The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Corner of Spain, by Walter Wood This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: A Corner of Spain Author: Walter Wood Commentator: Martin Hume Illustrator: Frank H. Mason Release Date: December 11, 2014 [EBook #47628] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CORNER OF SPAIN *** Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Ramon Pajares, Adrian Mastronardi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's note Table of Contents List of Illustrations Index Book cover A CORNER OF SPAIN Illustration: GALICIA'S GOLDEN SANDS GALICIA'S GOLDEN SANDS A CORNER OF SPAIN BY WALTER WOOD WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MARTIN HUME ILLUSTRATED IN COLOUR AND LINE FROM PICTURES BY FRANK H. MASON, R.B.A. AND WITH NUMEROUS REPRODUCTIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS NEW YORK JAMES POTT & CO. LONDON: EVELEIGH NASH 1910 Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London PREFACE This book does not pretend to be a history or a complete record of Galicia. Its purpose is to show something of the life and character of a little-known part of Spain, and to deal with things seen and done by the visitor who travels under competent and comfortable guidance. I have written either of what I experienced or on the authority of prominent residents with whom I came in contact in my wanderings. CONTENTS Introduction Pp. 1-21 CHAPTER I Galicia and Its People The Real Galicia : The Hundred Maidens : The Glory of the North-West : Granite Hills : Gallegans and their Lives : Pigeon-cots and Maize-barns : The Night-watchman's Chant : Civil Guards and Constables : A Modest Breakfast : Eating and drinking : The Waiter as a Gentleman : Enterprise and Open-air Life : The Blessed "To- morrow" : Cigarettes : The Unexpected : Photography : Wine and a Bibber : Across the Biscay Pp. 23-47 CHAPTER II Vigo Bay and Hills Sun-bound : Sharp Contrasts : Devil-fish and Ink-fish : Sardines : A Spanish Infant : Vigo's Enterprise : The Lazaretto : Treasure-ships : A Grandee's Home : A Fishing- town : Memento mori : Handling Catches : Clubs and Warships : A Russian Funeral : Emigrants : A Valley Town : The Press and a Distributor : Borrow's Vigo Pp. 49-67 CHAPTER III Spain's Jerusalem Galicia's Patron Saint : Pilgrims and Pestilence : A Holy City : A Monumental History : Noisy Students : The Fascination of the Cathedral : Precious Relics : A Wealth of Silver : The Compostela : St. James's Sepulchre : The Gate of Glory : The Mighty Censer : Religious Festivals : Our Lady of the Rosary : St. James's Day Festivities : The Way of Blood and Tears : Mediæval Night : From Pilgrims' Hill Pp. 69-96 CHAPTER IV Things Seen More Contrasts : Bewildering Baedeker : A Galician Vineyard : Sabbath Peace : Wayside Inns : Security of Travel : Brawny Brigands : A Sonorous Tongue Pp. 97-108 CHAPTER V The Atlantic Coast and the Frontier Romantic Scenery : A Blighted Town : British Enterprise : The Napoleonic Wars : A Quaint Old Place : Galicia's Fjords : A Remarkable Lighthouse : Down to Portugal : Friendly Sentries : The Glories of the Miño : Orense and its Famous Bridge Pp. 109-124 CHAPTER VI Locomotion The Diligence : Railways : Galicia's Rolling-stock : The Solemnity of Journeying by Train : Motor-cars and Motor-buses : Beauty in the Saddle : Shocks in Travelling : "Drummers" of the North-West : Cycles and a Freak Pp. 125-139 CHAPTER VII Mondariz An Alluring Hotel : Beneficent Waters : A Noble Building : Pine Hills and Trout- streams : A Splendid Pump-room : The Logan of Arcos : Sobroso's Ruins : Creaking Bullock-carts : Peaceful Prospects Pp. 141-151 CHAPTER VIII Galicia's Burden-bearers The Woman with the Coffin : Women and Weights : Wages and Rent : My Pretty Maid : Hairdressing : Universal Washing : A Galician Funeral Pp. 153-163 [Pg vii] [Pg viii] [Pg ix] CHAPTER IX Arosa Bay and La Toja A Favourite Anchorage for British Warships : Roman Remains : Religious Prisoners : Cortegada and the King of Spain : An Attractive Workhouse : Borrow and the Bible : An Arcaded Town : Columbus and his Ships : The Haunt of the Wolf : The Island of La Toja : A Wonderful Cure : Golf Pp. 165-177 CHAPTER X Corunna and its Hero The Most Happy and Invincible Armada : Modern Corunna : The Miradores : Wellington, Napoleon, and