The Geography of Spain--Zones--Mountains--The Pyrenees--The
Gabacho, and French Politics.
From Spain being the most southern country in Europe, it is very natural
that those who have never been there, and who in England criticise those
who have, should imagine the climate to be even more delicious than that
of Italy or Greece. This is far from being the fact; some, indeed, of
the sea coasts and sheltered plains in the S. and E. provinces are warm
in winter, and exposed to an almost African sun in summer, but the N.
and W. districts are damp and rainy for the greater part of the year,
while the interior is either cold and cheerless, or sunburnt and
wind-blown: winters have occurred at Madrid of such severity that
sentinels have been frozen to death; and frequently all communication is
suspended by the depth of the snow in the elevated roads over the
mountain passes of the Castiles. All, therefore, who are about to travel
through the Peninsula, are particularly cautioned to consider well their
line of route beforehand, and to select certain portions to be visited
at certain seasons, and thus avoid every local disadvantage.
[Sidenote: GENERAL VIEW OF SPAIN.]
One glance at a map of Europe will convey a clearer notion of the
relative position of Spain in regard to other countries than pages of
letter-press: this is an advantage which every schoolboy possesses over
the Plinys and Strabos of antiquity; the ancients were content to
compare the shape of the Peninsula to that of a bull’s hide, nor was the
comparison ill chosen in some respects. We will not weary readers with
details of latitude and longitude, but just mention that the whole
superficies of the Peninsula, including Portugal, contains upwards of
19,000 square leagues, of which somewhat more than 15,500 belong to
Spain; it is thus almost twice as large as the British Islands, and only
one-tenth smaller than France; the circumference or coast-line is
estimated at 750 leagues. This compact and isolated territory, inhabited
by a fine, hardy, warlike population, ought, therefore, to have rivalled
France in military power, while its position between those two great
seas which command the commerce of the old and new world, its indented
line of coast, abounding in bays and harbours, offered every advantage
of vying with England in maritime enterprise.
Nature has provided commensurate outlets for the infinite productions of
a country which is rich alike in everything that is to be found either
on the face or in the bowels of the earth; for the mines and quarries
abound with precious metals and marbles, from gold to iron, from the
agate to coal, while a fertile soil and every possible variety of
climate admit of unlimited cultivation of the natural productions of the
temperate or tropical zones: thus in the province of Granada the
sugar-cane and cotton-tree luxuriate at the base of ranges which are
covered with eternal snow: a wide range is thus afforded to the
botanist, who may ascend by zones, through every variety of vegetable
strata, from the hothouse plant growing wild, to the hardiest lichen. It
has, indeed, required the utmost ingenuity and bad government of man to
neutralise the prodigality of advantages which Providence has lavished
on this highly favoured land, and which, while under the dominion of the
Romans and Moors, resembled an Eden, a garden of plenty and delight,
when in the words of an old author, there was nothing idle, nothing
barren in Spain--“nihil otiosum, nihil sterile in Híspaniâ.” A sad
change has come over this fair vision, and now the bulk of the Peninsula
offers a picture of neglect and desolation, moral and physical, which it
is painful to contemplate: the face of nature and the mind of man have
too often been dwarfed and curtailed of their fair proportions; they
have either been neglected and their inherent fertility allowed to run
into vice and luxuriant weeds, which it will show against any country in
the world, or their energies have been misdirected, and a capability of
all good converted into an element equally powerful for evil; but pride
and laziness are here as everywhere the keys to poverty, _altivez y
pereza, llaves de pobreza_.
[Sidenote: CLIMATE AND ELEVATION OF SPAIN.]
