THE prettiest spot through which we passed on our railway journey from Pontevedra to Vigo was Redondela, whose picturesque houses scattered among the green hills and fringing the Ria de Vigo, with a tiny harbour all to themselves, were a delight to the eye as we looked down upon them from the train windows. Macaulay mentions Redondela, and alludes to the fact that it was sacked by the English in 1715. Southey was charmed with it when he passed through on his way from CoruÑa to Lisbon, and he took the trouble to translate into English verse a long legend about one of its ancient towers,[264] telling how a lover jumps into the sea in his despairing frenzy. It was Southey, too, who wrote—

Redondela, once an important town, is now little more than a collection of scattered villages, whose inhabitants are chiefly engaged in oyster fishing. At high tide the waters of the Ria de Vigo come right into the town by way of a little river that passes through it under a pretty bridge, which separates Redondela from its neighbour, Villavieja. Out in the blue waters of the Ria we could see the famous little Hospital of San Simon floating like a shell upon the surface.

Our train hugged the shore of the Ria, winding and curving with the water’s edge till we came into the station of Vigo. Vigo is the most modern town in Galicia; it owes its rapid development to its geographical situation and to its bay and harbour, famed for being among the finest in the world. Some forty years ago Vigo was a tiny village, known as Vigo de Cangas. Cangas, situated on the opposite bank of the Ria, is still nothing but a village with a few scattered houses, and it seems incredible that Vigo was, so short a time ago, one of its dependent hamlets. Vigo is built upon the sloping side of a hill, from the top of which mountains may be seen on every side except where the Ria bounds it on the west. Between the various mountain peaks may be seen fertile valleys of all shapes and sizes, and separated from one another by mountain ridges covered with oaks and pines.

The climate of Vigo is reputed to be the finest in Spain; its soil produces almost every kind of vegetable and fruit in the greatest abundance, and much earlier than they can be grown in other parts of Galicia. The principal industry of the town is fishing, in connection with which there are numerous factories for salting and preserving fish. Other industries are paper-making, the refining of petroleum, and tanning. The building of fishing-boats also constitutes an important industry.

Vigo is a port of the first rank; it has three submarine cables, and is a naval station for the British fleets. There are some forty-five young Englishmen employed at Vigo in connection with the cables laid by the British Government. I am told that a number of them have become Roman Catholics in order to be able to marry Spanish ladies. The English at Vigo publish a newspaper in their native tongue for circulation amongst themselves. At present CoruÑa can boast of having greater commercial importance than Vigo, but from its more favourable situation Vigo is bound in time to take the lead.

At the mouth of Vigo harbour, about ten (Spanish) miles from the anchoring-ground, lie the group of islands known as the Cies, formerly called Cecas, or Siccas. Humboldt once visited them, and it was he who first suggested that they might possibly be the “fabulous” or long-lost Cassiterides.[265]

The Ria de Vigo, whose waters are part of the Atlantic Ocean, forms, as we have seen, one of the finest and safest harbours in the world; many consider it the best in Europe. The depth of the Ria varies from 90 to 150 feet; it is sheltered from all winds, and so large that the fleets of many nations could anchor there at one and the same time.

Several of the streets of Vigo are lined with handsome blocks of white granite buildings, after the style of those in Berlin, but handsomer, because those of Berlin are only stucco. There are no ancient churches or other sights of archÆological interest to be seen at Vigo, and the chief business of the traveller—after he has looked down upon the valley where the French army capitulated on March 28, 1809—is to take the beautiful drive along the shore of the Ria to Bayona, where there is an old church, the Colegiata de Santa Maria, which once belonged to the Knights Templars, and an interesting old Franciscan convent dating from the eleventh century.

It is thought that Vigo stands upon the ancient site of Vicus Spacorum, but whether this supposition be correct or not, it is an accepted fact that Bayona is a far more ancient settlement. Molina wrote that Bayona was formerly called Voyana, from the fact of its having the figure of an ox on its coat of arms. There is also a legend that a Roman prefect named Catilius Severus retired thither after his power had been taken from him. Pliny thought the ancient name of Bayona was Abobrica, and Vosius speaks of it as Lambriaca.

From Vigo we went by train to Tuy. Tuy is a mediÆval, walled city rising in the midst of a fertile valley through which the river MiÑo flows, dividing the two kingdoms of Portugal and Spain. The old walls have almost disappeared, and the houses of Tuy now spread far beyond them, making altogether a population of some five thousand three hundred inhabitants. At the top of the conical hill which the city covers, stands the Cathedral, looking more like a castle than a church, with its castellated walls and its fortress towers.

