  IT must give some flavour of unreality to our impressions of the Peninsula that we should not allude to the beggars until the ultimate chapter of all. And our only excuse for our negligence will sound like an aggravation of the error; for we hold that the Spanish beggar has been much over-advertised and does not (on his merits) deserve any more prominent place. The number of beggars in Spain varies directly in proportion to the number of tourists. They are most persistent at BÚrgos; there is a moderate superfluity at SegÓvia and Toledo: but in the out-of-the-way districts there is only the fundamental residue, and that (to speak frankly) we should be rather loth to spare. “His honour the beggar, your brother”—the authorised official beggar—is a gentleman. He is frequently distinguished by a badge, like old Edie Ochiltree; and his resemblance to that worthy philosopher does not terminate with the This “Lord High Vagabond of the Stocks” is, however, not quite pushing enough for the era. In be-touristed cities he is swamped by an army of interlopers. These are perhaps most frequently children; but the tribe is bewrayed by their cry,—“Perrita por pan! The last beggars whom we encountered at BÚrgos, however, were “right” beggars. They were clustering round the entrance of the great monastery of La Cartuja The convent stands about two miles from BÚrgos, on a slight eminence to the right of the Pancorvo road, and was the last of the great monuments of the city that we passed on our departure towards the east. The road had been rising almost imperceptibly all the way from Valladolid. Gradually the fields had got greener and the trees more plentiful as we left the dun plains behind; and now a fine row of big shady elms introduced a welcome variety to the everlasting poplars and half-grown acacias which had been our only solace for many a sultry mile. The country, moreover, now begins to assume a more mountainous character. Away to the right rises the desolate Sierra de la Demanda, the northern outpost of the rugged ranges round SÓria,—perhaps one of the wildest districts in all western Europe at the present day. The wolf and the boar still roam Our road passes only over the merest outskirts of these mountains, and leads us on through Briviesca by a long, gradual, and monotonous descent. Yet the gates of Castile are still before us, and we do not quit that most Spanish of provinces without seeing it once more in its sternest and wildest mood. North of the road lies the long level-topped ridge of the Montes Obarenes, a range not dissimilar to our own Mendips, and, like them, cleft with an unsuspected pass. For some distance we skirt the base of the hills; and then with a sharp turn to the left we dive suddenly into the grim defile of Pancorvo, a Deva gorge in miniature, where road, river, and railway jostle each other through a maze of fantastic limestone crags.
These mountain ramparts, pierced with their deep natural posterns, are a most characteristic feature of the Castilian frontiers; and probably that “Land of Castles” owes its name as much to The northern face of the Montes Obarenes is much more broken than the southern; and as we run down from the pass into the pretty little town of Miranda, we may see, far away on our right, The river breaks through the mountains some ten miles lower, by a gap between two rocky headlands, known as the cliffs of Bilibio and Buradon; and beyond are the tawny undulating plains around Haro,—a famous wine-growing district, whose vintages usually reach the English market under the name of Bordeaux, though they taste just as good under their own. The view (given in the illustrations as La Rioja Alavesa) is one which is very typical of Spanish inland scenery. But a special local touch is given by the Navarrese villages bunched together at the tops of their conical hills, like so many hedgehogs with their bristles out. Navarre was a buffer state in medieval times, and anyone who had nothing else to do used to kill time by invading it. The Navarrese villages were always upon the defensive,
Meanwhile our road to Pamplona keeps still to the northward of the mountains, and, crossing the Ebro at Miranda, makes straight for the heights of Puebla and Morillas, which answer to the Montes Obarenes on the opposite side of the vale. The little river Zadora comes rippling out to meet us; and the gap from which it issues admits us into a wide level basin some ten miles in diameter, to which the Zadora itself forms a somewhat irregular chord. The ground on the left bank of the river rises considerably higher than on the right, and culminates in a little shaggy knoll which stands close beside our road. Watch for it, and do not pass it unnoticed; it is the “Englishmen’s Hill.” Well has it earned that name, for it has been twice baptized in the blood of our nation. Once when a detachment of the Black Prince’s army, under the command of Sir Thomas Felton, fell fighting valiantly against thirty times their number on the eve of the battle of Navarrete. Salamanca was Wellington’s most brilliant victory, but VitÓria was unquestionably the ablest of his campaigns. This invasion was not like those that had gone before it—no mere sally from his impregnable mountain lines. At last he could wield an undivided command and an army as numerous as his opponents; and as he crossed the little frontier river Agueda, he had looked back to Portugal with a confident “adieu.” Hill to the right and Graham to the left had already been slipped on their quarry; and against such a sweeping combination neither Tormes, Duero, nor Carrion could provide any adequate defence. Madrid was abandoned before him,—BÚrgos was dismantled. And the retreating French convoys, with all their baggage, plunder, and munitions, were jammed in the city of VitÓria at the head of the road to Bayonne. Joseph sought to bar the advance at Pancorvo, and thought the defile was impregnable. He looked for assault from the southward, but the storm broke upon him from behind. Wellington had shifted his base by sea from Lisbon to As it was in the days of Las Navas de Tolosa, so was it also in this “crowning mercy” of the Peninsular War. It was a peasant who led Kempt’s brigade over the unguarded bridge at Tres Pontes, and fell, like his prototype of the Morena, at the moment of the victorious attack. Clinging in desperation to each successive thicket and farmstead, the French were pushed remorselessly backward into the chaos of transport behind. And even more fatal than the frontal onset was the blow struck far to the left on the very confines of the plain. There Graham stormed the village of Gamarra Mayor, and shut off the flying army from the use of the great royal road. Nothing that ran upon wheels could go along the branch road to Pamplona. Guns, ammunition, treasure, baggage, and plunder all fell entire into the hands of the victors; and probably at the moment Joseph was The battle was the ruin of Napoleon, as well as of his cause in the Peninsula. The struggle had sapped his strength for years, and the catastrophe came at the very crisis of his fate. Our route follows the track of the flying army along a deep green Navarrese valley between lofty and cliff-like hills. By its side runs the single line which connects Madrid with the frontier; but this turns off to the north about halfway to Pamplona, making for San SebÁstien and Irun.
