The water of this and other rivers is not needed for agricultural purposes, for it rains abundantly in Galicia and the Asturias, and the emerald meadows of these provinces are as famous as those of England. The flora, however, is upon the {456} whole more southerly in its features than that of the countries to the north of the Bay of Biscay. The orchards produce not only apples, chestnuts, and walnuts, but also oranges, and in a garden at Oviedo dates ripen in the open air. The great moisture, however, prevents certain plants from attaining the commercial importance they would otherwise possess. The mulberry flourishes, but the culture of silk-worms has only yielded indifferent results, and even the grapes, except in a few favoured localities, yield but sour wine of disagreeable flavour. Cider, on the other hand, enjoys a high reputation, and is even exported to America.

[Μ]

Fig. 182.—THE PEÑAS DE EUROPA.

Scale 1 : 660,000.

The Asturian boasts of having never submitted to the yoke of Mussulmans. Some of the mountain districts preserved their independence throughout, and nowhere could the Arabs maintain themselves for any length of time. Oviedo was called the “city of bishops,” from the great number of prelates who found a refuge there. The Galicians were equally successful in their resistance to the Moors, and the blood of the Celtic inhabitants of these remote provinces is thus purer than anywhere else in Spain.

In some districts the customs are said to have remained unchanged since {457} the time of the Romans. The herdsmen, or vaqueros, of Leitariegos, on the Upper Narcea, form almost a distinct tribe. They keep apart from the rest of the Asturians, and always marry amongst themselves. Old dialects maintain their ground. The peasants on the coast of Cantabria talk their bable, and in Galicia the dialects differ even from village to village. The gallego, especially as spoken near the Miño, is Portuguese rather than Spanish, but a Lusitanian is nevertheless unable to understand a Galician, owing to the curious sing-song intonation of the latter.

The country supports a dense population, but there are few towns. Many of these consist merely of a church, a town-hall, and an inn. The homesteads are scattered over the whole country. This may be due to an innate love of nature, or perhaps, as in the Basque provinces, to the security which the country has enjoyed during centuries. Foreign and civil wars have scarcely ever affected these outlying provinces of Spain. The manners are gentle, and the bloodthirsty bull-fights of the Castilians unknown. The isolation and peace in which the Cantabrians were permitted to exist did not, however, prove of advantage in all respects. Elsewhere in Europe, nobles, priests, citizens, and the peasantry, when threatened by danger, felt constrained to make concessions to each other. Not so in the Asturias, where the peasants were reduced to the condition of serfs, and sold with the land. At the commencement of this century nearly the whole of the land in the two Asturias was in the hands of twenty-four proprietors, and in the neighbouring Galicia the conditions were not much more favourable. Matters have changed since then. The lords have grown poor, the monasteries have been suppressed, and the industrious Asturians and Galicians have invested their hard-earned savings in land. Formerly the feudal lords leased the land to the cultivators, who rendered homage and paid a quit-rent, the lease remaining in force during the reign of two or three kings, for a hundred years, or even for three hundred and twenty-nine years, according to the custom of different districts. These leases, however, frequently led to disputes; the leaseholders, on the expiration of their leases, often refused to surrender possession, and in numerous instances the law courts sustained them in this refusal.

The Galicians on the coast divide their time between the cultivation of the land and fishing. During the season no less than 20,000 men, with 3,000 or 4,000 boats, spread their nets in the Bays of La Coruña, Arosa, Pontevedra, and Vigo, where tunny-fish and sardines abound. The local consumption of sardines is enormous, and La Coruña alone exports about 17,000 tons annually to America. These pursuits, however, are not capable of supporting an increasing population, and thousands of Galicians emigrate annually. Thrifty and clannish, they usually succeed in amassing a small competency, and those among them who return exercise a civilising influence upon their less-cultivated countrymen. Ignorance and poverty, with all their attendant evils, are great in Galicia, and leprosy and elephantiasis are common diseases.

One great hindrance to the development of the resources of the country consists in the paucity of roads and railways. A beginning has been made, but, looking to the financial condition of Spain, progress will hardly be rapid. {458}