By now the season was well on--it was already the
beginning of June, and the school would soon close for the summer
vacation. Then my mother wrote to me "Why not buy a donkey and
come home on that?" She sent me the money, and my friends and I
along with a few extra ones who joined us for the occasion took
ourselves to the cattle market. We quickly found a fine little
fellow, a plump donkey which we all considered in excellent
condition, and I bought it.
A few minutes later I had bought donkey bags,
bridle, and all other necessary items for a donkey. We were now in
the middle of a crowd of gypsies, and after paying for a round of aguardiente
(spirits), we managed to escape with the donkey, already named Rucio
by my Spanish friends, after the most famous of all Spanish donkeys,
Sancho Panza's own.
We got the donkey back to the Calle de la Libertad
and tied him to a lamp post. I quickly paid my bill, packed my
bags, and loaded up the donkey. The whole street was out on their
balconies or at their windows waving to me as I left. Gloria told me
to call at her village near Valencia, but this was quickly canceled
when she imagined to herself the picture of my arriving at her
parents on a donkey!)
I went off towards La Sierra de Guaderama. But as
soon as I turned off at the end of our street, Rucio and I found
ourselves in tram lines, and within a minute a tram was tinkling away
at me trying to pass. From that moment it was absolute hell. Traffic
coming at me from all sides, people insulting me, trams trying to
pass—however I knew my way and kept doggedly on and slowly the
traffic began to subside, and gently I found myself out on a country road.
I sat down on a grassy bank and let Rucio munch the
grass and reflected. The weather had turned to a very hot sunny day,
the first day of summer. I pulled my top clothes off me and tucked
them into the saddle bags, got up and wandered off again.
I caught up with another traveller, carying a box
of sardines on his head, and soon a third, an umbrella-mender. We
carried on together, the sardine vendor depressed by the hot sun,
which was turning his sardines rotten, and the umbrella-mender
equally sorrowful as he thought that with the summer starting early
he wouldn't have any umbrellas to mend!
We came to a village, Colmenar Viejo, and I
followed my companions into the posada, I found some hay and oats for
Rucio and tied him up in his stall. Then I came out for some supper
and found that the whole village was in great excitement, as the
following day was its festival.
I stayed for the Festival and met an elderly
Spanish painter, who specialized in village scenes under moonlight.
Eventually I tore myself away from this charming village and its
festival and started up into the Sierra. I spent another night in a
village, before crossing the Guadarrama, where I was told that at
this season there was an excellent shortcut across the Sierra. It was
easy to find—at the top of the mountain the track divided into
two, and I should take the right hand fork.
Away we went, Rucio and me. Up and up into the
mountain. Till reaching the summit, I saw a shepherd quite near the
track, with a sheepskin over his back and a large umbrella. But as I
went up to him, his dogs attacked me. The more he told them to
stop, the harder they charged. I pushed through them and asked him
the way. He sniggered and explained he was testing his dogs. He had
told them to attack with the word (in Spanish) to heel! I spent some
time, a half hour or so with him. He pointed out to me Lobos
(wolves) on a nearby hillside--saying at this season they were not
dangerous. I left him and carried on until I reached the fork at the
top and to my bewilderment, there were three tracks, not two as I had
been led to believe.
So I tossed up and took the middle one, which after
a couple of miles petered out. I could see a road at the bottom of
the mountain and decided to make for it. Then with Rucio and the
saddle bags and the canvas thongs cutting into his bottom, I hanging
on to the thong and the bags, we tumbled down the hillside,
eventually we reached the bottom only to find a barbed wire fence. We
skirted this until we came to a gate. I opened this and we went
through. There was only a grass verge of twenty yards between us and
the road.
We rushed ahead, and disaster befell us. It was a
bog, and Rucio sank in until only his head was showing, and the
saddle bags were resting on the grass. Luckily at this moment two
stonebreakers appeared around the bend, and seeing our predicament
stepped forward, seized the bridle, and with a colossal heave lifted
Rucio bodily out of the bog.
We crossed on to the road, where I thanked them.
When I told them I was looking for a posada, they told me "Come
with us" and with that dumped a huge basket of tools on Rucio's
back. His knees sagged as the weight hit him. There was nothing I
could do about it—and the tired beast and myself did the two or
three miles into the village in their company. As we passed the
posada, they nodded to it, and we said god speed to each other, they
took their bags, and I entered the inn.
