Fragments from AN OVERLAND JOURNEY TO LISBON AT THE CLOSE 0F 1846 by Terence McMahon Hughes (1847)
CHAPTER XII.
Route from Trujillo to Merida – Miajadas – San Pedro – Newly projected road from Trujillo to Badajoz by Caceres – Merida – Its ancient history – Santa Eulalia – Merida remained a purely Roman town till the eighth century – Entered by the Moors in 715 – The Moorish Alcazar built – The town taken from the Moors in 1229 – The Roman bridge over the Guadiana – The Tajamar – El Conventual – The arch of Trajan – The Casa de los Cerdas – The Casa de los Corvos – The Forum – Remains of the great Roman aqueduct – The Circus Maximus – The ancient theatre – The Naumachia – The convent and chapel of Santa Eulalia – Breakfast at Merida – Lobon – Talavera le Real – Albuera – The battle – French misrepresentation and absurdity.
Badajoz, October 4, 1846.
FROM Trujillo, which is distant from this place twenty-four leagues, the road first passes through a very rough and stony district, crossing the river Salor by a small bridge. This first stage is usually called “El Confesionario de San Pedro,” in consequence of the number of travellers who are sent here by bandits to their last account, without the ceremony of previous confession. My Andalusian here kept an eye to his gun, which contained a very pretty leaden missive epistolary for the mala gente. Happily, however, there was no occasion for its use.
Two leagues further is the Puerto de Santa Cruz, situated on the slope of the Sierra of the same name, with 635 inhabitants, and a league further is Villamesia, with 778 inhabitants. Two leagues further is Miajadas, with 4250 inhabitants. Here there is an old castle in good preservation. The surrounding district produces wine, oil, grain, and flax; and the town has some linen looms and flower mills.
Here we passed a tribe of Gypsies, who stared at us with a kind of savage half-wonder, half-indifference, from the roadside, and as we stopped here to shift the team we had an opportunity of brushing with them a ten minutes acquaintance. The old men had nearly all a confirmed roguish look, while the young in their aspect had more of wildness than of fraud. A Gitano may be known universally in Spain, even more by the mode of wearing his hair than by the depth of his complexion. His hair is invariably worn long, in the wild, unthinned natural mat, and plaited generally in tails descending upon either cheek. His clothing is, for the most part, scanty. Seldom is he encumbered with the pressure of a coat, and if there be any covering on his head it is at most a coloured handkerchief carelessly tied en foulard, while in his hand he bears a long white peeled stick which supports his listless figure in an attitude of lazy repose. His complexion is for the most part a fine clear brown, which in the young men and women may be almost said to be beautiful, and his wild eyes stare at you like those of some untamed animal caught for an instant in the pathless solitudes of nature. The women and children of the tribe are stowed away on maillas or shaggy donkeys, and differ little from the men in appearance and attire; the old are withered hags, the young, with their luxuriant hair and magnificent eyes, provoke from men the attentions which their daring glances return, but a cuchillo is ready to repay too close an approach to familiarity.