Beneath the chief altar of the church is preserved the rock to which the disciples are supposed to have fastened their boat when they brought St. James’s body from Joppa. On the rock are some letters of a Roman inscription to which various archæologists have devoted much time and thought. Pilgrims to Santiago hold this boulder in great veneration, and feel it their bounden duty to visit it; the name for it is el pedron, the big rock, and some derive the name of the town from it, though it is more likely that Padron is from el padron, i.e. St. James the Apostle. Close to the church is the bank of the river to which the disciples moored their boat; it is still called Barca in memory of that event.
Rising from the slope of the mountain on the opposite side of the river is a hillock, or ridge, on which stands a little chapel to mark the spot where St. James is supposed to have dwelt during his sojourn in Iria; below the altar is a spring of delicious pure water: Morales remarked he had not tasted better water in all Galicia; its flow never ceases summer or winter. The townsfolk informed me that St. James preached to the people of Iria from this spot. Sanchez relates that in 1484 the traveller Nicolas Popiélovo came here to see the spring; and he gives his readers the traveller’s own words about his visit. A little higher up the mountain, which is called Monte San Gregorio, is the actual boulder upon which St. James stood when he preached. There is an opening here between two pieces of rock through which a thin person can manage to pass, and the Portuguese, who come here in great numbers, believe that good fortune will befall those who can get through, consequently it sometimes happens that fat persons also try to get through, but get stuck in the middle and find it difficult to extricate themselves. There are many legends connected with this rock, one of which is that it opened on several occasions to receive and shelter St. James when he was chased by the pagans. Another rock a little farther on is known as the Altar of St. James, and he is there supposed to have offered up bloodless sacrifices; and yet another rock is shown as St. James’s couch. The view of Padron from here is very beautiful among its fields and gardens, and with its two rivers, the Sar and the Ulla.[231] The highest building in the town is an old Carmelite nunnery, now inhabited by Dominican friars.
To the south-east of Padron, at a distance of about a mile, is situated the Convento de San Antonio de Herbon, a Franciscan monastery founded in the end of the fourteenth century by Gonzolo Mariño, a relative of the first Count of Altamira. Among its monks may be reckoned the famous trovador poet, Rodriquez de Padron, who retired thither in his old age and adopted the conventual garb. When the monks were all expelled, this monastery became for a time an ecclesiastical seminary. In the church there is a beautifully carved wood statue of St. Francis of Assisi, which some think to be the work of Adolfo Cano; there is wonderful character in the face, and for that alone its celebrity would be deserved.
Opposite the monastery and on the other side of the river are the remains of an ancient fortress, whose walls are two yards and a half wide. Sanchez calls it Castro Valute, and states that an ara was found there in which there was a cavity to receive the blood of victims sacrificed.[232]
We drove on beyond Padron for about a couple of miles, crossing the bridge over the Ulla near the village of Cesures, which in the Historio Compostellana is called Cesuris. Some think that this fine old Roman bridge is from the time of Octavius Augustus, and that it was called, in his honour, Cæsar’s Bridge, and they believe this to be the origin of the present name. The Ulla is an historic river. It is mentioned by Ptolemy, and by Pomponius Mela, and its name occurs in numerous Gallegan documents of the Middle Ages, for on its waters were borne the ships that brought both Moorish and Norman invaders into Galicia, invaders against whom the fighting archbishops defended their people most courageously.
About two miles beyond Cesuris there stands on a ridge in the slope of a green hill a quaint little church belonging to a little village called Janza. I particularly wished to see it, because I had heard archæologists say that on account of its elegant simplicity and beautiful proportions it was thought to be the work of Mateo, the architect of the Pórtico de Gloria, or at least that of one of his pupils. I got out of the carriage, and, meeting the village priest’s maid-of-all-work, asked her to show me the easiest path by which I could ascend to the church. As we went along, my guide, who had dropped her boots over the hedge into a field, and was proceeding barefoot, informed me that, as the priest’s servant she had a great many duties, one being to fetch all the water required for household purposes from a neighbouring spring. It was a beautiful day, and the air and scenery resembled that of some of the finer parts of the Yorkshire moors.
“How exhilarating it is here,” I remarked.
“Yes, you are right,” replied the maid. “It’s very beautiful. A Padre who came here a few weeks ago preached us a sermon about it, and said that, for any one whose heart was right with God, there could not be a more beautiful or a
