UNEXPLORED SPAIN (_Continued_)
ON TRAVEL AND OTHER THINGS
Travel in all the wilder regions of Spain implies the saddle. Our Spain
begins, as premised, where roads end. For us railways exist merely to
help us one degree nearer to the final plunge into the unknown; and not
railways only, but roads and bridges soon "petter out" into trackless
waste, and leave the explorer face to face with open
wilds--_despoblados_, that is, uninhabited regions--with a route-map in
his pocket that is quite unreliable, and a trusty local guide who is
just the reverse.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
FANTAIL WARBLER (_Cisticola cursitans_)
Resident: builds a deep purse-like nest supported on long grass or
rushes.]
Riding light, with the "irreducible minimum" stowed in the saddle-bags,
one may traverse Spain from end to end. But it is only a hasty and
superficial view that is thus obtainable, and except for those who love
roughing it for roughness' sake, even the freedom of the saddle presents
grave drawbacks in a land where none live in the country and none travel
off stated tracks. In the _campo_, nothing--neither food for man nor
beast--can be obtained, and no provision exists for travellers where
travellers never come. The little rural hostelry of northern lands has
no place; there is instead a _venta_ or _posada_ which may too often be
likened to a stable for beasts with an extra stall for their riders. It
is a characteristic of pastoral countries everywhere that their rude
inhabitants discriminate little between the needs of man and beast.
But even towns of quite considerable size--when far removed from the
track--are totally devoid of inns in our sense. Inns are not needed. The
few Spanish travellers who, greatly daring, venture so far afield,
usually bespeak beforehand the hospitality of some local friend or
acquaintance.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
ROCK-THRUSH (_Petrocincla saxatilis_)
A beautiful spring-migrant to the highest sierras. Colours of male:
opal, orange, and black, with a white "mirror" in centre of back.
Female, yellow-brown barred with black.]
Incidentally it may be added that a visit to one of these
out-of-the-world cities--asleep most of them for the last few
centuries--is a pleasing and restful change amidst the racket of
exploration. One breathes a mediæval atmosphere and marvels at the
revelation, enjoying prehistoric peeps in lost cities replete for the
antiquary with historic memorial and long-forgotten lore. No one cares.
Yet in those bygone days of Spain's world-power these somnolent spots
produced the right stuff,--a minority, no doubt, belonged to the type
satirised by Cervantes,--but many more strong in mind as in muscle, who
went forth, knights-errant, Paladins and Crusaders, to conquer and to
shape the course of history. Is the old spirit extinct? Our own
impression is that the material is there all right ready to spring to
life like the stones of Deucalion, so soon as Spain shall have shaken
off her incubus of lethargy and the tyranny that clogs the wheels of
progress. Nor need the interval be long.
* * * * *
That sound human material continues to exist in rural Spain we have had
recent evidence during the calling-out of levies of young troops ordered
abroad to serve their country in Morocco. None could witness the
entrainment at some remote station of a detachment of these fine lads
without being struck by their bearing, their set purpose, and above all
their patriotism. With such material, with a well cared-for, contented,
and loyal army and a broadening of view, wisely graduated but equally
resolute, Spain moves forward. Alfonso XIII. is a soldier first--No!
Above that he is a king by nature, but his care for his army and its
well-being has already borne fruits that are making and will make for
the honour, safety, and advancement of his country.
* * * * *
To resume our interrupted note on travel: whether you are riding across
bush-clad hills, over far-spread prairie, or through the defiles of the
sierra, as shadows lengthen the problem of a night's lodging obtrudes.
There is a variety of solutions. At a pinch--as when belated or
benighted--one may, in desperate resort, seek shelter in a _choza_. Now
a _choza_ is the reed-thatched hut which forms the rural peasant's
lonely home. Assuredly you will be made welcome, and that with a grace
and a courtesy--aye, a courtliness--that characterises even the humblest
in Spain. The best there is will be at your disposal; yet--if
permissible to say so in face of such splendid hospitality (and in the
hope that these good leather-clad friends of ours may not read this
book)--the open air is preferable. There exists in a _choza_ absolutely
no accommodation--not a separate room; a low settee running round the
interior, or a withy frame, forms the bed; those kindly folk live all
together, along with their domestic animals--and pigs are reckoned such
in Spain. Let us gratefully pay this due tribute to our peasant
friends--but let us sleep outside.
