TO go from Saragossa to Burgos, the capital city of Old Castile, one travels the whole length of the great valley of the Ebro, crosses a part of Arragon and a part of Navarre, as far as the city of Miranda, situated on the branch road which passes through St. Sebastian and Bayonne.

The country is full of historic memories, of ruins, monuments, and famous names; every village recalls a battle, every province a war. At Tudela, the French defeated General CastaÑos; at Calahorra, Sertorius withstood Pompey; at Navarrete, Henry de Transtamare was conquered by Peter the Cruel. One sees the remains of the city of Egon ad Agoncilla; the ruins of the Roman aqueduct at Alcanadre; and the remains of the Moorish bridge at LogroÑo. The mind grows tired of recalling the memories of so many centuries and of so many peoples, and the eye grows weary with the mind.

The appearance of the country changes every moment. Near Saragossa there are green fields dotted with houses, while here and there one sees groups of peasants wrapped in their many-colored shawls, and occasionally donkeys and carts. Farther on there are only vast undulating plains, bare and arid, without a tree, or a house, or a road, where for miles and miles one sees only a herd of cattle, a cowherd, and a hut, or some little village of mud-colored, thatched cottages, so low that one can scarcely distinguish them from the ground—groups of huts rather than villages, true pictures of poverty and squalor.

The Ebro winds beside the railroad in great curves, now so close that the train seems on the point of plunging into it, now looking in the distance like a silver line appearing and disappearing between the hillocks and through the underbrush along its banks. In the distance one sees a purple chain of mountains, and beyond them the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees. Near Tudela one sees a canal, and after Custejon the country becomes green again; as one advances the arid plains alternate with olive-groves, and here and there lines of varied green break the yellow expanse of the deserted land. On the distant hilltops one sees the ruins of enormous castles, surmounted by towers broken, gaping, and fallen to decay, like the great trunks of giants, prostrate, but threatening.

At every station I bought a paper; before I had travelled half the distance I had a mountain, the journals of Madrid and Arragon, big and little, black and red, but, unfortunately, not one friendly to

Amadeus. And I say “unfortunately,” because to read those papers was to fall into the temptation to turn my back on Madrid and start for home. From the first column to the last there was a passionate outburst of insults, imprecations, and threats directed against Italy, scandals about our king, burlesques of our ministers, the wrath of God implored to descend upon our army,—the whole founded upon the report, then current, of a coming war in which the allied powers of Italy and Germany would suddenly attack France and Spain for the purpose of destroying Catholicism, the eternal enemy of them both, of establishing the duke of Genoa upon the throne of St. Louis, and of securing the throne of Philip II. for the duke of Aosta. There were threats in the leading articles, threats in the clippings, threats in the notices, threats in prose and in verse, displayed with sketches, capital letters, and long rows of exclamation points; dialogues between father and son, the one at Rome, the other in Madrid, one of whom would ask, “What shall I do?” Whereupon the other would reply, “Shoot!” or, again, “Let them come; we are ready: we are ever the Spain of 1808. The conquerors of the armies of Napoleon have no fear of the ugly mugs of King William’s Uhlans or of the yells of Victor Emanuel’s sharpshooters.” And then King Amadeus would be called “poor child;” the Italian army described as a crowd of ballet-dancers and opera-singers; the Italians in Spain requested to take their departure by the gentle hint, “Italians to the train.” In short, ask what you would, and there was something to meet your wish. I must confess that for a short time I was a little disturbed. I imagined that, at Madrid, Italians could hardly fail to be hooted in the streets; I remembered the letter which I had received at Genoa, repeated to myself, “Italians to the train” as advice worthy of serious consideration; I glanced with suspicion at the travellers who entered the carriage, and at the railroad-employees, and expected that on first spying me they would say, “Look at that Italian emissary! Let us send him to keep company with General Prim.”

On nearing Miranda the railroad enters a mountainous region, varied and picturesque, where on every side, wherever one looks, one sees only dark gray rocks which suggest to the imagination a sea turned into stone at the time of a storm, stretching away as far as the eye can reach. It is a country full of savage beauty, lonely as a desert, silent as a glacier, which represents to the fancy, as it were, a vision of an uninhabited planet, and impresses one with a mingled feeling of sadness and fear. The train passed between two walls of rock, sharp-pointed, hollowed, and crested, serrated in every manner and form, so that it seemed as though a crowd of stonecutters had spent their entire lives in cutting furiously on every side, working blindly to see who could make the most erratic marks. The railroad then comes out into a vast plain thickly wooded with poplar, among which rises Miranda.

The station is a long way from the city, and I was obliged to wait in the cafÉ until nightfall for the train to Madrid. For three hours I had no other company than that of the two custom-officers, called in Spain carabineros, dressed in a severe uniform, with a dagger and pistols and a carbine slung across their shoulders.

