THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 





pression of confirmed melancholy. At 

 first I attributed this to his knowledge 

 that he was out of the modern picture. At 

 intervals he blew a long brass horn, fish- 

 monger style, so that I was entranced by 

 it and followed him. 



I had been watching the rope-walk 

 under the eaves of the church, where an 

 old man walked slowly backward all day 

 long, a wad of hemp fastened to his 

 girdle. He spun rope yarn from the spin- 

 dles that were whirled by the belt from 

 a wheel an irritated small boy turned. 

 Later he twisted the yarn into rope in the 

 same fashion. 



The crier had not recognized at all that 

 the time had passed for his leisurely 

 method of diffusing information. When 

 we reached the public square of Puig- 

 cerda, where a crowd waited the autobus 

 that was to carry us to Seo d'Urgel, it 

 became evident that his dejection had 

 been occasioned by the lack of a proper 

 audience. To the stranger and to the 

 curious small boy who had trailed the 

 stranger he had mumbled at intervals — 

 always preceded by a stirring blast upon 

 the trumpet — that a thrilling film of the 

 life and adventures of Cristoforo Co- 

 lombo was to be presented that very 

 evening at the municipal theater. 



AN ART IN TOWN CRYING 



But in the presence of the throng in 

 the public square, before that Hotel de 

 Ville that was built in 1400, and which 

 still bears the half-obliterated wheat 

 sheaves of Puigcerda's arms on its walls, 

 he became a different person. He regis- 

 tered emotion, as a movie man would 

 say. His voice soared until it reached 

 an oratorical climax, and then dropped 

 to low and thrilling tones as he dwelt 

 upon the pathos of this marvelous film. 

 We who waited fairly hung upon his 

 words. There is an art in town crying. 



With every revolution of the wheels 

 of the autobus toward Seo d'Urgel we 

 moved farther toward the days of the 

 Knight of the Mancha. Oxen began to 

 wear fringed and beaded veils upon their 

 patient faces. Men came down from the 

 hillside farms, driving before them don- 

 keys on whose pack-saddles were racks 

 resembling five barred gates on which 



Photograph by Herbert Corey 

 THE) NEUTRAL ROAD TO TUVIA 



The wall at the right and the water which 

 chatters in the stone-lined irrigating ditch at 

 the left are in France, but the road is neutral. 



wheat sheaves were tied. Wheeled vehi- 

 cles are current only on the main roads. 

 Pack-mules jingled with bells and wore 

 heavily brassed saddles on which every 

 form of package was securely roped. 

 The authentic diamond hitch was in use 

 everywhere, so that one saw where the 

 art of our Western packers was born. 

 Chains stretched across the roads at the 

 posts of the Guardia Civile stopped traffic 

 for examination. 



On the hilltops are the remains of cas- 

 tles and fortified farms, reminders of the 

 days, not so far distant, when each man 

 took what he could and held what he 

 might. The twin inventions of repeat- 

 ing firearms and the Guardia Civile have 

 made rural life in Spain fairly safe now 

 and the bandit no longer roams upon 

 these roads. Nevertheless, the passer-by 

 sometimes carried a rifle in the crook of 



