Carm. i. 2.
The modern representations of Abd-el-Kader’s warriors by French artists square with the ancient notions of the Moorish ferocity of aspect. I myself have seen at Tangier and Gibraltar for the most part fine-looking men, but certainly with a tinge of ferocity, and here and therewith an expression worthy the “truculentus Maurorum vultus.” The introduction of Mohammedanism seems to have altered nothing in this respect, for in the days of Julius Cæsar, as Horace here attests, the same physiognomy was apparent; and Suetonius, speaking of the war between Cæsar and Juba, king of Mauritania, represents even the Roman legions as affrighted: “Famâ hostilium copiarum perterritos ... expectatio adventûs Jubæ terribilis.” cap. 66.
The part which I assign to the Basque boat-girls, and the strain of sentiment which pervades their oar-song, although not consonant with a peaceful state of cultivated society, is quite characteristic of Spain during the Peninsular War. The creed of Hippolytus was not very favourable to those literate pretensions which Molière has so pleasantly satirized in his “Précieuses Ridicules,” and the Basque barqueras would be quite to his taste. The persecuted of Phædra, whose uncompromising chastity caused his neck to be broken, said:—Σοφὴν δὲ μισῶ, “I hate a learned woman;” and Blanca and her sisters of the oar appear to have extended that hatred to both sexes.
Gen. Jones’s record of the seizure of the island of Santa Clara in the mouth of the harbour is as follows:—“A party of 200 men was landed this night on the high rocky island of Sta. Clara, and made prisoners of the enemy’s guard on it, of an officer and twenty-four men.” Journals, &c., Supp. Chapt. Napier makes the military party to consist of only 100 men—such difficulties does one meet in ascertaining the minute parts of even recent history. But probably Gen. Jones may have estimated that the seamen amounted to another hundred. “A heavy fire was opened on them,” says Napier, “and the troops landed with some difficulty, but the island was then easily taken, and a lodgment made with the loss of only twenty-eight men and officers.” Hist. book xxii. c. i. The historical fact of the supplies having been conveyed to the besiegers at San Sebastian by boat-girls gives warrant to the supposition that they may have assisted in the capture of the Island.
This Canto describes the principal warlike operations between the battle of Vittoria and the first battle of Sauroren, with a description of the first part of which it terminates. The incidents will be found in Napier’s History, book xxi. chap. 5.
The concluding incident is from the combat of Maya, which took place in the same neighbourhood a few days previously, and is thus described by Captain Norton, of the 34th regiment.—“The ninety-second met the advancing French column first with its right wing drawn up in line, and after a most destructive fire and heavy loss on both sides, the remnant of the right wing retired, leaving a line of killed and wounded that appeared to have no interval. The French column advanced up to this line and then halted, the killed and wounded of the ninety-second forming a sort of rampart; the left wing then opened its fire on the column, and as I was but a little to the right of the ninety-second, I could not help reflecting painfully how many of the wounded of their right wing must have unavoidably suffered from the fire of their comrades.” This frightful butchery appears to excite the enthusiasm of some of its military historians. “So dreadful was the slaughter,” says Napier, “that it is said the advancing enemy was actually stopped by the heaped mass of dead and dying; and then the left wing of that noble regiment coming down from the higher ground smote wounded friends and exulting foes alike, as mingled together they stood or crawled before its fire. * * The stern valour of the ninety-second, principally composed of Irishmen, would have graced Thermopylæ.”—Hist. War. Penins. book xxi. chap. 5.
III. “When Roland’s horn with its tremendous sound.”
La dove il corno sona tanto forte
Dopo la dolorosa rotta.
Pulci.