  FEW streams are so mercilessly bantered as the hapless Manzanares, and it is rough on an honest little river to rag it because it is poor. It is “navigable at all seasons for a coach and six”; it is mockingly urged “to sell its bridges for water”; and it labours under a gross imputation (not to be whispered in the presence of touchy Madrilenos), that upon one occasion when it happened to be sufficiently copious to float a mule’s pack-saddle, the enthusiastic citizens turned out to capture the “whale.” Even its few partisans show a calculated gaucherie in their compliments. “Duke of streams and viscount of rivers” is quite a preposterous flight. But perhaps the bitterest tribute is the gibe of a jealous young sportsman (a Toledan, and consequently part-proprietor of the Tagus) who had fainted from heat at a bull-fight, and to whom his neighbours were kindly proffering a pitcher of No one would have had an ill word to say of it had it clung to its lowlier destiny. It reaps the reward of the tuft-hunting which sent it to visit Madrid. A mile above the Iron Gate it is as pretty and secluded a little brooklet as anyone need desire;—a clean shingly bed, and broken banks fringed with brushwood and poplars, beneath whose shade we very contentedly dozed through the hot hours of siesta-time, cooling our toes in the water and restfully contemplating the distant summits of the Sierra de Guadarrama,—faint opalescent outlines above the tree-tops in the glen. We had ridden in that morning from Toledo; and to push on across the mountains the same afternoon was too heavy a task to be seriously contemplated. No; we would take matters easily during the heat, and drift on in the evening towards the foot of the pass. We should find lodging—of a sort—at some little village posada, and could tackle the long ascent in the cool of the early dawn.
The sun was sinking as we passed las Rozas, but there was still an hour of daylight before us, and it seemed a pity to waste such a beautiful evening, so we launched out venturously on to the At Torrelodones, saith the proverb, are twenty-four burgesses and twenty-five thieves (the twenty-fifth being the curate); yet there is no innkeeper among so many. Bread and wine, however, were forthcoming at one of the cabins, and eggs at a second, which we got cooked at a third; and if anyone wanted to wash himself, was there not the fountain on the village green? Beds, however, were a different matter. A muleteer would have rolled himself up on the floor in his blanket; but we had no blankets, and did not fancy the floor. As for the reputation of the villagers, no doubt that was wholly unmerited; but we thought of It was already dark when we quitted the hamlet, and the distant lights of Madrid were twinkling up at us from the misty plain below. But another beacon rose in sight as we breasted the surge of the moorland—a large brilliantly-lighted building, apparently right in front of us and only a few hundred yards away. What was it? Evidently no ordinary farmstead—the lights were so many and so small. But anyway it would not do to camp right under its windows, so the question was shelved unanswered. We wheeled aside from the roadway, and picked out a bedroom under the lee of a huge boulder which promised us shelter from the wind. Anyone who has ever tried the experiment must be perfectly well aware that the delights of an extemporary bivouac are better imagined than endured; but we had not bargained to take our discomfort in exactly the form that it came. The last few nights we had spent at Toledo kicking the last sheets off our beds in a vain endeavour to get reposefully cool. The stars seemed to travel very slowly across the zenith as we dozed through the dog-watches in our chilly nest. But at last a lightening in the east heralded the approach of dawn; and no sooner was there enough light to swear by than we were again upon the road, thankful for the excuse to work some warmth into our shivering limbs. Our teeth fairly chattered as we dipped into the cold shadowy hollows; but the level rays of the rising sun caught us as we topped the ridges, and cheered us with an ample promise of a warm time to come. It was The Puerto de Navacerrada is one thousand feet higher than that of Guadarrama, and the road, being less frequented, is unfortunately not so well kept. But for all that it can be cordially recommended to the traveller, for it boasts far finer scenery as a reward for the extra toil. To our right the shadowy dome of the Great Iron Head cut a bold arc of purple out of the glowing eastern sky, while to our front and left lay the long serrated ridge of the Seven Pikes, a prominent landmark to travellers across the northern plains. The hillsides were