Vigo

“ Vigo is Galicia's chief portal, and offers ready means of access to the other parts of the province. The town affords wonderful contrasts between the old and new worlds which jostle up against each other in every part of North-West Spain. You are in a quaint, strange world as soon as you have stepped ashore and are clear of the Customs and free to roam. In the steep and narrow streets of the old town people lead the primitive life of many generations or centuries ago. ”

“ The sardine trade is one of the most important of Vigo's industries, and no visitor to Galicia should fail to inspect one of these busy factories.
Sunday is the brightest day in the week in Vigo, for then the band plays at noon and evening in the Alameda, and the people promenade and laugh and talk incessantly; the places of amusement are open, and the theatre provides a satisfactory finish for the day's enjoyment. ”

“ The Palladian mansion contained a suite of chambers of majestic dimensions—lofty ceilings, rich cornices, and vast windows of plate glass; the gardens were rich with the products of conservatories which Mr. Vigo had raised with every modern improvement, and a group of stately cedars supported the dignity of the scene and gave to it a name. Beyond, a winding walk encircled a large field which Mr. Vigo called the park, and which sparkled with gold and silver pheasants, and the keeper lived in a newly-raised habitation at the extreme end, which took the form of a Swiss cottage. ”

“ And the chaffering folk in the markets of Vigo clad in brilliant colours, vehement in their bargaining as if life depended upon the price of the glowing fruits and glittering fish which they buy and sell; do they belong to the same human family of sad-faced people we have left behind us? Look at these hardy fisherfolk, and still more at the husbandmen and graziers in the inland valleys, and you will recognise their close resemblance with some of our own people. ”

“ The town of Vigo is situated in a bay, which is one of the largest, deepest, and safest in the whole coast of the peninsula. It is built upon a rock; but, notwithstanding the severe loss which the Spaniards, during the War of the Succession, suffered in that port, no care had been taken to fortify it; it had merely a wall, a fort flanked with four bastions on the land side, and an old castle, equally dilapidated, toward the sea. The neighbourhood of Ferrol has made it neglected as a naval station, and Galicia is too poor a country for foreign commerce. ”

“ There is no lovelier spot in all Spain.
The city of Vigo, with its suffragan church on the hillside, is a modern town dedicated to commerce; its wharves are important, and the water in the bay is deep enough to permit the largest vessels afloat to enter and anchor. The art student will not linger here, however, but will go by boat to Bayona outside the bay and to the south near the Portuguese frontier. ”

“ There are no ancient churches or other sights of archæological interest to be seen at Vigo, and the chief business of the traveller—after he has looked down upon the valley where the French army capitulated on March 28, 1809—is to take the beautiful drive along the shore of the Ria to Bayona, where there is an old church, the Colegiata de Santa Maria, which once belonged to the Knights Templars, and an interesting old Franciscan convent dating from the eleventh century. ”

“ They gazed at each other as men will who are destined to become friends. Further words were stopped by the sound of a distant chantey, clear and merry.
Forgetting all else, Francis Vigo answered the call of his children by turning his eyes toward the canoes.
Doby slipped unnoticed to a great rock halfway down the bluff. From this vantage he could watch the fleet of voyageurs. Furbished for their entrance to the town, each wore a turban of scarlet bandana and sash of parti-colors. Ear-rings, thumb-rings, metal compasses, were all adangle. ”

“ There are many such Rias as Vigo along the coast to the northward; and the road rising sharply over the intervening ridges, finds in each successive valley a fresh garden of delight. The huge mountain groynes push themselves far out into the ocean; and their precipitous headlands, Vilano, Toriñana, and Finistierra, form the mighty spur stones of the sea-borne traffic to the south. Between them lie the gleaming estuaries, each a harbour fit for a navy, and the deep verdant valleys well watered by the streams from{102} the hills. ”

