THE CIRCUIT OF GALICIA
LUGO is the hub of Galicia. It lies at the mouth of the Pass of
Piedrafita, on the great main road which enters the province from Leon;
and which at this point trifurcates southward, westward, and northward
to Orense, Santiago, and Coruña. Sir John Moore had reserved his option
to the last, and up to this point his pursuers could not tell for
certain whether he were bound for Coruña or Vigo. Here then he paused to
re-form his straggling regiments, and boldly offered battle upon the
eastern front of the town. But Soult was too cautious to fight till he
had concentrated his whole army; and Moore having gained his two days'
rest, made a last spurt for Coruña after nightfall on the second day. We
shall come across his traces later, as we work our way around the
northern coast; but first we would see something further of Galicia, and
turn to chase the Miño to the sea.
There are many parts of Galicia in which the scenery has an English
flavour, and the Miño valley at Lugo is one of the cases in point. The
fields are green and well-wooded, fenced with rough stone walls or
sometimes with slabs set edgewise. The hilltops, rounded and heathy, are
plentifully studded with Celtic and Roman earthworks; and when we mount
to their summits (an event which happens more frequently than is quite
agreeable to the cyclist) it is only like straying from Dorset to Exmoor
or the Yorkshire fells. The moist climate of Galicia gives the
vegetation a chance that it does not obtain in the interior, and of
which it avails itself enthusiastically. The trees in the village
_alamedas_ are planted so thickly that they would seem doomed to
suffocation. Yet they flourish luxuriantly, plaiting their branches
together till the foliage forms a thick matted blanket over the whole
area; and beneath them is "darkness that may be felt," so dense and
solid that one feels one might dig a way in.
Our first stage from Lugo brought us to Monforte--a real "strong mount,"
not unlike St Michael's, but standing in the centre of a great plain
encircled by a ring of lofty hills. Thence we proceeded up a long,
winding mountain roadway; through the vine-clad villages that covered
the lower slopes, and over the bare wild moorland that rose above them
to the crest of the ridge.
A big Celtic camp was planted commandingly upon the summit, and here we
paused like mariners out of their bearings as we peered over into the
valley which yawned for us on the further side. Surely this could not be
the Miño! We had parted from it yesterday at Lugo--a domesticated and
navigable-looking river, quite different from the uncivilised little
torrent that we now saw far beneath us, tearing along the bottom of this
V-shaped glen. The map was a little ambiguous, but it offered no
plausible alternative; and when, after several very crooked miles, the
road at last succeeded in curling itself down alongside, behold! it was
the Miño, sure enough.
The Miño is undoubtedly the most beautiful of all the great rivers in
Northern Spain, and the variety of its moods is, perhaps, its most
attractive feature. Nothing could be wilder than the glen by which it
forces the mountains, unless it be the sister-glen by which the Sil
comes down to unite with it, brimming with the waters from the Vierzo
springs. Yet from the confluence to Orense it flows through an Eden of
fertility, its hilly banks festooned with vine and olive, and the
meadows beneath them teeming with corn and maize. Then comes a sterner
stretch amid the mountains along the Portuguese frontier--more majestic,
yet scarcely less fertile,--till it emerges at last in the broad, rich
valley of Tuy, and circling under its ramparts glides slowly onward to
the sea.
Orense, the capital of the district, lies a little back from the river
on the crest of a slight eminence, an offshoot of the neighbouring
hills. Its fine old Romanesque cathedral would of itself be enough to
dignify any town; but the great lion of Orense is its magnificent
bridge. This mammoth structure was the work of the mediæval bishops,
whose reverence for the memory of St Christopher did not entirely expend
itself in frescoes on their cathedral walls. It is the greatest of all
the gable bridges, and its main central span, one hundred and fifty feet
from pier to pier, is the widest of any in Spain. Neither Martorell nor
Toledo can quite equal it; but Almaraz is considered superior, and it
has neither the dizzy height nor the stupendous bulk that might rank it
as a rival to Alcántara.
[Illustration: ORENSE
The Bridge over the Miño.]
