Spain in 1830, vol. 1

by Henry D. Inglis

Which may be freely translated:—“Stop, thoughtless wanderer! and reflect,—this gate separates the dead from the living.”

In returning from the cemetery to the town, I made a long circuit, visiting in my way the Iglesia de Bigoña, a church which takes its name from a miraculous image of our Lady of Bigoña, deposited in it, and looked upon with extraordinary veneration by the lower orders in Bilbao. It happened to be a feast day, and a great number of persons were collected in the church, because upon all such days, the curtain that screens the miraculous image is withdrawn for a few moments—an opportunity not to be disregarded by any good Biscayan who desires to ensure the kind offices of the sainted Lady of Bigoña. Before the service began, the officiating priest shewed me the sacristy, and a head of John the Baptist in wood; a very clever performance, by a native artist; and I afterwards waited in the church long enough to see the curtain withdrawn, and the prostrations of three or four hundred devotees. There is a small foundation left to this church, for a curious purpose. The curate must go to the gate of the church at the commencement of every thunder storm,—say a certain prayer,—and sprinkle the sky with holy water. It appears, however, that the virtue of the water, as well as the water itself, has been sometimes dissipated before reaching the clouds; for the church tower has been twice struck by lightning.

In the course of my walk, I learned a curious fact, illustrating strongly the mixture of pride and generosity which is often found in the Spanish character. The Corporation being desirous of conducting an aqueduct and a road to Bilbao from a mountain about a league distant, applied to the proprietor (a grandee of Spain) to purchase the land through which these were to be carried. He refused to sell it; but said, that if the Corporation would petition him for a grant of the land, he would make them a present of it: they however wanted no favour, and would not condescend to this; but supposing that the proprietor would be prevailed upon to sell, they commenced, and at length nearly finished the work. The grandee, offended at this insolence, applied to the king for an order to demolish the work, and obtained it; but just in time to prevent this, the Corporation petitioned the grandee, and the order was not only rescinded, but the grant of the land was completed. The water conveyed in this aqueduct forms a reservoir at the entrance of the town for a useful and rather a novel purpose: by opening a sluice, seven of the lowest streets in the town are inundated; this is done every week during the summer heats, and is doubtless very useful in carrying away impurities. I walked through one of the lowest of the streets an hour before, and an hour after the purification; and the difference in smell, freshness, and coolness, was most striking.

Walking either in the streets, or in the neighbourhood of Bilbao, the convents and monasteries are very conspicuous: they are almost all immense piles of building, of little architectural beauty, and are at once distinguished by the strong gratings that cover their windows. In the town there are four monasteries—the Franciscans, the Capuchins, the Augustins, and the Carmelites: the two former of these subsist on charity, which is liberally bestowed, and they in their turn give charity to others. Every day, a great number of poor are fed after the Franciscan friars have dined, and as they are a hundred and ten in number, the refuse of their dinner must be considerable. I visited the Franciscan convent accompanied by an English lady, and although I found the utmost politeness from the Superior, he was deaf to all my entreaties to permit the lady to enter the sacristy, to see a picture said to be by Raphael. This convent was partly destroyed by the French, and it was under its gateway that several of those military executions took place, which so disgraced the conduct of the French during their occupation of the province of Biscay. In the Carmelite convent, there are only five friars, who want for nothing that money can purchase; they are extremely rich, and possess a charming property not far from Bilbao, called “el Desierto;” but which might with greater propriety be called “el Paradaiso.” Besides these monasteries within the town, there are two at a short distance from it—the Burcena convent of Mercenarios, and the Friars of San Mames, both of the Franciscan order.

The female convents are also numerous; these are, La Conception, a Franciscan order, in which there are 14 nuns; Santa Clara, also Franciscan, in which there are 10 nuns; El Convento de la Encarnacion, where there are 27 nuns; el Convento de la Cruz, containing 12 nuns; Santa Monica, an Augustinian order, with 12 nuns; La Esperanza, containing 12, and La Merced, containing 10. There are altogether about 350 friars and nuns in Bilbao, and about 120 priests. In the province of Biscay, females profess at a very early age; their noviciate generally commences about fifteen, and at the expiration of a year they take the veil. A nun must carry into the convent about 30,000 reals (300l.); and to La Merced and Santa Monica, considerably more. I ascertained, from a source of the most authentic kind, that three-fourths of the nuns who take the veil at this early age, die of a decline within four years. The climate, which in Biscay is so prolific in consumption, added to the low and damp situation of some of the convents, may perhaps be admitted to have some influence upon this premature decay; but I should incline to attribute a greater influence to causes more immediately referable to the unhappy and unnatural condition of those who are shut out from the common privileges, hopes, and enjoyments of their kind.

I visited the convent of Santa Monica in company with an old gentleman, an inhabitant of Bilbao, who had known several of the inmates from childhood. We were only permitted to converse through a double grating, which separated the small antechamber where we stood, from the convent burying-ground, where three of the nuns were; two of them seemed to be above thirty, the other was under twenty; my companion, a very jocose old man, jested, and amused them; and they in their turn prated, and laughed immoderately, and appeared to be in excellent spirits; but the sight of an old acquaintance, and the novelty of a visit from an English lady, had probably produced a temporary excitement: while, in the midst of their mirth, they were suddenly sent for by the abbess, who probably thought it wise to turn their thoughts into another channel. It is a pity, I think, that those who have separated themselves from the world, should afterwards be permitted to hold any communication with it; feelings may be stifled, and hopes buried, and time and habit may lead to forgetfulness, and even unconsciousness, of a busier, and it may be, a brighter scene; but recollections are easily awakened, and it is cruel to revive that which must again be buried.

Walking one evening to see the new hospital, which lies on the outskirts of the town, I was surprised at the great number of mules which were entering and leaving Bilbao; the former laden with wine, soap and oil; the latter with dried cod, which forms the staple of the Bilbao trade, and is an article of diet very extensively used throughout the greater part of Spain. There is a curious regulation respecting the trade of Bilbao with the interior,—no muleteer from Castile can carry away a load from any part of Biscay, unless he has brought a load with him; and this load must consist of something that may be eaten, drank, or burnt: this regulation ensures at all times to the Biscayan market an abundant supply, at a reasonable rate, of all the articles that come from the interior; nor is the regulation thought a hard one by the muleteer; because, although owing to the abundant supply, he is frequently a loser by it, he knows that it would be insecure to carry money so far to the market: it is in fact a remnant of the original commerce of all nations—barter.

I found the hospital well worthy of a visit; it is not yet completed, but is calculated to accommodate 250 patients. When I visited it, there were only 50 patients, whose diseases were consumption and old age. One part of the establishment I greatly approve of; a ward of the building is appropriated for the reception of strangers, or persons of a superior rank in life, who may be desirous of good advice at a moderate expense, and without occasioning trouble to friends or relations: these pay half a dollar per day, and have all the best hospital attendance united with the comforts of a private house. I can scarcely conceive a more welcome piece of intelligence to an unfortunate stranger, seized with a severe malady in a foreign place, than the existence of an institution like this.

In walking through the wards, I noticed books in the hands of several of the patients; these were chiefly forms of prayer; but seeing one sick man laughing heartily over his studies, I had the curiosity to approach his bed near enough to ascertain that he was engaged with a comedy of Lopez de Vega.

Passing along the streets, I frequently met the boys belonging to a charity school, the only one in Bilbao; they were, with few exceptions, very raggedly dressed, and most of them provided with little bells, with which they produced not an inharmonious music: the cause of their ragged dress is easily explained by the want of funds, which arise solely from the trifling imposition of four reals per ton upon every foreign vessel entering the port. The only explanation I was able to get of the ringing of bells is, that this custom is pleasing to the virgin. There is another sort of music peculiar to Biscay, of the most discordant kind, and which I cannot recollect even now, without unpleasant sensations. This music is produced by the wheels of the carts drawn by oxen: these are solid, without spokes, and a strong wooden screw is made to press upon the axle of the wheel; the consequence of this, is a sound so horribly grating, that the faintest conception of it cannot be conveyed by words. The peasant supposes, that without this noise, the oxen would not go willingly; and if they be once accustomed to it, this may perhaps be true. No carriage being allowed to pass along the streets of Bilbao, they are of course free from this intolerable nuisance: in the town of Orduña, also, it is not permitted; but on all the roads of the Basque provinces, and especially in the streets of Vittoria, this noise is so unintermitting, that nothing could tempt me to reside in that town.