English-speaking travellers in Galicia (III) : A Summer Holiday in Galicia by Catherine Gasquoine Hartley

Excerpts from the book A Summer Holiday in Galicia by British author Catherine Gasquoine Hartley (1911)

Galicia has been called by one of her sons «the land of glorious recollections». In her history, reaching back into the remotest antiquity, in her literature and her art, in the imperishable buildings of her ancient cities, where still, after so many centuries, every building has its associations, its legend, or record, the Gallegans have something from old which te young countries of the world, with all their headlong progress, have as yet only begun to gain. That something is tradition.

The language of Galicia, originally a Latin tongue, had deleveloped under the Suevi into a distinct Romance language, which was already established in the twelfth century, much earlier than the Castilian -also a Romance language derived from the Latin- had developed into the Spanish language as it is spoken in Madrid to-day. [...]  It is tempting to write further of Galicia's early poets, of her learning and culture in this period of her Golden Age, and also to enlarge on the significance of it all in the Galicia of to-day. I am conscious of the inadequacy of this cursory survey. For we find in this glorious past an explanation of many things that persist in the Gallegan character -a character very positive, in which the old energy has not dwindled, but is finding new channels of expression, keeping the simplicity, the charm, and the graceful naturalness, and also the power of finding beauty in the world -in what is most homely, obvious, and frequent in it, the beauty which is always there -qualities which can belong alone to a people into whose past life civilisation has sunk deeply.

A peasant home in Corgo, 1925

 Racial types may always be best studed in the women of a nation; and it is well worth while to turn our attention to the women of Galicia. Representing as they do both on the physical and psychic side a conservative tendency, and with a lower variational aptitude than men, women preserve most markedly primitive racial elements of character. In no country is this seen with greater truth than in Galicia.

  From the earliest notices we have of the Gallegan women we find them possessed of a definitive character of remarkable strenght [...] The farms are worked by women, the ox-carts driven by women, the seed is sown and reaped by women -indeed, all work is done by women. While realising fully the evil of this draining of the men of the race, I would yet suggest that the special character of the Gallegas peasants has benefited by this enforced engaging in activities which in most countries have been absorbed by men. The fine physical qualities of these workers can scarcely be questioned. I have taken pains to gain all possible information on this subject, and I find it is the opinion of the most thoughtful Gallegans that this labour does not damage the beauty of the women, but the contrary, nor does it prejudice the life and health of their children. As workers they are most conscientious and intelligent, apt to learn, and ready to adopt improvements. [...] What impressed me was that these women looked happy. They are full of energy and vigour, even to an advanced age.  

          

The chestnut tree in the valley, painting by Daniel Castelao

 This variety in the Galician climate, with its changing colours in a sensitive landscape, is a never-ending source of joy. In days of rain, when the mists roll in from the sea, the whole country seems to wither into grey-indigo shadows; on other days, under steady sunlight, it shimmers with gold and sparkles in gladness with brighter colours. At night, when perhaps you have climbed some hill or walk in the shaded alameda in one of the towns, you will see the landscape sometimes in clear moonlight, when every object takes a sharper outline than in the day as the colours of the night turn the scene to wonder; and sometimes, after rain has fallen, it is as if the land is sleeping under a wonderful silver net-work of silver mist. And always, from dawn to sunset, in days of rain and in days of sunshine, you will find something new, a wealth of colour and of beauty greater than is to be found in any other place. [...] The landscape was charming and exceedingly varied, at times giving memories of the lower slopes of the Alps in Switzerland or in Tyrol, or perhaps more often of the mountainous districts in Wales or in Ireland, though all the colours were more varied. At first, at certain places in the road, we had glimpses of Vigo's beautiful ria, which recalled the coast scenery of Norway. Once, looking backwards, we saw the Cies Isles -sharp, naked peaks that rose out of the sea black and impressive, like gigantic fingers; while the hills, with their austere outline against the sky, that now was a milk-blue, were tinged in the shade almost to black, but were a delicate blue, fading to the grey silver of olive-leaves, where the light touched him. [...]

   The vineyards of Galicia are far more beautiful than the vine-fields of southern Spain, where the plants are small and grow upon the ground. The long arcades were half in light and half in shadow, and here and there amog them were groups os vintagers: peasant labourers, who assumed tom my fancy, as we saw them, the appearance of joyous votaries of Dionysus, at work at the green temple. 

Monforte de Lemos - Workers at railway station, early 20th century

The train penetrates the Garganta del Cabe by means of a score of tunnels and then enters the valley of Lemos until the town of Monforte is reached. Here we had to change trains and to wait for some hours, which gave me an opportunity of a hurried visit to the Jesuit College. I saw the finely carved reredos, the work of the Gallegan wood-carver, Francisco Moure, and very beautiful St. Francis by El Greco, which is, in my opinion, finer than the similar picture in the Museo del Prado at Madrid [...] We had no opportunity of conversation with the inhabitants of Monforte, but, from the appearance of the people, in the streets and at the café to which we went for refreshments, we gathered the impression that the town has a very active life [...] I recall, too, the faces of the workers whom we saw -I should think that these men were republicans and socialists.