The geological construction of Spain is very peculiar, and unlike that
of most other countries; it is almost one mountain or agglomeration of
mountains, as those of our countrymen who are speculating in Spanish
railroads are just beginning to discover. The interior rises on every
side from the sea, and the central portions are higher than any other
table-lands in Europe, ranging on an average from two to three thousand
feet above the level of the sea, while from this elevated plain chains
of mountains rise again to a still greater height. Madrid, which stands
on this central plateau, is situated about 2000 feet above the level of
Naples, which lies in the same latitude; the mean temperature of Madrid
is 59°, while that of Naples is 63° 30´; it is to this difference of
elevation that the extraordinary difference of climate and vegetable
productions between the two capitals is to be ascribed. Fruits which
flourish on the coasts of Provence and Genoa, which lie four degrees
more to the north than any portion of Spain, are rarely to be met with
in the elevated interior of the Peninsula: on the other hand, the low
and sunny maritime belts abound with productions of a tropical
vegetation. The mountainous character and general aspect of the coast
are nearly analogous throughout the circuit which extends from the
Basque Provinces to Cape Finisterre; and offer a remarkable contrast to
those sunny alluvial plains which extend, more or less, from Cadiz to
Barcelona, and which closely resemble each other in vegetable
productions, such as the fig, orange, pomegranate, aloe, and carob tree,
which grow everywhere in profusion, except in those parts where the
mountains come down abruptly into the sea itself. Again, the central
districts, composed of vast plains and steppes, _Parameras, Tierras de
campo, y Secanos_, closely resemble each other in their monotonous
denuded aspect, in their scarcity of fruit and timber, and their
abundance of cereal productions.
[Sidenote: ZONES OF SPAIN.]
Spanish geographers have divided the Peninsula into seven distinct
chains of mountains. These commence with the Pyrenees and end with the
Bætican or Andalucian ranges: these _cordilleras_, or lines of lofty
ridges, arise on each side of intervening plains, which once formed the
basins of internal lakes, until the accumulated waters, by bursting
through the obstructions by which they were dammed up, found a passage
to the ocean: the dip or inclination of the country lies from the east
towards the west, and, accordingly, the chief rivers which form the
drains and principal water-sheds of the greater parts of the surface,
flow into the Atlantic: their courses, like the basins through which
they pass, lie in a transversal and almost a parallel direction; thus
the Duero, the Tagus, the Guadiana, and the Guadalquivir, all flow into
their recipient between their distinct chains of mountains. The sources
of the supply to these leading arteries arise in the longitudinal range
of elevations which descends all through the Peninsula, approaching
rather to the eastern than to the western coast, whereby a considerably
greater length is obtained by each of these four rivers, when compared
to the Ebro, which disembogues in the Mediterranean.
The Moorish geographer Alrasi was the first to take difference of
climate as the rule of dividing the Peninsula into distinct portions;
and modern authorities, carrying out this idea, have drawn an imaginary
line, which runs north-east to south-west, thus separating the Peninsula
into the northern, or the boreal and temperate, and the southern or the
torrid, and subdividing these two into four zones: nor is this division
altogether fanciful, for there is no caprice or mistake in tests derived
from the vegetable world; manners may make man, but the sun alone
modifies the plant: man may be fused down by social appliances into one
uniform mass, but the rude elements are not to be civilized, nor can
nature be made cosmopolitan, which heaven forfend.
[Sidenote: ZONES OF SPAIN.]
_The first or northern zone_ is the _Cantabrian_, the European; this
portion skirts the base of the Pyrenees, and includes portions of
Catalonia, Arragon, and Navarre, the Basque provinces, the Asturias, and
Gallicia. This is the region of humidity, and as the winters are long,
and the springs and autumns rainy, it should only be visited in the
summer. It is a country of hill and dale, is intersected by numerous
streams which abound in fish, and which irrigate rich meadows for
pastures. The valleys form the now improving dairy country of Spain,
while the mountains furnish the most valuable and available timber of
the Peninsula. In some parts corn will scarcely ripen, while in others,
in addition to the cerealia, cider and an ordinary wine are produced. It
is inhabited by a hardy, independent, and rarely subdued population,
since the mountainous country offers natural means of defence to brave
highlanders. It is useless to attempt the conquest with a small army,
while a large one would find no means of support in the hungry
localities.