the Gallegans : The Peninsular War : The Tragedy of Moore's Retreat to Corunna : A Butchered Rearguard : Marvellous Marching : The Last Stand : Moore's Death : His Burial on Corunna's Ramparts Pp. 179-194 Index Pp. 195-203 [Pg x] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Galicia's Golden Sands (colour) Frontispiece A Land of Mountain and Flood 1 Peasants in their Sunday Best. Fishwives To face 8 A Galician Laundry 23 A Galician Market Place (colour) To face 25 A Granary. A Pigeon-cot " 30 A Merry Roadside Group " 37 A Cattle Market. An Open-air Market " 41 San Simon's Island, Vigo Bay 49 Vigo, Galicia's Gateway (colour) To face 51 Galician Children. Afraid of the Camera " 54 On the Quay at Vigo. Fishermen's Cottages at Cangas " 61 Santiago, from the Alameda 69 Santiago de Compostela (colour) To face 71 One of Santiago's Twin Towers " 74 Rua del Villar, Santiago (colour) " 81 A Logan 97 A Galician Village (colour) To face 99 A Galician Fishing-boat. Men and Women rowing up Vigo Bay " 104 The Church at Bouzas, on the Coast 109 Tuy, a Hill City on the Frontier (colour) To face 111 Ferrol, the Spanish Portsmouth " 113 The Bridge at Ramallosa. The Shrine on the Bridge " 118 Oxen towing a Broken-down Motor-bus 125 Pontevedra by Night: the Bull-ring (colour) To face 127 A Diligence on the Highway. Oxen Yoked to a Diligence " 128 The Hills of Mondariz 141 Mondariz (colour) To face 143 A Peasant's Funeral in the Hills. A Peasant Woman, with her Distaff, driving a Bullock-cart " 150 Gathering Firewood in the Pine Hills 153 The Fishing Town of Marin (colour) To face 155 A Maid of Cangas " 159 Carrying Water. A Woman Threshing Beans " 162 Arosa Bay 165 The Island of La Toja (colour) To face 167 The Torre de Hércules, Corunna 179 A Road in the Hills (colour) To face 181 Elviña, where Sir John Moore was Mortally Wounded. The House, Modernised, in which he died " 191 [Pg xi] [Pg xii] Sir John Moore's Tomb at Corunna. Corunna Bay, from the Ramparts " 194 Map of Galicia 195 PAGE Illustration: A LAND OF MOUNTAIN AND FLOOD A LAND OF MOUNTAIN AND FLOOD INTRODUCTION I stood upon the salient bastion of an ancient fortress towering high above a swift and placid river. Below and around me swept line upon line of crumbling walls and grass-grown moats, the scene of many a bloody struggle in the evil days of old. From a hundred grim embrasures peeped rusty cannon, harmless now, and dark-eyed children sported upon the battlements that once had belched defiance and destruction to the foe across the stream. For this old white town, cramped within its triple ramparts, is the last vantage ground of Portugal; and on the other side of the Miño straight before me is Galicia, the unconquered land of the Gael, a land of mountain and flood, of mist and sunlight, such as are all the western promontories in which the mysterious Celtic people have finally found a home after ages of unrecorded wanderings. The scene as I looked upon it from these old battlements of Valença is as fair as any that Europe can offer. Down in the valley on both sides of the stream the maize-fields are reddening in the autumn sun, and between them, and terraced on the hill slopes above them, vines, heavy now with great masses of black grapes, are trained over slender posts of grey granite, forming endless arcades of fruit and foliage. Then higher up, climbing the steep skirts of the mountains, vast forests of darkling pines throw into relief the majestic summits, bare and boulder-strewn, upon which the ardent southern sunlight glows and quivers, whilst deep purple shadows fleck the tints of old rose and cinnamon where the sunlight falls. Across the majestic iron bridge that spans the Miño, the one modern note in all this scene, there rises an ancient city clustered upon a rise crowned by square battlemented towers. Some old feudal fortress it would seem; but closer acquaintance proves it to be a Christian cathedral built at a time when bishops girt the sword and donned their armour to fight the infidel and defend their faith with their lives. Tuy, the first city of Galicia, is a relic of a past age. Its tortuous narrow streets, mere alleys a few feet wide, are like those of the prehistoric Celtic city of Citania in Portugal: deep channels worn in the living rock and patched where necessary with flat