and attention to exploits which have proved of inestimable benefit to an immense continent, but have brought himself only an empty fame.
GLEANINGS FROM SPAIN.
PART I.
Railways are fast invading the old haunts of ignorance, superstition, and prejudice. Even Spain, that stronghold of intolerance and conceit, is having civilisation thrust upon her. Relentlessly the iron roads eat their way into the heart of the country, remorselessly the telegraph stalks round and round the land, encircling it by sea as well, and as if by a galvanic shock awakening the slumbering nation. If anyone wishes to see the land of Cervantes ere it has become stale, flat, and prosaic, haste, haste—let them fly, for day by day Progress marks her triumphs, and soon the Spain of chivalry, the Spain of our romantic imagination, the Spain of the Inquisition, will be no longer recognisable, tricked out in nineteenth-century ways, manners and opinions, which it has acquired second-hand with the gloss off. Madrid is already shamming to be Paris, widening its streets, building monotonous, glaring houses, without balconies, dooming its picturesque water-carriers to extinction by the introduction of modern water-pipes, and actually waging war on time-honoured dust by perpetual watering of the streets. The nobles are beginning to be startled by the ominous sound of “nouveaux riches,” and see encroaching on their prerogatives men who own to no blue blood in their veins, and who yet surpass them in wealth, magnificence, and dignity. Spain has awoke at last, after many fevered dreams, many oppressive nightmares; the day is before her, and she will be as the giant refreshed, strong to toil and to take her place among the other nations of Europe. It matters comparatively little who are her rulers; the people are now aroused, and this is no age of dynasties, but of nations.
There are two lines of rails by which the Peninsula is now traversed: to reach the one, you enter by the Basses Pyrenees viâ Bayonne; by the other, after passing a night at Perpignan—which must be the model of the little fortified town described in “Somebody’s Luggage,” so sleepy and strongly fortified is it—you ascend the not very frowning barrier of mountains which separates you from Spain. A zig-zag road ascends the French side of the Pyrenees, smooth and well kept, with strongly built walls on the side of the precipices, and at every kilometre tall white posts, bearing inscribed the distance to the frontier and to Perpignan. The frontiers of France and Spain, guarded by wild douaniers, present a singular fact to the mind. As you approach you see two white pillars on either side of the road; mark well! that is the outward and visible boundary between the two countries, but how comes it that the dwellers on one side of the Pillars, not a hundred paces from the inhabitants of the village on the other side, are as different as though a wide sea rolled between them? On one side are tight dapper little men,—women in mob caps of spotless purity, who speak not one word nor understand one syllable of Spanish; while on the other side there is the Spanish costume, Spanish language; the very air is Spanish, being redolent of mules and garlic, and French is as unintelligible as Arabic. At the very next stage the horses put into the diligence are of a new race—bony, skinny, ill-used creatures, galled and chafed by the ill-contrived harness, and bruised by the stones thrown at them by the driver from time to time to urge them on their way; decidedly inferior animals to the close-shaven mules, their companions, whose multifarious tinkling bells remind one at each moment one is in Spain. The scenery, though less wildly picturesque than that of the other passes into Spain, is pleasantly diversified, the road winding in and out narrow defiles, once robber-haunted. To the right is the splendid peaked outline of the Pyrenees, and an occasional glimpse of the blue Mediterranean is caught at the left. On almost every eminence may be seen ruins of some old keep or tower, around which many a tale of horror still lingers. The road traverses several beds of mountain streams, that are occasionally swollen by autumn and winter rains so as to be impassable.
The little villages, exposed for so many centuries to perpetual invasion, would have had, under any other circumstances, a ruinous and desolate appearance, but the newly gathered maize hanging in golden festoons from window to window, and filling the very balconies to overflowing, together with the bunches of crimson capsicums also hung out to dry, lent them a gala-like appearance. It was high holiday, All Hallows Eve; all the inhabitants of the hamlet seemed wending their way to Gerona in festive attire. There were waggons drawn by patient oxen, with their heads cruelly fastened together, and under the waggon cover might be seen a cluster of merry faces all bent on holiday-making. Troops of mules jingled along, each bearing two or more riders, and we passed hardy pedestrians swinging the staff characteristic of the district, and shouting out wild national airs in chorus. The hills were clothed with olives and cork trees, whose cinnamon-coloured trunks lent a singular and pleasing effect to the landscape.
At last we reached Gerona, and the diligence rumbled through the narrow streets, so narrow that it seemed at first sight impossible for so lumbering and bulky a vehicle to pass, without damaging the bales of goods exposed at the doors of the open shops. The Fonda di Diligencies was by no means inviting; the dark, sloppy, mule-smelling covered courtyard, was full of the quaintest vehicles, and treading on it was much like walking over a Scotch “sappy midden.” Up the dark staircase we wandered, the host being far too much occupied to pay us any attention; and discovered, to our horror, that the inn was full to overflowing—as all the world and his wife had come to Gerona for the fair. We next applied for admittance at the Fontana di Oro. The entrance was as filthy as that of the other, but the rooms over it had that peculiarly clean bare look incident to red tile floors and spotless white curtains. Here, again, the same difficulty; the inn was crowded, only one room remained. The hostess—a pretty, bustling little body—was loud in her astonishment that we were not contented. What could people want