BENAVENTE, ZAMORA, AND TORO
The Esla valley runs down broad and level from Leon towards the south; a
monotonous umber-coloured valley, very different from the wild glens
whence its waters are derived. The road is straight and featureless,
though its newly-planted acacia avenues give some promise of ultimate
redemption; and the mud-built wayside villages have a forlorn and
collapsible air.
Occasionally one lights upon a regular troglodyte settlement, a group of
bee-hive cellars excavated in the hillside, with the chimneys struggling
out among the sparse herbage which covers them. These caves have no
windows, and are lit only through the open doors, yet they continued to
be the homes of the peasantry till within comparatively recent days.
Indeed, in some few instances they are still inhabited; but generally
they are utilised only as storehouses and stables, while the population
has migrated bodily into the more modern cottages which have sprung up
to form the village at their side.
The Esla itself is the most interesting item in the scenery. It flows
parallel with the road some two or three miles to the left, close under
the crumbling yellow cliffs which overlook the vale. Its course is
marked by trees and greenery, chiefly the inevitable poplar; and its
thin line of verdure, shot with flashes of sparkling water, is a welcome
relief to the dun and dusty plain. The riverside hamlets plastered upon
the face of the cliffs are so weather-nibbled and irregular, and so
exactly the colour of the grounding, that they might be taken for some
weird growth of parasitic fungus; and the whole scene has a most
convincingly Nilotic air.
A short distance from Benavente occurred one of the few mishaps which it
was our lot to occasion. An old countryman was jogging sleepily along
the road before us with a mule and a donkey, when the animals suddenly
took fright at our approach. A Spaniard is commonly a good
horseman--when he is riding a horse. But he does not think it worth
while to ride a donkey, so he merely sits on it,--sans reins, sans
stirrups, with both his legs on one side, and no more control over his
mount than a sack of turnips. For a few strides our victim bounded
wildly between his panniers like an animated shuttlecock; and then
toppled over in ruin, while his beasts stampeded across the fields. We
recaptured his fugitives for him, and purchased his broken eggs; but I
fear that it somewhat soured our sympathy when we found him doing
nothing but wring his hands and bewail his losses meanwhile. We could
not help feeling that the "language" of an English teamster would have
furnished a much more satisfactory solution of his woes.
Benavente stands upon a tongue of high ground between the Esla and
Orbigo valleys. The extreme tip is occupied by the old castle of the
Counts of Benavente, one of whom is immortalized by Velasquez in the
Prado gallery, clad in suit of armour which seems capable of reflecting
your face. But his once splendid palace is now a ruin,--plundered and
burnt by the stragglers of Sir John Moore's army; and the poor old town
itself, though it contains some interesting churches, has grown wofully
battered and threadbare since its _seigneurs_ were driven from their
home.
[Illustration: BENAVENTE
From above the Bridge of Castro Gonzalo.]
Yet Benavente is not without honour among us Englishmen. Its name
figures upon a clasp of the Peninsular medal, and upon the colours of
the 10th Hussars. Here the leading squadrons of Napoleon just got
into touch with the rearguard of the retreating Moore;--and received a
smart buffet for their forwardness, which was not at all to the
Emperor's taste. The cavalry of the Imperial Guard had unexpectedly
forded the river; and were wellnigh overwhelming the pickets, when Paget
and his horsemen swooped upon them from behind the houses, rolled them
up with the loss of half their number, and captured their general,
Lefebre Desnouettes. Had Napoleon been an hour or two earlier he might
himself have been an eye-witness of their discomfiture from the high
ground above the Esla, the point from which my sketch was made. And it
is a pity he missed the opportunity; for it was not till Waterloo that
he would again see British cavalry in action, and it was the same Paget
who was to lead them on that momentous day.
