Impressions Of Spain.
By Lady Herbert.
St. Sebastian and Burgos.
What is it that we seek for, we Englishmen and Englishwomen, who year by year, about the month of November, are seen crowding the Folkestone and Dover steamboats, with that unmistakable "going abroad" look of travelling—bags and wide-awakes and bundles of wraps and alpaca gowns? I think it may be comprised in one word—sunshine. This dear old land of ours, with all its luxuries and all its comforts and all its associations of home and people, still lacks one thing—and that is climate. For climate means health to one half of us; and health means power of enjoyment; for, without it, the most perfect of homes (and nowhere is that word understood so well as in England) is spoiled and saddened. So, in pursuit of this great boon, a widow lady and her children, with a doctor and two other friends, started off in the winter of 186-, in spite of ominous warnings of revolutions, and grim stories of brigands, for that comparatively unvisited country called Spain. As far as St. Sebastian the journey was absolutely without interest or adventure of any kind. The express train dashed them past houses and villages, and picturesque old towns with fine church towers, from Paris to Bordeaux, and from Bordeaux to Bayonne, and so on past the awful frontier, the scene of so many passages-at-arms between officials and ladies' maids, till they found themselves crossing the picturesque bridge which leads to the little town of St. Sebastian, with its beach of fine sand, washed by the long billowy waves of the Atlantic on the one hand, and its riant, well-cultivated little Basque farms on the other. As to the town itself, time and the prefect may eventually make it a second Biarritz, as in every direction lodging-houses are springing up, till it will become what one of Dickens's heroes would call "the most sea-bathingest place" that ever was! But at present it is a mass of rough stone and lime and scaffolding; and the one straight street leading from the hotel to the church of St. Maria, with the castle above, are almost all that remains of the old town which stood so many sieges, and was looked upon as the key of Northern Spain. The hotel appeared but tolerably comfortable to our travellers, fresh from the luxuries of Paris. When they returned, four or five months later, they thought it a perfect paradise of comfort and cleanliness. After wandering through the narrow streets, and walking into one or two uninteresting churches, it was resolved to climb up to the citadel which commands the town, and to which the ascent is by the fair zigzag road, like that which leads to Dover Castle. A small garrison remains in the keep, which is also a military prison. The officers receiving our party very courteously, inviting them to walk on the battlements, and climb up to the flag-staff, and offering them the use of their large telescope for the view, which is certainly magnificent, especially toward the sea. There is a tiny chapel in the fortress, in which the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. It was pleasant to see the sentinel presenting arms to it each time his round brought him past the ever open door. On the hill side, a few monumental slabs, let in here and there into the rock, and one or two square tombs, mark the graves of the Englishmen killed during the siege, and also in the Don Carlos revolution. Of the siege itself, and of the historical interest attached to St. Sebastian, we will say nothing: are they not written in the book of the chronicles of Napier and Napoleon?
The following morning, after a fine and crowded service at the church of St. Maria, where they first saw the beautiful Spanish custom of the women being all veiled, and in black, two of the party started at seven in the morning, in a light carriage, for Loyola. The road throughout is beautiful, reminding one of the Tyrol, with picturesque villages, old Roman bridges, quaint manor-houses, with coats of arms emblazoned over their porticoes; rapid, clear trout-streams and fine glimpses of snowy mountains on the left, and of the bright blue sea on the right. The flowers, too, were lovely. There was a dwarf blue bugloss of an intensity of color which is only equalled by the large forget-me-not on the mountainsides of Lebanon. The peasants are all small proprietors. They were cultivating their fields in the most primitive way, father, mother, and children working the ground with a two-pronged fork, called by them a "laya;" but the result was certainly satisfactory. They speak a language as utterly hopeless for a foreigner to understand as Welsh or Gaelic. The saying among the Andalusians is that the devil, who is no fool, spent seven years in Bilboa studying the Basque dialect, and learned three words only; and of their pronunciation they add that the Basque write "Solomon," and pronounce it "Nebuchadnezzar!" Be this as it may, they are a contented, happy, prosperous, sober race, rarely leaving their own country, to which they are passionately attached, and deserving, by their independence and self-reliance, their name of "Bayascogara"—"Somos bastantes."