“ Vigo is the port from which most of the emigrants who leave Galicia sail, and at which they land on returning to their native country. Crowds of them may be seen frequently, with their baggage and household belongings, waiting on the quay for their ship to enter the bay, or going off in barges or tenders to get on board. The emigrants, mostly young men, are bound for South America, where some of them do very well, and come back to Galicia with capital enough to buy land and settle as comfortable farmers. ”

“ Vigo, represented to be one of the most beautiful ports in the world, is another department of the marine, more extensive and proper, for such an establishment than Ferrol itself. Besides these ports, there are a multitude of harbors and bays round Cape Finisterre, which afford a safe and convenient shelter to merchant vessels. With all these advantages for foreign commerce, this province has very little but what is passive. It receives from abroad some objects of daily consumption, some of luxury, some of convenience, and some even of the first necessity. ”

“ Giovanni da Vigo—perhaps more frequently referred to in literature by the French form of his name, “Jean de Vigo”—was born at Rapallo, near Genoa, Italy, about the year 1460. He was the son of Bernardo di Rapallo, who was also a surgeon; and he himself was the founder of a school which sent out quite a number of practical surgeons. In 1485 he began the practice of his profession at Saluzzo, a small town about forty miles south of Turin; and ten years later he settled at Savona, which is located on the Mediterranean, a short distance to the west of Genoa. ”

“ He took off his cap to the Spaniard and said so fervently that he knew his gift would be accepted, "Because of the education this voyage has been to me and as a thank-offering that my life is preserved, I present my share in this beaver find to my creditor, Francis Vigo!"
Francis Vigo's face beamed kindly on the ardent boy.
Doby was proud of his dramatic success in this elaborate speech of politeness. He thrilled pleasantly and made a little flourish with his cap.
Alas and alack!
Erratic movement above the point of balance is not the thing for a canoe's safety. ”

“ If a transatlantic liner touched at one of the northern ports, such as Vigo, Santander, Bilbao, it would open up an untrodden Switzerland with fertile valleys and noble hills. No pleasanter summer tour, on bicycle or afoot, could be made than through the Basque provinces, Asturias, the national cradle of Spain, or in beautiful Galicia with its trout rivers. In summer the climate is cool and pleasant, and the most isolated valleys are so safe that any two women could travel alone with security. ”

“ Drawbacks naturally there are. The country is backward, and some of the smaller hotels are lacking in the luxuries that English travellers expect. But progress in these and other respects is being made with giant strides. The great English liners that carry passengers from England to Vigo and Corunna in two days and a half are of course excellent, and the principal hotels of Vigo, Mondariz and La Toja, are all that can be desired. The hostelries of Santiago and Pontevedra are being greatly improved, and new modern hotels are in project. ”

“ It was on the shores of this bay that the English guards first emptied Spanish bodegas, whilst the bombs of Cobham were crushing the roofs of the castle of Castro, and the vecinos of Pontevedra buried their doubloons in cellars, and flying posts were conveying to Lugo and Orensee the news of the heretic invasion and the disaster of Vigo. All these events occurred to my mind as I stood far up the hill, at a short distance from the fort, surveying the bay.
“What are you doing there, Cavalier?” roared several voices. “Stay, Carracho! if you attempt to run we will shoot you!” ”

“ Between the various mountain peaks may be seen fertile valleys of all shapes and sizes, and separated from one another by mountain ridges covered with oaks and pines.
The climate of Vigo is reputed to be the finest in Spain; its soil produces almost every kind of vegetable and fruit in the greatest abundance, and much earlier than they can be grown in other parts of Galicia. The principal industry of the town is fishing, in connection with which there are numerous factories for salting and preserving fish. Other industries are paper-making, the refining of petroleum, and tanning. ”

“ Vigo offers many of the contradictions between the very old and the essentially new which are to be found in Galicia.
There is not much to see in the way of public buildings; but there is the fish market, best visited early in the morning, when the building is crowded with women who are buying, selling, and handling the catches which have been brought in from the bay and the Atlantic; and the vegetable market, where also the women are the principal attendants. ”

