GIJON—THE WHARF.
Equally ancient, but in many ways more interesting, is the capital town of Lugo. It boasts a cathedral which shares with San Isidoro of León the immemorial right to have the consecrated Host always exposed; Roman walls in an excellent state of preservation that entirely surround the city, and an establishment of baths. The bath-house contains 200 beds; and the springs, which contain nitre and antimony, are good for cutaneous diseases and rheumatism. The river Miño, which is the glory not only of Lugo but of Galicia, rises in the mountains, some nineteen miles from the city.
As the centre of a beautiful and variegated country, which affords good sport for the angler, and scenery of enchanting loveliness to attract the artist, Oriedo, the capital of the Astionas, has its charms; but the seaport of Gijon, with its tobacco manufactory, its railway workshops, its iron foundry, and glass and pottery works, is a much more thriving and important town. Gijon, like Santander, is a flourishing port; and both have gained immensely in importance of late years. While the latter, with its handsome modern houses, makes a more splendid show, its drainage and sanitary arrangements leave much to be desired, and the harbour at low water is sometimes most offensive. Both towns are of Roman origin, but Gijon is the most pleasantly situated on a projecting headland beneath the shelter of the hill of Santa Catalina, and the harbour is the safest on the North Coast. It exports apples and nuts in enormous quantities, coal, and iron, and jet; while its shores are much frequented by bathers during the summer months.
SANTANDER—THE PORT.
SANTANDER—GENERAL VIEW.
It is currently believed, and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement, that if a visitor in any town in England stops the first native he meets and inquires as to the objects of interest that the place possesses, he will be referred immediately to the principal hostelry of the town. If you wander in London, and ask your way about, you will be directed right across the city by references to public-houses, which are the only landmarks that the Cockney ever dreams of studying. In Spain, cathedrals are as ubiquitous as inns are in England. You may be sure of finding comfortable accommodation for man and beast in most English towns, and in the Peninsula you can be quite as confident of “bringing up” against a cathedral—if nothing else. In León, the capital of the province of the same name, and in Salamanca, the second city in the province, we find the same state of things existing—the cathedral first and the rest nowhere. Yet these two cities boast of a noble history of ancient splendour and old-time greatness, and with this—and their cathedrals—they appear to be content. León, in the time of Augustus, was the headquarters of the legion that defended the plains from the Asturian marauders; and when the Romans withdrew, it continued as an independent city to withstand the continued attacks of the Goths until 586. The city yielded to the Moor, was rescued by Ordoño I., and retaken by the Arabs with every accompaniment of inhuman atrocity. Its defences were rebuilt by Alonso V. nearly 400 years later, its houses were repeopled, and it continued to be the capital of the Kings of León until the court was removed to Seville by Don Pedro. Its present miserable condition is a lamentable appendix to such a history. Its streets are mean, its shops are miserable, and its inns are worse. Nothing is left to it but its cathedral.