ANCIENT BRIDGE OF GERONA.--THE POPULATION.--A FIESTA.--SEARCH FOR
AN HOTEL.--THE FONDA DE LA ESTRELLA.--LAST SIEGE OF GERONA.--THE
CATHEDRAL.--A FEW CONCLUDING WORDS ON SPAIN.
When at last the train stopped in the outskirts of Gerona, we mounted
on the top of an omnibus and were whirled off through a boulevard of
plane trees, in which were groups of very _plain_ folk, who--it being a
_fiesta_ day--were dancing and whooping in large circles in a frenzied
manner that to us calm onlookers was very remarkable. The sight,
however, was brilliant and animating. Scarlet caps, red sashes, velvet
breeches, and jackets covered with flashing metal buttons, together
with the brilliant petticoats and embroidered bodices of the females,
produced a scene that was altogether of the most lively description.
Upon emerging from the avenue of plane trees, the town of Gerona
burst suddenly upon us. A wonderful old town it is! Talk about the
picturesque! Where are all the artists who frequent Wales, Margate,
Scarbro', and the over-done East, who give us perennial views of the
same, _usque ad nauseam_, until people need never have moved out
of London to know them as well as the inhabitants of those places
themselves? Why don't they travel hither, and put before the jaded
British public this intensely interesting and most extraordinary place?
Here they may find novelty and variety to please the most exacting
taste. The city as a whole is very old and quaint. Rickety houses
appear sometimes to be piled up indiscriminately upon heaps of gaunt
battlements and crumbling ramparts. The brown decaying walls tell many
a story of the violence and lawlessness of other times. The people of
the present day live in houses which are built of the remains of old
forts, and are constructed of anything that came to hand at the moment.
Rocks, stones, wood, dirt-heaps, mud, old bricks, old ruins, rubbish,
all have been raked together, and piled up confusedly into habitations;
and a most unique, heterogeneous, and dangerous mass they seem. Houses
and other buildings bend and bow to one another in all directions in a
very stiff and awkward manner, as if the whole place had been suddenly
paralysed in the midst of some general act of politeness. One edifice
props up another, as the lame support the lame. There is one church,
indeed, constructed out of some old convent walls of great solidity,
that supports four feeble houses which lean bodily upon it, and without
it would inevitably fall down like so many card-houses. It requires
some judgment to walk about with security in the interior of many of
these charming dwellings, the strange old rooms necessitating great
steadiness of gait and correct judgment of eye, for the floors are not
always so level as one might desire. There are heights and hollows
which it is advisable to avoid as much as possible if one would escape
painful bruises.
Gerona is in reality one of the quaintest and most ruinous cities of
Spain. When its population are not dancing war-dances in the streets,
it is very desolate and silent. It is entirely without trade or
manufactures; and, barring its beautiful Catalonian cathedral, it is
without any worthy monuments whatever, and has nothing to attract the
attention of the least exacting of tourists. It is supposed to have
been founded by the tribe of Bracati Celts, as far back as the year 930
before the Christian era; and from the earliest times up to the French
attack in 1809, it has again and again been battered, knocked about,
and almost depopulated by repeated sieges, while its inhabitants,
when any were left, have been decimated by famine and disease. Like a
phœnix, however, the old city has risen again from its ashes. As it
stands now, it is constructed entirely of ruins. The home of squalor,
and priests, and decay, it is appropriately built upon the vestiges of
the past. The little river Oña winds its serpentine course through rows
of crazy houses, covered all over with wooden balconies filled with
flower-pots, and gay with coloured rags. The houses seem toppling and
pitching towards each other over the dirty stream, which is spanned by
a picturesque old three-arch bridge, also in a most ruinous condition.
