A Corner of Spain

by Walter Wood

There was a wonderful peace in the air, for it was Sunday evening, and work had ceased. The peasants were out and about, the women sitting, the men smoking and leaning against doors or walls, and the children playing before being put into their primitive beds. The chimes from neighbouring churches mingled with the pleasant tinkle of the bells worn by the two small horses which were drawing the conveyance.

Darkness was falling quickly, and the stars were shining beyond the hills and overhead. Peasants were coming towards us, young men and young women, laughing and chatting gaily, and some of them singing sweet Gallegan songs. In England, even in the villages, people of the same ages and condition would have been bellowing banalities from music-halls. The twilight was short and the road and country were soon in almost perfect darkness, for there were no lights or lamps of any sort. I reached Caldas station in company with a little diligence which dashed up in the gloom, indicated by the voices of the driver and passengers and the thudding of the ponies' hoofs and tinkle of their bells, as well as by a tiny lamp in the interior of the vehicle. There was practically no illumination in the station, on the walls of which a melancholy oil-lamp was suspended, serving just to outline the figures of the waiting passengers. Nothing came out of the vast surrounding darkness except the occasional sounds of the peasants' songs, and there was something so amazingly primitive and peaceful in the evening and the place that it gave one almost a shock to have a second oil-lamp turned up on the platform and to hear the approaching train and see the head-lights of the locomotive; yet after a few miles had been covered I looked from the carriage windows upon the bright electric lights of Redondela station, and had time to take some wine and food before re-entering a train and journeying back to Vigo.

It is your duty, if only for the sake of experience, to enter one of the wayside inns of Galicia, the fondas and posadas at which your motor-car, motor-bus, diligence, or carriage draws up in travelling. It may be a place which is comparatively imposing, with bottles of spirits and wines ranged temptingly on shelves, and a right-angled counter containing sundry articles of refreshment, with a dining-room adjoining the bar, and all clean and attractive in appearance; it may be an appalling establishment from which you are fain to fly on swallowing your drink and in which you are grateful to your cigarette; or it may be a house which is neither good nor bad, but incorrigibly indifferent. Go into them all; there is something new and fresh in each.

The first fonda I entered was at Porriño, and that was on a Sunday. Next door was a barber's shop, open to the air, with a priest reading a newspaper while awaiting his turn for a shave. The sign of the trade was a brass dish dangling from a chain, in contradistinction to the impressive tonsorial pole of British facial artists, of whom it would be wrong in these levelling days to speak as barbers. Peasants were entering the fonda, and some, men and women, were seated at bare wooden tables, breakfasting on bread and wine. At the counter I bought for a penny an excellent aniseed liqueur, and for the equivalent of a shilling came away with a full large bottle of the spirit, which experience proved more than rivalled cocoa in its comforting and grateful qualities. Incidentally, on re-entering the motor-bus, I saw a large dead rat lying in the middle of the road. Three days later, on returning to Porriño and the fonda, I noticed that the carcase was still there—also a decayed and dejected diligence on the pavement, a vehicle which could, however, be galvanised into active service in case of need. Porriño, however, is not a typical Galician village, and is no more representative of the charms and beauties of the country than Wigan is of England.

A GALICIAN FISHING-BOAT

MEN AND WOMEN ROWING UP VIGO BAY

The visitor will often witness sights which, if not exactly pleasant, are full of interest, as showing something of the people's lives. I saw in corners of vineyards or gardens the carcases of kids suspended; and, driving down a village street, I observed the body of an immense pig which had been killed. The animal had been placed on the stones in front of the door of a cottage, and a man and his wife, helped by children, were heaping up branches and faggots. When I returned this material was burning, and on inquiry I was told that this was the Galician method of removing the bristles.

In Galicia you may travel in perfect comfort and security along many of the roads and into many of the towns which in Borrow's day, only seventy years ago, were infested with murderers and robbers, and the idea of danger and peril will never so much as enter your mind—a state of peacefulness which is largely due to those splendid fellows of the Civil Guard; yet wherever he went Borrow ran great risks to life and limb. Frequently he took advantage of a military escort, and at one time, travelling from Lugo to Corunna, he had the support of a band of picturesque ruffians who had all the appearance of banditti, and would have created a sensation in a Drury Lane drama.