There Is Something Similar In The History
Of The Greatest Of Spanish Writers.
No man knew, for more than a century
after the death of Cervantes, the place of his birth and burial.
About a
hundred years ago the investigations of Rios and Pellicer established
the claim of Alcala de Henares to be his native city; and last year the
researches of the Spanish Academy have proved conclusively that he is
buried in the Convent of the Trinitarians in Madrid. But the precise
spot where he was born is only indicated by vague tradition; and the
shadowy conjecture that has so long hallowed the chapel and cloisters of
the Calle Cantarranas has never settled upon any one slab of their
pavement.
It is, however, only the beginning and the end of this most chivalrous
and genial apparition of the sixteenth century that is concealed from
our view. We know where he was christened and where he died. So that
there are sufficiently authentic shrines in Alcala and Madrid to satisfy
the most sceptical pilgrims.
I went to Alcala one summer day, when the bare fields were brown and dry
in their after-harvest nudity, and the hills that bordered the winding
Henares were drab in the light and purple in the shadow. From a distance
the town is one of the most imposing in Castile. It lies in the midst of
a vast plain by the green water-side, and the land approach is fortified
by a most impressive wall emphasized by sturdy square towers and
flanking bastions.
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