalls, and in 1481 the work was still
proceeding.
[Illustration: SALAMANCA--GENERAL VIEW.]
Salamanca has a great name, a florid Gothic cathedral, and a square of
handsome proportions and pleasant prospects. In other respects, it is
quite without attractions. The streets are badly paved and dull, the
climate is shrewd, and fuel, I was told, is scarce and expensive. Even
the cathedral, though grand, is bare; and when one has visited the
cathedral and lingered awhile in the pleasant garden of the _Plaza
Mayor_--one of the largest and handsomest squares in Spain--and tested
the accommodation of “_La Comercio_,” one can find little else to
entrance one in the disappointing old city which was once a world-famed
seat of learning. In the fifteenth century, when its university gave
precedence to Oxford alone, it boasted of 10,000 students. In the
following century its scholars had declined to one half that number, and
to-day only some few hundred students are on its books. The sun of
Salamanca commenced to set at a period of the world’s history that to
all the rest of Europe was one of awakening and advancement. Decline and
decay are writ large on the face of the city. From a distance its noble
situation and fine buildings, built of beautiful creamy stone, gives the
place an imposing and picturesque appearance. But though the shell of
Salamanca remains, its spirit has departed. The ravages of the Romans,
the Goths, the Moors, the Spaniards, and the ruin which the neighbourly
French inflicted less than a hundred years ago, have left their cruel
marks upon its historic walls. Salamanca is but a broken hulk spent by
the storms that, from time to time, have devastated her. Her narrow,
tortuous, ill-paved streets, which skirt its multitude of grandiose
buildings, her squalor and poverty, her inferior art work, but even more
the uncorrupted art of the grand old cathedral, all remind us of what
Salamanca was, and turn our eyes backwards from what it is.
[Illustration: SALAMANCA--VIEW OF THE COLLEGE FROM THE IRLANDESES.]
[Illustration: ZARAGOZA--“INDEPENDENCIA” PROMENADE.]
[Illustration: ZARAGOZA--PILAR CHURCH.]
One must approach Zaragoza with one’s mind full of memories of heroes,
queens, poets, and bandits that have been associated with this once
mighty city, and one’s heart filled with sympathy and respect for the
old, proud Aragon that flourished, and was illustrious in history while
the Englanders still decorated themselves with blue paint, and were
domiciled in caves. For Zaragoza is not altogether a gay or an
exhilarating city. Many of the streets have a gloomy aspect, and the old
houses are high, dark, and repellant. But the city is not only important
as the seat of a university, an Audiencia, an archbishop, the
captain-general of Aragón, and other officials; it is also the junction
of four railways, and its commercial progress has been steadily
increasing of recent years. For Zaragoza is in reality two cities--the
old part with ancient fortified houses, converted now into stables and
wood stores, and the new part traversed by broad, well-paved, and
excellently-lighted streets, and lined with modern buildings. Until the
railway connected the city with Madrid and Barcelona, Zaragoza was as
dead as Salamanca, and as dilapidated as León. But it has always held
the advantage of those places in having two cathedrals to their one. The
principal cathedral, that of _La Seo_, is a venerable Gothic pile
occupying the site of a Moorish mosque, and its high arches have echoed
many councils, and looked down on the solemn coronations of the kings of
Aragon. More modern is the Cathedral _El Pilar_, so called from the
identical pillar on which the Virgin descended from heaven. It was
commenced on St. James’s Day, 1686, the work being designed and carried
out by the famous Don Francisco Herrera, the architect. In the year 1753
King Ferdinand VI. instructed Ventura Rodriguex, the architect, to
design and build a new church, as luxurious as possible, in which to
instal the image without taking it out of its temple. This was done by
erecting a small Corinthian temple under the magnificent cupola, which
was ornamented with the richest marble and jasper that could be
procured. On one of the altars of this temple, which is crowned with a
magnificent silver canopy, reposes the venerated effigy, the jewels on
which are of incalculable value.
[Illustration: A FLEMISH DANCE.]
[Illustration: AT NUEVALOS.]