Downtown Ferrol, early 20th century

 For the mighty schem of naval reconstruction now being carried out at Ferrol has been entrusted to four English firms. This had brought a large colony of British men and their families to Ferrol. I was glad, however, to know that of the 20.000 workmen employed it is not permitted for more the 10 per cent. to be British [...] I cannot express the strange sensations it brought me to be transplanted suddenly into the atmosphere of London. [...] I had supposed Arosa Bay the finest possibe inlet of this coast, but the harbour of Ferrol is more striking, and the scenery has a grander character. The cliffs rise in curious forms, and my attention was claimed by one in which there was a great chasm, which looked as if it had been cut out by some giant hand. The sea was the deepest blue, and in some places almost black. Showers of foam came every now an then, breaking on our decks, to remind us we were nearing the Atlantic.

Then we came to Betanzos, which is a very old town, with an aspect of its own as fascinating as its history. I would urge all visitors to Galicia to stay at Betanzos. [...] Here you have a town unchanged, unspoilt, which the antiquarian and the artist will find a treasure-house of interest, while to all lovers of beautiful places Betanzos must be dear. You have old churches and cloisters with exquisite examples of Galician carving; you will find a wealth of history and legend, and, if you are fortunate enough to come at the right time, you will witness the old-world customs, such as the Fiestas de Caneiros (The Battle of Flowers), which is celebrated on August 10. [... ] I longed to wait in this town, where there were so many things I wanted to dream of and to see.  

The character of the Gallegans, as I gradually learnt to know it -both from my last visit, spent chiefly in the towns, where my intercourse was with writers, artists, and the men and women who we should call «the upper class», and also from my earlier visit, ten years before, when I lived among the peasants, sharing their common life -has semmed to me a very positive character. And this character, though at first seemingly full of contradictions, is, I believe, one of almost curious uniformity, strongly individual, and not easy to comprehend.[...] Perhaps this accounts for the wide-spread and absurd opinion that the Gallegans are a stupid people, dull of wit, stubborn, and known, like the Auvergnats in France, all over Spain as labourers and servants. It is hard to say exactly what is the profit of comparing one people with another; there is an element of stupidity in most current estimates of national qualities. But I know of none except this one that is not founded on some truth, however coloured and distorted. One would, indeed, be inclined to suspect a joke, as for instance, when I find in an old book on the Spanish people the suggestion that «sweeping chimneys and cleaning shoes are the occupations suited to the Gallegans». [...] But I am treating a serious object in too light a way. Listen, then, these facts. Galicia has the best educated working class in Spain. At a recent levy for the Spanish Army it was found that 90 per cent. of the Gallegans could read and write, that 5 per cent. could read but not write, and only 5 per cent. could do neither. Compare these figures with Castile, where 50 per cent. were able to read and write, and 50 could do neither, or with Andalusia, where the percentage of those able to read and write sank to 10, leaving 90 per cent. unable to do either. Comment here is superfluous. 

English-speaking travellers in Galicia (II) : Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain by Annette M. B. Meakin

Excerpts from the book Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain (1909) by British author Annette M. B. Meakin

   Fare thee well, Galicia! [...] Thou art a land that for the wonderful richness of thy soil and the exuberance of thy vegetation might be made the Garden of Europe. All these thou art, and more; yet not only art thou practically unknown to the rest of the world, but thou art forgotten even by Spain: thy own Peninsula is almost unconscious of thy existence, though thou art the spot which has provided her with her most sacred traditions, her poetry, her trovadors, and her Patron Saint. Thy beautiful mountains, thy pine-clad peaks, thy waterfalls, thy torrents and thy rias, thy smiling valleys and thy mossy ravines, thy terraced slopes and thy limpid streamlets, are separated by the rest of Europe by the waters of the River of Oblivion.

A glance at the map of Galicia will show the reader that this province is entirely composed of alternating peaks, hills, and valleys. It has often called on this account «the Switzerland of Spain». The rock if which the mountains and boulders are formed is almost entirely of granite [...] The rocky soil possesses all the ingredients most favourable to rich vegetation. Galicia has many different climates, resulting from the varied heights of the different zones above sea-level. The difference in temperature and in the humidity of the air are very considerable. Central Galicia is in the same latitude as Russian Turkestan, as part of Albania, and as Pennsylvania, but her climate is infinitely more humid than that of these countries. Heavy and continuous rains soak through the earth and replenish the innumerable mountain springs which are the great cause of Galicia's wonderful fertility; the springs, themselves perennial, feed in their turn the countless streamlets, each of which is again a fresh centre of evaporation. The vigorous vegetation which responds to these extremely favourable conditions helps to preserve, by the cool moisture of its rich and abundant foliage, the dampness of the atmosphere, and to the reunion of these three causes may be traced the remarkable humidity of the province.

