TRAVELLING IN SPAIN.—II.
THE Peninsula may be divided for the purposes of what may be called vacation tours into four parts or districts,—the North-East, including Barcelona, Saragossa, Valentia, per- haps the Balearic Islands, and Madrid ; the North-West, taking in San Sebastian, Pamplona, Burgos, Salamanca, Valladolid, and Avila; the South, with Cordova and Seville, Malaga, Granada, and Gibraltar ; and finally, Portugal. This last country is not only well worthy of a visit, but it is speedily and easily reached, by those who do not dread a short sea-voyage, in one of the magnificent steamers of the Pacific Mail Line. Lisbon is a fine and interesting town, and the neighbourhood, in many places, is very beautiful. Oporto is well worth a visit, to say nothing of the cellars ; the cost of living is everywhere exceed- ingly moderate, and the whole country, which is so far happily free from the ordinary traveller, can be pleasantly explored within the limits of a short vacation tour. A knowledge of the language is, however, very desirable, if not absolutely necessary ; and for this reason, as well as on account of the communication between Spain and Portugal being difficult and unsatisfactory, we should strongly advise any one who wished to travel for pleasure, and confine his trip within moderate limits, not to attempt to combine a visit to Portugal with a tour in Spain. The languages of the two countries are only similar enough to be utterly con- fusing. Indeed, it is exceedingly difficult for any one, not being a native of either country, to speak both languages with fluency and correctness.
Leaving Portugal therefore for the present, and confining our attention to Spain, we will suggest two or three routes of .whose interest and feasibility we can, at least, speak from experience. The journey from Paris by Bordeaux to Bayonne inay be accomplished in about sixteen hours, and after a Picturesque drive of some forty miles along the coast by such places of interest as Biarritz, Saint Jean de Luz, Nivelle, and across the Bidassoa to Fuentarabia, we come to San Sebaatian. A few days may be most agreeably spent at this little Spanish watering-place, whose sheltered bay and soft and gently-sloping sandy beach attract visitors from all parts of Spain, and it is the resort in July and August of the rank and fashion of the capital. The scenery around San Sebastian, both to the east up the growing slopes of the Pyrenees, and along the sea-coast, is very fine, and the neighbouring port of Pasages is one of the most beautifully situated villages in the world. By spending three or four days on this.way ,between Bayonne and San Sebastian, the traveller will not only enjoy the fine sea-air, and have an opportunity of mastering the general and special features of such historic ground, but he will remark the much greater influence that Spain has upon France, compared with that exercised by France upon Spain, in the neighbourhood of ,the frontier. Even Bayonne is almost a Spanish town, whereas San Sebastian, which is much nearer the French frontier, might as well be in New Castile, and is apparently as little influenced by the propinquity of France as Dover or Folke- stone. The language, the manners, the appearance, both of the people and of the villages, between Bayonne and Iran, is of Spain, Spanish, and the crossing of the frontier brings apparently very little difference, save in the uniform of the police and the gauge of the railway, which the Spanish authorities have insisted upon making an inch or two broader than the French, with the vaguely patriotic notion of preventing invasion, and the practical result of necessitating the unloading and reloading of all goods on the frontier, the consequences of which on the international traffic in cost and loss of time may be imagined 1 From San Sebastian expeditions may be made into the mountains, or along the coast in small boats, or Bilbao and Santander may be visited, either on horseback or by diligence ; and even those who prefer riding to driving should not fail to make the acquaintance of the mayoral and his team of mules, nor with a view of more fully appreciating the humour of the situation, to travel outside in the banquette, which, by the way, is dignified in Spain with the title of cupe' ; the aristocratic and more expensive places, which afford so admirable and exclusive a view of the wheelers' tails, being called the berlina. In the neighbourhood of San Sebastian there are numerous mineral springs, chiefly ferruginous, but they have not as yet, we believe, attracted any more illustrious or scientific water-drinkers than the neighbouring bourgeoisie, who are said, however, in many in- stances to have derived considerable benefit from their use. The traveller in Spain should endeavour to accustom himself to and never lose sight of the novel fact that he is in an unknown and, as it were, unexplored country. In that consists at once the charm and the disadvantage of travelling in Spain. The inhabitants are poor, ignorant, lazy, contented, unscientific, dilatory, wiener- god's, with a hatred for what is new or foreign. The Government is poorer, less energetic, and more dilatory than the people. With few exceptions, such as in the case of the railways, foreign capital has, not sought a home in the country, and foreign enterprise has been stifled or refused admittance. The Spaniards still implicitly believe that it was they alone who drove the French out of the Peninsula, and that they would have done so much sooner than they did, had they not been hampered by the presence of certain English troops. In spite of the neighbourhood of so flourishing and so energetic a country as France, the Basque Provinces, with the exception of Bilbao and Santander, are almost as little exploia as La Mancha. Burgos, with one of the most beautiful mediseval cathedrals in Europe, is still almost a medhaval town ; and in such places as Salamanca or Leon, or even Valladolid, the English traveller will feel that he is indeed far away from home. From the last place, a ride of seven or eight miles will bring him to the dreary old castle of Simancas,—a name now well known to the student of modern history in connection with the names of Bergenroth, Fronde, and Gayangos, but which still looks as far removed from the rest of the world and the age in which we live as it was and looked in the sixteenth century. Pamplona and Vittoria should be visited by the traveller on his way from San Sebastian to Burgos and the south, or on his way home from Valladolid.
A tour in the North-East of Spain may be commenced from two points, either by crossing the Pyrenees in the diligence from Perpignan to Gerona, where there is a very fine cathedral, and then on by rail to Barcelona, and thence by sea to Valentia and the Balearic Islands, and by rail to Madrid ; or by crossing the Pyrenees on foot or on horseback to Pantioosa, where the mineral waters are famous and much frequented, and -thence by Jaca and Huesca to Saragossa, and so on to Madrid.