Where the citadel crumbled before the French cannon of 1809, there is
now a high heap of rubbish, on the top of which are perched groups of
eccentric-looking houses, built of the shattered bricks and _débris_
hastily raked together, and piled anyhow into something resembling
human habitations, with a noble disregard of all design, and apparently
even of the laws of gravity. The town is all up hill and down hill,
full of holes, ditches, and dykes. The arcades are mouldering; the
courts dark and malodorous; and where there are flights of stone
stairs, they are old and broken. There are churches and convents, but
they are old and out of repair; there are forts, but they are battered;
and battlements, but they are crumbling. A young fresh-looking child
in such a place would appear an anachronism; but there are plenty of
the most repulsive-looking beggars. A total absence of all sanitary
arrangements causes the atmosphere of the town to be actually felt as
well as smelt. A greasy mist seems to envelop it. Yet poor as Gerona
is, what heroism has from time to time been displayed by the gallant
inhabitants!
As we have said, we arrived on a _fiesta_ day--a Sunday, and found all
the young men in the town--for such there are in it--collected in the
squares and courts, and walking round and round in rings, or pacing
hand in hand to a measured cadence of song, something like that of
howling dervishes, and looking very solemn, silly, and hot. This indeed
seemed a most limited idea of amusement.
Heaven defend us from the hotels! Our diligence stopped at one. We got
down to inspect it, and, on advancing, were immediately swallowed up by
a dark archway leading to unknown depths beyond, and vomiting in our
faces one of those volleys of terrible smells which are indigenous.
Retreating in dismay, we took, as a matter of conscience, one glance
up at the front of the house, and one look into it. We could imagine
what the whole would be--a series of winding passages leading to
whitewashed, uncomfortable rooms, with windows without glass, but
grated and barred. Lean-eyed fowls, mostly moulting, would probably be
roosting on the hat-pegs in bedrooms, while the floors would present a
liberal collection of magnificent specimens of the pale-pink cockroach.
Presiding over all this, no doubt there would be a greasy creature in
the shape of a landlord, looking at us as if he had the Evil Eye, and
wanted to give us a taste of its power. Seeing this would never do, we
made one bound into the interior of the diligence, and hid ourselves,
with quaking hearts, amongst some warm old ladies, with their bundles
and umbrellas. At the next hotel we found a Spanish gentleman, our
companion in the train from Barcelona, who had been so civil as to
offer us a gold cigarette case as a present, which, unfortunately, we
were told etiquette compelled us to refuse. What a waste of time that
sort of thing is!--as absurd as two men going out to fight a duel, and
snapping off copper caps at each other. However, there he was, leaning
over the balcony of the Fonda de la Estrella. _Étoile_--Star!--The Star
and Garter? No, most distinctly _not_ The Star and Garter.
Our friend, as we have said, was leaning over the balcony, gratefully
inhaling the dismal smells which arose from the street below. As he had
taken rooms for us, we went in, determined to remain, though we could
see presages of what our fate was to be. Our friend had laid himself
down, and covered himself with a rug, to go through the farce of taking
a little rest, but after he had, by a strong effort of imagination,
supposed he had refreshed himself by his siesta, we looked upon his
countenance as he arose, with the rug still upon him, and saw that it
resembled a magnified pepper castor more than a human visage. All the
mosquitoes, fleas, and flies in Gerona must have concentrated their
forces upon his face, and held thereon perfect orgies for a couple of
hours. The hotel altogether was a very miserable establishment, not
more inviting than the preceding one.
After we had retired to rest, the floor creaked in a very uneasy manner
throughout the live-long night. The walls of our sleeping apartments
were painted black, and every article of furniture was preserved from
the disastrous effects of damp by the time-honoured dust of ages.
Moisture was continually dropping from the ceiling on to the floor
below, with a sound as regular as that of a slow pendulum. In an
apartment where sleep is generally uncertain, the counting of these
drops, and their arrangement into minutes, quarters, and hours, might
prove a very pleasing pastime. We dined, on the evening of our arrival,
most luxuriously on stewed beef made of _Plaza de Toros_ horse, and
suffered severely from cholera and cramp, in consequence, for three
days after.
