Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain. Annette M. B. Meakin

entirely composed of alternating peaks, hills, and valleys. It has often been called on this account “the Switzerland of Spain.” The rock of which the mountains and boulders are formed is almost entirely of granite. In fact, all the higher levels of the province of Pontevedra are so covered with granite that it is impossible to tell what other formation this stone has replaced. 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 differences 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.

      The vegetation varies with the height; wheat, maize, and rye thrive in the basins of the valleys and in all the spots on a level with the sea. The peasants raise two crops a year on the same ground, but many writers who have studied the question say that these double harvests often result in more harm than good—the blind ambition of the ignorant peasants leading them to dry their rye too soon in their hurry to get the maize planted.

      Right down to the seashore the ground is remarkable for its spontaneous vegetation, which is in itself a cause of the richness of the soil. Every kind of fruit tree known to Europe thrives upon the lower slopes of the ever-verdant valleys, the fruit upon the higher slopes ripening twenty days later than that upon the sea-level. Woods of oak and chestnut cover the hillsides, and pines dominate the loftiest crags of the mountain peaks. 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.

      High up among the mountains the peasants breed large herds of cattle, which graze upon the fertile plains and slake their thirst in the crystal water of the running brooks. “As one travels through Galicia,” wrote a monk of Osera in the seventeenth century, “one experiences at every mile—nay, at every step, let me say—a change of air, a change of sky, and a change of scene sufficient to create the impression that one has entered another country. Every kind of fruit, every kind of vegetable will thrive in Galicia; and if any particular kind is wanting, its absence must not be put down to any fault of the soil and climate, but to the laziness of the inhabitants in failing to cultivate it. It is true that one country may excel another in the quality of one particular fruit, but it is nevertheless certain that, not only in all Spain, but, without any exaggeration, in all Europe, there is not a province that equals Galicia in the fertility of its soil.” I may add that all who have studied the subject from that day to this have added their testimony to that of this monk of Osera as to the extraordinary capabilities of the Gallegan soil.

      The principal rivers of Galicia have kept the names given to them by the ancients—because the land through which they flow was never, like the rest of Spain, conquered by the Moors. Galicia is the best-watered territory in the Peninsula. The river Limia, known to the ancients as Lethes, or Oblivionis, was mentioned by Pliny as running between the Miño and the Duero, and Silius Italicus said of it—

      “Inique super gravios lucentes volvit arenas,

       Infernae populis referens oblivia Lethes.”[33]

      The name of Limia was thought by Florez to be derived from the Greek word λιμνη, a lake; Pliny called it Limæa, and said that some called it Flumen oblivionis—“river of forgetfulness.” This river rises in the lake of Antela in the province of Orense, and, after flowing through a fertile valley to which it has given its name, and receiving the waters of two smaller streams, the Ginzo and the Salas, enters Portugal at Landoso, and at length flows into the Atlantic Ocean at Vianna de Castello.[34] The Greeks and Romans seem to have persuaded themselves that this river had the power of making people forget, in a moment and for ever, everything connected with the past; they consequently regarded it with positive terror—

      “Formidatumque militibus flumen oblivionis.”[35]

      Strabo tells how an allied army of Celts and Bætians who had joined forces for some particular expedition quarrelled after passing the Limia, and killed in the fray their common leader, after which they one and all, forgetting what was the object of their expedition and whither they were bound, became scattered, and each man returned home independently of the others.[36] Decimus Junius Brutus was the first Roman who dared to cross the river, and Livy relates that when Brutus ordered his soldiers to cross it they refused to do so, in fear lest by so doing they might lose all memory of their country; whereupon Brutus, seizing the flag from his standard-bearer, waded into the river alone, and, having reached the opposite bank, returned to his soldiers and entreated them to follow him across, which they, overcoming their superstition, eventually did. More than one Portuguese poet, charmed by the beauty of the Limia’s winding banks and by the gentle flow of its limpid waters, and above all by its historic name—“river of forgetfulness”—has crystallised the legend of its miraculous power in musical verse, such as—

      “O’ que inveja vos hei a esse correr,

       Pola praia de Lima abaixo e’ arriba

       Que tem tanta virtute de esquecer!”

      Limia, in Portuguese, is spelt Lima, and the Lima of Peru was named after this river. Another point of interest in connection with this river of classic fame is the discovery that has recently been made by Dr. Marcelo Macias of the exact site upon which there once stood a great city, mentioned by Ptolemy as φορος λιμιχῶν and by later Roman writers as Civitas Limicorum.

      Another of Galicia’s rivers, the Miño, is one of the six largest rivers in Spain. Its present name was given to it by the Romans; it is a Latin word meaning vermilion,[37] and was chosen on account of the metallic yellow its waters left upon their banks. St. Isidore and Justin both give this explanation of the name. Pliny says its mouth was four (Roman) miles wide, and Strabo adds that it was navigable for a distance of about eight hundred stadia. In the present day it is not navigable for even half that distance—“a great loss,” remarks Florez, “to commerce.” Florez, however, is convinced that the ancients called by the name of Miño the river that is now called the Sil—because the Sil is the river whose banks receive the vermilion. Orosius, moreover, speaks of Monte Medulio as situated above the Miño, whereas it is now above the Sil, at the point where that river enters Galicia, and the earth there is said to be of a reddish hue. Besides, the Sil runs into the sea, receiving the waters of many other streams, but it does not flow into any river. Molina, however, whose description of Galicia was first published in 1550, goes still further, and says he is sure the Gallegans changed the names of the two rivers because the Sil was a foreign river, rising outside Galicia, whereas the Miño was a native! Molina believed that the Miño got its name from Miñan, the spring which is its source. The Miño rises near the town of Lugo, flows through the province of Orense, and, while forming the natural boundary between Galicia and Portugal, flows into the Atlantic a little beyond the town of Tuy. The beauty of the scenery through which the Miño passes after it has left the town of Orense is hardly to be surpassed in the whole of Spain.

      Two other important rivers are the Sar and the Tambre, called by the ancients “Sars” and “Tamaris.” Both of these rivers are historically famous. Pliny mentions only two rivers in Spain as possessing the properties that temper iron—the Bibilis and the Turrafo. But Silius Italicus mentions the river Calybe as one whose waters were used to temper the metal of Spanish arms, and