SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.--THE EUSKALDUNAC, OR BASQUES.--THE IBERIAN
STOCK.--THE TURDETANIAN
CIVILIZATION.--PHŒNICIAN--ROMAN--VANDAL--GOTHIC
ELEMENTS.--KELTIBERIANS.--THE ORIGINAL KELTÆ IBERIANS.--THE WORD
KELTIC OF IBERIAN ORIGIN.--THE ARAB CONQUEST.--EXPULSION OF THE
ARABS.--THE JEWS OF SPAIN.--GIPSIES.--PHYSICAL AND MORAL
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MODERN SPANIARDS.--PORTUGAL.
The western extremity of the Pyrenees, where France and Spain join,
gives us a locality rendered famous by the historical events of San
Sebastian, and the legends of Fuenterabia, with the provinces of Bearn
and Gascony on the French, and Navarre and Biscay on the Spanish, side
of the mountains. Here it is where, although the towns, like Bayonne,
Pampeluna, and Bilbao, are French or Spanish, the country people are
_Basques_ or _Biscayans_--Basques or Biscayans not only in the provinces
of _Biscay_, but in Alava, Upper Navarre, and the French districts of
Labourd and Soule. Their name is Spanish (the word having originated in
that of the ancient _Vascones_), and it is _not_ the one by which they
designate themselves; though, possibly, it is indirectly connected with
it. The _native_ name is derived from the root _Eusk_-; which becomes
Eusk-_ara_ when the language, Eusk-_kerria_ when the country, and
Eusk-_aldunac_ when the people are spoken of; so that the Basque
language of the Biscayans of Biscay is, in the vernacular tongue, the
_Euskara_ of the _Euskaldunac_ of _Euskerria_.
It is not for nothing that this difference of form has been indicated.
In the classical writers we find more than one of the old Spanish
populations mentioned under different derivatives from the same root,
and sometimes a doubt is expressed by the writer in whose pages it
occurs, as to whether there were two separate populations, or only one
denoted by two synonymous names. Thus, side by side with the Bast-_uli_,
we find the Bast-_itani_, and, side by side with the Turd-_uli_, the
Turd-_etani_. Now respecting these last, Strabo expressly says that
whether they were different populations under the same name, or the same
under different ones is uncertain.
That the Euskara is no new tongue may be inferred from the fact of its
falling into dialects; which Humboldt limits to three, whilst others
extend them to five or six.
_a._ The Biscayan proper is spoken in the country of the ancient
Autrigones and Caristii, and it has been proposed to call it the
Autrigonian. It has, less correctly, been called _Cantabrian_, and this
is the name which the national taste best likes; for a descent from the
indomitable Cantabrian that so long and so successfully spurned the yoke
of Rome, and who transmitted the same spirit and the same independence
to the Asturian, is creditable enough to be claimed. Nor is the claim
unfounded; since, in all probability, the ancient Cantabria included
some of the ancestors of the Euskaldunac.
_b._ The Guipuscoan is the western Biscayan.
_c._ The Laburtanian is the Euskarian of France, spoken in the parts
about St. Jean de Luz; and which, in the district of Soule, is supposed
to fall into a sub-dialect.
The Euskarian language has always been the standing point to those
inquirers who have argued backwards, from the existing state of things,
towards the reconstruction of the ethnology and philology of antiquity;
first and foremost of whom, both in date and importance, is Wilhelm von
Humboldt, whose essays on the subject form two of the most classical
monographs in comparative philology. The method he employed was much
more of a novelty then than now. We may guess what it was beforehand. It
was the analysis of local names. In this he was successful. Roots like
_ast_-, _ur_-, and others, found in the ancient names of Spanish and
Portuguese localities, far beyond the present pale of the Euskarian
tongue, he referred to the Basque, and found them significant therein;
thus _uria=town_ or _city_, and _ast=rock_ or _mountain_--whereby
_Asturias_ means the _mountainous country_, and _Astures_ the
_mountaineers_.
His inference was (as might be expected) that the Euskarian was as
little a modern and local tongue as the Welsh; indeed, that it was so
far from anything of the kind, as to be one of the oldest in Europe, and
not only old, but widely-spread also. The whole of the peninsula, France
as far as the Garonne and the Rhone, and even portions of Italy, were,
according to Humboldt, originally Basque; or, as it is more conveniently
called, _Iberic_ or _Iberian_, from the ancient name of Spain--_Iberia_.
