“Maximum supremae artis quis videre volenti
praecipuum hic orbis illi sistitur opus:
in quo firmiter perlustrantes maria cuncta
naves, procinctus classes, atque omnia videt.
O Felix Hispania! admodromque felix:
te fauste gubernat, regit tibique sapienter
imperat Carolus III.,
Rex inclitus pusimus augustus, quem
totus non capit orbus.”[289]

“The misery and degradation of modern Spain,” says Borrow, “are nowhere so strikingly manifested as at Ferrol. Yet even here there is much to admire, ... the Alameda is planted with nearly a thousand elms, of which almost all are magnificent trees, and the poor Ferolese, with the genuine spirit of localism so prevalent in Spain, boast that their town contains a better public walk than Madrid.” And of the naval arsenal he wrote: “I have seen the royal dockyards of Russia and England, but for grandeur of design and costliness of execution they cannot for a moment compare with those wonderful monuments of the bygone naval pomp of Spain.” He then informs his readers that the oblong basin, which is surrounded by a granite mole, is capacious enough to permit a hundred first-rates to lie conveniently in ordinary. In connection with this, let us read a paragraph from a Madrid correspondent which appeared in the Daily Telegraph for April 18, 1907: “It is practically certain that the Arsenal at Ferrol will, under a contract with the Treasury, be handed over to a private company. I have good reason to believe that the industry will be placed in the hands of an English firm. Negotiations for concluding the contract have already been set on foot. The firm which leases the factory will be allowed full liberty for developing the industry, but it will be under obligation to build ships and carry out other work for the State on favourable terms. In this manner Ferrol will be converted into a great naval factory, which will be able to compete with other shipyards, on account of the abundance of raw material, coal and iron, in the immediate vicinity. It is an open secret that Germany desired to be the favoured Power, and that German shipbuilders made certain proposals. These, however, were declined; and should the matter be finally carried through, it will be found that the enterprise has been placed in English hands.”

How sad it seems that Spain has not sufficient energy to rehabilitate her own excellent handiwork! An Englishman who travelled in the Peninsula in 1810 wrote: “The Spaniards are brave, acute, patient, and faithful, but all their characteristics are insulated, all their exertions are individual. They have no idea of combining, either publicly or privately, in a manner to call forth their respective talents and render every one useful to the common cause. The Germans may be said to combine too much and the Spaniards not at all.”[290] Yet Spain was once at the head of the cultured nations of Europe.

CHAPTER XXV
THE GREAT MONASTERIES OF GALICIA

The monastery of Osera—Peralta—Foundation of the monastery and its first abbot—“The Escurial of Galicia”—Difficulty of access—The journey—On horseback—A petrified ocean—Primitive maize barns—A sea of rocks—Privileges enjoyed by the monks of Osera—The façade—The cloisters—The church—The choir—The altars—The sacristy—The cemetery—The oldest part of the building—Fountains—The journey back to Cea—The excursion to Celanova—Scenery of the road—Floors of walnut wood—The escaño—A typical invention—A sturdy tower—Welcome given us by the monks—The conventual church—Wood-carving—San Torquato—Marble pictures—Relics of San Rosendo—Other curiosities—Stalactite work—The Eremita de San Miguel—Was it a Moorish mosque?—The inscription—Santa Comba de Bande—Its architecture—Sarcophagus of San Torquato—A hard nut for Spanish archæologists—San Juan de Baños—Visigothic architecture—From Santa Comba to Orense—The monastery of San Estevan de Rivas de Sil—A rare excursion—Our plan of campaign—Conjunction of the Miño and the Sil—Mountain air—The start—The ferry-boat—The ascent—A stone gateway—The architecture of the monastery—The Cloister of the Bishops—Other cloisters—The church and sacristy—Statues—A School of Art—Plundering the ruins—Like an eagle’s nest—Hermits—San Pedro de Rocas—On donkeys—A rock-hewn church—The sixth century

ALFONSO VIII. must have been a very pious king, for he founded quite a number of monasteries, and amongst them the Cistercian monastery of Osera, which lies in the diocese of the bishop of Orense, from which town we set out to see it. In the year 1477 a monk of Osera, Thomas de Peralta by name, undertook to write a history of his cloister and its abbots. In his book[291] he tells us that this monastery was founded in 1037, that its first abbot was named Garcia, and that its first son was San Famiano, a native of Germany and the child of noble and wealthy parents, who, wishing to live a religious life, went to Italy and came thence to Galicia, where, at the age of fifty, he entered the cloisters of Osera in the year 1142. He remained there until his death in 1150, and during that period wrought many miracles, the fame of which spread throughout the whole world and brought many fresh inmates to Osera. Peralta gives a short biographical sketch of every abbot who governed Osera from the time of San Famiano down to his own days, in the end of the seventeenth century. He is very careful to state the exact amount of money each abbot spent in alms to the poor, in addition to the sum allotted annually to that purpose from the general fund. And indeed they could afford to be liberal without practising much self-denial!