   Within a radius of ten miles my eyes have rested upon pine-clad mountain scenery wild and beautiful as that of Norway, and upon a riviera of vegetation like that of Mentone, embracing the orange, the cactus, the olive, the fig, and even the lemon tree laden with its ripening fruit. The sides of the narrow and undulating valleys are often entirely vine-clad; the steeper slopes, cut into terraces, are planted with potatoes, cabbages, or bristle-pointed oats. Sometimes a mountain-side appears as if it were provided with a majestic flight of verdant steps cut in its side from base to summit.

Narcissus bulbocodium (Photo Carlos Rueda)

The climate and soil of Galicia are so variated that not only can every plant known to Europe be made to flourish there, but many tropical ones as well [...] The magnolia and the camellia grow there in profusion [...] The camellia exhibits here some six hundred varieties, and is, during the winter months, the chief ornament of the public walks and gardens [...] Another favourite tree is the azalia, which is constantly found in the public squares and gardens. Wisteria does as well here as in Japan. I noticed it specially luxuriant in Pontevedra. [...] There are flowers out of doors all the year round. Not only is the camellia brilliant with white and red blooms in December and January, but high hedges of wild geraniums are also in bloom, and sweet-scented violets abound in the woods in January. In March and April the hoop-petticoat narcissus carpets meadows as profusely as the wild hyacinth does with us [...] Many of the wild flowers are much the same as those of our own Devonshire hedges and meadows, but I noticed a number that I had never seen in England. [...]

 

Old chestnuts by the river Sil (Photo Carlos Rueda)

 The chestnut, the oak, and the walnut are three of the commons trees in Galicia. The chestnut, the king of the Gallegan forests, grows to perfection, and its nut formed, until quite recently, one of the principal means of sustenance among the poor [...] The poor have a process by which they smoke and dry the chestnuts that are to be preserved for winter use; these are eaten just as you would eat a hard biscuit. I tried one, but found it too hard for my teeth. The pigs in many parts are fed largely upon chestnuts; hence the remarkably fine flavour of their bacon. [...] The birch, betula alba, only grows in the higher zones. I found this tree on the high moorlands near the Portuguese frontier. The willow, the ash, and the Portuguese laurel grow in abundance in the valleys along the river banks, and in most places where the ground is moist. The lime is another tree that grows abundantly, and to a great high, in Galicia. In March an the early part of April the uncultivated parts of the country are gloriously yellow with gorse, ulex Europaeus, which sends out long shoots and branches covered with brilliant blossom, and is altogheter finer than I had ever seen it in England.

 

Vineyards on terraces at Ribeira Sacra (Photo Alberto López)

Galicia is essentially a vine country; from time immemorial her vines have been appreciated, but rather for their abundance than their quality, as too little care has been bestowed upon their cultivation [...] Every peasant house has its vine-covered verandah, and the beauty of many a Gallegan landscape is greatly due to the vine-clad terraces that cover the hillsides. In the early spring, when the branches are still bare, they look, in the distance, like fishermen's nets spread out to dry in the sun.

I understood now how it came about that the Gallegan emigrants sometimes died of home-sickness, for I had experienced something of the inexpressible charm of their beautiful country, their hills and valleys always green, and their perennial streams that are never parched, and I could understand something of what it must be to these poor fellows to be separated from such a home by thousands and thousands of miles in a land where all nature was so different. South America, with its wide prairies under a merciless sun, its wild and savage mountains where one may travel for days together without finding a sign of human life, is very different from populous Galicia with its gentle, smiling scenery, its mountains whose slopes are veritable gardens, its innumerable springs, its rias and its rivers, its vines and its orchards. [...] Yes, I had begun to understand the devotion of the Gallegans to their beautiful native land. Who would not love passionately so sweet a birthplace? Even the Russian loves his steppe, where the scene never changes for thousands of miles. In Galicia, every nook, every crag, every peak, every valley has a distinctive character that is all its own, with its own peculiar beauty. Galicia's cottage homes are of granite, they last for many generations; even the Russian exile loves his home, though his isba of wood will not last twenty years. Shall not the Gallegan regret Galicia, where there is so much that his memory can cling to? There are two kinds of home-sickness to which the Gallegan emigrants are subject, -saudades, a milder form, and morriña, already mentioned; they die of the latter, but the former is not fatal, and the sound of their beloved musical instrument, the gaita, or bagpipe, has been known to revive their spirits and give them the power to throw it off.