The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1885-11-04
travelling in Spain.


ent, travelling in Spain, writes:
On the road / was curious TO see
how the orders of the home secreta-
nv prohibiting land quarantines and
.umigations, Tor persons, at least,
were observed, and at every stoppage
of few minutes L inquired how
matters stood. At Zumarrago, in
Guipuzoca, a station of Importance,
as lis the head of all the lines OF
coaches and diligences across a coun-
try full of bathing establishments
and beaches, irequented by thous-
ands in the summer months, found
that fumigations existed, and were
inflicted for several minutes on tray-
elers, for an hour or so on luggage I;
and the civil guards pithily remarked:
But Senior. ESQ Is nada-that Is
nothing-compared to what los al
caldes do at every town and village
in the interior; you cannot 60 TWEEN
ty miles without being fumigated,
and from Zumarraga 10 the coast,
or to Bilbao, you would not escape
four or FIVE experiences OF the
kind. "
After passing through many tun
nels, and some grand mountain
scenery, YOU reach Alsasua, the juno
ton station of the Navarro hne to
Pamplona in the Borunda valley, a
country famous for being the hotbed
OF Carlist risings. At Alsssua pas
sengers for Pamplona leave the Mad
rid mail train, and woe betide them
if they attempt during a long stop
page TO venture from the station TO
the little struggling village, where,
nine years ago, slept with the head
quarters of Don Alphonso, at the
end of the Carlisl war A very little
distance from the station civil guards
and civilians lie in wait for travellers
or luggage, and they oblige them to
submit to the fumes of disinfectants
so abominable that women often
faint, and men cough, sneeze, and
reich under this novel torment of
the inquisition of cholera. 1t is use
less TO demonstrate and tell the tor
mentors that the Home Secretary
forbids this vexatlOn, as you are
coolly told that rs possible-is it
possible-but only the Senior Alcal-
de and the local junta Of health give
orders here, and they must he OBJ
served" More striking, indeed, was
pretension to infiict fumigation no.
lens volens on sightseers from the
station, and a hasty retreat saved
the inquisitive strangers from this
village tyrany of sheer fear. 1t is
only short distance from Alsasua
to the capital of Navarro, but two
hours and. forty minutes are taken
to crawl over fifty-two kilometers,
and you pass six stations in a long
valley between the Pyrenean noun
tains and the sierras of Navarro. in
districts vet free from cholera. Your
fellow-travelers, mostly well-to-do
natives, a burly farmer and an off,
Ger, talk of nothing but cholera, and
here, as almost everywhere in pro-
vincial Spain, you ind that the ma
iority went heartily in for the land
quarantine precautions of Seno Ro-
nero Romeldo, the last Home Sec
retary, and they are greatly irritated
at his successor, Senior Villaverde,
for suppressing lazarets and sanitary
cordons. These Navarrese, for in
stance, told me that at the first out
break of cholera in South Spain in
May and June, they established such
rigorous land quarantines, laza-
rets and fumigatlons on the Ebro
and on their railway lines, and roads
that they remained free from chole-
ra until the month of July, when
the epidemic, they say, crept IN from
the South via Saragossa and Logro-
no. They confessed to nae that many
Villages in their mountains and
plains even still kept up their cor
dons, and in defiance of all the or
ders from Madrid, threaten to shoot
any one approaching their districts,
guarded night aud day by the arm.
ed peasantry. At Pamplona, capital
of Navarro, great precautions were
kept up until very lately, and no one
is allowed to enter the fortified city
without submitting to fumigation.
All the gates but two are closed, and
at these two entrances you have to
pass a medical inspection ard fumi.
gate, and your luggage is not allow
ed out Of the preventive fumes fol
several hours.