FROM BORDEAUX TO VERGARA.
The _Landes_--Arrival at Bayonne--Information for
Travellers--Urrugne--Saint Jean de Luz--Human Smuggling--Bridge
over the Bidassoa--Irun--Travelling with Mules--Primitive
Carts--Beggar Children--Spanish Bridges--Oyarzun--Astigarraga--A
Spanish Supper--Puchero--Arrival at Vergara.
On leaving Bordeaux, the _Landes_ recommence, if possible more sad,
more desolate, and more gloomy than before. Heather, broom, and
_pinadas_ (pine forests), with here and there a shepherd squatted
down, tending his flocks of black sheep, or a miserable hut in
the style of the Indian wigwams, offer a very lugubrious and by
no means diverting spectacle. No tree is seen but the pine, with
the gash in it from which the resin trickles down. This large
salmon-coloured wound forming a strong contrast with the grey tones
of the bark, gives the most miserable look in the world to these
sickly trees, deprived of the greatest portion of their sap. They
have the appearance of a forest unjustly assassinated, raising its
arms to Heaven for justice.
We passed through Dax at midnight, and traversed the Adour during
the most wretched weather, with a beating rain and a wind strong
enough to blow the horns off an ox. The nearer we approached a
warmer climate, the sharper and more penetrating became the cold;
and had not our cloaks been at hand, we should have had our noses
and feet frost-bitten, like the soldiers of the _Grande Armée_ in
the Russian campaign.
When day broke we were still in the _Landes_, but the pines were
mingled with cork-trees, which I had hitherto pictured to my
mind only under the form of corks, but which are really enormous
trees, partaking simultaneously of the nature of the oak and of
the carob-tree in the eccentricity of their shape and the deformity
and ruggedness of their branches. A number of blackish pools of
a leaden colour, stretched on each side of the road; gusts of
saltish air greeted our nostrils, and a sort of vague rumbling
noise resounded on the horizon. A bluish outline next stood out
upon the pale background of the heavens. It was the chain of the
Pyrenees. A few instants afterwards an almost invisible line of
azure, the sign of the ocean, told us that we had arrived. It was
not long ere Bayonne rose up before us, in the form of a mass of
tiles crushed by an awkward and squat-looking spire; but I will
not abuse Bayonne, since any town viewed under the disadvantage of
rainy weather is always wretched. The port was not very full. A
few decked boats floated in a negligent and admirably idle manner
alongside the quays. The trees which form the public promenade
are very fine, and somewhat soften the austerity of the numerous
right lines produced by the fortifications and parapets. As to the
church, it is plastered over with yellow, varied with a dirty fawn;
it possesses nothing remarkable save a kind of baldaquin of red
damask, and a few paintings of Lépicié and others, in the style of
Vanloo.
The town of Bayonne is almost Spanish in its language and customs;
the hotel where we put up was called the _Fonda San Estaban_. As it
was known that we were about making a long trip in the Peninsula,
we were pursued with all sorts of recommendations. "Buy some red
belts to sustain your body; arm yourselves with blunderbusses,
combs, and bottles of water to kill the insects; take some biscuits
and other provisions; the Spaniards breakfast on a spoonful of
chocolate, dine on a piece of garlic washed down with a little
water, and sup on a paper cigar; you ought also to take a mattress
and a saucepan to serve as your bed and make your soup." The French
and Spanish Dialogues, too, for the use of travellers, were not
very encouraging. Under the head of "A Traveller at an Inn," we
read the following frightful conversation--"I should like to take
something." "Take a chair," replies the landlord. "With pleasure;
but I should prefer something more nutritious." "What have you
brought?" replies the master of the _posada_. "Nothing," says the
traveller, sadly. "Then how can you suppose I can give you anything
to eat? The butcher lives yonder, the baker a little further on.
Go and get some meat and bread, and my wife, who is something of
a cook, will prepare your provisions." The traveller, in a fury,
begins creating a most frightful disturbance, and the host calmly
puts into his bill--"Disturbance, 6 reals."