I asked about supper, and the lady said bring your
food and I will cook it. I went off, found a butcher and baker and
arrived back with my purchases, and after a short time I had a good
supper. I visited the village and found it full of holiday makers
from Madrid. Next morning I went on to Buitrago. Here I
stayed a while at a posada run by a handsome young woman who engaged
me to paint her house! Finally I came out of the Sierra, and in the
evening light I sat by the roadside before entering the village posada.
It was a beautiful evening, the tall grey poplar
trees, the distant mountains were blue in the setting sun. I left
entering the inn till rather late and found that the only place left
for me was by the entrance door. I took Rucio into his stable, looked
after him, munched my own food while filling a sack with straw and
laying it down in my space. I was soon fast asleep. In the middle of
the night I was woken by the creaking of a huge gate opening and
looking up saw the bellies of six mules striding over me—but I
was soon asleep again. At the end of the large room, around which we,
the travellers were all sleeping on the floor, was a sort of stage on
which was placed a matrimonio, a huge bed, from which the
proprietor and his wife overlooked their guests.
The following morning I was away early and reached
the first town of any importance so far on my travels, Aranda de
Duero. It was a Sunday, I found a posada and checked Rucio in, then I
went to visit the town. As I wandered around, I began to realize the
state I was in. All my clothes were torn to shreds from crossing the
Guadarrama, my shoes were in bad shape. I was dirty, and in fact as I
was admiring the church a stone whizzed by me. I realized that the
children were taking me for a tonto (a village idiot).
As a number more stones followed, I tooks sanctuary
inside the church. but a few moments later as I dared to come out, a
veritable hale of stones fell about me. I espied a cabaret on the
other side of the square and made a dash for it. I found myself among
Sunday crowds and joined them for a meal. After finishing this, I
crept out and found my tormentors had gone home. So I returned to my
lodgings, found another suit, and borrowed needle and thread from the
proprietor's wife. I spent several hours making one suit out of two.
I called for hot water and had a bath and a shave
and in general pulled myself together. On the following day I bought
myself some espadrillos (canvas and string shoes). Put away my
loose cheviot tweed trousers, through which the straw pricked me at
night. Bought some corderoys, a basque _berrete_, a _faja_ (a belly
cummerbund), and generally adopted myself to travelling with a donkey
in Spain. I must have done some drawing in Aranda, but do not
remember anything in particular. I called the proprietor for my bill,
but while waiting for it he insisted on my drinking a copa of aguardiente
with him. I paid and was off.
A few miles further on I started to add up my bill
in my head again and found that I had been grossly overcharged, but
there was no going back now. I had travelled three kilometres, which
would have added nine kilometres to my journey, so I wrote off my loss.
By now I was beginning to settle down to my
journey. I was making about 15 to 20 kilometres each day. Rucio and I
were beginning to know each other. Whenever I stopped, so did Rucio,
even a kilometer away, and if I wanted him to join me, I had to go
back and fetch him.
At one village I came to, I was chided for giving
Rucio too many oats, half the quantity would be sufficient. But my
critic did not realize that Rucio was walking great distances every
day, for when I left this village, Rucio dashed out ahead of me,
running for the first time I had had him and only stopped at a patch
of grass he had noticed on his arrival at the village. Here he stayed
for several hours grazing. So after that I put Rucio back on his
normal rations.
I passed several large villages, including Lerma.
The country was beginning to become greener, A muleteer invited me up
onto his wagon seat, pulled by six mules, and it was a pleasant
relaxation chatting to him with the landscape passing me by slowly.
While I was drawing abreast of this wagon, I noticed that his dog was
sound asleep on a cradle slung beneath it.
I came to a largish village on a Sunday. There was
a large village green with little houses and a huge Castilian church
dominating everything. The place was empty of inhabitants, so I
decided to draw it. I had hardly started when the bells in the church
started ringing, and soon the parishoners were coming out of their
houses towards me.
They came up and started to menace me with their
fists, and I understood that they were angered at my working on a
Sunday. The crowds around me grew more rowdy until at last a priest
pushed his way through and questioned me, but finding my Spanish bad,
talked to me in French. I offered to stop painting and apologized. He
told the villagers that I was French, and that the Fremch often work
on Sundays, that I had apologized, and he had forgiven me. With that
they all dispersed.
