THE French soldiers, looking at the trifling Manzanares and its mighty bridges, may have exclaimed, “So even the Spanish rivers ran away.” But those who, at sight of tiny threads of water in immense river-beds, are inclined to ask, with Don Pedro in Much Ado about Nothing, “What need the bridge much broader than the flood?” find their answer after a few days of heavy rain. Marks six feet and more high on houses many hundreds of yards from the banks of the Ebro record the rising of the waters. Thus, in many districts, crops which have survived the summer drought are swept away by the autumn deluge, and those who have cried for rain are mocked with ruin when the waters “prevail exceedingly upon the earth.” Spain’s agriculture perishes for lack of water, yet water abounds, whether subterranean, as in parts of Castille, or in the copious snows of the high-lying regions, where the snow is sometimes preserved in snow-pits, pozos de nieve, or in these periodical floods; and it would seem that the philologist had Spain in his mind who connected the Basque adjective idorra, meaning “dry,” with ὓδωρ, the Greek for water. To utilize, extend, and regulate the water supply is a problem of vital importance to Spain—a problem which has long occupied the thoughts of Spanish statesmen. Alfonso the Learned, in his “Crónica General,” says, “This Spain, then, of which we speak is as the paradise of God.... For the most part, it is watered with streams and fountains, and wells are never lacking in all places that have need of them;” but Strabo, more impartial, had remarked of Spain that, “For the most part, it yields but a poor sustenance. For large districts are composed of mountains and woodland and plains, with thin and, moreover, not uniformly well-watered soil—οὐδἐ ταὐτην ὁμαλῶς εὔυδρον.” And since Strabo’s time many have been the alterations for the worse. Turdetania, for instance, the country between Seville and Huelva, is no longer marvellously prosperous—θαυμα-στῶς εὐτυχεῖ; in fact South Estremadura, of old one of Rome’s granaries, is now one of the most desolate regions in Spain. But the worst decay is that of the forests. The woods have fallen and fallen, and still the axe rings avidly in those woods that remain. The very words for a wood, bosque or selva, have become rare and poetical. Thus the soil is further parched and impoverished, while towns and villages stand unsheltered from wind and sun. The Escorial, which grew up among woods, may now be seen from afar in its almost sinister magnificence across grey hills and plains without a tree; and Madrid, though a tree figures prominently in the city arms, looks out upon plains from which all traces of former oak and chestnut forests have long since vanished. The absence of trees in Spain increases both the dryness and the floods, and afforestation is therefore quite as important as irrigation. The canalization of rivers may diminish the floods, but while there is no soil on the hill-sides—or soil so light that it is swept away by heavy rainfalls—the rain must continue to be a blessing strangely disguised. It is calculated that in six or eight years the trees would knit the soil together, and give it sufficient staying power to resist and absorb the rains, though, of course, there would as yet be no actual profit of timber. Outlay of toil and money for so distant a remuneration is not congenial to the Spanish temperament. The great land-owners do nothing. The State spends a few thousand pesetas every year; but at the present rate afforestation will need hundreds of years, bearing a resemblance to that long-desired map of Spain, which is to be issued in some eleven hundred sections, and of which from two to three sections appear annually.[86] The advantages of irrigation have been amply proved in Spain, justifying the juxtaposition of water and gold in Pindar’s ode; but only about a fiftieth of Spain’s total area—and especially the plain of Granada and the strip of coast of Málaga and Valencia—can at present show the immense productiveness due to irrigation, combined with the swift-maturing sun of Spain. There are, of course, immense difficulties, and not the least are the ignorance and the poverty of the peasants. Water added to a poor soil will be of little value if the peasants are not taught artificial means of enriching the soil, and modern methods of cultivating it. The extreme poverty of the peasants would, however, prevent them at present from employing any but the simplest methods; in many districts they mortgage their land in order to be able to sow their crops, and Spanish farmers are often in the hands of the usurers. The usurer has been their only resource in moments of distress, and finally they are driven to emigrate, leaving their land to the usurer. A narrow strip of fertile land along the rivers stands out in contrast to the desolate country beyond. Thus the Ebro flows through Aragon, among woods of silver birch and poplars, and plantations of olives and vines and maize; but on either side appears the barren country of perfectly bare reddish or brown hills of crumbling earth, like great