The villages are much devoted to Pelota Pelota is exclusively a Basque game. In Castile and Leon the men are content with skittles, and the boys are generally engrossed in the enacting of miniature bull-fights—a game in which the star performer invariably elects to play bull. Dancing is, of course, an amusement which is common to all provinces and to both sexes: but a game in the English significance is an institution which seldom appeals to the southern mind. In this district, however, the cyclist provides a good deal of salutary exercise for the conscientious toll-keeper. For the Basque roads are not national but provincial, and the provinces maintain them by taking tolls. The stranger, however, is not generally aware of this custom; and as the toll-bars are quite unobtrusive, he rides innocently past them on his way. His first intimation takes the shape of a breathless and howling caminero sprinting desperately along the road behind him, Some little distance before we reach Pamplona we pass one of the most remarkable examples of rock formation that is to be met with even in Spanish hills. Here the deep glen of Larraun debouches upon the main valley, and across its mouth is drawn a huge natural wall of precipitous limestone which can hardly be less than a thousand feet high. The top is serrated, but both faces are equally sheer; and the thickness at the base is not relatively greater than one would expect in an artificial masonry dam. Probably, indeed, it was a natural dam originally, retaining a vast reservoir in the vale behind; but now it is cleft in the centre from top to base with a huge gash, clean-cut and narrow; and through this stupendous portal the little river issues from the vale.
Pamplona stands in the centre of an amphitheatre of mountains, rising out of the level arena on a sort of daÏs covered with walls and spires. It is the chief of the northern frontier fortresses; but its bastions date mostly from the days of Vauban, and its strength (from a modern military standpoint) must depend on the forts which cap the neighbouring hills. The cathedral is an interesting The bare, windy wastes that stretch away from the city towards the Pyrenean foot-hills are not altogether so tenantless as they seem to a casual view. Several of the villages still bear traces of ancient prosperity;—Estella, charmingly situated in a rocky hollow; SangÜesa, with its noble monastery; Olite, once the Windsor of Navarre. The last-named might almost rank as a working model for an antiquarian. Its lanes are packed with the decaying mansions of the long-departed courtiers, and dominated by the huge ruined castle which was the home of the warrior kings. This palatial stronghold is noted as one of the finest examples in the Peninsula: a match for our own Bamburgh or Warkworth, and consequently with few rivals in the world. As the capital of Navarre, Pamplona has, of course, been pre-eminent for its sieges; and it was in one of these that Ignatius Loyola received the wound which converted him from a dandy into an ascetic, and led to the foundation of the Order of Jesuits. But the siege which possesses The sieges of San SebÁstien and Pamplona had been undertaken simultaneously; but neither made very rapid progress, and Soult was not the man to let them fall without an attempt to come to their aid. He had re-formed the wrecks of Joseph’s army on the French side of the frontier; and advancing towards the passes of Maya and Roncesvalles, he assailed them both suddenly the same day. The detachments which guarded them were overpowered after a most resolute resistance, and Soult pushed down the valleys towards Pamplona, reuniting his forces on the road. Wellington had expected that the blow would be aimed at San SebÁstien. He was momentarily outwitted; but he recovered just in time. Soult found his path barred at the fatal ridge of Saurauren,—just outside the Pamplona basin, and literally within sight of his goal. The beleaguered garrison heard the roar of that furious battle; they could watch the smoke-wreaths curling above the intervening ridge. But no French standards appeared in the
Saurauren was Wellington’s last great battle on Spanish soil. A few weeks later the two great fortresses had fallen, and—first of all the allied Generals—he carried the war into France. Five years previously he had landed in Portugal—a “Sepoy General,” little more distinguished than Cornwallis or Eyre Coote. But those five years in the Peninsula had fixed his reputation for ever; and the giant who crossed the Bidassoa had but little to add to his stature on the field of Waterloo. There is a choice of two roads from Pamplona to the frontier. The kilos are reckoned from Maya; but Roncesvalles bears the more historic name. In point of scenery there is little to choose between them; but perhaps Maya is the harder journey, for Maya includes Vellate, and this extra pass is the loftiest of the three. The country towards Roncesvalles is at first much less mountainous in character than that towards VitÓria; for the high peaks of the Pyrenees lie in the centre of the range, to the eastward; and those immediately before us, though wild and rugged, “Are you thinking of resuming the garb of civilisation?” enquired one vagabond of another, as we halted for a moment on the little bridge near