Unexplored Spain Part 2

FANTAIL WARBLER (_Cisticola cursitans_)

Resident: builds a deep purse-like nest supported on long gra.s.s or rushes.]

Riding light, with the "irreducible minimum" stowed in the saddle-bags, one may traverse Spain from end to end. But it is only a hasty and superficial view that is thus obtainable, and except for those who love roughing it for roughness' sake, even the freedom of the saddle presents grave drawbacks in a land where none live in the country and none travel off stated tracks. In the _campo_, nothing--neither food for man nor beast--can be obtained, and no provision exists for travellers where travellers never come. The little rural hostelry of northern lands has no place; there is instead a _venta_ or _posada_ which may too often be likened to a stable for beasts with an extra stall for their riders. It is a characteristic of pastoral countries everywhere that their rude inhabitants discriminate little between the needs of man and beast.

But even towns of quite considerable size--when far removed from the track--are totally devoid of inns in our sense. Inns are not needed. The few Spanish travellers who, greatly daring, venture so far afield, usually bespeak beforehand the hospitality of some local friend or acquaintance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE

ROCK-THRUSH (_Petrocincla saxatilis_)

A beautiful spring-migrant to the highest sierras. Colours of male: opal, orange, and black, with a white "mirror" in centre of back.

Female, yellow-brown barred with black.]

Incidentally it may be added that a visit to one of these out-of-the-world cities--asleep most of them for the last few centuries--is a pleasing and restful change amidst the racket of exploration. One breathes a mediaeval atmosphere and marvels at the revelation, enjoying prehistoric peeps in lost cities replete for the antiquary with historic memorial and long-forgotten lore. No one cares.

Yet in those bygone days of Spain's world-power these somnolent spots produced the right stuff,--a minority, no doubt, belonged to the type satirised by Cervantes,--but many more strong in mind as in muscle, who went forth, knights-errant, Paladins and Crusaders, to conquer and to shape the course of history. Is the old spirit extinct? Our own impression is that the material is there all right ready to spring to life like the stones of Deucalion, so soon as Spain shall have shaken off her incubus of lethargy and the tyranny that clogs the wheels of progress. Nor need the interval be long.

That sound human material continues to exist in rural Spain we have had recent evidence during the calling-out of levies of young troops ordered abroad to serve their country in Morocco. None could witness the entrainment at some remote station of a detachment of these fine lads without being struck by their bearing, their set purpose, and above all their patriotism. With such material, with a well cared-for, contented, and loyal army and a broadening of view, wisely graduated but equally resolute, Spain moves forward. Alfonso XIII. is a soldier first--No!

Above that he is a king by nature, but his care for his army and its well-being has already borne fruits that are making and will make for the honour, safety, and advancement of his country.

To resume our interrupted note on travel: whether you are riding across bush-clad hills, over far-spread prairie, or through the defiles of the sierra, as shadows lengthen the problem of a night's lodging obtrudes.

There is a variety of solutions. At a pinch--as when belated or benighted--one may, in desperate resort, seek shelter in a _choza_. Now a _choza_ is the reed-thatched hut which forms the rural peasant's lonely home. a.s.suredly you will be made welcome, and that with a grace and a courtesy--aye, a courtliness--that characterises even the humblest in Spain. The best there is will be at your disposal; yet--if permissible to say so in face of such splendid hospitality (and in the hope that these good leather-clad friends of ours may not read this book)--the open air is preferable. There exists in a _choza_ absolutely no accommodation--not a separate room; a low settee running round the interior, or a withy frame, forms the bed; those kindly folk live all together, along with their domestic animals--and pigs are reckoned such in Spain. Let us gratefully pay this due tribute to our peasant friends--but let us sleep outside.

At each village will usually be found a _posada_. These differ in degree, mostly from bad downwards. The lowlier sort--little better than the _choza_--is but a long, low, one-storeyed barn which you share with fellow-wayfarers, and your own and their beasts, or any others that may come in, barely separated by a thatched part.i.tion that is neither noise-proof nor scent-proof. We can call instances to mind when even that small luxury was lacking, and all, human and other, shared alike.

There are no windows--merely wooden hatches. If shut, both light and air are excluded; if open, hens, dogs, and cats will enter with the dawn--the former to finish what remains of supper. The cats will at least disperse the regiment of rats which, during the night, have scurried across your sleeping form.