In May, 1809, the French, with 35,000 men under Verier and Augereau,
besieged Gerona, and it was not till after seven months and five days'
fierce and incessant struggle that the indomitable inhabitants, unable
to hold out longer against famine and pestilence, were compelled
to yield. Forty French batteries were in position, but the gallant
Geronese, with guns of inferior caliber and metal, but mad with hatred
to the foreigner--their religious enthusiasm at the same time being
fanned to the most desperate pitch by the priesthood--fought with the
despairing energy of fanatics. Women served and loaded the cannon, and
lay dead everywhere by the side of their husbands and brothers.
The first sentiment experienced by the Geronese as they saw from their
walls the advancing host of the French was not that of terror, but a
burning desire for revenge, an unconquerable feeling of hatred towards
the spoilers of their hearths and homes, which made them welcome the
coming combat as they would a religious _fiesta_ or popular ceremony.
The women laboured unweariedly at the fortifications with pick and
spade, joining with the men in the most arduous duties; tearing their
delicate hands as they piled the great rough stones and tugged at the
clumsy cannon, and cheerfully bending their frail forms beneath the
weight of heavy burdens, they encouraged with look, gesture, and smile
the men of Gerona, the soldiers of a day. All those who could carry a
weapon seized it, and praying the priest to bless it, kissed it as a
precious gift of heaven. Young and old, strong and frail, rushed with
enthusiastic shouts to man the walls, determined to do or die. Not
a creature was there but thirsted for the combat, the heart of all
beating with one glorious pulse. Rich and poor knew no distinction: all
were equal in their love of God and country.
Nor did the actual terrors of the fight diminish the spirit of valour
with which they had commenced it. The dead, as they fell, were blessed
by the watchful priest, and envied by the survivors as martyrs. As the
siege progressed, another and more fearful foe appeared in their very
midst, against which the mightiest could not prevail. The dead fought
against the living; for the accumulated corpses of the slain, few of
whom they were able to bury, brought a pestilence upon the town. Still
the heroic defenders fought on unflinching, and fell down rotting at
their guns. Then arose a cry for bread, for pale-eyed famine hovered
over the city. All the domestic animals--the faithful friends and
slaves of man--had been pitilessly slaughtered and their flesh eagerly
devoured. Even the rats of the river had served as nutriment to the
garrison, and the dead themselves at length supplied Gerona with a
ghastly but imperative food. Still amidst blood and slaughter, amongst
the wildest horrors of plague, famine, and war, Gerona held out against
the foe, until, after seven months and five days of iron determination
and indomitable courage, it fell exhausted, crushed, and prostrate
into the hands of the enemy. Fifteen thousand men had perished on the
side of the French, and nine thousand on that of the Spaniards. Thus
ended the last siege of Gerona; and as long as true patriotism and
unflinching courage excite our warmest sympathy, the names of Saragossa
and Gerona should be watch-words to all true lovers of their country.
We went to the theatre at Gerona, which we found to be a large,
painted apartment, reeking with the odour of tobacco. The drama of
the evening was rather complicated in structure, and must have been
harrowing in incident, judging by the effect it had on the spectators.
The plot was so absurdly incredible as scarcely to deserve mention. The
hero was discovered by his father to have married his step-mother. The
unfortunate gentleman, whose wife had married his son, perambulated
the stage in apparent distraction, every now and then stopping at the
wing to have his tears renewed by a wet sponge. The dialogue must have
been magnificent, to judge by the number of ahs! and ohs! to which
the audience gave vent. As far as the actors were concerned, it was
perfectly unnecessary, as the prompter did it all for them, in a very
audible manner. Indeed, at times, so distinct, clear, and forcible
was his reading of the play, that the leading tragedian was not only
perfectly inaudible, but became utterly speechless, contenting himself
with "sawing the air," and doing a little dumb-show, ever and anon
taking a few measured paces. The prompter himself, at any passage
requiring extra force, jumped up in his little shed in front of the
footlights and waved his arms aloft like railway signals, and then as
suddenly disappeared.
