Pass the rivulet which separates Spain and Portugal.—A muleteer’s enthusiasm.—Badajoz.—The cathedral.—Journey resumed.—A vast plain.—Village of Lubaon.—Withered hags.—Names and characters of our mules.—Posada at Merida.
Monday, Dec. 3rd, 1787.
THE maréchal and the abade breakfasted with me, but the rain prevented my taking another walk about the fortifications, and seeing the troops go through their exercise. At ten we set off, well escorted, traversed a dismal plain, and passed a rivulet which separates the two kingdoms. No sooner had one of our muleteers passed this boundary, than cutting a cross in the turf with his knife, he fell prostrate and kissed the ground with a transport of devotion.
Upon ascending the bank of the rivulet we came in sight of Badajoz and its long narrow bridge over the Guadiana. The custom-house was all mildness and moderation. Its harpies have neither flown away with my books, as Bezerra predicted, nor set their talons in my coffers. At sight of my passport, such a one, I believe, as is not very frequently granted, all difficulties gave way, and I was permitted to enter the lonely, melancholy streets of Badajoz, without being stopped an instant, or having my baggage ransacked.
This circumstance, no wonder, gave me greater satisfaction than the aspect of the town and its inhabitants, which is decidedly gloomy. Every house almost has grated-windows, and the few human creatures that stared at us from them, were muffled up to their noses in heavy mantles of the darkest colours.
We continued winding half an hour in slow and solemn procession through narrow streets and alleys, whose gutters were full to the brim, before we reached the large dingy mansion their excellencies, the governor and intendant, had been so gracious as to allot for my reception. Both these personages were, providentially, laid up with agues, or else, it seems, I should have been honoured with their company the whole evening.
A mob of eyes and mantles, for neither mouths, arms, nor scarcely legs were discernible, assembled round the carriages the moment they halted, and had the patience to remain in the street, silently smoking their cigarros, the whole time I was at dinner.
It was night before I rose from table, crept down stairs, and, though it continued raining at frequent intervals, waded to the cathedral, through much mire, and between several societies of hogs, which lay sweetly sleeping to the murmur of dropping eaves, in the midst of gutters and kennels.
The cathedral is formed by three aisles of equal breadth, supported by pillars and arches, in a tolerably good pointed style. Several lofty chapels open into them, with solemn gates of iron. In the centre of the middle aisle some bungling architect has awkwardly stuck the choir, not many paces from the principal entrance, and by so doing has shut out the view of the high altar: no great loss, however, the high altar looking little better than a huge mass of rock-work, gilt and burnished. Under the choir is a staircase leading down to the grated entrance of a vault. Lamps were burning before many of the altars, and they distributed a faint light throughout the whole edifice.
I paced silently to and fro in the aisles, whilst the canons were chaunting vespers. The choristers still retain the same dress in which St. Anthony is represented, in the picture which hung by the miraculous cross he indented when flying the persecutions of Satan. There was a solemnity in the glimmer of the lamps, the gloomy, indefinite depth of the chapels, and the darkness of the vault beneath the choir, that affected me. I passed a very uncomfortable evening, and a worse night.