_The second zone_ is the Iberian or eastern, which, in its maritime
portions, is more Asiatic than European, and where the lower classes
partake of the Greek and Carthaginian character, being false, cruel, and
treacherous, yet lively, ingenious, and fond of pleasure: this portion
commences at Burgos, and includes the southern portion of Catalonia and
Arragon, with parts of Castile, Valencia, and Murcia. The sea-coasts
should be visited in the spring and autumn, when they are delicious; but
they are intensely hot in the summer, and infested with myriads of
muskitoes. The districts about Burgos are among the coldest in Spain,
and the thermometer sinks very much below the ordinary average of our
more temperate climate; and as they have little at any time to attract
the traveller, he will do well to avoid them except during the summer
months. The population is grave, sober, and Castilian. The elevation is
very considerable; thus the upper valley of the Miño and some of the
north-western portions of Old Castile and Leon are placed more than 6000
feet above the level of the sea, and the frosts often last for three
months at a time.
[Sidenote: GENERAL DROUGHT OF SPAIN.]
_The third zone_ is the Lusitanian, or western, which is by far the
largest, and includes the central parts of Spain and all Portugal. The
interior of this portion, and especially the provinces of the two
Castiles and La Mancha, both in the physical condition of the soil and
the moral qualities of the inhabitants, presents a very unfavourable
view of the Peninsula, as these inland steppes are burnt up by summer
suns, and are tempest and wind-rent during winter. The general absence
of trees, hedges, and enclosures exposes these wide unprotected plains
to the rage and violence of the elements: poverty-stricken mud houses,
scattered here and there in the desolate extent, afford a wretched home
to a poor, proud, and ignorant population; but these localities, which
offer in themselves neither pleasure nor profit to the stranger, contain
many sites and cities of the highest interest, which none who wish to
understand Spain can possibly pass by unnoticed. The best periods for
visiting this portion of Spain are May and June, or September and
October.
The more western districts of this Lusitanian zone are not so
disagreeable. There in the uplands the ilex and chesnut abound, while
the rich plains produce vast harvests of corn, and the vineyards
powerful red wines. The central table-land, which closely resembles the
plateau of Mexico, forms nearly one-half of the entire area of the
Peninsula. The peculiarity of the climate is its dryness; it is not,
however, unhealthy, being free from the agues and fevers which are
prevalent in the lower plains, river-swamps, and rice-grounds of parts
of Valencia and Andalucia. Rain, indeed, is so comparatively scarce on
this table-land, that the annual quantity on an average does not amount
to more than ten inches. The least quantity falls in the mountain
regions near Guadalupe, and on the high plains of Cuenca and Murcia,
where sometimes eight or nine months pass without a drop falling. The
occasional thunder-storms do but just lay the dust, since here moisture
dries up quicker even than woman’s tears. The face of the earth is
tanned, tawny, and baked into a veritable terra cotta: everything seems
dead and burnt on a funeral pile. It is all but a miracle how the
principle of life in the green herb is preserved, since the very grass
appears scorched and dead; yet when once the rains set in, vegetation
springs up, phœnix-like, from the ashes, and bursts forth in an
inconceivable luxuriance and life. The ripe seeds which have fallen on
the soil are called into existence, carpeting the desert with verdure,
gladdening the eye with flowers, and intoxicating the senses with
perfume. The thirsty chinky dry earth drinks in these genial showers,
and then rising like a giant refreshed with wine, puts forth all its
strength; and what vegetation is, where moisture is combined with great
heat, cannot even be guessed at in lands of stinted suns. The periods of
rains are the winter and spring, and when these are plentiful, all kinds
of grain, and in many places wines, are produced in abundance. The
olive, however, is only to be met with in a few favoured localities.
[Sidenote: GEOGRAPHY OF SPAIN.]
