But in the town itself the most attractive feature is indubitably the fishing quarter. The throng of picturesque fishing craft elbowing each other in the crowded basin; the crazy old arcaded houses that ring the harbour round; the sailors staggering up the inclines with their baskets full of gleaming silver; the women sitting along the quay and deftly decapitating sardines with their thumbs. The mess, the noise, the crowd, the bustle, the glitter, form one of the most brilliant pictures that a painter could possibly conceive. And as for the smell, we do declare upon our veracity that it is distinctly perceptible at a distance of five miles.
There are many such Rias as Vigo along the coast to the northward; and the road rising sharply over the intervening ridges, finds in each successive valley a fresh garden of delight. The huge mountain groynes push themselves far out into the ocean; and their precipitous headlands, Vilano, Toriñana, and Finistierra, form the mighty spur stones of the sea-borne traffic to the south. Between them lie the gleaming estuaries, each a harbour fit for a navy, and the deep verdant valleys well watered by the streams from{102} the hills. Perhaps there is no plant in the world which could not be induced to grow here with a little attention; for the range from palms to heather is a wide one, but they flourish as if to the country born. “It is the Paradise of Spain,” exclaimed an enthusiastic Astorgan. And one can well imagine how such a picture would appeal to a native of the arid plateaus of Leon.
Yet Galicia has a plague of its own lest the angels should prefer it to heaven; for the Lord of that land is Beelzebub, and its children are fodder for his flies. On the dry, lofty plains of the interior these pests are less virulent than one might expect in a tropical country; but in Galicia even the ordinary house-fly thinks nothing of transfixing a worsted stocking, and our shanks were soon spotted like currant dumplings with the scars of their innumerable bites. The chief tormentors, however, are the horse-flies—the “clegs” of the Highlands of Scotland—a terror even to the thick-skinned mule and pony, and cordially anathematised by the Galician muleteer. Their only redeeming quality is a certain bull-dog tenacity, which is all in favour of the avenger; though death is no adequate penalty for such horribly venomous bites.{103}
The village granaries in this district are a very insistent feature. There is one in nearly every cottage garden—a little stone ark raised on six lofty legs. In Asturias they are much larger, built of wood and capped with a pyramidical roof. There no one could mistake them for anything but what they are; but here their shape, and their size, and the little stone crosses on their gables, are all so irresistibly suggestive of a sarcophagus, that at first we could not imagine that they had any other purpose to serve. The average Gallego’s fancy seems to turn on thoughts of funerals. His peculiar local type of bullock-cart also was manifestly derived from a coffin on wheels.
At El Padron we turned inland past the local shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Esclavitud. (Penal servitude, I regret to say, for it was a noted sanctuary for criminals.) The west front is a modest imitation of that of Santiago Cathedral, and the niche under its great stairway enshrines a beautifully cool fountain, which we could recommend more confidently if it did not issue from the churchyard. At this point it was that Borrow left the main track on his weird journey to Corcuvion; but we pushed straight ahead{104} for Santiago de Compostela; and once more threaded its arcaded Ruas in search of the Coruña road.
The coach that runs daily from Santiago to Coruña prides itself upon possessing the most numerous team of any vehicle in Spain. We were assured that sixteen mules were frequently requisitioned to drag it over the snowy hills in winter-time; but from our own personal observation (in August) we cannot vouch for more than ten. The passengers were just stowing themselves into it as we passed them. They had a ten hours’ journey before them, and it promised to be a roasting day. Yet the “insides” were packed like sardines in a basket; and some brave spirits were even occupying the roof among the interstices of the baggage, where they were all corded down together under a general tarpaulin! We wondered what they would look like when they emerged from their travelling oven at the other end!
The road is rather homelike in character, remote alike from coast-line and mountain: and more than one stage of the journey might have been borrowed from Hindhead or Rake Hill. Yet we gleaned passing hints of our latitude from the picturesque figures of the husbandmen, with their mild little{105} cream-coloured oxen, their mattocks, and their primitive ploughs.
