A Corner of Spain

by Walter Wood

I have here little to add to Mr. Wood's glowing descriptions of many of the places he visited, except to confirm them fully and completely from long and intimate local knowledge. To come comfortably and safely from brumous England in the spring or autumn in less than sixty hours to this enchanted land is almost like a sudden change of world. This vivid light sharpening all the outlines and vivifying the colours to almost fierce intensity, can surely not emanate from the pale, misty sun we left but two short days ago; these azure seas landlocked by the eternal hills of pines and gilded summits, seem a different element from the sullen turgid grey of the Channel waves. And the chaffering folk in the markets of Vigo clad in brilliant colours, vehement in their bargaining as if life depended upon the price of the glowing fruits and glittering fish which they buy and sell; do they belong to the same human family of sad-faced people we have left behind us? Look at these hardy fisherfolk, and still more at the husbandmen and graziers in the inland valleys, and you will recognise their close resemblance with some of our own people. These, you will say, might well be Connemara folk, and in many respects besides personal appearance these Gallegos are like their brother Celts in other western lands indented by the sea. The bays of Western Ireland from Donegal to Kerry; the lochs of Scotland from Ross to Argyll; the waters that run deep into the Breton land from St. Michel round to Morbihan, all breed upon their banks and valleys men of the same race as these, though none of them are so untouched by outer influences, except in the matter of language, as these Gallegos. Wanderers are they and workers throughout their world: they have none of the Castilian's haughty assumption of superiority independent of circumstances. Throughout the Peninsula, both in Spain and Portugal, in many parts of eastern South America, wherever a poor wage may be gained by hard work; harvesting other people's crops, carrying other people's burdens, there you will find the patient Gallego, hardy, frugal, and honest, yearning like a true Celt for his own home and his own kin again: sometimes, indeed, though rarely, so overcome by the homesickness as to be unable to resist the craving for his native hill-side before even he has amassed the few crowns that will enable him to provide some little comfort for him and his.

This Celtic instinct and need to wander in search of work in order to render less hard the lot of the weaker ones left behind, is the main reason for the almost universal labour of the women of Galicia in tasks elsewhere usually allotted to men. The constant drain of the best and strongest of the male population of Galicia by emigration is the saddest phase of Galician life. Something like twenty thousand Gallegos emigrate to the Argentine Republic every year. They are usually men of the soil, crowded out by a vicious system of taxation and the infinite subdivision of the soil amongst a multitude of peasants owning their tiny crofts. The soil and climate of Galicia are the best in Spain and the people are by far the most laborious; and yet it is calculated that three-quarters of the poorer classes in the province are only kept alive by remittances sent by the hardworking sons, husbands, and brothers in America. Not less than eight millions of pesetas (£280,000) thus finds its way, mostly in very small sums, annually to those who stay at home living upon the hard fare and keeping the wolf from the door as best they may by constant toil upon land or sea.

But a better time, it is hoped, is dawning for this favoured land. The unrivalled fishing grounds are providing now not only food for those who live upon the shores. All along the Ria of Vigo and elsewhere factories are working, preserving and packing sardines for the markets in the world. The abundant vegetables and fruits, which according to the altitude upon the hill-sides may be gathered from early spring to late autumn, are likewise being preserved for export to countries less abundant than this. Other industries, too, are awakening after the stifled sleep of generations, and if the burden of taxation upon land and labour can be lightened in its incidence there may yet be sunshine for the humble cottages of the Galician valleys, and prosperity flowing from the labour of Gallegos in their own land rather than from remittances from abroad. The living of these poor, patient folk is incredibly frugal; and like that of their kinsmen in Western Ireland inferior in stamina. Maize bread, and brona, a coarse millet bread, is the staple food with potatoes, though wheat of the finest quality can be grown; and the province which provides cattle for the consumption of half Spain, and once did a splendid trade in oxen with England, feeds its own population mainly on fish, varied by an occasional meal of cow-beef too poor for export.

PEASANTS IN THEIR SUNDAY BEST

FISHWIVES

Of all this the casual visitor sees nothing, and perhaps cares nothing. He drives through a smiling land greener than Kerry, more sunny than the overrated French Riviera: he lingers in abundantly supplied markets, where all the fruits of the earth and ocean seem spread in glowing heaps: he spins in a comfortable motor-car along good roads cut upon the steep sides of mountains, and at every turn of the tortuous way admiring some new enchanting prospect of far-flung valley, towering cliffs or smiling fjord. The white cottages with their attendant conical dovecots and tiny granaries, their cobs of maize hung to ripen in fringe-like rows from their verandahs, are, it is true, mean and dark within; but they form a gracious note amidst the lush green of never-failing vegetation. Not even in the depth of winter is the landscape free from flowers. In February the wallflowers are in full bloom in the crannies of ancient masonry, and the sweet-scented mimosa is bent down by the weight of its masses of yellow flowers; a few weeks later the starry white and crimson camellias grow in the open with marvellous luxuriance, and by the middle of April the cherries are ripe in the sheltered valleys.

The air blows soft and moist from the sea through most of the year, tempering the ardent sun even in the height of summer; and this fact, which accounts for the marvellous verdancy and fertility of the soil, also brings with it frequent showers and mists drifting up the Rias, especially in the winter and early spring. But the rains are seldom of long continuance, and the sunshine invariably follows close upon them, drying everything with wonderful rapidity and leaving the country more sparkling and green than ever.