At each village will usually be found a _posada_. These differ in
degree, mostly from bad downwards. The lowlier sort--little better than
the _choza_--is but a long, low, one-storeyed barn which you share with
fellow-wayfarers, and your own and their beasts, or any others that may
come in, barely separated by a thatched partition that is neither
noise-proof nor scent-proof. We can call instances to mind when even
that small luxury was lacking, and all, human and other, shared alike.
There are no windows--merely wooden hatches. If shut, both light and air
are excluded; if open, hens, dogs, and cats will enter with the
dawn--the former to finish what remains of supper. The cats will at
least disperse the regiment of rats which, during the night, have
scurried across your sleeping form.
Here we relate, as a specific example, a night we spent this last spring
in northern Estremadura:--
[Illustration: A VILLAGE _POSADA_]
Owing to a miscalculation of distance, it was an hour after sundown ere
we reached our destination, a lonely hamlet among the hills. Our good
little Galician ponies were dead-beat, for we had been in the saddle
since 5 A.M., and it was past eight ere we toiled up that last steep,
rock-terraced slope. We were a party of three, with a local guide and
our own Sancho Panza--faithful companion, friend, and servant of many
years' standing. At a dilapidated hovel, the last in the village and
perched on a crag, we drew rein, and after repeated knocks the door was
opened by a girl--she had set down a five-year-old child among the
donkeys while she drew the bolt, the ground-floor being (as usual) a
stable. To our inquiry as to food--and the hunger of the lost was upon
us--our hostess merely shrugged her shoulders, and with an expressive
gesture of open hands, answered "Nada"--nothing! Sancho, however, was
equal to the occasion. Within two minutes, while we yet stood
disconsolate, he returned with a cackling cockerel in his arms. "Stew
him quick before he crows," he adjured the girl, and turned to unload
the ponies.
What an age a cockerel takes to cook! It was midnight ere he smoked on
the board and, hunger satisfied, we could turn in. In an upper den were
two alcoves with beds, or rather stone ledges, ordinarily used by the
family, and which were assigned to us, the luckless No. 3 by lot having
to make shift (in preference to sleeping on a filthy floor) with three
cranky tables of varying heights, and whose united lengths proved a foot
too short at either end!
Oh, the joy of the morning's dawn and delicious freshness of the
mountain air, as we turned out at five o'clock for yet another
ten-league spell to our next destination. Two nights later we slept in
the gilded luxury of Madrid! But how we abused our previous neglect in
not having brought a camp-outfit.
The above, however, presents the gloomier side of the picture, and there
is a reverse, even in _posadas_. We cannot better describe the latter
side than in our own words from _Wild Spain_:--
A NIGHT AT A _POSADA_ (ANDALUCIA)
The wayfarer has been travelling all day across the scrub-clad
wastes, fragrant with rosemary and wild thyme, without perhaps
seeing a human being beyond a stray shepherd or a band of nomad
gypsies encamped amidst the green palmettos. Towards night he
reaches some small village where he seeks the rude _posada_. He
sees his horse provided with a good feed of barley and as much
broken straw as he can eat. He is himself regaled with one
dish--probably the _olla_ or a _guiso_ (stew) of kid, either of
them, as a rule, of a rich red-brick hue, from the colour of the
red pepper or capsicum in the _chorizo_ or sausage, which is an
important (and potent) component of most Spanish dishes. The
steaming _olla_ will presently be set on a table before the large
wood-fire, and with the best of crisp white bread and wine, the
traveller enjoys his meal in company with any other guest that may
have arrived at the time--be he muleteer or hidalgo. What a fund of
information may be picked up during that promiscuous supper! There
will be the housewife, the barber, and the padre of the village,
perhaps a goatherd come down from the mountains, a muleteer, and a
charcoal-burner or two, each ready to tell his own tale, or to
enter into friendly discussion with the "Ingles." Then, as you
light your _breva_, a note or two struck on the guitar falls on
ears predisposed to be pleased.
How well one knows those first few opening notes: no occasion to
ask that it may go on: it will all come in time, and one knows
there is a merry evening in prospect. One by one the villagers drop
in, and an ever-widening circle is formed around the open hearth,
rows of children collect, even the dogs draw around to look on. The
player and the company gradually warm up till couplet after couplet
of pathetic _malagueñas_ follow in quick succession. These songs
are generally topical, and almost always extempore; and as most
Spaniards can--or rather are anxious to--sing, one enjoys many
verses that are very prettily as well as wittily conceived.
