In the language of a brilliant historian, “Spain stands to-day a hideous skeleton among living nations.”
They have a legend here that Adam made a visit to the earth a few years ago, to see how his farm was getting on. He alighted in Germany, and found schools and colleges and books, and the people intent on learning. He soon left it for France, where the people dressed in fantastic styles, and were mad upon works of art and improvements unknown to our great ancestor. Disgusted with all he saw, he came down to Spain, and, with delight, exclaimed, “This is just as I left it.”
Adam was nearly right. Of all the countries in Europe this is more as it was than any other. The greatest calamity that ever happened to Spain was its expulsion of the Moors; and it will be a century, perhaps many centuries, before the arts and sciences will flourish on this soil as they did before that year, so memorable for the discovery of the New World by Columbus, and the overthrow of the kingdom of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella. Both those events, forming the most momentous epoch in the history of Spain, occurred in the year 1492, from which period we may date the decline of an empire enriched by the untold wealth of a new world added to its possessions, and strengthened by the destruction of the last stronghold of its former conquerors and masters. Foreign capital and enterprise have forced railroads across her mountains and plains, but the capital and enterprise of the world cannot make them profitable, when the people have no industry and no ambition. The mines of Spain are so rich that she has no need of possessions in the gold fields of the western hemisphere; and they have been known and worked ever since the days of the Phœnicians, when Andalusia was the Tarshish of Holy Scripture. Yet Spain is more distinguished to-day, as being behind the world, than for aught it has done or is doing for itself or others. And it often seems to a traveller here in Spain that he is in the Orient, so many manners and customs, so many works, and, much more, such a want of things he is wont to meet with in the more civilized nations, remind him that he is among a people who have derived much of what they have and are from lands at the other end of the Mediterranean Sea.
It has a mixed race of inhabitants. It would not be strange if it had a mixed government also. Successive tides of people have swept over it, and the vestiges of all are left on the surface of the nation. Very little, indeed, is known of the days when the Iberians from Caucasus, and the Celts from Gaul, were the rude settlers of Spain; but the traces are more plain of the Phœnicians, who came here 1500 years before the birth of Jesus, and founded Cadiz and Malaga, and Cordova and Seville. In the year 218 before Christ the Romans came, and, of course, conquered all Spain, and reigned here just six centuries. Then came the Goths, sweeping the Romans out of Spain as they crushed Rome in Italy. And the Goths ruled Spain precisely 300 years. Then came the Moors, and, in two pitched battles, smote the Gothic Christian power to the earth; and, like a hurricane from the African coast, rushed up from the south, and never stayed its destructive course till the crescent had supplanted the cross on every tower in Spain. The Moors were lords of Spain just seven centuries. Gradually the crescent waned, as the Catholic Christian kings recovered strength, until St. Ferdinand captured Cordova, in 1235, and Ferdinand and Isabella completed the work at Granada, on the third day of the year 1492, and the last of the Moorish kings fled from the Alhambra.
CHAPTER II.
OUT OF FRANCE INTO SPAIN—THE BASQUE PROVINCES.
AWAY down in the south-west corner of France, on the Bay of Biscay, was a hamlet on a rock-bound coast, which has of late years suddenly sprung into the notice of the world. The sunshine of imperial favor ripened the modest bud of a humble village into a flower of remarkable beauty. What was a short time since quite unknown, is now the fashionable watering-place of France. Selected by the late Emperor as his autumnal resort, he built a handsome chateau, and named it Eugénie, and thus made the fortune of Biarritz.