The Madrid coach sets out from Bayonne. The conductor is a
_mayoral_, with a peaked hat adorned with velvet and silk tufts,
a brown waistcoat embroidered with coloured ornaments, leather
gaiters, and a red sash; these impart a nice little amount of local
colouring. Beyond Bayonne, the country is exceedingly picturesque;
the chain of the Pyrenees becomes more distinct, and beautifully
undulating lines of mountains vary the aspect of the horizon, while
the sea appears frequently to the right of the road. At each turn,
between two mountains, its sombre mild and deep blue suddenly
starts into sight, traversed, here and there, by volutes of foam
whiter than snow, which no painter has, as yet, succeeded in
re-producing. I here beg to apologise to the sea, never having seen
it before but at Ostend, where it is nothing more than the Scheldt,
transformed into a canal, as my dear friend Fritz used so wittily
to express it.
We passed through the church of Urrugne, the dial of which
has the following mournful inscription, in black letters, on
it--"_Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat._" Yes, melancholy dial, you
are right. Each hour wounds us with the sharp point of your hands,
and each turn of your wheel hurries us towards the Unknown!
The houses of Urrugne, and of Saint Jean de Luz, which is not far
distant, possess a sanguinary and barbarous physiognomy, owing to
the strange custom of painting red or blood-colour the doors and
the beams which sustain the compartments of the masonry. Beyond
Saint Jean de Luz is Behobie, the last French village. On the
frontier, the inhabitants practise two kinds of trade to which the
war has given rise--first, that of the balls found in the fields,
and, secondly, that of human smuggling. A Carlist is passed just
like a bale of goods. There is a certain tariff, so much for a
colonel, so much for an inferior officer. As soon as the bargain
is struck, the contrabandist makes his appearance, carries off
his man, passes him over the frontier, and smuggles him to his
destination, as he would a dozen handkerchiefs or a hundred cigars.
On the other side of the Bidassoa, Irun, the first Spanish village,
is visible: one-half of the bridge belongs to France, the other to
Spain. Close to this bridge is the famous Isle of Pheasants, where
the marriage of Louis XIV. was celebrated by deputy. It would be
difficult to celebrate anything there at present, for it is not
larger than a moderately-sized fried sole.
A few more revolutions of the wheel, and I shall perhaps lose one
of my illusions, and behold the Spain of my dreams, the Spain of
the _Romancero_, of the ballads of Victor Hugo, of the tales of
Merimée, and the stories of Alfred de Musset, fade before me. On
passing the line of demarcation, I remembered what the good and
witty Henri Heine once said to me at Liszt's concert, with his
German accent, full of humour and sarcasm, "How will you manage to
speak of Spain when you have been there?"
One half of the bridge over the Bidassoa belongs to France, and
the other half to Spain, so that you may have, at the same time,
a foot in each kingdom, which is a great achievement. On one side
you perceive the gendarme, grave, respectable, and serious; the
gendarme red as a peony at having been restored to his social
position by Edward Ourliac, in Curmer's "Français Peints par
Eux-Memes;"[1] while, on the other, is beheld the Spanish soldier,
clad in green, and enjoying on the sward the voluptuous pleasure
of repose with happy nonchalance. At the extremity of the bridge,
you enter at once into Spanish life, with all its local colouring.
Irun does not possess a single feature in common with a French
town. The roofs of the houses jut out beyond the walls, while
the tiles, alternately round and hollow, give the houses a most
strange and Moorish battlemented appearance. The ironwork of the
balconies, which project over the street, is of the most elaborate
description, very surprising in an out-of-the-way village like
Irun, and indicating a great degree of opulence now passed away.
The women spend their lives upon these balconies, which are
shaded with an awning with coloured stripes, and which are like
so many aërian chambers attached to the body of the edifice. The
two sides remain open, and allow a passage to fresh breezes and
burning glances; but you must not look, however, for those dull
and _culotté_[2] tints (I beg pardon for the expression), those
shades of bistre and old pipes that a painter might hope to see;
everything is whitewashed, according to the Arabian fashion, but
the contrast of this chalky tone against the deep brown of the
beams, roofs, and balconies, is not without a fine effect.
