Edgar Thomas Ainger Wigram

“ Riches which might deck out a whole church among us lovers of bare walls are here found packed within the compass of a single chapel; and little gems of carving and inlay are thrust aside like lumber into corners where they can be scarcely seen. The whole is a dream of magnificence unsurpassable even in Italy: yet it is the gorgeous gloom of Toledo which still springs first to the memory when we contrast our own chaste chilly churches with the opulence of the shrines of Spain.
The cathedral stands upon steeply sloping ground well above the level of the Arlanzon. ”

“ Yet how can there be room for the Tagus valley on the hither side? But even as I am flouting their promise, the road dives gracefully over the lip of an unsuspected hollow, and the fragments of a crumbling rampart resolve themselves into the long-sought town. The gateway admits me to a forlorn and grimy street; the houses are ruinous and neglected; everywhere is dirt and misery and dilapidation. What went ye out into the wilderness to see?
Just beyond the town, and far below the level of the moors, the Tagus has carved its deep and savage glen. ”

“ Burguete stands in the centre of a little cup-like valley; and prominent upon the further lip rises a big domed hill, one of the flankers of the pass. It is a sleek, smooth mountain, upholstered with green turf, and spangled with grazing sheep; and the big round beeches and chestnuts herd together all over its crest, as domesticated as on an English lawn. Yet the little hillock beneath it was the scene of one of the greatest of tragedies; for there stood the abbey of Roncesvalles, the sepulchre of Charlemagne’s slaughtered Peers. ”

“ We have continued gradually rising for the greater part of our journey; but the ground breaks away suddenly and sharply a few miles short of the coast. The view from the crest is delightful. A wide expanse of green undulating woodland maps itself out beneath us at the foot of the deep descent; and beyond gleam the still blue waters of the ocean, and the little saucepan-shaped city of Coruña standing out boldly in the centre of its bay.
What a welcome sight it must have presented to Moore and his soldiers as they struggled over the Puerto Bello, a few miles along the ridge to the east! ”

“ Fortunately the cyclist’s self-sufficiency is not tested nearly so highly. He moves both further and faster than the pedestrian,—covering two days’ march in a single morning’s ride. For him the great Spanish plains are shorn of half their monotony; and if he loves Spain he may blame me for hinting at monotony even here. He finds something strangely exhilarating in the gorgeous sunshine, the dry crisp air, the unrivalled immensity of landscape, and the all-pervading silence, so grateful after London’s maddening din. ”

“ As we thread the long poplar avenues which radiate from the gates of Leon, and climb from its fertile valley on to the bald bleak moors, we might almost persuade ourselves that the days of pilgrimage are not over even yet. The road is thronged for miles with a steady procession of country-folk, trooping into the early market in the old Gothic capital—as picturesque a medley as ever delighted the student of costume. Market-women stride-legged between their donkey’s panniers, like Dulcinea del Toboso when she was enchanted ”

“ His choice was unexceptionable: and those who impugn it are blind. Indeed, this whole range of Sierras is a region of singular beauty, and the charming old towns which lie on the foot hills beneath it,—Béjar and Plaséncia, Ávila and Segóvia,—give it an added interest which mountain districts do not often possess. Charles V. was drawn hither to Yuste, as Philip to Escorial: yet each held an ample dominion and neither was an incapable connoisseur. The jaded soldier and statesman could wish for no pleasanter resting-place than these grave highland solitudes which form the backbone of Spain. ”

“ The cathedral is most admirably situated, for it forms the central mass to four great quadrangles which keep a clear space in front of it on each of the four façades. And colleges, hospitals, and palaces are grouped around the quadrangles, like a party of lordly vassals assembled to do honour to a king.
The streets of the city are narrow, paved with great slabs of granite; and in most cases arcaded, as protection against, not the sun, but the rain. For Santiago is notoriously the rainiest spot in the Peninsula, and is heartily bantered in consequence by all who are envious of its complaint. ”

“ What force Pelayo had at his disposal it is impossible to guess; certainly more than three hundred, yet far too few to admit of encountering his foe in the open field. Cornered at last with his back to the wall at the head of the Covadonga valley, he drew his followers together into his rocky eyrie and prepared to fight to the death. The nucleus of his force would no doubt have been posted upon the rock itself and the neck by which it is approached; others would be scattered along the hillside, lest the foe should endeavour to crown the heights and deliver the attack from above. ”