When every one in the tragedy was disposed of by death, the
curtain fell, and we walked back to our hotel with an energetic
little Spaniard, who kindly accosted us, telling us he was very
impressionable, and at the sight of an Englishman could never restrain
himself from tendering to him his respect for the British generally,
and for Sir Gladstone in particular. He certainly was one of the most
voluble individuals we ever had the misfortune to come across. He told
us all he knew upon every subject, and a great deal besides about which
he knew nothing; ending by informing us that he had a great admiration
for everything noble and grand, an assurance which he finished by
swindling us in the easiest manner possible out of the sum of five
shillings--English money.
Before the traveller takes leave of charming old Gerona--and, in spite
of its many discomforts, to leave it one is loth--let him wander once
more through its quaint old rickety streets by twilight, and note
the dark serrated broken sky-lines of its houses. Wandering on, he
will come suddenly upon the beautiful ancient cathedral church, with
its imposing lines. It is a truly magnificent edifice, and one cannot
look up to its lofty arches, so sombre in their aspect, without being
impressed by the gloomy majesty of this old Gothic temple. Through its
splendid brazen gates the eye catches the gleam of twinkling tapers
casting their rays upon groups of gaudy priests, while all around
them, amid the white curling cloudlets of ascending incense, falls the
halo of soft light, in which they appear as in a vision. Dark shrouded
figures, scattered over the marble floor, apparently motionless in
prayer, were kneeling before the altars or amongst the ancient tombs.
An organ of great power was pealing forth one of those magnificent
pieces of music which the Romish Church has dedicated to the service
of religion; and, at a distant altar, a splendidly robed priest was
reciting some of the services of the Church. Who, whatever his creed,
could remain unmoved in such a fane?
* * * * *
We are now at the end of our ramble, but before we return to the
delights of home, we may as well add a few words of plain fact
concerning the once all-powerful and still illustrious Spain.
The chief characteristics of Spain appear to be oil, dirt, priests,
and bull-fights; for, without these, Church and State possibly might
not cohere. Spain is a congeries of contradictions. It is very cold,
and very hot; very beautiful, very ugly; very fruitful, very barren.
The mental character of its population is simply a counterpart of
the physical nature of the country, and is doubtless almost entirely
influenced by climatic peculiarities. The Spaniard is distinguished
by much natural sharpness of thought and acute intelligence. A serene
and gentle spirit is often found amongst them, and they are generally
extremely courteous to strangers who tread their soil and are within
their gates.
The Spaniard possesses a very ardent imagination, and his passions are
often very excitable--sometimes even uncontrollable. The continuous
insurrections which distress the land give evidence of the constant
state of fermentation in which the spirits of the population are
steeped. A certain amount, however, of physical languor, engendered by
the heat of their climate, and descending to them from old Saracenic
blood, is blended with great mental activity and an impassioned nature.
In their ordinary actions they are often gentle in the extreme,
but when their passions are awakened they not unfrequently become
ferocious. Calm, yet fiery; indolent, yet energetic; revengeful, yet
affable; enthusiastic, yet morose; avaricious, yet generous; but, above
all, superstitious and narrow--such seems to be the Spanish character.