_The fourth zone_ is the Bætican, which is the most southern and
African; it coasts the Mediterranean, basking at the foot of the
mountains which rise behind and form the mass of the Peninsula: this
mural barrier offers a sure protection against the cold winds which
sweep across the central region. Nothing can be more striking than the
descent from the table elevations into these maritime strips; in a few
hours the face of nature is completely changed, and the traveller passes
from the climate and vegetation of Europe into that of Africa. This
region is characterised by a dry burning atmosphere during a large part
of the year. The winters are short and temperate, and consist rather in
rain than in cold, for in the sunny valleys ice is scarcely known except
for eating; the springs and autumns delightful beyond all conception.
Much of the cultivation depends on artificial irrigation, which was
carried by the Moors to the highest perfection: indeed water, under this
forcing, vivifying sun, is the blood of the earth, and synonymous with
fertility: the productions are tropical; sugar, cotton, rice, the
orange, lemon, and date. The _algarrobo_, the carob tree, and the
_adelfa_, the oleander, may be considered as forming boundary marks
between this the _tierra caliente_, or torrid district, and the colder
regions by which it is encompassed.
Such are the geographical divisions of nature with which the vegetable
and animal productions are closely connected; and we shall presently
enter somewhat more fully into the _climate_ of Spain, of which the
natives are as proud as if they had made it themselves. This Bætican
zone, Andalucia, which contains in itself many of the most interesting
cities, sites, and natural beauties of the Peninsula, will always take
precedence in any plan of the traveller, and each of these points has
its own peculiar attractions. These embrace a wide range of varied
scenery and objects; and Andalucia, easy of access, may be gone over
almost at every portion of the year. The winters may be spent at Cadiz,
Seville, or Malaga; the summers in the cool mountains of Ronda, Aracena,
or Granada. April, May, and June, or September, October, and November,
are, however, the most preferable. Those who go in the spring should
reserve June for the mountains; those who go in the autumn should
reverse the plan, and commence with Ronda and Granada, ending with
Seville and Cadiz.
[Sidenote: SPANISH MOUNTAINS.]
Spain, it has thus been shown, is one mountain, or rather a jumble of
mountains,--for the principal and secondary ranges are all more or less
connected with each other, and descend in a serpentising direction
throughout the Peninsula, with a general inclination to the west.
Nature, by thus dislocating the country, seems to have suggested, nay,
almost to have forced, localism and isolation to the inhabitants, who
each in their valleys and districts are shut off from their neighbours,
whom to love, they are enjoined in vain.
The internal communication of the Peninsula, which is thus divided by
the mountain-walls, is effected by some good roads, few and far between,
and which are carried over the most convenient points, where the natural
dips are the lowest, and the ascents and descents the most practicable.
These passes are called _Puertos_--_portæ_, or gates. There are, indeed,
mule-tracks and goat-paths over other and intermediate portions of the
chain, but they are difficult and dangerous, and being seldom provided
with ventas or villages, are fitter for smugglers and bandits than
honest men: the farthest and fairest way about will always be found the
best and shortest road.
The Spanish mountains in general have a dreary and harsh character, yet
not without a certain desolate sublimity: the highest are frequently
capped with snow, which glistens in the clear sky. They are rarely clad
with forest trees; the scarped and denuded ridges cut with a serrated
outline the clean clear blue sky. The granitic masses soar above the
green valley or yellow corn-plains in solitary state, like the castles
of a feudal baron, that lord it over all below, with which they are too
proud to have aught in common. These mountains are seen to greatest
advantage at the rise and setting of the sun, for during the day the
vertical rays destroy all form by removing shadows.
[Sidenote: THE PYRENEES.]