There were two or three of them at every station. The first few times I saw the barrels of their carbines opposite the window I thought they had come there to arrest some one, and perhaps...; and without thinking I put my hand on my passport.

They are handsome young fellows, brave and courteous, and the traveller who is obliged to wait can be pleasantly entertained by talking with them about Carlists and contrabands, as I did, with great advantage to my Spanish vocabulary. Toward evening a Mirandese came in: he was a man of about fifty, a politician, bright and talkative, and so I left the carabineros to join him. He was the first Spaniard who fully explained the political situation to me. I asked him to unravel a little this precious tangle of parties, of which I had not succeeded in finding the thread, and he was well pleased to do so, and went into the subject very thoroughly.

“It is described in two words,” he began. “See how matters stand! There are five principal parties—the Absolutist, the Moderate, the Conservative, the Radical, and the Republican. The Absolutist is divided into two other parties, the out-and-out Carlists and the dissenting Carlists. The Moderate party has separated into two, one of which favors Isabella, the other Alphonso. The Conservative party is made up of four—get them clearly fixed in your mind: the Canovists, led by Canovas del Castillo; the ex-Montpensierists, led by Rios y Rosas; the Fronterizos, led by General Serrano; and the Historical Progressionists, led by Sagasta. The Radical party is divided into four—the Democratic Progressionists, headed by Zorilla; the Cimbrios, headed by Martos; the Democrats, by Ribero; and the Economists, headed by Rodriguez. The Republican party is composed of three elements—the Unionists, led by Garcia Ruiz; the Federalists, headed by Figueras; and the Socialists, by Garrido. The Socialists are again divided into two parties—the International Socialists, and the Socialists without international sympathies. In all there are sixteen parties, and these sixteen are still further subdivided. Martos is trying to constitute a party of his own, Candan to form a second party, and Moret a third. Rios y Rosas, Pi y Margal, and Castelar are each forming their own party. There are accordingly twenty-two parties already formed or in process of formation. Add to these the partisans of the republic, with Amadeus for president; the partisans of the queen, who would gladly trip up the heels of Amadeus; the partisans of the Montpensier monarchy; those who are republicans on the condition that Cuba be retained; those who are republicans on the condition that Cuba be given up; those who have not yet renounced the prince of Hohenzollern; those who long for a union with Portugal; and you will have thirty parties.

“If one wished to be still more accurate, one might subdivide still further, but it is better to get a clear idea of matters as they stand. Sagasta inclines toward the Unionists, Zorilla toward the Republicans; Serrano is disposed to support the Moderates; the Moderates, if they had an opportunity, would join hands with the Absolutists, who, in their turn, would join with the Republicans, who would unite with a part of the Radicals to blow the minister Sagasta skyhigh, as he is too conservative for the Democratic Progressionists and too liberal for the Unionists, who are afraid of the Federalists, while they, the Federalists, on their part, do not place much confidence in the Radicals, who are always vacillating between the Democrats and the followers of Sagasta.

“Have I given you a clear idea of the situation?”

“As clear as amber,” I answered with a shudder.

I recall the journey from Miranda to Burgos as I would the page of a book read in bed when the eyes begin to close and the flame of the candle droops, for I was dead with sleep. From time to time one of my fellow-travellers shook me to make me look out. The night was calm and glorious, with clear moonlight. Whenever I looked out of the window I saw on both sides of the track huge rocks of fantastic form, so close that they seemed about to fall upon the train. They were white as marble, and shone so brightly that one could have counted all the points, the hollows and the boulders, as easily as in broad daylight.

“We are at Pancorbo,” said my neighbor. “Look at that height! Up there stood a terrible castle which the French destroyed in 1813. This is Briviesca. Look! here John I. of Castile summoned the States General, who granted the title of prince of Asturia to the heir to the throne. Look! there is the mountain of Brujola, which touches the stars.”

He was one of those indefatigable cicerones who would talk even to an umbrella, and while he was eternally saying “Look!” he kept punching me in the side near my pocket. At last we arrived at Burgos; my neighbor disappeared, without saying good-bye. I took a cab to a hotel, and just as I was about to pay the driver I discovered that the little purse in which I carried change, and which I was in the habit of carrying in my overcoat pocket, was missing. I thought of the States General of Briviesca, and ended the matter with a philosophic “I deserved it,” without making an outcry, as many do on similar occasions, “By the gods! where can we be? what a terrible country!” as though there are not in their own lands light-fingered people, who would carry off a purse without even having the courtesy to tell one of the history or geography of the country.