But girls must dance, and find no difficulty in getting partners to
join them. The _malagueñas_ cease, and one or perhaps two couples
stand up, and a pretty sight they afford! Seldom does one see
girl-faces so full of fun and so supremely happy as they adjust the
castanets, and one damsel steps aside to whisper something sly to a
sister or friend. And now the dance begins; observe there is no
slurring or attempt to save themselves in any movement. Each step
and figure is carefully executed, but with easy, spontaneous grace
and precision both by the girl and her partner.
Though two or more pairs may be dancing at once, each is quite
independent of the others, and only dance to themselves; nor do the
partners ever touch each other.[5] The steps are difficult and
somewhat intricate, and there is plenty of scope for individual
skill, though grace of movement and supple pliancy of limb and body
are almost universal, and are strong points in dancing both the
_fandango_ and _minuet_. Presently the climax of the dance
approaches. The notes of the guitar grow faster and faster; the
man--a stalwart shepherd-lad--leaps and bounds around his
pirouetting partner, and the steps, though still well ordered and
in time, grow so fast that one can hardly follow their movements.
Now others rise and take the places of the first dancers, and so
the evening passes; perhaps a few glasses of _aguardiente_ are
handed round--certainly much tobacco is smoked--the older folks
keep time to the music with hand-clapping, and all is good nature
and merriment.
What is it that makes the recollection of such evenings so
pleasant? Is it merely the fascinating simplicity and freedom of
the dance, or the spectacle of those weird, picturesque groups,
bronze-visaged men and dark-eyed maidens, all lit up by the blaze
of the great wood-fire on the hearth, and low-burning oil-lamps
suspended from the rafters? Perhaps it is only the remembrance of
many happy evenings spent among these people since our boyhood.
This we can truly say, that when at last you turn in to sleep you
feel happy and secure among a peasantry with whom politeness and
sympathy are the only passports required to secure to you both
friendship and protection if required. Nor is there a pleasanter
means of forming acquaintance with Spanish country life and customs
than a few evenings spent thus at a farm-house or village inn in
any retired district of laughter-loving Andalucia.
For rough living we are of course prepared, and accept the necessity
without demur or second thought while travelling. But when more serious
objects are in hand--say big-game or the study of nature, objects which
demand more leisurely progress, or actually encamping for a week or more
at selected points--then we prefer to assure complete independence of
all local assistance and shelter.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
SERIN (_Serinus hortulanus_)
A true European canary, but its song is harsh and hissing.]
An expedition on this scale involves an amount of care and forethought
that only those who have experienced it would credit. For in Spain it is
an unknown undertaking, and to engineer something new is always
difficult. Quite an extensive camping-trip can be organised in Africa,
where the system is understood, with less than a hundredth part of the
care needed for a comparatively short trip in Spain where it is not. The
necessary bulk of camp-outfit and equipment requires a considerable
cavalcade, and this mule-transport (since no provender is obtainable in
the country) involves carrying along all the food for the animals--the
heaviest item of all. Naturally the cost of such expeditions works out
to nearly double that of simple riding.
But, after all, it is worth it! Compare some of the miseries we have
above but lightly touched upon--the dirt and squalor, the nameless
horrors of _choza_ or _posada_--with the sense of joyous exhilaration
felt when encamped by the banks of some babbling trout-stream or in the
glorious freedom of the open hill. Casting back in mental reverie over a
lengthening vista of years, we certainly count as among the happiest
days of life those spent thus under canvas--whether on the sierras and
marismas of Spain, on high field or dark forest in Scandinavia, or on
Afric's blazing veld.
Should some remarks (here or elsewhere in this book) appear
self-contradictory the reason will be found rather in our inadequate
expression than in any confusion of idea. We love Spain primarily
because she is wild and waste; but, loving her, are naturally desirous
that she should advance to that position among nations that is her due.
