[Μ]

Fig. 138.—DENSITY OF THE POPULATION OF THE IBERIAN PENINSULA.

History affords no other example of so rapid a decadence brought about without foreign aggression. The workshops were closed, the arts of peace forgotten, the fields but indifferently cultivated. Young men flocked to the 9,000 monasteries to enjoy a life of indolence, and “science was a crime, ignorance and stupidity were the first of virtues.” Population decreased, and the Spaniard even lost his ancient renown for bravery. If the Bourbon kings placed foreigners in all high positions of state, they did so because the Spaniards had become incapable of conducting public business.

But if we compare the Spain of our own days with the Spain of the Inquisition, we cannot fail to be struck with the vast progress made. Spain is no longer a “happy people without a history,” for ever since the beginning of the century it has been engaged in struggles, and during this period of tumultuous life it has done more for arts, science, and industry than in the two centuries of peace which succeeded the dark reign of Philip II. No doubt Spain might have done {377} even more if the strength of the country had not been wasted in internal struggles. Unfortunately the geographical configuration of the peninsula is unfavourable to the consolidation of the nation. The littoral regions combine every advantage of climate, soil, and accessibility, whilst the resources of the inland plateaux are comparatively few. The former naturally attract population; they abound in large and bustling cities, and are more densely populated than the interior of the country. Madrid, which occupies a commanding position almost in the geometrical centre of the country, has become a focus of life, but its environs are very thinly inhabited.

This unequal distribution of the population could not fail to exercise a powerful influence upon the history of the country. Each of the maritime provinces felt sufficiently strong to lead a separate existence. During the struggles with the Moors common interests induced the independent kingdoms of Iberia to co-operate, and facilitated the establishment of a central monarchy; but, to maintain this unity afterwards, it became necessary to have recourse to a system of terrorism and oppression. Portugal, being situated on the open Atlantic, shook off the detested yoke of Castile after less than a century’s submission. In the rest of the peninsula political consolidation is making progress, thanks to the facilities of in­ter­com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the substitution of Castilian for the provincial dialects; but it would be an error to suppose that Andalusians and Galicians, Basques and Catalans, Aragonese and Madrileños, have been welded into one nation. Indeed, the federal constitution advocated by Spanish republicans appears to be best suited to the geographical configuration of the country and the genius of its population. The desire to establish provincial autonomy has led to most of the civil wars of Spain, whether raised by Carlists or Intransigentes. It is therefore meet that, in our description of Spain, we should respect the limits traced by nature, bearing in mind the fact that the political boundaries of the province do not always coincide with water-sheds or linguistic boundaries.

II.—THE CASTILES, LEON, AND ESTREMADURA.[*]

The great central plateau of the peninsula is bounded on the north, east, and south by ranges of mountains extending from the Cantabrian Pyrenees to the Sierra Morena, and slopes down in the west towards Portugal and the Atlantic. The uplands through which the Upper Duero, the Tajo (Tagus), and the Guadiana take their course are thus a region apart, and if the waters of the ocean were to rise 2,000 feet, they would be converted into a peninsula attached by the narrow isthmus of the Basque provinces to the French Pyrenees. The vast extent of these plateaux—they constitute nearly half the area of the whole country—accounts for the part they played in history, and their commanding position enabled the Castilians to gain possession of the adjacent territories. {378}

The Castiles can hardly be called beautiful, or rather their solemn beauty does not commend them to the majority of travellers. Vast districts, such as the Tierra de Campos, to the north of Valladolid, are ancient lake beds of great fertility, but exceedingly monotonous, owing to the absence of forests. Others are covered with small stony hillocks; others, again, may be described as mountainous. Mountain ranges covered with meagre herbage bound the horizon, and sombre gorges, enclosed between precipitous walls of rock, lead into them. Elsewhere, as in the Lower Estremadura, we meet with vast pasture-lands, stretching as far as the eye can reach to the foot of the mountains, and, as in certain parts of the American prairies, not a tree arrests the attention. Looking to the fearful nakedness of these plains, one would hardly imagine that a law was promulgated in the middle of last century which enjoins each inhabitant to plant at least five trees. Trees, indeed, have been cut down more rapidly than they were planted. The peasants have a prejudice against them; their leaves, they say, give shelter to birds, which prey upon the corn-fields. Small birds, nightingales alone excepted, are pursued without mercy, and a proverb says that “swallows crossing the Castiles must carry provisions with them.” Trees are met with only in the most remote localities. The hovels of the peasantry, built of mud or pebbles, are of the same colour as the soil, the walled towns are easily confounded with the rock near them, and even in the midst of cultivated fields we may imagine ourselves in a desert. Many districts suffer from want of water, and villages which rejoice in the possession of a spring proclaim the fact aloud as one of their attributes. Huge bridges span the ravines, though for more than half the year not a drop of water passes over their pebbly beds.

The Sierra de Guadarrama and its western continuation, the Sierra de Gredos, separate this central plateau of Spain into two portions, lying at different elevations. Old Castile and Leon, which lie to the north, in the basin of the Duero, slope down from east to west from 5,600 to 2,300 feet; whilst New Castile and La Mancha, in the twin basins of the Tajo and the Guadiana, have an average elevation of only 2,000 feet. In the tertiary age these two plateaux were covered with huge lakes. One of them, the contours of which are indicated by the débris carried down from the surrounding hills, originally discharged its waters in the direction of the valley of the Ebro, but subsequently opened itself a passage through the crystalline mountains of Portugal, now represented by the gorges of the Lower Duero. At another epoch this Lake Superior communicated with the lake which overspread what are now the plains of New Castile and La Mancha. The area covered by these two lakes amounted to 30,000 square miles, and Spain was then a mere skeleton of crystalline mountains, joined together by saddles of triassic, Jurassic, and cretaceous age, enclosing these two fresh-water lakes, and bounded exteriorly by the ocean. This geological period must have been of very long duration, for the lacustrine deposits are sometimes nearly a thousand feet in thickness. The miocene strata which form the superficial deposits of these two lake basins of the Castiles are geologically of the same age, for fossil bones of the same great animals—megatheria, mammoths, and hipparions—are found in both. {379}