So that now we talk of the ancient Vascones, Varduli, Autrigones and
Caristii as particular divisions of the great _Iberic_ stock, under
their ancient names, the Euskaldunac being the same under a modern one;
whilst the Basques and Navarrese are Euskaldunac, under French and
Spanish designations.
The present Euskaldunacs must be a population of as pure blood as any in
Europe, lineal descendants from the Autrigones, Varduli, and Vascones,
and closely related to the Asturians. At any rate they are the purest
blood in the Peninsula. This we infer from their language, and the
mountaineer character of their area. They are the Welsh of Spain.
With the pure Euscaldunac let us now contrast the most mixed portion of
the Peninsular population; which is that of the water-system of the
Guadalquiver, and the parts immediately south and east of it--Seville,
Cordova, Jaen, Grenada, and Murcia, if we take the modern provinces; the
country of the Turdetani and Bastitani, if we look to the ancient
populations--Bætica, if we adopt the general name of the Romans,
Andalusia in modern geography.
The mountain-range between Jaen and Murcia, the Sagra Sierra, was
originally the Mons Oros-_peda_, a fact which I notice, because the
element -_peda_, occurs with a mere difference of dialect in the ancient
name of the mountains of Burgos, Idu-_beda_. So that here, if nowhere
else, we have a geographical name common to the northern and southern
parts of the peninsula--an Iberic gloss in two distant localities. It
was the Iberians of these parts who were the first to receive foreign
intermixture, and the last to lose it, the Iberians of the Bætis, or
Guadalquiver, favoured above all other nations of the peninsula in soil,
in climate, and in situation. Strabo expatiates with enthusiasm almost
unbecoming to a geographer, on their wealth, their industry, their
commerce, and their civilization; and all this is no more than their
physical condition prepares us to expect. Cities to the number of two
hundred and upwards, docks, _anachyses_ (or _locks_), lighthouses,
canals, salt works, mines, agriculture, woven articles, fisheries, an
alphabet, and a literature attest the civilization of the ancient
Turdetanians as known to the writers of the reign of Augustus; at which
time, however, the country was so Romanized that the Iberic tongue was
already superseded by the Latin throughout the whole level country;
Cordova and Seville,--the pre-eminently Roman towns of Spain,--having
been founded by picked bodies of Romans and natives. Hence, in respect
to its date, the Spanish of Andalusia is the oldest daughter of the
Latin.
But the Romans were as little the first intruders who introduced foreign
blood and foreign ideas into Southern Spain as they were the last. Their
predecessors were the Phœnicians--sometimes direct from Tyre and
Sidon, oftener from the Tyrian colony of Carthage. It was through the
accounts of the Phœnicians that the earliest notices of Iberia found
their way into Greece; it was through the Phœnicians that the
Hellenic poets first heard of the columns of Hercules. It was through
the Phœnician--Punic or Tyrian, as the case might be--that the mining
and commercial industry of Turdetania was developed. Through them, too,
probably (but not certainly) came the alphabet. I say _probably_,
because the shape of the letters is Greek or Italian rather than
Phœnician. As the Phœnician settlements seem to have been
factories rather than colonies, and as their marriages must have been
with native women, their influence was moral rather than physical,
_i.e._, they introduced new ideas rather than new blood. Their contact
with the Turdetanians may be spread over some seven centuries--from
about 900 to 200 B.C.
New ideas, too, rather than new blood was what was introduced by the
Romans; the great change which they effected being that of the language
from Iberic to Latin. At the same time, it is by no means safe to say
that the Turdetanian civilization was wholly of foreign origin--half
Roman and half Phœnician. The inland cities could scarcely be the
latter. Yet they existed when Rome first began its conquests. So high do
I put either the actual civilization of the southern Iberians, or (what
is nearly the same thing) the capacity for receiving its elements, that
I doubt whether it stands on a lower level than that of Northern Italy
itself _minus_ its geographical advantages of contiguity to Greece.
Their remote position was a great disadvantage, and so was the
comparative smallness of their sea-board, arising from the unindented
character of the peninsular coast.