sand-dunes, without a plant, curiously folded and scored by rushing water, with intricate, abrupt hollows and catacombs. The villages are the colour of the soil, and at no great distance are scarcely distinguishable from a bare hill-side. Or desert plains are thinly covered with grey thyme, and in the more fertile parts produce dwarfed vines and corn, so that in autumn one looks across immense, undivided plains of stubble and yellowing vineyards to the distant horizon of dim blue hills. The cruel winds[87] of Spain blow straight from the iced mountain ridges, unstemmed by any barrier of woods. The first snows fall early round Avila and on the uplands, but in the towns snow at Christmas is rare. The foreigner sometimes has a capricious wish to see these wide, tawny plains covered with snow—après la plaine blanche une autre plaine blanche, like the Queen Romayquia, wife of Abenabet, Moorish King of Seville, who could find no solace in her longing for the sight of snow. The King ordered almond-trees to be planted all about the city of Córdoba, that in early spring at least, if not at Christmas, the Queen might beguile her fancy with the snow-white almond blossoms.[88] But even in Andalucía, towards the end of December, one may see several comparatively low mountain ranges thickly coated with snow. Stores of firing are then brought down to the villages from the treeless hills. Further north the vines have been pruned, and the vine-twigs brought in for burning; but here the vines have not yet lost their leaves, and the firing consists of thyme and whin and rosemary, mint and lavender and other scented hill-plants. Troops of donkeys arrive at sunset, with immense, sweet-smelling loads, that entirely hide the red or purple tassels and fringes of their harness. The oranges now gleam in myriads along the eastern coast; sometimes the icy winds from inland freeze them, and fires of smouldering straw are burnt round and in the orange groves, after the wind has ceased, that a dense smoke may hang about the trees and warm them. Weeks before Christmas the turroneros from Jijona, noticeable for their small peaked hats of black velvet, appear in nearly every city and town of Spain. In porches or in large bare shops they set out their layers of white wooden boxes, and samples of the turrón, or almond-paste, which is an essential part of Spanish Christmas fare. For the time, Jijona, the grey town in the hills, is deserted, though but a few weeks ago every house was a busy scene of turrón making, and nailing thin white planks into boxes. The snow will soon lie deep on the Carrasqueta hill-range above the town. The almond-trees, whose pink flowers in February form a solitary belt of colour between Jijona and the rocky mountains, are now as bare and grey as the surrounding country. Some of the inhabitants have gone to the warmer south, taking the diligencia to Alicante; others have scaled the steep, winding road past the Barranco de la Batalla, where once the Cid wrought havoc of the Moors, and now herds of goats feed apparently on nothing, and have taken train at Alcoy for the cold, high-lying cities of the north. But not in the northern uplands only are Spanish winters cruel; the dehesas of Andalucía are equally unprotected, the silent, icy winds blow subtle and fierce and penetrating over the undulating hill country round Córdoba, and one may see shepherd boys, closely muffled in their plaids, standing frozen and motionless, the sheep pressing around them and against one another for shelter.
IX
THE COAST OF CATALONIA IN AUTUMN
A FIRST view of Catalonia from the sea shows at any rate the stones from which, according to the proverb, the Catalans make bread. For great spines of rust-coloured rock, covered here and there by pines of a crude green, run to the sea and break off in abrupt cliffs. In the valleys of these ridges towns and villages skirt the shore, Rosas, Palamos, San Feliú de Guixols with its cork industry, and lace-making Arenys de Mar. Towards Barcelona both soil and villages become greyer, but Barcelona itself has colour in plenty. The Spanish and foreign ships in the harbour, the palm-trees near the quay, above them the tall white and yellow houses with shutters of green and brown, and above these again a view of the great Cathedral—all this, bounded by the purple mountains, makes the sight of Barcelona from the sea very picturesque and attractive.
The coast to the south of Barcelona is very fertile. There are hedges of reeds twenty feet high, of cactus and of aloe, aloes of that exquisite blue-green which is so often the colour of the Mediterranean in September. Through yellowing orchards of magnificent peaches, of figs and apples in great abundance, come glimpses of the intense leaden-blue hill-ranges to the west. The grapes have already for the most part been gathered for wine, but there are still many vines that, earlier in the year, are cut back to the ground, and have the look of blighted potato-plants, and that now, grown to the size of currant-bushes and unstaked, are laden with large yellow grapes. Occasionally, too, one sees tall date-palms and orange-trees.
