Four Months Afoot in Spain

by Harry Alverson Franck

To chronicle the vagaries of the latter during the rest of the day would be a thankless task. For miles it wound around and upward, ever upward on the face of bare stony mountains like a spiral stairway to heaven. Then suddenly from each giddy height it dived headlong down into deep-wooded, fertile valleys; then up again round and round another mountain shoulder far beyond the last stunted shrub. Later in the day it took to rounding these peaks almost on the level, coming a score of times so close to itself that I could all but toss my bundle across, only to buckle back upon itself for miles around some narrow but apparently bottomless gulley.

Somewhere during the previous afternoon I had crossed the unmarked boundary between Galicia and the still more rugged kingdom of Asturias, to-day the province of Oviedo. A new style of architecture gradually became prevalent. The buildings were of two stories, the lower, of stone, housing the animals, while the dwelling proper was of wood and perched a foot or more above the lower story on four cone-shaped cornerstones, like some great awkward bird ready to take flight.

But for this peculiarity the village in which night overhauled me differed but little from that of the evening before, except in being many hundred feet nearer sea level. It was called San Fecundo. As before, my inquiry for an inn was each time answered by a terse "I don't know." I found the head man in good health, however,--a stalwart fellow little past thirty who was shoveling manure in his front yard. Yet so local is the dialect of every village in this region that I tried for some time in vain to make known my wants to him.

"Can't you speak Spanish, señor?" I cried out.

"No, señor," he replied like the report of a gun, and apparently angered at the allegation. We managed nevertheless by patience and repetition to establish communication between us, and I found out at last why my inquiry for a posada had evoked so surprising an answer. Public hostelries being unknown among them, the mountaineers understand the question "Is there an inn in town?" to mean "Do you suppose any resident will furnish me accommodations?"

The head man did in this case, in spite of my unfortunate blunder in calling him a gallego. So great is the sectionalism in these Cantabrian ranges that a man from one village deeply resents even being taken for a resident of another a mile distant; while the Asturians, a blending of the aboriginal Iberian and the Goth, in whose caves of Covadonga was kept alight the last flicker of Spanish liberty and Christianity, consider themselves free and independent hidalgos infinitely superior to the submissive gallego. There were in truth some noticeable differences of character and customs, that were to increase as I advanced.

We spent the evening in another ventless, smoky, fly-buzzing kitchen, though this time the fireplace gave a bit of blaze and from time to time the rugged faces of the eight or ten men, who had gathered at the invitation of the village leader, flashed visible. I entertained them with such stories of America as are most customary and popular on such occasions. This was no light task. Not only were there many words entirely indigenous to the village, but such Castilian as my hearers used would scarcely be recognized in Castille. The expression "For allà" (over there) they reduced to "Pa cá"; "horse" was never "caballo," but either "cabalo" or "cabayo." Worst of all, the infinitive of the verb served indifferently for all persons and tenses. "Yo ir" might mean "I go," "I was going," "I shall go," "I should go" and even "I would have gone" and "I should be going."

Most taking of all the stories I could produce were those concerning the high buildings of New York. I had developed this popular subject at some length when a mountaineer interposed a question that I made out at length to be a query whether those who live in these great houses spend all their time in them or take an hour or two every morning to climb the stairs.

"Hay ascensores, señores," I explained, "elevators; some expresses, some mixtos, as on your railroads."

A long, unaccountable silence followed. I filled and lighted my pipe, and still only the heavy breathing of the untutored sons of the hills about me sounded. Finally one of them cleared his throat and inquired in humble voice: