CHAPTER I

GALICIA AND ITS PEOPLE

EVEN Spaniards are sometimes at a loss to say which part of their kingdom is Galicia, just as Londoners occasionally pause before locating Yorkshire. The Englishman confesses either that he has never heard of Galicia or does not know where the country is. He imagines vaguely that it is situated in Poland. There are, indeed, two Galicias, one north of the Carpathians and the other, of which I am writing, bounded by the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay. Galicia includes Corunna, which is known to all good Englishmen because of the burial on its ramparts of Sir John Moore. The country, too, is associated with Columbus and the Armada, for the explorer's own ship was built at a Galician port, and the Armada finally sailed from Corunna to conquer England. Spain's holiest city, Santiago de Compostela, is in Galicia.

If you consult a map of Spain you will see Galicia at the top corner, jutting boldly into the Atlantic, with a coast-line, largely formed of glorious inland bays, of two hundred and forty miles.

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