Tuy is said to have been founded by Greek colonists, and to have derived its name from Tyde, i.e. Diomedes, king of Ætolea (not of Thrace), whose parents were Tydea and Delphyla.[266] Morales thought he recognised as part of a Greek pillar a piece of stone fifteen feet in diameter which he discovered in a garden at Tuy. The same writer also alludes to the wrestling matches still kept up by the inhabitants of this town. He remarks that they wrestled in his day with such violence, and squeezed each other so violently in the contest, that their very lives were in jeopardy.

When the Romans took possession of Tuy, they moved the town from the hill to the valley, thinking that once on lower ground it would require less supervision. It was King Ferdinand II. who brought the town back to its original hill and made it a walled city.

The river MiÑo brings Tuy a rich supply of fish, amongst which are fine salmon, lampreys, and trout. The vines of Tuy make a better wine than those of Ribadavia, and every kind of fruit grows in its fertile valley. From the north-west there flows into the MiÑo, close to the town, a little river the sands of which contain gold, and for this reason it has received the name of Ouro. Opposite to the Ouro another river joins the MiÑo; this is called Molinos, because of its many flour-mills. The land in this neighbourhood fetches a very high price, on account of its remarkable fertility. The soil is sandy, and every hillock is fringed with pine trees.

The railway station of Tuy is on the line that runs from Orense to Vigo, and the town itself is nearly two miles from the station. By a branch line across the MiÑo the Gallegan railway is connected with that of Northern Portugal. The junction is effected by means of a very fine international bridge over the river, which is known as the Puente Internacional. On the southern bank of the MiÑo there rises another hill city confronting Tuy, the Portuguese fortress of ValenÇa.

Although the antiquity of Tuy is traced back to the days of Troy and Diomedes, and although we know that the Romans struggled desperately before they could master it, there is very little mention of Tuy in the history of their times. In the days of the Goths, King Witiza is said to have established himself there and to have raised the town to a position of great opulence. During the Middle Ages, after it had been attacked both by Moors and Norman pirates, DoÑa Teresa, a natural daughter of Alfonso VI., who was mistress of Portugal in 1220, claimed Tuy as part of her dowry; but her sister, DoÑa Urraca, appeared on the spot with a powerful army and forced her to evacuate it and retire across the MiÑo. From that time on throughout the Middle Ages, the two cities of Tuy and ValenÇa scowled at one another across the water—the sentinels of two clashing powers. Later on, during the War of Independence, French troops occupied the citadel of Tuy, and the town was blockaded by the Spaniards in 1809. The French General MartiniÈre made a successful sally, and the Spanish forces were driven back at first; but on April 16, 1809, the French were forced to evacuate the fortress.

Tuy was one of the seven provinces into which the ancient kingdom of Galicia was divided. In 1833, when a new division of Spanish territory took place, Tuy became part of the province of Pontevedra. As a diocese Tuy is now a suffragan of the Archbishopric of Santiago.

Molina (writing in the sixteenth century) stated that “Tuy has always been famous for the erudition of its bishops.” There was a grand council of bishops held in the Cathedral of San BartolomÉ at Tuy in the days of Archbishop Gelmirez, about 1122.[267] Whether the existing church of San BartolomÉ is the actual one in which that council was held, is not known, but at any rate we know that this edifice is the oldest church in Tuy, and, what is more, it is the oldest cathedral in the whole of Galicia. The present Cathedral of Tuy, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, crowns the summit of the mediÆval citadel; but San BartolomÉ is situated lower down in the plain, and dates from the time when Tuy was in the valley. San BartolomÉ has three naves, each of the two lateral ones being separated from the central nave by four rectangular piers supporting vaulted arches. At the end of each nave is a chapel. The apse chapels are covered with half-barrel vaulting. The ornamentation is very plain, and shows, in the opinion of Casanova, distinct traces of Oriental and Norman influence. The bases of the columns are decorated with deep semicircular concave mouldings and plinths resting upon the feet of monsters. The capitals are sculptured with classic leaves interwoven with living forms, human and grotesque, with birds and animals, singly and in groups. Above the abacus there is in many parts the ornamentation known as the chess pattern, and here and there on the imposts we find the billet ornament, or moulding in notches, of which we have a specimen in Lincoln Cathedral. Villa-Amil considers the chess-pattern ornamentation in this church to be one of the most definite signs of its antiquity, and at the same time he points out the close resemblance in form, dimensions, and ornamentation which this edifice bears to the Cathedral of MondoÑedo, which dates from the eleventh century.

