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It is a singular fact that every Vizcaíno has the right to prefix the ennobling de to his surname. am honourable," declares the official to Governor Sancho Panza, "because I am of Biscay." This Basque ideal of democracy is preferable to the French; for the Frenchman endeavours, as it were, to dwarf the social status of his rulers; the Vizcaíno, to raise his intellectual and political inferiors to a social level strictly identical with his own and it is better to aim at making a community equally noble, than at making them equally base.

In 1637 a French lackey in the service of the Papal Nuncio was whipped through the streets of Madrid for rescuing a prisoner from the alguaciles. But another lackey, who had contributed to the offence, was pardoned, for having the good fortune to be a Vizcaíno, he was able to prove himself by document an hidalgo (noble), and so they forbore to whip him." What would Charles Jeames Yellowplush say to these prerogatives among his Spanish brethren ?

The Spanish woman is a very noble creature,

"In softness as in firmness far above remoter females."

She is not highly educated, but that is refreshing in these days of woman lawyers, graduates, and similar monstrosities. The appreciative Countess dwelt with rapture upon the qualities and graces of the Spanish women-their "tiny feet, no bigger than those of a five-year-old child," and little hands, "white and delicately shaped. They possess," she said, "a native wit in which they far outdistance us. They love to praise, and do so nobly, gaily, and with

discernment. Their retentive memory is astonishing, and rivals their quickness of imagination. They are tender-hearted-more so, occasionally, than is convenient. Their reading is bad, their penmanship worse, but they make good use of their studies, and the little they write is opportune and to the point."

"Their features are fine, and finely cut, but their thinness is surprising. As a rule they are dark and pale, with a smooth, delicate skin. Doubtless they are less attacked by the small-pox than are the inhabitants of other countries, since few of them are pockmarked.

"Their hair is as black as ebony, and very lustrous, although they take but little care of it, using generally but a single comb. Their

eyes are matchless, ardent, and expressive, speaking so sweet and eloquent a language that even were the beauty of her eyes her only merit, the Spanish woman would still be lovely and captivating."

She is at least as chaste as the women of any other cultured country. Her inborn pride assists her to an indifference to the wiles of man-to a feminine wariness, so to speak, that in itself is a protecting quality, and if any foreign cub who has tripped through Spain as a commercial traveller, or what not, tells you that the temperament of Spanish women collectively is ardent to the point of immorality, and that with them it is a simple case of llegar y besar al santo,* set him down as a liar at once.

'To reach the saint and kiss him." An expression used figuratively of anything that is particularly simple of accomplishment.

Indeed, the Spanish female is by no means the passionate vessel she is represented by the tourist, nor does she carry a knife in her garter (I speak from experience), as your hotel waiter (guasón !) will have you believe. She is an affectionate wife, rating her marital duties very high, and the most devoted of mothers, indulgent almost to a fault.

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CHAPTER II.

INTROSPECTIVE AND GEOGRAPHICAL.

[HE extent of Spain is rather over half a million square kilometres. Three mountain systems cross the country laterally. The northernmost stretches from Cape Creux to Cape Finisterre, and is composed of the Pyrenees proper-from Cape Creux to Cape Higuer, in the Bay of Biscay -the Cantabrian Mountains, the Mountains of Asturias, and the Mountains of Galicia, terminating in Finisterre. To the left of the Asturian Mountains a dependent chain, the Mountains of León, breaks off and winds into Portugal.

The central system includes the Cordillera Ibérica and the Cordillera Carpeto - Vetónica. The former embraces the Sierra Moncayo and Montes de Oca, which form, together with several minor ranges, the boundary of thirteen provinces. The second Cordillera comprises the ranges of Somosierra, Guadarrama, Estrella, Navacerrada, Gata, and Gredos, besides various groups of slighter importance. It is a portion of this Cordillera which parts the Old and New Castiles, and intersects the very heart of Spain.

The southern system is composed of the Cordilleras Oreto-Herminiana, Mariánica, and Peni

bética. The first of these, starting from the Sierra de Cuenca, takes the successive names of the Mountains of Toledo, Sierra de Guadalupe, Puerto de Santa Cruz, Sierra de Montánchez, and Sierra de San Mamed. The remainder is in Portugal. The Mountains of Toledo and the Sierra de Guadalupe lie nearly a hundred kilometres to the south of, and parallel with, the great central Cordillera, while the Tagus courses about equidistant between the two.

The Cordillera Mariánica springs from the humble Sierra de Alcaráz, west of Albacete, swells into the Sierra Morena and Serranía de Córdoba, and dwindles into the Sierras Guadalcanal and Aroche, terminating on the southern coast at Ayamonte, on the Portuguese frontier. But the giantry of Spanish peaks lie in the Cordillera Penibética, or southern group, which traverses the Andalusian provinces of Málaga, Granada, and Cádiz, and closes at Gibraltar. It includes the Sierras of Almijara, Alhama, Abdalajis, Tolox, Ronda, Mijas, and Bermeja.

To one who is familiar with the country these mountains bear an unmistakable individualism; so much so that were he to be conveyed blindfold to every quarter of the country in turn, and the bandage to be stripped at intervals from his eyes, the merest glance would tell him where he was, and what Sierra he was confronting. "These russet peaks," he would declare, "are the Sierra Bermeja, or Red Mountains, that travel from the sea to the highlands of Ronda"; or, "these, with their needle spires, are the Sierra de Gredos, in Avila province. Yon granite heights, again, whose valleys are cool, and shady, and

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