This last is no inconsiderable advantage in a country which gets hot by eight o’clock in the morning; and the great red disk was but half clear of the horizon when we bade farewell to Buenavista, and began our long ride to Leon. Washing arrangements had no share in our Posada’s economy, so this mysterious British ritual was cele{51}brated at Saldaña, on the banks of the Carrion; and being here favoured with a branch road which made a cast to the westward, we resumed our journey across the level in the direction of Sahagun.
Strictly speaking this is one of those levels which slope upwards and downwards a good deal; for the streams coming down from the mountains have cut themselves good deep valleys, though they seldom supply any water except on special occasions during the autumn rains. In the dips are trees and greenery, but the general impression is that of a bleak red ploughland interspersed with wide stretches of heath. Here and there, marooned at haphazard, are the casual villages, with their umber-coloured mud walls and red-tiled roofs, rich blotches of colour against the blue of the distant hills. And the desolate aspect of the country is enhanced by the dearth of inhabitants. There is scarcely a labourer in the fallows, scarcely a traveller on the road.
No! the little squared stones that we keep passing so regularly do not record the kilometres—only the ordinary roadside murders incidental to an ancient highway. Upon each is graven the simple fact of the tragedy:—Aqui murió,[7] with the{52} name and date,—no more. They are generally said to have been erected as a trespass offering by the remorseful murderer: and their persistent recurrence cannot be said to make for gaiety;—a large group is even depressing at a specially desolate spot.
Of course we endeavour to solace ourselves with the reflection that there is at least one similar monument in England; and we note with gratification that very few are of recent date. But then that does not prove that the murders are now less frequent, only that the murderers have less remorse. Yet, after all, the traveller may take courage; his position is not quite desperate, however unpromising it may look. Many of these untimely deaths were the result of ordinary accidents—storm or sunstroke, falls from horses (“a grave that is always open”), or drowning in the flooded streams. Sometimes a private vendetta may have reached its dénouement in a chance roadside meeting; but genuine highway murders form a very small proportion of the whole. The roads in Spain are as safe as those in England. And though I have been warned that “there are men in this village who would not hesitate to cut your throat for a dollar,” yet the country folk generally (as one of{53} themselves bore me witness) are gente muy regular, “a very law-abiding folk.” The only really reliable method of getting murdered upon a Spanish highway nowadays is to quarrel with the Arm of the Law!
See,—out of one of the dips in the road before us rise the figures of two horsemen;—big men, well mounted, in white puggarees and smart blue uniforms, with sabre at saddle and carbine on thigh;—the Civil Guard of Spain. Vayan Vs con Dios, Caballeros! Spain owes you a debt that is not to be readily computed. Those who have delivered her from her long tyranny of lawlessness deserve a niche beside the old knightly orders of Calatrava and Alcántara, who kept the border in the days of raiding Moors.
Don Bernardo de Castel Blazo distrusted those who kept company with Alguazils; but it is a highly desirable privilege to be friends with the Civil Guard. En passant it may be mentioned that it is imprudent to be otherwise, for they are authorised to shoot at sight, and are reputed seldom to miss. But this vexatious habit is one which they seldom indulge in, and so long as you keep the right side of them they are very good fellows indeed. Should our misguided rulers ever signalise their ineptitude{54} by the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary, we shall lose the one body in Europe which is altogether comparable to the Guardia Civil.
Readers of Borrow may perhaps recall his description of a forlorn and melancholy township halfway between Paléncia and Leon, a hotbed of Carlism, which he discreetly alludes to as ——. But it seems somewhat superfluous reticence to throw such a very thin veil of anonymity over a name which is obviously Sahagun. Once the great Romanesque Monastery, whose massive square tower forms such an imposing landmark, was first in wealth and dignity in all the kingdom of Leon. But now it is but the wreck of its former greatness; and the crazy mud hovels and hummocky streets which surround it form an abomination of dilapidation that it would not be easy to match even in Spain. What a fit scene for disillusion it must have presented to Moore and his army as they here turned their backs upon victory and commenced their disastrous retreat! The soldiers were all spoiling for a battle, and the 15th Hussars had brilliantly opened the scoring. But just as they savoured their appetiser they were dragged off, disappointed and morose. No wonder they sulked! How were they to know the true cause of their{55} retirement? They were thinking only of Soult at Saldaña; it was their General who had been watching for the rush of Napoleon from Madrid.
There is still a Carlist at Sahagun, because we saw him. The inhabitants, recognising us as strangers, naturally assumed that we should be interested in seeing their Carlist, and he was accordingly fetched and paraded, much as a man who had been “out” in the ‘45 might have been shown to Dr Johnson in the Hebrides. He was a white-haired and mild-mannered old gentleman,—a greatly sobered edition of the dashing young guerillero who had ranged the mountains of Biscay in 1875. And though he evidently enjoyed his repute as a fire-eater, I doubt whether he really considered that the game had been quite worth the candle after all.