WHO has not heard of CoruÑa, and the “Burial of Sir John Moore”?

The province of CoruÑa—or La CoruÑa, as it is usually called—covers 7902 square kilometres, and its population in the year 1905 amounted to 683,915 souls. CoruÑa is the dampest province in the whole of Spain, and it has more misty days in the year than any other part; but, on the other hand, it is never troubled with those dry hot winds that cross to Spain from Africa: it is decidedly healthy, and its women and children have very beautiful complexions.

The town of CoruÑa, with its 50,000 inhabitants, is situated on a diminutive peninsula at the point of the angle which forms the north-west corner of Spain, and the distance between it and Madrid is 830 kilometres. CoruÑa is one of the oldest towns in Spain. Orosius wrote about it in the fifth century, calling it Brigantia. He related that it had a very high tower built for looking out over the sea as far as Britain.[179] It was to CoruÑa that Julius CÆsar brought his fleet from Cadiz, and it was the natives of CoruÑa who were so terribly frightened at the sight of that fleet, having never seen anything like it before. The name of Brigantia is derived from the Celtic word Briga, which we have already discussed in these pages.

Both English and German passenger steamers constantly touch at the ports of CoruÑa and Vigo on their way to Lisbon and South America, and the sea route to Galicia is by far the shortest and quickest for English travellers.

We left Southampton just before midnight on January 10, boarding the Hamburg-American liner of 11,000 tons, the KÖnig Fredrick August, with the aid of a steam tender. The night was pitchy dark, and the only lights visible after we had left the shore were those that shone from the deck and port-holes of the KÖnig Fredrick August. Many of the best boats running between Europe and South America are German, and there is no doubt that Germany has begun to take, during recent years, a very lively interest in the development of Argentina and her sister Republics. Germans are wresting from the hands of enervated and self-satisfied Englishmen the trade of which we once thought we had the monopoly by divine right, and it is chiefly by German vessels that Spaniards are emigrating in shoals from their native land to Buenos Ayres, to Uruguay, and to Chili. I do not think I entered a single town in Galicia upon the walls of which I did not see placards denoting the speedy departure of some German liner from Europe to South America.

All the passengers we found on board the KÖnig Fredrick August were bound for Buenos Ayres or the neighbouring States. We alone were bound for Spain. Ours was a journey of two,[180] theirs of twenty-two, days. We were the only English; every one else was either German or Spanish South American. Here was a favourable opportunity of comparing Teuton and Latin types. As we paced the deck in brilliant sunshine the following day, I noticed that the Spanish were decidedly short and slight of stature, with sallow, almost bilious complexions, black hair, and large and brilliant dark eyes; while the Germans were tall and thick-set, with florid complexions, light sandy hair, and blue eyes. The cooking on board was quite German, so we subsisted for those two days principally upon apples and grapes, both being abundant and excellent in quality. A German band performed lively airs during dinner each evening, and enabled us to forget somewhat the motion of the vessel. Our cheerful and airy cabin was fitted up regardless of expense with every possible convenience, including an air-fan, a telephone, and an electric hair-curling apparatus; and, in addition, an amiable stewardess flew to execute our every wish. The dreadful Bay of Biscay behaved like a lamb, and the vessel carried us from Southampton to CoruÑa as steadily as if she had run on rails. Yet, though the sun was shining and the weather calm, we could see great foaming waves dash steeple-high against the rocks of Brest as we passed well out to sea. Only a few days before there had blown a terrible gale in that very corner of the Bay, and a fishing smack had been wrecked near San Sebastian. We slept both nights with our port-holes open, but repented of this when, at about 10 a.m. on the second morning, a great wave washed in upon us, flooding the floor and drenching all our belongings, including the clothes in which we were to land. Pails of water were taken up from the floor by an angry steward after our soaking carpet had been removed, and we had to remain in our berths till lunch time, when our apparel was brought back to us from the drying-room. Traces of rust on our keys and on the fittings of our travelling-bags, which were filled with water when the wave entered, still remind us that sleeping with open port-holes in the Bay of Biscay is a dangerous pleasure.

At 3 p.m. on January 12 we steamed into the horseshoe harbour of CoruÑa, our band playing a lively march. To our right we passed the majestic lighthouse known as the Pillar of Hercules, a sight to rivet every eye; and there before us was the town upon whose ramparts the brave Sir John Moore was buried by his comrades.

