realization of the old pilgrim route is vivid. Before reaching Astorga
comes the paladin's bridge,[15] of Órbigo, where in the reign of
Isabella's father ten _caballeros andantes_ challenged every passing
pilgrim to a bout of arms; if a lady came without a cavalier to fight
for her, she forfeited her glove, if any knight declined to fight he
lost his sword and spur. The age of knight errantry which Cervantes has
haloed with a deathless charm, breathes in this historic Pass of Honour.
The leader, Suero de Quiñones, came of the great Guzmán family, to which
St. Dominic belonged, and of which the Empress Eugénie was a scion. To
show his captivity to his lady, every Thursday he wore an iron chain
round his neck, but when victor in this tourney, it was removed with
solemnity by the heralds. Suero's sword is to be seen to-day in the
Madrid Armory where in an hour more of Spain's real history is learned
than in years of reading.
The Roman walls of Astorga, seen from the railway present an imposing
appearance: here, as at León and Lugo, the frequent half-circular towers
do not rise above the crest of the walls. Astorga must have looked just
like this when the pilgrims rode by to the shrine of St. James. A closer
inspection spoils the illusion however, for the proud city that once
ranked as a grandee of Spain is to-day a very tattered and worn hidalgo,
and there is a sad air of desolation about its plaza and crumbling
walls. Whether or not it was because our ramble was by early morning
before the inhabitants were astir, at any rate I brought away a picture
of a depopulated town. There were but a few silent worshipers under the
clustered piers of the late-Gothic Cathedral, whose reddish tower is
the important feature of the distant view. What had tempted us to pause
a night in Astorga was the wood-carved _retablo_ by Becerra in the
Cathedral, but we found it by no means equal to the work of the carvers
in Valladolid. Becerra had studied under Vasari in Rome, and the
influence is shown too plainly. There is a curious weather cock on the
church, a wooden statue called Pedro Mata, dressed in the costume of a
singular tribe that lives in some thirty villages near by. The origin of
the Maragatos is involved in mystery; some say they are the descendants
of Moors taken in battle, some of Goths who sided with the Moors. During
all these centuries they have kept separate from the people about them,
like gypsies they marry only with themselves. They should not be
confounded with _gitanos_, however, for the Maragatos are honest and
industrious; they are the carriers of the countryside, with the
privilege of taking precedence on the road. Here and there in Spain one
stumbles on a strange, isolated relic of the past such as this. Astorga
was still sleeping, in the literal as well as figurative sense, when we
left; a walk on top of the walls looking out over the León plain, a
regret that we could not sketch the artistic church of San Julián, with
its faded green door and crumbling portal, and we turned south. On the
train I discovered that a five franc piece given me in change by the
innkeeper, was nothing but a bit of silver-washed brass advertising the
cakes of one Casimiro in Salamanca, and I, seeing the king's effigy, had
thought it a genuine Spanish dollar,--it is easy to be caught napping in
León.
Zamora is not many miles from Astorga and like the other sleepy towns of
the province, it too seems to feel it has a right to a long pause in
obscurity after its heroic centuries of Moorish warfare. The great hour
of the city was the time of the Cid; the "Romancero" should be in one's
pocket here. One of its stirring incidents is the death of King
Ferdinand I, in 1065, and its sequel of battles and sieges. The king
lies on his deathbed, holding a candle, great prelates at his head and
his four sons on his right hand. With the fatal propensity of Spanish
rulers to bequeath discord, he divides his kingdom among his sons; to
Don Sancho, Castile; León to Alfonso; the Basque provinces to García;
the fourth son already was of enough importance, "_Arzobispo de Toledo,
Maestre de Santiago, Abad en Zaragoza, de las Españas, Primado_." The
king's daughter Urraca, she who had given the Cid's wife, Jimena, her
jeweled hair-net, now complains bitterly that she is left out of the
inheritance, so her dying father gives her the fortress-city of Zamora,
"_muy preciada, fuerte es á maravilla_," and "who takes it from you let
my curse fall on him." In spite of which threat her wicked brother
Sancho, besieges the city,--a Spanish proverb for patience runs: "_No se
ganó Zamora en una hora._" With Sancho comes his chief warrior Roderick
Díaz de Bivar, given the title of Cid Campeador, Lord Champion, by the
Moorish envoys who here met him. The Cid had wellnigh fought an entrance
into the city when the intrepid Urraca ascends a tower--to-day called
the Afuera Tower--and delivers her famous scolding.