draped from foot to summit with the rich purple mantle of the flowering hard-head, variegated with vivid splashes of gold where the broom had ousted its hardier rival; and every here and there the slope was broken by groves of pine, or jutting crags of grey granite, with the cool blue shadows sleeping at their feet. Looking back over our left shoulders along the southern face of the mountains, our eyes were caught by the towers of the Escorial rising up nobly from the lower slopes, and scarcely dwarfed even by their mountain background; while, a little nearer, the Vigo road—a pyramid of persevering Our own pass rejoices in the possession of a multitude of summits, and the sixth or seventh of these (upon which we had really pinned our faith) disappointed us bitterly by abdicating in favour of another, distant at least an hour away. This last, however, was guaranteed genuine by the inevitable hall-mark of a caminero’s hut, and was, moreover, on such intimate terms with the Seven Pikes that we felt there was no room for deception. The gradient of the northern face is distinctly steeper than the southern, and the road zigzags down sharply through the shadowy pine-woods which clothe all this portion of the range. Not a soul crossed our path as we threaded their silent alleys; and the only house is a solitary Venta midway down the descent, which rejoices in the ominous title of Mosquito Tavern. We thought of Polonius at supper and did not risk a meal. Deep down in the dingle beneath us a mountain stream was chattering towards the plain; and as we neared the outlet of the valley, and felt that we had broken the back of our day’s journey, we began to cast envious glances at the inviting waters. Our bedroom had not proved altogether a At the mouth of the valley stands the royal palace of La Granja, built by Philip IV. as a rival to Versailles. The structure is not nearly so fine, though the site and the fountains are finer. But who goes to Spain to see copies of things French? And we swung disdainfully past the gateway, and headed our course for the great cathedral tower that marks the position of SegÓvia.
We were drawing quite close to the city when There are a certain number of towns in Europe which form a class by themselves—a class of professional models for the delectation of the artist. The principal lion of the city was lying in wait at the gates thereof,—the huge granite Aqueduct, one of the wonders of Spain. Its mighty piers go striding like colossi across the valley, and the little puny houses “peep about under their huge legs.” By whom it was built is a matter of some question; possibly by Augustus,—more probably by Trajan Beneath its broad shadow we dived in among the crazy patchwork houses of the Azoquejo, the once disreputable “Little Market” where Don Quixote’s rascally innkeeper had been wont to “practise knight-errantry” in his callow days. A steep crooked street led us up under the toppling balconies, past the beautiful Romanesque arcades of the Church of San Martin, and the heavily rusticated faÇade of the sombre Palace of Pikes. Truly this was a captivating city; we made the confession immediately. And as yet all the grounds of our verdict were a few steps inside the back door. SegÓvia is Queen of Castilian cities, as Toledo is the King of them. But SegÓvia does not lend her countenance to those who approach from the south. She sits with her face to the northward towering over the road from Valladolid:—an unforgettable vision, the fairy city of our dreams. Spain seems to take a delight in concentrating her fascinations. For mile after mile she will trail you over a dull and spirit-quelling country, till all your enthusiasm is properly subdued. Then she Perched upon the precipitous cliffs of a long wedge-shaped promontory between two confluent gorges, SegÓvia has been aptly likened to a ship stranded sidelong on the mountains with its bows slanting towards the plain. The sharp prow and lofty forecastle are formed by the heights of the AlcÁzar; a little further aft is the “bridge,”—the high ground round the Plaza Mayor, where stands the cathedral, the central feature of the whole. And if one is to run the comparison to