“ In another canoe sat the second voyageur of Vigo's historic spying expedition and—looking very conscious of himself and of his newly acquired servant—Doby! bound on a secret errand in the service of his country!
"We need young blood for our nation's future growth," Francis Vigo had said overnight to Mr. Holman. "Give me your son for my assistant on this voyage for the Government. I will train him—make a patriot of him."
Now Mr. Holman knew that Francis Vigo was the one man in the great valley whom Gen. ”

“ Charas, Lemery, Baumé, and others modified and simplified it. John de Vigo was a native of Naples, where he was born about 1460, and he became the first physician of Pope Julius II. His plaster still figures in the French Codex, and contains 600 parts of mercury by weight in 3,550 parts. This [411] made into a liquid with olive oil and spread on calico makes the sparadrap of Vigo, in which form it is most frequently used, as an application to syphilitic eruptions.
Ambrose Paré gives the earliest formula for Vigo’s plaster, which was then called Emplastrum Vigonium seu de Ranis. ”

“ Another important river is the Eo, which, rising in Galicia above Salvatierra, divides this province from that of Asturias, and is the natural boundary line between Lugo and Oviedo. Galicia has upon her coast some of the finest harbours in Europe. Vigo, for one, has often been described as the finest natural harbour in the world; while Ferrol, once so famous as the Arsenal of Spain, is likely to become ere long, in the hands of English shipbuilders, one of the world’s greatest dockyards, and to supply ironclads to all the nations. ”

“ Walking or sitting, standing or stooping, they never so much as raise a hand to steady their baskets or their pails. And the lifelong habit has certainly given them a most stately carriage. A duchess who is ambitious of walking worthy of her vocation could hardly do better than go into training with them.
The Spanish peasant girls may not be classically beautiful, but they are well-built, strong and active; a healthy-looking, open-air race. The chamber-maids of the hotel at Vigo seemed to spend the whole of their existence carrying buckets of water upstairs on their heads to the bedrooms. ”

“ Myself.—I have no need of assistance; but you may do me a favour by accepting of a book.
Stranger.—I will receive it with thanks. I know what it is. What a singular people? The same dress, the same look, the same book. Pelham gave me one in Egypt. Farewell! Your Jesus was a good man, perhaps a prophet; but . . . farewell!
Well may the people of Pontevedra envy the natives of Vigo their bay, with which, in many respects, none other in the world can compare. On every side it is defended by steep and sublime hills, save on the part of the west, where is the outlet to the Atlantic ”

“ Tuy is the frontier town of the Miño, and the Portuguese fortress of Valencia confronts it across the river like some “deadly opposite” in an interrupted duel. But its quaint old houses and cathedral do not now wear a very martial appearance; and as I was allowed to sketch uninterrupted under the very nose of a sentry, it would seem that the rival cities have agreed to differ without any unnecessary parade.
Vigo (to our surprise) proved quite unknown to all the inhabitants of Tuy. “Bigo” they knew ”

“ Three days later, on returning to Porriño and the fonda, I noticed that the carcase was still there—also a decayed and dejected diligence on the pavement, a vehicle which could, however, be galvanised into active service in case of need. Porriño, however, is not a typical Galician village, and is no more representative of the charms and beauties of the country than Wigan is of England.
A GALICIAN FISHING-BOAT
MEN AND WOMEN ROWING UP VIGO BAY
The visitor will often witness sights which, if not exactly pleasant, are full of interest, as showing something of the people's lives. ”

“ The convent was founded in the thirteenth century, and the ivy-clad remains, [Pg 173] on a typical sunny day, make a beautiful object to inspect.
Pontevedra has its modern institutions, like Vigo, but the arcaded streets and the ancient houses are the great charms. The Church of San Francisco is a prominent feature of the town, occupying a commanding position, and a very pleasant walk across the bridge to the other side of the water may be taken, a point being reached from which a striking view is obtained. ”