SPAIN is far poorer in lakes than in mountains: and the deficiency has compensations, as it discourages the breeding of flies. But it offers a rare opportunity for the disquisitions of a militant geologist, for the lakes must have swamped all other physical features in the days when the hills were young. Liebana and the Vierzo have been already conceded, but he regards these as drops in the ocean. Now he claims the whole basin of the Duero from the Cordillera of Cantabria to the Sierras of GrÉdos and Guadarrama, from the highlands of la Demanda and Moncayo to the rocky barrier on the frontiers of Portugal, through which the pent-up waters at length cleft their passage to the sea.

Now the dry bed of an ancient lake is not in itself an ideal foundation for a landscape; particularly when its original conformation is remorse{153}lessly emphasised by the entire omission of fences and of trees. The mud which formed the bottom has settled unevenly; and the rivers have eroded it into yawning channels, whose steep sides (so prominent at Toro) are scarped and furrowed into myriads of wrinkles by the scouring of the winter rains. The district is not unfertile, for it is a land of corn and wine and oil-olive, and water may be found at no great depth; yet the surface soil is parched and dusty, the villages few and far between, and great tracts of the higher ground consist of untilled heaths where the ilex and cistus make their profit out of the heritage unclaimed by man.

It scarcely seems an interesting district for a walking tour, yet we were barely started before we fell in with one who thought otherwise. He was English, of course:—mad as usual, despite his Spanish domicile; and we fraternised with him at a wayside fountain where he recognised us as compatriots (by our Spanish) directly we saluted him. Our programmes had something in common, but his was by far the more onerous, and none but the veriest devotee of the Wanderlust could have ventured to undertake it without some inward qualms. A long solitary tramp, and mostly{154} through desolate country, over mountain and moorland, from Toro, all the way to ValÉncia del Cid. True, he was a naturalist and an antiquary, and could speak the language like a native; yet, if he was proof against boredom, he must have been very good company to himself. It is not every traveller who could rely so exclusively on his own resources. The ideal tramp, like Don Quixote’s ideal knight-errant, needs to be equipped with “most of the sciences in the world.”

Fortunately the cyclist’s self-sufficiency is not tested nearly so highly. He moves both further and faster than the pedestrian,—covering two days’ march in a single morning’s ride. For him the great Spanish plains are shorn of half their monotony; and if he loves Spain he may blame me for hinting at monotony even here. He finds something strangely exhilarating in the gorgeous sunshine, the dry crisp air, the unrivalled immensity of landscape, and the all-pervading silence, so grateful after London’s maddening din. Spain is pre-eminently a land of ample horizons, of panoramas, and bird’s-eye views. The hollow conformation of the plains gives the widest of scope to the vision, and the pale blue peaks which enclose them may be as much as one hundred{155} miles away. Standing on the summit of the Guadarrama passes, we were wellnigh able to persuade ourselves that the peaks just above us might disclose a view extending from the Cantabrian mountains even to the Sierra Nevada;—all the kingdoms of Spain and the glory of them at a single coup-d’oeil.

The purity of the atmosphere indeed is downright bewildering, and our first preconceptions of distances went wandering wildly astray. Even as far on our way as Madrid, a fortnight later, we found that we had not yet been schooled to credit the milestones against the evidence of our eyes. Madrid lay there before us: we could tell every house, every window. It was absurd to try and convince us that it was ten kilometres away! Yet we passed nine stony compurgators ere we reached the Toledo gateway; and even our own cyclometers professed themselves “all of a tale.” The illusion is accentuated by the great distances which separate the hamlets, and the absence of any intervening landmarks on the bare red plains between.

Meanwhile the details of the landscape are far from uninteresting. The heath flowers are varied and plentiful and the butterflies brilliant in the{156} extreme. The whole air rings with the yelling of the cicadas or the croaking of the frogs in the rare and starveling streams. Little brown lizards are numerous even in the mountains, but here on the plains is a more imposing breed; great green monsters fifteen inches in length, who lie out sunning themselves in the dust of the roadway, and scuttle wildly to cover as our shadows sweep silently by. The natives eat them;—so possibly does the tourist also, for many are the unsuspected ingredients which are involved in the meshes of a Spanish stew.

The birds also, such as there are, seem exclusively decorative specimens. First among these are the hoopoes, with their black and white barred plumage, and their feather crowns, the gift of Solomon the Wise. They have a strong fellow-feeling for the cyclist, and flit from tree to tree along the road beside him with the most engaging cameraderie. If they get too far ahead they will perch and await him, cocking their crests and hoo-poo-pooing encouragement; and once more resume their swift drooping flight as soon as he draws level. Should these lines meet their eyes they are assured that their companionship was much appreciated. The little watery gullies where the frogs live are{157} generally picketted by the storks. Magpies too are alarmingly plentiful in the wild stony districts along the feet of the mountains. Seven at a time is all very well,—at least one knows Who to expect then,—but what grislier horror is portended by thirteen? A Grand Inquisitor?