The hotel where I stopped was served by girls, as are all the hotels in Castile. There were six or seven of them, like great overgrown children, plump and muscular, who came and went with their arms full of mattresses and linen, bending back in athletic attitudes, rosy, panting, and laughing, so that it made one happy to see them. A hotel with women-servants is an entirely different thing from an ordinary hotel. The traveller seems to feel less strange and goes to rest with a quieter heart. The women impart a certain home-like air to the house which almost makes one forget one’s loneliness wheresoever one may be. They are more attentive than men; knowing that the traveller is inclined to be melancholy, they try to change his thoughts. They laugh and talk in a familiar way in an effort to make one feel like a member of the family and in safe hands. There is an air of housewifery about them, and they serve one, not because it is their business, but because they like to make themselves useful. They sew on buttons with an air of protection; they take the clothes-brush out of one’s hand with a gesture of impatience, as much as to say, “Let me have it, you good-for-nothing thing!” They pick the hairs off of your clothes when you are going out, and when you come back, all bespattered with mud, they say, “Oh! poor fellow!” They advise you not to sleep with your head too low when they bid you good-night; they bring your coffee to you in bed, telling you benevolently to “Lie still; don’t get up!” One of them was named Beatrice, another Carmelita, and a third Amparo (protection), and they all three possessed that ponderous highland beauty which makes one exclaim in a deep voice, “What splendid creatures!” When they ran along the corridors they shook the whole house.

At sunrise next morning Amparo called in my ear, “Caballero!” A quarter of an hour later I was in the street.

Burgos, built at the foot of a mountain on the right bank of the Arlanzon, is an irregular city, with narrow, winding streets, with few noteworthy buildings, and the larger part of its houses not older than the seventeenth century. But it possesses one particular characteristic which gives it a curious and genial appearance. It is painted in many colors, like one of those scenes in a puppet-show by which the painters are expected to draw cries of admiration from the servants in the pit. It seems like a city colored on purpose for a Carnival celebration, with the intention of having it whitewashed afterward. The houses are red, yellow, blue, gray, and orange, with ornaments and trimmings of a thousand other colors; and everything is painted—the doorframes, the railings of the landings, the gratings, cornices, corbels, reliefs, balconies, and windowsills. All the streets seem to have been prepared for a festival. At every turn a new effect strikes the eye; in every direction there is, as it were, a rivalry in displaying the most conspicuous colors. It almost makes one laugh: they are such colors as have never before been seen on walls—green, flesh-color, purple, colors of rare flowers, of sauces, sweets, and stuffs for ball-dresses. If there were at Burgos an asylum for mad painters, one would say that the city had been painted one day when its doors had been broken open.

To make the appearance of the houses more pleasing, a great many windows have in front of them a sort of covered balcony enclosed with an abundance of glass like a case in a museum. There is, as a rule, one of these on every floor, the one above resting on the one below, and the lowest of all on the show-window of a shop, in such a way that from the ground to the roof they look altogether like the single window of an immense store. Through the windows on every floor one sees, as though they were on exhibition, visions of girls and children, flowers, landscapes, and cardboard figures from France, embroidered curtains, lace, and Moorish ornaments. If I had not known differently, it would not have occurred to me that such a city could be the capital of Old Castile—of a people who have a reputation for gravity and anxiety; I should have believed it to be a city of Andalusia, where the people are gayest. I had expected to see a decorous nation where I found a coquettish masker.

After two or three turns I came out into a vast square called the Plaza Mayor, or the Square of the Constitution. It was entirely surrounded by ochre houses with porticoes, and in the middle stood a bronze statue of Charles III. I had not yet looked around when a boy ran toward me, enveloped in a long cape torn off at the bottom, and dragging behind him two old shoes and waving a paper in the air:

“Want the Imparcial, caballero?”

“No.”

“Want a Madrid lottery-ticket?”

“No indeed!”

“Want some contraband cigars?”

“No.”

“Want—?”

“Well?”

My friend scratched his chin: “Want to see the remains of the Cid?”

Gracious! what a leap! But no matter; let us go and see the remains of the Cid.

We went to the municipal palace, and there an old janitress made us cross three or four narrow passages until she stopped us where all of them converged. “Behold the remains!” said the woman, pointing to a sort of coffin resting upon a pedestal in the centre of the room. I approached and raised the cover and looked in. There were two compartments, at the bottom of which one could see some bones heaped together like fragments of broken furniture. “These,” said the old woman, “are the bones of the Cid, and these others the bones of Ximenes his wife.”

I took in my hand the shin-bone of one and a rib of the other, looked at them, felt them, and turned them over, but, as I was unable by their aid to resurrect the features of husband and wife, I replaced them. The woman showed me a wooden seat, almost in pieces, propped against the wall, and bearing an inscription which said that it was the seat upon which sat the first judges of Castile, Nunnius Rasura and Calvo Lainus, the great-great-grandfathers of the Cid; which is the same thing as saying that this precious piece of furniture has stood in the very same place for the goodly period of nine hundred years. I have it before my eyes at this moment, sketched in my note-book in serpentine lines, and I seem to hear the good woman asking, “Are you a painter?” as I stood leaning my chin on my pencil to admire my masterpiece. In the next room she showed me a brazier of the same antiquity as the old seat, and two paintings—one of the Cid and the other of Ferdinand Gonzales, the first count of Castile, both of which are so dark and faded that they do not suggest the image of those personages any better than did the shin-bone and the ribs of the illustrious consorts.