Here we spent a few days of rest after a long and wearying journey. The coast is dangerous. The bay is rough to a degree that has become a proverb. An attempt was making under government direction to construct a breakwater, so as to enclose a “harbor of refuge,” and one is greatly needed. A process, new to me, but perhaps common, was going on: that of building rocks, or blocks, to make the projecting pier. Thousands of square feet of rock are here in the hills, but, for some reason, it is preferred to form a concrete mass with stone and cement. These are made in cubes of six or eight feet, with two grooves underneath them, and when they have stood long enough to be proof against water, levers are thrust under them, a derrick hoists them upon a platform which is moved on a railway to the pier, where they are launched off into the deep. The fury of the waves at this point, especially in rough weather, is frightful. The new breakwater was recently swept away. Two or three workmen were caught by the waves rushing higher than was expected, and the poor fellows were carried off into a deeper ocean. This terrified the others, and they declined to expose themselves to such dangers. The priests came to the rescue. They set up an image of the Virgin on an overhanging rock. She looks down benignly on the work and the workmen. Not one has been swept away since she stood there!! Confidence is restored. The breakwater is gradually extending. It will cost an immense sum, and if the Virgin is so successful in saving the lives of the landsmen in building it, one would think she might just as easily save the sailors, and so render the harbor unnecessary.
On this stormy coast, where the surf breaks over huge rocks, and sometimes rushes curiously through them by passages worn in ages of incessant roll, there are several coves where the beach slopes gradually to the sea, and the smooth sand floor furnishes delightful bathing grounds. Here, in the season, the court used to disport itself in other robes than those of royalty, and among the crowds of fashionable people, who in fantastic deshabille indulge in the ocean bath, were daily seen the Emperor and Empress and the remarkable boy who astonished the mayor by being the son of an Emperor when only ten years of age!
A courier, or travelling servant, is usually more of a nuisance than assistance, but I had to have one. He had the Spanish name of Antanazio, was of course familiar with the language, and he spoke French also, but not a word of English. He was a half devout Catholic, and professed to be very discriminating in his faith, rejecting many of the notions of his countrymen, and swallowing others without a strain. He was a big fellow, so big that he could easily have taken me under one arm and my companion on the other, and marched into or out of Spain at any moment. He was the terror of the cabmen and porters and waiters, bullying, swearing, and pushing his way through the thickest of the fight, in those struggles that attend every arrival of a passenger in any part of the world. He was just about as honest as the race to which he belongs. Every traveller thinks his own courier a pattern of honesty. I have had them in a dozen different countries, and never yet was able to put the word honest into the certificate which they craved at the end of the journey. Some are better than others. Any one of them is worse than none, if you have a slight knowledge of the country. Antanazio was in league with every hotel man to get as much out of us as he could, and he made up for his frauds on a large scale by an excess of zeal to save a few coppers for us when a poor porter or sacristan was to be paid for service. The gnat and the camel were familiar to Antanazio. Yet he was one of the best couriers to be found, and he shall have the benefit of this notice.
Just before we leave France to go into Spain we pass a village, here mentioned only to cite an eloquent epigram inscribed around the dial of the clock on its tower: “Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat.” Even so; each flying moment wounds: the last slays. And after quitting the Hendaye station, we dash across the river Bidassoa, which divides the two kingdoms. It would take us the rest of the day merely to read the history that invests this crossing with interest for all time. A little dry spot is in the bed of the river. There kings and queens and generals have met to settle affairs of state as on neutral ground, and the petty patch has come to be called the Island of Conference. Here, in the middle of the dividing river, Louis XIV. of France had his first meeting with Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, and they were married in the cathedral of St. Jean de Luz on the French side of the river. On the same spot the kings of France and Spain met in 1463 to negotiate; and here too, in 1645, Isabella the daughter of Henry IV. was exchanged for Anna of Austria, the one to be the wife of the king of Spain, and the other of France. In 1526, Francis I., who was a prisoner of Charles V., was here given up, and his two sons accepted as hostages in his stead. We go thousands of miles to visit a spot that has thus been made sacred and famous, yet one can hardly tell why he looks with interest upon ground so sanctified. The grass and the weeds grow just as freely, and the birds are as careless in their songs, and the water flows on as it always flows; but still no thoughtful traveller can pass such landmarks in the march of great events, without pausing to observe the effect which those events have had on the history of the world. And this is one of the greatest objects before us as we enter and traverse Spain. It is a land of history: of romance too; and perhaps both are equally interesting. For every line we cross, and every city and province we visit, is rich in association, even if the land is now but a great sepulchre of great peoples.