There is something almost life-like in the sweep of the tilted strata as the great cliff leaps above the summit of the poplars. It seems like the “station of the herald Mercury”;—arrested motion rather than repose;—a great wave petrified in the act of breaking, with spires and gables for the spray upon the crest. Beneath it curves the green and fertile valley, the “terrestrial Paradise” of the Monks of El Parral The AlcÁzar, which is poised upon the extremity of the precipice, was gutted by fire some forty years ago, and is consequently largely a restoration; but it harmonises so admirably with the lines of nature that one hardly realises that it has not grown of its own accord. It has always been a royal stronghold, but never played any very important part in the But the proudest day in its annals was that upon which Isabella the Catholic (newly apprised of the death of her brother King Henry) rode forth from its gateway to claim the homage of Castile and Leon. The moment was critical, for her succession was disputed; but SegÓvia stood firmly in her favour,—a worthy birthplace for the worthiest era of Spain. The site seems designed for such a pageant; but it bore its own bane in the setting: for from the little convent of Sta Cruz, below the gateway of San EstÉban, Torquemada was drawn to sway his nobler Queen. Torquemada was Isabella’s evil genius—the demon who was to turn all her blessings to a curse. It is but just to him to admit that he was honest in The cruelty for which we chiefly condemn them is a crime for which they were not wholly responsible. The age was cruel,—“the most cruel of all ages,” wrote the grave Montaigne:—and the Inquisition did but deal with heresy as treason was dealt with by the State. Its secrecy was its new and horrible feature and the one most deeply resented at the time. For at first, even in Spain, the Inquisition was not tamely accepted; and some of the noblest These grisly reflections are the inevitable Nemesis of all romantic and chivalrous associations; but they seem as sadly out of place in this sunny Eden as the trail of the serpent in its prototype. Isabella was a generous patroness to the little convent, and her own mottoes and badges figure in its delicate carving. She needed no such piety to keep her memory green.
The Valladolid road skirts the foot of the precipice on the larboard side and doubles back into the city, where the slope is easiest at the stern. But the straight path is taken by an irresponsible little bye-way, which rushes the steep ascent along the feet of the beetling ramparts, and succeeds in winning a footing inside the Santiago gate. Here the elegant horse-shoe arches look as if they might have been borrowed from the Alhambra; and as we issued from under their shadow we were confronted by the graceful campanile of the Church of San EstÉban, a work of the thirteenth century, The gateway of San EstÉban is a little abaft the church, and, like its neighbour of Santiago, has distinctly a Moorish air. Not so the Arco San Andres, the other great gate, to the starboard. That is uncompromisingly Gothic, and large and massive enough to balance both the other two. Upon this side the city is bounded by the little bourn of the Clamores, a scantier stream than the Eresma, but equally romantic and picturesque. It flows in a straight-sided gully like a natural moat, the upper reaches becoming gradually shallower and wider till they expand into the broad valley which is crossed by the aqueduct arcade. Here the most prominent feature is the cathedral, which We are far from exhausting the subject, but it is vain to continue the catalogue. The true fascination of the town must be felt and not described. I am afraid that even the SegÓvians are not fully appreciative; for our host considered that we were wasting our time there, and wished to pack us off to la Granja to see the fountains play. “It was a shame,” he said, “to spend every day in SegÓvia.” SegÓvia!—where every street corner is worth a wilderness of fountains!
When Gil Blas was imprisoned in the “tower of SegÓvia,” his kind-hearted gaoler assured him that he would find the view from his window very fine—when he cared to look. This casual remark gains significance from the fact that it is about the only allusion to scenery in all that veracious biography. Gil Blas, it may be remembered, was not impressed by the prospect. He had a very bad fit of the blues, and could only observe that there were nettles by the stream. But doubtless he saw better ere leaving. His character (never much to boast of) was at least vastly improved by his involuntary sojourn, and perhaps it is not too fanciful to suggest that “the view from the window” may deserve some of the credit of the cure. “There are none of beauty’s daughters with a magic like thee,” sings Byron to one of his houris; and the same whole-hearted allegiance to SegÓvia will be paid by most of those who have once come under her spell. Grenada, perhaps, may equal her. So does Albarracin, in tertio-decimo: and the situation of Cuenca is probably the grandest of all. But even Grenada herself will not steal her admirers from Segovia; and Cuenca, for all its brilliance, is a gem of fewer facets than this. |
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