A Corner of Spain

by Walter Wood

In England smoking-carriages are labelled; in Galicia the forbidding notice is put on the vehicle where smoking is not allowed. As a matter of fact, you may smoke anywhere and everywhere in Galicia, unless great pressure or sweetness is brought to bear on some offender against the law. Yet ladies travelling on railways may reasonably hope to escape from suffering and annoyance, for each Galician train has a first-class compartment exclusively reserved for them. Frequently, even in trains which were well filled, I observed that the compartment "Reservado para Señoras" was empty, the womenfolk preferring to travel with the men and the tobacco smoke.

Starting a Galician train is a serious task. Before you are allowed to enter the station your bona fides as a traveller must be established. The carriages are shunted to the platform perhaps half an hour before the advertised time for leaving, then at a later stage the locomotive is backed in and coupled, and in due season, with no unseemly haste, a man in a blouse perambulates the platform and chants the Spanish equivalent for "Gentlemen, please embark," which the caballeros do at their leisure. The engine takes breath, as it were, and a trumpet tootles; then the driver blows the whistle, and if you are leave-taking you jump frantically on board, only to learn that five minutes pass before the train begins to move. A prolonged blast from the locomotive is the preliminary for a leisurely start—I even heard it suggested that the signal exhausted the boiler so much that a delay was needed to raise more steam.

Galician trains travel slowly, and there are protracted waits at the intermediate stations—sometimes long enough to allow the passenger to view the surrounding scenery or stroll into the adjacent town or village, certainly to give him a chance of drinking a cup of coffee or glass of wine or a liqueur at the refreshment-room, if one exists. Failing that establishment, which is primitive and unattractive from the English standpoint, a drink of water may be obtained from an old woman who walks about the platform with an earthenware vessel. At Filgueira station I saw an aged dame, wearing men's boots, dispensing water to passengers; near her, on a balcony, was an unwashed but picturesque Spaniard smoking a cigarette; and two small girls came to the carriages selling a sweet cake, made in the shape of a ring. I bought two for a copper, and they proved excellent eating.

Young and old people of both sexes took their duties easily, and the platelayers went about their business leisurely, stepping off the single track long before the warning signal of the whistle sounded, and gazing meditatively at the passing and departing train. There is little fear of the Galician worker on the line sustaining injuries, because he gets out of the way long before the train reaches him—and the train would be hard pressed to catch up even a retiring platelayer. The speed is very limited, and once when I was travelling by motor on a road which ran parallel with a track the chauffeur easily outdistanced the train, and shot triumphantly across the metals in front of the engine.

Motor-cars are not numerous in Galicia, but there are some very fine examples in use; and despite adverse criticisms, many of the roads in the north-west of Spain are excellent. The highways, to begin with, are well made, but after heavy rains they become lumpy and are neglected; but in the neighbourhood of the large towns they are well cared for, and cars run smoothly and as fast as the driver cares to go, for except in passing through towns and villages there is no speed limit.

Public motor-cars, corresponding in size, power, and appearance to the London motor-bus, run regularly between Santiago and Corunna. The berlina will seat eight persons, but not more than half a dozen are booked as a rule. The accommodation is equal to that of an English first-class compartment, the entrances being at the sides, like a railway carriage. The rear and larger part of the vehicle is given to second-class passengers, who enter at the end. In front there is room for two or three people, and a passenger may sit beside the driver and enjoy the air and scenery. The roof of the conveyance is used for baggage, of which a great quantity can be stowed. Each trunk or package carried on the roof—and care is taken that the passenger shall not burden the interior with his belongings—has pasted on it a yellow label bearing a written number. These motor-buses usually cover the journey of forty miles between Corunna and Santiago in three and a half hours. A slower service, conducted by antique-looking steam vehicles, requires five or six hours—about half the time occupied by the diligence, which you will easily overtake on the highway.

Occasionally the motor-bus will break down and need slight repairs. The passengers in that case may get out and stroll along the road, as I did. Blackberries were plentiful in the hedges, and I gathered and ate them, much to the astonishment of some fellow-travellers. Spaniards will not eat the fruit, but several of them gathered blackberries and insisted upon my acceptance. I consumed as many as I cared to eat, and as for the rest, I left them, unobserved by the donors, for the birds. One afternoon, near the frontier, I passed a motor which had broken down, and to which a pair of oxen had been yoked, to draw the crippled vehicle away.

Railway train, diligence, and motor vehicle are used by visitors and residents in Galicia, but there are many districts, remote from towns, where the mode of locomotion is by mule or donkey, with occasional horse and pony. Everywhere the peasant woman may be seen riding on a mule or ass; and sometimes a string of mules will come along, each bearing a brightly clad, laughing woman of Galicia; or in a remote bridle-path in the hills you have to step aside into a field or hedge to make way for a handsome girl of the country who is returning to her father's farm from the nearest village, sitting contentedly on the mule which picks its way easily along the rough ground, which may be, and often is, the stony bed of a little stream.

It is well to be prepared for minor shocks in travelling. Your train may have left a station at night, and you are dozing in the dimly lit compartment. Suddenly you are fully awake, and by the light of the oil-lamp see a figure outlined—a man in corduroys standing almost menacingly over you. He is not a brigand nor a hold-up; he is merely the inspector wishing to see your ticket. He has clambered to the door by way of the footboard, and has opened it and entered unseen. When he has done his task he leaves by the same way, and proceeds to startle some other unsuspecting and unready traveller. At other times a man in semi-uniform, with a cap bearing a small metal locomotive as a badge of office, will fall upon you for the same purpose, and then depart. At wayside stations you will see him leaning from the door of a first-class compartment, smoking a cigar or cigarette, and preparing to resume his footboard tricks when the train is again under way. But though the descent is as unexpected as the same performances in American trains, yet there is an entire absence of that aggressive, domineering attitude which in some of the United States railway officials is so offensive. The Galician ticket-examiner doubtless believes that, being a caballero, he is quite as good as you are, just as the American official does—except when he wishes you to know that he is better—but he has a gentler way of showing it than his compeer on the other side of the Atlantic.