Next comes a great tribe of metal pitchers of various shapes and sizes, used by the inhabitants of Villafranca, Plaséncia, and Leon; and the very last ride I took on Spanish soil, in the neighbourhood of Santander, introduced me to a round-bellied, long-necked bottle of rough green glass, which opens a new vista of possibilities. Alas! that among all these delightful old vessels one should see so many outsiders in the shape of common cheap pails of galvanised and enamelled iron! One thinks with a shudder of the lean kine{82} in the vision which eventually devoured all the rest.
The three tall towers of Santiago de Compostela salute the traveller from afar off across the wild moors that flank the Lugo road. The city is deceitfully situated—for when we are once within it we imagine ourselves on an eminence; but, viewed from without, it is undeniably in a hole. Yet there is no lack of impressiveness in this first view of “the city of our solemnities.” The early pilgrim used to prostrate himself at the sight of it, and many would finish the last stage of the journey upon their knees. Such thoroughgoing devotion is probably very rare nowadays, but we would not like to assert that it is yet entirely extinct. For once in the little town of Briviesca, on the furthest confines of Castile, we did indeed come across a genuine pilgrim, with his “cockle hat” and rusty gabardine, his staff, his gourd, and his “sandal shoon,” all quite complete. The retinue of urchins which followed him proved that he was not altogether a common spectacle; but in what other country than Spain could one look for such a survival at all? It is consoling to think that among his own people St James is not quite without due honour even yet.{83}