CoruÑa is a dangerous harbour to enter, even in calm weather, on account of its islands and its many rocks. The whole coast as far as Vigo is treacherous and unfriendly; it has, in fact, so bad a name that it is called the “Coast of Death.” Even in calm weather waves dash with fury against the jagged reefs, and the surf rises to such a height that it may easily be mistaken for whales spouting. I put a question or two to the sailors who stood amongst the passengers with eyes fixed upon the harbour, but they told me they knew no more than I did about the coast, as neither they nor any of their line of steamers had ever entered that harbour before; till now they had always made straight for Vigo. Even the captain, they added, had never seen CoruÑa till that day! A pilot had come on board to take us to a spot where we could anchor, and a couple of Spanish soldiers, who had come with the doctor, now took their places on either side of the lowered gangway to examine the papers of all who left the ship or came on board. Little boats laden with fruit and vegetables soon approached us from the shore, to the great amusement of a fat German who was looking

over the side. “They evidently think,” he remarked, “that we have nothing to eat on board.”

“Set a watch all round the ship,” cried the blue-eyed captain to the first mate. “We must be sure that no stowaways creep on board.” And as the mate went aft to carry out the captain’s instructions, we descended the ladder and took our places in the tender, which rose and fell with the dancing water.

All the houses that face the harbour of CoruÑa are entirely fronted with glass-covered galleries or verandahs, which present a novel appearance to the unaccustomed eye. The town looked like a line of conservatories, and I remembered the proverb about people who dwell in glass houses, and wondered whether it had originated in CoruÑa. These glass fronts are sun traps; they take the place of fireplaces in cold weather. The bright, genial Spanish sun shines through the glass and fills the rooms with pleasant warmth even on the coldest days, when the ground outside is covered with frost. There glass is the only heating apparatus with which the houses of Galicia are supplied.

Upon landing we were immediately surrounded by a crowd of miserable-looking beggars of all ages and descriptions. Most of the children squinted, and many were blind in one eye; several were blind in both. Many were terribly maimed, and had difficulty in following us upon their remaining limbs—but follow us they would and did, some on all fours, till we drove off to an hotel and left them behind. It was some time, however, before we could drive off, as we had the misfortune to arrive at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. The Custom-House officer had gone off for his week-end, and we were gravely informed by the assistant that we must leave all our luggage on the quay, and return to have it examined on the following Monday morning, when the head Custom-House official would attend in person. “What!” we cried, “may we not at least take a valise to the hotel with our night apparel?” “No, you can take nothing till Monday,” was the stolid reply. At this we became desperate, and assured the official that it would be an unheard-of thing to force English people to sleep for two nights in their travelling clothes simply because they had landed on Saturday. For a long time they continued to shake their heads; but finding at last that we were quite determined not to budge without the valise, they reluctantly handed it into our cab, and we drove off to an hotel.

Our room at Hotel Francia had the usual glass-fronted verandah, the glass consisting of small panes let into a wooded framework which was painted white. Our host told us that if we kept the verandah windows open when the sun shone, closing them about four o’clock, we should find the room as warm in the evening as if we had a fire. To a certain extent this was correct; but on one occasion we forgot to shut the windows at sunset, and all the warmth that the glass had gathered during the day fled the way it had come, and in the evening the atmosphere of our room was that of a refrigerator. From that verandah we took our first survey of the CoruÑa thoroughfares. Cabs, whose tops consisted of canvas awnings, passed continually below us, and donkeys were so numerous as beasts of burden that they gave the place quite an Eastern touch. The trams and most of the carts were drawn by mules, and nearly every woman carried some burden on her head.

Our first drive was to the ramparts, to visit the tomb of England’s hero, Sir John Moore. It was the 14th of January, a beautiful day, with such hot and brilliant sunshine that the ladies were using parasols as freely as if it were July. There had been a touch of frost in the night, but as we drove through the public gardens, named after Admiral Mendez NuÑez, with their waving palm trees and camellias full of handsome white and red blossom, there was little to remind us of winter. The clear blue sky was reflected in the sea, and the view of the rocky coast was very fine as our road mounted behind the ramparts of the old town. A glaring British Lion and Unicorn decorated the stone gateway leading to the Gardens of San Carlos, which covered the top of the batteries. I wished them away, for their appearance in such a spot bordered on the aggressive, and jarred somewhat. Modesty becomes the great as well as the brave. And, after all, it was the Spaniards who collected the money for Moore’s monument.

We now alighted from our awning-covered vehicle and entered. There, straight before us in the centre of the gardens, was the tomb we had come to see, a marble sarcophagus, on which we read the following inscription:—

The marble tomb stood on a square plot surrounded by a five-foot granite wall with a granite vase at each corner filled with pink cyclamen; the wall was surrounded by green grass, and the grass, in its turn, was bordered by sunflowers.

