And when Conchita took me out round the west end and down a flight of steps to the north door of the church, which is decorated with red and white brickwork of the style called “Mozarabic,” and told me that it was known as the “Door of the Bridegrooms” when the Pinzóns lived at the castle, and was only opened to admit the eldest son of the family on his wedding-day, I found myself quite able to accept her statement, regardless of various inherent improbabilities which afterwards suggested themselves.
Having thoroughly taken in the beauty and the tradition of this architectural gem, with its fortress-like outer walls, its strangely dwarfed nave, and its lofty Gothic transepts, we resumed our triumphal progress along the road travelled by Columbus four hundred and twenty-eight years before—I say triumphal advisedly, for all down the one narrow ill-paved street of Palos, Conchita was bowing and smiling like a young princess at the people who ran out to greet her when they caught the sound of our approaching wheels. One understood that not many carriages drive through the village nowadays, but mere curiosity would not account for the cordiality of her reception.
From Palos to La Rabida the road is good and well kept, and at one point it is really very pretty, winding through a pine wood, between the trees of which we see the Arabic Tapia of the monastery walls gleaming rosy pink in the afternoon sun on their eminence above the estuary.
The inherent lack of common sense which characterises all Spanish administration is exemplified by the very existence of this road. In 1893 the fourth centenary of the discovery of America was marked by a tremendous celebration organised by what is called the Columbian Society of Huelva. The monastery was proclaimed a “national monument,” which means that its upkeep is henceforth a national charge, and no further voluntary effort to preserve it will ever be made, or even expected. An overpowering column with a statue of Columbus on top was set up at a cost, I have been told, of 80,000 pesetas (£3200)—a large sum to be raised by subscription in Spain—which was designed and erected by the architect to the Government. A landing-stage was built on the bank of the estuary for holiday-makers coming from Huelva, and a broad road, wide enough for half a dozen carriages to drive abreast, was made from the landing-stage up to the monastery, and carried on thence to join the road to Palos, as I have said. Extensive repairs and restorations were begun in the building, and the slopes round it were laid out as gardens, which were to be a glory of indigenous and American flowers and foliage—as well they might in a climate where everything grows at such a rate that the blossoming of Aaron’s rod would hardly be a miracle here.
But alas! the great column, ludicrously out of place alongside of the monastery walls, all weathered and mellowed by time, has never been finished; and worse than that, it was jerry built with what may have been left, after the celebration was concluded, of the 80,000 pesetas subscribed by a confiding public, and now, twenty-one years after the first stone was laid, this national monument to Spain’s greatest hero is surrounded by a rough paling labelled in large letters Peligro (Danger), and one passes it hastily by, wondering whether the statue of Columbus will fall on one’s innocent head from the lofty height which makes its details indiscernible.
A peal at the monastery door—the door by which Columbus entered—brings forth an unshaven porter, who turns one loose to wander at will in the empty cloisters, but reappears in search of his pourboire when he hears one’s steps returning. No photographs or even picture post-cards are to be obtained here, no printed papers or books relating to the building, there are no seats to be found in the whole of the monastery save some tiled recesses in the chapel walls—all is empty and desolate, with the unmistakable air of a place seldom visited and quickly left.
The broad new road down to the water serves no possible purpose, for no conveyance of any kind can be procured nearer than Moguer, and for visitors with time and energy to make the journey there on foot a path from the landing-stage to Palos would have served every purpose. A forlorn rowing-boat was moored to the steps where we went down, but its owner could not be found. It was kept there, our coachman told us, in case any one wanted to row to Huelva, several miles away up the mouth of the Odiel. “But,” he added scornfully, “who wants to row to Huelva when they have come in a carriage from Moguer?”
La Rabida is a monument of misspent public money. I was told that in summer people make up water parties from Huelva, but they must all bring their own refreshments, for not so much as a cup of coffee can be got at the monastery. One thought what a Mecca for Americans, and indeed for all other pilgrims, this spot could be made, were it in hands more appreciative and more sensible than those of the Spanish bureaucracy. One pictured a gay little hotel down below, far enough removed from the monastery not to jar on its old-world peace, but near enough to offer comfort and convenience to the pilgrim, whether he came by land or sea. One provided the sunny refectory, now empty save for those inferior fancy pictures of Columbus which annoyed Conchita Pinzón, with a library of books dealing with the history of the place and of the voyages of Columbus and his companions; one saw the friars’ cells, now closed and smelling of shut windows, furnished and available for students to live and work in; and one installed a service of motors from Seville and Huelva to the landing-stage, so that every tourist who came to Seville might take a day’s run to Moguer, Palos, and La Rabida, as a necessary part of his Andalucian trip.
But alas! a heavy shower woke me from my dream of what ought to be in this lovely corner of a lovely land. The sky had darkened while we were exploring the melancholy monastery, and depressed, silent, and grieving over its wasted opportunities I drove away from La Rabida, my last glimpse of Columbus on his shaky monument showing us the Admiral tottering to a fall, as sad and gloomy as the gathering clouds banked up over the Atlantic whose conquest he achieved.
