else accompanies you to see what you want with village X, and him, his poultry, and his wife. Such is the rule of the road in Galicia.

The Asturians, a sturdy race of mountaineers, honest and fairly truthful, are the Galician much improved. "Gallegos y asturianos," runs the saying, primos hermanos."* Verdejo says of them :-"Their country is rugged, their population large and not remarkably hardworking. These considerations induce a number of Asturians to migrate and seek a living in Madrid or elsewhere as water-sellers, servants, or porters, while their wives stay at home to mind the crops and the cattle. However they may be employed, they conserve a certain nobleness of disposition, and are honest, faithful, lawabiding, intensely loyal to their king and creed, devotedly patriotic, and brave and patient in misfortune. Those who do not leave Asturias dedicate themselves to agriculture and cattle breeding. They live soberly and without vices, for which reason they are a healthy people, and it is frequent to find among them centenarians who retain the vigour and the freshness of their youth."

Such are the main characteristics of the peoples of Spain, considered, as they should be, singly. Some qualities they share together. As a rule, they have neither learned to love the foreigner nor to loathe him. They simply do not exercise themselves about him. If he comes to Spain, he is more or less chiflado (cracked) for not staying at home or going elsewhither; but his chifladura is his own

"The Galicians and the Asturians are first cousins."

affair, and the bucket goes to the well and the grist to the mill much the same as previously.

Guicciardini, the Florentine Ambassador at the court of Ferdinand the Catholic, described the Spaniards as "swarthy, low of stature, stern of character, and of adust complexion. They are," he wrote, "a haughty race, and believe no others may compare with them. They weigh their words well, and affect a greater consequence than they possess. They dislike foreigners and treat them sourly. Of warlike temper, more so, perhaps, than any other Christian people, they are peculiarly fitted for the profession of arms, being skilful and adroit of limb."

The Countess D'Aulnoy observes sententiously"Let us render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's. It is certain that every Spaniard who receives a good education and who travels, makes a better use than anyone else of his studies and observations. . . It is easy to discover qualities which do him honour-a generous nature, brave, discreet, and open-hearted; such gifts, in fine, as go to grace the perfect cavalier." And elsewhere she records that "as a rule they are exceedingly temperate in their drinking, and a drunken man is very rare. The worst insult you can pay a Spaniard is to call him a drunkard, and their pride is on a par with their temperance.'

They are good talkers and listeners, perhaps a trifle superficial, but pleasant and vivacious. Their

* Journey in Spain. By the Countess D'Aulnoy. First Spanish Edition. Madrid, 1891.

facile conversation led Bacon to record the opinion, current in his day, that "the French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are." Perhaps better-informed would be more precise than wiser.

The Spanish pride to which her ladyship alluded is not an easy emotion to analyse, although it appears to be chiefly based upon the hereditary consciousness, piously transmitted from father to son, that Spain was once the grandest nation in the world. This pride is quite extreme in its exaggeration, and I have discovered some curious anecdotes which illustrate it. They relate, it is true, to older times, but the national sentiment remains unchanged. On one occasion the Countess, who was passing through Burgos, was sent a dish of meat by the Archbishop. "A moment later, Don Federico de Cardona, who had learned what was proceeding, came in with a great vessel of silver, the cover of which was locked, as is the Spanish custom. On asking the cook for the key, he replied, being loth, no doubt, to divide his master's dinner among so many, that he had lost it. Whereupon Don Federico, waxing angry, was for complaining to the Archbishop, and threatened the cook, so that an unpleasant scene ensued, which I could overhear from my room. But what amazed me most. was the rejoinder of the cook, who said: 'I'll stand no browbeating, not I, being an old Christian, and as noble as the king, or nobler.'" And alluding to the Vizcaínos and Navarros the same writer says" They all regard themselves as gentlemen, even to the water-sellers."