The Cave Of Covadonga

Tarik landed in Spain in April, 711. So rapid were the Arabs in conquest

that in two years from that date nearly the whole peninsula was in their

hands. Not quite all, or history might have another story to relate. In a

remote province of the once proud kingdom--a rugged northwest corner--a few

of its fugitive sons remained in freedom, left alone by the Arabs partly

through scorn, partly on account of the rude and difficult charact r of

their place of refuge. The conquerors despised them, yet this slender

group was to form the basis of the Spain we know to-day, and to expand and

spread until the conquerors would be driven from Spanish soil.



The Goths had fled in all directions from their conquerors, taking with

them such of their valuables as they could carry, some crossing the

Pyrenees to France, some hiding in the mountain valleys, some seeking a

place of refuge in the Asturias, a rough hill country cut up in all

directions by steep, scarped rocks, narrow defiles, deep ravines, and

tangled thickets. Here the formidable Moslem cavalry could not pursue

them; here no army could deploy; here ten men might defy a hundred. The

place was far from inviting to the conquerors, but in it was sown the seed

of modern Spain.



A motley crew it was that gathered in this rugged region, a medley of

fugitives of all ranks and stations,--soldiers, farmers, and artisans;

nobles and vassals; bishops and monks; men, women, and children,--brought

together by a terror that banished all distinctions of rank and avocation.

For a number of years this small band of fugitive Christians, gathered

between the mountains and the sea in northwestern Spain, remained quiet,

desiring only to be overlooked or disregarded by the conquerors. But in

the year 717 a leader came to them, and Spain once more lifted her head in

defiance of her invaders.



Pelayo, the leader named, is a hero shrouded in mist. Fable surrounds him;

a circle of romantic stories have budded from his name. He is to us like

his modern namesake, the one battle-ship of Spain, which, during the

recent war, wandered up and down the Mediterranean with no object in view

that any foreigner could discover. Of the original Pelayo, some who

profess to know say that he was of the highest rank,--young, handsome, and

heroic, one who had fought under Roderic at the Guadalete, had been held

by the Arabs as a hostage at Cordova, and had escaped to his native hills,

there to infuse new life and hope into the hearts of the fugitive group.



Ibun Hayyan, an Arabian chronicler, gives the following fanciful account

of Pelayo and his feeble band. "The commencement of the rebellion happened

thus: there remained no city, town, or village in Galicia but what was in

the hands of the Moslems with the exception of a steep mountain, on which

this Pelayo took refuge with a handful of men. There his followers went on

dying through hunger until he saw their numbers reduced to about thirty

men and ten women, having no other food for support than the honey which

they gathered in the crevices of the rock, which they themselves inhabited

like so many bees. However, Pelayo and his men fortified themselves by

degrees in the passes of the mountain until the Moslems were made

acquainted with their preparations; but, perceiving how few they were,

they heeded not the advice given to them, but allowed them to gather

strength, saying, 'What are thirty barbarians perched upon a rock? They

must inevitably die.'"



Die they did not, that feeble relic of Spain on the mountain-side, though

long their only care was for shelter and safety. Here Pelayo cheered them,

doing his utmost to implant new courage in their fearful hearts. At length

the day came when Spain could again assume a defiant attitude, and in the

mountain valley of Caggas de Onis Pelayo raised the old Gothic standard

and ordered the beating of the drums. Beyond the sound of the long roll

went his messengers seeking warriors in valley and glen, and soon his

little band had grown to a thousand stalwart men, filled with his spirit

and breathing defiance to the Moslem conquerors. That was an eventful day

for Spain, in which her crushed people again lifted their heads.



It was a varied throng that gathered around Pelayo's banner. Sons of the

Goths and the Romans were mingled with descendants of the more ancient

Celts and Iberians. Representatives of all the races that had overrun

Spain were there gathered, speaking a dozen dialects, yet instinct with a

single spirit. From them the modern Spaniard was to come, no longer Gothic

or Roman, but a descendant of all the tribes and races that had peopled

Spain. Some of them carried the swords and shields they had wielded in the

battle of the Guadalete, others brought the rude weapons of the

mountaineers. But among them were strong hands and stout hearts, summoned

by the drums of Pelayo to the reconquest of Spain.



Word soon came to Al Horr, the new emir of Spain, that a handful of

Christians were in arms in the mountains of the northwest, and he took

instant steps to crush this presumptuous gathering, sending his trusty

general Al Kamah with a force that seemed abundant to destroy Pelayo and

his rebel band.