The horses left us at Irun; and ten mules, shaved as far as the
middle of their body--half skin, half hair--like those costumes of
the middle-ages, which look as if they were two-halves of different
suits sown together by chance, were then harnessed to the vehicle.
These animals thus shaved present a strange sight, and appear
most horribly thin; for this denudation enables you to see their
whole anatomy, bones, muscles, and even the smallest veins. With
their peeled tails and their pointed ears, they resemble so many
enormous mice. Besides the ten mules, our band was increased by
a _zagal_ and two _escopeteros_, furnished with their _trabuco_
(blunderbuss). The _zagal_ is a kind of _under-mayoral_, who puts
the drag on whenever there is a dangerous descent, looks after the
harness and the springs, hurries the relays, and plays about the
coach the part of the fly in the fable, only with a great deal
more effect. The costume of the zagal is charming, being most
elegant and light. He wears a peaked hat, ornamented with silk
tufts; a chestnut-coloured or brown jacket, surmounted by a collar
composed of different coloured pieces, generally blue, white, and
red; a large arabesque, which blossoms out upon the middle of his
back, knee-breeches studded with filigree buttons, and for shoes,
_alpargatas_, or sandals tied with thin cord. Add to all this
a red sash and a variegated neck-tie, and you will have a most
characteristic costume. The escopeteros are guards, or _miquelets_,
whose office it is to escort the coach and frighten the _rateros_,
as the petty robbers are termed, who would not resist the
temptation of plundering a solitary traveller, but whom the
edifying sight of the _trabuco_ is sufficient to awe, and who pass
on their way with the sacramental salutation of--_Vaya Usted con
Dios_: "Pursue your road with God." The dress of the escopeteros
is nearly the same as that of the zagal, but less coquettish and
ornamented. They take up their position on the seat at the back of
the coach, and thus command the country around. In this description
of our caravan, I have forgotten to mention a little postilion,
mounted on horseback at the head of the convoy, who leads off the
whole line.
Before leaving, we had to get our passports, already pretty well
covered with signatures, _viséd_. While this important operation
was in course of performance, we had leisure to cast a glance at
the population of Irun, which offers nothing very particular,
unless it be that the women wear their hair, which is remarkably
long, united in one plait hanging down to the middle of their back;
shoes are a rarity, and stockings a still greater one.
A strange, inexplicable, hoarse, frightful, and laughable noise
had astonished my ears for some time; it sounded like that of a
number of jays being plucked alive, of children being whipped,
of cats making love, of saws scraping their teeth against a hard
stone, of tin-kettles scraped by some harsh instrument, or of the
rusty hinges of a prison door turning round and obliged to release
its prisoner; I imagined that it was, at the least, some princess
being assassinated by a savage necromancer. It was nothing but a
cart, drawn by oxen, ascending the street of Irun, and the wheels
creaking and groaning piteously for want of being greased, the
driver preferring, doubtless, to put the grease in his soup. This
cart was, certainly, exceedingly primitive. The wheels were of
one piece, and turned with the axle, as is the case with those
wagons which children manufacture out of the rind of a pumpkin.
The noise can be heard at the distance of half a league, and is
not displeasing to the aborigines of these parts. In this fashion
they hear a musical instrument which costs nothing, and plays of
its own accord as long as the wheel lasts. The noise is to them as
harmonious as the feats of a violinist upon the fourth string are
to us. A peasant would not give a "thank you" for a cart which did
not play. This kind of vehicle must date from the deluge.
On an old palace, now transformed into an official residence,
we beheld for the first time the placard of white plaster which
disgraces many other old buildings, with the inscription--_Plaza
de la Constitucion_. It must certainly be a fact, that whatever is
concealed in anything comes out somehow or other; a better symbol
of the actual state of the country could not have been selected. A
constitution forced upon Spain is a handful of plaster upon granite.
As the ascent was toilsome, I walked as far as the gates of the
town, and, turning round, cast a last look of farewell upon France.