These geographical peculiarities of Spain, and particularly the
existence of the great central elevation, when once attained are apt to
be forgotten. The country rises from the coast, directly in the
north-western provinces, and in some of the southern and eastern, with
an intervening alluvial strip and swell: but when once the ascent is
accomplished, no _real_ descent ever takes place--we are then on the
summit of a vast elevated mass. The roads indeed _apparently_ ascend and
descend, but the mean height is seldom diminished: the interior hills or
plains are undulations of one mountain. The traveller is often deceived
at the apparent low level of snow-clad ranges, such as the Guadarrama;
this will be accounted for by adding the great elevation of their bases
above the level of the sea. The palace of the Escorial, which is placed
at the foot of the Guadarrama, and at the head of a seeming plain,
stands in reality at 2725 feet above Valencia, while the summer
residence of the king at _La Granja_, in the same chain, is thirty feet
higher than the summit of Vesuvius. This, indeed, is a castle in the
air--a château en Espagne, and worthy of the most German potentate to
whom that element belongs, as the sea does to Britannia. The mean
temperature on the plateau of Spain is as 15° Réaumur, while that of the
coast is as 18° and 19°, in addition to the protection from cutting
winds which their mountainous backgrounds afford; nor is the traveller
less deceived as regards the heights of the interior mountains than he
is with the champaigns, or table-land plains. The eye wanders over a
vast level extent bounded only by the horizon, or a faint blue line of
other distant sierras; this space, which appears one townless level, is
intersected with deep ravines, _barrancos_, in which villages lie
concealed, and streams, _arroyos_, flow unperceived. Another important
effect of this central elevation is the searching dryness and
rarefication of the air. It is often highly prejudicial to strangers;
the least exposure, which is very tempting under a burning sun, will
often bring on ophthalmia, irritable colics, and inflammatory diseases
of the lungs and vital organs. Such are the causes of the _pulmonia_,
which carries off the invalid in a few days, and is the disease of
Madrid. The frozen blasts descending from the snow-clad Guadarrama catch
the incautious passenger at the turning of streets which are roasting
under a fierce sun. Is it to be wondered at, that this capital should be
so very insalubrious? in winter you are frozen alive, in summer baked. A
man taking a walk for the benefit of his health, crosses with his pores
open from an oven to an ice-house; catch-cold introduces the Spanish
doctor, who soon in his turn presents the undertaker.
[Sidenote: THE PYRENEES]
As the Pyrenees possess an European interest at this moment when the
Napoleon of Peace proposes to annihilate their existence, which defied
Louis XIV. and Buonaparte, some details may be not unacceptable. This
gigantic barrier, which divides Spain and France, is connected with the
dorsal chain which comes down from Tartary and Asia. It stretches far
beyond the transversal spine, for the mountains of the Basque
Provinces, Asturias, and Gallicia, are its continuation. The Pyrenees,
properly speaking, extend E. to W., in length about 270 miles, being
both broadest and highest in the central portions, where the width is
about 60 miles, and the elevations exceed 11,000 feet. The spurs and
offsets of this great transversal spine penetrate on both sides into the
lateral valleys like ribs from a back-bone. The central nucleus slopes
gradually E. to the gentle Mediterranean, and W. to the fierce Atlantic,
in a long uneven swell.
This range of mountains was called by the Romans _Montes_ and _Saltus
Pyrenei_, and by the Greeks Πυρηνη, probably from a local
Iberian word, but which they, as usual, catching at sound, not sense,
connected with their Πυρ, and then bolstered up their erroneous
derivation by a legend framed to fit the name, asserting that it either
alluded to _a fire_ through which certain precious metals were
discovered, or because the lofty summits were often struck with
lightning, and dislocated by the volcanos. According to the Iberians,
Hercules, when on his way to “lift” Geryon’s cattle, was hospitably
received by Bebryx, a petty ruler in these mountains; whereupon the
demigod got drunk, and ravished his host’s daughter _Pyrene_, who died
of grief, when Hercules, sad and sober, made the whole range re-echo
with her name; a legend which, like some others in Spain, requires
confirmation, for the Phœnicians called these ranges _Purani_, from
the forests, _Pura_ meaning wood in Hebrew. The Basques have, of course,
their etymology, some saying that the real root is _Biri_, an elevation,
while others prefer _Bierri enac_, the “two countries,” which, separated
by the range, were ruled by Tubal; but when Spaniards once begin with
Tubal, the best plan is to shut the book.