This church has on the exterior of its northern wall an inscription which has been the occasion of much controversy among archÆologists and epigraphists. No one has been able to decipher it, but SeÑor Manuel Lago of Lugo has suggested that the characters may be Oriental, and written, like Chinese, from right to left.

Here are drawings showing the sculpture of some of the capitals, for which I am indebted to SeÑor Villa-Amil. On one capital is depicted a dinner party. Three of the guests are standing with their hands upon the table as if about to begin the repast: one of them is a woman. On the table may be seen a large dish, in front of the woman, and a smaller one in front of each of the men: a knife with a wooden or bone handle is also distinctly visible beside one of the plates. A soldier, or sentinel, stands to the right of the table, and confronting a man in the garb of a monk who appears to have just arrived upon the scene, lays the blade of his sword upon the newcomer’s shoulder in a most threatening manner, as if to warn him that he interrupts the banquet at his peril. The whole grouping of this piece of sculpture is most dramatic and lifelike. The work probably dates from the tenth century, if not farther back still. Visitors who wish to see the most interesting capitals must hunt for them, often in the darkest corners, and with the aid of a candle.

In the sacristy there has lately been discovered some old columns which date from the ninth century, and here too the sculpture on the capitals is very curious.

Another church worth examination is that of Santo Domingo. This building was consecrated by Bishop Sarmiento in 1534,[268] but the Gothic vaulting was only completed in 1730. A large part of the expense of its completion was borne by the Sotomayor family, two of whom became bishops of Tuy. The church is in the form of a Latin cross with very short arms, and only one wide nave terminating with a hectagonal apse and two small circular chapels to right and left. The Pointed Gothic arches of the nave rest upon GrÆco-Roman pillars supported by exterior buttresses. The central arch leading to the apse is also Pointed Gothic, and rests upon Gothic pillars. The vaulting of the transept is cylindrical, but the rest of the vaulting is Gothic.[269] The Gothic apse, which reminds us strongly of that of Santo Domingo at Pontevedra, was formerly lighted by three long and narrow lancet windows, and the smaller apses had each two such windows, but the bad taste of the eighteenth century led to their being all bricked in, in order that a hideous reredos might be placed behind the altar. There are two entrances to this church, the chief one at the end of the nave, and another, called the Door of the Rosary, at the end of the south arm of the transept. This last is pure Romanesque, and possibly the oldest part of the edifice; it has an archivolt composed of two pointed arches which rest upon two pairs of shafts. The capitals are curiously sculptured: on one I could distinguish faces of angels and long-necked swans, on another was a monkey with a long tail twisted round some small object. On the tympanum, within a border of horseshoe arches, there is a very old group representing the Adoration of the Magi, the figures of which have been sadly mutilated. Enclosing the tympanum is an arch decorated with various images of a symbolic nature. The Eternal Father is represented by a hand stretched out from clouds in the act of benediction.

We now come to the Cathedral, which is the principal object of interest in Tuy. King Ferdinand of Leon conquered Tuy and took it from Alfonso of Portugal in 1170, and as he made a handsome donation in 1180 to its bishop for the building of a Cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary, it is thought that this was the date at which the foundations were laid.[270] The Cathedral was consecrated in 1124, and at the same time opened for public worship. The original plan of the building was in the form of a Latin cross with very short arms, and with three naves in the transept as well as in the body of the church.

The western faÇade is very fine, but the episcopal palace which has been built to the right of the portico detracts greatly from the beauty of its perspective. The chief faÇade, with its high flight of steps and its two massive and castellated towers, has an exterior portico, also castellated and supported on four pillars. This is the only portico of its kind in Galicia, for those of Santiago and Orense are interior porticos, and that of Lugo is merely an additional piece built into the original Romanesque doorway. The interior of the Tuy portico is square and covered with Gothic vaulting. The entrance door is flanked on either side by four columns and as many statues: each statue stands upon the back of some animal, except one, which rests upon the shoulders of a man;

three have their feet upon monkeys; between each pair of statues there is also a column. This class of decoration is anterior to the use of niches; it is also to be seen in the northern portico of Chartres.[271] The decoration of the lintel is divided into three subjects, the central relief representing the death of the Virgin. The tympanum is covered with a sculptured group representing the Adoration of the Magi.

