HE Iberian peninsula, Spain and Portugal, must be looked upon geographically as one. Differences of soil, climate, and language may have justified its division into two states, but in the organism of Europe these two constitute but a single member, having the same geological history, and exhibiting unity in their physical configuration.[135]

Compared with the other peninsulas of Southern Europe, viz. Italy and that of the Balkans, Iberia is most insular in its character. The isthmus which attaches it to the trunk of Europe is comparatively narrow, and it is defined most distinctly by the barrier of the Pyrenees. The contour of the peninsula is distinguished by its massiveness. There are curving bays, but no inlets of the sea penetrating far inland, as in the case of Greece.[136]

It was said long ago, and with justice, that Africa begins at the Pyrenees. Iberia, indeed, bears some resemblance to Africa. Its outline is heavy, there are hardly any islands along its coasts, and few plains open out upon the sea. But it is an Africa in miniature, only one-fiftieth the size of the continent upon which it appears to have been modelled. Moreover, the oceanic slope of the peninsula is quite European as to climate, vegetation, and abundance of running water; and {371} certain features of its flora even justify a belief that at some remote epoch it was joined to the British Islands. African Hispania only begins in reality with the treeless plateaux of the interior, and more especially with the Me­di­ter­ra­nean coasts. There we meet the zone of transition between the two continents. Its general aspect, flora, fauna, and even population, mark out that portion of Spain as an integral part of Barbary; the Sierra Nevada and the Atlas, facing each other, are sister mountains; and the strait which separates them is a mere accident in the surface relief of our planet.

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Fig. 136.—THE TABLE-LANDS OF THE IBERIAN PENINSULA.

Scale 1 : 10,300,000.

Spain, though nearly surrounded by the sea, is nevertheless essentially continental in its character. Nearly the whole of it consists of table-lands, and only the plains of the Tajo (Tagus) and of Andalusia open out broadly upon the ocean. The coast, for the most part, rises steeply, and the harbours are consequently difficult of access to the inhabitants of the interior, a circumstance most detrimental to the development of a large sea-borne commerce.

Ever since the discovery of the ocean high-roads to America and the Indies, the Atlantic coast of the Iberian peninsula has taken the lead in commercial matters, {372} a fact easily accounted for by the physical features of the country. Spain, like peninsular Italy, turns her back upon the east. The plateaux slope down gently towards the west; the principal rivers, the Ebro alone excepted, flow in that direction; and the water-shed lies close to the Me­di­ter­ra­nean shores.