Historically and geographically, Aragon and Catalonia form one of the great natural divisions of Spain, less extensive than the Castiles, but hardly less important, and far more densely populated.[153] The political destinies of Aragon and Catalonia have been the same for more than seven centuries, but, in spite of this, {429} there exist great contrasts, which have not been without their influence upon the character of the population. Aragon, a country of plains surrounded by mountains, is an inland province, and its inhabitants have remained for the most part herdsmen, agriculturists, and soldiers. Catalonia, on the other hand, possesses an admirable seaboard. Its natural wealth, joined to favourable geographical position, has developed commerce with neighbouring countries, and more especially with Roussillon and Languedoc. Indeed, seven or eight centuries ago, the Catalans were Provençals rather than Spaniards, and in their language and customs they were closely related to the people to the north of the Pyrenees.

In the course of the great political revolution, the most terrible feature of which was the war of the Albigenses, Catalonia became a prey to the Castilians. As long as the Provençal world maintained its natural centre between Arles and Toulouse, the populations of the Me­di­ter­ra­nean coasts, as far as the Ebro, Valencia, and the Baleares, were attracted towards it as to their common focus. Those Christian populations who found themselves placed between Provence on the one hand and the Arab kingdoms on the other, naturally gravitated towards the former, with whom they possessed community of race, religion, and language. Hence the wide range of the idiom known as Limousin, and its flourishing literature. But when an implacable war had converted several towns of the Albigenses into deserts; when the barbarians of the North had destroyed the civilisation of the South, and the southern slopes of the Cévennes had been reduced by violence to the position of a political dependency of the valley of the Seine, Catalonia was forced to look elsewhere for natural allies. The centre of gravity was shifted from the north to the south, from Southern France to the peninsula of the Pyrenees, and Castile secured what Provence had lost.

The plateau to the south of the Ebro has been cut up, through the erosive action of rivers, into elongated sierras and isolated muelas (molars), and its edge is marked by numerous notches, through which these rivers debouch upon the plain. The Sierra de San Just (4,967 feet), now separated from that of Gúdar by the upper valley of the Guadalupe, is a remnant of this ancient plateau, as are the Sierras de Cucalon (4,284 feet), de Vicor, and de la Virgen, which join it to the superb mass of the Moncayo, in the north-west; and the same applies to the Sierra de Almenara (4,687 feet), which rises to the west of them.

The granitic mountain mass of the Moncayo (7,705 feet) has offered greater resistance to the erosive action of the waters than have the cretaceous rocks of the plateau to the east of it. The Moncayo is the storm-breeder of the plains of Aragon, and from its summit the Castilian can look down upon the wide valley of the Ebro. To the Aragonese the plateau is accessible only through the valleys of the Guadalupe, Martin, and Jiloca, and it is these which have enabled them to obtain possession of the upland of Teruel, which is of such strategical importance, from its commanding position between the basins of the Guadalaviar, Júcar, and Tajo.

To the north of the Ebro rises the snow-clad range of the Pyrenees, which separates Spain from the rest of Europe. Several spurs descend from this master range into Aragon. But there are also independent ranges, one of which, that of {430} the Bardenas, rises immediately to the north of the Ebro, right opposite to the gigantic Moncayo. The parallel ridges of the Castellar and of the “district of the Five Towns” form a continuation of these hillocks to the east of the Arba, and then, crossing the valley of the Gallego, we reach the barren terraces of the Monegros, upon which rises the insular Sierra de Alcubierra, in the very centre of the ancient lake of Aragon. A saddle, elevated only 1,247 feet above the sea-level, connects the latter with the mountains of Huesca in the north.

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Fig. 168.—PORT MAHON.

Scale 1 : 50,000.