Such material development, nevertheless, need not--and will not--imply
the total destruction of her wild beauties. Development on those lines
would not consist with the peculiar genius of the Spanish race, and,
while we trust the development will come, we fear no such collateral
results. Take, for instance, the corn-lands. There the great bustard is
alike the index and the price of vast, unwieldy farms unfenced and but
half tilled, remote from rail, road, or market. That condition we
neither expect nor hope to see exchanged for smug fields with a network
of railways. For "three acres and a cow" is not the line of Spanish
regeneration; it is rather a claptrap catch-word of politicians--a
murrain on the lot of them!
True, the plan seems to answer in Denmark, and if the Danes are
satisfied, well and good--that is no business of ours. But no such
mathematical and Procrustean restriction of vital energies and ambitions
will subserve our British race, nor the Spanish. In Spanish sierra may
the howl of the wolf at dawn never be replaced by blast from factory
siren, nor the curling blue smoke of the charcoal-burner in primeval
forest be abolished in favour of black clouds belching from bristling
chimneys that pierce a murky sky. Either in such circumstance would be
misplaced.
Similarly, when the engineer shall have been turned loose in the Spanish
marismas, he can, beyond all doubt, destroy them for ever. His straight
lines and intersecting canals, hideous in utilitarian rectitude, would
right soon demolish that glory of lonely desolation--those leagues of
marshland, samphire, and glittering _lucio_. And all for nothing! Since
the desecration will not "pay" financially--the reason we give in detail
elsewhere--and you sacrifice for a shadow some of the grandest bits of
wild nature that yet survive--the finest length and breadth of utter
abandonment that still enrich a humdrum Europe. Should "progress" only
advance on these lines no scrap of that continent will be left to
wanderer in the wilds--no spot where clanging skeins of wild-geese serry
the skies, and the swish of ten thousand wigeon be heard overhead; or
that marvellous iridescence--as of triple flame--the passing of a flight
of flamingoes, be enjoyed.[6]
That national progress and development may come, for Spain's sake, we
earnestly pray. But does there exist inherent reason why progress, in
itself, should always come to ruin natural and racial beauties? Progress
seems nowadays to be misunderstood as a synonym for uniformity--and
uniformity to a single type. Disciples of the cult of insensate haste,
of self-assertion and advertisement, have pretty well conquered the
civilised world; but in Spain they find no foothold, and we glory to
think they never will. Spain will never be "dragooned" into a servile
uniformity. There remain many, among whom we count our humble selves,
who bow no knee to the modern Baal, and who (while conceding to the
"hustling" crowd not one iota of their pretensions to fuller efficiency
in any shape or form) are proud to find fascination in simplicity, a
solace in honest purpose and in old-world styles of life--right down (if
you will) to its inertia.
Yes, may progress come, yet leave unchanged the innate courtesy, the
dignity and independence of rural Spain--unspoilt her sierras and
glorious heaths aromatic of myrtle and mimosa, alternating with natural
woods of ilex and cork-oak--self-sown and park-like, carpeted between in
spring-time with wondrous wealth of wild flowers. There is nothing
incongruous in such aspiration. Incongruity rather comes in with
misappreciation of the fitness of things, as when a coal-mine is planked
down in the midst of sylvan beauties, to save some hypothetic
penny-a-ton (as per Prospectus); where pellucid streams are polluted
with chemical filth and vegetation blasted by noisome fumes; or where
God's fairest landscapes are ruined by forests of hideous smoke-stacks.
If vandalisms such as these be progress then we prefer Spain as she is.
A NOTE ON THE SPANISH FAUNA
After all, it is less with the human element that this book is concerned
than with the wild Fauna of Spain; a brief introductory notice thereof
cannot, therefore, be omitted.
[Illustration: BONELLI'S EAGLE (_Aquila bonellii_)
A pair disturbed at their eyrie.]
As head of the list must stand the Spanish Ibex (_Capra hispánica_), a
game-animal of quite first rank, peculiar to the Iberian Peninsula, and
whose nearest relative--the Bharal (_Capra cylindricornis_)--lives 2500
miles away in the far Caucasus. In Spain the ibex inhabits six great
mountain-ranges, each covering a vast area but all widely separated.