slabs. The city itself is as silent as the grave, and the frowning old castle-cathedral, with its tinkling bell calling to worship, almost alone indicates the presence of the living. A mediæval writer calls Tuy "lately a city of pagans," but for well upon ten centuries now the brave old Romanesque church has stood aloft unmoved like a cliff to resist the incursions of the enemies of the Church. But Tuy, quaint and suggestive of thought as it is, can hardly be considered a typical Galician city; for the best and most picturesque regions of Galicia are those which surround the glorious fjords cut deep into the land that entitles the little "Kingdom" to be called the Norway of Spain. The scenery up the Miño to Orense is, as Mr. Wood has mentioned, one of the most fascinating series of river views for fifty miles that Europe can show. Foaming and tearing its way between dark gorges, broadening here and there into smiling little valleys, the mountains terraced almost to their distant summits with mere steps upon which crops are raised, the river passes through infinite phases of beauty. But the towns, and even villages, are few and far between in these wild regions, and the suave and beautiful inland bays, with the sweet valleys and soaring sierras that surround them, will form for visitors the main attractions of Galicia. I have here little to add to Mr. Wood's glowing descriptions of many of the places he visited, except to [Pg 1] [Pg 3] [Pg 4] [Pg 5] 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. [Pg 6] [Pg 7] [Pg 8] Illustration: PEASANTS IN THEIR SUNDAY BEST PEASANTS IN THEIR SUNDAY BEST Illustration: FISHWIVES 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 [Pg 9] 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. Through such a country as this the traveller may go by motor-car or railway from one fjord to another, rarely long out of sight of blue water most of the way from Vigo to the bellisima Noya, by the holy town of Padron, where the body of St. James first took harbour on its miraculous voyage from the Holy Land to the country that thenceforward was to be its home. In old times it was part of the great pilgrimage after worshipping at the shrine of the Saint at Santiago to trudge on to Padron, the Iria Flavia of the Romans, and the ancient Galician verse says: "Quien va á Santiago E non va al Padron O' faz romeria ó non." Through the Middle Ages a stream of pilgrims wended their way from all Christian lands to Santiago. The innumerable stars of the Milky Way are called by Spaniards "the road of Santiago," expressive of the vast concourse of the faithful that flocked to the Galician shrine. I have before me as I write a naïve relation of a German priest, the envoy, by the way, of an emperor seeking a Portuguese bride, who thought it his duty on the way to worship at the sainted tomb of Santiago. His narrative marks quaintly the immense difference that has come over the world since the mid-fifteenth century in which he wrote. On arriving at Astorga the band of pilgrims who travelled together, and of which he and his colleague formed part, were advised to go no farther for the present, as one of the great rieving territorial nobles, who afterwards gave Ferdinand and Isabella so much trouble to crush, was ravaging Galicia and making war on the all-powerful favourite of the King, Don Alvaro de Luna. The pilgrims being very numerous, decided to run the risk, confiding in the harmless and meritorious character of their journey. Not far from Pontevedra, however, they fell in with a strong force of freebooters, who at once attacked them, wounding many and stripping the whole company to the skin. On their knees, and in mortal terror, the Emperor's envoys showed their credentials and prayed for mercy, but no attention was paid to them, though they invoked Santiago and all the other saints in the calendar. They were allowed, at last, to go on the way with their companions, despoiled and, as the narrator says, "full of pain, suffering and anguish, passing through towns burnt and sacked by the marauders." At last arriving at Pontevedra some kindness was shown them, and, on foot still, the whole band trudged on to Santiago. After visiting the shrine there they walked, as in duty bound, "with certain pilgrims from Ireland," to Padron, where beneath the waves they were shown the stone ship that had brought to the port the body of the apostle. Then to another shrine at Finisterre also they went on foot, and finally, their religious duty being ended, they proceeded on their matrimonial mission to Portugal. The streets of Santiago can have changed but little since those far-off days of pious pilgrimage, when from all points of Christendom came the countless thousands to expiate sins or seek salvation. As the big omnibus from Cornes station bumps and rumbles into the streets of the ancient city, almost the only vehicle that ever invades them, a plunge is made into the centuries of long ago. Narrow slab-paved streets with dim arcades on both sides, above which houses of unimaginable antiquity are reared. Scallop shells adorn the fronts of many of them, indicating that they were formerly pilgrims' lodgings, and carved coats of arms with knightly casques above remind us that in the old days nobles, too, lived in the streets of the holy city. It looks almost an anachronism for men and women in modern garb to wander through these silent streets and to tread the very slabs worn thin by the pilgrim shoon of the centuries of faith so long ago. Though lacking its sacred associations, Pontevedra in its way is almost as quaint as Santiago. Standing at the head of its lovely Ria, just where the river Lerez joins the bay, it is surrounded by gracious hills backed by the Sierra high aloft. No words can exaggerate the luxuriant character of the vegetation all around. As elsewhere, maize and vines floor the valleys and lower slopes with abundant fruit trees and a wilderness of flowers. Above are the oaks, sycamores, and chestnuts, then higher still the grave solemn pines, crowned at last by bare rocky summits glittering and gilded in the sun. The ancient Plaza and Calle Real of Pontevedra, with arcade-arches so low that most Englishmen have to stoop to enter them, must present the same aspect as in the Middle Ages; these very houses and arcades must have stood as now when Columbus sailed in his Pontevedra ship to discover the New World. Whether the great "admiral of the ocean sea" was, as some have not hesitated to assert, of Pontevedran origin himself it is difficult now to decide; but certain it is that many of the Spanish sea-dogs who guided the conquistadores into the unknown were men from Pontevedra and the adjoining port of Marin. All Galicia is historic ground for Englishmen. Its bays and harbours have been the resort of our ships in peace and war from time immemorial, and here in Pontevedra the English John of Gaunt reigned for years as so-called King of Castile in right of his wife the daughter of Peter the Cruel. Here in the country round the Sotomayors, the Sarmientos, the Fonsecas, and Montenegros fought out their endless feuds in which [Pg 10] [Pg 11] [Pg 12] [Pg 13] the warlike archbishops of Santiago took a frequent part, until the great Isabella with iron hand and virile energy crushed them all with her hermandad. Here in the neighbourhood was born that Sarmiento whom we in England know best, him of Gondomar, who ruled our crowned poltroon James I. by bluff and mother wit. To the Sarmientos too belonged that Maria de Salinas as she is incorrectly called in our annals, the devoted friend of Katherine of Aragon, and the ancestress of the house of Willoughby d'Eresby. From Corunna, the Groyne, as our forbears translated it, sailed those numerous futile fleets that Philip destined to bring stubborn England to her knees. From the great Armada down to the poor squadron that sailed for Ireland when Elizabeth lay dying, Corunna was the trysting-place for England's foes. Here came the Desmonds, O'Donnells and O'Sullivans, who hoped to set a Catholic Ireland under the seal of Spain. Here landed the Irish bishops and priests who went backwards and forwards from Killibegs to Spain plotting and planning for Ireland's emancipation: here Drake and Norris in 1589 avenged the Armada by a bloody but fruitless siege, greatly to Elizabeth's indignation. I have told elsewhere[A] the not too creditable story of this unauthorised siege in which the strong wine of Galicia proved a worse enemy to the English than the pikes and partisans of the brave Gallegan peasants and their womenkind led by the redoubtable heroine Maria Pita