The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

of the hapless victim still stand on the ground whereas the upper part of his body has disappeared. From the shorts which the victim wears he reminds me of some of the modern tourists who visit these churches and against whom there are perpetual notices posted up in all the cathedrals and churches warning them not to enter them with their arms and legs uncovered!
    I was fortunate to obtain a lift as far as the frontier at Canfranc from a Spanish commercial traveller, who was going in his ramshackle car as far as Jaca. He was a small wizened man, with a narrow head and jagged features as though carved out of grey porous stone, and eyes that had the sharp glint of steel. His conversation was undiluted Aragonese baturro or patois with a rough earthy humour, which reminded me of the Roscommon peasant in Ireland. Most of the villages we passed were halting-places for pilgrims in the Middle Ages: St. Christau, Escot, Bedous and Accous, and at last we ascended the Pass of Somport, or as it is called by Aymery Picaud, Portus Asperi.
    I have always felt a thrill when ascending this pass into Spain, for by that road how many races have entered, throughout the course of European history from prehistoric times! Romans, Vandals, Visigoths, Arabs, even before the countless pilgrims began to throng this road on their way towards the far off shrine of the Apostle. By this way came Eleanor of England, the daughter of Eleanor of Poitou and sister of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, to marry Alfonso VIII, who had defeated the Moors at Las Navas de Tolesa. With her travelled, so the chroniclers teH us, ‘the most exquisite flower of the nobility of both Castile’, Cistercian and Benedictine monks and five Spanish bishops. 28 At the top of the pass was the celebrated Priory and Hospital of Santa Cristina de Somport, where from the time of the Goths monks had taken care of the pilgrims that passed this way. It is one of the hospices praised by the Guide for pilgrims of Aymery Picaud and is described in the Gula as: Hospitale St. Christinae quod est in Portibus Asperi. Nothing is left today of the renowned hospice but a heap of stones.
    When we reached Canfranc, I had no trouble with the customs, because I noticed an old friend of mine among the officials, a witty Andaluz from Jerez, who suffers from exile in Canfranc and such homesickness for the land of María Santísima that he keeps a traje corto and a sombrero ancho hanging on a peg in a corner of his office, to raise his morale when the wind whistles outside and rain patters monotonously on the zinc roof. The young inspector, being from the home of sherry, claims to “spik the English.”
    “We are indispensable to the English,” he said, “we help them to live in their foul climate by sending them bottled Andalusian sunlight, and they return the compliment by sending us Irish nannies, who teach our children to lisp in the tongue of Shakespeare before they are weaned.”
    This day the inspector was wearing his sombrero ancho and he was preening himself and attitudinizing in front of a mirror.
    “I have just seen a very pretty brown-eyed compatriot of yours,” said he, “and what do you think she said? She was staring at my hat fixedly, so I said to her: ‘Miss, have you never seen a sombrero ancho before?’
    “ ‘Never before’, said she, ‘au natural, except in Carmen.’ ”
    On another occasion the inspector tried to ‘get a rise’ out of three youths with British passports, so he put on his Cordoban hat, strutted in front of them, hoping to impress them by his local colour, but to his amazement they cried out in unison, in the broadest Andalu’ accent: “Me cachis Estamo’ en Seviya! Qui tío! (How are the bulls in La Maestranza?)”
    “But you have British passports,” said he, handing them back their passports.
    “Pero chico, we’re from Gibraltar!”
    My friend the Aragonese commercial traveller joined me and the inspector at the nearest tavern, where our copas were punctuated by a regular anecdote duel between the sparkling Andalusian and the dour baturro humour of the canny Aragonese. After a stirrup cup of rich wine from Cariñena we said farewell to the inspector and set off for Jaca.
    On the way we talked of pilgrimages and miracles and I told my companion of the miracle of St. James at Toulouse, where he brought to life a young German pilgrim who had been hanged.
    “There are many miracles ascribed to St. James,” said the commercial traveller