The ascent of the Puerto de Guadarrama begins immediately beyond the village; a series of long steep zigzags well shaded by slender pine trees—the “spindles of Guadarrama,” to which Don Quixote likened Dulcinea. The climb in itself is not particularly arduous, but no doubt it is an ugly place in a December snowstorm; and so Napoleon{185} found to his cost, when he forced the passage in 1808, rushing northwards from Madrid to fall upon the adventurous Moore. Marbot has left us a grisly description of its snow-drifts and precipices; and the furious eddies of whirlwind which swept horse and man to destruction as they struggled up the icy paths. But probably his account is a little over-painted; for precipices should be perennial both in summer and winter; but the steepest which we could identify were about of tobogganing pitch.
Viewed from the north, the pass is a saddle at the end of a long deep valley; but its southern face forms an embrasure in a great mountain wall. The whole valley of the Tagus seemed spread beneath us as we gazed down from the summit; the plains all shimmering in a sea of purple heat haze, and the blue Toledan mountains rising faint and ethereal upon the further shore. So “Lot lifted up his eyes and looked and beheld all the Vale of Jordan.” The text seems singularly appropriate to many of these vistas of Spain. A little later in the day, when the haze had been lifted by the sunshine, every detail of the country would have shown up as clearly as on a map.
At the foot of the descent we swung to the right{186} along a pleasant undulating road amid trees and meadows and hedgerows. And here, as in private duty bound, let us record our gratitude to Don Fernando, who erected the noble fountain whereat we refreshed ourselves by the way. Don Fernando’s fountain is a great stone cistern, with the water gushing into it from an upright pillar behind. Verily his spirit is at rest if the wayfarers’ prayers may avail him; for nowhere is water more appreciated than in this land of wine.
Don Fernando (requiescat in pace) is by no means the only benefactor who has conferred such a boon on his countrymen. Almost every village near the mountains is dowered with a tank in the plaza, and a generous jet of water beneath which you may seethe your hissing head. Would that we were as well off in England! For our fountains can furnish no more than a miserable trickle, and even that is frequently dry. How often have we raged unsatisfied from one faithless nozzle to another, while the yokels mocked our agonies with commendations of the beer! Beer is excellent in its way—but not when one is thirsty. Then on revient toujours à ses premiers amours. ΑΡΙΣΤΟΝ ΜΕΝ ΥΔΩΡ.
The famous palace of Escorial opened suddenly{187} before us as we rounded a shoulder of the mountain, and there can be few palaces in the world which occupy so imposing a site. It is often referred to as standing upon a plain, but the description is entirely misleading. It rises upon the lap of the mountains, high above the level of Madrid. Our first view, moreover, much discounted our preconceived notions regarding its gloomy appearance; for bathed in a flood of southern sunshine, it had rather a cheerful aspect. But the very sunshine itself grew chilled as we narrowed the radius; and the bare rude walls, vast, grey, and featureless, like an enormously exaggerated Newgate, seemed to crush out all the gladness of nature with their cold, unalterable frown.
“First a tomb, next a convent, last a palace,” was the ideal at which the founder was aiming; and the massive asceticism of the building is an apt reflection of his mood. It boasts itself the finest of all the great monasteries: and if tested by weight or by measure, the claim could hardly be denied. But this vast gloomy prison is a thing which has nothing in common with the staid beauty of Poblet,[28] or the Aladdin-like brilliance of the Certosa at Pavia. Yet the extreme severity of its{188} style is by no means inappropriate to the great church which forms the central feature; and none that remember its grim associations would wish to see the Escorial other than it is.