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THE Spain that we love and of which we write is not the Spain of tourist or globe-trotter. These hold main routes, the highways from city to city; few so much as venture upon the bye-ways. Our Spain begins where bye-ways end. We write of her pathless solitudes, of desolate steppe and prairie, of marsh and mountain-land—of her majestic sierras, some well-nigh inaccessible, and, in many an instance, untrodden by British foot save our own. Lonely scenes these, yet glorified by primeval beauty and wealth of wild-life. As naturalists—that is, merely as born lovers of all that is wild, and big, and pristine—we thank the guiding destiny that early directed our steps towards a land that is probably the wildest and certainly the least known of all in Europe—a land worthy of better cicerones than ourselves.

Do not let us appear to disparage the other Spain. The tourist enjoys another land overflowing with historic and artistic interest—with memorials of mediæval romance, and of stirring times when wave after wave of successive conquest swept the Peninsula. Such subjects, however, fall wholly outside the province of this book: nor do they lack historians a thousand-fold better qualified to tell their tale.

The first cause that differentiates Spain from other European countries of equal area is her high general elevation. This fact must jump to the eye of every observant traveller who books his seat by the Sûd-express to the Mediterranean. Better still, for our purpose, let him commence his journey, say at the Tweed. From Berwick southwards through the heart of England to London: from London to Paris, and right across France—all the way he traverses low-lying levels; fat pastures, fertile and tilled to the last acre. His aneroid tells him he has seldom risen above sea-level by more than a few hundred feet; and never once has his train passed through mountains—hardly even through hills; he can scarce be said to have had a real mountain within the range of his vision in all these 1200 miles.

Now he crosses the Bidassoa … the whole world changes! At once his train plunges into interminable Pyrenees, and ere it clears these, he has ascended to a permanent highland level—a tawny treeless steppe that averages 2000-feet altitude, and sometimes approaches 3000, traversed by range after range of rugged mountains that arise all around him to four, five, or six thousand feet. Railways, moreover, avoid mountains (so far as they can). Our traveller, therefore, must bear in mind that what he actually sees is but the mildest and tamest version of Spanish sierras. There are bits here and there that he may have thought anything but tame—only tame by comparison with those grander scenes to which we propose guiding him.

For the next 500 miles he never quits that austere highland altitude nor ever quite loses sight of jagged peaks that pierce the skies—peaks of that hoary cinder-grey that shows up almost white against an azure background. Never does he descend till, after leaving behind him three kingdoms—Arragon, Navarre, and Castile—his train plunges through the Sierra Moréna, down the gorges of Despeñaperros, and at length on the third day enters upon the smiling lowlands of Andalucia. Here the aneroid rises once more to rational readings, and fertile vegas spread away to the horizon. But our traveller is not even now quite clear of mountains. Whether he be booked to Malaga or to Algeciras, he will presently find himself enveloped once more amidst some fairly stupendous rocks—the Gaëtánes or Serranía de Ronda respectively.

Spain is, in fact, largely an elevated table-land, 400 miles square, and traversed by four main mountain-ranges, all (like her great rivers) running east and west. The only considerable areas of lowland are found in Andalucia and Valencia.

Naturally such physical features result in marked variations of climate and scene, which in turn react upon their productions and denizens, whether human or of savage breed. We take three examples.

Types of Spanish Bird-Life LAMMERGEYER (Gypaëtus barbatus) Whose home is in the wildest Sierras—a weird dragon-like bird-form; expanse, 9 feet. [Formerly reputed to carry off babies to its eyrie.]

The central table-lands, subject all summer to solar rays that burn, in winter shelterless from biting blasts off snow-clad sierras, present precisely that landscape of desperate desolation that always results from a maximum of sunshine combined with a minimum of rainfall. A desiccated downland, khaki-colour or calcareous by turn, but bare (save for a few weeks in spring) of green thing, naked of bush or shrub, innocent even of grass. Not a tree grows so far as eye can reach, not a watercourse but is stone-dry and leaves the impress that it has been so since time began. Oh, it is an unlovely landscape, that central plateau. ’Twere ungrateful, nevertheless (and unjust too), to forget that here we are journeying in a glory of atmosphere, brilliant in aggressive radiance that annihilates distance and revels in space. Though patches of vine-growth be lost in the monotony of tawny expanse, mud-built hamlet and village church indistinguishable amidst a universal khaki, yet this is, in truth, a kingdom of the sun. The great bustard maintains a foothold on these arid uplands, but the fauna is best exemplified by the desert-loving sand-grouse (Pterocles arenarius).

