IN SPAIN.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 341, 1 March 1911, Page 7

IN SPAIN.

THE SUN—THE DESERT—THE STARS. As I rorir carelessly in the earliest dawn oit of the city of Zamora I overtook a voor man who watered his mule by the wayside ; and by chnn"e he ere. ted me and asked me whither 1 was going. 1 named the city (if the great Saint that lies on the other side of the desert of Salamanca towards the mountains ; and since his way was mine, and I was a stranger, he offered me service and guidance for a certain distance. He was a man of some fifty years, a peasant who worked in the fields ; the father of many sons, he told me, and one daughter who was married and who lived in the city of the great Saint whither I was hound. Now and then he crossed the desert to see her, and since it was but yesterday he had heard that a little son had been born to her, it was necessary, in spite of the summer heat, that he should go to see her. "Yon understand, senor," he said, "that she has no mother, and I love her." The sun was just rising over that boundless plain full of dust. In spite of the monotony of the landscape, the view was very beautiful under the level light of the sun,: and THE SKY WAS FULL OF A FRAGILE GLORY that gives always a kind of enchantment to the dawn in the South. Not far away Zamora stood on the hilltop, just a group of golden, Romanesque buildings falling into decay, surrounded by infinite light and dust. Looking on her in the dawn, it was as though one heard a try in the desert. Far, far away I descried the outlines of mountains, and nearer, but still far away across that burning plain, a great cloud of dust rose where a herd of swine moved from one hill to another. Gently the wind came towards us out of the south with that almost inaudible whisper, sc common in this noiseless country, that I find is made by the passing of even the softest breath of aii over millions of dead wildflowers ; and, indeed, one may often see a harebell dead and shrivelled undei that terrible sun ringing frantically in the wind of one's cloak at evening, and if one stoops down and listens, even that tiny, sorrowful music may be heard in the loneliness. All the morning we crept, under the hard blue sky and pitiless sun, slowly, slowly ACROSS THE DESERT where there is neither tree nor grass, only the dead wildflowers of last spring. A great langour had fallen upon me ; for two days now the sun had seemed to bruise me, and the immense horizons were full of wonders. At midday we halted for the meal under the shadow of some rocks, that seemed rather to radiate the heat than to bring us coolness and rest. In the afternoon we came very thirsty and covered with dust to the Douro, a great river that was full of infinite refreshment. My companion spoke bat rarely, and when he spoke at all it was rather of the desert or of nature or of God than of anything particular to himself. And yet I think, indeed, he was nearer to these three mysteries than I knew. After all, they were his companions, and in THE IMMENSE LONELINESS OF SPAIN, or at least of Castile, he had come to know them as a man of two score and ten should know his friends. "And so," he said to me when hj? saw that I was very weary—"And so we must never forget that God has given us the hour after the sunset." And indeed it is the most precious hour of the day. But at the sunset of that day we were still far from home, and the langour 1 had felt in the morning, that had gradually increased all day, fell on me with a double force. Great shadows stole out of the north, and far away in the burning west I saw the perfect rose-coloured towers of the city for which I was hound. It was not till my uncle stumbled that I realised I was falling from my siddle. NIGHT FELL—a night of large, few stars—and covered us with her coolness ; even yet we were far from any city. And at last I couH go no turther. and told my guide so, who without any expression of surprise lifted me from my beast, laid me under a great rock, covered me with my rug. tethered the mules, and began to prepare supper. T shall not forget the beauty of that night, nor the -silence under those desert stars. From afar I could hear faintly THE SOUND OF THE RIVER and the quiet breathing or champing of the mules : there was no other sound. And then suddenly I saw my companion a little way off on his knees, between the immense horizons, praying. As I watched the rugged, picturesque figure of the old man, his Lead buried on his breast, his hands clasped before him, I thought it was Spain that I had seen, alone, talking with God in the desert.—From "The Cities of Spain," by Edward Hutton.