In the grass at the four corners grew four palm trees. The rest of the gardens consisted of winding paths between flower beds bordered with box. The whole was enclosed between the rampart walls, which were partially hidden by tall cacti covered with white blossom which had the appearance of rosebuds.

When Borrow visited CoruÑa in 1836 he found the tomb of Sir John Moore on the spot where he was buried by his soldiers “at dead of night,” on a small battery of the old town, whose wall was washed by the waters of the Bay. “It is a sweet spot,” he wrote, “and the prospect which opens before it is extensive. The battery itself may be about eighty yards square. In the centre of the battery stands the tomb of Moore, built by the chivalrous French in commemoration of the fall of their heroic antagonist. It is oblong and surrounded by a slab, and on either side bears one of the simple and sublime epitaphs for which our rivals are celebrated, and which stands in such powerful contrast with the bloated and bombastic inscriptions which deform the walls of Westminster Abbey—

‘JOHN MOORE
LEADER OF THE ENGLISH ARMIES
SLAIN IN BATTLE
1809.’

... close to each corner (of the granite wall) rises from the earth the breach of an immense brass cannon, intended to keep the wall compact and close. These outer erections are, however, not the work of the French, but of the English Government.”[181]

The Gardens of San Carlos are a favourite resort of the CoruÑa townspeople. The photographer whom I commissioned the following day to take a photograph of the tomb informed me that the gardens stood on the most ancient bit of CoruÑa, and that all the new part of the town was built upon land that had been retrieved from the sea in comparatively recent times. “Yes, there lies the hero almost within sight of the glorious hill where he turned upon his pursuers like a lion at bay. Many acquire immortality without seeking it, and die before its first ray has gilded their name: of these was Moore. The harassed general, flying through Castile with his dispirited troops before a fierce and terrible enemy, little dreamed that he was on the point of obtaining that for which many a better and greater, though certainly not braver, man had sighed in vain. His very misfortunes were the means which secured him immortal fame: his disastrous rout, his bloody death, and, finally, his tomb on a foreign strand, far from kin and friends. There is scarcely a Spaniard but has heard of his tomb, and speaks of it with a strange kind of awe. Immense treasures are said to have been buried with the heretic general, though for what purpose no one pretends to guess. Yes, even in Spain immortality has already crowned the head of Moore—Spain, the land of oblivion, where the Guadalete flows.”[182]

“Never,” writes Maxwell,[183] “was the ordeal to which an unfortunate commander was subjected so gently exercised—no man obtained a larger share of sympathy from his countrymen, and none deserved it better. Misfortunes and mistakes were half forgotten—and the failure of Moore’s campaign was attributed to that evil influence exercised by individuals at home and on the Peninsula by whom he was misguided in the commencement and abandoned in the end. On the living, popular disapprobation descended with unsparing severity, while the faults of the departed soldier seemed buried in his warrior grave.... To claim equality as a commander for Moore with Wellington, Napoleon, and Soult” (it was in defending himself against Soult that Moore fell) “no circumstances will warrant. Sir John was a first-rate officer—but he never could have been a great commander. He was an able tactician—understood thoroughly the economy of an army—handled troops well—had a sound discretion and a clear head—but a constitutional defect in some degree neutralised these admirable qualities. Moore lacked confidence in himself—he was haunted by a fear of responsibility—and a constant dread of doing that which was wrong, of running himself and his troops into difficulties from which they might not be able to extricate themselves.... Sir John Moore had earned the highest reputation as a general of division; he was aware of

this, and perhaps felt no inclination to risk it; at all events, he was clearly incapable of despising partial obstacles in the pursuit of some great ultimate advantage.” The Italics are my own.

Wellington said of Moore: “I can see but one error; when he advanced to Sahagun, he should have considered it a movement of retreat, and sent officers to the rear to mark and prepare the halting-places for every brigade.” Napoleon asserted that to the talents and firmness of their leader the deliverance of the British army was to be ascribed, and that, if he committed a few trifling errors, they were to be attributed to the peculiarity of his situation. A brother officer said of Moore: “The British army has produced some able men, and many in point of military talent were and are quite his equals; but it cannot, and perhaps never could, boast of one more beloved, not by his personal friends alone, but by every individual that served under him.” And after all it is only just that Moore should receive honour from Spain and from the people of CoruÑa, for the first purpose of his presence in the Peninsula was to aid the Spaniards in regaining their soil from the great invader—Napoleon. Local writers speak to-day of Moore as one who met with his death while defending CoruÑa,[184] and the townsfolk delight to stroll with their little ones around the hero’s tomb on cool, fresh summer evenings.