Precisely the reverse of all this is Cantabria—the Basque provinces of the north, with Galicia and the Asturias. There, bordering on the Biscayan Sea, you find a region absolutely Scandinavian in type—pinnacled peaks, precipitous beyond all rivals even in Spain, with deep-rifted valleys between, rushing salmon-rivers and mountain-torrents abounding in trout. Here the fauna is alpine, if not subarctic, and includes the brown bear and chamois, the ptarmigan, hazel-grouse, and capercaillie.

Cantabria is a region of rock, snow, and mist-wraith; of birch and pine-forest—the very antithesis of the third region, that next concerns us, the smiling plains of Andalucia and Valencia nestling on Mediterranean shore. Here for eight months out of the twelve one lives in a paradise; but the summer is African in its burden of heat and discomfort. Every green thing outside the vineyard and irrigated garden is burnt up by a fiery sun, a sun that changes not, but, day following day, grips the land in a blistering embrace. Climatic conditions such as these reacting on a race already infused with Arab blood naturally conduce to Oriental modes of life. Yet even here we have examples of the curious contradictions that characterise this pays de l’imprévu. Thus within sight of one another, there flourish on the vega below the date-palm and sugar-cane, while the ice-defying edelweiss embellishes the snows above—arctic and tropic in one.

Such extremes of climate react, as suggested, upon the character of the human inhabitants of a land which includes within its boundaries nearly all the physical conditions of Europe and North Africa. From the north, as might be expected, comes the worker—the sturdy laborious Galician, disdained and despised by his Andalucian brother, regarded as lacking in dignity—the very name Gallego is a term of reproach. But he is a happy and contented hewer of wood and drawer of water, that Gallego: throughout Spain he carries the baskets, bears the burdens, cleans the floors; and finally returns, a rich man, to his barren hills of Galicia.

The Andalucian will condescend to tend your cattle or garden, to drive your horses or ponies: and such offices he will perform well; but anything menial, or what he might regard as derogatory, he prefers—instinctively, not offensively—to leave to the Galician. From Castile and Navarre comes a different caste, stately and aristocratic by nature, yet with fiery temperament concealed beneath subdued exterior—honestly, we prefer both the preceding exemplars. The Catalan comes next, pushing and effervescent, all for his own little corner, his factories and his trade—impregnated, every man, with a sort of cinematograph of advanced views on social and political questions of the day—borrowed mostly from his up-to-date neighbours beyond the Pyrenees, yet grafted on to old-world fueros, or franchises, that date back to the times of the Counts of Barcelona.[1] Perhaps the most perfect example of contemporary natural nobility is afforded by the peasant-proprietor of pastoral León; then there is the Basque of Biscay, Tartar-sprung or Turanian, Finnic, or surviving aboriginal—let philologists decide. Among Spain’s manifold human types, we suggest to ethnologists (and suggested before, twenty years ago) the study of a surviving remnant that still clings secreted, lonely as lepers, in the far-away mountains of Northern Estremadura—the Hurdes. These wild tribes of unknown origin (presumed to be Gothic) live apart from Spain, four thousand of them, a root-grubbing race of homo sylvestris, squatted in a land without written history or record, where all is traditional even to the holding of the soil. Not a title-deed or other document exists; yet this is a region of considerable extent—say fifty miles by thirty. A recent pilgrimage to these forgotten glens enables us to give, in another chapter, some contemporary facts about “Las Hurdes.”

Throughout Spain the people of the “lower orders”—the peasantry—strike those who leave the beaten tracks by their independence and manly bearing. North or south, east or west, an infinite variety of races differing in habit and character, even in tongue, yet all agreeing in their solid manliness, in straight-forward honesty, in what the Romans entitled virtus—fine types save where contaminated by empléomania, call that “officialdom” (one of the twin curses of Spain). Largely there exists here ground-work for the rebuilding of Spanish greatness—such a land awaits but the wand of a magician to recall its people to front rank. Neither by despotic methods nor by the power that is only demonstrated by violence will the change be brought about, but by the enlightenment that has learnt to leave unimitated the follies of the past, and unused the forces of coercion.