The bridge of Orense was the pivot of the French operations when Soult
led his power from Coruña to renew the subjugation of Portugal. His
earlier attempts to cross the Miño at Tuy were foiled by the
flooded river, the bad watermanship of his landlubbers, and a little
plucky opposition from the further shore. Orense gave him an opening,
and the country was for a moment at his mercy. But the respite had been
invaluable--he had now but a short time. Within two months his army was
reeling back from Oporto, without hospital, baggage, or artillery, in a
worse plight even than Moore's. He had wrestled his first fall with the
great antagonist who was destined to beat him from the Douro to
Toulouse.
And while he was clutching at Portugal, and Ney at western Asturias,
Galicia had slipped from their fingers and the heather was aflame. The
outlying garrisons were captured, the foragers waylaid and massacred,
even the camps and columns incessantly sniped from the hills. One noted
_guerrillero_ assured Freire that he had personally superintended the
drowning of seven hundred French in the waters of the Miño. Probably it
is permissible to discount his arithmetic; but the ugly boast is a
sufficient indication of the spirit in which the struggle was carried
on.
The invaders were finally drawn away by Wellington's advance up the
Tagus valley; but indeed their whole scheme of occupation had been
foredoomed to failure from the first. "It is impossible for any army to
hold Galicia," wrote Soult to his imperial taskmaster. The mountains and
irreconcilables were too much for any force that could be spared.
The Galician methods of viniculture have at least the merit of elegance,
and the Miño is still undisciplined by the stiff formal terraces of the
Rhine. The vines are trained over light rustic _pergolas_, the
horizontal sticks being fixed at a height of about six feet above the
ground, so that there is just room for a man to walk beneath them. The
whole area of the field is thus covered with a leafy awning, and in most
instances the old stone cottages are half surrounded with verandahs
constructed in similar style. These are certainly the prettiest
vineyards with which we have yet made acquaintance, but they are seldom
seen beyond the limits of Galicia. The vines of the Duero are ground
vines, and the landscape gets very little profit out of them.
The local _vins ordinaires_ of the Northern Provinces are generally
somewhat similar to Burgundy, but their quality varies greatly in the
different districts. Often they are really excellent, but sometimes
exceedingly harsh and rough--attuned to the "hard stomachs of the
reapers," and flavoured with the pitch which is used in dressing the pig
skins in which they are stored. The most famous of all is Sancho's
beloved Valdepeñas from the arid plains of La Mancha; but the Miño wines
also are excellent, and our hostess had good reason for confidence when
she produced "her own wine" so proudly at La Cañiza. Old James Howell
refers very affectionately to the "gentle sort of white wine" which is
grown at Ribadávia; and he might without any injustice have extended his
approval to the red. At all events it was nobly thought of by Don
Francisco de Toledo, commandant of the _Tertia_ of the Miño, who sailed
in the Spanish Armada, for he shipped an ample stock of it on board the
_San Felipe_. Whereby it chanced that three hundred convivial Zeelanders
were carried incontinently to the bottom as they were carousing in the
battered derelict.
The truly accommodative traveller should drink, like the natives, _a
trago_, out of the regulation glass teapot or time-honoured "leather
bottle." These experts hold the vessel well above their heads, and
squirt the thin jet of liquid straight into their open mouths. But the
art needs a long apprenticeship, and is painfully hazardous to a
novice. It should not be essayed before strangers, nor in any elaborate
get-up.
We had hoped that our mountaineering experiences would cease for a while
at Orense--that our road would consent to abide by the Miño, and accept
its guidance to the sea. We had got no further than Ribadávia, however,
before we found ourselves again going up to the heavens, and the little
riverside towns between Ribadávia and Tuy are only to be approached by
branch roads which drop upon them from above. The hillsides are clothed
with pine woods, plentifully sugared with huge boulders as big as
ordinary cottages; and if (as seems probable) these are indeed _blocs
perchés_, the ancient glaciers of Galicia must have been of respectable
size. All over the lower slopes they are scattered in lavish profusion,
and the topmost are gingerly balanced on the very summits of the
_arrêtes_.
[Illustration: TUY AND VALENCIA
The Frontier Towns on the Miño.]