SALAMANCA Arcades in the Plaza de la Verdura.
SALAMANCA
Arcades in the Plaza de la Verdura.

Men as a rule seem scarcely so numerous as magpies, and one may ride for miles at a stretch without encountering a soul; but those whom you do meet are admirably in rapport with their surroundings; and though their pursuits may be prosaic their appearance would illustrate a romance. This solitary horseman, for instance, is probably a most commonplace personage in reality. We shall sit next to him at comida in an hour or two, and discover that he is an eminently innocuous bagman. But out here in the midst of the wilderness, clad in his broad-brimmed hat and his ample black cloak which muffles him up to the eyes, he might pass as a living embodiment of Roque Guinart himself, and we rather plume ourselves on our resolution in venturing to keep to the road. The Spaniard as a rule wraps himself up amazingly when he goes a-travelling; and the Scotch shepherd sallying out to visit his flock in a December snowstorm is not more jealously{158} plaided than the Castilian carrier trudging along beside his pack mules, with his purple shadow blotting the dusty roadway at his feet. By way of contrast one may occasionally see the small children scampering about outside the cabin doors without so much as a rag of any description whatever—an infinitely more enviable costume.

The greater number of the vehicles are ramshackle tilt-waggons, drawn by a goodly array of mules, five or seven in a string. These have a horrid habit of pulling en Échelon, so that each beast has a clear view of all the road ahead of him, and can make up his mind exactly what he means to shy at. This formation occupies the whole width of the roadway, and the driver (being a driver) is of course asleep; consequently, if you have a rock wall on one side and an everlasting vertical precipice on the other, you had better be careful how you pass. Indeed, it is well to give them a wide berth in any case, for even the immortal Bayard himself, “without fear and without reproach,” professed himself anxious about his shins in the neighbourhood of a Spanish mule. They are harnessed with delightful inconsequence in all sorts of gay tags and fringes, and scraps of old caparisons of yellow Cordovan leather; while all deficiencies are eked{159} out with string. This requires great quantities of string. The waggons which they draw are equally patchworky, with their cargoes bulging out on all sides in an imminently precarious fashion. In the wine districts they generally carry an “extra” in the shape of a huge tun slung under the axle between the lofty wheels.

It is worthy of remark that a Spanish “gee-upper”[24] is commonly unable to think of any worse name for a mule than its own. “ArrÉ! Mula!!” he cries, and collapses impotently. What more can he call it? It is a mule. To do him justice, however, he seldom resorts to blows to reinforce his vocabulary; and the cruelty so often inveighed against in southern countries is not very noticeable in northern Spain. The beasts are gaunt, bony, and ill-kempt, but herein they are no worse off than their drivers: they are too often worked when galled or foundered; yet this is but negative heedlessness, and positive misusage is rare.

The temper of the beasts is uncertain. The ox and the ass are phlegmatic, but the horse and mule (which have no understanding) have decidedly fidgetty nerves. The mules are frequently gigantic animals, as high-standing and big-boned as an{160} English dray-horse, though much less heavy and muscular. Mixed teams are frequently requisitioned in the mountain districts. One sample that we met had a horse for leader, then two mules tandem, a pair of oxen, and a mule in the shafts; another had a mule for shafter, with two more mules outside the shafts, a fourth ahead, and three yoke of oxen to lead the way. It is extremely fashionable to finish off the string with a diminutive donkey (generally the smaller the better) tacked on as a sort of afterthought at the head of the whole cavalcade. He looks as though meant for a tassel, but is really played as a pace-maker; for he is always the fastest walker and the most enthusiastic worker in the team.

There was a real “little Benjamin” of jackasses that we met on the road near SegÓvia. Two men were coming into the town in charge of a bull; and by way of getting the hulk steered with as little personal attention as might be, it had struck them to harness this trifle to the monster’s spreading horns. Had the bull really resented the arrangement it would have cost him but a turn of the head to heave the whole equipage over the parapet among the tops of the poplars below. Fortunately, however, he was not actively annoyed{161}—only rather grumpy and puzzled. Every few steps he would stop, shaking his head and bellowing; while his little pilot gathered himself together, drove in his toes, and flung himself into the collar with the exalted enthusiasm that does not reck of odds. He fairly squirmed with glee as his charge condescended to move a step or two forward, and evidently considered that every yard of progress was exclusively attributable to himself.

SALAMANCA Church of San Martin.
SALAMANCA
Church of San Martin.