"¡Afuera! Afuera! Rodrigo,
El sóberbio Castellano!"
"Out! Out! Rodrigo, proud Castilian! Remember the past! When you were
knighted before the altar of Santiago, and my father, your sponsor, gave
you your armor, my mother gave you your steed, and I laced on your
spurs! For I thought to be your bride, but you, proud Castilian, set
aside a king's daughter to wed that of a mere Count!" And the ballad
tells how the Cid, hearing her upbraiding with emotion, retired with his
men.
The only present attraction of the decayed town is its Cathedral, set
high above the Duero on the edge of the bluff along which Zamora
stretches. It was built by the Cid's confessor, Bishop Gerónimo, the
dome above the transept crossing being an original feature which the
bishop was to elaborate later in the old Cathedral of Salamanca; as
Trinity Church, Boston, is copied from this last, Zamora has a special
interest for the visitor from New England. We had a four hours' pause
there, ample time to see the city. It was raining so dismally that my
fellow traveler decided not to face a certain drenching, as the
long-drawn-out town had to be traversed before reaching the Cathedral.
In an unfortunate moment I started out alone for what I supposed would
be a leisurely exploring of a venerable city. Fleeing in distress would
better describe the reality, for every hooting boy and girl in Zamora
followed at my heels. Whether it was a white ulster or an automobile
veil tied over my hat as the wind was high, or just the unaccustomed
figure of a stranger in those narrow streets, an excited crowd pursued
me the whole length of the town. In front, walking backward,
open-mouthed, went a dozen urchins, and behind came a long brigade I
hardly dared look back on, it so increased with every step. Men hastened
to their shop doors to wonder at the crowd, and the passers-by stood
still in astonishment; a feeling of horror came over me at such
publicity. In vain I fled into churches in the hope of escaping the
relentless little pests; when I emerged they greeted me with howls of
pleasure. I angrily shook my umbrella at them, but that only added to
the glorious excitement. Here and there a kind woman came to the
bothered stranger's help, and scattered the crowd. The children merely
scampered down side streets to meet me again in still greater numbers at
the next corner. It is easy to laugh now that it is over, but at the
time there is small amusement in fleeing through a foreign city pursued
by forty hooting youngsters, to have them press round you in a stifling
circle when you pause to look in your book, to have them gaze long and
seriously at you, then burst into uncontrollable laughter so that in
desperation you begin to feel if you have two noses or six eyes. We had
decided that in most of the unfrequented towns of Spain, the children
were a nuisance; in Zamora they were positive vampires. A visitor in the
future had best wear black, a black veil on the head, a black
prayer-book in the hand, as if on the way to church, then resembling
other people, the children may let her pass. But a white ulster and a
red guide book are magic pipes of Hamelin to lure every idle child in
Zamora. In spite of wind and rain, and a lengthy disappearance within
the Cathedral, it was only on reëntering the station, several hours
after they had first seized on their prey, that the unsolicited escort
left me, and even then they hung round the door till the shriek of the
engine told them the escaped lunatic who had given them so splendid an
afternoon's entertainment was out of reach.
GALICIA
"Blessed the natures shored on every side
With landmarks of hereditary thought!
Thrice happy they that wander not lifelong
Beyond near succour of the household faith,
The guarded fold that shelters, not confines!
Their steps find patience in familiar paths
Printed with hope by loved feet gone before
Of parent, child or lover, glorified
By simple magic of dividing Time."
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago,--perhaps this claims too much for the Spanish
pilgrimage shrine? It would not in the Middle Ages, when the Christians
of all Europe flocked there to pray beside the tomb of St. James the
Elder, the patron of Spain invoked in the battle cry of her chivalry for
a thousand years, "_¡Santiago y cierra España!_"--"St. James and close
Spain!" A Latin certificate used to be given to every pilgrim, and it
was kept among family records, for there were properties that could only
be inherited if one had gone to Santiago Compostella. To-day Spaniards
are the only devotees, though as I write I see that a band of English
pilgrims with the Archbishop of Westminster at its head is visiting the
far-off corner of Galicia. Though few travelers turn out of their way
there, it is one of the most characteristic spots to be seen in Spain, a
solemn old granite city, with arcaded streets and vast half-empty
caravansaries darkened with humidity and age.