After a crisis that five years ago threatened extermination, this grand
species is now happily increasing under a measure of protection and the
ægis of King Alfonso. Next--a notable neighbour of the ibex (and
practically extinct in central Europe)--we place the lone and lordly
Lammergeyer. A memorable spectacle it is to watch the huge _Gypaëtus_
sweeping through space o'er glens and corries of the sierra in striking
similitude to some weird flying dragon of Miocene age--a vision of
blood-red irides set on a cruel head with bristly black beard, of hoary
grey plumage and golden breast. Watch him for half an hour--for half a
day--yet never will you discern a sign of force exerted by those 3-yard
pinions. With slightly reflexed wings he sinks 1000 feet; then, shifting
course, rises 2000, 3000 feet till lost to sight over some appalling
skyline. You have seen the long cuneate tail deflected ever so
slightly--more gently than a well-handled helm--but the wide lavender
wings remain rigid, not an effort that indicates force have you
descried. Yet the power (so defined as "horse-power") required to raise
a deadweight of 20 lbs. through such altitudes can be calculated by
engineers to a nicety--how is it exerted? That the power is there is
conspicuous enough, and at least it serves to explain fabled traditions
of giant lammergeyers hurling ibex-hunter from perilous hand-hold on the
crag, to feast on the remains below; or, in idler moment, bearing off
untended babes to their eyries--alas! that the duty of nature-students
involves dissipating all such romance.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
BLACK VULTURE (_Vultur monachus_)
Nests in the mountain-forests of Central Spain, and winters in
Andalucia. Sketched in Cote Doñana--"Getting under way."]
Spain, as geologically designed, being, as to one-half of her
superficies, either a desert wilderness or a mountain solitude,
naturally lends congenial conditions of life to the predatory forms that
rely on hooked bill, on tooth and claw, fang and talon, to ravage their
more gentle neighbours. Savage raptores, furred and feathered,
characterise her wilder scenes. Wherever one may travel, a day's ride
will surely reveal huge vultures and eagles circling aloft, intent on
blood. Throughout the wooded plains the majestic Imperial Eagle is
overlord--you know him afar in sable uniform, offset by snow-white
epaulets. Among the sierras a like condominium is shared by the Golden
and Bonelli's Eagles--and they have half-a-dozen rivals, to say nothing
of lynxes and fierce wolves (we give a photo of one, the gape of whose
jaws exceeds by one-half that of an African hyaena). Then there patrol
the wastes a horde of savage night-rovers, denominated in Spanish
_Alimañas_, to which a special chapter is devoted.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
WHITE-FACED DUCK (_Erismatura leucocephala_)
Bill much dilated, waxy-blue in colour. Wings extremely short; a sheeny
grebe-like plumage, and long stiff tail, often carried erect.]
In Estremadura, where man is a negligible quantity, and along the wild
wooded valley of the Tagus, roams the Fallow-deer in aboriginal purity
of blood--whether any other European country can so claim it, the
authors have been unable to ascertain. In Cantabria and the Pyrenees the
Chamois abounds.
Of the big game (the list includes red, roe, and fallow-deer,
wild-boar, ibex, chamois, brown bear, etc.), we treat in full detail
hereafter.
As regards winged game, this south-western corner of Europe, is
singularly weak. There exists but a single resident species of true
game-bird--the redleg. Compare this with northern Europe, where, in a
Scandinavian elk-forest, we have shot five kinds of grouse within five
miles; while southwards, in Africa, francolins and guinea-fowl are
counted in dozens of species. True, there are ptarmigan in the Pyrenees,
capercaillie, hazel-grouse, and grey partridge in Cantabria, but all
these are confined to the Biscayan area. Nor are we overlooking the
grandest game-bird of all, the Great Bustard, chiefest ornament of
Spanish steppe, and there are others--the lesser bustard, quail,
sand-grouse, etc.--but these hardly fall within our definition. As for
the teeming hosts of wildfowl and waterfowl that throng the Spanish
marismas (some coming from Africa in spring, the bulk fleeing hither
from the Arctic winter), all these are so fully treated elsewhere as to
need no further notice here.
Spain boasts several distinct species peculiar to her limits. Among such
(besides the ibex) are that curious amphibian, the Pyrenean musk-rat
(_Myogale pyrenaica_), not again to be met with nearer than the eastern
confines of Europe. Birds afford an even more striking instance. The
Spanish azure-winged magpie (_Cyanopica cooki_) abounds in Castile,
Estremadura, and the Sierra Moréna, but its like is seen nowhere else on
earth till you reach China and Japan!