The _mêlée_ took place on the broad poplared plain which lies between
the town and the river, and the old bridge of Castro Gonzalo spans the
torrent a little below the Frenchmen's ford. It is a long, uneven stone
structure, with three timbered spans to remind us of the work of Moore's
sappers; and the steep bank which rises above it is famed for a humbler
scuffle, but one which was no less creditable to the parties chiefly
concerned. Three days before the cavalry skirmish, when the French were
known to be approaching, Privates Walton and Jackson of the 43rd were
posted here at nightfall with orders that, if attacked, one should hold
his ground and the other run back to call the picket. The night was dark
and squally, and the flood of foemen poured over them before they were
aware. Jackson ran back: but the horsemen were close behind him, and he
was cut down even as he gave the alarm. But when the picket stormed up
and the assailants were swept back into the darkness, they had not yet
finished with Walton,--that sentry was still at his post. His uniform
was pierced in twenty places and his bayonet was twisted like a
corkscrew; but like the "brave Lord Willoughby"[17] he was scrupulously
holding his ground!
A finger-post and a kilometre stone stood side by side on the branch
road at the summit. The former said "To Zamora," and the latter "38
kilos"; whereat we rejoiced and set our pace more leisurely, for the
daylight would last us for nearly another three hours. Yet presently as
the tale of _kilos_ petered out we began to experience misgivings. The
bare wide plateau of the _Tierra de Campos_ still rolled away before us
fold beyond fold; the sun was already close upon the horizon; and where
was the Duero valley wherein Zamora lies?
Three _kilos_ more,--and still no sign of our haven.--Two
_kilos_,--one,--and our hopes were dashed to the ground. Our road shot
us out into one of the most desolate stretches of the great highway from
Madrid to Vigo; and a venerable shepherd who suddenly materialised out
of the empty landscape blandly informed us that Zamora was just "four
leagues." Our mistake was obvious enough. The 38 _kilos_, had of course
been reckoned from the junction with the highway. But a couple of wary
continental travellers should have been on their guard against so stale
a trap.
At the first blush it seemed as though we were destined to fare every
bit as badly as we merited. The last glow was dying out of the sky
behind us, and a grumbling thunderstorm was nursing its wrath for us
ahead. But our good luck came to our rescue, and found us a city of
refuge:--the little hamlet of Montamarta, which was ambushed in a dip of
the road.
By this time we had learned not to be too dainty about our quarters; yet
the _Parador_ at Montamarta was so very unassuming that at first we gave
it the go-by; and the landlord was an unshaven ruffian who seemed fully
capable of the blackest crimes. But the dingy little den to which he
ushered us was full of familiar faces:--Velasquez' jolly "Topers"
beaming over their wine-cups, the matchless "Booby of Cória," and wild
ragged goatherds and vine dressers, with whom Salvator Rosa might have
joined in "painting _jabeques_."[18] Rough as they looked, they were all
in the mildest of humours. It was a sight to see our murderous-looking
landlord truculently dandling his infant; while the mother crouched upon
the great hearth in the centre, supervising a multitude of pipkins which
were simmering in the glowing embers of the fire. "It is good, isn't
it?" she asked eagerly, as we essayed her stew: and she watched every
mouthful down our throats with affectionate solicitude to be sure that
we did justice to our meal. The kitchen was both dining and
sitting-room, and our garret was shared with the children, but our hosts
were determined to make us comfortable, and we forgot their
deficiencies in their zeal. There is no gilded luxury in a _Parador_,
but at least we felt sure we were welcome. One barely obtains toleration
in a _Metropole_ or a _Grand_.
With dawn we were again on our journey, dodging our way past the
cavalcade of country-folk who were pouring along to market from the
various villages around. It was an easy stage. We had nearly made port
yester even. Within a few miles we were at Zamora gates.
In our Protestant ignorance of times and seasons we were unaware that
the day was the festival of Corpus Christi; consequently the apparition
of a fifteen-foot pasteboard giant lurching deviously down the main
thoroughfare occasioned us a little mild bewilderment. This wandering
ogre, however, was fully entitled to liberty. All respectable Spanish
cities retain a team of giants as part of their ordinary municipal
outfit, and Corpus Christi day is the great occasion for parading them.
The tourist should always arrange to spend that festival in some good
old-established city where the choicest breeds are preserved.