Here we relate, as a specific example, a night we spent this last spring in northern Estremadura:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: A VILLAGE _POSADA_]

Owing to a miscalculation of distance, it was an hour after sundown ere we reached our destination, a lonely hamlet among the hills. Our good little Galician ponies were dead-beat, for we had been in the saddle since 5 A.M., and it was past eight ere we toiled up that last steep, rock-terraced slope. We were a party of three, with a local guide and our own Sancho Panza--faithful companion, friend, and servant of many years' standing. At a dilapidated hovel, the last in the village and perched on a crag, we drew rein, and after repeated knocks the door was opened by a girl--she had set down a five-year-old child among the donkeys while she drew the bolt, the ground-floor being (as usual) a stable. To our inquiry as to food--and the hunger of the lost was upon us--our hostess merely shrugged her shoulders, and with an expressive gesture of open hands, answered "Nada"--nothing! Sancho, however, was equal to the occasion. Within two minutes, while we yet stood disconsolate, he returned with a cackling c.o.c.kerel in his arms. "Stew him quick before he crows," he adjured the girl, and turned to unload the ponies.

What an age a c.o.c.kerel takes to cook! It was midnight ere he smoked on the board and, hunger satisfied, we could turn in. In an upper den were two alcoves with beds, or rather stone ledges, ordinarily used by the family, and which were a.s.signed to us, the luckless No. 3 by lot having to make shift (in preference to sleeping on a filthy floor) with three cranky tables of varying heights, and whose united lengths proved a foot too short at either end!

Oh, the joy of the morning's dawn and delicious freshness of the mountain air, as we turned out at five o'clock for yet another ten-league spell to our next destination. Two nights later we slept in the gilded luxury of Madrid! But how we abused our previous neglect in not having brought a camp-outfit.

The above, however, presents the gloomier side of the picture, and there is a reverse, even in _posadas_. We cannot better describe the latter side than in our own words from _Wild Spain_:--

A NIGHT AT A _POSADA_ (ANDALUCIA)

The wayfarer has been travelling all day across the scrub-clad wastes, fragrant with rosemary and wild thyme, without perhaps seeing a human being beyond a stray shepherd or a band of nomad gypsies encamped amidst the green palmettos. Towards night he reaches some small village where he seeks the rude _posada_. He sees his horse provided with a good feed of barley and as much broken straw as he can eat. He is himself regaled with one dish--probably the _olla_ or a _guiso_ (stew) of kid, either of them, as a rule, of a rich red-brick hue, from the colour of the red pepper or capsic.u.m in the _chorizo_ or sausage, which is an important (and potent) component of most Spanish dishes. The steaming _olla_ will presently be set on a table before the large wood-fire, and with the best of crisp white bread and wine, the traveller enjoys his meal in company with any other guest that may have arrived at the time--be he muleteer or hidalgo. What a fund of information may be picked up during that promiscuous supper! There will be the housewife, the barber, and the padre of the village, perhaps a goatherd come down from the mountains, a muleteer, and a charcoal-burner or two, each ready to tell his own tale, or to enter into friendly discussion with the "Ingles." Then, as you light your _breva_, a note or two struck on the guitar falls on ears predisposed to be pleased.

How well one knows those first few opening notes: no occasion to ask that it may go on: it will all come in time, and one knows there is a merry evening in prospect. One by one the villagers drop in, and an ever-widening circle is formed around the open hearth, rows of children collect, even the dogs draw around to look on. The player and the company gradually warm up till couplet after couplet of pathetic _malaguenas_ follow in quick succession. These songs are generally topical, and almost always extempore; and as most Spaniards can--or rather are anxious to--sing, one enjoys many verses that are very prettily as well as wittily conceived.

But girls must dance, and find no difficulty in getting partners to join them. The _malaguenas_ cease, and one or perhaps two couples stand up, and a pretty sight they afford! Seldom does one see girl-faces so full of fun and so supremely happy as they adjust the castanets, and one damsel steps aside to whisper something sly to a sister or friend. And now the dance begins; observe there is no slurring or attempt to save themselves in any movement. Each step and figure is carefully executed, but with easy, spontaneous grace and precision both by the girl and her partner.