“ Segóvia is Queen of Castilian cities, as Toledo is the King of them. But Segóvia does not lend her countenance to those who approach from the south. She sits with her face to the northward towering over the road from Valladolid:—an unforgettable vision, the fairy city of our dreams.
Spain seems to take a delight in concentrating her fascinations. For mile after mile she will trail you over a dull and spirit-quelling country, till all your enthusiasm is properly subdued. ”

“ The step which carries us across the Pass of Pajares is one of the most decisive of any we have{129} yet taken. It spans the frontier of Leon and Asturias, the boundary of the realms of cloud and sun. The ridge parts not merely two provinces but two climates, and we seem to enter the tropics at a stride. Behind lies the green and flowery valley, and the heathery slopes half veiled in tender haze; before are the hot bare rocks, and the parched grass toasting itself under the stare of the sunshine ”

“ Yet the road which we have taken to guide us aims right at the very heart of them, and at the little village of Unquera it bears up square to the left. A copious sea-green river (officially known as the Tina Mayor, but invariably styled the Deva by the inhabitants) comes hurrying down at this point from the mountains, and charges the great ridge of limestone which edges the coast-line like a natural sea-wall. ”

“ Beyond the blight of the quarries, the scenery is of the type of our own Welsh highlands—steep, rocky ridges and gullies, thickly clothed with bracken and scrub oak. Even the railway has a most charming ramble, hunting its own tail up and down the long, steep, corkscrew gradients of the inland valleys. But the road clambers along the deeply fissured coast line, and no free agent will elect to follow the rail. Our first stage, however, was but a short one, for it was evening when we quitted Bilbao. ”

“ The only really reliable method of getting murdered upon a Spanish highway nowadays is to quarrel with the Arm of the Law!
See,—out of one of the dips in the road before us rise the figures of two horsemen;—big men, well mounted, in white puggarees and smart blue uniforms, with sabre at saddle and carbine on thigh;—the Civil Guard of Spain. Vayan Vs con Dios, Caballeros! Spain owes you a debt that is not to be readily computed. ”

“ Here rises a staircase of gigantic terraces; here a fringe of crooked fingers, black and jagged against the sky; here a range of sheer bluff bastions, like the cubos [2] of a titanic wall; and from time to time the glittering crest of some remoter peak peers over their shoulders into the depths of the gulf below. The mountain limestone is as hard as granite, and has shed but few screes or boulders to obstruct the passage of the stream, and the road squeezes itself along whichever bank happens to be widest at the moment, crossing and recrossing as occasion requires. ”

“ COVADONGA AND EASTERN ASTURIAS FAR be it from me to disparage Vizcaya or Galicia, but the prize “for the fairest” must be awarded to Asturias. No other province in Spain—few even in Italy—can show such wealth of natural beauty; and it is the district around the Picos de Europa that is the crowning glory of the whole.
The stranger pays his homage to its scenery, but for the Spaniard it has a more sentimental appeal. ”

“ The long night march from Lugo had been the most trying and disastrous of any. Yet there was no slackness when they turned to bay; and near Betánzos even the stragglers proved that they retained sufficient cohesion to repulse a cavalry charge.
Dropping in long steep sweeps from the heathery heights to the woodland, the road gradually settles itself down beside the banks of the Mero river; and just as the streamlet widens into an estuary we dip across the mouth of a little lateral valley, where the village of Palávia nestles between two parallel hills. ”

“ Mansilla lies upon the banks of the Esla, and the mules were grazing under the ancient ramparts along the margin of the stream. A pretty picture it made as we crossed the old bridge in the twilight and entered the long colonnade of poplars that leads towards the city of Leon. The poplar pollen carpeted the road before us as thick and white as newly-fallen snow, and the whirl of our wheels flung it up on either side in little wavelets, as the foam is flung up by the bows of a racing eight. ”

“ And never was coup de théâtre more artfully developed than this great spectacle of Segóvia. A far-distant glimpse of a little group of turrets bristling upon the base of the mountains at the foot of the Seven Pikes; a tardy approach up the valley of the Eresma, whose trees and rocks impede all further view. The valley becomes a trench; and a vision of towers and cliffs begins to stir our anticipation; while the trench narrows down to a gullet, with sides so straight and smooth that they might have been cut by hand. ”

“ Our own Lake District would supply a nearer parallel; but I know nothing quite like Právia except Právia itself; a meeting-place of many valleys with vistas of mountain scenery opening out on every side. Yet the heart of the range still holds remote and invisible. It is not till we have progressed some distance up the Nalon valley, and are drawing near to Oviedo, that we get acquainted with the higher peaks. Then, indeed, the scale becomes truly Alpine, and the valleys which lie across our path would not discredit Piedmont or Savoy. ”

