ROYAL PALACE, MADRID, SPAIN
SPAIN AND GIBRALTAR
Madrid, the Capital
TWO
Standing on the grand stairway of the Royal Palace, his hand upon the balustrade, and looking at the splendor about him, Napoleon Bonaparte said to his brother Joseph, to whom he had given the throne of Spain, “You are better housed than I am.” That was the emperor’s opinion of the royal residence in Madrid. To Napoleon the conquest of this ancient and famous land of Spain was one of his greatest victories.
Many people, when they first see the country around Madrid, are surprised at the lack of trees there. It is known that the mountains of that region were once covered with a heavy growth of forest which has since been cut away. The trees were felled to put money into the royal treasury. One reason they were never replanted is that many of the Castilians have a strong dislike for trees. They think only of the birds that nest among the branches and feed in grain fields; they forget that trees are both useful and beautiful in themselves, giving shade and moisture and beautifying the scenery.
In later years a wise government has come to see that the slight loss of farmland is not nearly so important as the effect woodlands have on climate. Groves now dot the landscape with patches of refreshing green, and the climate about Madrid is already improving. It is hoped that the bleak country, which now grows only a spare crop of corn, will become fertile and fruitful again when new forests have influenced a more regular rainfall and a steadier temperature. Scientific forestry can probably redeem the error that was committed centuries ago.
Madrid, though a modern city, has been from the beginning a center of art and literature. Velasquez went there from Seville to spend the greater part of his life. It was there that Cervantes, author of “Don Quixote,” lived and died. More important, perhaps, than any other figure in the Spanish drama was Lope de Vega, a native of the city. He led an eventful life while writing poems and plays with wonderful readiness. According to his own statement, more than a hundred of his plays were written so quickly that it took only twenty-four hours from the time he started to compose each one of them until it had been produced on the stage. He wrote 1,800 plays. He is said to have printed 21,300,000 lines, which, if we can believe his own account, was only a part of all that he wrote. To do this he must have written nearly nine hundred lines a day all through his life.