“This abundance of pigs is a peculiarity of Santiago,” was the reply. “You will find it nowhere else; they live amongst us, even in our best streets; there are two pigs living now in a family on the second floor in the principal street in the town close to our finest shops; a thin partition is all that separates them at night from the children’s bedroom. Our streets are full of pigs; it is dreadful.”
On my mentioning the matter to my hostess, she replied, “Yes, it is quite true; but we have other animals besides pigs--on the second floor of the house you can see from your window there are two young goats being brought up as members of the family.”
But pigs and goats must have been plentiful in the town of Orense as far back as the first decade of the sixteenth century, for one of that city’s most erudite archæologists tells us that among the By-Laws of Orense in the year 1509 he has found the following:--
“That pigs shall not walk in the streets, and that those which are found doing so shall be given to the poor, and their owners be fined.
“That no one shall keep a female pig in his house, nor in the city. That no one shall feed any pig in the streets, and that any one may put to death on the spot persons so doing.
“That no person shall keep sheep or goats in the city. Persons found guilty shall be exposed to the vengeance of the public in the _picota_ or _pelouryno_ of the city.”[216]
The churches of villages and small towns are carefully surrounded by walls or fences, enclosing sometimes a churchyard and sometimes merely a small plot of grass; and, in order that the pigs of the neighbourhood may not enter that enclosed space by the gate, a trench is kept open in front of the gate, a kind of diminutive moat about five feet in depth. On first noticing this arrangement I put it down to quite another cause, and thought that the “drains were up,” but after a time I began to consider the phenomenon more closely, as it seemed incredible that “drains” could explain the presence of so many open trenches. “It is a custom peculiar to Galicia,” explained a lady resident, “because of the pigs.” A pig would never jump a trench.
My readers will not be surprised to learn that bacon is an important staple of food in Galicia. The national broth, _Caldo Gallego_, as known to the well-to-do, could hardly be made without it, neither could the _olla podrida_.