Between the garrisons of Rome and Carthage we may safely assume some
intermixture of native African blood--Numidian, Gætulian, or
Mauritanian--Amazirgh, Kabail, or Berber. It is safe, too, not exactly
to exclude Greek influences from Turdetanian Iberia altogether, but to
hold as a general rule that, from the monopolizing character of the
Phœnician commerce--especially the Carthaginian branch of it--the
Greek and Phœnician influences were in the inverse ratio to each
other.
The chief _negative_ fact connected with ancient Bætica is, that none of
its geographical localities end in -_briga_, a remark, of which we shall
soon see the import.
The Roman power in Spain was broken by those populations, who gave to
Spain the important foreign elements of the fifth century. These are
said to be the Alans, the Vandals, the Suevi, and the Goths. Concerning
the first of these there is a doubt. The true Alani were a people from
the parts between the rivers Volga and Jaik to the north, and the range
of Caucasus to the south--people whose nearest neighbours were the
Circassians and Russians, or, at any rate, their ancient equivalents:
people whose affinities were Asiatic; and whose nearest kinsmen were the
Huns, the Avars, the Khazars, and the Turks. Now I do not say that the
presence of such a population in Spain, in the first ten years of the
fifth century (about A.D. 408) is impossible; perhaps, indeed, it is
probable. The Huns, with whom the Alans were allied, were then hanging,
like a cloud charged with thunder, over Europe, about to carry carnage
and desolation as far westward as the plains of Champagne. And the Alans
will help them. So I do not deny that they may have invaded Spain. I
remark, however,--as good authorities have done before me--that, except
in Spain, the Suevi are almost always in alliance with the _Alemanni_; a
nation with a name so like that of the _Alani_, as for confusion to be
likely. Such confusion, I think, existed here: in other words, I believe
that the invaders of Spain were the Suevi and _Alemanni_--not the Suevi
and _Alani_. If the view be wrong, we must admit an
intermixture--inconsiderable, perhaps, in amount--of _Turk_ blood.
The Vandals--for reasons given elsewhere--I believe to have been no
Germans at all, but Slavonians under a German leader, the ancestors of
the present Serbs of Silesia and Lusatia: since the express statement of
Idatius is that they were _Vandali Silingi_. Now the _Silingi_ can
easily be shown to have been the old Silesians. The existence of
Slavonic blood in Spain was first indicated by the present writer; and
as _Andal_-usia took its name from the Vandals in question, the local
ethnologist may be well employed in seeking for Slavonic elements in a
quarter where they have not hitherto been suspected. As the Vandals,
too, of Andalusia were the Vandals of Genseric, Gelimir, and the kings
of northern Africa, it must be Slavonic rather than German blood, which
is not unreasonably supposed to exist amongst some of the mountaineers
of Algeria. Whether the Vandals occupied Andalusia to the comparative
exclusion of the Goths is uncertain.
The Suevi of Spain must have been but little different from those
Burgundian Germans who conquered Germany. They formed part of the same
confederacy, and only differed from their allies in proceeding further
southwards.
The Goths belonged to a different branch. Their epoch is from A.D. 412
to A.D. 711. As the Gothic empire was an extension from that of southern
Gaul, Catalonia may be the province where the Gothic blood is most
abundant. Niebuhr considers that they pressed the Suevi before them into
Portugal and Asturias.
Two other elements require notice, both early, but one insignificant in
amount, and the other obscure and problematical; the Greek and the
Keltic.
From Marseilles, _Greek_ colonists founded Emporia on the coast of
Catalonia, and a few other places of less importance.
But who were the _Keltæ_ of Spain? the population whose name occurs in
the word _Celtici_ and _Celtiberi_, _Keltic Iberians_, or _Iberian
Kelts_? Three considerations come in here.
_a._ First, the external evidence, or the testimony of ancient authors
as to the presence of Kelts in Spain and Portugal.
_b._ Secondly, the internal evidence derived from the remains of
language, the presence of certain customs, and physical appearance.
_c._ The _à priori_ likelihood or unlikelihood of a _Kelt-iberic_
mixture.
The last is considerable.