There was one thing that puzzled me as I stood beside Sir John Moore’s tomb. How could those wonderful lines on his burial, every one of which throbs with personal feeling, reality, and detail, have been composed years after the event by a young Irish clergyman, who had never left the British Isles? But it was not till just as this chapter was going to the press that I could find any possible solution to the problem. At last light is thrown upon the subject by Mr. R. C. Newick. “There is no poem in the English language,” he writes, “more often quoted in speech or printed in books, no poem about whose authorship there has been more controversy, none which grips more firmly both the mind of a child and the intellect of a cultivated scholar, than the immortal threnody, ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore.’” But who wrote it? Was its author the Rev. Charles Wolfe, as the text-books of English literature inform us? No, it appears to have been composed by a soldier who was present at CoruÑa, and an eye-witness of all that is related in the poem. Mr. Newick claims to have discovered a book which tells us all about the composition of the poem—namely, the Memoirs of Sergeant Paul Swanston, published by B. D. Cousins, 18 Duke Street, Lincoln’s Inn, with no date, but about 1850.

I will take the liberty of quoting the poem as it stands in Mr. Newick’s pamphlet (from the original MS. of the Author, as given to his friend Swanston in February 1809):—

The town of CoruÑa is built, as we have seen, on a peninsula, upon whose rocky sea-washed point there stands the famous Tower of Hercules, a monument of remote antiquity with modern restorations. After bidding adieu to the tomb of Sir John Moore, we told our coachman to drive us to this lighthouse, whose majestic proportions had aroused our admiration as our steamer entered the CoruÑa harbour. On the way thither we visited the Campo Santo, a large cemetery, with many handsome marble monuments. There was a high white wall round the cemetery, and inside it were some tall and leafy eucalyptus trees; on the outer side of the wall there were geranium hedges, six and seven feet high, and in full flower. A priest was standing at the entrance to the cemetery, and seeing that we were foreigners, he kindly volunteered a few explanatory remarks. “Those niches in the catacombs which you see lining the cemetery wall,” he observed, “are the graves of rich people, whose friends can afford to pay a considerable sum for the privilege; the graves you see in the centre, under the grass, are those of poor people, who could not pay for more than the plain ground.” The cemetery was a very large one; it covered the whole hillside and stretched right down to the sea, which formed an azure background to the gleaming white marble. The descending path had handsome monuments on either side of it, all bearing the letters R.I.P.; they were separated from one another by handsome palm trees.

“These monuments were all sculptured in Italy,” explained the priest, “where Carrara marble and sculpture are comparatively cheap: it is easy to bring them here by sea from Genoa.” One of the pantheons was like a chapel. We looked through its glass doors, protected by a strong iron gateway, and saw an altar with four high candles, flowers, and crucifix at the farther end; each candle had a big black ribbon bow with long ends hanging down; in front of the altar were two prie-dieu chairs, which had the appearance of being in constant use. To our left as we had entered we had noticed a round edifice lighted with high oval windows. The priest told us this was the mortuary, that all unclaimed corpses were brought here and laid on the marble slab in the centre, and that this was the spot where inquests were held. A little below, there was a sort of inner cemetery where—so said the priest—all the children who died under seven years of age were buried. We read the inscriptions over several of these little graves, and noticed that nearly all had the words “ascended into heaven on——” and then followed the date.[186] And we were reminded of the fact that “early death is held in Spain to be rather a matter of congratulation than of grief.”[187]

We now returned to our carriage, and drove to the Tower of Hercules. Between the rocks that ran into the sea and were at every moment being covered by its white foam and the great square tower, were stretches of green cornfields, which, to our surprise, were covered with waving oats ready for cutting, and actually being cut before our very eyes by peasant women with small prehistoric crescent-shaped hand sickles—another sight strange to English eyes in the middle of January! But a cold wind was blowing from the sea, and we were glad that the hot sunshine had not tempted us to leave our warm wraps at home: we now drew them well round us, and proceeded on foot to examine the tower. To walk round its square base, I had to take eighty good steps. The original construction of this tower is attributed to the Phoenicians, who have been called the first civilisers of Spain, and who also erected a Tower of Hercules in the neighbourhood of Cadiz. The material of which this tower is built consists of small stones about a foot square, cemented together with pebbles in the gaps. It has three storeys, and the roof is of the same material as the vaults. The storeys, connected with one another by a wooden stair, are said to date from the time of Captain-General Uceda. On the stones is the following inscription:[188]—

