Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-11-04
GRAnD0LDSALAMANCA
CONTINUED from First Page.)


| that in the spring every family of salam.
| anca buys lamb which. on the morning
Of Good Friday. is slaughtered upon the
threshold Of each house. For some reason
the act is performed by the youngest mem
Der of the family. n
He points out one of. the ancient monas-
teries, which he says was the richest In
Spain, and that the monks lived in such
luxury that they kept relays of mules con-
stantly running between Salamanca and
! Santandar in order that their fish might be
fresh for breakfast every morning.
Convent of Las Duenes.
The, convent of Las Duenes was also very
rich, having been founded by Santa Theresa,
who was born, lived and died in the old
town of Avila, near by. She was the most
remarkable woman in Spain during the six
teenth century after the death of Isabella.
and with Saint Ignatus Loyola restored
the vitality of the Roman church when 1t
was suffering from the assault of Protes-
tantism. Her character and career reminds
one of Catherine of Sienna. She came from
wealthy family named De Cepedes. Her
father was a man of Importance as well as
piety, and her mother a most excellent Wo-
man. Theresa was one of twelve children,
and seems to have been remarkable for her
piety from the time of her BIRTH Accord
ing to her biographer, she took little in
terest in anything but religion, spent her
time reading the lives of the saints and
martyrs, and when she was only eight
years old ran away from home with her
little brother. Rodrigo hoping to be mar
tyred by the Moors Naturally she went
into convent of Carmelite nuns and de-
voted her life to the organization of COM
munities of that order, founding no less
than thirty-two converts in different parts
OF Spain, raising the funds by her own eff
forts. She was seized with her last illness
while guest of the great Duchess Of Alva,
whose husband subdued the Netherlands,
but was removed to her own convent at
Avila. where she died October 4, 1882, with
the words upon her lips: "a broken and
contrite heart, o God, thou wilt not de-
spise.' She left many written works, which
have been translated into all languages
and circulated by millions. Love, and the
power of love, was the main theme of her
discourse, and she pitied Satan because,
poor wretch, he cannot love-"
The nuns of her convent at Salamanca
were all rich women, and belonged exclu-
sively to the nobility and aristocracy. Sew
eral members of the royal family have from
time to time been admitted to the institu-
ton And it's wealth surpassed that of any
other convent of Spain 1t was the custom
of the parents of novitates to give it the
same doweries that would have been given
their daughters if they had become brides
In that way and by legacies an enormous
estate was acquired but it was all confis-
Gated by the government many years ago
and the nuns are now entirely dependent
upon charity. They declare that every
night the angels hover around the seat once
occupied by st. Theresa in the choir; a
beautiful faith that even starvation cannot
destroy.
Railways in Spain.
To reach Salamanca you leave the main
line of the railway to Madrid at Medina del
Campo, where the trains switch off for Lis
bon. You have a distance of only forty
eight miles to go, but 1t is most tedious
Journey because you arrive and leave IN
the middle of the night, and have long
hours of waiting at stations that are dreary
and comfortless. The men who arrange the
railway time tables over here evidently
have a grudge against Salamanca and as a
consequence very few people ever visit the
venerable city. The hotels are no worse
than traveller has to put up with in most
of the Spanish cities. You wouldn't select
them If you had choice, but can endure
them for a day or two, and that is all you
need to stay. The town sits in dreary
plain 2,545 feet above the sea, with dis
tant view of snow-clad mountains. The
climate is very bad; in summer intolerably
hot, and in winter cold, bleak and windy.
A new railway Is being built across the
plains to Avila, thirty-five miles, which will
furnish a cutoff and save nearly eighty
miles of travel on the way to Madrid, but II
will not be finished for long time. Avia
is dear old town, with a wall forty-two
feet high surrounding it. 1t is said to be
the most perfect of the old Roman walls in
existence and furnishes architects and Ell
gineers an opportunity to study the military
architecture and engineering of the Ro-
mans The good people of Avila are not
modest. They boast that their town was
founded by the demi-gods, and that Her.
cules was once their king. And it is Curl
Gus to see the learned disquisitions pub
lished by archbishops, university professors
and other eminent scholars to sustain this
theory The cathedral is interesting chiefly
because it contains a beautiful renaissance
tomb of Prince Juan, the only son of Ferdi-
nand and Isabella, winch is considered the
finest example of its kind. Juan was edu-
Gated here, and died while a student at the
seminary. Avila was for many years the
home Of Torquemada, the great inquisitor
of Spain, and the monastery of ST. Thomas
was his favorite residence.
A House of Public Records.
There are many other interesting places
in the neghborhood of Salamanca. On the
carriage road from Valladolid is the old
Roman city of Simancas, now reduced to a
sleepy little village of a few hundred in
habitants, inclosed in massive walls, which
has been preserved from extinction by the
little business attracted here by the arch
ives of Spain. In the early part of the
sixteenth century Cardinal Ximinas estab-
Hshed at S.mancas a house of public rec
ords 1t was a statesnanlille thing to do,
and it is a pity his example was not im-
tated by other countries. Here in an
enormous building, erected for the pur-
pose are 33, O00, 0t0 documents, divided into
10000 classes, indexed and arranged in
chronological order, reaching back as far as
the introduction of1the art OF writ ng into the
kingdom, and coming down to the middle of
the last century. They were arranged I'M