After Casteldefels the hills are covered with pines, and the nights, which are warm but have heavy dew, bring out their scent so strongly that it is at times almost oppressive. The nights are silent but for the continual chirping of crickets and the sound of the unquiet sea. The stars are strangely bright, Sirius burns large and intense, and Orion nightly stalks the sky in all his glory till the sun catches him in mid-heaven. The sea is alive with phosphorus, and far out are seen the lights of fishing-boats, while on land the glow-worms are almost as many as the stars. The orange and purple sunrises and sunsets of pink and amethyst are very lovely, and the sails of the fishing-boats continue white, and the sea retains its blue for some time after the light of the after-glow is gone. A little further south the cliffs are covered with dwarf palms, rosemary in flower, and other shrubs. The road here is good, but one meets no pedestrians, for a path along the railway is the accepted thoroughfare between village and village in spite of the notices that forbid its use. The men for the most part wear a black peaked cap, a long blouse, and trousers of brown or blue. The sash is nearly always black and is worn wide, the sandals have a tip and heel covering only, with fastenings of leather or black cloth from the tip. The women wear handkerchiefs that entirely cover the head. The predominant colours are blue and black. A kilomètre or more before wine-making Sitges the road is bounded by rough terraces of stone with vines and dark green carob-trees. A succession of terraces on the one side runs far up the hills, and on the other the rude-walled vineyards stretch to the edge of the sea. Sitges, a village of less than four thousand inhabitants, is prettily placed, its octagonal-towered church rising from a rock in the sea. A few kilomètres further Villanueva y Geltrú is but a fairly large and rather ordinary provincial town, though it has its picturesque corners, with its houses washed in various shades of blue, pink, green, or yellow, and views of vineyard country appearing at the end of many of its long, straight streets. After Villanueva the hills recede further inland, and there is a little more flat country, but it is occupied largely by great marshes, loud with the croaking of frogs.
It is not till one reaches Roda and Creixell that any villages have a really Spanish, or rather Castilian, look. Creixell, especially, with its massive church and great square building of stone standing haughtily on a hill of wall-terraces sprinkled with carob-trees, and with its houses the colour of the soil, has all the air of a little Toledo. Early on an autumn morning it may be seen reflected, with every house and window, in a blue lagoon hundreds of yards from the village and separated by sandbanks from the sea. The olives and vineyards now extend to the shore, and above San Vicente great white country-houses stand among orchards and olives. After Creixell there are but two villages, Torredenbarra and Altafulla, before Tarragona, the second coast-town of Catalonia. Here, indeed, the sun beats with a fiery strength; here, indeed, the Mediterranean is “crystalline,” and “the lightning of the noon-tide ocean flashes.” Here is excellent firm sand for bathing and, swimming far out, the sun is still seen shining through the transparent water on the waved sand below. At the end of September the season is over, yet the days are still almost too hot, and the deep blue of the bay and the long purple line of hills to the north-west are indescribably beautiful. Tarragona, the favoured city of the Romans, is the possessor of many noble Roman ruins, and wonderful Cyclopean walls, and its outline, seen against the sky from the road leading to Tortosa, is one of the most magnificent in Spain. The town and its neighbourhood, as well as the whole coast of Catalonia is, perhaps, not as well known as it deserves. In autumn, if the days and even the nights are hot, there is always a refreshing coolness in the early mornings; the people are, as a rule, pleasant and courteous; in some villages many speak Catalan only, and at times, catching a word here and there, one may think oneself to be in Italy.