The evidence that gives us Kelts at all in the Peninsula gives us them
for three-fourths of its area; indeed, Andalusia is the only part
wherein reasons of some sort or other for their presence, cannot be
discovered. We find traces of them in the valleys of the Ebro, the
Guadiana, the Tagus, and the Douro, and we find them also on the high
central table-lands that form the water-shed. Such being the case, what
must be our view of their chronological relations to the Iberi? Are they
the older occupants of Spain and Portugal, or the newer? If the newer,
the displacement must have been enormous. If the older, whence are we
to bring the Iberians? So great are the difficulties of this
alternative, that the fact itself requires extraordinary caution before
we admit it at all. Let us deal with the evidence in this cautious
spirit.
The external evidence is clear and decisive. To go no further than
Strabo, we have Kelts in the north, Kelts between the Guadiana and the
Douro, and Kelts in the interior.
At the head-waters of the Guadiana, Posidonius places the Keltiberians,
in which parts they “increased in numbers, and made the whole of the
neighbouring country _Keltiberic_.” This is the country on each side of
the Sierra de Toledo, or New Castile, the very centre of Spain, and, as
such, an unlikely place for an immigrant population, whether we look to
its distance from the frontier, or to its mountainous aspect. They are
carried, at least, as far north as the mountains of Burgos, and to the
upper waters of the Douro on one side, and the Ebro on the other. So
that Old Castile, with parts of Leon and Aragon, may be considered as
Keltiberic. This is the first division.
In the south of Portugal comes the second, _i.e._, in Alemtejo, or the
parts between the Tagus and the Guadiana. Here are the _Celtici_ of the
classical writers.
The third section is found in the _north_ of Portugal, and in the
neighbourhood of Cape Finisterre. Here Strabo places the Artabri, and
close to them _Celtici_ and _Turduli_ of the same nation with those of
the south, _i.e._, those of Alemtejo. His language evidently suggests
the idea of a migration. Such is the Keltic area as determined by
external evidence, and it cannot be denied that it is very remarkable.
It is of considerable magnitude, but very discontinuous and unconnected.
The internal evidence is wholly of one sort, _viz._, that which we
collect from the names of geographical localities. One of the common
terminations in the map of ancient Gaul is the word -_briga_ (as in
Eburo-_briga_), which takes the slightly different forms of -_briva_,
and -_brica_--Baudo-_brica_, Samaro-_briva_. Now compounds of -_briga_
are exceedingly common in Spain. They occur in all the parts to which
_Celtici_ or _Celtiberi_ are referred, _and in a great many more
besides_. Hence the internal evidence--as far, at least, as the
compounds in -_briga_ are concerned--gives us a larger Keltic area (or
more Keltiberians) than the testimony of authors; indeed it gives us the
whole of the peninsula except Andalusia, a fact which explains the
import of a previous remark as to absence of compounds ending in -_briga_
south of the Sierra Morena. It is rare, too, in Catalonia--perhaps
non-existent.
Tested, however, by the presence of the form in question, Valentia on
the west, and all Portugal (the ancient Lusitania) on the east, were
Keltiberic--as may be seen by reference to any map of ancient Spain.
But there are serious objections to the usual inference from this
compound. It is nearly the only geographical term of which the form is
Keltic. And this is a remarkable instance of isolation. The
terminations -_durum_, -_magus_, and -_dunum_, all of which are far
commoner in Gaul than even -_briga_ itself, are nowhere to be found.
Neither are the Gallic prefixes, such as _tre_-, _nant_-, _ver_-, &c.
Hence, it is strange that, if Spain were Keltic, only one Keltic form
should have come down to us. Where are the rest? I am inclined to
believe that the inference as to such a Spanish name as, _e.g._,
Talo-_briga_, being Keltic, on the strength of such undoubted Gallic
words as Eboro-_briga_, is no better than the assertion that the Jewish
name Samp-_son_ was in the same category with the English names
John-_son_ and Thomp-_son_ would be. Such accidental resemblances are by
no means uncommon. The termination -_dun_ is as common in Keltic, as the
termination -_tun_ is in German. Yet they are wholly independent
formations. At the same time I cannot deny that the internal and
external evidence partially support each other.
But there is another series of facts which goes further still to
invalidate the belief in the existence of Kelts in Spain. It is this.
