CHAPTER XLII.
GLIMPSES OF SPAIN.
The peninsula which Spain and Portugal divide between them is the part of western Europe least visited by Americans, although it stretches out like a friendly hand toward the western hemisphere and has furnished not only the discoverer of North America, but the colonizers of Central and South America. When, early last June, we attempted to secure homeward passage, we found the ships sailing from Hamburg, Bremen and Antwerp already filled and had to look to a Mediterranean boat for accommodation. I mention this experience in the hope that it may help some other traveler who finds himself in the same dilemma, for we not only secured satisfactory accommodations on one of the North German Lloyd steamers, the Princess Irene, but had in addition an opportunity to see the most backward country in western Europe, the stronghold of the Moors during the middle ages and one of the great fortresses of the globe.
A fast train makes the distance from Paris to Madrid in a little over a day, the only drawback being that it passes through the Pyrenees in the night. As we had remained in Paris longer than we expected, we were deprived of a view of the mountain scenery and of the summer resorts of northern Spain. Morning found us in the very heart of Castile and the landscape resembles some parts of Mexico. The country is in the midst of the dry season and, the grain having been gathered, the fields look quite barren save for the vineyards. These are numerous all over Spain and recall the fact that Spain, like other colonizers, tried to make her colonies supplement her own products rather than compete with them. She forbade grape growing in Cuba, and in Mexico not only prohibited the culture of the vine, but the production of silk also. Speaking of grapes, it is only fair to say that, in this fruit, Spain cannot be surpassed. Nowhere have we found grapes so abundant, so cheap or so delicious. At a Vienna hotel last June they were asking three dollars for a cluster—probably raised in a hot house—that in August could be bought in Spain for ten or fifteen cents. The large white grapes exported to the United States and sold as a luxury during the winter months are here within the reach of all.
All along the railroad one sees primitive agricultural methods. The old-fashioned threshing floor is in common use, but instead of the flail they employ a machine resembling a light disc harrow, which is hitched to a pair of mules and drawn rapidly round and round. When the wheat is separated from the straw, men go over the threshing floor and winnow out the wheat, the wind blowing away the chaff. We were informed that they had had a prosperous year in the grain districts, but the stubble did not indicate as heavy a crop as we raise in the United States.
Madrid surprised us. It contains more than half a million of inhabitants, is about two thousand feet above the sea and is really a very attractive city. It is not an ancient city, being less than a thousand years old, but it has substantial blocks, a beautiful boulevard and a picture gallery one and a half centuries old. In the different galleries at Madrid are some of the best canvases of Velasquez and Murillo.
As in all other Spanish countries one finds here reminders of the national sport, the bull fight. Each city has its amphitheater or circular bull pit, and it is often the most conspicuous building in the place; the fans—and in Spain the fan is omnipresent and often of great value—are ornamented with scenes from the bull fight and the bill boards blaze with announcements of the next Sunday's combat. The bull fight is probably a lineal descendant of the gladiatorial contests of Rome, a surviving relic of brutality, which must disappear when Spain follows her northern neighbors in the adoption of universal education. At present her percentage of illiteracy is disgracefully large.