It was truly a magnificent sight. The chain of the Pyrenees sloped
away in harmonious undulations towards the blue surface of the
sea, crossed here and there by bars of silver; while, thanks to
the excessive clearness of the air, in the far, far distance was
seen a faint line of pale salmon-colour, which advanced in the
immeasurable azure, and formed an immense indentation in the side
of the coast. Bayonne and its advanced guard, Biarritz, occupied
the extremity of this point, and the Bay of Biscay was mapped out
as sharply as on a geographical chart. After this, we shall see the
sea no more until we are in Andalusia. Good night, honest Ocean!
The coach ascended and descended at full gallop the most rapid
declivities: a kind of exercise, without a balancing-pole, upon
the tight rope, which can only owe its success to the prodigious
dexterity of the drivers, and the extraordinary sure-footedness of
the mules. Despite this velocity, however, there would, from time
to time, fall in our laps a branch of laurel, a little nosegay of
wild flowers, or a wreath of mountain strawberries--ruddy pearls
strung upon a blade of grass. These nosegays were flung in by
little beggars, boys and girls, who kept running after the coach
with their bare feet upon the sharp stones. This manner of asking
alms, by first making a present themselves, has something noble and
poetic about it.
The landscape, though rather Swiss perhaps, was charming, and
exceedingly varied. Mountain ridges, the interstices of which
permitted the eye to dwell upon others more elevated still, rose
up on each side of the road; their sides goffered with different
crops and wooded with green oaks, stood out vigorously against the
distant and vapoury peaks. Villages, with their roofs of red tiles,
bloomed amid thickets at the mountains' feet, and every moment
I expected to see Ketly or Getly walk out of these new châlets.
Fortunately, Spain does not push its Opéra Comique so far.
Torrents, as capricious as a woman, come and go, form little
cascades, divide, meet each other again, after traversing rocks
and flint stones, in the most amusing fashion, and serve as an
excuse for a number of the most picturesque bridges in the world.
These bridges, thus indefinitely multiplied, have a singular
characteristic: the arches are hollowed out almost up to the very
railing, so that the road over which the coach passes does not
appear to be more than six inches thick. A kind of triangular pile,
shaped like a bastion, generally occupies the middle. The business
of a Spanish bridge is not a very fatiguing one; there was never
a more perfect sinecure; three quarters of the year you can walk
under it. There it stands, with an imperturbable calmness and
patience worthy of a better lot, waiting for a river, a rill of
water, or even a little moisture, for it feels that its arches are
merely arcades, and that their title of "bridge" is pure flattery.
The torrents I have just mentioned have at most but four or five
inches of water in them, but they are sufficient to make a great
deal of noise, and serve to give life to the solitudes which they
traverse. At long intervals they turn some mill or other machinery,
by means of sluices, built in a manner that would enchant a
landscape-painter. The houses, which are scattered over the country
in little groups, are of a strange colour. They are neither black,
nor white, nor yellow, but of the colour of a roasted turkey. This
definition is of the most striking truth, although it is trivial
and culinary. Tufts of trees, and patches of green oaks, impart a
happy effect to the large outlines and the misty and severe tints
of the mountains. I dwell particularly upon these trees, because
nothing is more rare in all Spain, and henceforth I shall hardly
have occasion to describe any.
We changed mules at Oyarzun, and at nightfall reached Astigarraga,
where we were to sleep. We had not yet had a taste of a Spanish
inn. The _picaresque_ and "lively" descriptions of Don Quixote and
_Lazarille de Tormes_ occurred to our memory, and our whole bodies
shuddered at the very thought. We made up our minds to omelettes
adorned with Merovingian hairs and mixed up with feathers and
birds' feet, to gammons of rancid bacon with all the bristles,
equally adapted for making soup or brushing boots, to wine in
goat-skins, like those which the good knight de la Mancha cut so
furiously into, and we even made up our minds to nothing at all,
which is much worse, and trembled lest all we should get would be
the fresh evening breeze, supposing we were not obliged to sup,
like the valorous Don Sancho, off the dry air of a mandoline.