_Instead of the Kelts of Iberia having been Kelts in the modern sense of
the term, the Kelts of Gallia were Iberians._ This is an unfortunate
circumstance. Writers, speakers, journalists, and orators, Ribbonmen and
Orangemen, who neither know nor care much about the Natural History of
Man, talk about the _Keltic_ stock, or the _Keltic_ race, with a
boldness and fluency that, except in the case of the antagonist term
_Anglo-Saxon_, we meet with nowhere else. To read some of the
dissertations on Irish misgovernment, or Welsh dissent, one might fancy
that an American of Pennsylvania was writing about the aboriginal
Indians, or the enslaved negroes--so much is there made of race, and so
familiar are even the non-ethnological part of the world with the term.
Men know this when they know nothing else.
Great, then, is the actual and practical currency and general
recognition of the word; so great that its historical truth, and its
theoretical propriety are matters of indifference. Be it ever so
incorrect, the time for changing it has gone by. Nevertheless, I think
(nay, I am sure) that the word is misapplied.
I think, that though used to denominate the tribe and nations allied to
the Gauls, it was, originally, no Gallic word--as little native as
_Welsh_ is British.
I also think that even the first populations to which it was applied
were other than _Keltic_ in the modern sense of the term.
I think, in short, that it was a word belonging to the Iberian language,
applied, until the time of Cæsar at least, to Iberic populations.
The name came from the Greeks of the Gulf of Lyons--the Greeks of
Massilia, or of Emporia, more probably the former. Now, as there is
express evidence that a little to the west of Marseilles the Ligurian
and Iberian areas met, the likelihood of the word belonging to the
latter language is considerable.
It is increased by the circumstance of two-thirds, if not more, of the
Keltic portion of Gaul being Iberian. Posidonius places the centre of
the Keltic country in Provence, near the spot where the Roman settlement
of Narbo was built: an Iberian locality. The Kelts of Herodotus are in
the neighbourhood of the _city_ called _Pyrene_; a word which carries us
as far westward as the Pyrenees, although its meaning is different. As
far as they extended beyond the present provinces of Roussillon and
Languedoc, they extended _westwards_; beyond--according to
Herodotus--the Pillars of Hercules, and as far as the frontier of the
extreme Kynetæ. Aristotle knew the true meaning of the word Pyrene,
_i.e._, that it denoted a range of mountains; and he also called Pyrene
“a mountain of Keltica.” By the time of Cæsar, however, a great number
of undoubted Gauls were included under the name _Celtæ_: in other words,
the Iberian name for an Iberian population was first adopted by the
Greeks as the name for _all_ the inhabitants of south-western Gaul, and
it was then extended by the Romans so as to include all the populations
of Gallia except the Belgæ and Aquitanians. The word _Celtæ_ also passed
for a native name--“_ipsorum_ lingua _Celtæ, nostra Galli_ appellantur.”
Upon this Prichard reasonably remarks, that Cæsar would have written
more accurately had he stated that the people whom the Greeks called
Κἑλται were _Galli_ in the eyes of a _Roman_.
But the Greek form for _Galli_ is Γἁλ-αται, a form suspiciously like
Κἑλτ-αι. I admit that this engenders a difficulty, since it shows the
possibility of the two words being the same. At the same time it can
be explained. The ατ in Γἁλ-αται is non-radical. It is the sign of the
plural number, as it is in Irish at the present moment; whereas the τ in
Κελτ-αι is a part of the root.
And now I have given the additional reason for believing that the
so-called Kelts of Spain were no Kelts at all in the modern sense of
the word, but only Iberians; and I further suggest the likelihood of the
word meaning _mountaineer_, or something like it, in which case the
Kelts of South Gaul must be supposed to be (as they are made by
Herodotus and Aristotle) the Pyrenean Iberians, the Celtiberi and
Celtici being also the Highlanders of the great central range of Spain,
of Gallicia, and of Alemtejo. This, however, is only a suggestion.
Perhaps the point is not very important. Whether we look to the amount
of their civilization, to their national temper as shown in the defence
of their independence, or to the extent to which they contributed to the
literature of the Latin language, there are no very striking differences
between the Gaul and the Iberian. Personal heroes like Viriathus and
Vercingetorix occur on both sides; whilst Gaul resisted Cæsar by
instances of endurance behind stone walls scarcely inferior to the
display of obstinate valour at Numantia.