From the municipal palace I was conducted along the bank of the Arlanzon to an extensive square, with gardens, fountains, and statues, surrounded by handsome new buildings. Across the river lies the suburb of Bega, and behind it rise the barren hills which tower above the city. At one end of the square stands the monumental gate of Santa Maria, erected in honor of Charles V., and ornamented with statues of the Cid, Ferdinand Gonzales, and the emperor, while beyond the gate rise the majestic spires of the cathedral.

It was raining; I was alone in the middle of the square, without an umbrella. I raised my eyes to a window and saw a woman, who appeared to be a servant, looking at me and laughing, as if to say, “Who is that crazy man?” This was so unexpected that I was a little disconcerted, but I tried my best to appear indifferent, and started toward the cathedral by the shortest cut.

The cathedral of Burgos is one of the largest, most beautiful, and richest monuments of Christendom. Ten times I wrote these words at the top of the page, and ten times I lacked the courage to continue, so feeble and inadequate are the powers of my mind for the task of describing it.

The faÇade runs along a little square from which one is able to see only a part of the immense structure; on the other sides run crooked, narrow streets which shut off the view. From all parts of the vast roof spring graceful spires, rising above the highest buildings of the city, and richly adorned with ornaments of the color of dark limestone. In front, to the right and left of the faÇade, rise two tapering belfries covered with sculpture from base to summit, ornamented with open-work carving and stone embroidery of charming grace and delicacy. Farther on, from a point near the centre of the church, rises a tower equally rich with bas-reliefs and carvings. On the faÇade, at the angles of the belfries and along the different elevations, beneath the arches and on all the walls, stand an innumerable multitude of statues—angels, martyrs, warriors, and princes—so close, so various in pose, and brought out in such strong relief by the light background of the edifice, that they almost present to the view an appearance of life, like a celestial legion stationed to guard the monument.

On raising the eyes beyond the faÇade to the pinnacles of the farthest spires, comprehending at a glance all that delicate harmony of line and color, one experiences a feeling of exquisite pleasure, as when one listens to a strain of music which sweeps gradually upward from the expression of solemn prayer to an ecstasy of sublime inspiration.

Before one enters the church one’s imagination is far beyond the things of earth. You enter. The first emotion of which you are conscious is a sudden strengthening of faith if you have it, and a yearning of the soul toward faith if you have it not. It does not seem possible that this measureless mass of stone can be a vain work of man’s superstition. It seems to affirm, to prove, to command something. It is like a superhuman voice crying to the earth, “I AM!” It exalts and abases, like a promise and a threat, like a dazzling burst of sunlight followed by a thunder-clap. Before you have looked about you feel the need of rekindling in your heart the dying embers of divine love; you feel unfamiliar and humiliated before that miracle of aspiration, genius, and labor. The timid no which whispers in the depths of your soul dies with a groan beneath the dreadful YES which reverberates in your brain. First you look vaguely round, trying to discover the limits of the edifice, which are concealed by the choir and the enormous pilasters. Then you run your eyes along the columns and the highest arches, your glance rising and falling, darting rapidly along the endless lines, which follow each other, interweave, correspond, and are lost, like rockets crossing in space; up and through the great vaults, and your heart is lost in boundless admiration, as though all those lines issued from your own brain, inspired by the act of following them with your eyes. Then suddenly you are assailed, as it were, by dismay, a feeling of sadness that you have not time in which to see it all, the genius to comprehend it, nor the memory to retain the innumerable miracles which you have but dimly seen on every side, crowded about you, towering above you, stupefying you—miracles which come, you would say, not by the hands of men, but by a second creation from the hand of God.

The church belongs to the order of architecture known as Gothic of the Renaissance period. It is divided into three very long naves, crossed in the middle by a fourth, which separates the choir from the great altar. Over the space between the altar and the choir rises a dome formed by the tower which one sees from the square. You turn your eyes upward and stand a quarter of an hour gazing with open mouth. You are enraptured by a vision of bas-reliefs, statues, columns, little windows, arabesques, flying arches, and airy carvings, all harmonizing in a design at once grand and delicate, which at the first sight makes you tremble and smile like the sudden bursting and flashing of an immense display of fireworks. A thousand vague images of paradise, which hovered round our childish slumbers, spring together from the ecstatic mind and soar upward like a cloud of butterflies alighting on the thousand reliefs of the highest vault, flying about and intermingling, and your eyes follow them as though you really saw them, and your heart beats faster and a sigh escapes you.