Zamora itself is quite old enough for the purpose. Its fine old
Romanesque cathedral was built by no less a person than the Bishop Don
Hieronymo, "that good one with the shaven crown," who so ably
represented the Church militant among the companions of the Cid. But
long before his day the old frontier fortress had made itself a name by
many a desperate resistance to the Moor, and the boast that "Zamora was
not won in an hour," still clings to the old dismantled ramparts which
were once its justification.[19]
Moreover, the story of the greatest leaguer of all, is it not written in
the book of the Chronicle of the Cid, and as famous in Spanish annals as
the siege of Troy? For it came to pass that in the eleventh century King
Fernando the Great,[20] on his deathbed, divided his kingdoms among his
children; and the immediate and obvious consequence was a five-cornered
family duel which set all the said kingdoms by the ears. Sancho of
Castile had quickly dispossessed his brothers Garcia and Alfonso of
Galicia and Leon; and his sister Elvira had yielded to him her town of
Toro. Only Urraca his elder sister still held her patrimony; and
Zamora was too important a pledge to be left in any hands but his own.
[Illustration: ZAMORA
From the banks of the Duero.]
"So King Sancho drew near and beheld Zamora how strongly it was built,
upon a cliff, with many massy towers and the river Duero running at the
foot thereof." It was no light task to reduce it, and he proffered
Valladolid in exchange. But my lady was in no mood to barter her
beautiful stronghold for commonplace Valladolid, and doubtless regarded
the offer from the same standpoint as her practical councillors,--"He
who assails you on the rock would soon drive you from the plain."
The Castilian army lacked the aid of its champion: for Ruy Diaz had been
bred up with the princess at Zamora in Don Arias Gonzalo's household,
and would not fight against her in person "for the sake of old times."
Yet King Sancho was very competent to manage his own battles; and though
his assaults were abortive, he soon began to feel more sanguine of
blockade. Zamora was reduced to the last extremity when Vellido Dolphos,
a knight of the princess's, put into practice against King Sancho the
old ruse of Gobryas and Sextus Tarquinius. He feigned desertion, won the
confidence of the king, and assassinated him under the walls in the
course of a pretended reconnaissance, escaping again to the city when
the deed was done. Less fortunate than his prototypes who gained credit
for their services, Vellido Dolphos has ever since been held up to
execration as the very type and pattern of a traitor; and Don Diego
Ordoñez gave voice to the wrath of the Castilians by issuing a formal
challenge to the whole city of Zamora,--man, woman, and child, the babe
unborn, and the fishes in the river:--which even Don Quixote considered
was going a trifle too far. Yet the city was saved; for the heir to the
throne was Alfonso, and his return from exile put an end to the civil
war.
It is a shame to tell the story in prose. Yet we cannot refrain from
recalling how Don Arias Gonzalo, the princess' foster-father, pointed
out to Don Diego Ordoñez what a very serious thing he had done in
challenging a whole cathedral city. How (no doubt with a grim chuckle)
he produced the Rules for such case made and provided, whereby it
appeared that the challenger must meet five champions in succession, and
be declared disgraced if he failed against any one;--which was
considerably more than Don Diego had bargained for! Nevertheless he put
a bold face on the matter and gallantly met and slew his two first
antagonists. But the third contest was indecisive; so honour was
declared satisfied, and all imputations withdrawn. The old chivalrous
legend makes a capital sauce for our musings as we pace the still
formidable ramparts from which Doña Urraca once looked down upon her
foes; or gaze up from the fortified bridge at the rock-built city above
us, towering over the waters of the Duero like the very embodiment of
romance.
But meanwhile it is still Corpus Christi day; and the giants are
becoming impatient. We found them all four at the bridge-head, attended
by a large retinue of loiterers, and waiting outside a church door, like
camels at the eye of a needle. The show had not really begun. But as we
approached to investigate, there suddenly gushed upon us out of the
church itself as strange a medley as that which encountered Don Quixote
on a similar anniversary in the chariot of the Cortes of Death. First,
four minor giants--great goggling pumpkin-headed Prince Bulbos--and the
drum and fife band of Falstaff's ragged regiment. Then the processional
cross and candlesticks, and Our Lady gorgeous in a white silk frock,
borne shoulder-high on a litter, with her canopy bucketting along behind
her about half a length to the bad. More saints, also on litters--the
boys struggling and fighting for the honour of acting as bearers, and
getting cuffed into a shortlived sobriety by their indignant elders. And
finally the Host itself in its silver ark surrounded by chanting priests
with banners and tapers. The giants closed in behind it as it issued
from the door and beamed serenely down the long procession from their
commanding elevation in the rear.
