Vigo (to our surprise) proved quite unknown to all the inhabitants of Tuy. “Bigo” they knew; but they rejected any other designation. And that with a firmness which would be warmly approved at “Balladolid.” The consonants b and v seem everywhere at odds for supremacy; and it rather{98} adds to the perplexity of the stranger that they often get written as pronounced. “Villar,” at the first glance, is not at all suggestive of “Billiards”; and “Aqui se bende bino” would be so much more comprehensible if it were “spelt with a we.” “‘Vivere’ is the same as ‘bibere’ to a Spaniard,” laughs Martial; so the provincialism is at all events of respectable antiquity. Yet it is not countenanced in the Cloisters of Toledo, where the “Sir Oracle” of classical Castilian is reputed to hold his court. At the same time we must confess that when we visited those hallowed precincts we did not hear so much as a syllable of any language at all.
Vigo lies about twenty miles from Tuy, on the further side of a wall of pointed hills; and our first intimation of our approach to that famous seaport was a procession of barelegged fishwives with their big dripping baskets balanced upon their heads. Untrammelled by their burden, they came swinging down the road towards us at a good five miles an hour, the elderly and grizzled among them as upright and elastic as the girls. If ever the craze for pedestrianism should culminate in an international team race for ladies, the fishwives of Vigo would be a “very strong tip.” Indeed, if we felt quite sure that they would not get disqualified{99} for “lifting,” we might even venture to pronounce them a “moral cert.”
A Galician woman thinks nothing of a moderate-sized haystack as her ordinary walking head-dress; and any article she may carry, from an umbrella to a harmonium, is invariably poised upon her head. No doubt they considered us extremely foolish not to do the same with our knapsacks, for the theory of equilibrium comes as natural to them as their breath. Walking or sitting, standing or stooping, they never so much as raise a hand to steady their baskets or their pails. And the lifelong habit has certainly given them a most stately carriage. A duchess who is ambitious of walking worthy of her vocation could hardly do better than go into training with them.
The Spanish peasant girls may not be classically beautiful, but they are well-built, strong and active; a healthy-looking, open-air race. The chamber-maids of the hotel at Vigo seemed to spend the whole of their existence carrying buckets of water upstairs on their heads to the bedrooms. The hotel was five storeys high; and their labour was as the “Well of Ronda.”[14] Yet these cheerful{100} Danaids were quite unconcerned about their task. Even the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, it may be remembered (upon identification), proved capable of heaving the crowbar as well as the lustiest young fellow of the village, and her remarks to the reapers could be heard at a distance of half a league.
Nature has dowered Vigo with the most magnificent natural harbour in Europe; but Vigo is only a fishing port, “a place for the spreading of nets.” The economist who chances to wander thither will weep his eyes out over neglected opportunities; but an artist may use his to better purpose. Seldom can he feast them upon a more delightful spectacle than that great landlocked mountain-girt firth, with its deep blue waters bosomed amid the luxuriant vegetation of the hills. My sketch was taken looking seaward from the extreme end of the inner harbour; where Admiral Rooke sank the “Silver Fleet” in 1702, and where many generations of treasure-seekers have since groped over the muddy bottom in their vain endeavours to recover the “pieces of eight.” Beyond the bottle-necked entrance lies the outer harbour upon which the town is situated; and further still, out of sight in the extreme distance, the natural{101} breakwater of the Islas de Cies repels the ocean from the bay.