Though two or more pairs may be dancing at once, each is quite independent of the others, and only dance to themselves; nor do the partners ever touch each other.[5] The steps are difficult and somewhat intricate, and there is plenty of scope for individual skill, though grace of movement and supple pliancy of limb and body are almost universal, and are strong points in dancing both the _fandango_ and _minuet_. Presently the climax of the dance approaches. The notes of the guitar grow faster and faster; the man--a stalwart shepherd-lad--leaps and bounds around his pirouetting partner, and the steps, though still well ordered and in time, grow so fast that one can hardly follow their movements.

Now others rise and take the places of the first dancers, and so the evening pa.s.ses; perhaps a few gla.s.ses of _aguardiente_ are handed round--certainly much tobacco is smoked--the older folks keep time to the music with hand-clapping, and all is good nature and merriment.

What is it that makes the recollection of such evenings so pleasant? Is it merely the fascinating simplicity and freedom of the dance, or the spectacle of those weird, picturesque groups, bronze-visaged men and dark-eyed maidens, all lit up by the blaze of the great wood-fire on the hearth, and low-burning oil-lamps suspended from the rafters? Perhaps it is only the remembrance of many happy evenings spent among these people since our boyhood.

This we can truly say, that when at last you turn in to sleep you feel happy and secure among a peasantry with whom politeness and sympathy are the only pa.s.sports required to secure to you both friendship and protection if required. Nor is there a pleasanter means of forming acquaintance with Spanish country life and customs than a few evenings spent thus at a farm-house or village inn in any retired district of laughter-loving Andalucia.

For rough living we are of course prepared, and accept the necessity without demur or second thought while travelling. But when more serious objects are in hand--say big-game or the study of nature, objects which demand more leisurely progress, or actually encamping for a week or more at selected points--then we prefer to a.s.sure complete independence of all local a.s.sistance and shelter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE

SERIN (_Serinus hortula.n.u.s_)

A true European canary, but its song is harsh and hissing.]

An expedition on this scale involves an amount of care and forethought that only those who have experienced it would credit. For in Spain it is an unknown undertaking, and to engineer something new is always difficult. Quite an extensive camping-trip can be organised in Africa, where the system is understood, with less than a hundredth part of the care needed for a comparatively short trip in Spain where it is not. The necessary bulk of camp-outfit and equipment requires a considerable cavalcade, and this mule-transport (since no provender is obtainable in the country) involves carrying along all the food for the animals--the heaviest item of all. Naturally the cost of such expeditions works out to nearly double that of simple riding.

But, after all, it is worth it! Compare some of the miseries we have above but lightly touched upon--the dirt and squalor, the nameless horrors of _choza_ or _posada_--with the sense of joyous exhilaration felt when encamped by the banks of some babbling trout-stream or in the glorious freedom of the open hill. Casting back in mental reverie over a lengthening vista of years, we certainly count as among the happiest days of life those spent thus under canvas--whether on the sierras and marismas of Spain, on high field or dark forest in Scandinavia, or on Afric's blazing veld.

Should some remarks (here or elsewhere in this book) appear self-contradictory the reason will be found rather in our inadequate expression than in any confusion of idea. We love Spain primarily because she is wild and waste; but, loving her, are naturally desirous that she should advance to that position among nations that is her due.

Such material development, nevertheless, need not--and will not--imply the total destruction of her wild beauties. Development on those lines would not consist with the peculiar genius of the Spanish race, and, while we trust the development will come, we fear no such collateral results. Take, for instance, the corn-lands. There the great bustard is alike the index and the price of vast, unwieldy farms unfenced and but half tilled, remote from rail, road, or market. That condition we neither expect nor hope to see exchanged for smug fields with a network of railways. For "three acres and a cow" is not the line of Spanish regeneration; it is rather a claptrap catch-word of politicians--a murrain on the lot of them!

True, the plan seems to answer in Denmark, and if the Danes are satisfied, well and good--that is no business of ours. But no such mathematical and Procrustean restriction of vital energies and ambitions will subserve our British race, nor the Spanish. In Spanish sierra may the howl of the wolf at dawn never be replaced by blast from factory siren, nor the curling blue smoke of the charcoal-burner in primeval forest be abolished in favour of black clouds belching from bristling chimneys that pierce a murky sky. Either in such circ.u.mstance would be misplaced.