The Gothic conquest of Spain was succeeded, in the eighth century, by
one of equal, perhaps, greater, importance. The line it took was from
south to north; so that its direction was different from that of the
Goths. It was also made by a southern population. The Arabs who effected
the first invasion under Musa, were the Arabs of an army; _i.e._,
almost wholly males; probably, too, they were pretty pure in blood.
Afterwards, however, larger swarms came over from Africa; and it cannot
be doubted that, along with these there were females and families of
mixed African as well as of pure Arab descent. The areas which were
successively appropriated by these invaders are not exactly those that
we expect, _à priori_. Murcia, or the March, was less modified by the
conquest than Valencia and other countries northwards. It was held in a
sort of imperfect independence by Theodemir, and under the name of
_Tadmor_, into which that of the Gothic king was metamorphosed by the
Arabs, long continued to be the most Gothic part of south-eastern Spain.
In contrast to Grenada, and in consonance with what we expect from their
geographical position, were the northern provinces of Asturias, Biscay,
Navarre, and Galicia--Galicia, in respect to its ethnology, belonging
almost as much to Portugal as to Spain. Into Asturias the arms of the
Arab conqueror never penetrated: so that the original nationality was
preserved in the kingdom of Oviedo, under the successors of Pelagius or
Pelayo. Were these brave and independent mountaineers Goths or Romans?
or were they original Iberians? And if of mixed blood, in what
proportion were the different elements? They seem to have been second
in purity of blood to the true and Proper Basques only. They were
somewhat more Romanized than the latter, as is shown by their language;
but both were equally free of Gothic admixture. This view rests partly
on the previous details of their history, and partly on the names of the
kings who succeeded Pelayo. They are not Gothic, like Euric, Wallia, or
Roderic, nor yet Latin, like Pedro; but truly and properly Spanish (with
the exception, perhaps, of Frivila), as Alonzo, Ordonio, Sancho, &c.;
Spanish in the same way that Edward and Richard are German, or Arthur
and Owen, Keltic. Pacheco, perhaps, is the truest Iberian designation.
It occurs in Cæsar, as Paciecus. When the Arabs conquered Spain, their
peculiar civilization was but partially developed. It grew up, to a
great degree, within Spain itself.
The Arab elements belonged to the same class with the Phœnician,
though to a different section of it. So did the Jewish, which were
introduced earlier, and, if not of equal amount, were, at least, of
longer duration. The Jews brought with them the oldest civilization in
the world. But they were important physical influences as well. They
came with their families, and, consequently, were less thrown upon the
necessities of intermixture than the majority of the Arabs. The
intermixture, however, was in both cases considerable. As long as the
Arian kings of the Gothic stock held their sway, the Israelite was
tolerated and something more. His industry was protected, and his
earlier familiarity with letters and the civilizing influences of
commerce respected. The prejudices against intermixture were chiefly on
his side. Orthodoxy, however, introduced persecution. Some of its
earliest enactments forbid Christian wives and Christian mistresses to
Jews, a sure proof of the previous prevalence of an opposite custom. In
the Mahometan parts of the Peninsula, the toleration was considerable
throughout. Lastly must be noticed the great extent to which the pride
in his real or supposed purity of blood characterizes the Hidalgo. This
would not have been the case if purity of blood were the rule, and an
Arab or Jewish cross the exception. The reign of Ferdinand and Isabella
was signalized by the double ejection of the Jews from the Peninsula in
general, and the Arabs from their last possession, the kingdom of
Grenada. Such ejectments are never complete. Each, however, of these was
one of remarkable magnitude.
The Normans, who settled on so many of the coasts of southern Europe,
made a smaller impression on the Iberian peninsula than elsewhere. Still
they must be recognised as an element.
Such is the basis of the Spanish stock, and such the chief superadded
elements--Iberic in the first instance: then Phœnician, Greek, Roman,
Gothic, Vandal, Alan (?), Jewish, Arab, and Norman, to say nothing about
the cases of French and other settlers from the modern kingdoms of
Europe. These elements are differently distributed over the several
provinces; and at the present moment each has some peculiar
characteristics.
The most regular features, and the most purely brunette complexions are
found in Andalusia, conjoined with a gay, pleasure-loving disposition;
not given to the sterner virtues, but with considerable intellectual
capacity, as shown both in art and literature; and, in Andalusia, the
foreign elements are at their _maximum_--chiefly oriental, but partly
(in the belief, at least, of the present writer) Slavonic. Yet it is not
safe to refer the one to the other. The soil and climate of
Andalusia--the favoured valley of the most southern river in Spain--have
also their peculiarities.