It takes over fifteen hours to go from León to Santiago, but the journey
is a beautiful one, with mountains and fertile valleys, and rivers such
as the Sill and that gem of the province, the Miño. At Monforte the
railway branches, one line goes to Túy and Santiago, and the other turns
up to Lugo and Coruña. We took this last, tempted by accounts of Lugo.
It is indeed a unique little city, walled around without a break by
Roman battlements forty feet high, on the top of which is the
fashionable promenade of the town. With its walls and the view from
them, it closely resembles Lucca. Lugo was a surprise in various ways.
It had a hotel, the "Fernán Núñez," so up-to-date that it boasted a
tiled bathroom with hot water and a shower bath. Not only the
comfortable inn but the streets of the town were a model of propriety.
As always, our steps turned first to the Cathedral, spoiled outside, as
is unfortunately the way in Spain, by those two disastrous centuries,
the seventeenth and eighteenth, but within being of the lovely
transition period, Romanesque as it merged into Gothic, with the arches
just slightly pointed. The irrepressible Churriguera has worked himself
into the inside of the church too; his canopy over the High Altar is
abominable, though it would take more than that to detract from the
simple solemnity of such a church. Lugo is one of the holiest spots in
the Peninsula, like San Isidoro in León, it claims the privilege of
perpetual exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, only more privileged than
León, exposed night as well as day. So proud is the province of this
ancient custom that the Host is represented on the shield of Galicia.
No matter at what hour you enter the Cathedral, there are worshipers;
two priests always kneel before the tabernacle, and they never kneel
alone. The scenes of humble piety drew me back to the church again and
again with compelling attraction. To me a Spaniard praying unconsciously
before the altar is unequaled by any act of worship I have witnessed;
not even the touching Russian pilgrims in Jerusalem kissing the pavement
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, nor the Arab at sunset kneeling
alone in the desert, can impress more powerfully. It seemed as if this
tranquil shrine of Lugo spread an influence of uplifting thought through
the whole contented little town; in the quiet afternoon a withered
grandmother knelt with her hands on the head of a little tot of six who
repeated the prayers that fell from the old lips, or three young women
of the upper class sought a retired corner of the church to repeat
together their daily chaplet; now in a side chapel, a peasant thinking
herself unobserved, in a glow of devotion, encircled the altar on her
knees.
On leaving the west door of the Cathedral, we ascended the inclined path
that leads to the promenade on top of the walls. It was sunset, an
exquisite hour to look out on the well-wooded countryside, through which
meandered the trout-filled Miño. In the distance were mountains. No
wonder the Romans, who ferreted out most of the choice spots of Europe,
used to come to this city for the thermal baths. The handsome modern
Lugonians strolled around the ramparts, pausing to chat here and there
in the semicircles made by the numerous towers of the wall. Now a
white-haired matron draped in the national mantilla, loitered leisurely
by, with some of the higher ecclesiastics of the Cathedral; now a mother
and two grave, pretty daughters passed, watched discreetly by the young
beaux. Evidently far-off little Lugo, tucked away in the unknown
northwestern corner of Spain, had a social life that sufficed for
itself, with no envy of Madrid and San Sebastián. The local contentment
found everywhere in the country struck me as admirable. Will "progress"
unsettle it? We could have stayed a month in Lugo. To fish in the Miño,
to ramble over the fertile country, to feel about one peaceful,
contented human beings, would make a summer there a happy experience.
When we went on to Coruña, a commercial town that, like seaports the
world over, has a rough populace, we were glad to have first seen Doña
Emilia Pardo Bazán's loved province at pretty Lugo. In travel there must
always be, I suppose, some places that one slights; one knows if one
stayed long enough they might show a pleasanter side. We treated Coruña
in this way. Sir John Moore, buried at midnight during the Peninsula
War, was our association with the town before going there, and for all
we saw of it Sir John will remain the chief association of the future.