Similarly, when the engineer shall have been turned loose in the Spanish marismas, he can, beyond all doubt, destroy them for ever. His straight lines and intersecting ca.n.a.ls, hideous in utilitarian rect.i.tude, would right soon demolish that glory of lonely desolation--those leagues of marshland, samphire, and glittering _lucio_. And all for nothing! Since the desecration will not "pay" financially--the reason we give in detail elsewhere--and you sacrifice for a shadow some of the grandest bits of wild nature that yet survive--the finest length and breadth of utter abandonment that still enrich a humdrum Europe. Should "progress" only advance on these lines no sc.r.a.p of that continent will be left to wanderer in the wilds--no spot where clanging skeins of wild-geese serry the skies, and the swish of ten thousand wigeon be heard overhead; or that marvellous iridescence--as of triple flame--the pa.s.sing of a flight of flamingoes, be enjoyed.[6]

That national progress and development may come, for Spain's sake, we earnestly pray. But does there exist inherent reason why progress, in itself, should always come to ruin natural and racial beauties? Progress seems nowadays to be misunderstood as a synonym for uniformity--and uniformity to a single type. Disciples of the cult of insensate haste, of self-a.s.sertion and advertis.e.m.e.nt, have pretty well conquered the civilised world; but in Spain they find no foothold, and we glory to think they never will. Spain will never be "dragooned" into a servile uniformity. There remain many, among whom we count our humble selves, who bow no knee to the modern Baal, and who (while conceding to the "hustling" crowd not one iota of their pretensions to fuller efficiency in any shape or form) are proud to find fascination in simplicity, a solace in honest purpose and in old-world styles of life--right down (if you will) to its inertia.

Yes, may progress come, yet leave unchanged the innate courtesy, the dignity and independence of rural Spain--unspoilt her sierras and glorious heaths aromatic of myrtle and mimosa, alternating with natural woods of ilex and cork-oak--self-sown and park-like, carpeted between in spring-time with wondrous wealth of wild flowers. There is nothing incongruous in such aspiration. Incongruity rather comes in with misappreciation of the fitness of things, as when a coal-mine is planked down in the midst of sylvan beauties, to save some hypothetic penny-a-ton (as per Prospectus); where pellucid streams are polluted with chemical filth and vegetation blasted by noisome fumes; or where G.o.d's fairest landscapes are ruined by forests of hideous smoke-stacks.

If vandalisms such as these be progress then we prefer Spain as she is.

A NOTE ON THE SPANISH FAUNA

After all, it is less with the human element that this book is concerned than with the wild Fauna of Spain; a brief introductory notice thereof cannot, therefore, be omitted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BONELLI'S EAGLE (_Aquila bonellii_)

A pair disturbed at their eyrie.]

As head of the list must stand the Spanish Ibex (_Capra hispanica_), a game-animal of quite first rank, peculiar to the Iberian Peninsula, and whose nearest relative--the Bharal (_Capra cylindricornis_)--lives 2500 miles away in the far Caucasus. In Spain the ibex inhabits six great mountain-ranges, each covering a vast area but all widely separated.

After a crisis that five years ago threatened extermination, this grand species is now happily increasing under a measure of protection and the aegis of King Alfonso. Next--a notable neighbour of the ibex (and practically extinct in central Europe)--we place the lone and lordly Lammergeyer. A memorable spectacle it is to watch the huge _Gypaetus_ sweeping through s.p.a.ce o'er glens and corries of the sierra in striking similitude to some weird flying dragon of Miocene age--a vision of blood-red irides set on a cruel head with bristly black beard, of h.o.a.ry grey plumage and golden breast. Watch him for half an hour--for half a day--yet never will you discern a sign of force exerted by those 3-yard pinions. With slightly reflexed wings he sinks 1000 feet; then, shifting course, rises 2000, 3000 feet till lost to sight over some appalling skyline. You have seen the long cuneate tail deflected ever so slightly--more gently than a well-handled helm--but the wide lavender wings remain rigid, not an effort that indicates force have you descried. Yet the power (so defined as "horse-power") required to raise a deadweight of 20 lbs. through such alt.i.tudes can be calculated by engineers to a nicety--how is it exerted? That the power is there is conspicuous enough, and at least it serves to explain fabled traditions of giant lammergeyers hurling ibex-hunter from perilous hand-hold on the crag, to feast on the remains below; or, in idler moment, bearing off untended babes to their eyries--alas! that the duty of nature-students involves dissipating all such romance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE

BLACK VULTURE (_Vultur monachus_)