Yet how lamentable it is to notice a country so richly endowed, whether
in human talent or in natural blessings, and once the most powerful
kingdom of earth, now so fallen and degraded, descending to the lowest
shifts and chicanery; so utterly without influence or respect; so
backward in civilization and morality, political and social, amongst
the nations of Europe! In fact, Spain is--or very recently was--a
dead country, whose monuments and morals are alike in ruins. Native
industry is unappreciated, and foreign talent taxed to extortion. The
Spaniard can rarely be roused to exertion, beyond those periodical
attempts to subvert a bad government by the exile or slaughter of
hundreds of honest and innocent people. In matters of importance he too
often follows that mistaken policy which always hugs delay, and cries,
"_Mañana_," to-morrow, always to-morrow. To-morrow comes, but Spain,
the Spain of Charles V.--like the Rome and Greece of old--is no more;
and, in the present slough of reckless indolence, bigotry, jealousy,
isolation, internal dissensions, and utter lack of all homogeneous
force, we fear, notwithstanding the more hopeful circumstances of the
present, can never return. There are great minds and honest hearts
within the country still, but an unkind fate has ordained that they
should remain powerless, that place-hunters, parasites, and favourites
may reign supreme, beneath the ægis of a despotic government, which is
directed, barring that of modern Rome, by the most uncompromising of
all the Catholic priesthood. As the enemies of civilization, honesty,
and common sense, Rome and Spain may go arm-in-arm, the scorn of
all nations, the distrust even of themselves, and a disgrace to the
nineteenth century. Jesuits, monks, police, and spies, are the order
of the day; while the press is gagged or servile, and all liberty of
thought strangled like a dangerous snake.
Spain is a splendid territory, rich in Nature's wealth, but poor indeed
in those attributes which alone truly elevate a nation--viz., a general
firmness of character, desire of progress, love of liberty, purity of
administration, and power of action. In Spain there exists no art, no
science, but what is borrowed with bad grace from other countries.
Literature, which once struggled for life, is now utterly prostrate.
Its death dates back to the Inquisition, to that religious community
who exercised all their holy zeal to kill the body and suffocate the
mind. If there is absolute truth in Socrates' conception, that all
human aspiration and effort should be generally directed towards the
acquisition of knowledge, then surely are the Spaniards of to-day most
aimless in their existence. In fact, the influence of the bigoted
Middle Ages, when, with relentless severity, heresy was suspected
in everything said, written, or done, was sufficient to destroy the
taste for literature, had Spain even possessed a literary community.
Philosophy or science can make no progress where reason fears to dwell.
Certainly, Cardinal Ximenes, one of Spain's most enlightened men,
struck with shame at the continued ignorance and mental darkness in
which the priesthood were sunk, had the courage lent him by his station
and loftier mind to found the University of Alcala de Henares at the
commencement of the sixteenth century. He revised the cramped version
of the Scriptures, substituting for it a rendering more adapted for
intellectual acceptance by compiling at his own expense the famous
Complutensian Polyglot, although crushing, at the instance of the Holy
Office, all attempts to translate the Bible into the Spanish tongue. He
also made a yet greater step in the advance of intellectual liberty by
inculcating the law which excludes Papal bulls not sanctioned by the
monarch. In spite, however, of this considerable improvement in the
education of the ecclesiastical mind, notwithstanding this attempt at
cleaning a portion of the Augean stables of darkness and superstition,
the long chronic hatred entertained, by the Executive, of all liberty
of thought, and their love of power, had become too engrained a habit
to allow of much more being done in one lifetime than to temper it with
the seeds of a possible improvement, and merely to insert the wedge
of tolerance. All that could be tortured by the cunning of partial
priests into the merest suspicion of heresy, in speech or in writing,
was still punished with incarceration, confiscation, torments, and
death, even by the sanction of this Cardinal patron of letters himself.
Under these circumstances, literature of any other sort than that of
romance, mysticism, or biographies of saints, now found but dangerous
ground to take root; for wherever the author was, there were the
priestly supervisors gathered together. Surely the birth of culture and
enlightenment appears but in the funeral train of superstition.
[Illustration: [++] Decorative Image]
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
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| Transcriber's Note: |
| |
| Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. |
| |
| Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. |
| |
| Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, |
| _like this_. |
| |
| [++] indicates a caption added by the transcriber. |
| For example: [Illustration: [++] Decorative Image.] |
| |
| Corrections: |
| -- Larochejacquelin changed to Larochejaquelein. (Page 21) |
| -- Progresistists changed to Progresistas. (Page 123) |
| |
| Error unchanged: |
| -- "the espada's sword." (p. 168) should be "the torero's |
| sword." |
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