Whether the spectacle were a sacrament or a circus, seemed at first an
open question; but it was soon resolved. At once every head was
uncovered and every knee was bowed, and "_His Majesty's_"[21] progress
through the kneeling throng seemed all the more impressive for its
incongruous trappings.
Beyond the bridge the procession received its final embellishment in the
accession of a mounted guard of honour; and throughout the rest of the
day it continued to parade the streets and call at the various churches,
while the populace thronged the balconies, crossing themselves, and
cheering, and showering their paper flowers impartially upon saints and
giants and the bald heads of the accompanying priests--an attention
which did not appear at all gratifying to the cavalry horses of the
escort.
[Illustration: ZAMORA
Church of Sta. Maria de la Horta.]
The last we saw of them was in the market square at evening. The giants
were standing at the corners; and in the centre sat Margaret of Antioch,
Virgin and Martyr, on a grand practicable dragon which could wag its own
head and tail. She was understood to be an "Extra," the exclusive
property of Zamora, and not to be met with in less favoured localities.
But precisely what she was doing in this galley we could not ascertain.
As for the giants, they are allegorical, and typify the four quarters of
the globe;--concerning which explanation one can only say that it is
little better than none.
The very Highest of High Masses was celebrated in the cathedral in
honour of the occasion. The priests were in their most gorgeous
vestments; the altar almost buried under a pyramid of silver plate; and
the walls of the cloisters draped with magnificent pieces of old Spanish
tapestry--Corah, Dathan and Abiram going down into the pit on horseback
like true _caballeros_, and Pharaoh pursuing the Israelites in a coach
and four. The service as usual was rather of a go-as-you-please
character; for the _Coro_ and _Capilla Mayor_[22] being completely
enclosed, it is only possible to watch the proceedings from the
transepts at the intersection. The congregation generally seem to treat
the affair like a "Caucus Race." They look on when they like, and leave
off when they like, and spend the intervals strolling round the aisles.
You are of course requested not to spit, or wear wooden shoes (which
seem equally obnoxious to Roman Catholics and Orangemen[23]). But
otherwise there are no restrictions: and there are certainly great
attractions in the side shows; for the chapels are a museum of medieval
art.
The silver ark in which the Host made its progress was on show in one of
the aisles. All Spanish cathedral bodies are inordinately proud of this
piece of furniture (which is generally modern and tawdry); and there is
no nearer way to the sacristan's heart than to tell him that his
specimen is a finer one than that which you saw last at some rival
town--Salamanca, for instance. There is a warm neighbourly hatred
between Zamora and Salamanca; and once when I incautiously admitted
that the Salamanca people had told me there was nothing to see here, I
thought I should have produced an _émeute_.
Wherefore I would exhort future travellers not to be misled by those
Salamanca people. For Zamora is not merely ancient; it is even (in some
ways) up to date. It is somewhat of a shock to an antiquarian to
discover that the town is fully equipped with electric light; still more
so to realise that the power station is established in the old church of
Sta Maria de la Horta, with the dynamos purring among the arcades, and
the chimney tucked in behind the tower. But one soon gets reconciled to
these little incongruities. In Spain they are really so common that one
learns to expect them from the first.
The town of Toro stands some twenty miles further up the river than
Zamora, and makes a capital partner for its neighbour. Indeed, at first
sight it seems even more imposingly situated, for it rises on a much
loftier hill. But its cliffs are only of soft alluvial deposit instead
of solid rock; and its walls built only of mud, which has now nearly
crumbled away. In other respects they are not ill-matched, for the
streets of Toro are fully as picturesque as those of Zamora, and its
great collegiate church not unworthy of comparison with the cathedral.