A few days later, while approaching over a slight
hill, I noticed ahead down by a bridge a number of men looking over
the edge of the road. Only their heads were visible for a moment
before all diappeared. Then I saw approaching me a man wearing a felt
homburg hat, a creased town suit, and wrinkled tie. I noticed he was
also wearing espadrillos on his feet and that he had obviously
not shaved for several days. As we came abreast of each other he
looked intensively at my donkey and its bags and at me. He saw a botijo,
an earthenware water carrier, dangling from one of the baskets.
He greeted me in bad French "Tu es Francais?"
to which I answered yes. Then he continued "Tu ramasses des botijos,
and again I said yes. Then he added in French "To sell in
France," and again I answered in the affirmative. He was
obviously delighted to have the opportunity of airing his French in
front of his companions, who had by now climbed out of the ditch and
were looking on. He then gave them a nod as much as to say I was
O.K., and they relaxed. Then with a low bow he waved me on.
On arrival at the next village I found them all
agog. "Had I seen any bandits?" "Had I seen anything
untoward?" I told them what I had seen and asked for a posada.
They took me to a charming inn, run by a pleasant plumpish young
lady, who when I asked her for lodgings answered that "she was
full up." At that moment a muleteer arriving from behind her,
looked me over very carefully and told her I was alright. Then with a
smile she accepted me saying "She had to be so careful these days."
I recounted my adventure to them, and they
congratulated me on still being alive. "That yes, there was
quite a trade in earthenware pots made in the district, with French
boys coming over to buy them."
At midday we ate all three together a most
delicious cocido. At lunch time I often made a meal of an
onion, fresh bread, and olive oil, washed down by a stream of red
wine squirted down my throat out of a leather bota. Then
I would sleep from 1 pm to 3 pm, the hottest period of the day, in
the shade of Eucalyptus trees or others, with Rucio tied to the trunk
of the tree, sleeping beside me.
Once I was awakened by a sharp prod. I looked up
and there were two Civil Guards looking down at me. I clambered onto
my feet, and as they were looking in my baskets, I emptied their
contents on the ground for their inspection. They hemmed and hawed,
looked at my passport, and left me.
Another time I was woken by an old lady. On looking
around me, I found Rucio had gone. The old lady was pointing angrily
at two black ears sticking out over a field of oats, and promptly
belabored him with her stick, saying all the time that the field
belonged to her. I managed to grab the rope hanging from his collar
and tied him up again.
I had not realized that Rucio was a donkey stallion
until one evening, while we were going through a small village, a
stoutish and pleasant lady was riding home on her lady donkey. As is
the custom, she was sitting sideways over the animals's buttocks
facing backwards, and she did not see that Rucio, realizing her lady
donkey was in heat, was dangling a great pole between his legs. As we
passed each other, he rose on his hind legs; the lady donkey was
clearly interested and started to dance around. The peasant woman,
now realizing her position, started belaboring both donkeys for all
she was worth, and Rucio in particular, but by doing so she fell off
with her two legs in the air, and swore at me for traveling with such
a dangerous beast.
I was following the Great North Road, the Carreterra
de Francia. It traversed the limestone countryside, La Meseta,
the table land maintaining a steady 1000 meters above sea level. It
was a fine, flat landscape crossed at intervals of 10 to 15
kilometres by ridges of barren rocks. While the crops were still
standing it was a pleasure to see, but once the harvest was in, it
became a desert. It used to take me the best part of a day to cross
from one ridge to the next, with Rucio following a mile or so behind
me! The road crossed the ridges of bed rock with bumps and dips, as
the subsoil protrudes above or below the level of the road, but
luckily for us on both sides of the road there were dusty pathways
wide and soft enough for the hooves of donkeys, sheep, goats, or mules.
The general colour of everything is ochre. The sky
slightly greener, the foreground pinker. In the evening the shadows
are blue, and in early morning everything is aglow with light. Rucio
followed the soft track, putting up his own tiny dust cloud.
Occasionally he trotted but usually he walked or ambled along,
stopping wherever possible to munch a weed or a clump of yellow grass.