We only saw the flat, commercial district that skirts the bay, not the
headland where the old town lies. Slatternly beggars pestered us, bold,
bare-legged girls stood mocking at the unaccustomed sight of foreign
women traveling; it was with relief we took the diligence that started
at noon for Santiago.
I shall never cease regretting that we did not wait till the following
day, when an electric diligence makes the journey, for that eight hours'
trip over the hills to the capital was for us the only horrible
experience of our tour in Spain. I wish I might blot out its memory, but
as I am setting down frankly everything that occurred, this scene of
cruelty must be told of, too. In the omnibus with us were but two other
people, and there were five horses; there seemed no reason to foresee
trouble. For the first relay of twelve miles all went well, and we
enjoyed looking back from the hills on the blue Atlantic where the
headland of Coruña jutted boldly out. Our drivers treated the horses
with consideration and dismounted at every ascent. But, alas, for the
second relay, we changed men and changed animals. Two young vagabonds
were now on the box, driving four such miserable, bony nags that it tore
the heart to see the sores the rope harness had made. We protested at
the use of such horses, but in vain. Twelve miles lay behind,
twenty-four were ahead, there were no inns, so we hesitated to desert
the diligence, but had we realized the two hours of purgatory we were to
face, we had dismounted and walked back to Coruña.
One young wretch drove with loud cries and slashing blows; the other
alighted to beat the quivering animals up the hills. They guided so
recklessly that we were once dashed down the bank into the gutter, and
soon after run into a hay-cart and the wheels unlocked with difficulty.
When at length they began to strike the spent beasts over the eyes our
anger burst all bounds. In a heat of fury never before experienced, and
I hope never again, we attacked those two brutal boys. I do not think
they will soon forget that scene. At first they replied with impudence
and went on lashing the horses. But impudence soon ceased. When two
women are in earnest and are fearless of consequences, and have stout
umbrellas, they win the day. The twelve miles of their escort over, and
new horses harnessed to the diligence--those four pitiful, bleeding
victims led away!--the two scoundrels slunk off, sore on arms and
shoulders as well as shamed in spirit, for the country people who
gathered round supported our protest. The remaining miles to Santiago
finished well, with good drivers and stout horses. But never will the
horror of those two hours leave me. In fairness I must add that this was
the only scene of cruelty I saw during the eight months in Spain, and
again and again I noticed plump happy donkeys who were treated as
members of the family. It is far-fetched to account for this unfortunate
instance by the bull-fight, since in countries that have no such
spectacles, veritable skeletons are made to haul cabs, and poor jades
are used for drag horses. But I cannot help seizing on this opening for
a little tirade against the national game of Spain, which Fernán
Caballero, who loved her home with passionate affection called,
"inhuman, immoral, an anachronism in this century." The sports of other
lands are open to harsh criticism. I do not think a Spaniard is more
cruel by nature than an Englishman; in both nations is a certain
proportion of coarsened characters,--the northern country may keep them
better out of sight in the slums.
Northern Europe is to-day more humane to animals than southern Europe,
because the women of the north have had greater freedom and have entered
into philanthropic interests such as this. Kindness to animals is a
modern movement everywhere (may the shade of St. Francis of Assisi
forgive this half statement!) Spain need not be too discouraged by being
behindhand. The bony exhausted horses used within my own remembrance on
our American street-car lines, to drag cars laden each evening to twice
the beasts' strength, would not be tolerated to-day, and this change has
been wrought by societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, the
membership made up chiefly of women and children. Would that Spanish
ladies could be pricked to action by the statement of a living French
novelist, made in ignorance of late conditions in America and England,
that kindness to animals is a Protestant virtue. It is neither
Protestant nor Catholic, but common to all human societies where women
are allowed to aid with their gentler instincts in the public welfare of
their country. The bull and the man are sport and skill, that part I
can understand. It is the agony of the horses that is a disgrace to
these shows, worn-out nags who can make no resistance are used, and when
the bull gores them, their entrails are thrust back and the dying beasts
pricked on to the fray. Herein lies the great difference between
bull-fights to-day, which are debased money-making spectacles only taken
part in by professionals, and the more chivalrous sport of earlier times
when the hidalgo was _toreador_, and proper steeds that could defend
themselves were used.