The streets, as in most Spanish towns, are empty and deserted during the
heat of the afternoon; the houses closely shuttered, and the people
within doors. But as soon as the shadows have lengthened across the
roadway, they turn out unanimously on to the pavement, where they sit
spinning, sewing, and gossiping, in a sort of semi-publicity. In
unsophisticated districts the women (like mermaids) are much addicted to
combing each other's hair. The operator sits on a low chair or doorstep,
while her subject settles herself upon the ground at her feet, with her
head thrown back upon the other's lap, and her thick black mane flooding
out over her knees. A very pretty and poetical little group they
make--_if you do not pry too curiously into the details_. The younger
women have frequently magnificent hair; for they are quite innocent of
"transformations," yet their brows are most copiously crowned. One girl
at Salamanca wore a thick black pigtail that was positively tapping her
heels; and the beauty of Astorga (who was also of pigtail age) was not
many inches inferior.
[Illustration: A SPANISH PATIO]
The majority of the houses in the town are probably not more than a
couple of centuries old; but amongst them are a few genuine _Solares_,
once the homes of _hidalgos_ and grandees. It was to one of these that
the "_Conde Duque_" of Olivares, the celebrated minister of Philip IV.,
retired upon his disgrace and banishment from court; philosophically
busying himself with the cultivation of cabbages,--those gawky
long-stalked abortions, uncannily suggestive of Encrinites, which still
fill all the gardens round the town. Here he was visited by Gil Blas,
his quondam secretary, who flattered him with smug allusions to
Diocletian. Here also he used occasionally to entertain a more worthy
guest,--the painter Velasquez, who was too high-minded to desert his old
patron merely because he was under the displeasure of the king.
Politically Olivares was as worthless and corrupt as any of his rivals,
yet he evidently had an attractive personality. Quevedo, imprisoned four
years in the Leonese dungeon for lampooning him, would probably remember
him in a less amiable light!
The lofty situation of the city gives it an immensely extensive outlook;
for the left bank of the Duero is flat and low-lying, and but for the
interposition of the high heathy ground about Fuentesauco, one would
almost certainly be able to descry the spires of Salamanca itself.
Doubtless Marshal Marmont used frequently to pace the terrace of the
collegiate church when his headquarters were established here in the
summer of 1812; gazing out over his future battleground and planning
those intricate manoeuvres which were to close in disaster and
disgrace.
The scene of that final catastrophe is too far distant to be visible.
But a scarcely less notable conflict actually takes its name from the
town. This was the famous battle of Toro, which put an end to the civil
war at the opening of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and seated
the Catholic kings firmly upon their throne. The rebellious nobles had
fortified themselves by an alliance with Alfonso of Portugal, and both
Toro and Zamora were in their hands. Alfonso's headquarters were at
Toro, but Zamora was besieged by Ferdinand, and Alfonso marched to its
relief. Seeing that both towns stand on the northern bank of the river,
it is difficult to understand what the Portuguese king could hope to
effect by advancing on the south. Perhaps he fancied that Zamora still
commanded the bridge and that he would thus be able to enter
unopposed. But Ferdinand's grip was too close; the bridge was in his
hands, and Alfonso had no choice but to return.
[Illustration: TORO
From the banks of the Duero.]
Ferdinand hurried his forces across the river in pursuit. His own army,
as usual in medieval days, could not be maintained at fighting strength
for many weeks together, and he was now nowise loth "to put it to the
touch to gain or lose it all." He came up with his foe a little distance
short of Toro. Mendoza was leading; and headed the charge against the
troops of his brother prelate the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, with a
breezy vehemence worthy of old Picton at Vitória, "Come on, you
villains! I'm as good a Cardinal as he!" The weary, overmarched
Portuguese were unable to sustain the onset; and their only retreat to
Toro lay over the narrow patchwork bridge. Alfonso himself escaped, but
there was no further fighting. The Catholic kings commemorated their
victory by the erection of the great church of San Juan de los Reyes at
Toledo, and the revolted nobles hastened to "come in" upon the best
available terms.