The clouds were massing ominously upon the heights above us as we rose
clear of the pine woods, and our further impressions of the landscape
were merged in the universal deluge that swallowed us when we reached
the top. But the little mountain village of La Cañiza rescued us, and
fed us and dried us, and made itself agreeable to us next morning
ere it set us again on our way. La Cañiza was preparing a _Fiesta_; and
a fact that excited our interest was that fresh figs were selling in the
market at sixteen a penny--or indeed over twenty a penny, with allowance
for the rate of exchange. We hope they were favoured with fine weather,
but the outlook was not altogether assuring; and we were glad when we
found ourselves across the _Puerto_ and dropping once more into the
summer-like climate of the deep rich vale beyond.
Tuy is the frontier town of the Miño, and the Portuguese fortress of
Valencia confronts it across the river like some "deadly opposite" in an
interrupted duel. But its quaint old houses and cathedral do not now
wear a very martial appearance; and as I was allowed to sketch
uninterrupted under the very nose of a sentry, it would seem that the
rival cities have agreed to differ without any unnecessary parade.
Vigo (to our surprise) proved quite unknown to all the inhabitants of
Tuy. "Bigo" they knew; but they rejected any other designation. And that
with a firmness which would be warmly approved at "Balladolid." The
consonants _b_ and _v_ seem everywhere at odds for supremacy; and it
rather adds to the perplexity of the stranger that they often get
written as pronounced. "_Villar_," at the first glance, is not at all
suggestive of "Billiards"; and "_Aqui se bende bino_" would be so much
more comprehensible if it were "spelt with a we." "'_Vivere_' is the
same as '_bibere_' to a Spaniard," laughs Martial; so the provincialism
is at all events of respectable antiquity. Yet it is not countenanced in
the Cloisters of Toledo, where the "Sir Oracle" of classical Castilian
is reputed to hold his court. At the same time we must confess that when
we visited those hallowed precincts we did not hear so much as a
syllable of any language at all.
Vigo lies about twenty miles from Tuy, on the further side of a wall of
pointed hills; and our first intimation of our approach to that famous
seaport was a procession of barelegged fishwives with their big dripping
baskets balanced upon their heads. Untrammelled by their burden, they
came swinging down the road towards us at a good five miles an hour, the
elderly and grizzled among them as upright and elastic as the girls. If
ever the craze for pedestrianism should culminate in an international
team race for ladies, the fishwives of Vigo would be a "very strong
tip." Indeed, if we felt quite sure that they would not get
disqualified for "lifting," we might even venture to pronounce them a
"moral cert."
A Galician woman thinks nothing of a moderate-sized haystack as her
ordinary walking head-dress; and any article she may carry, from an
umbrella to a harmonium, is invariably poised upon her head. No doubt
they considered us extremely foolish not to do the same with our
knapsacks, for the theory of equilibrium comes as natural to them as
their breath. Walking or sitting, standing or stooping, they never so
much as raise a hand to steady their baskets or their pails. And the
lifelong habit has certainly given them a most stately carriage. A
duchess who is ambitious of walking worthy of her vocation could hardly
do better than go into training with them.
The Spanish peasant girls may not be classically beautiful, but they are
well-built, strong and active; a healthy-looking, open-air race. The
chamber-maids of the hotel at Vigo seemed to spend the whole of their
existence carrying buckets of water upstairs on their heads to the
bedrooms. The hotel was five storeys high; and their labour was as the
"Well of Ronda."[14] Yet these cheerful Danaids were quite unconcerned
about their task. Even the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, it may be
remembered (upon identification), proved capable of heaving the crowbar
as well as the lustiest young fellow of the village, and her remarks to
the reapers could be heard at a distance of half a league.
Nature has dowered Vigo with the most magnificent natural harbour in
Europe; but Vigo is only a fishing port, "a place for the spreading of
nets." The economist who chances to wander thither will weep his eyes
out over neglected opportunities; but an artist may use his to better
purpose. Seldom can he feast them upon a more delightful spectacle than
that great landlocked mountain-girt firth, with its deep blue waters
bosomed amid the luxuriant vegetation of the hills. My sketch was taken
looking seaward from the extreme end of the inner harbour; where Admiral
Rooke sank the "Silver Fleet" in 1702, and where many generations of
treasure-seekers have since groped over the muddy bottom in their vain
endeavours to recover the "pieces of eight." Beyond the bottle-necked
entrance lies the outer harbour upon which the town is situated; and
further still, out of sight in the extreme distance, the natural
breakwater of the Islas de Cies repels the ocean from the bay.