If you turn from the dome and look around, an even grander spectacle awaits you. The chapels are like so many other churches in size, variety, and richness. In each of them lies entombed a prince, a bishop, or a grandee. The tomb is placed in the centre, and upon it rests a memorial statue of the dead, the head lying on a pillow and the hands clasped on the breast; the bishops clothed in their most gorgeous robes, the princes in their armor, and the women in their gala attire. Each of the tombs is covered by an ample pall, which falls over the sides and takes the form of the raised portions of the statue, so that it really makes them look like the rigid limbs of a human corpse. Whichever way one turns, one sees in the distance, between the measureless pilasters, behind the rich gratings, in the uncertain shimmer of light descending from the high windows, the mausoleums, the funereal hangings, and the rigid outlines of the dead. On approaching the chapels one is amazed by the lavish use of sculpture, marbles, and gold in the ornamentation of the walls, ceilings, and altars. Each chapel contains a host of angels and saints carved in marble or wood, colored, gilded, and draped.

On whatever part of the pavement one’s glance may fall it is at once led upward from bas-relief to bas-relief, from niche to niche, from arabesque to arabesque, from painting to painting, to the very roof, and then by another chain of carvings and frescoes it is led down from the roof to the pavement.

On whatever side you turn your eyes you see eyes gazing back into your own, beckoning hands, the heads of cherubs peeping at you, draperies which seem instinct with life, floating clouds, crystal spheres tremulous with light—an infinite variety of forms, colors, and reflections which dazzle the eyes and confuse the brain.

A volume would not be sufficient for a description of all the masterpieces of sculpture and painting which are scattered through this vast cathedral. In the vestry of the chapel of the constables of Castile hangs a very beautiful Magdalene, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci; in the chapel of the Presentation, a Virgin attributed to Michelangelo; and in another chapel, a Holy Family attributed to Andrea del Sarto. It is not certainly known who the painters of these pictures were, but when I saw the curtains which concealed them withdrawn and heard those names reverently spoken, I shivered from head to foot. Then, for the first time, I experienced in its fulness that sense of gratitude which we owe to the great artists who have made the name of Italy honored and precious the world over. I learned for the first time that they are not only the illustrators, but also the benefactors, of their country—benefactors not only of those who have the ability to appreciate and admire them, but of those also who are blind to their works, and even of those who are careless and ignorant of them. For he who lacks the sense of beauty does not lack national pride, or, if he lacks even this, he still has personal pride, and feels his heart deeply stirred when he hears some one, even though it be only a sacristan, say, “He was born in Italy,” and the careless man smiles and is happy. But for his smiles and his enjoyment he is a debtor to those great names, which inspired no feeling of admiration in him before he passed the confines of his country. Wherever one goes these great names accompany and protect one like invisible friends; they make one seem less foreign among foreigners; they cast upon one’s face the lustre of their own glory. How many smiles, how many hand-clasps, how many courteous words from unknown people do we Italians not owe to Raphael, Michelangelo, Ariosto, and Rossini!

If one wishes to see this cathedral in a day, one must run past the masterpieces. The carved door which opens into the cloister is said to be the most beautiful in the world after the doors of the Baptistery of Florence. Behind the great altar stands a stupendous bas-relief by Philip of Borgogna, representing the Passion of Christ—a marvellous composition, for the execution of which one man’s lifetime does not seem sufficient. The choir is a veritable museum of sculpture of incredible richness. The cloister is full of tombs surmounted by recumbent statues, and about them runs a profusion of bas-reliefs. In the chapels, around the choir, in the passages of the sacristy, everywhere, are paintings by the greatest Spanish masters, statuettes, columns, and ornaments. The great altar, the organs, the doors, the staircases, the gratings, everything, is grand and magnificent, and at the same time arouses and rebukes one’s admiration. But why add word to word? Could the most minute description give a living image of it all? And even if I were to write a page for every painting, for every statue, for every bas-relief, could I produce in another’s heart, even for a moment, the emotions which I felt myself?

A sacristan came up to me and whispered in my ear, as though he was telling me a secret.

“Do you wish to see the Christ?”

“What Christ?”

“Why,” he answered, “the famous one, as every one knows.”

The famous Christ of the cathedral of Burgos, which bleeds every Friday, is worthy of particular attention. The sacristan leads the way into a mysterious chapel, closes the window-shutters, lights the candles on the altar, pulls a cord; the curtain falls back, and—there is the Christ! If you do not take to your heels at the first sight, you are brave indeed. A real corpse hanging on a cross could not be more horrible. It is not a painted wooden statue like other images: it is a stuffed skin, and they say the skin is that of a man. It has real hair, real eyebrows and eyelashes, and a real beard. The hair is matted with blood, and there are streaks of blood on the breast, the legs, and the hands. The wounds which seem like real wounds, the color of the skin, the contraction of the face, the attitude, the expression,—each thing is terribly real. If you touched the body, you would expect to feel the tremor of the limbs and the warmth of the blood. The lips seem to be moving and to be opened in a cry of lamentation. You cannot long endure the sight, and in spite of yourself you avert your face and say to the sacristan, “I have seen it.”