LVPVS CONSTRVXIT EMV
LASVS MIRACVLA MEMPHIS
GRADIBVS STRAVIT YLAM
LVSTRANS CACVMENE NAVES
.....S XDDVO

In olden days the tower was surrounded on the outside by a wide spiral stair supported at each corner by a stone pillar. On November 17, 1684, the English, Dutch, and Flemish consuls pointed out to the Captain-General, the Duke of Uceda, the great convenience that would result were he to turn the Tower of Hercules into a lighthouse. The three consuls stated further that all the expenses could be easily defrayed if a small contribution were levied on each vessel that entered the harbour during the space of ten years. The outer staircase must have ceased to exist before the year 1549, since at that date the monk Francisco Molina of Malaga stated in his History of Galicia that it had been taken down, he did not know by whom. Molina also stated that this tower was so famous that few authors omitted to mention it. “Some say,” he added, “that it once had a great mirror in which could be seen the ships at sea, no matter how far away they might be sailing,” but he explains that all this was a fable, and that what the tower really had was “a light, which it ought to have still, to guide the ships that would enter the port by night. This tower,” he continues, “is close to the town, on the seashore: it is of such great height and of such antiquity that it is truly a marvel, and its winding stone stair, which once formed part of the tower, was the most remarkable thing about it; a cart drawn by two oxen could mount to the top.” This last sentence gives one the idea that there must have been ramps, not steps. As for the mirror mentioned above, it may perhaps have been a metal camera obscura something after the style of that to be seen in our day in the Observatory on Clifton Downs.

Florez looked upon the story of the mirror as a fable, and thought it must have originated from the fact that Orosius speaks of a very lofty lighthouse in Galicia called a Specula. Florez also states that the present tower cannot be traced farther back than to the Romans; moreover, the material of which it is built is the same as that of other Roman structures. The historical notices of this tower differ so much from one another that the exact truth regarding its erection seems unobtainable, but the most trustworthy reference is thought to be the one which indicates that it was the work of the Emperor Trajan, because no geographer before his date makes mention of the existence of such a colossal monument. The following inscription has been found on one of the rocks which form its foundations:—

MARTI
AUG. SACR
G. SEVIVS
LUPUS
ARCHITECTVS
AF....SIS
LVSITANVS. EX. Vº.

Sir John Moore is not the only Englishman with whose name CoruÑa is closely connected in the minds of the Spaniards. In the year 1589, Sir Francis Drake came with sixty ships, landed English troops at CoruÑa, and took possession of the convent of Santo Domingo, which was situated on the highest point in the town. He fortified the building, manned it with English soldiers, and built batteries around it, intending to subdue the town; but all his attempts to do so were frustrated by the courage and patriotism of a woman—Maria Pita. Drake was eventually compelled to retire with a loss of fifteen thousand men, but he set fire to the convent before evacuating it, and it was burned to the ground. Ever since that time CoruÑa has celebrated yearly, in the month of August, a popular festival of a religious character which is called Fiestas de Maria Pita.

Maria Pita, sometimes called Maria Fernandez de Pita, was a poor woman from the street, who, seizing the sword of a dead soldier, gathered the people of CoruÑa together and inspired them with courage to resist Drake. In fact, it was she who, sword in hand, led the attack which forced Drake and the troops under General Henry Noris to abandon their position and quit the town. In her honour the chief square in CoruÑa is called Plaza de Maria Pita. Every year the best preacher obtainable is invited to preach a carefully prepared sermon to the people of CoruÑa in the church of St. George (the largest church in the town) on the subject of Maria Pita’s victory over Sir Francis Drake. There is not a child in the province who has not heard of the courage and dauntless bravery of Maria Pita. She is one of Spain’s heroines. Five years after Drake’s departure, in the reign of Philip II., a new convent was begun upon the site of the one that had been destroyed. It was completed in the reign of Philip III. It is dedicated to the Virgin of the Rosary, the patron saint of the town.[189]

Fishing is the most important industry in CoruÑa, and excellent ice factories recently planted in the neighbourhood have given the trade a wonderful impetus. Formerly, for want of ice to keep the fish cool, a great deal was spoiled, and it was almost impossible to make use of the fish caught, or to send it to any great distance, in a country where the sun is so powerful. But now ice factories supply the fishing-smacks with ice, and they can go out and fish four days consecutively, the ice they take with them keeping the fish cool and fresh. Ice is also used in great quantities for packing the fish destined for Madrid, where the demand is still greater than the supply. Every evening a special fish train leaves CoruÑa at 6 p.m. for Madrid. There is tremendous bustle and excitement among the fisher-folk before the train starts. We stood on the wharf one afternoon and watched the smacks come in, their decks piled high with silvery sardines. Women and children helped to carry the sardines up the gangway in baskets balanced on their heads, and, depositing them in the warehouse, proceeded to wash them in the running water and place them with lightning speed in the wooden boxes ready to receive them. The sardines were thrown into the boxes in handfuls, spread out, and sprinkled with salt, till the boxes were almost full, and then a carefully assorted row was laid on top. Each basket that was filled with sardines from the newly arrived boat was so heavy that it took four persons to lift it on to a woman’s head! Since the latest appliances for the production of ice have reached CoruÑa, that commodity has become cheap and plentiful, and consequently the price that the inhabitants have to pay for fish for their own tables has risen tremendously. Before there was ice available for packing fish and preserving it, sardines were so cheap that they were almost given away, and the poor made them their principal food. They are now a delicacy which the very poor cannot afford to buy.