We took our last look at the Cantabrian mountains from the crest of the watershed between the Duero and Tormes; and the same hill that concealed them brought us into full view of another equally imposing range to the southward—the Sierra de GrÉdos, whose monarch, the Plaza Almanzor, is only a few feet inferior even to the Rock of Ages which dominates Europa Pikes. But it is to the fallows around us that our first attention is owing;—a site which should stir the imagination of an Englishman as Don Quixote’s was stirred on the Campo de Montiel.

Over these bleak, red plough lands for six long July days in 1812 the armies of Marmont and of Wellington marched and countermarched and circled round each other like dancers in some vast quadrille or chess players fencing for an opening.{162} Neither leader would risk a doubtful action; for the French Army of the Centre was rapidly approaching, and its junction might make or mar a victory. Almost within speaking distance, they raced for advantage in position, and scarcely once did they pause to exchange a blow. It was a repetition of the old drama enacted centuries before by CÆsar and Afranius upon the plains of LÉrida. But the CÆsar of this production was playing Afranius’ rÔle.

Marmont had the pace of his opponent, and Wellington pivoted round Salamanca to guard his communications with Rodrigo. Foiled on the right, Marmont dashed round to the left, forded the Tormes and thrust at Salamanca from the south. Wellington still faced him; but King Joseph was now close upon him, and within two days at furthest the English would be hopelessly outnumbered by the junction of the hostile hosts. Retreat was inevitable: had, indeed, already commenced; for the baggage was on the move, and Wellington was but waiting for nightfall to cover the withdrawal of his fighting line.

“A silver bridge for a retreating enemy,” saith the Spanish proverb; but Napoleon’s aspiring young marshal had been trained in a more{163} aggressive school. He knew that his troops were the speedier, that Joseph’s junction would bring a winning superiority of numbers. If he could but hold the English to their position for another day the campaign might be finished at a blow;—and he eagerly pushed on his left under Maucune to command the Rodrigo road. Clausel’s brigade, already wheeling in from the rear, would link the left to the centre; and his foe would be in a cleft stick. But Clausel’s march was limed in the thick web of olive woods which mantles the hills towards Alba; the fatal gap yawned conspicuous behind the hurrying columns; and in an instant Wellington pounced upon Maucune.

Well was it for Marmont that the day was now far spent, and that the fords of the Tormes had been left unguarded! For never was victory more rapid or more complete. In forty minutes Marmont’s magnificent army of forty thousand men were a horde of disorganized fugitives; and the whole of the central provinces lay defenceless at the feet of his foe.

It seems a little strange that Salamanca should contain no monument of the great battle which freed half Spain from the grasp of the invader, and which, in after years, the mighty victor him{164}self was wont to regard as his masterpiece—the Austerlitz of his career. Its only memorials nowadays are a few forgotten tablets on the walls of the great cathedral: from the roof of which the anxious townsfolk once heard the sudden roar of the closing battle, and watched the great column of smoke and dust soaring up slowly over Arapiles into the placid evening sky.

Salamanca shows itself off to best advantage when approached from the southern side. It stands upon rising ground on the right bank of the Tormes, with a fine old Roman bridge leading up to it across the stream. The river banks are lined with voluble washerwomen,—at least a quarter of a mile of them, fairly elbowing one another as they chatter over their work; and behind them the red-roofed houses of the city are piled up the slope in picturesque disarray. The most prominent object is the great cathedral, a sixteenth century Gothic building of the type that is only to be encountered in Spain. It is of imposing proportions, and lavishly ornamented with a marvellous profusion of delicate carving which could not possibly have stood the exposure to the weather in any less favourable clime. Yet it lacks the deep mouldings and majestic solidity{165} of earlier works; and this somewhat academic pretentiousness is not nearly so impressive as the stunted strength of the old cathedral which nestles under the shadow of its more showy sister—a typical Romanesque edifice, rude, massive, and solemn, like an oak beside a poplar colonnade.

SALAMANCA From the left bank of the Tormes.
SALAMANCA
From the left bank of the Tormes.

No city suffered more than Salamanca from Napoleon’s disastrous invasion; and what that implies let her fellow victims testify! The French are pleased to regard themselves as the modern Athenians;—the modern Vandals is the name that their neighbours might prefer! Gaiseric himself never systematised pillage like Napoleon; and who can wonder at the savage retaliation of the Partidas when he sees the havoc which was wrought in unhappy Spain? “Twenty-five convents, twenty-five colleges, and twenty-five arches to the bridge,” was the boast of the citizens of Salamanca before the days of their visitation. But no less than twenty colleges and thirteen convents (amongst them some of the noblest Renaissance monuments) were razed to the ground by the remorseless Marmont when he built his three great redoubts to fortify the town against Wellington in 1812; and a ghastly bald scar in the midst of the crowded city still marks the spot where the{166} tyrant’s hand was laid. It is but poor consolation to remember that the ramparts erected at this frightful cost crumpled up like the pasteboard helmet beneath the stroke of his mightier foe: and that Marmont himself reaped a small instalment of his whirlwind within actual sight of the city which he had marred.

