UNIV OF THE LAND OF THE DONS. CHAPTER I. RETROSPECTIVE AND ETHNOLOGICAL, HE traveller in Spain examines, in a sense, not one, but various countries; mixes, not with a single people, but with several. He journeys through a squarish-shaped peninsula divided into sundry regions that once upon a time were kingdoms, counties, or the like-each region readily distinguishable from its neighbour and possessing, besides its own dialect or manner of pronouncing the Castilian tongue, its own customs, dances costume, beverages, and dishes. The principalities of our beloved Britain are by this time tolerably well amalgamated. A Scotchman does not always assault you if you mistake him for a Londoner, and though I am Welsh to the backbone, I would sooner hobnob with the Prince. of Wales than with Owen Glendower, whom I suspect of having been a common fellow, speaking with an accent, and reeking of stale tobacco. Spain, however, for obvious historical reasons is less unanimous: indeed, her truer title would be B TIMIA OL AIMBORLIAD THE LAND OF THE DONS: still The Spains. The Peninsula, we should remember, was once upon a time overrun by the Moor, except a little strip among the mountains of the north, where Pelayo, crouching in rocky fastnesses, kept a slender following together. The following grew in number and the spirit of adventure. Sierras were crossed, passes threaded, battleaxe and broadsword gripped. By slow degrees the advancing tide of Christianity wore down the stubborn barriers of the infidel. Inch by inch the Moor was driven south, out of what is now Madrid, out of Toledo, across La Mancha and the deserts. of Castile, from castle after castle poised on beetling precipice and craggy height, up to and over the Sierra Morena into Andalusia, whereto he clung precariously for centuries, till the fall of Granada, no earlier than the end of the fifteenth century, exterminated him-in Spain-for ever. For ever? No. Much of him still survivesin the cool courts of Granada, the mighty mosque of Córdoba, the Giralda of Seville; in many an alcázar, and bridge, and pinnacle, and wall, and gateway; and even where such material evidence is not, his proud, and chivalrous, and generous, and jealous nature, his passion for the arts, and love, and music, the angry rattle of his scimitar, or the dulcet echo of his Arabic, seem still to haunt what was his home long years ago. If war has any glory, her grandest annals are the Christians and the Moors in Spain-Las Navas de Tolosa and the Río Salado; eight hundred years of obstinate crusade, of doughty combat on both sides, and mutual esteem-in so voluminous a roll few deeds, if any, |