the village of Burguete. “I am thinking of resuming the garb of Adam,” retorted his comrade desperately, as he glared into the pool beneath. It was rather a public place for a bathe; but there are no passengers on a Spanish road at Comida time. And as that meal is invariably unpunctual, we knew that the little Fonda could be reached in plenty of time. Burguete stands in the centre of a little cup-like valley; and prominent upon the further lip rises a big domed hill, one of the flankers of the pass. It is a sleek, smooth mountain, upholstered with green turf, and spangled with grazing sheep; and the big round beeches and chestnuts herd together all over its crest, as domesticated as on an English lawn. Yet the little hillock beneath it was the scene of one of the greatest of tragedies; for there stood the abbey of Roncesvalles, the sepulchre of Charlemagne’s slaughtered Peers. A good deal of controversial ink has been spilt over Charlemagne’s famous Spanish expedition: and all the confusion of history has been worse confounded by romance. The French Epics tell of it as a glorious and successful crusade, undertaken in the cause of Christendom against the insolence of the Moors. The Emperor dictated his own terms in his enemy’s palace at CÓrdova, and it was only the treachery of Ganelon that led to the regrettable incident at the end. Very different is the story of the Spanish ballads. Their bards were most wofully sceptical of religious and disinterested invasion; they wished to be left to fight out their own quarrels with their own infidels, and felt no sort of satisfaction at the prospect of
In truth the expedition was directed against the newly-established Caliphate of CÓrdova, in alliance with Suleiman Ibn-al-Arabi, the Moorish king of Barcelona, who was jealous of Abderahman’s growing power. Charlemagne captured Pamplona (which was Christian), and obtained some acknowledgment of suzerainty from the Sheikhs of Gerona and Huesca. But Zaragoza held out against him with all its traditional obstinacy: the ill-matched allies could by no means pull together; and the campaign fizzled out abortively without any substantial gain. As for the dolorous rout which concluded it, that was the work of neither Goth nor Moor, but of the angry Basques of the mountains, a nation whom Charlemagne had not regarded, and whom he probably despised. They had seen their country pillaged, their capital Pamplona taken; and now, when the rearguard was entangled in the mountains, they at last got the chance of plunder and revenge. No doubt The course of that fight is retold in the very conformation of the valley, yet somehow the picture is inadequate. The drama is not quite worthily staged. The place is too homely and pastoral for the scene of that great Saga which Taillefer chanted between the embattled hosts at Hastings; and which has since thrilled the hearts of generations There is a softer lay for the minstrel who would linger by the braes of Burguete; a tale of two true lovers, who, as usual, were distressingly ill-starred. Their story is even more ancient than the doughty deeds of arms that we have just been rehearsing; for it relates to the days of Charlemagne’s illustrious grand-sire, Charles Martel. Othman ben Abu Neza, the Moorish warden of the marches, had espoused a Christian bride, Lampegia, daughter of Duke Eudo of Aquitaine; and fleeing with her across the mountains to seek refuge from his indignant suzerain, was overtaken in the pass of Roncesvalles, and slain in his lady’s arms. The unemotional historian is convinced that the marriage was political, and hints that both Eudo and Othman were conspiring against their respective liege lords. But at least he will grant us a certificate as to the authenticity of the final catastrophe: and he flatly declines to go further even for Roland and his Peers. Battlefields lie thick in Navarre, and even the Vale of Thorns is not absolutely the last of them. A second battle of Roncesvalles was contested upon the heights of Altobiscar, at the very crest of the Pass, in 1813. Here the British had been posted for six weeks, covering the blockade of Pamplona; and had greatly vexed the soul of their general by persistently deserting in twos and threes every night. Why these seasoned soldiers, at this very hour of their triumph, should have been seized with so strange an epidemic, is a problem which might take a good deal of arguing. The only contemporary theory was the suggestion that they were finding things slow! But their fighting qualities did not seem to have got much affected. Soult finally attacked them in person with much superior numbers: and they offered a most resolute resistance, only giving ground after night-fall, when it was evident they were being outflanked. Cole, the hero of Albuera, led them stubbornly back along the mountain ridges towards Pamplona; and the act was played out at Saurauren, where he arrived just in time to seize the hill. The ascent of the Pass upon the Spanish side is but trifling. A few brisk turns in the track, and Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies! Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain! For we’ve received orders to cross the salt waters; We hope before long we shall see you again! |
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