The bull-fight is found in Spain so early that its origin from the Roman
period in the Peninsula, or from the first Mohammedan conquerors, is
disputed. The Cid took part in a game, and games celebrated the marriage
of Alfonso VII's daughter Urraca to the king of Navarre. During the
reign of Isabella's father, Juan II, the _corrida de toros_ was much in
vogue. Queen Isabella herself disliked the sport, and in one of her
letters she vows never to witness it. On the birth of Philip II in
Valladolid, Charles V killed a bull in the arena. The _fiestas_
continued under the Hapsburg Philips, until the advent of the French
Philip V, in 1700. He so slighted this national sport that gentlemen
ceased to take part in it, and it sank to its present level. It is now
so well paying an affair that the only way to reform it would be
through concerted action on the part of Spanish women. It is a crusade
worthy of them.
A night of rest in the hotel at Santiago and the painful scene of the
day before was somewhat dimmed. Early in the morning I started out to
explore the old pilgrim city. It has a distinct character of its own,
seldom have I felt so decided a place-influence. It is very solemn, very
gray, very stately and aloof. On many of the houses the pilgrim shell is
carved; the streets are paved with granite and the vast hospices are of
the same severe stone, moss-grown and damp; grass also grows between the
big granite slabs of the silent, imposing squares. Santiago does not
belong to our age. Modern towns do not name their streets after
twelfth-century prelates, "Street of Gelmúrez, 1st Archbishop of
Compostella," makes a novel sign.
Here, as all over the land, the Cathedral was the magnet. I walked along
the dark, arcaded streets in a Scotch drizzle, passed under Cardinal
Fonseca's college and came out in the plaza before the west entrance.
The west front is a baroque mass which those who can endure that style
say is most successful. I cannot endure that style. It seemed to me
doubly a pity that this late front should mask the chief treasure of
Galicia, the _Pórtico de la Gloria_, which stands as an open portico to
the church, fifteen feet within this west door.
Enthusiastic description had led us to expect much of what may be called
the supreme work of Romanesque sculpture, in fact, it was this portico
that had decided us for the long trip to Galicia. We were not
disappointed. "_Es la oración más sublime que ha elevado al cielo el
arte español._" Neither photograph nor words can describe it; it is one
of those matchless works that body forth the best of an age. The model
of South Kensington does not give its nobility, for it is the setting
before the lofty dim Romanesque nave that makes it a unique thing. When
later, in Constantinople, I saw Alexander's sarcophagus, the thought of
Santiago sprang instantly to my mind. Both bring a feeling of
sadness;--one, simple flowing Greek of the best period, the other,
crabbed, original, mediæval,--they are alike in the absolute sincerity
with which each embodied the highest then attainable. Over the carvings
of both are faded traces of color that give the finishing touch of the
exquisite.
The Archbishop, Don Pedro Suárez, in 1180 gave the commission for this
portico to a sculptor named Mateo, whether Spanish or foreign is not
known; he lived in Santiago till 1217. He must have been a close student
of the Bible, for his symbolism is profound and harmonious. Above the
central arch is a solemn Christ, of heroic size, at his side the four
Evangelists, figures of youthful beauty: the lion and the bull have
settled themselves cozily in their patron's lap. Large angels on either
side carry the instruments of the Passion. Very fine statues of the
Apostles stand against the pillars of the central doorway. In the
tympanum are small figures typifying the Holy City of Isaiah, and on its
arch are seated, on a rounding bench, the twenty-four ancients of the
Apocalypse, with musical instruments and vases of perfume. This is
perhaps the most beautiful part of the portico. For hours one can study
it. Some of the heads are thrown back in revery, some turned together in
conversation. "The four and twenty ancients fell down before the Lamb
having everyone of them harps and golden vials full of odours, which are
the prayers of the saints" (St. John, Rev. V, 8). The carvings of that
age were somewhat grotesque, but here the types are ideal, as beautiful
in their way as Mino da Fiesole or Rossellino. When Master Mateo had
finished his work, he made a statue of himself below the central column
of the portico, kneeling toward the altar and humbly beating his breast;
on this figure was written "architectus." Humility and a consummate
profession of faith such as this went hand in hand.