The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

glory, hope’s true gage,
    And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.

CHAPTER 12

THE STAR-PAVED CITY

    My field a universe,
    The Milky Way the pathway where I walk
    With stars for flowers.

    T HE fifteen bells chiming from the Torre de las Campanas of the cathedral awoke me from my uneasy slumbers, and I was glad to escape from the stifling room which I shared with another pilgrim.
    Santiago de Compostela is famed for its wet weather and the natives glory in their damp climate, saying that there are only thirty fine days in the year, and they claim that its mediaeval buildings and granite-paved streets display their full beauty only in rain and drizzle. This day, however, the sun was shining and the dancing sunbeams and mellow bells roused the colourful crowd of peasants who thronged the narrow street at an early hour; and some of them had spent the hours before dawn huddled in doorways under the arcades. Many of the women had handkerchiefs of red, yellow or green draped round their heads and their menfolk, dressed in brown and black, added to the riot of colour with their red and orange waistcoats. The chimes reverberated above the clattering of the countless sabots on the granite pavement, and there was a continual dialogue between the booming bells of bronze and the strident clattering bells of brass.
    The bells of Compostella are more melancholy than those of our northern countries with their merry carillons; they remind us of our long pilgrimage through history, for these are the bells that, when Almanzor sacked Compostella in 997, were carried on the backs of the captive townsfolk all the way to Córdoba to serve as lamps and perfume censers in the great mosque until the day of Christian reckoning when they reappeared at Santiago de Compostela on the shoulders of the captive Moors.
    As I threaded my way through the crowded Rúa Nueva towards the cathedral to make my musical offering to St. James, to my great surprise I bumped into the lame Jacobean pilgrim and his father whom I had met in the spring at Carcassonne.
    “All roads end in Santiago,” I said. “Now you have earned your rest.”
    “It was hardly earned,” said the old man. “At one time I was certain we should never get here. My son fell ill in Burgos of pneumonia and had to go to hospital. That delayed us a whole month.”
    “I recovered rapidly,” said the young man testily, “but my father does not believe in the miracle of penicillin and he would not believe that I was cured.”
    “Where are you going with your fiddle?” said the father.
    “I am going to make my musical offering to the Apostle in my own traditional way, but you two must come and help me.”
    When we reached the Plaza del Hospital we ascended the majestic double stairway beneath the Portico of Glory and saw in front of us, in all its unearthly beauty, the Gate of Glory which for the past seven hundred years has been the Portus Quietis of countless pilgrims after their weary tramping along the Jacobean road.
    Often, on my pilgrimage, I had thought of this moment. As I gazed at the great central tympanum where Christ sits enthroned and surrounded by angels, saints, and the rest of the glorified company, the words of the Apocalypse came to my mind: ‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.’
    Christ in all His majesty extends His arms, showing the wounds in His hands and in His side. A remote, impressive Christ in stature, crowned with diadem; wide-eyed, with noble brow, flowing hair and venerable beard, but the impression of a stern frown is mitigated by a touch of gentle thoughtfulness. Draped round Him is the classical pallium, which leaves the right shoulder bare. He wears the long white robe girdled in accordance with the words of Isaiah, ‘and righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins and faithfulness the girdle of His reins’.
    At the feet of our Lord sits St. James the Apostle leaning on a tau-staff. His throne rests on the backs of lions, but under his bare feet is green grass, and in contrast to the remote majesty of the Saviour, he is benign in expression.
    “Quelle beauté dans son regard: quelle simplicité,” cried the old Frenchman. “On dirait qu’il a survécu a toutes les faiblesses de ¡‘humanité.”
    “How different he is to the