We visited an important ice factory, and watched the ice being made with the help of liquid ammonia. By expansion of the liquid the necessary cold is produced, the ammonia is pumped into the congealer and then compressed and cooled by water, after which it again becomes liquid; and so the process is repeated. Sea water is pumped into the factory at the rate of fourteen tons an hour, by means of electricity. We saw the pipe running along the beach; it was two hundred yards long. The water enters the pipe at a depth of seven yards below the surface. As I have said, we watched the ice being made. Fresh water filled great tin moulds; these were then let down into a tank containing salt water rendered very cold by means of pipes beneath, filled with the ammonia which had been expanded from its liquid state into gas. The degree of cold which is sufficient to freeze fresh water does not freeze salt water, so only the water in the moulds was turned to ice. When the water in the moulds had become ice, they were raised out of the salt water and tipped up so that the ice blocks could slide out; each block weighed twenty kilos. That the blocks might slip out easily, the moulds were dipped for an instant into hot water. If the heat is too great, the ice sticks; but if it is exactly the right temperature, the ice blocks slip out easily, like puddings out of a pudding mould. The blocks of ice are kept in an ice-house with pipes of ammonia running over the ceiling to keep the temperature at freezing-point. The windows of the ice-house were made of prisms, like bottles filled with air; they let the light of the sun enter, but not its heat.

The sardines are caught in draughts.[190] They shun very cold water, and are most plentiful on the Galician coast at periods when the Gulf Stream flows nearest to the shore. Fishermen can tell when the sardines are coming. As many as four hundred deal boxes (as large as petroleum cases) are sent to Madrid every day from one factory during the sardine season. The packing is almost all done by women. The women work with far more energy than the men. This fact was pointed out to me by the manager of the principal factory, and I saw for myself that it was correct. Strange to say, it is only among the poorer classes that the women of Galicia are remarkable for their energy.

“Our ladies are too fat, because life is too easy; they have not enough work either for mind or body,” said a Spanish gentleman. “Even our men are lazy,” he added. “In Spain a man waits to inherit his father’s worldly goods, and as long as his father lives he remains the son, and nothing else; he only gets responsibility and independence at his father’s death. In England, on the contrary, a father gives his son responsibility, educates him, and then expects him to make a position for himself.”

CoruÑa has not so many chocolate factories as formerly. When Cuba belonged to Spain, the Cubans exported large quantities of cocoa nibs to the mother country, but, since the war, that branch of commerce has been interfered with to such an extent that many manufacturers have left Spain to settle in Cuba and start factories over there instead, so that CoruÑa has lost much of her chocolate-making industry. I visited a CoruÑa chocolate factory and saw cocoa nibs put into a machine and ground to powder; in another machine the powder was being mixed with cane sugar; and in a third the blocks of chocolate, weighing a hundredweight, were being cut up into half-pound strips; a fourth machine kept the little tin moulds into which the melted chocolate was poured continuously shaking, so that the chocolate might not stick. In the next department we watched a number of women rolling up chocolate cigarettes in silver paper.

The poor of CoruÑa subsist chiefly upon vegetables. I devoted some of my time to visiting them, that I might get a correct idea of their circumstances and the kind of life they led. One woman who earned her daily bread as a charwoman took me up to her room on the fourth storey of a house that appeared to be built almost entirely of wood. The room, which she shared with her little daughter, contained two beds, a table, and a chair. It had neither windows nor fireplace—in fact, no opening of any kind but the door, and was so dark even with the door open that she had to light a candle in order to show me the size of the room and the prints and photographs with which the walls were adorned. For this abode the woman paid three pesetas (half a crown) a month. There were several such rooms on the same floor, tenanted in a similar manner, and a general kitchen with charcoal cooking hearth was at the service of all. These poor people take a cup of coffee or chocolate for their early breakfast, and their dinner consists of a bread-and-vegetable soup, called Gallegan broth (kaldo Gallego), which is famed all over Spain, and a sardine, or other fish, on the days that they can afford it. More coffee is drunk than chocolate; they find that it is a greater stimulant. The best chocolate in CoruÑa costs four pesetas (three shillings and fourpence) a pound, but that used by the poor costs them only one peseta (tenpence) a pound. On leaving the house, I asked the poor woman if she was not afraid of the house taking fire, seeing that it was all of wood and that they used candles so constantly. “Oh no,” she replied, smiling; “I have never heard of a house in CoruÑa being burnt, and I have lived here all my life.” Coming out of the door, I met a woman with a market gardener’s heavy basket on her head filled with cabbages and potatoes; in her arms she carried a little baby.