The Stone Monastery at Nuevalos, on the right bank of the river from
which it takes its name, is one of the places most worthy of a visit in
the province of Zaragoza, not only on account of the building itself,
which is of great historical interest, having been built in 1195, but
for the delicious picturesqueness of the place. Surrounded by rocks,
winding amidst thick woods and dashing into deep abysses, this river
runs its erratic course, imparting life to a landscape which is,
according to the noted poet, Don Ramon Campoamor, “an improved dream of
Virgil.” Among its many picturesque waterfalls, the one called “La
Caprichosa” is perhaps the most beautiful.
The dress of the Aragonese peasantry is peculiar and picturesque. The
men, as a rule, wear no hats, but have instead a coloured handkerchief
wound round the head, leaving the top bare. Their knee-breeches are
slashed down the sides and tied by strings below the knee. The
waistcoats are worn open. Round the waist they wind a wide sash, in the
folds of which pipes, tobacco, money, and provisions are carried as
safely as in a pocket. Their feet are shod with sandals, and they
universally carry a blanket, which is thrown in a graceful manner over
their shoulders.
Bull-fighting.
A bull-fight is underlined for an early visit in the note-book of every
visitor to Spain. He goes prepared to be disgusted, and he comes away to
denounce it as a revolting and demoralising exhibition. He even plumes
himself upon his moral and human superiority over the Spaniard, because
the spectacle proves too strong for his untutored stomach. The inference
is as gratuitous as it is illogical. In point of fact, the effect of the
spectacle upon the spectator is not so much a matter of sensibility as
custom. The Spaniard grows up to the sport as our Elizabethan ancestors
grew to bull-baiting--even as the present generation of Englishman grows
to pugilism. To the Spaniard, the cruelty of the craft of tauromachy
does not appeal; the spectacle inflames his blood, and stirs not a chord
of compassion in his nature. Yet he can be intensely sympathetic,
gentle, and tender-hearted; but these softer qualities of character are
not touched by the sight of animal suffering. In the first place, the
bull is his enemy by heredited tendency. He cannot forbear to hurl
insulting epithets at him when he chances to pass him on a journey. He
witnesses his end with the thrill of satisfaction which a soldier feels
in the death of a treacherous and implacable foe. The Englishman cannot
share, or even realise this sentiment--it would be strange if he could.
His leading feeling is curiosity, and a nervous apprehensive tension
which only magnifies the horror and repulsion of the sport. With the
Spaniard it is entirely different. Long habit has familiarised him with
the bloody details, and his experienced eyes follow each trick and turn
of the contest with the enthusiasm of an athlete watching an athletic
display. Every detail of skill and dexterity and nerve exhibited by the
fighters, and every clever move made by the bull is greeted with
critical applause. Cruelty there must be, but courage in a high degree
is a factor in the contest--danger gives to the contest a dignity which
is absent from pheasant shooting, and which formed no excuse for the
vogue to which bear-baiting and cock-fighting once attained in this
country.
[Illustration: THE PROCESSION.]
It may be thought that I am trying to champion an institution which is
regarded with aversion by all classes of English people, but such is not
my intention. My object is to look at it from the Spanish point of view,
and endeavour to see if there is not some plausible explanation of its
popularity as a national amusement. But when all is said and done, there
still exist two objections to the sport which cannot be explained away.
The first is the almost inexplicable indifference which a Spanish
audience shows for the torture that is inflicted upon the horses that
take part in the _corrida_: the other is the attendance of the gentler
sex. It must, however, be noted that a large proportion--certainly the
majority of Spanish ladies--are opposed to the sport, and with the rest
it is the manly courage and address of the performers that fascinates
them. But the fact remains that women are seen in large numbers in the
amphitheatre, as 300 years ago good Queen Bess was not ashamed to be a
spectator at many an exhibition of bear-baiting. English sentiments in
matters of sport have undergone a great change since the Elizabethan
era, but Spain is notoriously the most conservative country in Europe.
However, enough has been said of the theoretical side of bull-fighting;
let us accompany the seething populace to the _Plaza de Toros_, and
witness the sport for ourselves. The streets of Madrid are crowded with
people who are all moving in the same direction. April to October is the
regular bull-fighting season, but the Spaniard finds the lightest excuse
a sufficient one for indulgence in his favourite pastime during the
“close” season. And so, although it is February when I am in Madrid, I
am not to forego an experience of a promising _corrida_.
Although I have seen bull-fights in some of the best rings in Spain,
including those of San Sebastian, Valencia, Barcelona, and Madrid, it is
more particularly of my experiences at the latter place that I shall
write.