Warning of the approach of the Moslem foe was quickly brought to the

Spanish leader, who at once left his place of assembly for the cave of

Covadonga, a natural fortress in Eastern Asturia, some five miles from

Caggas de Onis, which he had selected as a place strikingly adapted to a

defensive stand. Here rise three mountain-peaks to a height of nearly four

thousand feet, enclosing a small circular valley, across which rushes the

swift Diva, a stream issuing from Mount Orandi. At the base of Mount

Auseva, the western peak, rises a detached rock, one hundred and seventy

feet high, projecting from the mountain in the form of an arch. At a short

distance above its foot is visible the celebrated cave or grotto of

Covadonga, an opening forty feet wide, twelve feet high, and extending

twenty-five feet into the rock.



The river sweeps out through a narrow and rocky defile, at whose narrowest

part the banks rise in precipitous walls. Down this ravine the stream

rushes in rapids and cascades, at one point forming a picturesque

waterfall seventy-five feet in height. Only through this straitened path

can the cave be reached, and this narrow ravine and the valley within

Pelayo proposed to hold with his slender and ill-armed force.



Proudly onward came the Moslem captain, full of confidence in his powerful

force and despising his handful of opponents. Pelayo drew him on into the

narrow river passage by a clever stratagem. He had posted a small force at

the mouth of the pass, bidding them to take to flight after a discharge of

arrows. His plan worked well, the seeming retreat giving assurance to the

Moslems, who rushed forward in pursuit along the narrow ledge that borders

the Diva, and soon emerged into the broader path that opens into the

valley of Covadonga.



They had incautiously entered a cul-de-sac, in which their numbers were

of no avail, and where a handful of men could hold an army at bay. A small

body of the best armed of the Spaniards occupied the cave, the others

being placed in ambush among the chestnut-trees that covered the heights

above the Diva. All kept silent until the Moslem advance had emerged into

the valley. Then the battle began, one of the most famous conflicts in the

whole history of Spain, famous not for the numbers engaged, but for the

issue involved. The future of Spain dwelt in the hands of that group of

patriots. The fight in the valley was sharp, but one-sided. The Moslem

arrows rebounded harmlessly from the rocky sides of the cave, whose

entrance could be reached only by a ladder, while the Christians, hurling

their missiles from their point of vantage into the crowded mass below,

punished them so severely that the advance was forced back upon those that

crowded the defile in the rear. Al Kamah, finding his army recoiling in

dismay and confusion, and discovering too late his error, ordered a

retreat; but no sooner had a reverse movement been instituted than the

ambushed Christians on the heights began their deadly work, hurling huge

stones and fallen trees into the defile, killing the Moslems by hundreds,

and choking up the pass until flight became impossible.



The panic was complete. From every side the Christians rushed upon the

foe. Pelayo, bearing a cross of oak and crying that the Lord was fighting

for his people, leaped downward from the cave, followed by his men, who

fell with irresistible fury on the foe, forcing them backward under the

brow of Mount Auseva, where Al Kamah strove to make a stand.



The elements now came to the aid of the Christians, a furious storm

arising whose thunders reverberated among the rocks, while lightnings

flashed luridly in the eyes of the terrified troops. The rain poured in

blinding torrents, and soon the Diva, swollen with the sudden fall, rose

into a flood, and swept away many of those who were crowded on its

slippery banks. The heavens seemed leagued with the Christians against the

Moslem host, whose destruction was so thorough that, if we can credit the

chronicles, not a man of the proud army escaped.



This is doubtless an exaggeration, but the victory of Pelayo was complete

and the first great step in the reconquest of Spain was taken. The year

was 717, six years after the landing of the Arabs and the defeat of the

Goths.



Thus ended perhaps the most decisive battle in the history of Spain. With

it new Spain began. The cave of Covadonga is still a place of pilgrimage

for the Spanish patriot, a stairway of marble replacing the ladder used by

Pelayo and his men. We may tell what followed in a few words. Their

terrible defeat cleared the territory of the Austurias of Moslem soldiers.

From every side fugitive Christians left their mountain retreats to seek

the standard of Pelayo. Soon the patriotic and daring leader had an army

under his command, by whom he was chosen king of Christian Spain.



The Moslems made no further attack. They were discouraged by their defeat

and were engaged in a project for the invasion of Gaul that required their

utmost force. Pelayo slowly and cautiously extended his dominions,

descending from the mountains into the plains and valleys, and organizing

his new kingdom in civil as well as in military affairs. All the men under

his control were taught to bear arms, fortifications were built, the

ground was planted, and industry revived. Territory which the Moslems had

abandoned was occupied, and from a group of soldiers in a mountain cavern

a new nation began to emerge.



Pelayo died at Caggas de Onis in the year 737, twenty years after his

great victory. After his death the work he had begun was carried forward,

until by the year 800 the Spanish dominion had extended over much of Old

Castile,--so called from its numerous castles. In a hundred years more it

had extended to the borders of New Castile. The work of reconquest was

slowly but surely under way.














BARONIAL CASTLE IN OLD CASTILE.