X
AN EASTERN VILLAGE
THERE is no cloud in the clear March sky, filled with radiant light. Beyond the dark green of orange-trees and grey olives lies the sea, a faint line of blue. And, to the west, the mountains of bare rock are faintly purple, looking frail and brittle in their clear but distant outlines. A herd of goats passes slowly down a wide river-bed of smooth white stones, with no shred or vestige of water. Lines of aloes and tall reeds grow along its banks, and on either side peasants dressed in black are at work in the fields, ploughing with single mules between the brown stems of vines recently pruned, or pruning the orange-trees and olives. Bundles of vine and olive twigs lie ready to be carted to the village for fuel. Women in dresses of white and pink and scarlet are hoeing the green corn. The pear- and peach-trees are in flower, and the almond-trees fully arrayed in freshest green. At intervals, wells or norias explain the green fresh look of the country, so different from the burnt desolation of the waterless regions further north. For Oropesa, the neighbouring village, is but some sixty miles north of Valencia, and is bordered on the one side by the full fertility of the Valencian plain, though on the other it is surrounded by barren hills. In each noria a long crooked branch forms the handle to the iron wheel and to this a mule is tied, and as the mule turns, the wheel revolves with a slow clinking sound, and the long earthenware jars (arcaduces) attached to the wheel gush water into a trough and so by small channels of dry earth into the fields of brown and reddish soil. A path leads through green fields and clumps of orange-trees to the village. In some fields further south the last oranges have been gathered, and thousands of pearl-shaped buds tell that the trees before long will be covered with a glistening snow of scented blossoms. But in many the oranges still reign resplendent: on a grey day they stand out with more vivid distinctness than when the sun blurs them in a luminous haze, leaving them clearly visible only in the level light of its rising or its setting. The trees are bowed with fruit, and the laden branches are propped up from the ground. The thronging oranges glow in myriad spheres of gold, here and there lie golden mounds of gathered oranges, and below the trees the ground is a strewn pavement of gold. On every side beneath the trees may be seen a magic land of myriad golden lamps; single or in trefoils and clusters of seven and ten and twenty, the oranges hang within a few inches of the ground. Hundreds of yards away through intervals of trees appears the same foison of gleaming fruit, and the air is all scented with oranges. From time to time a light wind blows beneath the trees, and the twigs with their burdens of crowding oranges sway heavily to and fro, like slowly swung censers of burning gold. But near Oropesa the oranges are comparatively few. The village is built on a steep precipitous hill of grey rock, crowned by the ruinous walls of a great castle. The houses clamber roof over roof, in ragged disarray up the rock. They are of yellowish-brown stone with rough cement, and mostly innocent of glass, but have a touch of whitewash in front, so that they wear shining morning faces to the rising sun. In the mistless radiant mornings the village stands out clearly, its sharp rock rising sheer from the plain. The sea beyond is silver, and on the other side every wrinkle in the rocks of the grey mountains is distinctly visible. There is no sound but the occasional voices of children, the clink and clang of a forge-hammer, the crowing of a cock, or a faint crystal crash of waves breaking; but from time to time there is a dry rumour of wheels, and the cry of a man to his mule as he passes down the road in his cart. Wrapped in their plaids against the keen morning air, the peasants pass leisurely in carts and on mules to work in the fields until the evening. At dusk the slow procession returns, with many a greeting and bona nit and smiles of sunburnt wrinkled faces. Thin lines of blue smoke go up from swiftly flaring fires of vine twigs and rosemary and dry plants gathered from the hills, and an hour or two hours later Oropesa is given over to sleep and the silence of the stars, broken only by the deep rhythmic cry of the sereno calling the hours. To the south a road goes up through grey rocky hills with thyme and dwarf-palms and cistus. The bare smooth rocks have a metallic ring, and there is no sign of life save for a herd of goats far above, the goat-herd with his plaid and wide felt hat clearly outlined on the sky, and the sound of his flute distinct in the solitude of the hills, utterly silent save for the silver tinkling of goat-bells. No water can remain on these rocky hills, it pours immediately away to the plains beyond, where, by a stream bed barely a yard wide, a pillar tells of those who perished there in 1850, in “the diligencia carried away by the waters of the torrent.” Though Oropesa now has a railway station, the diligencias still ply between it and Castellón and Torreblanca, and it might be fifty miles from any railway, so primitive and self-centred is its life. Occasionally comes a sunless morning with a quiet grey sky, rare on the east coast of Spain except in the days of early spring. The sea lies motionless and grey, with pale reflections of light in coils and patches of gold. So still is the air that the quiet piping of birds among the olives falls like a stone in hushed waters. As the day advances the mountains, which earlier were mingled and lost in the grey of the sky, grow more distinct, till towards sunset every line and crevice in their sharp ranges becomes marked, and the overhanging mist of cloud melts away into the grey of evening, sprinkled with the gold-dust of the stars.
XI
OFF THE EAST COAST OF SPAIN
THE Mediterranean off the coast of Spain is not always calm. Sometimes the east wind, the Llevant, lashes the waves to fury, and the shores along the villages and towns are black with lines of fishing-boats that dare not put out to sea. But for weeks together it is “lulled in the coil of its crystalline streams,” and the sun rises and sets across a silken plain of blue. In such weather a journey along the coast has a wonderful freshness and a fascinating charm. Again and again the traveller recalls the magic of those lines of the old romance: