The Sunny South: An Autumn in Spain and Majorca

by John William Clayton

The commencement of the journey, after leaving Valladolid en route for Madrid, lay through vast tracts of sandy plains, with the far horizon bounded by brazen hills like those of Africa, and long, lofty table-lands, beneath which the Nile might well be streaming. But this is indeed, at this season at all events, a dry and barren land, where no water is. However, many broad acres of this now arid country were a few months ago smiling with waving corn. Still desolation must in a great measure be the general characteristic of the scene, with Oriental-looking mountains of bare sand, on which nothing can grow but stones, and where life is rarely seen in any form save that of the wild goat, the vulture, and the outlaw. There is little doubt that, at one of those far distant epochs with which geological science makes us familiar, the two continents joined at the spot where are now the Straits of Gibraltar, and that Spain was then continuous with Africa. In point of fact, the soil of Spain, as far as Burgos, has precisely the same characteristics as that of Africa.

So on we glide, over plains and tracts of glaring sand, enlivened only here and there by a solitary peasant driving a flock of black sheep over the white expanse to places where a few miserable patches of some rank vegetation offer a meagre grazing ground for the poor animals. At long intervals there appears, seated on the plain like some low, flat island, a wretched poverty-stricken town, the burning rays of the sun reflected from its broken house-tops and off its yellow walls. In the far distance the eye may perhaps distinguish another, and after we have passed it, yet another, rising far away, isolated on the dreary waste. A large church seems to domineer over the hovels beneath, its toppling spire leaning as it were with neglect and exhaustion. Scarce a soul appears amidst these mural wildernesses. There is none of that stir, animation, and cheerfulness which generally accompany city, town, or village life in other countries. The burning sun, the sandy desert, the monotonous wilderness, have evidently left their impress on the character of the people. As we proceed rapidly over the plain, a pile of tower and battlement in ruins—a relic of heroic story, and of the glories of other days—appears before us, standing midst the solitude like the skeleton of some long-forgotten animal which had fallen there when the world was yet young, and over which now the wild birds scream and whirl, while the long, rank weeds which nearly cover it sigh to the passing breeze.

This bright October weather is like the finest July days in England, tempered by a fresh, gentle, and wholesome breeze. We stop at little stations in the midst of the wilderness; in fact, it seems that we stop pretty nearly as often as it suits the guards or engine-drivers, for the stoppages are not confined to stations or villages, but sometimes take place in the middle of fields, where there is no sign of habitation. Some woman, perhaps, may rise from the border of a ditch, where she has been resting, with a child in her arms, and all the officials will get down and have a chat with her, while the good-natured passengers, who take the stoppage as a matter of course, get out and smoke cigarettes.

When some lone station, which is represented by one small house, is reached, the carriage windows are immediately surrounded by tottering old men in ancient velvet hats with very broad brims, and with little silk balls dangling therefrom. They are all swathed in a wonderful collection of rags, pinned, sewed, nailed, and tied on to their bodies anyhow, while their legs are bound up in pieces of sacking, and their feet apparently encased in poultices. Where they come from none can tell, nor can man's ears divine their speech—some patois which even native Spaniards can hardly understand.

Amongst the specimens of drapery composing the toilet of one poor old man, whose face was simply black from dirt and sun, who seemed actually rotting alive, and who appeared to think there was nothing in his condition to regret, there were two triangular patches of green damask, with roses worked thereon, fastened somehow on to his back, together with a remnant of a sail-cloth shirt. One sleeve of the latter was of yellow cotton, while the other arm was concealed from view by a short mat of horse-hair and a piece of carpet sewn together. A sash of faded scarlet encircled his waist, and his lower extremities were enclosed in inexpressibles made of goat-skin with the hair outside. He had a long stick in his hand, and was accompanied by a lynx-like dog, who devoured greedily grape-skins as they fell from a carriage window. This poor old man had no teeth, only one eye, and was very much bent. He and the other ancients were such masses of dirt that they must have been designed by Providence as places of refuge for destitute insects.

These beggars are generally seen in small companies, and it is not advisable to approach them too nearly, as there is a deal of esprit de corps amongst them. Whence the poor wretches come, and where they live, no one can tell, for there is not even one of those decaying old towns, with the big church before mentioned, near their usual haunts. They seem to exist simply—because they don't die—from mere force of habit. There are beggars, of course, in all countries; but such degraded, miserable beings as we meet in beautiful Italy and brilliant Spain, are to be seen in no other part of the world.

After this purposeless stoppage, our express train moves on again at a good six miles per hour, and there is no further halt till we reach the ancient city of Avila, founded by Hercules, and the birth-place of St. Theresa. Its decaying old streets, its high mouldering castle, its Gothic houses, and its large churches, have all a very forsaken aspect. It is surrounded by great military walls, lofty, massive, and grey, [6] through which the listless-looking natives have egress from the city into the wilderness around by means of gateways of enormous thickness. There is something sad and impressive in seeing this ancient city, in which there are so many remains of power and grandeur, now given up to the inexorable hand of time and the cold blight of desolation. What a sermon might be preached from such a text on the mutability of all earthly grandeur!

As if to make the solemnity of the scene more complete, while we were sauntering during our hour's halt through the dark old streets of Avila, a funeral procession came by, preceded by a troupe of ghoul-like creatures, bearing their stiff and soul-less burden, hooded in black from crown to sole, with scarce a semblance of humanity in them, save the unholy-looking eyes, which, amidst the deep drapery, glanced furtively at us from out the cavernous eyeholes in the masks which they wore. The mournful procession consisted, as usual, of shaven priests, attendants bearing flambeaux, and children singing the Miserere; in a word, there was all the empty pageantry with which the Catholic Church deposits the dead in their last earthly home. The coffin was painted a bright crimson colour, and a key was fastened near the lock by a chain, to be in readiness at the Day of Judgment.

When we had taken our places in the train again, the steam was put on, and we moved off, gradually increasing our speed till it reached the unprecedented velocity of nine miles an hour. This greatly alarmed a lady in the carriage, who, no doubt, was of that Spanish Conservative party which prefers things as they are. People in America, even the ladies, take matters much more quietly. An ancient dame was travelling by rail for the first time in her life, and when the "smash up," which is almost a matter of course among our go-a-head friends, came, and fatigue-parties arrived to carry her off with the other wounded on a stretcher, she was quite astonished when told that it was an accident, as she had thought the whole thing a regular pre-arranged part of the business of every-day railway travelling, and took it all quite comfortably. In fact, she was rather interested than otherwise in her initiation into one of those stirring incidents which it is the fortune of travellers to encounter more frequently in America than elsewhere.