Taking advantage of the little daylight that remained, we went to
look at the church, which, to speak truth, was more like a fortress
than a temple; the smallness of the windows, formed like loopholes,
together with the solidity of the buttresses, gave it a robust and
massive appearance, more warlike than pensive. This form occurs
in every church in Spain. All around stretched a sort of open
cloister, in which was hung a bell of immense size, which is rung
by moving the clapper with a rope, instead of putting in motion the
vast metal capsule itself.
On being shown to our rooms, we were dazzled with the whiteness of
the beds and windows, the Dutch cleanliness of the floors, and the
scrupulous care shown in every particular. Fine handsome, strapping
girls, exceedingly well dressed, and with their magnificent tresses
falling upon their shoulders, not bearing the slightest resemblance
to the _Maritornes_ we had been led to expect, bustled about with
an activity that augured well for the supper, which did not keep
us long waiting: it was excellent, and very well dished up. I will
run the risk of appearing too minute, and describe it; for the
difference between one people and another consists in the thousand
little details which travellers neglect for those profound poetical
and political considerations which anyone may very well write
without ever having been in the country itself. First of all comes
a meat soup, which differs from ours from the fact of its having a
reddish tinge, due to the saffron with which it is flavoured. Red
soup! I hope this is a pretty good commencement of local colouring.
The bread is very white, of exceedingly close texture, with a
smooth crust, slightly glazed over with yolk of egg; it is salted
in a manner very apparent to Parisian palates. The handles of the
forks are turned the wrong way, and the points are flat and shaped
like the teeth of a comb. The spoons, too, have a spatula-kind of
appearance not possessed by our plate. The table linen is a sort
of coarse damask. As for the wine, I must confess that it was
of the most beautiful violet, and thick enough to be cut with a
knife, and the decanters which held it did not tend to increase its
transparency.
After the soup, we had the _puchero_, an eminently Spanish dish,
or rather the only Spanish dish--for they eat it every day from
Irun to Cadiz, and reciprocally. A comfortable _puchero_ is
compounded of a quarter of veal, a piece of mutton, a fowl, some
pieces of a sausage stuffed full of pepper, and called _chorizo_,
with allspice and other spices, slices of bacon and ham, and, to
crown all, a violent tomato and saffron sauce. So much for the
animal portion. The vegetable part, called _verdura_, varies with
the season; but cabbages and _garbanzos_ always play a principal
part. The _garbanzo_ is not much known at Paris, and I cannot
define it better than "as a pea which aspires to be considered as
a haricot-bean, and succeeds but too well." All this is served up
in different dishes, and the ingredients then mixed up on your
plate, so as to produce a _Mayonnaise_ of a complicated description
and excellent flavour. This mixture will appear rather barbarous
to those connoisseurs who read Carême, Brillat-Savarin, Grimat
de la Reynière, and Mons. de Cussy; it has, however, its charm,
and cannot fail to please the Eclectics and Pantheists. Next come
fowls cooked in oil, for butter is an article unknown in Spain;
trout or salt cod, roasted lamb, asparagus, and salad; and, for
dessert, little macaroons, almonds browned in a frying-pan, and of
a most delicious taste, with goats'-milk cheese, _queso de Burgos_,
which enjoys a high reputation, that it sometimes deserves. As
a finish, they bring you a set of bottles with Malaga, sherry,
brandy, _aguardiente_, resembling French aniseed, and a little cup
(_fuego_) filled with live cinders to light the cigarettes. Such,
with a few trifling variations, is the invariable meal in all Spain.
We left Astigarraga in the middle of the night. As there was no
moon, there is naturally a gap in our account. We passed through
the small town of Ernani, the name of which conjures up the most
romantic recollections; but we did not perceive aught save a
heap of huts and rubbish vaguely sketched on the obscurity. We
traversed Tolosa without stopping. We saw some houses decorated
with frescoes, and gigantic blazons sculptured in stone. It was
market-day, and the market-place was covered with asses, mules,
picturesquely harnessed, and peasants of singular and wild
appearance.
By dint of ascending and descending, of passing over torrents on
bridges of uncemented stone, we at last reached Vergara, where we
were to dine. We experienced a decided degree of satisfaction on
our arrival, for we had almost forgotten the _jicara de chocolate_,
which we had gulped down, half asleep, in the inn at Astigarraga.