Passing through the baths Certosa, the mineral springs of which are much frequented by the Spaniards in summer, our travellers came, after a four hours' drive, to Azpeitia, a walled town, with a fine church containing the "pila," or font, in which St. Ignatius was baptized. Here the good-natured curé, Padre G—, met them, and insisted on escorting them to the great college of Loyola, which is about a mile from the town. It has a fine Italian façade, and is built in a fertile valley round the house of St. Ignatius, the college for missionary priests being on one side, and a florid, domed, circular marble church on the other. The whole is thoroughly Roman in its aspect, but not so beautiful as the Gothic buildings of the south. They first went into the church, which is very rich in jaspers, marbles, and mosaics, the marbles being brought from the neighboring mountains. The cloisters at the back are still unfurnished; but the entrance to the monastery is of fine and good proportions, and the corridors and staircase are very handsome. Between the church and the convent is a kind of covered cloister, leading to the "Santuario," the actual house in which the saint was born and lived. The outside is in raised brickwork, of curious old geometrical patterns; and across the door is the identical wooden bar which in old times served as protection to the château. Entering the low door, you see on your right a staircase; and on your left a long low room on the ground floor, in which is a picture of the Blessed Virgin. Here the saint was born: his mother, having a particular devotion to the Virgin, insisted on being brought down here to be confined. Going up the stairs, to a kind of corridor used as a confessional, you come first to the chapel of St. Francis Borgia, where he said his first mass. Next to it is one dedicated to Marianne di Jesu, the "Lily of Quito," with a beautiful picture of the South American saint over the high altar. To the left, again, is another chapel, and here St. François Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies, said his mass before starting on his glorious evangelical mission. Ascending a few steps higher, their guide led them into a long low room, richly decorated and gilt, and full of pictures of the different events of the life of the saint. A gilt screen divided the ante-chapel from the altar, raised on the very spot where he lay so long with his wounded leg, and where he was inspired by the Blessed Virgin to renounce the world, and devote himself, body and soul, to the work of God. There is a representation of him in white marble under the altar as he lay; and opposite, a portrait, in his soldier's dress, said to be taken from life, and another of him afterward, when he had become a priest. It is a beautiful face, with strong purpose and high resolve in every line of the features.
In the sacristy is the "baldachino," or tester of his bed, in red silk. It was in this room that he first fell sick and took to reading the Lives of the Saints to amuse himself, there being no other book within reach. Such are the "common ways," which we blindly call "accidents," in which God leads those whom he chooses, like Saul, for his special service. The convent contains thirty fathers and twenty-five lay brothers. There are about 120 students, a fine library, refectory, etc. They have a large day-school of poor children, whom they instruct in Basque and Spanish; and distribute daily a certain number of dinners, soup, and bread, to the sick poor of the neighboring villages, about twenty of whom were waiting at the buttery door for their daily supply.
The English strangers, taking leave of the kind and courteous fathers, had luncheon at a little "posada" close by, where the hostess insisted on their drinking some of the cider of the country, which the doctor, himself a Devonshire man, was obliged to confess excelled that of his own country. The good curé entertained them meanwhile with stories of his people, who appear to be very like the Highlanders, both in their merits and their faults. Some of their customs seemed to be derived from pagan times, such as that of offering bread and wine on the tombs of those they love on the anniversary of their death; a custom in vogue in the early days of Christianity, and mentioned by St. Augustine in his Confessions as being first put a stop to by St. Ambrose, at Milan, on account of the abuses which had crept into the practice. The drive back was, if possible, even more beautiful than that of the morning, and they reached St. Sebastian at eight o'clock, delighted with their expedition.
The next day they started for Burgos, by rail, only stopping for a few minutes on their way to the station to see the "Albergo dei Poveri," a hospital and home for incurables, nursed by the Spanish sisters of charity. They are affiliated to the sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, and follow their rule, but do not wear the "white cornette" of the French sisters.
The railroad in this part of Spain has been carried through most magnificent scenery, which appeared to our travellers like a mixture of Poussin and Salvator Rosa. Fine purple mountains, still sprinkled with snow, with rugged and jagged peaks standing out against the clear blue sky, and with waterfalls and beautiful streams rushing down their sides; an underwood of chestnut and beach trees; deep valleys, with little brown villages and bright white convents perched on rising knolls, and picturesque bridges spanning the little streams as they dashed through the gorges; and then long tracks of bright rose-colored heather, out of which rose big boulder-stones or the wayside cross; the whole forming, as it were, a succession of beautiful pictures such as would delight the heart of a painter, both as to composition and coloring. No one can say much for the pace at which the Spanish railways travel; yet are they all too quick in scenery such as this, when one longs to stop and sketch at every turn. Suddenly, however, the train came to a stand-still: an enormous fragment of rock had fallen across the line in the night, burying a luggage-train, but fortunately without injury to its drivers; and our party had no alternative but to get out, with their manifold bags and packages, and walk across the débris to another train, which, fortunately, was waiting for them on the opposite side of the chasm. A little experience of Spanish travelling taught them to expect such incidents half a dozen times in the course of the day's journey; but at first it seemed startling and strange. They reached Burgos at six, and found themselves in a small but very decent "fonda," where the daughter of the landlord spoke a little French, to their great relief. They had had visions of Italian serving nearly as well as Spanish for making themselves understood by the people; but this idea was rudely dispelled the very first day of their arrival in Spain. Great as the similarity may be in reading, the accent of the Spaniard makes him utterly incomprehensible to the bewildered Italian scholar; and the very likeness of some words increases the difficulty when he finds that, according to the pronunciation, a totally different meaning is attached to them. For instance, one of the English ladies, thinking to please the mistress of the house, made a little speech to her about the beauty and cleanliness of her kitchen, using the right word (cocina), but pronouncing it with the Italian accent. She saw directly she had committed a blunder, though Spanish civility suppressed the laugh at her expense. She found afterward that the word she had used, with the "ci" soft, meant a female pig. And this was only a specimen of mistakes hourly committed by all who adventured themselves in this unknown tongue.