[Illustration: VIGO BAY
The Inner Harbour, looking out towards the Sea.]
But in the town itself the most attractive feature is indubitably the
fishing quarter. The throng of picturesque fishing craft elbowing each
other in the crowded basin; the crazy old arcaded houses that ring the
harbour round; the sailors staggering up the inclines with their baskets
full of gleaming silver; the women sitting along the quay and deftly
decapitating sardines with their thumbs. The mess, the noise, the crowd,
the bustle, the glitter, form one of the most brilliant pictures that a
painter could possibly conceive. And as for the smell, we do declare
upon our veracity that it is distinctly perceptible at a distance of
five miles.
There are many such _Rias_ as Vigo along the coast to the northward; and
the road rising sharply over the intervening ridges, finds in each
successive valley a fresh garden of delight. The huge mountain groynes
push themselves far out into the ocean; and their precipitous headlands,
Vilano, Toriñana, and Finistierra, form the mighty spur stones of the
sea-borne traffic to the south. Between them lie the gleaming estuaries,
each a harbour fit for a navy, and the deep verdant valleys well watered
by the streams from the hills. Perhaps there is no plant in the world
which could not be induced to grow here with a little attention; for the
range from palms to heather is a wide one, but they flourish as if to
the country born. "It is the Paradise of Spain," exclaimed an
enthusiastic Astorgan. And one can well imagine how such a picture would
appeal to a native of the arid plateaus of Leon.
Yet Galicia has a plague of its own lest the angels should prefer it to
heaven; for the Lord of that land is Beelzebub, and its children are
fodder for his flies. On the dry, lofty plains of the interior these
pests are less virulent than one might expect in a tropical country; but
in Galicia even the ordinary house-fly thinks nothing of transfixing a
worsted stocking, and our shanks were soon spotted like currant
dumplings with the scars of their innumerable bites. The chief
tormentors, however, are the horse-flies--the "clegs" of the Highlands
of Scotland--a terror even to the thick-skinned mule and pony, and
cordially anathematised by the Galician muleteer. Their only redeeming
quality is a certain bull-dog tenacity, which is all in favour of the
avenger; though death is no adequate penalty for such horribly venomous
bites.
The village granaries in this district are a very insistent feature.
There is one in nearly every cottage garden--a little stone ark raised
on six lofty legs. In Asturias they are much larger, built of wood and
capped with a pyramidical roof. There no one could mistake them for
anything but what they are; but here their shape, and their size, and
the little stone crosses on their gables, are all so irresistibly
suggestive of a sarcophagus, that at first we could not imagine that
they had any other purpose to serve. The average Gallego's fancy seems
to turn on thoughts of funerals. His peculiar local type of bullock-cart
also was manifestly derived from a coffin on wheels.
At El Padron we turned inland past the local shrine of _Nuestra Señora
de la Esclavitud_. (_Penal_ servitude, I regret to say, for it was a
noted sanctuary for criminals.) The west front is a modest imitation of
that of Santiago Cathedral, and the niche under its great stairway
enshrines a beautifully cool fountain, which we could recommend more
confidently if it did not issue from the churchyard. At this point it
was that Borrow left the main track on his weird journey to Corcuvion;
but we pushed straight ahead for Santiago de Compostela; and once more
threaded its arcaded _Ruas_ in search of the Coruña road.
The coach that runs daily from Santiago to Coruña prides itself upon
possessing the most numerous team of any vehicle in Spain. We were
assured that sixteen mules were frequently requisitioned to drag it over
the snowy hills in winter-time; but from our own personal observation
(in August) we cannot vouch for more than ten. The passengers were just
stowing themselves into it as we passed them. They had a ten hours'
journey before them, and it promised to be a roasting day. Yet the
"insides" were packed like sardines in a basket; and some brave spirits
were even occupying the roof among the interstices of the baggage, where
they were all corded down together under a general tarpaulin! We
wondered what they would look like when they emerged from their
travelling oven at the other end!
