The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

Lavacolla, where in the ancient days the pilgrims used to wash their necks and spruce themselves up before entering the city, there is today the airport of Santiago, and plane after plane disgorged its pilgrims. Along the roads came bands of athletic young men dressed in shorts and open shirts who belonged to youth organizations and had tramped all the way from Madrid, Valladolid, Burgos and Barcelona. Some of them were cripples and I noticed an ex-serviceman with only one leg, who with incredible skill and energy had come all the way from Madrid hobbling along with the aid of his stick. One of the most striking groups of pilgrims was the squadron of policía urbana all in navy blue and white ducks who had ridden on horseback all the way from Madrid. The station was crowded to suffocation with relays of pilgrims arriving by train every few minutes.
    As I was a delegate to the Congress of European and American Hispanists that was being held in Compostella, and was wearing my official scallop shell, I felt sure that I should find my place without difficulty, but as I fought my way through the crowded Rúa Nueva leading to the cathedral my heart sank, for there was not a hope of piercing a way through the densely crowded Plaza del Hospital. As the Generalissimo and his suite were to enter by the Portico of Glory, there were cordons of police who pushed me back into the crowd, though I showed my official invitation cards. While I was standing disconsolately in the crowd and wondering what to do I saw standing near me the decrepit old pilgrim I had met at Villasirga. He looked even sadder and more woebegone than when I had seen him last.
    “What shall we do?” I said. “We shall never get into the basilica.”
    “Follow me,” said the old man, “and let us try to get in by the door in the Platerías." The head of the police, I was told, gave orders to close the doors of the cathedral, for he was afraid it might be difficult for them to protect General Franco, owing to the enormous crowds. But there has always been an unwritten rule in Compostella never to shut the doors of the cathedral to any worshipper, even the humblest, during the celebrations of the Apostle, and it appears that the canon in charge of the arrangements refused to close the doors, saying that if the police ordered this he would also close the Puerta del Perdón by which the Generalissimo was to enter. The police chief then ordered the arrest of the canon, but the latter went away and returned a few minutes later in all his purple vestments, saying to the policeman: “You may arrest me now.” The policeman did not dare. This was the story we were told as we pushed our way towards the door leading from Las Platerías into the Basilica. Here we followed a number of humble pilgrims and had no difficulty in getting in and with the help of friends ascend to the lofty triforium gallery from which I had a magnificent view. After witnessing the procession I went round to the two antiphonal choirs.
    In the dim distance the main altar was a blaze of lights and an apotheosis of baroque ornamentation with its twisted lamps, Salomonic columns, chubby angels, scrolls, escutcheons and riding high above the Churrigueresque extravaganza the ‘Moor-slayer’ in full panoply. Even the venerable thirteenth-century stone statue of the Apostle was so bedizened with shells and scrolls and precious stones that he looked like a heathen idol. The procession of cardinals, archbishops and bishops in their red and purple vestments and gold and silver mitres attended by the canons of the cathedral, who used to be called cardinals, and the colourful sequence of the Generalissimo and his suite, the ministers and distinguished foreign guests was imposing and it became a pageant of sound as well as colour, for the two vast choirs on both sides of the main altar responded to each other in strophe and antistrophe, while the organ pealed triumphantly. I could see the acolytes in black and scarlet gather below in the crossing of the cathedral and by a rope over a pulley, they pulled down a great hook called the alcachofa or ‘artichoke’, to which they fixed the botafumeiro, the gigantic silver censer, after the incense had been ignited. The seven men then pulled the ropes, raising the great censer off the floor. At first it moved slowly and it seemed as if it was being pushed by the men from one to the other as in a game, but then it began to gather momentum rhythmically and the