[Sidenote: THE GABACHO.]
The _Maledêta_ is the loftiest peak, although the _Pico del Mediodia_
and the _Canigú_, because rising at once out of plains and therefore
having the greatest apparent altitudes, were long considered to be the
highest; but now these French usurpers are dethroned. Seen from a
distance, the range appears to be one mountain-ridge, with broken
pinnacles, but, in fact, it consists of two distinct lines, which are
parallel, but not continuous. The one which commences at the ocean is
the most forward, being at least 30 miles more in advance towards the
south than the corresponding line, which commences from the
Mediterranean. The centre is the point of dislocation, and here the
ramifications and reticulations are the most intricate, as it is the
key-stone of the system, which is buttressed up by _Las Tres Sorellas_,
the three sisters _Monte Perdido_, _Cylindro_, and _Marboré_. Here is
the source of the Garonne, _La Garona_; here the scenery is the
grandest, and the lateral valleys the longest and widest. The smaller
spurs enclose valleys, down each of which pours a stream: thus the Ebro,
Garona, and Bidasoa are fed from the mountain source. These tributaries
are generally called in France _Gaves_,[1] and in some parts on the
Spanish side _Gabas_; but _Gav_ signifies a “river,” and may be traced
in our _Avon_; and Humboldt derives it from the Basque _Gav_, a “hollow
or ravine;” cavus. The parting of these waters, or their flowing down
either N. or S., should naturally mark the line of division between
France and Spain: such, however, is not the case, as part of _Cerdaña_
belongs to France, while _Aran_ belongs to Spain; thus each country
possesses a key in its neighbour’s territory. It is singular that this
obvious inconvenience should not have been remedied by some exchange
when the long-disputed boundary-question was settled between Charles IV.
and the French republic.
[Sidenote: THE PYRENEES.]
Most of the passes over this Alpine barrier are impracticable for
carriages, and remain much in the same state as in the time of the
Moors, who from them called the Pyrenean range _Albort_, from the Roman
_Portæ_, the ridge of “gates.” Many of the wild passes are only known to
the natives and smugglers, and are often impracticable from the snow;
while even in summer they are dangerous, being exposed to mists and the
hurricanes of mighty rushing winds. The two best carriageable lines of
inter-communication are placed at each extremity: that to the west
passes through Irun; that to the east through Figueras.
The Spanish Pyrenees offer few attractions to the lovers of the fleshly
comforts of cities; but the scenery, sporting, geology, and botany are
truly Alpine, and will well repay those who can “rough it” considerably.
The contrast which the unfrequented Spanish side offers to the crowded
opposite one is great. In Spain the mountains themselves are less
abrupt, less covered with snow, while the numerous and much frequented
baths in the French Pyrenees have created roads, diligences, hotels,
tables-d’hôte, cooks, Ciceronis, donkeys, and so forth; for the Badauds
de Paris who babble about green fields and _des belles horreurs_, but
who seldom go beyond the immediate vicinity and hackneyed “lions.” A
want of good taste and real perception of the sublime and beautiful is
nowhere more striking, says Mr. Erskine Murray, than on the French side,
where mankind remains profoundly ignorant of the real beauties of the
Pyrenees, which have been chiefly explored by the English, who love
nature with all their heart and soul, who worship her alike in her
shyest retreats and in her wildest forms. Nevertheless, on the north
side many comforts and appliances for the tourist are to be had; nay,
invalids and ladies in search of the picturesque can ascend to the
_Brèche de Roland_. Once, however, cross the frontier, and a sudden
change comes over all facilities of locomotion. Stern is the first
welcome of the “hard land of Iberia,” scarce is the food for body or
mind, and deficient the accommodation for man or beast, and simply
because there is small demand for either. No Spaniard ever comes here
for pleasure; hence the localities are given up to the smuggler and
izard.
[Sidenote: FRENCH POLICY.]
