THE prettiest spot through which we passed on our railway journey from Pontevedra to Vigo was Redondela, whose picturesque houses scattered among the green hills and fringing the Ria de Vigo, with a tiny harbour all to themselves, were a delight to the eye as we looked down upon them from the train windows. Macaulay mentions Redondela, and alludes to the fact that it was sacked by the English in 1715. Southey was charmed with it when he passed through on his way from Coruña to Lisbon, and he took the trouble to translate into English verse a long legend about one of its ancient towers,[264] telling how a lover jumps into the sea in his despairing frenzy. It was Southey, too, who wrote—
“Spain! still my mind delights to picture forth
Thy scenes that I shall see no more, for there
Most pleasant were my wanderings. Memory’s eye
Still loves to trace the gentle Miño’s course,
And catch its winding waters gleaming bright
Amid the broken distance.
... Galicia’s giant rocks
And mountains clustered with the fruitful pines,
Whose heads, dark foliaged when all else was dim,
Rose o’er the distant eminence distinct,
Cresting the evening sky.”
Redondela, once an important town, is now little more than a collection of scattered villages, whose inhabitants are chiefly engaged in oyster fishing. At high tide the waters of the Ria de Vigo come right into the town by way of a little river that passes through it under a pretty bridge, which separates Redondela from its neighbour, Villavieja. Out in the blue waters of the Ria we could see the famous little Hospital of San Simon floating like a shell upon the surface.
Our train hugged the shore of the Ria, winding and curving with the water’s edge till we came into the station of Vigo. Vigo is the most modern town in Galicia; it owes its rapid development to its geographical situation and to its bay and harbour, famed for being among the finest in the world. Some forty years ago Vigo was a tiny village, known as Vigo de Cangas. Cangas, situated on the opposite bank of the Ria, is still nothing but a village with a few scattered houses, and it seems incredible that Vigo was, so short a time ago, one of its dependent hamlets. Vigo is built upon the sloping side of a hill, from the top of which mountains may be seen on every side except where the Ria bounds it on the west. Between the various mountain peaks may be seen fertile valleys of all shapes and sizes, and separated from one another by mountain ridges covered with oaks and pines.
The climate of Vigo is reputed to be the finest in Spain; its soil produces almost every kind of vegetable and fruit in the greatest abundance, and much earlier than they can be grown in other parts of Galicia. The principal industry of the town is fishing, in connection with which there are numerous factories for salting and preserving fish. Other industries are paper-making, the refining of petroleum, and tanning. The building of fishing-boats also constitutes an important industry.
Vigo is a port of the first rank; it has three submarine cables, and is a naval station for the British fleets. There are some forty-five young Englishmen employed at Vigo in connection with the cables laid by the British Government. I am told that a number of them have become Roman Catholics in order to be able to marry Spanish ladies. The English at Vigo publish a newspaper in their native tongue for circulation amongst themselves. At present Coruña can boast of having greater commercial importance than Vigo, but from its more favourable situation Vigo is bound in time to take the lead.
At the mouth of Vigo harbour, about ten (Spanish) miles from the anchoring-ground, lie the group of islands known as the Cies, formerly called Cecas, or Siccas. Humboldt once visited them, and it was he who first suggested that they might possibly be the “fabulous” or long-lost Cassiterides.[265]
The Ria de Vigo, whose waters are part of the Atlantic Ocean, forms, as we have seen, one of the finest and safest harbours in the world; many consider it the best in Europe. The depth of the Ria varies from 90 to 150 feet; it is sheltered from all winds, and so large that the fleets of many nations could anchor there at one and the same time.
Several of the streets of Vigo are lined with handsome blocks of white granite buildings, after the style of those in Berlin, but handsomer, because those of Berlin are only stucco. There are no ancient churches or other sights of archæological interest to be seen at Vigo, and the chief business of the traveller—after he has looked down upon the valley where the French army capitulated on March 28, 1809—is to take the beautiful drive along the shore of the Ria to Bayona, where there is an old church, the Colegiata de Santa Maria, which once belonged to the Knights Templars, and an interesting old Franciscan convent dating from the eleventh century.
It is thought that Vigo stands upon the ancient site of Vicus Spacorum, but whether this supposition be correct or not, it is an accepted fact that Bayona is a far more ancient settlement. Molina wrote that Bayona was formerly called Voyana, from the fact of its having the figure of an ox on its coat of arms. There is also a legend that a Roman prefect named Catilius Severus retired thither after his power had been taken from him. Pliny thought the ancient name of Bayona was Abobrica, and Vosius speaks of it as Lambriaca.