Such a leader, we believe, to-day wields that wand. May he be spared to restore the destinies of his country.

It was in Spain, remember, that, more than 2000 years ago, the fate of Carthage and, later, that of Rome was decided. To the latter Imperial city Spain had given poets, philosophers, and emperors. It was in Spain that there dawned the earlier glimmerings of popular liberties, as such are now understood. Self-government with municipal rights were recognised by the Cortes of León previous to our Magna Charta. Individual guarantees, freedom of person and contract, and the inviolability of the home were granted by the Cortes of Zaragoza in 1348—more than three centuries before our Habeas Corpus was signed in 1679. A land with such traditions and achievements, with its twenty millions of inhabitants, cannot long be held back outside the trend of liberal expansion.

The pursuit of game, alike with other aspects of Spanish things, is not exempt from startling surprises. A ramble through the cistus-scrub, with no more exciting object than shooting a few redlegs, may result in bagging a lynx; or a handful of snipe from some cane-brake be augmented by the addition of a wild-boar. It is not that game abounds, but that the country is wide and wild, abandoned to natural state and combining conditions congenial to animal-life. Of the big-game that is obtained or of its habitats, there is no approximate estimate, nor do precise knowledge or records exist. Each village in the sierra or higher mountain-region lives its own life apart. Communication with other places is rare and difficult, nor is it sought. One must go oneself to the spot to ascertain with any sort of accuracy what game has been, or may be obtained thereat. This means finding out every fact at first-hand, for no reliance can be placed on reports or hearsay evidence. Nor does this remark apply to game alone: it applies universally in wilder Spain. The Englishman straying in these lone scenes finds himself amongst a kindly but independent people where sympathy and a knowledge of the language carry him further than money. Where all are Caballeros, neither titles nor wealth impress or subdue. The wanderer is free to join his new-made friends in the chase, taking equal chance with keen sportsmen and on terms of equality. He will find his nationality a passport to their liking, and soon discover that Arab hospitality has left an abiding impress in these wild regions; as, indeed, Moorish domination has done on every Spanish thing.

That last sentence sums up an ever-present and essential factor. In any description of this country, however superficial, this Oriental heritage must always be borne in mind as an influence of first importance. Previous to the Arab inrush, Spain had enjoyed practically no organic national existence. The Peninsula was occupied by a cluster of separate kingdoms, not united nor even homogeneous, and usually one or another at war with its neighbour. Neither Roman nor Goth had fused the Spanish races into a concrete whole during their eight centuries of overlordship. In A.D. 711 occurred a decisive day. Then, on Guadalete’s plain, below the walls of Jerez, that impetuous Arab chieftain Tarik overthrew the Gothic King Roderick and with him the power of Spain. Like an overwhelming flood, the Arabs swept across the land. Within two years (by 713) the insignia of the Crescent floated above every castle and tower, and Moslem rule was absolute throughout the country—excepting only in the wild northern mountains of Asturias, whence the tenacity of the mountaineers, guided by the genius of Pelayo, flung back the tide of war.

Types of Spanish Bird-Life WOODCHAT SHRIKE (Lanius pomeranus)

Spanish history for the next seven centuries (711–1492) records “Moorish domination.” Now history, as such, lies outside our scope; but we become concerned where Arab systems, and their methods of colonisation, have altered the face of the earth and left enduring marks on wilder Spain. And we may, beyond that, be allowed to interpolate a remark or two in elucidation of what sometimes appear popular misconceptions on these and subsequent events. Thus, during the period denominated “domination,” the Arab conquerors enjoyed no peaceful or undisputed possession. During all those centuries there continued one long succession of wars—intermittent attempts, successful and the reverse, at reconquest by the Christian power. Here a patch of ground, a city, or a province was regained; presently, perhaps, to be lost a second or a third time. Never for long was there a final acceptance of the major force. But during the interludes, the periods of rest between struggles, the two contending races lived in more or less friendly intercourse, exchanging courtesies and even maintaining a stout rivalry in those warlike forms of sport which in mediæval times formed but a substitute for war. It was thence that the custom of bull-fighting took its rise. If not fighting Arabs, fight bulls, and so prepare for the more strenuous contest. Such conditions could not but have tended towards greater coherence among the various elements on the Christian side, except for the incessant internecine rivalries between the Christians themselves. A Spanish knight or kinglet would invoke the aid of his nation’s foe to consolidate or establish his own petty estate. Christians with Moslem auxiliaries fought Moslems reinforced by Christian renegades.

The Moorish invader had to fight for his possession—every yard of it. Yet despite that, this energetic race found time to colonise, to develop and enrich the subjugated region with a thoroughness the evidence of which faces us to-day. We do not refer to their cities or to such monuments in stone as the Mezquita or Alhambra, but to their introduction into rural Spain of much of what to-day constitutes chief sources of the country’s wealth, and which might have been enormously increased had Moorish methods been followed up. The Koran expressly ordains and directs the introduction of all available fruits or plants suitable to soil that came, or comes, under Moslem dominion. “The man who plants or sows the seed of anything which, with the fruit thereof, gives sustenance to man, bird or beast does an action as commendable as charity”—so wrote one of their philosophers. “He who builds a house and plants trees and who oppresses no one, nor lacks justice, will receive abundant reward from the Almighty.” There you have the religion both of the good man and the good colonist. These precepts the Moors habitually and energetically carried out to the letter. Arboriculture was universal: the provinces of Valencia, Cordoba, and Toledo they filled with trees—fruit-trees and timber. In the warm valleys of the coast and in the sheltered glens of the mountains they acclimatised exotic fruits, plants, and vegetables hitherto restricted to the more benign climes of the East or to Afric’s scorching strand. Sugar-cane flourished in such luxuriance as to leave available a heavy margin for export. The fig-tree and carob, quince and date-palm, the cotton-plant and orange, with other aromatic and medicinal herbs, together with aloes and the anachronous-looking prickly-pear (Cactus), its amorphous lobes reminiscent of the Pleistocene, were all brought over for the use and benefit, the delight and profit of Europe. Of these, the orange to-day forms one of Spain’s most valuable exports, representing some three millions sterling per annum.

Types of Spanish Bird-Life GRIFFON VULTURE (Gyps fulvus) Abounds all over Spain: sketched while drying his wings after a thunderstorm, in the Sierra de San Cristobal, Jerez.

Silk and its manufacture represented another immense source of wealth and industry introduced into Spain—to-day extinct. The Moors covered Andalucia with mulberry-groves: in Granada alone ran 5000 looms for the weaving of the fibre, and the streets of the Zacatin and the Alcarcería became world-markets, where every variety of costly stuffs were bought and sold—tafetans, velvets, and richest textures that surpassed in quality and brilliancy of tint even the far-famed products of Piza, Florence, and the Levantine cities which since Roman days had monopolised the silk-supply of the world. These now found their wares displaced by Spanish silks; even the sumptuous “creations” of Persia and China met with a dangerous rivalry.

Such was the technical skill and success of the Moors in agriculture and acclimatisation that, on the eventual conquest and final expulsion of their race from Spain, overtures were made with a view of inducing a certain proportion to remain, lest Spain might lose every expert she possessed in these essential pursuits. Six families in every hundred were promised amnesty on condition of remaining, but none accepted the offer. Deep as was their love for Spain—so deep that the departing Moors are related to have knelt and kissed its strand ere embarking, broken-hearted, for Africa—yet not a man of them but refused to remain as vassals where, for centuries, they had lived as lords.

Such were the Moors—strong in war, yet equally strong in all the arts and enterprises of peace, filled with energy, an industrious and a practical race. It is safe to say that under their regime the resources of this difficult land were being developed to their utmost capacity.[2]

Of the final expulsion of the Moors (and that of the Jews was analogous) ’tis not for us to write. Yet, for Spain, both events proved momentous, and, along with the antecedent practices of the Moriscos, provide side-lights on history that are worth consideration.[3]

The subjoined statistics give the state of Spanish agriculture at the present day, the total acreage being taken as 50,451,688 hectares (2½ acres each):—

		Hectares.
Cultivated		21,702,880
Uncultivated:—
Pasture, scrub, and wood	24,055,547
Unproductive	4,693,261
Total		28,748,808
Grand Total		50,451,688

These figures demonstrate precisely the extent of the authors’ condominium in Spain—well over one-half the country! With the area under cultivation (say 43 per cent), we have but one concern—the Great Bustard. The remaining 57 per cent pertain absolutely to our province—Wilder Spain. The term scrub or brushwood (in Spanish monte), though by a sort of courtesy it may be ranked as “pasture”—and parts of it do support herds of sheep and goats—implies as a rule the wildest of rough covert and jungle, rougher far than a Scottish deer-forest; and this monte clothes well-nigh one-half of Spain.

