These two kinds are carefully gathered in late autumn, and are in universal demand throughout the Peninsula. Beyond its boundaries they are little known or appreciated, though some few have already found consumers in the north of Europe.
Although the olive-trees are of the hardiest nature—otherwise they could not survive, without irrigation, the intense heats of summer—yet the crop is a precarious one. After the fruit has been gathered in December, or rather beaten off the trees, for that is the method adopted, the olives destined for the oil-mill are subjected to severe pressure by rudely-constructed wooden screws, often supplemented by stone-weights—again the simplest appliances of modern machinery are often neglected—and the oil extracted is drawn off and separated into different qualities. None, however, is of that grade—or rather its manufacture and elaboration are too rough and careless, to enable the Spanish produce to compete with the refined neutral oils of Italy and France. With a little more care in its manufacture, and more energy in its introduction to foreign markets, the rich oils of Spain might doubtless be made a source of much additional national wealth.
Its substantial qualities, and in particular its power of long sustaining light, are appreciated in Russia, where it is superseding the oils of other countries for its reliable illumination of the icons, or sacred lamps. The religious tenets of the Muscovites require that these small lamps, suspended before their images, should burn brightly, without trimming, through the longest winter nights of eighteen or twenty hours. The little glass tumblers of the icons are filled to the brim with Spanish oil: a perforated metal bar placed across, holds the lightly-twisted cotton wick, and once lighted the little lamp burns brightly, without smoke or attention, through the longest nights of the northern winter.
At present the preparation and export of Spanish oil is almost monopolized by the port of Malaga.
Horse-Breeding and Live Stock.
Andalucia is the breeding-ground of the best horses of the Peninsula: many of the landowners are possessed of well-known "brands," as they are called, and the farmers are almost universally interested in horses to some extent. Great strides have been made of recent years in the improvement of the breeds through the importation of thorough-bred English sires, &c. This is, indeed, the one branch of rural industry in which a decided advance has been made. Since the introduction of racing into the country by Englishmen, about 1867—Jerez de la Frontera being the cradle of this, as of most other sports—the superiority of the present breed has been thoroughly established. Horses of a larger and better stamp than formerly are now seen bearing the branded device of the various provincial herds, it being still the custom to brand each foal with the particular sign of the stud to which it belongs.
For temper and enduring powers the old Spanish hack could never be improved upon; but in shape and make the race had sadly degenerated since the Spanish Gennet was the favourite and fashionable steed of the wealthy both in France and England. The heavy Flemish stallions introduced by Carlos Quinto—of which Velasquez' pictures give us the type—account for this falling-off from the earlier form of that high-bred Arab race which long ago supplied the wants of a nation of horsemen—the Caballeros, whose interests in life were coloured and directed by a devotion to knight-errantry unparalleled in other lands, and which still leaves its impress on the thought and habit of the Hidalgos of to-day.
Now, however, the Andalucian horse bids fair to regain his ancient prestige; some of the more ambitious haras boast their strings of pedigree-stock, and the stud-book of Spain is an established institution, its register having been zealously kept till this year, by the sportsman-grandee, the late Duke of Fernan Nuñez.
In contrast to these favoured breeds, and at the other extremity of the scale, we have the almost wild horses of the marismas, which shift for themselves throughout the year on the open wastes, and fly, like the deer, from the unaccustomed sight of man. The heats of summer, the cold and wet of winter, are faced in turn by this hardy race, which, in return for their freedom, provide their owners with a yearly contingent of sturdy offspring. These youngsters are only separated from the wild herds, "rounded up," and captured with great difficulty—after long and fast chases on the open plains. Perfect little demons of vice and fury they are, too, when caught, shaggy and unkempt little beasts, coated with dried mud, biting at each other, quarrelling and screaming with savage rage—a corral full of them newly-caught is indeed a singular sight. On many of the old mares of the marisma the hand of man has never placed a halter.