A Corner of Spain

by Walter Wood

ONE OF SANTIAGO'S TWIN TOWERS

You enter the cathedral and look around in the casual manner of the visitor who is pressed for time and has a long programme to get through before he starts on the home track; and not even that amazing Gate of Glory which stands unrivalled in Christendom may call for more than passing notice. You may have spent an hour in the building, and leave it thinking that you have seen all, and you wander through the quaint, narrow, twisted streets, gazing at the little shops, which are only travesties of business places; at the women, who are working ceaselessly, especially at the wells, drawing water; at the men and boys who mingle, and contrast the present with the passing, the student and the peasant. You visit that particular café which, in the afternoon, is infested by students from the university when the strain of mental toil is over, and may count a hundred of them, reckless, rowdy, and full of life and carelessness, all playing dominoes, thudding the bone pieces on the marble-topped tables like little sledge-hammers working, and filling the tobacco-laden air with deafening cries. If the students in after-life put into legal and medical work anything approaching the energy they infuse into pastime, then fortunate indeed will be their patients and clients. At eventide the students become romantic and conduct their little love affairs, and occasionally even in the unemotional morning a young man may be seen hovering in the neighbourhood of his adored one's dwelling. I saw a youth at daybreak, outside my hotel, feverishly pacing the flags. He wore patent leather boots, very tight and small, and a large-checked overcoat, a flagrant tie and a ridiculous little bowler hat. For an hour he watched and waited; then from an upper window a female voice was heard, and the youth's face assumed a fatuously rapturous expression. A few minutes afterwards the owner of the voice descended, accompanied by her parents, at the sight of whom the youth scuttled round the corner, for the better-class young ladies in Galicia are closely guarded when in public.

You leave the café and drift, and instinctively you have made your way again to the cathedral precincts, gazing at the windows of the box-like shops in the building itself, in which the silversmiths ply their craftsmanship and produce, amongst other things, vast numbers of tiny silver scallop-shells, one at least of which, obtainable for a few coppers, the good pilgrim takes away from Santiago. Unconsciously you re-enter the cathedral, and are wandering about the vast incense-smelling nave and transepts. Even to the unguided visitor there is much to see, while the skilfully piloted stranger may leisurely examine priceless relics and treasures and behold many marvellous spectacles. I had the good fortune to be shown round the cathedral during two protracted visits by Canon Leopoldo Eijo Garay, and to have the precious relics shown and explained by Canon Martin, who has charge of the treasury.

There is the beautiful Biblioteca, with its ceiling so cunningly and adroitly wrought in stone and painted and gilded that it is difficult to believe that the figures and ornamentation are not plaster. The present King of Spain himself, when visiting the apartment, declared his disbelief that the decoration was carved from solid stone, and there is pointed out a small patch of bare stonework from which the colouring was rubbed to prove to his Majesty that he was mistaken. You may enter a loft where many old and modern tapestries are hung to keep them from the ravages of moths and atmosphere; go to another loft in which are stored the grotesque giants' heads used in the procession of St. James, carefully covered to preserve them from dust, and inspect the large room in which the tapestries and trimmings of the cathedral are kept in order and repair. In another part of the cathedral, in the nave, near the treasury, is a cupboard in which clerical vestments are kept drawn on frames—vestments that look like priceless cloth of gold. Also to be seen are the ponderous silver maces which are carried at the ceremonies in the minster, and the giant censer in its sentry-box-like case. If you are favoured you may lift the maces and try to raise the top of the censer—and may succeed in moving the silver mass a few inches from its base.

In a dimly lighted room the treasure of the cathedral is kept and Kings of Spain are buried. With cunningly devised keys the doors are unlocked, and the canon explains the meaning of the silver and gold possessions, the very extent of which is bewildering. Here are gifts from sovereigns and potentates, each a wonder in itself, yet so grouped as to form a perfectly harmonious whole. Centuries of religious devotion are represented in this one corner of the mighty edifice, and it would be hard to estimate more than approximately what is the value of the treasure, though an expert might guess at the metals' intrinsic worth.

A small Maltese cross in the centre of the ornaments on the wall which faces the door contains a piece of the true Cross, while above it is a thorn from the Saviour's Crucifixion Crown. Golden images and goblets, carvings, pictures, fading gorgeous cushions, made by royal and noble hands, with many other gifts in various form to the Holy Mother Church from her sons and daughters, are here, and the eye almost fails to take in what the mind needs time to comprehend. More than once the treasury has been raided by invaders; and within the last two or three years sacrilegious hands have been laid on one or two of the priceless possessions of the cathedral, but the treasury is now specially protected, and an ingenious clock is used to record the movements of the watchmen who are responsible for the safety of the relics and riches. It is said that the whereabouts of some of the lost treasures are known, and that they are not far from America.

From the treasury one may go to the high altar, above which is the gorgeous effigy of St. James, the object of the last attention of the Santiago pilgrims. The whole of the massive altar decoration is solid silver, wrought in Salamanca, and the candlesticks and ornaments around are of the same metal, which has been used with the lavishness of iron. In the centre is a small image of the Virgin, with a halo of precious stones, and many other gems flash as a lighted candle at the end of a long stick is held out so that they may be seen.

Eleven hundred pounds' weight of solid pure silver—considerably more than half a ton—was used by Salamanca craftsmen to make the wondrous work amidst which the saint sits enshrined. At this high altar no cleric below the rank of bishop may celebrate Mass, except the canons of the cathedral, without special power being granted by the Pope. Changes are being made, even in romantic, mediæval Santiago, and it is hoped that something like five hundred thousand pesetas will be raised to carry out alterations in the cathedral.

The figure of St. James adorns the centre of the altar, with the right hand pointing to that sacred little vault below in which reposes the great silver casket containing the ashes of the Apostle; and behind him is an unassuming box in which the bones were hidden when Drake swooped down on Santiago from the coast. The original figure was made in the thirteenth century, and there it is still, but with a massive silver garment clothing it, a garment wrought in modern times by cunning craftsmen of Madrid. Ford describes the original figure as being of stone, but my own impression on feeling it, which I did after the ponderous silver back had been pulled away on its castors, was that the material is wood.