My next visit was to a large building which served as a home for the aged poor, and was managed entirely by Hermanitas de Caridad, “Little Sisters of Charity.” All was spotlessly clean. A Sister showed us round. Each dormitory contained some twenty beds, with red coverlets and snowy sheets and pillows; one could hardly believe they had ever been slept in. There was a lavatory with six washing-stands attached to each dormitory. The old men lived quite apart from the old women. We found one old lady in a bed that she had never left for seven years; she appeared well cared for, and quite comfortable. The building is modern, having only been completed fifteen years ago. It stands in its own grounds, where it has its own laundry and drying-ground. In the garden there is a pleasant summer-house, where the old people can sit almost every fine day in the year.

As is usual in such institutions, no servants were kept; the Sisters did everything, with the help of the sturdiest of the inmates, who were employed in scrubbing the floors, etc. The linen closets, with their tastefully folded linen, were a sight to see; glass cupboards full of linen reached to the ceiling and covered the walls. The air in all the apartments and corridors was fresh and pure, and the sun shone in at the windows, from which there was a pleasant view of the seashore. On the upper storey were a number of rooms destined for single or widow ladies who had no homes of their own, and were glad to have a cheap and quiet retreat. I saw one of them standing at her door as we passed along the corridor; she was in negligÉ attire, and was evidently surprised to see visitors. We bowed, and seeing her inclined, entered into conversation with her. She was a woman about fifty-five years of age, with powdered cheeks and grey hair frizzed over her forehead. My charwoman-guide then pulling me aside, informed me in an excited whisper that the lady was the Contessa de P. “I have worked for her as cook,” she added, “and I can assure you she smokes like a man.” The Sister who stood by, a nun, with black hood and white bib, overheard the last words, and said severely, “She does not smoke here.” The wide glass-covered verandah was brilliant with the January sunshine: here the inmates could take the sun, as they say, and can truly say, in Spain. The chapel, which we inspected next, had a gallery for the nuns, with fretwork-covered windows looking down upon the pauper congregation. When there is a great function, all the chairs are taken away, and the people stand. There was also a neat dispensary, and an infirmary. The dining-rooms were cheerful and spacious, with marble-topped tables. The kitchen was a fine, airy room, with a great stove in the centre. In all the public institutions that I visited in Galicia the stove invariably stood in the middle of the room, thus making it possible for a number of persons to stand round it and cook without interfering with one another. The house is in the hands of twenty Sisters, under a Mother Superior. In my conversation with the lady boarder I learned that the poor there are always discontented, and never cease to long for their liberty and for the old life of begging at the street corners—where they had neither shelter nor warm clothing nor food to eat. I really thought, after seeing them huddled together in groups in the great, cheerful, but monotonous rooms, that while I had a spark of vitality and endurance left in me I should feel as they did, and prefer the life of the street with all its risks and privations to that deathly sameness. Monotony is a slow and sure poison; it can undermine even the constitution of a pauper. As for the poor of CoruÑa, they are chiefly fisher-folk, and the coast being, as I have said, the most dangerous in Spain, cases of drowning occur with painful frequency, so that the industry is a very precarious one, and the number of the destitute is continually increasing. Corpses of fishermen are constantly being washed ashore, and there is nearly always a body lying in the mortuary to be identified.

There are only eleven tobacco factories in Spain. These are most of them palatial; they all belong to the Government. The one at CoruÑa, like the rest, is managed for the Government by a private Company, which is allowed to appropriate 10 per cent. of the net profits. It was once a very large factory, with six thousand women workers, mostly the wives, widows, and daughters of fishermen, or men who have emigrated to South America.[191] On the occasion of my visit, I found three thousand women at work. Besides these, there were forty men employed in carrying the heavy cases to the warehouse. The tobacco was supplied from various places, chiefly from Kentucky, Mexico, Brazil, St. Domingo, Cuba, and the Philippine Islands. In Ford’s day, an enormous amount of tobacco was smuggled into Spain from Gibraltar, but that is not the case now.