After the Christ one ought to see the celebrated coffer of the Cid. It is a battered, worm-eaten coffer, suspended from the wall of one of the rooms in the sacristy. The story runs that the Cid took this coffer with him in his wars against the Moors, and that the priests used it for an altar in the celebration of mass. One day the doughty warrior, finding his money-bags empty, filled the coffer with stones and scraps of iron, and had it carried to a Hebrew money-lender, to whom he said, “The Cid has need of money. He might sell his treasures, but he does not wish to do so. Give him the money which he stands in need of, and he will speedily return it with usury of ninety-nine per cent., and he leaves in your hands as a pledge this precious coffer which contains his fortune. But upon one condition—that you swear to him not to open it until he has restored what he owes you. It is a secret that must be known only to God and me. Make your decision.” Either money-lenders of that day reposed greater faith in army officers, or else they had an ounce less of shrewdness, than they now have; at any rate, it is a fact that the usurer accepted the proposal of the Cid, took the oath, and gave him the money. Whether or not the Cid lived up to his promise I do not know, nor can I tell if the Jew brought suit. But the fact remains that the coffer is still in existence, and that the sacristan tells the story with great gusto, without the shadow of a suspicion that the transaction was the act of a hardened villain rather than an ingenious caprice of a facetious man of honor.

Before leaving the cathedral you should get the sacristan to tell you the famous legend of Papa-Moscas. Papa-Moscas is an automaton of life-size placed on the case of a clock above the door inside of the church. Once upon a time, like the celebrated automatons of the clock of Venice, he would come forth from his hiding-place at the stroke of the hour, and at every stroke he would utter a cry and make an odd gesture, whereupon the faithful were filled with the greatest delight, the boys laughed, and the religious services were disturbed. To end this scandalous behavior, a stern bishop had some of Papa-Moscas’ sinews cut, and from that day he has stood there motionless and silent. But, nevertheless, they do not stop telling of his deeds in Burgos and throughout all Spain, and even beyond Spain. Papa-Moscas was a creature of Henry III., and hence arose his great importance.

The story is exceedingly curious. Henry III., the king of gallant adventures, who once sold his cloak to buy something to eat, was accustomed to go to the cathedral every day incognito to pray. One morning his eyes met those of a young woman who was praying before the tomb of Ferdinand Gonzales: their glances were bound together, as ThÉophile Gautier would say. The young woman arose; the king followed as she left the church, and walked behind her to her home. For many days, at the same place and hour, they again saw each other, looked into each other’s eyes, and told their love and sympathy by their glances and their smiles. The king always followed the lady as far as her home, without speaking a word and without her giving a sign that she desired him to speak. One morning, on leaving the church, the beautiful unknown dropped her handkerchief; the king picked it up, hid it in his bosom, and offered her his own. The lady took it with many blushes, and, drying her tears, she disappeared. From that day Henry saw her no more. A year later, while hunting in a wood, the king was attacked by six ravenous wolves. After a long struggle he killed three of them with his sword, but his strength was already failing and he was on the point of being devoured by the others. At that moment he heard the report of a gun and a strange cry, at which the remaining wolves took to flight. He turned and saw a mysterious woman staring at him with fixed eyes, without the power to utter a word. The muscles of her face were horribly distorted, and a shrill cry of lamentation burst from her breast. Recovering from his first surprise, the king recognized in the woman the lady whom he had loved in the cathedral. With a cry of joy he rushed to embrace her, but the lady stopped him by exclaiming with a heavenly smile, “I have loved the memory of the Cid and of Ferdinand Gonzales because my heart loves all that is noble and generous; therefore I loved thee also, but my duty restrains me from fulfilling this love, which would have been the happiness of my life. Accept the sacrifice.” As she spoke these words she fell to the ground and died without finishing the sentence, pressing the king’s handkerchief to her heart. A year afterward Papa-Moscas stepped out on the case of the clock to announce the hour for the first time. King Henry had him made to honor the memory of the woman whom he loved. Papa-Moscas’ cry reminded the king of the cry with which his deliverer had frightened off the three wolves in the forest. The story runs that King Henry wanted to hear Papa-Moscas repeat also the words of love which the woman spoke. But the Moorish artist who constructed the automaton declared, after many vain efforts, that it was impossible to satisfy this desire of the tender-hearted monarch.

After hearing this story I took another turn through the cathedral, thinking with sadness that I should never see it again—that in a little while all these marvellous works of art would only linger with me as a memory, and that one day this memory would be obscured or confused with others, and finally be obliterated. A priest was preaching from the pulpit in front of the great altar. His voice was scarcely audible. A crowd of women were kneeling on the pavement with bowed heads and clasped hands, listening to him. The preacher was an old man of venerable appearance; he spoke in gentle accents of death, eternal life, and angels, making a gesture with his head at every period, as though he were seeking to lift up some fallen one and saying, “Arise!” I could have given him my hand with the cry, “Raise me!”

