The Magic of SpainBell, Aubrey F. G. (Aubrey Fitz Gerald)
History
The Magic of Spain
Bell, Aubrey F. G. (Aubrey Fitz Gerald)
Spain -- Description and travel; Spanish literature -- History and criticism
After Casteldefels the hills are covered with pines, and the nights,
which are warm but have heavy dew, bring out their scent so strongly
that it is at times almost oppressive. The nights are silent but for the
continual chirping of crickets and the sound of the unquiet sea. The
stars are strangely bright, Sirius burns large and intense, and Orion
nightly stalks the sky in all his glory till the sun catches him in
mid-heaven. The sea is alive with phosphorus, and far out are seen the
lights of fishing-boats, while on land the glow-worms are almost as many
as the stars. The orange and purple sunrises and sunsets of pink and
amethyst are very lovely, and the sails of the fishing-boats continue
white, and the sea retains its blue for some time after the light of the
after-glow is gone. A little further south the cliffs are covered with
dwarf palms, rosemary in flower, and other shrubs. The road here is
good, but one meets no pedestrians, for a path along the railway is the
accepted thoroughfare between village and village in spite of the
notices that forbid its use. The men for the most part wear a black
peaked cap, a long blouse, and trousers of brown or blue. The sash is
nearly always black and is worn wide, the sandals have a tip and heel
covering only, with fastenings of leather or black cloth from the tip.
The women wear handkerchiefs that entirely cover the head. The
predominant colours are blue and black. A kilomètre or more before
wine-making Sitges the road is bounded by rough terraces of stone with
vines and dark green carob-trees. A succession of terraces on the one
side runs far up the hills, and on the other the rude-walled vineyards
stretch to the edge of the sea. Sitges, a village of less than four
thousand inhabitants, is prettily placed, its octagonal-towered church
rising from a rock in the sea. A few kilomètres further Villanueva y
Geltrú is but a fairly large and rather ordinary provincial town, though
it has its picturesque corners, with its houses washed in various shades
of blue, pink, green, or yellow, and views of vineyard country appearing
at the end of many of its long, straight streets. After Villanueva the
hills recede further inland, and there is a little more flat country,
but it is occupied largely by great marshes, loud with the croaking of
frogs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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