Leaving Valencia we run southward as far as Alcira without a stop. Here we cross the Jucar, which strikes terror into the hearts of the townsfolk. Rising in the rainy season with terrible rapidity, with constant shiftings of its channel, it sweeps over the countryside, swallowing up whole villages in its destructive, impetuous course. When the sky grows black and the river starts to rise, the panic-stricken inhabitants run to the churches and seize the images. Then with frenzied prayers to the Pare San Bernard, they dip the holy forehead in the water, hoping to stay the onrush of the torrent. But the inundated country to-day will in a few years bear heavy rice crops and luxuriant orchards. The swampy unhealthy lagoon, the Albufera (which gave its name to one of Napoleon’s marshals) is becoming filled up with the débris brought down from the mountains. Soon it, too, will be a fertile huerta. Meanwhile, trees are being planted on the rugged hill-side, a wise measure which it is hoped will check the violence of the floods and the denudation of the arid soil.
Jativa will be our next stopping-place. Like most of the towns in this country it is rich in historic interest. Past cottages, embosomed in palm-and orange-trees, you climb up to the hill where the old and new castles stand side by side. Here in 1284 the Infantes de la Cerda, rightful heirs to the throne, were confined by their Uncle Sancho el Bravo. Here too the Duke of Calabria, heir of Naples, languished for ten years after having trusted himself to the honour of Gonzalo de Cordoba, who betrayed him. This was one of the three deeds of which Gonzalo is said to have repented at the last. Indeed the castle of Jativa seems to have greatly troubled his death-bed, for we learn that the second of these three misdeeds was the imprisonment in the same place of the infamous Cæsar Borgia. The Borgias—those super-men of the Renaissance—had their origin in the neighbourhood of Jativa, which also boasts itself the birthplace of the artist Ribera.
The smaller coast towns of Alicante attract the weary traveller by their beautifully sounding names: Benidorm, Villajoyosa—what pleasant chords they strike in the imagination! But time is short. You think of them regretfully and hurry towards the capital. But first, if the month is April, you must turn aside for a flying visit to Alcoy, where every year a mediæval joust takes place to the glory of Saint George (the city’s patron saint) and the discomfiture of the Moors. This is to celebrate the taking of the town from the Moors by Jaime el Conqueridor in 1253.
Alicante, the largest town in the province of that name, and the second in the Kingdom of Valencia, is as dull as most thriving commercial centres. Its broad white quays are thronged with a busy bustling humanity. Touches of vivid colour in the dress of the women, who are labouring like navvies, a burning sun overhead, and the blue of the Mediterranean, make a not unpleasing picture. Behind the town towers an enormous rock—a second Gibraltar—crowned by the old castle of Santa Barbara. A deep fissure in the rock recalls the stubborn siege of 1707, when the English General and all his garrison were blown to pieces by a mine.
Southwards still, to Elche, the City of Palms, or, less poetically, “The Frying-pan!” A mist of heat seems to hang over the little Oriental-looking town. Not even in the palm groves that shut out the desert can you avoid it. These magnificent trees (it has been estimated that there are 80,000 in the belt that encircles the town) provide practically all the palms used by the Christian churches in Passion Week. In the shade of their avenues flourish the laurel, the rose, and the geranium; beyond, extend crops of lucerne and wheat, watered by the carefully regulated Vinalapo.
But though Elche makes an agreeable impression on travellers, in Spain it is chiefly celebrated for its Passion or Mystery Play, the only one of its kind in the kingdom. Elche is under the special protection of Our Lady of the Assumption, who sent her miraculous image over the seas along with the words and music of the opera inscribed Soy para Elche (I am for Elche). To this image, supposed to have been found in 1370 by a coastguard named Canto, many houses and palm plantations round the city belong. They are all marked with a crown and the initials M.V. The image is said to have been carved by St. Luke, but hardly reflects credit on his skill. However, the miracles it performs seem highly satisfactory, judging by the magnificent jewels and garments that have been presented by the faithful.
The opera is presented on August 13 and 14, the eve and the feast of the Assumption. In a country where the sister of Cervantes was allowed to install a theatre in her convent and herself play the leading rôles, you are not surprised to find that the representation takes place in the church, which is, however, for the occasion, carefully stripped of sacred images.
The scenery, as in mediæval days, is simple. There is a little cave for the Garden of Gethsemane, a plain coffin for the Holy Sepulchre. Angels playing harps on a blue cloth stretched across the roof betoken the celestial regions. Hence, by an ingenious arrangement of ropes and pulleys, angels will presently come down to take the Virgin up to heaven. Apostles and saints, their names legibly inscribed on cardboard haloes, the holy angels and the Trinity itself have all their appointed parts. The Virgin is a small boy of eleven. Unfortunately that touch of vulgarity which seems inseparable from modern Continental Catholicism liberally decorates the angels with well-greased hair, vivid sashes, and paper flowers of startling hues. However, the crowded audience is not critical and very real emotion at times interrupts the continuous chatter and shaking of fans. There seems something singularly human in a religion so all-embracing.
Orihuela, in its fertile plain, rendered independent of rain by the waters of the Segura, will be our last stopping-place in the southern portion of the kingdom. Here the Goths made a last resistance under Theodomir. Orihuela is the only city in the district where Castilian is spoken. Its square towers and domes shaded with palms are decidedly Oriental in appearance. A visit to the Cathedral shows some beautiful choir-stalls of carved mahogany, but the interior of the building has been hopelessly barbarised. There is little else to detain us here, so we take train again for Valencia and the north.