We have no intention of supplying the place of the guide-books by calling attention to the peculiar objects of interest in each of these places, and of the character of the country which lies be- tween them. Murray's handbook, based upon the well-known work of Mr. Ford, and the excellent guides of Monsieur Germond de la Vigne and Mr. O'Shea, will afford a good deal of general in- formation ; but, as has already been suggested, there is no country in Europe in which the tourist must travel so much for himself, trust more to his own eyes and ears than to what he reads in any guide-book, and be ready with unvarying good-temper to smile at every misfortune and take advantage of every opportunity. Above all things, let him disabuse himself of the idea, if he has it, that as a traveller he is anybody, or entitled to any special consideration in the eyes of the inhabitants. In all probability, he is set down as more or less /oco, or mad, for travelling at all without any special object ; and the ways of the country are more adapted to those who stay at home, or who, when they do travel, are in no hurry whatever, than for restless Englishmen, ea- accustomed to "Bradshaw" and English promptitude. The tourist in Spain must always make up his mind for possible delay at any town or village, large or small, or even at any spot not necessarily a town or even a village, through which he may happen to pass, either on account of the train breaking down—which once occurred to us in a desert place between Loja, and Bobadilla, on account of the engine-driver having neglected to supply his maguina with water—the diligence being full, the ealesa not carrying luggage, the "accelerated "galera being twenty-four hours late, your horse having cut a shoe, oryour attendant mom or arriero having afriend in the place, and inventing some transparent excuse for staying there, which you are completely powerless to resist. Such things must be considered as all "in the day's work," and part of the very flavour of originality of Spanish travel. Those who do not fancy such things can stay at home, or travel along more beaten highways.
From Madrid numerous short trips of great interest can be made,—to Toledo and Aranjuez, to the Escurial, to San 11de- fonso and Segovia, by diligence over the Guadaramas,—a some- what wild drive, to Avila by rail, to Guadalajara, and even to Talavera or to Cuenca,
The Southern tour we suggested at the beginning of this article is somewhat more difficult than those in the north, only on account of the greater distance of the " ground " from London. The P. and O. steamer no doubt takes one very pleasantly to Gibraltar, but Gibraltar is not Spain, and it is vastly more troublesome to get from the Rock to Malaga or to Seville, or even to Cadiz, by road than it is to get to Southampton ; while steamers do not run by any means regularly from Gibraltar to the Spanish ports, and are further dirty, and very uncomfortable in rough weather. The best way, on the whole, of visiting Andalusia is perhaps to travel by rail, with such breaks as may be considered desirable, from Calais to Menjibar, and thence by diligence, passing by Jaen, and through a great deal of wild and beautiful scenery, until at length the eye is charmed with the rich and soft beauties of the Vega of Granada, and the traveller finds himself in the old capital of Moorish Spain. The train from Madrid to Menjibar traverses the classic region of La Mancha and the Sierra Morena, and the district of Val de Pefias, dear to every Spanish lover of wine. Of the various beauties of Granada, natural and artistic, of the charms of the climate, and the deep interest of the historic associations, we have not space to speak ; but when the traveller can make up his mind to tear himself way from the enchanting spot, he can find his way on horseback by Alhama to Malaga, or if he prefers a round, by a combined service of railway and diligence he can reach the same point by Antequera, Loja, and Bobadilla. The railway between the latter place and Malaga is, in some places, a marvel of engineering, and though not perhaps so striking as the passage of the Pyrenees between San Sebastian and Vittoria, or the railroad over the Sierra Morena through the Despenaperros, it is still well worth seeing. From Malaga the traveller must choose between a mule and a steamboat, if he wishes to visit Gibraltar, or he can ride by Ronda to Cordova or Seville, both of which places, it need scarcely be said, are abundantly worthy of a visit. The Mezquita, with its eleven hundred pillars, covering an area greater than that of Saint Peter's at Rome, is the principal, if not the unique object of attraction at Cordova ; but those more fortunate travellers who can interest themselves in less remarked and less remarkable objects will find one of the most characteristic of the old or mediseval cities in Andalusia, the streets narrow and tortuous, so built as a protection at once against the sun and the enemy ; the houses dull and un- inviting, as seen from the outside, but all having cool marble patios with crystal fountains playing within. We once attended a religious service in one of these patios late at night, with nothing between us and the bright, starry heaven above, and no sound to disturb the simple and solemn grandeur of the reading of the noblest of books in the noblest of languages, but the gentle rippling of the fountain, as the water fell back into the marble basin. Cadiz can be visited either before or after Seville, accord-
ing to the route adopted by the traveller from the west ; and a visit to Xeres will teach the average Englishman a good deal about the wine he drinks at home under the name of " sherry "—a
wine, we may say, en passant, that is practically unknown in Spain. The briefest reference to cases de Espaila would, we presume, be considered incomplete without some reference to the bull-fight,
which is a barbarous spectacle of surpassing interest, more exciting
and more dangerous than pigeon-shooting, less cruel than an auto da fe, and much more manly than a battue. There is a Bill before
the Spanish Cortes for the abolition of the Corrida, which may per- haps become law,—when Mr. Biggar sits upon the Treasury Bench in Dublin. Spain is altogether a country in which the traveller .has to learn and to forget many things. One of the easiest things for the traveller to forget is how near he is to England, both in time and distance—" so near, and yet so far "—while perhaps the easiest thing for him to learn is that there are people in the world who consider him to be a personage of marvelously little consequence.
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