Four Months Afoot in Spain

by Harry Alverson Franck

By that time I had learned enough of the "fine points of the game" to recognize that the Sevillian was approaching already true matador "form," and as I took leave of him next day it was with the conviction that success in his chosen career was as sure as the certainty of soon winning his most cherished reward.

"Vaya, Don Henrico," he laughed as we shook hands. "We shall see each other again. Some day when I go to Mexico or the Americas of the south I shall come by New York and you shall show me all you have told us of."

There are few countries in which it is more difficult to lay out an itinerary that will take in the principal points of interest without often doubling on one's track than Spain. By dint of long calculation and nice adjustment of details I sketched a labyrinthian route that my kilometer-book, together with what walking I should have time for, would cover. As for my check-book there was left exactly three pesetas a day for the remainder of my time in the peninsula.

So one cloudy morning in early August I took train at the Estación del Norte and wound away upward through the gorges of the Guardarrama to Segovia. Only there did I realize that the rumble of Madrid had been absolutely incessant in my ears; the stillness of the ancient city was almost oppressive, even more than in Toledo one felt peculiarly out of the world and a sensation that he must not remain too long lest he be wholly forgotten and lose his place in life's procession.

In the morning I set off by the highway that follows for some miles the great unmortared aqueduct, that chief feature of Segovia, a thing indeed far greater than the town, as if a man's gullet, or his thirst should be larger than himself, so difficult is it for a city to obtain water in this thirsty land. Where the road abandoned the monument it continued across a country brown and sear, with almost the aspect of an American meadow in autumn, steadily rising all but imperceptibly. Well on in the morning I entered a forest, at a side road of which I was joined by two guardias civiles, who marched for an hour with me exchanging information and marveling that I had wandered so far afield. It has been my lot to become well, nay, intimately acquainted with the police of many lands, and I know of none that, as a body, are more nearly what police should be than these civil guards of Spain, to whom is due the suppression of all the old picturesque insecurities of the road. They have neither the bully-ism of our own club-wielders nor the childishness of Asiatic officers. Except in blistering Bailen the bearing of every pair I met--they never travel singly--was such as to win at once the confidence of the stranger and to draw out of him such facts as it is their duty to learn so naturally that it seemed but a mutual exchange of politenesses. There are, no doubt, petty corruptions in so large a body, but in the presence of almost any of them one has a conviction that their first thought is their duty.

The highway ended its climb at noon in La Granja--The Grange--residence of the king in spring and autumn, a town little Spanish in aspect seated in a carefully cropped forest at the base of a thickly wooded mountain. I roamed unchallenged for half the afternoon through the royal park, replete with fountains compared with which those of Versailles are mere water-squirts; playthings that Philip the half-mad accused of costing three million and amusing him three minutes. I was more fortunate, for they cost me nothing and amused me fully half an hour.

After which I picked up the highway again and, winding around the regal village, struck upward into the mountains of Guardarrama. At the hamlet of Valsain I had just paused at the public spring when the third or fourth tramp I had seen on the road in all Spain swung around a bend ahead, marching doggedly northward. As I stooped to drink, a moan and a thud sounded behind me. I turned quickly around to behold the roadster writhing in the middle of the highway, the gravel of which had cut and gashed one side of his face. The simple villagers, swarming wide-eyed out of their houses, would have it at first that he was my companion and I to blame for his mishap. He bore patent signs of months on the road, being burned a tawny brown in garb and face by the sun that was evidently the author of his misfortune. For a time the village stood open-mouthed about him, the brawny housewives now and then giving vent to their sympathy and helpless perplexity by a long-drawn "ay de mi!" I suggested water, and a dozen women, dashing away with the agility of middle-aged cows, brought it in such abundance that the victim was all but drenched to the skin before I could drive them off. He revived a bit and while a woman clumsily washed the blood and gravel from his face, I addressed him in all the languages I could muster, for he was evidently no Spaniard. The only response was a few inarticulate groans, and when he had been carried to a grassy slope in the shade, I went on, knowing him in kind if awkward hands.

A half-perpendicular hour passed by, and I seemed to have left Spain behind. The road was toiling sharply upward through deep forests of evergreen, cool as an Alpine valley, opening now and then to offer a vista of thick treetops and a glimpse of red-tiled villages; a scene as different from sterile, colorless, sunken-cheeked Castille as could well be imagined. Nor did the dusk descend so swiftly in these upper heights. The sun had set when I reached the summit at six thousand feet and, passing through the Puerto de Navacerrada, started swiftly downward in the thickening gloom; but it was some time before the night had settled down in earnest.

I had marched well into it when I was suddenly startled by a sound of muffled voices out of the darkness ahead. I moved forward noiselessly, for this lonely pass has many a story to tell. A dim light shone through what appeared to be a window. I shouted for admittance and a moment later found myself in the hovel of a peon caminero.

Within, besides the family, were two educated Spaniards, one indeed who had been a secretary in the American Legation up to the outbreak of the recent war. When he had been apprised of my mode of travel and my goal, he stared wonderingly at me for a moment and then stepped out with me into the night. Marching a few paces down the highway until we had rounded some obstruction, he pointed away into the void.