The Oriental inæsthetic incuriousness for _things_, old stones, wild
scenery, &c., is increased by political reasons and fears. The
neighbour, from the time of the Celt down to to-day, has ever been the
coveter, ravager, and terror of Spain: her “knavish tricks,” fire and
rapine are too numerous to be blinked or written away, too atrocious to
be forgiven: to revenge becomes a sacred duty. However governments may
change, the policy of France is immutable. Perfidy, backed by violence,
“ruse doublée de force,” is the state maxim from Louis XIV. and
Buonaparte down to Louis-Philippe: the principle is the same, whether
the instrument employed be the sword or wedding ring. The weaker Spain
is thus linked in the embrace of her stronger neighbour, and has been
made alternately her dupe and victim, and degraded into becoming a mere
satellite, to be dragged along by fiery Mars. France has forced her to
share all her bad fortune, but never has permitted her to participate in
her success. Spain has been tied to the car of her defeats, but never
has been allowed to mount it in the day of triumph. Her friendship has
always tended to denationalise Spain, and by entailing the forced enmity
of England, has caused to her the loss of her navies and colonies in the
new world.
“The Pyrenean boundary,” says the Duke of Wellington, “is the most
vulnerable frontier of France, probably the only vulnerable one;”
accordingly she has always endeavoured to dismantle the Spanish defences
and to foster insurrections and _pronunciamientos_ in Catalonia, for
Spain’s infirmity is her opportunity, and therefore the “sound policy”
of the rest of Europe is to see Spain strong, independent, and able to
hold her own Pyrenean key.
[Sidenote: THE PYRENEES.]
While France therefore has improved her means of approach and invasion,
Spain, to whom the past is prophetic of the future, has raised
obstacles, and has left her protecting barrier as broken and hungry as
when planned by her tutelar divinity. Nor are her highlanders more
practicable than their granite fastnesses. Here dwell the smuggler, the
rifle sportsman, and all who defy the law: here is bred the hardy
peasant, who, accustomed to scale mountains and fight wolves, becomes a
ready raw material for the _guerrilleros_, and none were ever more
formidable to Rome or France than those marshalled in these glens by
Sertorius and Mina. When the tocsin bell rings out, a hornet swarm of
armed men, the weed of the hills, starts up from every rock and brake.
The hatred of the Frenchman, which the Duke said formed “part of a
Spaniard’s nature,” seems to increase in intensity in proportion to
vicinity, for as they touch, so they fret and rub each other: here it
is the antipathy of an antithesis; the incompatibility of the saturnine
and slow, with the mercurial and rapid; of the proud, enduring, and
ascetic, against the vain, the fickle, and sensual; of the enemy of
innovation and change, to the lover of variety and novelty; and however
tyrants and tricksters may assert in the gilded galleries of Versailles
that _Il n’y a plus de Pyrénées_, this party-wall of Alps, this barrier
of snow and hurricane, does and will exist for ever: placed there by
Providence, as was said by the Gothic prelate Saint Isidore, they ever
have forbidden and ever will forbid the banns of an unnatural alliance,
as in the days of Silius Italicus:
“Pyrene celsâ nimbosi verticis arce
Divisos Celtis laté prospectat Hiberos
Atque æterna tenet magnis _divortia_ terris.”
If the eagle of Buonaparte could never build in the Arragonese Sierra,
the lily of the Bourbon assuredly will not take root in the Castilian
plain; so sings Ariosto:
---- “Che non lice
Che ’l giglio in quel terreno habbia radice!”
[Sidenote: THE PYRENEES.]
This inveterate condition either of pronounced hostility, or at best of
armed neutrality, has long rendered these localities disagreeable to the
man of the note-book. The rugged mountain frontiers consist of a series
of secluded districts, which constitute the entire world to the natives,
who seldom go beyond the natural walls by which they are bounded, except
to smuggle. This vocation is the curse of the country; it fosters a wild
reliance on self-defence, a habit of border foray and insurrection,
which seems as necessary to them as a moral excitement and combustible
element, as carbon and hydrogen are in their physical bodies. Their
habitual suspicion against prying foreigners, which is an Oriental and
Iberian instinct, converts a curious traveller into a spy or partisan.