In Grenada the habits are ruder, and Grenada is chiefly a mountain
range.
Murcia[3] has the credit of being the Bœotia of Spain. It has less
than its share of Arab, and, perhaps, a considerable amount of Gothic,
blood.
Valencia has been unfavourably described; the physiognomy of its
population being the most Moorish in Spain, and the temper dangerous. It
was from Valencia that the last branch of Arabs was expelled in the
reign of Philip III.--the Little Moors or Moriscoes. Orientals as they
were, the nobles to whom they were serfs, and whose land they
cultivated, could ill afford to lose them. Contrary to what we expect
from their stock, they were signalized by steady industry and
perseverance in agriculture. The present language of Valencia is only
Spanish so far as it is spoken in the Spanish peninsula. It is a
distinct tongue from the _Castilian_; yet not French. It belongs to the
Provençal class--called also Limousin.
It is the same with Catalonia; the least Iberic, the least Arab, but,
perhaps, the most Roman, and the most Gothic of all the Spanish
provinces--_Cat-alonia_ or _Goth-land_--commercial, manufacturing, and
radical, with a political history of its own, and, for a time, an
independent line of sovereigns--the Berengarii.
In respect to language, the standard Spanish is that of the Castiles;
and it is upon the Castilians that our usual notions of a Spaniard are
founded. Decorous, reserved, and unenterprising, the occupant of a
misplaced metropolis, and of an arid table-land, which, for the most
part, is too much a mountain for agricultural, and too little of one for
mining industry, he is a type of the third variety of the Iberic
stock--the Andalusian and Catalonian being the other two.
In the fourth, the mountaineer-character, with its usual spirit of
independence, rude manners, and hardy mode of life, which attains its
height in Navarre and Biscay, is shared in different degrees by the
Galicians, Asturians, northern Arragonese, and the Spaniards of Leon;
the physical appearance changing from dark to light, and from a regular
contour to coarse angular features, with high cheek-bones. In Galicia, a
province of hewers of wood and drawers of water, this is most
remarkable. In Biscay, the comparative lightness of complexion has
engendered the idea of a Norman intermixture.
Though it would be a dangerous overstatement to say that descent,
pedigree, blood, or extraction go for nothing, we cannot consider the
nature of the Spanish national character in general, as exhibited in the
development of its science, art, literature, social institutions, and in
its moral and material influence upon the history of the world, without
seeing that many of the leading features of the drama that the Spaniards
have played upon the theatre of both the Old and New World are
referable to the effect of external circumstances--circumstances which,
in our inability to work out the details of cause and effect, we must be
content to call accidental. Who so likely to be isolated in the
character of their literature, and deficient in comprehensiveness of
thought, as the nation with the smallest sea-board and the most extreme
geographical position in Europe? Who so probable to have spread their
language over half America as the same? Who so fit to be good Catholics
as the favoured of the Pope, the authorized converters of the heathen
Indians, and the people whose national life was a crusade against the
Mahometan on their own soil? Who, too, so born to the pride of purity of
blood? There is much to account for all this, with which descent has
nothing to do, although, perhaps, there is more than the explanation of
all this accounts for.
A ballad literature, rising to the level of the humbler epics, and a
truly home-grown drama, are the self-evolved, indigenous elements of
Spanish literature. Their material influences are to be found in the
histories of America, the Indies, the Philippines, Micronesia, Italy,
and the Mediterranean Islands.
Portugal is Spain with a difference. More purely Iberic, and less
Phœnician, from the first, it was also less Roman, less Arab, and
very slightly Gothic. In Africa and India its influence has been
greater, in America somewhat less than that of Spain. The extent to
which the physical and moral characteristics of the Galicians and
Estremadurans are intermediate and transitional, I am unable to state.
* * * * *
A refinement upon the doctrine of the Keltæ having been Iberian, and of
the Celtiberi having been no Kelts at all, in the usual sense of the
term, will be found when we come to the ethnology of Ireland. It
consists in the possibility of one or both having been _Gaels_--Kelts,
it is true, but not Kelts in the sense given to the word by the
ancients.