As we enter the building we are struck with its beautiful and airy proportions; above the side naves are galleries covered with arches quite separate from, and below, the Gothic vaulting. Graceful arcades decorate the whole interior, but unfortunately the view is spoiled by modern brick walls and pillars added towards the end of the eighteenth century. The choir, too, is in the centre of the chief nave—a mistake, unfortunately, so common in Spain, and, as I have before had occasion to observe, quite spoils the perspective; this choir was constructed in 1700 at the expense of Bishop Gomez de la Torre. The capitals on which the arches of the nave rest are finely sculptured, but many of them are too high up to be examined without a visit to the galleries—which, however, is quite worth while, for it is from the galleries that the finest view of the elegant triforium, of French design, can be obtained.

But the great feature of this edifice is the fact that it is a fortified cathedral, and is at one and the same time a monument of war as well as of religion; its granite towers with their castellated parapets and loopholes dominate not only the city, but the country round, for miles. I went up to the top parapet, and found that the walls of the tower were a yard thick. From the parapet I looked down upon the old Cathedral Church of San BartolomÉ in the plain below, and upon Santo Domingo, which lay between. The bell in the clock tower was cracked by lightning in December 1793. The clock tower is older than any other part of the Cathedral. It was once a royal tower, and was given by the Emperor Alonso VII.

In the Sala Capitula we saw many interesting parchments with curious seals, dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries; these were only discovered by accident in February 1907 by the Archivero JosÉ Martinez Novas; many of these were the deeds by which the various kings conferred their donations upon the Cathedral, and most of them had seals of lead or wax. Here we were shown a number of Papal Bulls—one of Paul II., others of Eugenius IV., Leo X., Julius VI., and Benedict XIV. respectively. Many of the parchments shown us were of the second half of the tenth century. These newly discovered trophies must have been hidden away by the priests at the time of the French invasion. The lower part of the old tower is now covered by fifteenth-century work, but the Romanesque arch of one of its upper doorways is still visible in the wall.

This Cathedral is the only church of any importance in the whole of Galicia which has a rectangular apse, the usual forms being semicircular or polygonal. In England the practice of making the east end of churches square began early in the Norman period; we have them, for instance, in Winchester and Salisbury, but they were rare in France and Spain until towards the close of the Gothic period. The only example I know of in Galicia is that of the Colegiata at Bayona.

In its general form and structure of the naves and transept the Cathedral of Tuy bears rather a close resemblance to that of Santiago de Compostela. But the cylindrical vaulting of the nave and transept is quite Latino-Romanesque, without any indication of Byzantine influence. The ribbed ornamentation of the vaulting is somewhat after the style of the German Gothic, in the opinion of SeÑor Casanova, and the triforium as seen from the pavement of the central nave is not unlike those of the churches of Southern France.

The Cathedral cloister has some very old arcades with sculptured capitals, but the upper storey is modern and in bad taste. Behind the Cathedral is the Capilla de la Misericordia, one of the oldest in Tuy; it is built upon the solid rock. Close by is a little modern chapel dedicated to San Telmo, the patron saint of Spanish fishermen, whose birthplace was Tuy. The great naval school at Seville is dedicated to this saint, who, according to tradition, has been known to appear to sailors in distress in the form of a bright light and lead them safely to a haven.[272] One of the Cathedral chapels is also dedicated to San Telmo, and was built in 1577 by Bishop Diego de Torquemada.

The principal drive in the neighbourhood of Tuy is to the Portuguese frontier town of ValenÇa, on the opposite side of the MiÑo. We started at 2 p.m., on a fine afternoon in the end of April, and enjoyed crossing the handsome bridge which joins Portugal to Spain above the blue waters of the largest river in Galicia. Portuguese sentinels in blue uniform greeted us on the farther bank, and questioned us in the language of their country as to our object, but they did not ask for passports. At the post office in ValenÇa we posted Portuguese post-cards to various friends in memory of our afternoon visit

to Portugal, and while we were writing them a group of respectably-dressed boys between the ages of twelve and sixteen gathered round us and watched us as we wrote. On my laughingly remonstrating with the postmaster, he replied, “You need not mind the boys; not one of them knows how to read.” So much for education in Portugal in the twentieth century!