Common cigars sell at about three a penny. Some of the workers have very nimble fingers, and can prepare nine bundles, of forty cigars each, in a day, while the slowest workers only manage about five bundles. They begin work at 7 a.m., and continue till 8 p.m., bringing their dinner with them, and leaving it in a neighbouring house, where it can be warmed up if they wish. The women with whom it is left bring it in baskets to the workers, who eat it where they sit, without leaving their seats. In the factory at Seville they have a separate dining-room, but none is provided at CoruÑa. Every fortnight the women are paid according to the quality and quantity of the work they have done. We walked among them as they worked, sixteen at a table, with coloured handkerchiefs over their heads and tied tightly under the chin, with a three-cornered shawl crossed over the breast.

The manager told me that the work was not unhealthy, because it was all done by hand, and there was none of that fine powdery dust which is so injurious to the health of workers in factories run by machinery. At the entrance of each workshop we saw a candle burning in front of a crucifix.

It has been reckoned that every adult male inhabitant of Madrid smokes on the average twenty pesetas’ (sixteen shillings) worth of tobacco in a year; but in Barcelona each man smokes nineteen pesetas’ worth. The smallest quantity is consumed in the Balearic Islands, where the tobacco consumed by each male values three pesetas and a half. The richer the town, the better the quality of the tobacco consumed. The wood for making the cases in which the cigars are packed is of a special kind, and is sent for the purpose from Cuba. The best cigars manufactured at CoruÑa are the Farios. Pipes are seldom used, except by a few sailors.

The streets of CoruÑa have much that is Oriental about them. Men walk about carrying skins of water, just as they do in the East. I found a woman cook with all her cooking apparatus neatly arranged around her at the street corner, and cooking away as unconcernedly as if in her own kitchen. I asked of the people standing near what she was cooking, and learned that she was making cakes for the approaching Carnival. We saw that the men were riding on Moorish saddles; these have been in use in Spain ever since the Moors introduced them. We also saw many sacks of pine cones that had been brought in from the villages to be sold as fuel for kitchen fires. People store their cellars with them as we should store ours with coal.

Many of the houses in CoruÑa are built with an air shaft in their centre; this has a glass top, and the light that descends the shaft lights four rooms on each landing. Those on the third floor get a fair amount of light, but those on the first fare badly. This is certainly a degree better than having no daylight except that which can penetrate into the room from an open door, as is often the case in Spanish houses.

CoruÑa is a fashionable seaside resort in summer; its hillsides are dotted with villas belonging to the wealthy of Madrid and other big towns. Three bull-fights take place there every year, and an occasional carousal is held in the bull ring. Families who have not a villa of their own hire flats for the season. There is no hotel life, and what hotels the town has are only suited to meet the requirements of business men and commercial travellers. Donkey picnics are a favourite amusement with summer visitors, and delightful excursions are made upon pack-saddle into the wooded valleys and the picturesque hills with which the town is surrounded on all sides, except where the sea washes its shores.

Like our Oxford, CoruÑa can boast of having afforded a refuge to the National Assembly of her country, when it was forced to leave the capital. In July 1706, when Madrid was crowded with English and German soldiers who threatened to burn her to the ground, and the Court and the Royal Family had established themselves at Burgos, a Junta del Reino was called to discuss the calamitous state of the country, and that Assembly was held in CoruÑa. Letters were sent on that occasion to Santiago, Lugo, and Tuy, asking the citizens to supply forage for the new battalions that were to be formed in Galicia, and it was mainly through the bravery of Gallegan soldiers that the invaders were driven out of the land.[192]

CoruÑa has one of the best harbours in Europe, and since the remotest times this town has been considered one of the principal strongholds of the Peninsula; its present fortifications are, it is true, very antiquated, but there are projects on foot for once more converting it into a stronghold of the first order. The town was fortified for the first time in the reign of Henry III., but it was not till 1602 that the work of strengthening it was seriously undertaken. The key to the port is the fort of San Anton, on a small and rocky island which we passed at the mouth of the harbour; but this fort, which was built in 1779, is now little more than a ruin.

The most interesting church in CoruÑa is that of the Colegiata de Santa Maria del Campo. It is a very small Gothic edifice with three naves. An inscription on a column near the right pulpit bears the date Era 1340, which is equivalent to the year 1302. The parish church of St. James (Santiago) is also Gothic, but does not date farther back than the sixteenth century. The largest church in the town is that of St. George; the original one was rebuilt after Sir Francis Drake’s visit, but the present one is the conventual church of the suppressed convent of St. Augustine.

CoruÑa possesses a good Public Library, containing four thousand volumes, with rooms devoted to Physical Science, Chemistry, and Natural History. There is also a Meteorological Observatory, where candidates for the post of pilot are examined.