A Corner of Spain

by Walter Wood

Most things are done in Galicia on the seductive system of mañana—to-morrow. It is useless to attempt to hurry people. Not even the demands of telegraphy will rouse them to robust activity. To send a telegram is a serious and impressive undertaking. First you find your telegraph office, which even in a city like Santiago is hidden in the shadow of the cathedral. Then you enter, and discover that you are in the wrong part of the premises, being in the operating office. A cigar is burning on the table, while the clerk to whom it belongs is talking with his colleague, the transmitter meanwhile tapping lazily. Even the instruments seem to be possessed with the spirit of languor. Finally an individual comes who, after showing almost pained surprise at your unseemly energy, conducts you to the proper place, and ceremoniously gives you a telegraph form and a pencil. When the message has been written and handed in, and you have put down your payment, you reasonably assume that the exhausting transaction is completed, and that you are free to depart. Not so—you are in Spain, where hurry is indecency. The change is not ready, and when it does appear the coins are accompanied by a triangular receipt torn from the message, giving details of the telegram and the price which has been paid for it. Then triumphantly you go away, blessing Spain; but the fervour of your benediction is nothing compared with your expressions on learning that the telegram has not been delivered in England because of a misread address. It is useless either to wail or to protest, since the one would be ineffective and the other too late. Stamps are bought mostly at your hotel, where the letter-box is kept to be emptied by the postman. There are no street pillar-boxes in Galicia. I saw one, a ramshackle, red-painted structure, bearing a resemblance to a rabbit-hutch, hung outside a general store-shop in a village, and gathered that the enterprise shown in displaying the receptacle was unexampled. When an ordinary post office is not available it is customary to place letters in the hotel box.

It cannot be said that Galicia is rich in works of art. Some of the paintings which adorn the churches are neither very good nor interesting, nor are the examples in the castles such as to claim more than passing notice. But travellers will not journey to the country for the sake of seeing what they can get so well at the Louvre, the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, the Wallace Collection and elsewhere. They will go to see the land and its people, and to wander through the old-world streets and squares and market-places, which have charms unrivalled in any region within such easy reach of England.

Two things are inseparable from the Galician—his cigarette and his umbrella. His tobacco is cheap, and much of it is good, so that he can enjoy at little cost the weed which is as much a man's necessity as luxury. For cinco centimos, a coin which sounds imposing, but whose value is less than a halfpenny, he can get seven hand-made cigarettes. True, when I bought two packets from a dark Spanish lady in a darker shop she warned me that they were known as "men-killers," but I have smoked worse in England at a higher price. The better qualities are relatively cheap. The Galician cigarette is made of dark, dry, loose tobacco, rolled in a gumless paper, with the ends folded to keep the particles from escaping.

The umbrella answers two purposes—to keep the rain off in wet weather and to serve as a shelter from the sun. I observed men with umbrellas slung at their sides under their coats, like swords, and I suppose the crook-shaped handles were suspended from hooks stitched to the waistcoats.

At every turn there is something unexpected in Galicia. On going back to my hotel one night I wished to develop some films. I had neither chemicals nor means of doing the work, but learned that in the village there was a competent operator who would develop the exposures. I asked for directions as to how and where I should find the skilled performer. It was long before I learned that he lived in a house at the top of the village. A guide was needful, and he came—a waiter from the hotel, carrying a paper lantern with a candle. He led the way across a field, then up a rugged path, puddled with recent rain, and from that to the rocky, steep bed of a little stream running down the side of a hill they call the Devil's Boulders. The scene was such as may be found in Morocco, when the Moor or negro who pilots you carries his ancient lamp to light your path, or in the Catskills, or the Middle West, where the same friendly office has been performed for me in the darkness when crossing lonely fields or penetrating woods. Up the gulley for some hundreds of yards, now stumbling on a small boulder, now plunging into deep mire with a prickly, unseen bough unexpectedly touching your face or hands—then a halt at a gateway leading from the gulley, and a hail to which there was no answer. Up the gulley still farther, and a pause and rattle at another gate, through which a light could be seen, and the answering hail. Then came an elderly man with a lighted candle and begged us to enter. We descended two or three stone stairs, crossed a small flagged yard, and went into a store-room, with heaps of onions lying on the floor and other food and articles dimly outlined by the candle and the lantern. Thence we went into a comfortable living-room, where a woman who was busy with her mending smiled upon us, and a little girl gazed at me something after the manner in which in the days of our youth we believed that our forefathers, as children, would have looked upon Napoleon if they had seen him in the flesh. This was the house of the photographer—a farmer; but he had no means, he explained, of getting artificial light for developing, and must wait till daylight before he could fulfil his task. The films were left, and the farmer led us through his vineyard to the gate. Before we reached the gulley which was our homeward path he explained that a clear little stream ran through his grounds, and that in it he washed his films, plates, and prints.

Vineyards are everywhere in Galicia, and some of their wines are excellent, notably those from the districts of Orense, Amandi, Valdeorras, and Rivero. On the self-contained estate of Mondariz a first-rate wine is grown which is provided free for visitors. In most places the hotel charges include wine. Occasionally the vintage is not palatable enough to suit the traveller, but at a very small cost a superior brand may be had to take the place of the unsatisfactory product. A capital red wine is served without charge at lunch and dinner on board the Booth liners.

There is abundance of wine in the country; but some of the peasants do not take it, preferring the pure water from the hills. The vast majority, however, are wine-drinkers; yet there is none of that degrading drunkenness which one may see in every part of Britain. I noticed only one intoxicated person in Galicia, and that was on a Sunday afternoon at Caldas, when an aged peasant, in frilled knickers, was staggering down the road, as near the middle as he could keep, but occasionally lurching towards the gutter and the walls of the houses. He was perfectly harmless, and very affable, and occasionally paused and supported himself against a house side and reproved the juveniles who followed him and offered pointed criticisms on his state. The spectacle was rare enough to claim attention and provoke derision. In England the toper would have been unnoticed.

In the principal towns there is at least one club, and the stranger has no difficulty in getting admission for the purpose of seeing the newspapers and spending a pleasant hour. The English clubman shrinks from the vulgar public gaze, but in Galicia the member loves to be as near his fellow-creatures as he can get. Usually he sits at an open window on the street level, within easy touching distance of the passer-by. The clubmen, like all the residents of the country with whom the visitor may come in contact, are most hospitably disposed towards him.

The British tourist has become accustomed in his own country to hotels which are more than comfortable—they are luxurious—and when he is abroad he expects their equal. In Galicia, until recently, he could not get it; yet now, at Mondariz and La Toja, he has the choice of palatial establishments which are unrivalled in Spain. The visitor may reach Galicia by way of the Channel, spending about three days in trains, or journey direct by sea, landing at the gate of Galicia, which is Vigo. For that part of the undertaking he is thoroughly equipped by the Booth Steamship Company, Limited, whose powerful and splendid modern vessels have the reputation of being the most comfortable of all that cross the Bay of Biscay.