The diligence is still the national vehicle of Galicia. It is to be met on the high roads which run between some of the chief towns, drawn by six or nine or more mules, ponies, or horses; and no more picturesque sight can be imagined than that of the primitive conveyance in a country district lumbering on its peaceful way in the hills or valleys, crowded with men and women in peasant garb, and the top piled high with miscellaneous goods and baggage. The jingle of the bells gives the first warning of the carriage's approach; then there is the thud of the hoofs and the rumble of the wheels, and the craning of heads from doors and windows. Travellers who have spent days and nights in them, cramped and crowded in berlina and interior or coupÉ, suffering many miseries and inconveniences, have dwelt on the perils and drawbacks of the diligence, which has an unfriendly habit of capsizing and killing or maiming its passengers, and whose arrival at any given place is subject to the state of road and weather and other circumstances.

The berlina is a small compartment in front, running at right angles to the wheels, and ranks as first class; the interior, second class, is behind, the seats being arranged after the fashion of a London bus; and the coupÉ, third class, is the top of the vehicle in front of the baggage. In the good weather, which prevails almost throughout the year in Galicia, the coupÉ is by far the pleasantest and cleanest of the three classes of accommodation; and, perched high in front of the diligence, the visitor has an uninterrupted view of the road, and may enjoy the scenery and look upon objects which are ceaseless in their fascination. Journeying by diligence, despite its drawbacks and discomforts, is one of the most convenient ways of seeing Galicia, and if the traveller understands Spanish there is every opportunity of learning the names of places and buildings and getting explanations of the meaning of unfamiliar customs. The driver is seldom at a loss for words or information, and what he does not know can be supplied by the conductor or a friendly passenger.

Diligences, big and little, have their special names, some of which would be impressive if the vehicles were in keeping with them. Part of the system of Galician driving is to make an uproar from the box.

One Sunday morning I mounted a ramshackle contrivance called El Elegante, and took a seat beside the driver, a brigand-looking person who was unwashed and unshaved. Perched above me, under the canvas hood, was a small Spanish boy, bare-footed, bare-legged and bare-headed—almost, indeed, bare-bodied, for his only clothing was a remnant of shirt and precarious trousers, consisting mostly of patches. He planted his feet on my shoulders to steady himself. I would have reproved him, but he had the air of a caballero, and the road saved me the trouble of requesting that he should cast his burden on the diligence. His feet were jerked off their perch and we were all thrown tumultuously about. Three wild-looking little ponies were harnessed to the coach, and with a frantic shouting and stamping the driver started them on their journey, flicking his long whip and cursing and blessing them by turns. Each animal, like the coach, has a name, to which it seems to be entirely unresponsive. The ponies were in no need whatever of a fillip, yet the driver lashed out furiously, making a great pretence of flogging them, but doing no real hurt, and spending most of his time in disentangling the lash from the harness. Nor was there any occasion for him to break into frenzied shouts and lean forward in a paroxysm of affected energy; but he did both, and, judging from his looks at the end of the journey, he was satisfied that the success of the drive was due to his own exertions, and was not in any way attributable to the quadrupeds.

The railway system of Galicia is imperfect. Only three lines exist—the West of Galicia Railway, worked by English capital, the system which operates from Corunna, and the track which runs along the bank of the MiÑo, and covers some of the most wonderful scenery in the country. In time other systems will be finished and in course of operation; but progress marches slowly in Galicia, and there is no hurry in the country. An old Spanish proverb says that by the road of By-and-by you will arrive at the town of Never; and there is the favourite promise of maÑana, which means that certain things will be accomplished in the fulness of time. Amongst them is the completion of Galician railways. Fourteen years have been spent on one railway between Betanzos and other centres. The track is finished, but the system is not complete, and to-day, where a train should take you swiftly and smoothly across country, you jolt and jostle in a diligence, or, if you are fortunate, travel in a motor-car.

Aged engines draw Galicia's rolling-stock; yet the carriages themselves are very comfortable. The first-class compartments, by which alone the Booth Steamship Company's tourists travel, are excellently adapted to the country's needs. Many of them are built on the English plan of small compartments, but others are in the form of little saloons capable of seating about a dozen passengers. Seats after the manner of an ordinary English compartment are at each end of the saloon, and seats are on each side, leaving the centre free for the baggage which Galicians cram into every railway carriage when they get the chance.

These small saloons are about equal in size to two English compartments, allowing for a broader gauge rail in Spain, but there are many of the eight-seated compartments which are common to England and the Continent. In these coaches the ordinary Continental system is adopted of inserting small glass panes in the partitions, so that travellers may look from one compartment to the other. The plan has its objections in the estimation of those who seek privacy, but it gives comfort to the nervous and unprotected passenger.