The road is rather homelike in character, remote alike from coast-line
and mountain: and more than one stage of the journey might have been
borrowed from Hindhead or Rake Hill. Yet we gleaned passing hints of our
latitude from the picturesque figures of the husbandmen, with their mild
little cream-coloured oxen, their mattocks, and their primitive
ploughs.
[Illustration: NUESTRA SEÑORA DE LA ESCLAVITUD.]
These last are of Adamite construction, made entirely of wood and so
light that the long-suffering women can carry them upon their heads.
Such was the pattern known to Hesiod and to Virgil. Such an one was
Wamba using when the lords of the Visigoths came to summon their
Cincinnatus to the throne of Toledo, and the haft blossomed in his hand
in token that their tidings were true.
We have continued gradually rising for the greater part of our journey;
but the ground breaks away suddenly and sharply a few miles short of the
coast. The view from the crest is delightful. A wide expanse of green
undulating woodland maps itself out beneath us at the foot of the deep
descent; and beyond gleam the still blue waters of the ocean, and the
little saucepan-shaped city of Coruña standing out boldly in the centre
of its bay.
What a welcome sight it must have presented to Moore and his soldiers as
they struggled over the Puerto Bello, a few miles along the ridge to the
east! Barefoot, ragged, and hungry, and drenched by the pelting tempest,
like Xenophon's harassed ten thousand, at last they were in sight of
the sea. The long night march from Lugo had been the most trying and
disastrous of any. Yet there was no slackness when they turned to bay;
and near Betánzos even the stragglers proved that they retained
sufficient cohesion to repulse a cavalry charge.
Dropping in long steep sweeps from the heathery heights to the woodland,
the road gradually settles itself down beside the banks of the Mero
river; and just as the streamlet widens into an estuary we dip across
the mouth of a little lateral valley, where the village of Palávia
nestles between two parallel hills. The bones of three thousand men lie
buried along that little valley, and the trim villas and gay gardens of
the Coruña suburbanites cover the ground where French and English fought
out their desperate struggle a hundred years ago. The focus of the
fighting, however, was not at Palávia, but higher up the valley towards
our left, where the ground was more favourable to the assailants, and
where the defenders had no river to protect their flank. Here Soult made
his grand attack under the fire of his great battery; here Moore fell
mortally wounded on the slopes above Elviña at the very moment when he
felt assurance of success.
Moore's grave is in the citadel of Coruña. An unpretentious monument,
but now well kept, and the centre of a charming little walled garden.
Like many another faithful servant of his country, he had been set to do
impossibilities, and was vilified by the impatient stay-at-homes,
because they could not grasp the measure of his success. They had sent
out a gallant army; and it was restored to them hungry and naked, broken
by cruel marches, and reeking from a stricken field. They had never
before realised what war was, and they blamed their general for
revealing it. Indeed, as even Condé admitted, the details are ugly in
Spain.
Moore's famous victory was not the only one achieved by British arms in
this neighbourhood. Over two centuries before, in the year after the
Spanish Armada, Drake and Norreys landed an expeditionary force to
chastise the port from which it had sailed. They captured and plundered
the town, and upon the very margin of Moore's battle-field they stormed
the bridge of El Burgo and defeated the Spanish militia who had
assembled for its relief. Of these they slew "a thousand," while they
lost but three of their own men. From which it may be inferred that
Drake and Norreys had been reading the exploits of Santiago, and
thought that a little local colour in their dispatches would serve as a
guarantee of good faith.
We had intended to make but one stage of it from Coruña, and encompass
the bay to Ferrol. But our plans were all blown to the winds when we
spied the little town of Betánzos clustered together upon its conical
hill in a loop of the Mendo river,--far too attractive a spectacle to be
skipped with a casual call. It won our hearts at first sight, as we
stooped to the vale from the uplands: and our affections were confirmed
the moment we entered the gates. A delightful little township, with none
of its lines parallel and none of its angles right angles; and a whole
population of models grouping themselves in its ramshackle arcades.[15]
[Illustration: BETÁNZOS
A Colonnaded Calle.]