Peralta tells us that the monastery is situated upon a mountain, whose inaccessible slopes and rocky crags instil horror into the mind of the spectator.[292] It is bathed by the river Osera, from which it took its name, the river in its turn having derived its name from the bears with which the mountain was once infested. The word osera means “a den of bears.” The arms of the monastery are to this day a couple of bears climbing a pine tree. Peralta conscientiously adds, however, that no trace of the existence of any bears in that part has been preserved in writing, and that the monastery might possibly have received its name because the spot upon which it was built was of a kind suited to such animals, the monks being the first human beings to set foot there. King Alfonso’s original donation, on founding the monastery, consisted of only four square miles of unpopulated and uncultivated land; but as time went on, “by the help of God and the gifts of the kings of Spain and the nobles of Galicia, it grew richer and richer till,” when Peralta wrote, “it was one of the richest monasteries in the whole of the Peninsula.” My readers will gain some idea of what its wealth was from the fact that the monks possessed at one time a right to all the fishing in Vigo Bay! Florez observes that the prayers of the monks were very effectual; that kings, princes, and popes showered donations and privileges upon them; and that their monastery, rebuilt after a fire in 1552, became a structure of such architectural grandeur and such magnificent dimensions, that it was at length called “The Escurial of Galicia.”[293]

On my arrival at Orense I made many inquiries among my friends there as to the possibility of paying a visit to the ruins of Osera. One and all shook their heads. “It is very difficult of access,” they said; and only one person could I find who had been there, an elderly priest, who told me that it was too rough an expedition for ladies, and that he himself had only been there once, and that was in his younger days. Happily, however, I at length found, in a back street, an intelligent and good-natured shopkeeper who had a lawyer brother living in the village of Osera, within the very gates of the monastery. This gentleman kindly gave me a letter of introduction to his brother, and told me how to get there. “You will have to drive for three hours, and then proceed on horseback for two hours more,” he said.

Following the instructions given, we accordingly left our hotel at Orense at 5.15 a.m. on a fine April morning, and drove in an open carriage to the village of Cea, which lies about seventeen kilometres to the south of Orense. The drive, which took just three hours, was a very beautiful one. The road ran along hillsides which were literally covered with bushes of white broom, that looked like a carpet of snow at a little distance; then, another hill coming right in our way, our road had to bend and double till we seemed to be going back to Orense and could see its Cathedral towers in front of us: it was like the famous loop in the Canadian Rockies. Then our way cut through giant boulders of white-looking granite, and we went up and up till the valleys beneath us were hidden by white clouds. A little later we were passing the outskirts of a charming pine wood on the slope of a hill; through the wood there ran a gurgling stream on whose margin a group of peasant women had gathered to wash their linen. Then came a tiny village, in whose gardens we saw long-stalked cabbages, some of them five and a half feet high; the hills became covered with yellow and white broom intermixed, here and there a bunch of furze, whose brilliant flowering was almost over. Besides the broom there were clumps of tall loose heather of a purple hue. The hedges, very like our English ones, were dotted with blue gentians as the sun came out, two flowers to each stalk; and in the woods we saw the fresh young green of the budding chestnuts lighted up by the early sun. Then came a cone-shaped mountain to our right, whose sides were covered with such a beautiful rich, soft green carpet that we felt we should like to get out and stroke it. Again the roadside was lined with white-flowered broom, as airy and delicate as the plumes ladies wear in their hats. After another half-hour the pine trees grew taller, till they were like bushy dark green tufts upon tall bare poles; between them were the gnarled and knotted trunks of aged chestnuts, and yonder—alone in its glory—rose a dark needle-pointed cypress; and then, through the branches of the trees, there peeped a little village church. We now put on our brake and went slowly downhill.

Arrived at the quaint inn of the one-street village of Cea, I made inquiries for a horse to take me up to Osera. Several villagers brought their steeds for my inspection, and at nine a.m. I found myself comfortably mounted on a sturdy pony and slowly ascending a stony path which lay between woods of pine trees and boulders of granite. It was more like a goat path than any human line of communication. My pony picked its way between stones and boulders for a good two hours. Two villagers, a man and a woman, whom I had engaged to accompany me, walked on either side, the one carrying my camera, and the other my coat. Every now and again our way lay beside gushing streamlets of pure spring water, which sparkled over the white feldspar in the morning sun, and yellow flowers larger than primroses soon sprang up in clusters between the stones along our route. Now we pass a green field of long fresh grass, blue with hyacinths and shaded by a clump of chestnuts, just like a bit of old England. At length we reach a sort of tableland on the top of the granite mountain up which we have been slowly climbing for an hour and a half. Trees, fields, and flowers have quite disappeared, the very hedges have turned to granite boulders, and for a time we seem to be making our way over a petrified ocean, whose waves of granite rise higher and higher before us, and cover the ground as far as we can see on every side. Our rough path was now hedged on both sides with great blocks of crystallised feldspar, so white and transparent in appearance that I almost mistook it for marble, and my thoughts travelled to the quarries of Carrara. Those roughly hewn blocks had been placed there by human hands, it was clear, but other sign of man’s existence there was absolutely none. On we toiled for another half-hour, and then we came to a granite village, almost the same colour as the granite around. This village had the most primitive maize barns I had ever seen: they were round, like giant beehives, with straw-thatched roofs; and as the sun was blazing full on the grey village and its yellow straw, I stopped to take a photograph. The houses were all built of granite, and the hedges to the gardens were all of granite. On we went again through more seas of bare granite rock, and then, all at once, the scene changed: we had come to the top of a ridge, and before us, as “from Pisgah’s mountain, we viewed the promised land.” There lay a vast but very shallow valley, scooped out between the surrounding uplands, and in the