herself. [A] "The Year after the Armada." But all the blood feud has been forgotten long ago. The splendid soldier of British blood whose body lies buried upon the ramparts of Corunna died for Spain, as did thousands of our countrymen in that Titanic war to free the Peninsula from the grip of Napoleon; and Gallegos, high and low, have nothing but warm Celtic welcome for British visitors to their beautiful and long-neglected land. The British home fleet finds a frequent rendezvous in the magnificent Bay of Arosa, where Villa Garcia receives with open arms the sailors who come in peace. This beautiful Villa Garcia and its adjoining town of Carril, upon the line of railway from Pontevedra to Santiago, are destined for great things in the near future. Upon a charming wooded island, Cortegada, a few cable-lengths only from the shore, the new marine palace of the King of Spain is to be built, and the English-born Queen will be cheered by the sight of the fleets of her native land lying within hail of her summer home. Nothing more exquisite can be imagined than a trip by sailing-boat or steam launch through this lovely landlocked bay of Arosa. Defended in the entrance by the storied isles of Ons, the great inlet looks like a vast lake surrounded by mountains on all sides. The water is so clear and pellucid that the bottom can be clearly seen many fathoms deep. A lofty island, that of Arosa, occupies a position in the centre of the bay, and on the opposite side, near the sandy promontory of Grove, the pine-clad isle of La Toja, with its wonderful healing hot wells within a few feet of the sea, possesses one of the finest hotels in Spain. For, whatever happens with the rest of the country, this land of Galicia is going ahead at last. Gallegos who have returned rich from the Argentina are showing an increasing disposition to invest capital in native enterprises, and the factories that are springing up around Vigo are the result. Not only can La Toja show an hotel of which any country in Europe might be proud, but, at Mondariz, the establishment in the high valley of the Tea, which Mr. Wood so justly praises, is an hotel that will satisfy the most exacting visitor. If only the terrible exodus of the able-bodied male population can be checked by making the lot of the peasant less cruelly hard than it is, Galicia should be one of the most prosperous regions in Europe. As a proof that the present poverty and backwardness are the result of political causes it may be mentioned that thousands of Gallegos cross the Miño every summer and autumn to labour in the Portuguese fields and return with their hoarded wage to help them through the winter at home, much as the Irish harvester serves the English farmer. There are reasons for the latter, for English agricultural land is richer than Irish, and racial causes operate in this case. But the land on the south of the Miño is much the same as on the north, the climate is identical, and the Gallegos and people of North Portugal are of the same stock and speak a similar tongue. And yet the North Portuguese small farmer, well off and prosperous, can afford to hire the man in a similar position across the Spanish frontier to do his hard work, whilst in Galicia women do the work of men in their husbands' absence. The visitor whose aim is but to pass a pleasant holiday of a few weeks in Galicia, especially without a good knowledge of the language, cannot hope to study the unspoilt people in their own homes. Those whom he will meet in the seaports and along the bays are to some extent sophisticated and accustomed to deal with foreigners, but it would well repay a scholar interested in Celtic folklore to live amongst the peasants of some of the inland valleys for a time, to gather some of the traditions which are yet handed down from remote antiquity amongst these primitive folk. Like all their race, the Gallegos are shy and distrustful. Their superstitions and rites are for them almost sacred things, but with patience and tact many of their quaint beliefs may still be gathered from them, as they have been by the greatest of living Spanish women, the Countess of Pardo Bazan, whose books upon her native land of Galicia are redolent of the soil, as are those of another distinguished Gallego, the Marquis of Figueroa. [Pg 14] [Pg 15] [Pg 16] [Pg 17]