Spanish authorities, who seldom do these things except on compulsion,
cannot understand the gratuitous braving of hardship and danger for its
own sake--the botanizing and geologizing, &c., of the nature and
adventure-loving English. The _impertinente curioso_ may possibly escape
observation in a Spanish city and crowd, but in these lonely hills it is
out of the question: he is the observed of all observers; and they,
from long smuggling and sporting habits, are always on the look-out,
and are keen-sighted as hawks, gipseys, and beasts of prey. Latterly
some who, by being placed immediately under the French boundary, have
seen the glitter of our tourists’ coin, have become more humanized, and
anxious to obtain a share in the profits of the season.
[Sidenote: THE PYRENEES.]
The geology and botany have yet to be properly investigated. In the
metal-pregnant Pyrenees rude forges of iron abound, but everything is
conducted on a small, unscientific scale, and probably after the
unchanged primitive Iberian system. Fuel is scarce, and transport of
ores on muleback expensive. The iron is at once inferior to the English
and much dearer: the tools and implements used on both sides of the
Pyrenees are at least a century behind ours; while absurd tariffs, which
prevent the importation of a cheaper and better article, retard
improvements in agriculture and manufactures, and perpetuate poverty and
ignorance among backward, half-civilised populations. The timber,
moreover, has suffered much from the usual neglect, waste, and
improvidence of the natives, who destroy more than they consume, and
never replant. The sporting in these lonely wild districts is excellent,
for where man seldom penetrates the feræ naturæ multiply: the bear is,
however, getting scarce, as a premium is placed on every head destroyed.
The grand object is the _Cabra Montanez_, or _Rupicapra_, German
Steinbock, the Bouquetin of the French, the Izard (_Ibex_, becco, bouc,
bock, buck). The fascination of this pursuit, like that of the Chamois
in Switzerland, leads to constant and even fatal accidents, as this shy
animal lurks in almost inaccessible localities, and must be stalked with
the nicest skill. The sporting on the north side is far inferior, as the
cooks of the table-d’hôtes have waged a _guerra al cuchillo_, a war to
the knife, and fork too, against even _les petits oiseaux_; but your
French _artiste_ persecutes even minnows, as all _sport_ and fair play
is scouted, and everything gives way for the pot. The Spaniards, less
mechanical and gastronomic, leave the feathered and finny tribes in
comparative peace. Accordingly the streams abound with trout, and those
which flow into the Atlantic with salmon. The lofty Pyrenees are not
only alembics of cool crystal streams, but contain, like the heart of
Sappho, sources of warm springs under a bosom of snow. The most
celebrated issue on the north side, or at least those which are the most
known and frequented, for the Spaniard is a small bather, and no great
drinker of medicinal waters. Accommodations at the baths on his side
scarcely exist, while even those in France are paltry when compared to
the spas of Germany, and dirty and indecent when contrasted with those
of England. The scenery is alpine, a jumble of mountain, precipice,
glacier, and forest, enlivened by the cataract or hurricane. The
natives, when not smugglers or _guerrilleros_, are rude, simple, and
pastoral: they are poor and picturesque, as people are who dwell in
mountains. _Plains_ which produce “bread stuffs” may be richer, but what
can a traveller or painter do with their monotonous commonplace?
In these wild tracts the highlanders in summer lead their flocks up to
mountain huts and dwell with their cattle, struggling against poverty
and wild beasts, and endeavouring really to keep the wolf from the door:
their watch-dogs are magnificent; the sheep are under admirable
control--being, as it were, in the presence of the enemy, they know the
voice of their shepherds, or rather the peculiar whistle and cry: their
wool is largely smuggled into France, and when manufactured in the shape
of coarse cloth is then re-smuggled back again.
[Sidenote: THE RIVERS OF SPAIN.]