Although we often left the Carreterra to
reach a village or hamlet, we would soon pick it up again. On one
occasion on arriving at a fine town, as I approached it, I found a
river barred the way. On the far side a group of women were washing
clothes. I jumped on Rucio and prodded him forward, but half way
across the river deepened, and Rucio was soon swimming, and I beside
him. When the women saw that there was no danger, they rolled over
laughing their heads off. I crossed through the town soaked through,
but no matter, it was a sunny afternoon, and I was soon dry again.
But when we reached the Sierra de Burgos, I decide to cross it by the
highest pass, and we left the Carreterra for good.
As I entered a fine mountainous area with trees and
green pastures, I was just thinking to myself how pleasant it would
be to stay in such a pleasant place, in the shade with tinkling
streams in the ditches and butterflies and flowers, such a contrast
to the mesesta. But being short of cash, I thought I should
carry on without stopping to reach Burgos, where I had arranged at
the post office to pick up my money. But as we were walking
along the little road, I spied a silver coin in the road, a duro
(a five pesetas piece). That was it, the Gods meant me to stop here.
I left the road to reach a small hamlet a short distance away. I
reached the village but found it completely empty--the villagers were
all away harvesting. An old lady came along, and I asked her if there
was an inn, she shook her head and said her son was the Alcalde
(the mayor) and he would be back at sunset and that I should await
his arrival. Which I did.
In the dusk a whole crowd of villagers came in, and
the Alcalde looked me over and said "Thou shalt stay with
me." He asked me if I had any money. I said I had a duro.
O.K. he said, follow me. I did, was given a room with a bed and a
jolly good plate of soup and supper. We chatted a bit, but all and
everyone were tired out and went to bed. The next morning when I
woke, the only person left on the farm was the old lady and myself.
She begged me that when I reached Burgos I should buy her a
sweepstake ticket--the National Sweepstake draw was the next day--and
gave me a peseta to buy it. She refused to take any money for the
night's ledging and meal. So I was forced to leave without paying.
When I arrived at Burgos that evening, I found I had by error left
behind a perfectly new pair of army boots! So I felt she had won her
sweepstake after all.
In Burgos I found myself a Casa de Huespedes
run by a wife of a member of the Guardia Civil. He looked me
over, looked at my papers and eventually was a great help. I had
traveled the last mile or so before the town with a couple of Limpia
Botas, boot-blacks, young boys going to the city's feria
(fiesta). They were very poor--but then I had only a duro on
me as well! At the post office the money from my gallery was waiting
for me. The Guardia Civil sergeant planned my trip to
the sea for me, via Vitoria, Miranda de Ebro, Bilbao and Bermeo.
I left Burgos with regret. The weather was
changing, and I remember following a long, long road along the edge
of a lake. I was so thirsty, I foolishly dropped on my hands and
knees and drank some of the brackish water. I cannot remember Vitoria
except the heat had gone, the weather was grey all the way to Bilbao.
I left Bilbao in a hurry and went on to Bermeo (where I had a
rendez-vous with a fellow student from the Academia).
I arrived at Bermeo on a Sunday, and as I reached
the last hill before running down into the port of Bermeo, I caught
up with some young men walking out on a Sunday afternoon. They
muttered something in Spanish about a lout and his donkey. So I
flared up and used some bad English swear words. As they were
sailors, they at once knew the meaning, but we were soon conversing
together, and when I told them I had come from Madrid and asked
whether they knew the names of my friends in Bermeo, we soon became companions.
When I arrived in town, the word had gone out that
I was a Milord Ingles out for a bet from Madrid to Bermeo on a
donkey. However my friends soon settled this exagg-eration. I was put
up at the hotel, and then the lake water I had drunk a few days
before hit me, and I was as sick as a dog. However a doctor dealt
with me and kept me just on the edge of illness. It was not until I
decided to leave for England that the diarrhoea really attacked me,
on the bus to the train. On reaching the railway station, I had to
leave my trousers in the lavatory.
I caught the train, and next morning I was in Paris
and that evening in London, and then and only then were the ulcers on
my legs and my diarrhoea cured by a good old-fashioned English
doctor, and the food cooked by my mother brought me back to life.
When later I wrote to the hotel at Bermeo to ask for my donkey, I was
sent such a bill for his food that I had to leave him in lieu of
payment. Thus ended the story of Rucio.