Such figures may appear to infer considerable apathy and lack of effort as regards agriculture. ’Twere, nevertheless, a false assumption to conclude that Spanish mountaineers are an idle race—quite the reverse, as is repeatedly demonstrated in this book. In the hills every acre of available soil is utilised, often at what appears excessive labour—maybe it is a patch so tiny as hardly to seem worth the tilling, or so terribly steep that none save a serrano could keep a foothold, much less plough, sow, and reap.

The main explanation of the immense percentage of waste lies in the fact first set forth—the high general elevation of Spain; and, secondly, in her mountainous character.

Whether these or any other extenuating circumstances apply to the corn-lands, we are not sufficiently expert in such subjects as to express a confident opinion. But we think not. So antiquated, wasteful, and utterly inefficient have been Spanish methods of agriculture, that a land which might be one of the granaries of Europe is actually to some extent dependent on foreign grain, and that despite an import-duty! A distinct movement is, nevertheless, perceptible in the direction of employing modern agricultural machinery, chemical manures, and such-like. Irrigation in a land whose head-waters can be tapped at 2000 feet and upwards could be carried out on a larger scale and at cheaper rates than in any other European country—yet it is practically neglected; no considerable extension has been made to the two million acres of irrigated lands that existed when we last wrote, twenty years ago, although the ruined aqueducts of Roman, Goth, and Moor are ever present to suggest the silent lesson of former foresight and prosperity.

WOODEN PLOUGH-SHARE (As still commonly used.)

One incidental circumstance of rural Spain, the fatal effects of which are all-penetrating (though it will never be altered), is absenteeism on the part of landowners. Not even a tenant-farmer will live on his holding. No, he must have his town-house, and employ an administrator or agent to superintend the farm, only visiting it himself at rare intervals. Oh! that hideous nightmare, the hireling, how his dead-weight of apathy and dishonesty at secondhand crushes out every spark of interest and enterprise, and breeds in their stead a rampant crop of all the petty vices and frauds that prey on industry. But that evil can hardly be eradicated.

What we British understand by the expression “country life” totally fails to commend itself to the more gregarious peoples of the south. Rich and poor alike, from grandee to day-labourer, the Spanish ignore and disdain the joys of the country. They call it the campo and the campo they detest. Each nightfall must see every man of them, irrespective of class, assembled within the walls of their beloved town or city, irresistibly attracted to street-girt abode—be it humblest cot or sumptuous palace (and one stands next door to the other). Even suburban existence is eschewed. There are no outer fringes to a Spanish town. No straggling “villa residences,” no Laburnum Lodge or River-View “ornament” the extramural solitude. Back at dusk all hie, crowding to the paséo, to club or casino, to social gathering and games of chance or (more rarely) of skill. That ubiquitous term “animacion,” which may be translated gossip, chatter, light-hearted intercourse, fulfils the ideals of life. Its more serious side—reading, study, scientific pursuit—have little place; seldom does one see a library in any Spanish home, urban or rural.

None can accuse the authors of desiring to use a comparison (proverbially odious) to the detriment of our Spanish friends. The above is merely a record of patent facts that must quickly become obvious to the least observant. It is but a definition of divergent idiosyncrasies as between different human genera. And remember that we in England have recently been told that our rural system is fraught with unseen and unsuspected evil. Into those wider questions we have no intention of entering. But at least our impressions are based upon personal experience of both lines of life, while much of the vituperation recently poured upon rural England is derived from a view of but one, and not a very clear view at that.