The cathedral of Burgos is not so depressing as all the other cathedrals of Spain. It calmed my spirit and disposed me to quiet religious thought. I went out, repeating softly, almost unconsciously, “Raise me!” Turning to look once more at the bold spires and the airy belfries, I started toward the centre of the city, musing on many things.

Turning a corner, I found myself in front of a shop which made me shudder. There are others like it in Barcelona and Saragossa, and indeed in all other Spanish cities, but somehow I had not seen them. It was a large, clean shop, with show-windows to the right and left of the door. On the threshold stood a woman knitting a stocking and smiling, and at the back of the shop a boy was playing. Nevertheless, when he saw that shop the most phlegmatic man would feel faint at heart and the gayest would be troubled. I give you a thousand chances to guess what it contained. In the windows, behind the doors, along the walls, and as high as they could be placed one above another, in nice rows like crates of fruit, some covered by a finely embroidered curtain, others figured, gilded, carved, and painted, were coffins—at the back, coffins for adults; in front, coffins for children. One of the show-windows adjoined the window of a butcher-shop in such a way that the coffins almost touched the eggs and cheese. And one can easily imagine how a flustered citizen, thinking he was going to buy his breakfast, might miss the door and stumble in among the caskets—a mistake not likely to increase his appetite.

While we are speaking of shops let us enter a tobacco-shop and notice how it differs from our own. In Spain, with the exception of cigarettes and Havanas—which are sold in special shops—they do not smoke cigars which cost less than tres cuartos, a sum equal to about three cents. These resemble our Roman cigars, although they are not quite so large, and are very good indeed or very bad according to their manufacture, which has become rather careless. Regular customers, who are called in Spanish by the very curious name of parroquianos, can get escogidos (selected cigars) by paying something extra; the man of fastidious taste, by adding still more to the sum, can secure los escogidos de la escogidos (the choicest of the choice). On the counter stands a little plate with a wet sponge to moisten stamps, without the annoyance of having to lick them, and in a corner is a little box for letters and stamps. The first time one enters one of these shops, especially if there are many in it, it makes one laugh to see the three or four salesmen throwing the money on the counter so hard that it bounces up higher than their heads, and catching it in the air with the ease of dice-throwers. They do this only to ascertain by the sound if the money is good, for there are a great many counterfeits in circulation. The coin in commonest circulation is the real, which is equal to about four cents; four reales make a peseta; five pesetas, a duro, which is equal to one dollar of blessed memory if you will add a few pennies. Five dollars make a doblon de Isabel, a gold-piece. The people calculate by reales. The real is divided into eight cuartos, or seventeen ochavos, or thirty-four maravedis—Moorish coins which have lost their original form and resemble worn buttons rather than coins. Portugal also has a monetary unit smaller than ours, the reis, which is not equal to a half cent in value, and everything is counted by the reis. Imagine a poor traveller who has arrived in all his ignorance, eaten a good breakfast, and asked for his bill, when he hears the waiter say with a stern face, not eighty cents, but eight hundred reis! It makes his hair stand on end.

Before evening I went to see the birthplace of the Cid. If I had not thought of it myself, the guides would certainly have suggested it to me, for everywhere I went they kept whispering in my ear, “The remains of the Cid!” “Monument of the Cid!” An old man, majestically wrapped in his cloak, said to me with an air of protection, “Venga usted commigo” (Come with me, sir), and he made me climb a hill overlooking the city, on the top of which one can still see the remains of an enormous castle, the ancient dwelling-place of the kings of Castile. Before reaching the monument of the Cid one comes to a triumphal arch in the Doric style, simple and graceful, which was erected by Philip II. in honor of Ferdinand Gonzales on the same spot, it is said, where stood the house in which the famous commander was born. A little farther on one finds the monument of the Cid, erected in 1784. It is a stone column, standing on a pedestal of masonry and surrounded by an heraldic shield which bears this inscription: “In this place stood the house where was born, in the year 1026, Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, known as the Cid Campeador. He died in Valencia in 1099, and his body was borne to the monastery of St. Peter of Cardena near this city.” While I was reading these words the cicerone told me a popular legend about the death of the hero. “When the Cid died,” said he, very gravely, “there was no one left to guard his corpse. A Jew entered the church, approaching the bier, and said, ‘Behold the great Cid, whose beard no one dared to touch so long as he was alive. I will touch it now, and will see what he is able to do.’ So saying, he stretched out his hand, but as he was just on the point of touching it the corpse grasped the hilt of his sword and drew it a hand’s-breadth out of the scabbard. The Jew uttered a cry and fell to the ground half dead. The priests ran in, the Jew was lifted up, and when he came to himself he told the miracle. Then they all looked toward the Cid, and saw that his hand still rested on the hilt of his sword in a threatening attitude. God willed that the body of the great warrior should not be defiled by the hand of an unbeliever.” When the guide had said this he looked at me, and, perceiving that I made not the least sign of incredulity, he led me underneath a stone arch, which must have been one of the old gates, a few steps distant from the monument, and, pointing out a horizontal mark which was visible on the wall a few feet above the ground, he said to me, “This is the measure of the Cid’s arms when he was young and came here to play with his companions;” and he stretched his arms along the mark to let me see how much longer it was. Then he wished me to measure also, and I too was too short, whereupon he gave me a look of triumph and started to go back to the city. Coming to a lonely street, he stopped before the door of a church and said to me, “This is the church of Saint Agnes, where the Cid made King Alfonso VI. swear that he had not had any part in the murder of his brother Sancho.” I asked him to tell me the whole story, and he continued:

“The prelates, the knights, and the other dignitaries of the state were present. The Cid put the Bible on the altar and made the king place his hand on it, and then the Cid said to him: ‘King Alfonso, you must swear to me that you are not stained by the blood of Don Sancho my lord, and, if you swear falsely, may you die by the hand of a traitorous vassal!’ and the king said, ‘Amen,’ but he changed color. And the Cid said again: ‘King Alfonso, you must swear that you neither ordered nor counselled the death of Don Sancho my lord; and, if you swear falsely, may you die by the hand of a traitorous vassal!’ and the king said, ‘Amen,’ but he changed color a second time. Twelve vassals confirmed the oath of the king. The Cid would have kissed his hand, but the king would not permit him to do so, and hated him from that moment to the end of his life.” The old man added, however, that another tradition records the fact that he did not have King Alfonso sworn on the Bible, but on a bolt of the church-door, and that for a long time travellers came from all the countries of the world to see that bolt; that the people attributed to it I know not what supernatural virtues, and so it was much spoken of in every place; and that it gave rise to so many and such extravagant fables that the bishop, Don Fray Pascual, was constrained to have it removed, because it created a dangerous rivalry between the door and the high altar. The cicerone told me nothing more, but one could fill several volumes if he wished to collect all the traditions of the Cid which are current in Spain. No legendary warrior was ever dearer to his people than this terrible Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar. Poetry has made him little less than a god; his glory lives in the national spirit of the Spaniards, as though a few lustres, instead of eight centuries, had passed since the times in which he lived. The heroic poem which is called by his name, the greatest monument of the poetry of Spain, still continues to be the most powerful national work in Spanish literature.

As evening was drawing on I went to walk beneath the portico of the Plaza Mayor, in the hope of seeing something of the people. But the rain was pouring down and a high wind was blowing, so I found only some groups of boys, workmen, and soldiers, and directly turned back to the hotel. The emperor of Brazil had arrived in the morning, and was leaving for Madrid that night. In the room where I dined, together with some Spaniards—who talked pleasantly with me until the hour of departure arrived—there dined also all the major-domos, the valets, servants, and clerks of His Imperial Majesty, and the dear knows who else, a household which sat around a large table and filled it full. In all my life I have never seen a more motley crowd of human beings. There were white, black, yellow, and copper-colored faces, with some eyes and noses and mouths which could not be equalled in the whole collection of the Pasquino of Teza. Every one was talking in a different and much-abused language; one spoke English, another Portuguese, another French, another Spanish, while some spoke a mixture of all four languages, the like of which was never heard before, adding words, sounds, and accents of some outlandish dialect. However, they understood each other and jabbered all together, making such a confusion that it seemed as though they were speaking the horrible secret language of some savage land unknown to the world.

Before I left Old Castile, the cradle of the Spanish monarchy, I wished to see Soria, the town built on the ruins of ancient Numantia; Segovia, with its immense Roman aqueduct; Sant Idelfonso, the delightful garden of Philip V.; and Avilo, the native city of Saint Theresa. But when I had hurriedly and in desperation gone through the four elementary operations of arithmetic before buying my ticket to Valladolid, I said to myself that there was nothing great to be seen in those four cities, that the “Guide” exaggerated, that fame has pieced out their little attractions, that it is better to see a few things rather than many, if only those few are well seen and will be remembered. I indulged in these and other sophistries, and they corresponded perfectly with the results of my calculation and the motives of my hypocrisy.

So I left Burgos without having really seen anything but monuments, cicerones, and soldiers, for the fair Castilians, frightened by the rain, had not dared to risk their little feet in the streets, and therefore my recollections of the city are rather sad, in spite of the gorgeousness of its colors and the magnificence of its cathedral.

From Burgos to Valladolid the country is almost the same as that from Saragossa to Miranda. There are the same vast, desolate plains, bounded by dun-colored hills of angular form with bare summits. These silent, solitary wastes, flooded by dazzling light, bear one away in fancy to African deserts, to the hermit’s life, to the sky, to the infinite, and raise in the heart an irrepressible feeling of weariness and melancholy. Surrounded by these plains, this solitude, this silence, one understands the mystical nature of the Castilian people, the ardent faith of their kings, the sacred inspiration of their poets, the divine ecstasy of their saints, their churches, their grand cloisters, and their glorious history.