“ But the moment we pass the portal all cavilling is awed to silence. Out of the blaze of the southern sunshine we step into a vast, mysterious twilight, lit only by the jewelled pictures in the clerestory overhead. The air is heavy with the odour of incense; and the chant of the canons thunders down the aisles. The style of this great temple is the purest and most solemn of thirteenth-century Gothic. Built by the canonized king, St Ferdinand, out of the spoils of Seville, it is equal to Rheims in majesty, and ranks next to Cologne in point of size. ”

“ Luarca and Cudillero, the two little coast towns of the district, are twin brothers in situation, but moving in different sets. Luarca is aspiring to the dignity of a watering-place:—it must have quite a dozen visitors in the season even now. Cudillero is a fishing village pure and simple, and is content to leave vanities alone. Each town lies nestling in a deep narrow notch of the lofty coast-line, with its quaint shanties spilling themselves pell-mell down the precipitous escarpments in all shapes, sizes, and positions, like rubble shot out of a cart. ”

“ Next morning, however, found the village buried in clouds; and through these we laboriously groped our way, with the trained fog-craft of Londoners, till at last we succeeded in rising above them, and emerging on the summit of the ridge. The scene was such as seldom falls to the lot of a cyclist, for the vapour choked all the valleys beneath us, and the mountain peaks that reared themselves out of it showed like so many islands in a sea of cotton-wool. ”

“ Nobody seems to go into the old town of Cáceres except the girls with their water pitchers en route for the Fountain of Council on the further side. The streets are so steep that they are all stepped, and so narrow that it is impossible for two loaded mules to pass. No sound is heard in them but the clattering of the storks, and the grim old palaces which wall them in have an indescribable air of mystery and romance. ”

“ The moist climate of Galicia gives the vegetation a chance that it does not obtain in the interior, and of which it avails itself enthusiastically. The trees in the village alamedas are planted so thickly that they would seem doomed to suffocation. Yet they flourish luxuriantly, plaiting their branches together till the foliage forms a thick matted blanket over the whole area; and beneath them is “darkness that may be felt,” so dense and solid that one feels one might dig a way in. ”

“ Urdon consists of a single house, and that, to be strictly accurate, is only half a house, for it abuts straight upon the vertical face of the precipice, and the naked rock is its inner wall. If anything disturbed that rock (quoth mine hostess airily, as she handed me my candlestick) , Urdon would become an omelet. And perhaps that fate is in store for it eventually, for the rocks do drop an occasional sugar-plum into the valley at their feet.
Urdon looks up a bend of the river, and faces southerly; yet for six months in the year no ray of direct sunshine falls upon that little red roof. ”

“ The cathedral is a most massive structure of stern grey granite, with its apse bulging out beyond the city walls—battlemented, loop-holed, and machicolated like the profanest bastion of them all. It looks every inch a castle, and has not served amiss when so utilised; for in the great western tower the infant King Alfonso XI. (Father of Pedro the Cruel) was kept safe from his would-be guardians during his long minority, by the Bishop and people of Ávila. The interior of the building is one of the noblest in Spain—severe, gloomy and solemn ”

“ Viewed from the north, the pass is a saddle at the end of a long deep valley; but its southern face forms an embrasure in a great mountain wall. The whole valley of the Tagus seemed spread beneath us as we gazed down from the summit; the plains all shimmering in a sea of purple heat haze, and the blue Toledan mountains rising faint and ethereal upon the further shore. So “Lot lifted up his eyes and looked and beheld all the Vale of Jordan.” The text seems singularly appropriate to many of these vistas of Spain. ”

“ The Valladolid road skirts the foot of the precipice on the larboard side and doubles back into the city, where the slope is easiest at the stern. But the straight path is taken by an irresponsible little bye-way, which rushes the steep ascent along the feet of the beetling ramparts, and succeeds in winning a footing inside the Santiago gate. Here the elegant horse-shoe arches look as if they might have been borrowed from the Alhambra ”

“ Presently, as we peer over the parapet into the depths of the gulf below us, we realise that there is a man down there walking by the waterside, and a dog which seems to bark though we cannot hear the sound. Our eye slowly sizes up the voussoir above which we are standing; it is a twelve-ton block of granite; and the huge vault with its eighty such voussoirs seems to widen and deepen beneath{232} us as we gaze; for the brook that it spans is the river Tagus, whose waters have their source three hundred miles away. ”