Where the owner—big or little, but the more of them the better—lives on the land, that land and the country at large benefit to a degree that is demonstrated with singular clearness by seeing the converse system as it is practised in Spain to-day. Here no one, owner or tenant—still less the hireling—takes any living interest (to say nothing of pride) in his possession or occupation beyond that very short-sighted “interest” of squeezing the utmost out of it from day to day. Ancient forests are cut down and burnt into charcoal, and rarely a tree replanted or a thought given to the resulting effects on rainfall or climate. As to beauty of landscape—what matter such æsthetic notions when the owner lives a hundred miles away? The collateral fact that, to a great extent, nature’s beauty and nature’s gifts are analogous and interdependent is ignored. Such simple issues are too insignificant, and too little understood, for frothy rhetoricians to reflect upon: the latter, moreover, like Gallio (and Pontius Pilate) care for none of these things.

A characteristic that differentiates the Spaniard, north or south, from other (more modern) nationalities, is a comparative indifference in money matters. Now a Spaniard requires money for his daily needs as much as the others; yet he never sinks to the level of total absorption in his pursuit of the dollar. Put that down to apathy, if you will—or to pride; at least there is dignity in the attribute. The leading Spanish newspapers quote the various market fluctuations and changes in value from day to day. Sometimes, possibly, the report may read sin operaciones, but never will you see conspicuously protruded, as a main item in the morning’s news, the headline “Wall Street.” There is (or was) dignity in commerce, and there may yet be readers in England who silently wish that such matters were relegated to their proper position—the monetary columns.

Types of Spanish Bird-Life CETTI’S WARBLER (Sylvia cettii) A winter songster, abundant but rarely seen, skulking in densest brakes.

The chief financial flutter that interests is the Government lottery which is held every fortnight, and at which all classes lose their money; but the National Treasury profits to the tune of three millions sterling yearly. Spain is the home of “chance”: that element appeals to Spanish character. Thus in bull-fighting (the one popular pastime) the name applied to each of its formulated exploits is suerte—chance.

SPAIN is frequently accused of being a land of mañana. Hardly can we call to mind a book on the country in which some play on that word does not figure. But procrastination is not confined to any one country, and in this case the accusers are quite as likely to be guilty as the accused. A characteristic that strikes us as more applicable is rather the reverse—that of taking no thought for the morrow. Let us take an example or two. It is not the custom to repair roads. When, from long use, a road has gradually passed from bad to worse, till at length it has virtually ceased to exist, then it is “reconstruction” that is the remedy. Annual repairs, one may presume, would cost, say half the amount, would preserve continuous utility, and avoid that slowly aggravated destruction that ends finally in a hiatus. But that is not the Spanish way. “Reconstruction” is preferred. The ruthless cutting down of her forests without replanting a single tree has already been quoted. Next take an example or two of the things that lie most directly under the authors’ special view, such as game. The ibex—a unique asset, restricted to Spain, and of which any other country would be proud—has been callously shot down without thought for to-morrow, extirpated for ever in a dozen of its former habitats. The redleg—under the murderous system of shooting, year in and year out, over decoy-birds—would be exterminated within three or four years in any other country save this. It is merely the incredible fecundity of the bird and the vast area of waste lands that preserves the breed. Partridge in Spain are like rabbits in Australia—indestructible. The trout affords another example. Everywhere else on earth the trout is prized as one of nature’s valued gifts—hard to over-appreciate. Fully one-half of Spain is expressly adapted to its requirements. Trout were intended by nature to abound over the northern half of Spain—say down to the latitude of Madrid, and even in the extreme south where conditions are favourable, as in the Sierra Neváda. Trout might abound in Spain to the full as they abound in Scotland or Norway, adding value to every river and a grace to country life. But what is the treatment meted out to the trout in Spain? No sooner is its presence detected than the whole stock—big and little alike, even the spawn—is blown out of existence with dynamite, poisoned by quicklime, or captured wholesale (regardless of season or condition) in nets, cruives, funnel-traps, and every other abomination. Kill and eat, big or little, breeding female or immature—it matters not; kill all you can to-day and leave the morrow to itself. True, there are game-laws and close-seasons, but none observe them.[4]

Types of Spanish Bird-Life DARTFORD WARBLER (Sylvia undata) Resident. Frequents deep furze-coverts, seldom seen (as we are constrained to represent it) in separate outline.

We have selected these examples because we know and can speak with absolute authority. Presumption and analogy will naturally suggest that the same intelligence, the same blind improvidence will apply equally in other and far more important matters. Not one of our Spanish friends with whom we have discussed these subjects time and again but agrees to the letter with the above conclusions and most bitterly regrets them.