In England smoking-carriages are labelled; in Galicia the forbidding notice is put on the vehicle where smoking is not allowed. As a matter of fact, you may smoke anywhere and everywhere in Galicia, unless great pressure or sweetness is brought to bear on some offender against the law. Yet ladies travelling on railways may reasonably hope to escape from suffering and annoyance, for each Galician train has a first-class compartment exclusively reserved for them. Frequently, even in trains which were well filled, I observed that the compartment "Reservado para SeÑoras" was empty, the womenfolk preferring to travel with the men and the tobacco smoke.

Starting a Galician train is a serious task. Before you are allowed to enter the station your bona fides as a traveller must be established. The carriages are shunted to the platform perhaps half an hour before the advertised time for leaving, then at a later stage the locomotive is backed in and coupled, and in due season, with no unseemly haste, a man in a blouse perambulates the platform and chants the Spanish equivalent for "Gentlemen, please embark," which the caballeros do at their leisure. The engine takes breath, as it were, and a trumpet tootles; then the driver blows the whistle, and if you are leave-taking you jump frantically on board, only to learn that five minutes pass before the train begins to move. A prolonged blast from the locomotive is the preliminary for a leisurely start—I even heard it suggested that the signal exhausted the boiler so much that a delay was needed to raise more steam.

Galician trains travel slowly, and there are protracted waits at the intermediate stations—sometimes long enough to allow the passenger to view the surrounding scenery or stroll into the adjacent town or village, certainly to give him a chance of drinking a cup of coffee or glass of wine or a liqueur at the refreshment-room, if one exists. Failing that establishment, which is primitive and unattractive from the English standpoint, a drink of water may be obtained from an old woman who walks about the platform with an earthenware vessel. At Filgueira station I saw an aged dame, wearing men's boots, dispensing water to passengers; near her, on a balcony, was an unwashed but picturesque Spaniard smoking a cigarette; and two small girls came to the carriages selling a sweet cake, made in the shape of a ring. I bought two for a copper, and they proved excellent eating.

Young and old people of both sexes took their duties easily, and the platelayers went about their business leisurely, stepping off the single track long before the warning signal of the whistle sounded, and gazing meditatively at the passing and departing train. There is little fear of the Galician worker on the line sustaining injuries, because he gets out of the way long before the train reaches him—and the train would be hard pressed to catch up even a retiring platelayer. The speed is very limited, and once when I was travelling by motor on a road which ran parallel with a track the chauffeur easily outdistanced the train, and shot triumphantly across the metals in front of the engine.

Motor-cars are not numerous in Galicia, but there are some very fine examples in use; and despite adverse criticisms, many of the roads in the north-west of Spain are excellent. The highways, to begin with, are well made, but after heavy rains they become lumpy and are neglected; but in the neighbourhood of the large towns they are well cared for, and cars run smoothly and as fast as the driver cares to go, for except in passing through towns and villages there is no speed limit.

Public motor-cars, corresponding in size, power, and appearance to the London motor-bus, run regularly between Santiago and Corunna. The berlina will seat eight persons, but not more than half a dozen are booked as a rule. The accommodation is equal to that of an English first-class compartment, the entrances being at the sides, like a railway carriage. The rear and larger part of the vehicle is given to second-class passengers, who enter at the end. In front there is room for two or three people, and a passenger may sit beside the driver and enjoy the air and scenery. The roof of the conveyance is used for baggage, of which a great quantity can be stowed. Each trunk or package carried on the roof—and care is taken that the passenger shall not burden the interior with his belongings—has pasted on it a yellow label bearing a written number. These motor-buses usually cover the journey of forty miles between Corunna and Santiago in three and a half hours. A slower service, conducted by antique-looking steam vehicles, requires five or six hours—about half the time occupied by the diligence, which you will easily overtake on the highway.

Occasionally the motor-bus will break down and need slight repairs. The passengers in that case may get out and stroll along the road, as I did. Blackberries were plentiful in the hedges, and I gathered and ate them, much to the astonishment of some fellow-travellers. Spaniards will not eat the fruit, but several of them gathered blackberries and insisted upon my acceptance. I consumed as many as I cared to eat, and as for the rest, I left them, unobserved by the donors, for the birds. One afternoon, near the frontier, I passed a motor which had broken down, and to which a pair of oxen had been yoked, to draw the crippled vehicle away.

Railway train, diligence, and motor vehicle are used by visitors and residents in Galicia, but there are many districts, remote from towns, where the mode of locomotion is by mule or donkey, with occasional horse and pony. Everywhere the peasant woman may be seen riding on a mule or ass; and sometimes a string of mules will come along, each bearing a brightly clad, laughing woman of Galicia; or in a remote bridle-path in the hills you have to step aside into a field or hedge to make way for a handsome girl of the country who is returning to her father's farm from the nearest village, sitting contentedly on the mule which picks its way easily along the rough ground, which may be, and often is, the stony bed of a little stream.