Perhaps it is hardly too much to assert that at the end of the eighteenth century Salamanca must have been the most magnificently housed university in the world. Even now, after all her losses, I can think of no other on the Continent which can so well stand comparison with our own. But, alas! she has fallen upon evil days. The famous Irish college had a population of seven (Dons and Students included) at the time of our visit; and the salaries of the professors are such as no master of a board school would consider adequate in England. The Augustan age of Salamanca commenced in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella; and was perhaps already declining when Gil Blas visited it with his adventurous young mistress masquerading in her doublet and hose. Then the city had more students than it has now inhabitants; and even Paris and Bologna admitted the superiority of the Salamanca schools. She was a progressive{167} university too; and albeit she rejected Columbus, she at least accepted Copernicus—a considerable step on the way. In one respect her example might inspire present-day universities, for here it was that a lady first held a professorial chair.

The great gate of the Library is now the chief relic of these bygone glories: and that gem of the early Renaissance is worthily supported by the arcaded quadrangles of some of the colleges and schools. They are built of the warm golden-brown stone which is common to most Salamancan monuments, and their richly-carved parapets and fantastically-shaped arches have an air of oriental opulence which is very taking to the eye.

But even apart from its churches, convents, and colleges, Salamanca would still remain notable by reason of its palaces alone. First among these is the Casa de las Conchas,—spangled all over with the great stone scallop shells from which it derives its name. It is even more striking and original than its larger and lordlier rival, the famous Palacio de Monterey; and I owe it a special acknowledgment for the liberty which I have taken with it in pirating its faÇade to serve as the cover of this volume.

The Castilian and Leonese casas have much in{168} common with the typical Florentine palaces; and even their cousins of Aragon only differ from them in so far as they are brick instead of stone. Towards the street they present a square and solemn faÇade, plain or heavily rusticated, and pierced with but few windows, which are always stoutly barred. The entrance is large and plain, and generally arched over with enormously deep voussoirs, which have a very imposing effect. Within is an open patio surrounded by a double arcade. A fine staircase in a recess gives access to the upper tier; and the rooms which are ranged around the gallery all open direct into the air. The centre of the patio is occupied by a well or fountain, and is often filled with flowers. The type seems exceptionally suitable to a semi-tropical country; yet modern builders will have none of it; and, though common in all provincial capitals, it is nowhere to be met with in Madrid.

In a second and smaller type of house the great entrance doorway occupies practically the whole of the ground-floor frontage. Obviously it was generally entered on horseback, and the hall within (like that of a village posada) served as antechamber both to the living rooms above and to the stables behind. The family lived on the first and{169} second floors, while the third was originally a belvedere. But nowadays the latter has been enclosed and the ground floor generally converted into a shop.

SALAMANCA The Puerta del Rio, with the Cathedral Tower.
SALAMANCA
The Puerta del Rio, with the Cathedral Tower.

It is one of the penalties of sketching in a crowded city that everybody who has no immediate occupation of his own becomes consumingly interested in yours. There is but one spot in Salamanca where one is quite secure from surveillance, and that is opposite the porch of San Martin, perhaps the most frequented corner in the town. Here, balanced gingerly upon a narrow ledge, you overlook the heads of the bystanders, and even the most agile urchin can find no foothold in your rear.

Yet the immunity is hardly worth winning. At best it is very uncomfortable; and if you submit to your heckling, the entertainment is not all on one side. At the bridge head it even secured me the offer of a commission. The Boniface of the little wine-shop was urgent with me to reproduce my sketch enlarged upon the front of his bar. My recompense was to comprise full board and lodging during the operation,—and that would have been no trifle. But he must have had considerable faith in the covering capacity of water colours to pit a{170} little twenty-pan paint-box against fifty square feet of deal boards.

But it was at the Puerta del Rio that I found my entourage of most practical utility. It had been snowing overnight in the mountains, and the Sierra de GrÉdos was draped from base to summit in a mantle of dazzling white. In spite of the brilliant sunshine the wind was incredibly bitter, and the miserable sketcher would have been frozen without his human screen. Truly “Winter is not over till the fortieth of May” within reach of those icy summits. The Duke of Wellington asserted that the coldest thing in his recollection was the wind at Salamanca in July!{171}