Such small cultivation as exists in the Hurdes is carried on under supreme difficulty. The hills themselves are uncultivable, and the only opportunities that present themselves are either chance open spaces amidst interminable rock, or such rare and narrow strips of soil as can exist between precipitous slopes and the banks of the streams. Here little garden-patches, thirty or forty feet long by a dozen in width, are reclaimed; but the very earth is liable to be swept away by winter-floods pouring down the mountain-sides, and has to be replaced by fresh soil carried—it may be long distances—on men’s shoulders. Here a few potatoes may be raised and in the broader valleys scant crops of rye. The few fruit trees are neglected, and therefore give short yield, though what little is produced is of exquisite flavour, comprising figs, cherries, a sort of peach (pavia), olives, and vines. All crops are subject to the ravages of wild-boars, which roam in bands of a dozen to a score, fearless of man and molested by none; while wolves take toll of the flocks.
Red deer also wander freely and unpreserved over these ownerless hills—possibly the only place in Europe where such is the case. We inquired whether many were shot, but were told that such an event occurred rarely, though the Hurdano gunner might often approach within close range. “We are not enseñados [instructed] in the arts of chase,” explained our informant. A few partridges and hares are found, with trout in the upper waters.
Despite their degradation, the Hurdanos, we were assured, display no criminal taint such as is inherent among Gipsies.
As regards the habits and customs of these people, we here roughly transcribe from the work of Pascual Madoz[39] some selected extracts that appear to be as accurate to-day as when they were written some sixty years ago.
The food of the Hurdanos is as noxious as it is scanty. The potato is the general stand-by, either boiled or cooked with crude goat’s suet; sometimes beans fried in the same grease, and lastly the leaves of trees, boiled; with roots, the stalks of certain wild grasses, chestnuts, and acorns. Bread is practically unknown—all they ever have is made of coarse rye and such crusts as they obtain by begging outside their district. Only when at the point of death is wheaten bread provided.
Their clothing consists of a shapeless garment reaching from the hip to the knee, a shirt without collar, fastening with one button, and a sack carried over the shoulder. They have no warm clothing and all go bare-foot. The women are even less tidy and dirtier than the men. Never have they a vestige of anything new—nothing but discarded garments obtained by begging, or in exchange for chestnuts, at the distant towns. Their usual “fashion” is never to take off, to mend, or to wash any rag they have once put on—it is worn till it falls off through sheer old age and dirt. They never wash nor brush their hair, and go bare-legged like the men.
These, moreover, are the richest; the majority being clad in goatskins (untanned) that they kill or that die. These skins the men fix round their necks, girt at waist and round the knees with straps; the women merely an apron from the waist downward.
Men and women alike are dwarfed in stature and repugnant in appearance, augmented by their pallor and starveling look. On the other hand, they are active and expert in climbing their native mountains. There is no outward difference in the sexes as regards their lives and means of subsistence.