It is well to be prepared for minor shocks in travelling. Your train may have left a station at night, and you are dozing in the dimly lit compartment. Suddenly you are fully awake, and by the light of the oil-lamp see a figure outlined—a man in corduroys standing almost menacingly over you. He is not a brigand nor a hold-up; he is merely the inspector wishing to see your ticket. He has clambered to the door by way of the footboard, and has opened it and entered unseen. When he has done his task he leaves by the same way, and proceeds to startle some other unsuspecting and unready traveller. At other times a man in semi-uniform, with a cap bearing a small metal locomotive as a badge of office, will fall upon you for the same purpose, and then depart. At wayside stations you will see him leaning from the door of a first-class compartment, smoking a cigar or cigarette, and preparing to resume his footboard tricks when the train is again under way. But though the descent is as unexpected as the same performances in American trains, yet there is an entire absence of that aggressive, domineering attitude which in some of the United States railway officials is so offensive. The Galician ticket-examiner doubtless believes that, being a caballero, he is quite as good as you are, just as the American official does—except when he wishes you to know that he is better—but he has a gentler way of showing it than his compeer on the other side of the Atlantic.

In departing from a railway station, too, at night, you may be startled by the sudden opening of the door of the hotel bus, and the bursting in upon you of a man with a lantern. He is merely an octroi official, and his purpose is to see that you have not hidden upon or about you such dutiable goods as fowls and other eatables. The octroi man may be seen in all parts of Galicia, his headquarters usually being some strange little abode on the roadside, roughly built of stones.

Probably no men in Galicia feel more acutely the slowness and inconvenience of the locomotion of the country than the commercial travellers, most of whose time is spent in getting from place to place, and not in the actual transaction of business. That remark applies, of course, to the commercials of England and the enterprising "drummers" of America; but the business representative in Galicia has to endure many hardships to which his foreign brethren are strangers.

Late one night I entered an hotel in the company of some travellers, and watched them as they took their final meal. They were preparing to make a night of it, and on asking the reason for the dissipation I was told that one of the commercials had to leave by a train which started at 2.45 A.M., that he had resolved to sit up for it, and that his comrades, in a spirit of compassion and conviviality, had agreed to keep him company until he left the hotel. One or two of them had to start at six o'clock—and these were quite usual hours for men on the road.

Time after time I met the same commercials in trains, diligences, motor-buses, and hotels, and on each occasion noticed that they had long ago acquired the art of making themselves comfortable in adverse circumstances, and had cultivated a fine disregard of the feelings of others. There is something in locomotion in North-West Spain which seems to bring out the worst qualities in travellers, and I found nothing more disagreeable and exasperating than to be wedged into a sort of diligence for conveyance to and from stations. In the darkness of an early morning I was packed in the corner of an aged conveyance and jostled over the lumpy road without so much as a chance of escape, for the very doorway and outside platform were crammed with fellow-creatures, and the interior was packed with people who were mostly corpulent and unattractive. Once or twice it seemed as if the vehicle would capsize, and it was a disquieting spectacle to see a wall of feminine flesh bending forward as if with the sinister purpose of extinguishing me. In the gloom of one corner was a stout man, wearing a linen uniform and smoking. I assumed that he was a workman, perhaps a bill-poster, until, later, he was seated opposite to me in a first-class compartment, and I discovered that he was an officer.

It may be that you have your cycle with you, in which case you may pedal in peace, but unless you know the region well you must keep an ever-watchful eye ahead, for many of the roads zigzag dangerously along the mountain sides, and an uncontrolled machine would bring about a swift disaster. Brakes both good and strong, and at least two of them, are necessary for the cyclist's safety and his peace of mind in Galicia. That precaution would apply especially to the ordinary visitor, man or woman. There are those in the cycling world who, even in risky and unknown neighbourhoods, neglect precautions and scoff at danger. In many parts of Galicia the scoffing may be followed by a catastrophe the victim of which would scoff no more.

I saw only two or three cycles in Galicia, and one of these was a freak made of wood. The wheels were solid discs, after the fashion of the wheels of a bullock-cart, and the whole of the frame and fittings seemed to be of the same material, unpainted, as if the masterpiece had been just finished and was undergoing its trials. The work was excellently done, and was a high tribute to the patience and ingenuity of the producer, who had clearly taken as his model an ordinary safety. The machine was being ridden by a peasant lad in a country village. When I first saw him he was ahead, coasting slowly down the steep road; but he observed the motor-car approach, and by the time I passed him he had dismounted and dragged his cherished possession up the hedge side out of harm's way. As to cycling generally in Galicia, it is quite feasible, for many of the roads are suitable, but in most places the steep, rough thoroughfares make the comfortable use of one's machine impracticable.

THE HILLS OF MONDARIZ