“Though there are ten universities in Spain some of them very ancient and very celebrated, the population of Spain have been in a state of extreme ignorance till quite a recent period. At the beginning of the present century, it was rare to find a peasant or an ordinary workman who could read. Efforts have been put forth since 1812 to promote popular education; but with no great success, till within the last forty years. In 1868 there were a million and a quarter of pupils in the public and private schools; and not more than one in ten of the population are unable to read. But the sum expended for public education in Spain is less per annum than the city of Boston devotes to this object.
“Money values in Spain are generally reckoned in reales, a real being five cents of our money. This is the unit of the system. The Isabelino, or Isabel as it is generally called, is a gold coin worth one hundred reales, or five dollars. A peso, or duro, is the same as our dollar: it is a silver coin. The escudo is half a dollar. The peseta is twenty cents; the half peseta is ten. The real is the smallest silver coin. Of the copper coins, the medio real means half a real. You will see a small copper coin stamped ‘1 centimo de escudo,’ which means one hundredth of an escudo, or half dollar. It is the tenth of a real, or half a cent. Then there is the doble decima, worth one cent; and the medio decima, worth a quarter of a cent. But probably you will not hear any of these copper coins mentioned. Instead of them the small money will be counted in cuartos, eight and a half of them making a real. An American cent, an English halfpenny, a French sou, or any other copper coin of any nation, and about the same size, will go for a cuarto. A maravedis is an imaginary value, four of which were equal to a cuarto. It is used in poetry and plays; and, though there is no such coin, any piece of base metal, even a button, will pass for a maravedis. There is a vast quantity of bad money in circulation in Spain, especially of the gold coins; and the traveller should be on the lookout for it. There are also a great many counterfeit escudos, or half-dollars. Travellers should have nothing to do with paper money, as it is not good away from the locality where it is issued.
“Having said all that occurs to me on these general topics, I shall now ask your attention to the history of Spain, which is very interesting to the student, though I am obliged to make it quite brief. I hope you have read the historical writings of our own Prescott, which are more attractive than the novels of the day. If you have not read these works, do so before you are a year older; and here in Spain is the time for you to begin.
“Recent events have called an unusual amount of attention to the Spanish peninsula; and this unhappy country has long been in so uneasy a state that a revolution surprises very few. Spain has had its full share, both of the smiles and the frowns of fortune. It was as widely known in early ages for its wealth, as it has been in modern times for its beggars.
“Nearly three thousand years ago, the Phœnicians began to plant colonies in the South of Spain. They found the country abounding with silver. So plenty, indeed, was the silver ore, that, according to one account, they not only loaded their fleet with it, but they returned home with their anchors and the commonest implements made of the same precious metal.
“This is doubtless an exaggeration; but we have reason to believe that silver was more abundant in Spain than in any other quarter of the ancient world. Few silver-mines were known in Asia in those days: yet an immense quantity of silver was in circulation there during the flourishing period of the Persian empire. Herodotus tells us that in the reign of Darius, son of Hystaspes, all the nations under the yoke of the Persians, except the Indians and the Ethiopians, paid their tribute in silver. A large portion of this was obtained from the Phœnicians, and was distributed through Asia by the traders who came to Tyre. The Carthaginians also drew uncounted treasures in silver from Spain. When Carthagina was taken from them by Scipio, the portion of the precious metals that went into the Roman treasury was eighteen thousand three hundred pounds in weight of silver, two hundred and seventy-six golden cups each weighing a pound, and silver vessels without number. Near this city is a silver-mine which is said to have employed forty thousand workmen, and which paid the Romans nearly two million dollars annually. Another mine in the Pyrenees furnished to the Carthaginians in Hannibal’s time three hundred pounds every day. The quantities of gold and silver brought into the public treasury by the Roman consuls who subjugated the different parts of the Spanish peninsula were enormous. Still the country was not exhausted; for it was almost as highly favored in soil and climate as in its mineral treasures. ‘Next to Italy, if I except the fabulous regions of India, I would rank Spain,’ wrote Pliny in the first century of our era. At that time the country contained four hundred and nine cities; and there was not within the Roman empire a province where the people were more industrious or more prosperous. How strongly this account contrasts with the history of modern Spain! When the Spanish monarchs were aspiring to rule the world, in the sixteenth century, the streets of their cities were overrun with beggars. Only a century ago, the number of people in Spain who were without shirts, because they were too poor to buy such a luxury, was estimated at three millions, or one-third of the population of the kingdom. Within a hundred years, however, in spite of numerous drawbacks, the wealth of the country has vastly increased, and the population has nearly doubled.
“The Spaniards are the descendants of various races, tribes, and nations. At the dawn of history, we find the country in possession of the Iberians and Celts. Of the Iberians we know but little. From them Spain received its ancient name, Iberia; and the Iberus River, now the Ebro, took the name by which, with slight changes, it is still known. The language of the Iberians is supposed to survive in that of the Basque provinces of Biscaya, Guipuzcoa, and Alava, which I located a few moments since.
“The Celts, who a little more than two thousand years ago had not lost possession of Northern Italy and the countries now known as England, Scotland, and Ireland, drove the Iberians from the South of France and from the north-western part of Spain, in very early times. In the centre of the latter country these people united, and were afterwards known as Celt-Iberians.
“About a thousand years before Christ, the Phœnicians began to build towns on the southern coast of Spain; and, a century or two later, colonies were established on the eastern coast by the Rhodians and by other Greeks. Cadiz, Malaga, and Cordova were Phœnician towns; and Rhodos and Saguntum—now Rosas and Murviedro—were among those founded by the Greeks.
“Carthage was founded by the Tyrians; but the Carthaginians did not allow relationship to stand in the way of gain or conquest. Nearly six hundred years before our era, they found an opportunity to supplant the Phœnicians in Spain; and in the course of two centuries and a half they had brought under their sway a large portion of the country. At length the Greek colonies on the coast of Catalonia and Valencia, and several independent nations of the interior, seeing no other way to avoid submitting to Carthage, called upon the Romans for help. Rome sent commissioners to Carthage in the year B.C. 227, who obtained a promise that the Carthaginians would not push their conquests beyond the Ebro, and that they would not disturb the Saguntines and other Greek colonies. But, in spite of this agreement, Saguntum was besieged eight years later, by a Carthaginian army under Hannibal. The siege and destruction of this city caused the second Punic war, lasting from B.C. 218 to 201, during which Carthage lost her last foot-hold in Spain.