We had been commended to Betánzos by Valentina, the waitress at
Santiago. Betánzos was Valentina's _pueblo_, and "a very gay place" (so
said Valentina). Betánzos played up to its reputation by an improvised
ball in the evening; and few set ballets in a theatre could provide
so pretty a sight. The _Plaza_ is paved with cobbles, which are
disadvantageous for dancing. But the fountain which stands in the centre
acts as hub to a multitude of smooth flagged pathways; and up and down
these, in to the centre and out again, the couples swung unwearyingly in
a great vibrating star. The electric lamps (oh yes! they have electric
lamps in Betánzos) only partially illuminated the area; and the patches
of light and shadow gave an additional variety to the effect.
The Galician peasant woman's costume is one of the prettiest in the
Peninsula. As usual, it is very simple; a skirt and bodice, a kerchief
tied over the head, and another crosswise over the shoulders. But the
charm is in the colouring, and the Galician women wear the brightest of
colours: brave reds and yellows for the kerchiefs, with something rather
quieter for the skirt. They almost all go barefoot; a spendthrift use of
commodities, but doubtless extremely convenient so long as the wear does
not tell. The foot will grow coarsened in time; but the girls have not
any misgivings,--and the beggar maid probably profited when she came
before King Cophetua. It is rather humiliating to compare the
square-toed natural foot with the narrow, artificially pointed article
which has been evolved for us by our boot-makers. Verily we have small
cause to laugh at the fashions of the Chinese!
The men wear loose "white" shirts with dark-coloured breeches and
stockings, and a _cummerbund_ wrapped round the loins. Sometimes there
happens to be a waistcoat, or a cloak slung over the shoulder; and the
costume is usually completed by a battered broad-brimmed hat.
"Capital stuff, this," cried Ferdinand the Catholic, with reference to
the royal jerkin, "it has worn out three pairs of sleeves!" And his
highness's predilection for patching still appeals to the lieges of
to-day. So piously do they practise his precept that it is often
difficult to determine whether any part of their garments was original;
and they all appear (justly enough) to have clung to a working
hypothesis that the matching of colours is hazardous, but there is
always safety in contrast. The picturesqueness of the result, however,
is as obvious as its economy. Perhaps some day an English Ferdinand will
revive the example for us.
[Illustration: THE MASMA VALLEY
Near Mondoñedo.]
The beautiful bay of Coruña lay still within the curve of our advancing
roadway, and every re-entering angle was filled with a gleaming creek.
To our right rose rugged hills, plentifully besprinkled with
farmsteads; and more than one rustic township punctuated the stages of
the way. The last and most important of the inlets was the great
bottle-necked lagoon of Ferrol; and the famous arsenal itself lay half
concealed at the mouth of it, close under the guardian headlands that
form the gateway to the bay.
Ferrol surrendered to Soult without a blow after Coruña, and the
pusillanimity of its governor probably robbed it of a creditable
success. With half the spirit of Gerona or Zaragoza it would have proved
impregnable, in the light of subsequent events. The Galicians were taken
unaware when Moore drew the war into their mountains, and were stunned
before they were aroused. The season, too, was winter, when a
_guerrilla_ was almost impracticable. They showed a better spirit when
their torpor was thawed in the spring.
From Ferrol the road heaved us aloft to the crest of the great moorland
plateau where the Miño hoards its fountains, and from which we looked
out westward and northward over an almost limitless length of
coast-line, with the dark upland ridges running out between the creeks
like the ribs of a fan. How high we had risen we scarcely realised till
we came to descend again, and saw the long, deep, highland glen
dropping visibly before us mile beyond mile. Yet when we reached the
corner, the little cathedral town of Mondoñedo still lay far below us;
for what show as mountains over the Masma valley are really only the
edges of the moor. We eventually came down to the sea at the estuary of
Foz a little before sunset; and just as the dusk was turning to darkness
we ran into the narrow streets of Rivadeo, and the arms of the motherly
old hostesses who rule the "Castilian Hotel."