Spain in 1830 (Vol. 1&2). Henry D. Inglis
being adopted in other places. This Campo Santo has been inclosed in consequence of a quarrel between the Franciscan Convent and the Chapter of Bilbao, respecting the dues of burial, in a place to which both claimed right; and the Corporation completed the new cemetery, at an expense of not less than 30,000l. The gateway is beautiful and chaste, with this appropriate inscription over it:
“Cada Paso, que vais dando
Por la senda de la vida
Mas y mas os va acercando
Mortales, á la partida,
Que en vano estais evitando.”
The design of the Campo Santo is this: a square area of about six acres is surrounded by a covered arcade, supported by doric columns; the back of the arcade is an immense wall of brickwork, in which there are four rows of spaces for coffins, the opening one yard square, and six feet and a half long; into this, the coffin is deposited; the spaces which are not occupied are slightly closed up; and a ring in the centre, shews that they are vacant. When a coffin is deposited, the opening is built up with brick and lime, and a stone or marble slab, fitted into it, records the name of the buried. The cemetery is fitted to receive 3000 dead—a great number for so small a space; and the area beyond the arcade, is tastefully laid out as a garden and shrubbery. Besides the inscription I have noted down, there are several others that struck me as being beautiful and well chosen. The following particularly, over the inner-gate, is striking:—
“Deten sus pasos inciertos
O Caminente! repara,
En que esta Puerta separa
A Los vivos de los muertos.”
Which may be freely translated:—“Stop, thoughtless wanderer! and reflect—this gate separates the dead from the living.”
In returning from the cemetery to the town, I made a long circuit, visiting in my way the Iglesia de Bigoña, a church which takes its name from a miraculous image of our Lady of Bigoña, deposited in it, and looked upon with extraordinary veneration by the lower orders in Bilbao. It happened to be a feast day, and a great number of persons were collected in the church, because upon all such days, the curtain that screens the miraculous image is withdrawn for a few moments—an opportunity not to be disregarded by any good Biscayan who desires to ensure the kind offices of the sainted Lady of Bigoña. Before the service began, the officiating priest shewed me the sacristy, and a head of John the Baptist in wood; a very clever performance, by a native artist; and I afterwards waited in the church long enough to see the curtain withdrawn, and the prostrations of three or four hundred devotees. There is a small foundation left to this church, for a curious purpose. The curate must go to the gate of the church at the commencement of every thunder storm—say a certain prayer—and sprinkle the sky with holy water. It appears, however, that the virtue of the water, as well as the water itself, has been sometimes dissipated before reaching the clouds; for the church tower has been twice struck by lightning.
In the course of my walk, I learned a curious fact, illustrating strongly the mixture of pride and generosity which is often found in the Spanish character. The Corporation being desirous of conducting an aqueduct and a road to Bilbao from a mountain about a league distant, applied to the proprietor (a grandee of Spain) to purchase the land through which these were to be carried. He refused to sell it; but said, that if the Corporation would petition him for a grant of the land, he would make them a present of it: they however wanted no favour, and would not condescend to this; but supposing that the proprietor would be prevailed upon to sell, they commenced, and at length nearly finished the work. The grandee, offended at this insolence, applied to the king for an order to demolish the work, and obtained it; but just in time to prevent this, the Corporation petitioned the grandee, and the order was not only rescinded, but the grant of the land was completed. The water conveyed in this aqueduct forms a reservoir at the entrance of the town for a useful and rather a novel purpose: by opening a sluice, seven of the lowest streets in the town are inundated; this is done every week during the summer heats, and is doubtless very useful in carrying away impurities. I walked through one of the lowest of the streets an hour before, and an hour after the purification; and the difference in smell, freshness, and coolness, was most striking.
Walking either in the streets, or in the neighbourhood of Bilbao, the convents and monasteries are very conspicuous: they are almost all immense piles of building, of little architectural beauty, and are at once distinguished by the strong gratings that cover their windows. In the town there are four monasteries—the Franciscans, the Capuchins, the Augustins, and the Carmelites: the two former of these subsist on charity, which is liberally bestowed, and they in their turn give charity to others. Every day, a great number of poor are fed after the Franciscan friars have dined, and as they are a hundred and ten in number, the refuse of their dinner must be considerable. I visited the Franciscan convent accompanied by an English lady, and although I found the utmost politeness from the Superior, he was deaf to all my entreaties to permit the lady to enter the sacristy, to see a picture said to be by Raphael. This convent was partly destroyed by the French, and it was under its gateway that several of those military executions took place, which so disgraced the conduct of the French during their occupation of the province of Biscay. In the Carmelite convent, there are only five friars, who want for nothing that money can purchase; they are extremely rich, and possess a charming property not far from Bilbao, called “el Desierto;” but which might with greater propriety be called “el Paradaiso.” Besides these monasteries within the town, there are two at a short distance from it—the Burcena convent of Mercenarios, and the Friars of San Mames, both of the Franciscan order.
The female convents are also numerous; these are, La Conception, a Franciscan order, in which there are 14 nuns; Santa Clara, also Franciscan, in which there are 10 nuns; El Convento de la Encarnacion, where there are 27 nuns; el Convento de la Cruz, containing 12 nuns; Santa Monica, an Augustinian order, with 12 nuns; La Esperanza, containing 12, and La Merced, containing 10. There are altogether about 350 friars and nuns in Bilbao, and about 120 priests. In the province of Biscay, females profess at a very early age; their noviciate generally commences about fifteen, and at the expiration of a year they take the veil. A nun must carry into the convent about 30,000 reals (300l.); and to La Merced and Santa Monica, considerably more. I ascertained, from a source of the most authentic kind, that three-fourths of the nuns who take the veil at this early age, die of a decline within four years. The climate, which in Biscay is so prolific in consumption, added to the low and damp situation of some of the convents, may perhaps be admitted to have some influence upon this premature decay; but I should incline to attribute a greater influence to causes more immediately referable to the unhappy and unnatural condition of those who are shut out from the common privileges, hopes, and enjoyments of their kind.
I visited the convent of Santa Monica in company with an old gentleman, an inhabitant of Bilbao, who had known several of the inmates from childhood. We were only permitted to converse through a double grating, which separated the small antechamber where we stood, from the convent burying-ground, where three of the nuns were; two of them seemed to be above thirty, the other was under twenty; my companion, a very jocose old man, jested, and amused them; and they in their turn prated, and laughed immoderately, and appeared to be in excellent spirits; but the sight of an old acquaintance, and the novelty of a visit from an English lady, had probably produced a temporary excitement: while, in the midst of their mirth, they were suddenly sent for by the abbess, who probably thought it wise to turn their thoughts into another channel. It is a pity, I think, that those who have separated themselves from the world, should afterwards be permitted to hold any communication with it; feelings may be stifled, and hopes buried, and time and habit may lead to forgetfulness, and even unconsciousness, of a busier, and it may be, a brighter scene; but recollections are easily awakened, and it is cruel to revive that which must again be buried.
Walking one evening to see the new hospital, which lies on the outskirts of the town, I was surprised at the great number of mules which were entering and leaving Bilbao; the former laden with wine, soap and oil; the latter with dried cod, which forms the staple of the Bilbao trade, and is an article of diet very extensively used throughout the greater part of Spain. There is a curious regulation respecting the trade of Bilbao with the interior—no muleteer from Castile