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Almost equal in agricultural and garden wealth to that of the coast-line, and superior to it as regards the culture of the vine, is the valley of the Guadalquiver. The oranges of Seville (the civil oranges of our forefathers, the main ingredient of marmalade), sack, and sherry, are known in every English home of the middle and upper classes. It is in the valley of the Guadalquiver, from San Lucar de Barameda to above Cordova, that the finest sherries are produced. From San Lucar comes the pleasant Manzanilla, the lightest and most wholesome of all the sherries, but with a peculiar bitter taste and bouquet, like that of the wild camomile-flower. In the neighbourhood of Jerez de la Frontera the best sherries are produced, both brown and golden; the Amontillado, the nutty-flavoured wine so much sought after, comes from Montilla, to the south of Cordova. Several other kinds are manufactured, and have a great local reputation. Comparatively very little of these strong and fiery wines is consumed in Spain. Spaniards take them only as a liqueur, not as the usual accompaniment of a meal or desert. Sherry, though grown in Spain, is the foreigner's, and especially the Englishman's wine. The red Valdepeñas, from the northern slope of the Sierra Morena, replaces it at the Spaniard's table. For the modes of preparation of the various sherries, we must refer our readers to special treatises; of its statistics as an article of commerce we shall speak in another chapter. The first palm-tree introduced into Spain is said to have been planted near Cordova. The olives of this district are considered the finest in Spain. Comparatively little of the oil is exported, but the home consumption is enormous. The cork forests, too, are abundant; their bark forms an important article of commerce.

We have now only to speak of the great central plateau, the Continental climate of Spain, and its productions. This is peculiarly the corn-growing district of Spain, the land of wheat and maize, especially in the Castiles. Estremadura and Léon are rather pastoral districts. It is in these provinces that the laws of the Mesta, for the protection of the celebrated merino sheep, ruled supreme, and which, though modified at the close of the last century, and some of their worst abuses done away with, were finally repealed only in 1835. By these laws the sheep and cattle which fed in the winter in the plains of Estremadura, and in the summer on the mountains of Léon, were privileged to enter almost any property on their line of march, to feed or to pass the night there. A space of ninety yards wide was reserved on each side of the highways for their accommodation; no land, especially no corn-field, was allowed to be enclosed; and right of forcible entrance was given to all orchards and vineyards where pasturage might be found. Wherever the flocks had once fed, the land could not be sold or alienated to any other purpose. The shepherds who tended these flocks became almost as savage and ignorant as the beasts they looked after; their privileges produced in them a contempt and hatred of all kinds of fixed property, and they were ever trying to extend their oppressive right at the expense of the more settled and agricultural portion of the community. Under the influence of these laws Estremadura, which, in the time of the Romans and Moors had been one of the richest provinces of Spain, became under their Christian conquerors not only one of the poorest and most thinly peopled districts, but also a curse and source of destruction to the rest. Not only were all the evils of the old Roman "latifundia" reproduced in this mediæval system, but the locust, which never breeds in cultivated lands, or where the plough passes, was enabled to make its home in the wilds and pastures of Estremadura, whence it periodically sallied out to devastate the fairest and richest portions of the land. In the years 1754 to 1757 it desolated the whole of the provinces between Estremadura and the Mediterranean. In 1686 and the following year it reached the principality of Barcelona, and, in spite of exorcisms, ravaged the country till there was nothing more to destroy. The provinces nearer to Estremadura are much more frequent sufferers, and in recent years (in 1876 the crops in Ciudad Real were utterly destroyed) a division of the army has been more than once employed to destroy or to check them on their march. The only plant they spare is the tomata, which they will not touch. Besides flocks, Estremadura maintains huge herds of swine, which feed on the sweet acorns and chestnuts of its woods, and whose flesh is renowned through Spain. Owing to its situation on the borders of Andalusia, in which province the Moors retained their powers long after they had lost the rest of Spain, Estremadura was exposed to their frequent incursions; every flock and herd was liable to be carried off, every fruit-tree to be cut down, the farms burnt and crops destroyed; and in their retaliation the Christian knights were almost as fatal as the Arab horsemen. The country was never thoroughly peopled after the reconquest, and the sense of insecurity remained long after the cause of it had been removed. The laws of the Mesta and the emigration to the Americas (both Cortes and Pizarro were Extrameños) finished the work of depopulation, and left the province, as it has since remained, naturally one of the richest, actually one of the poorest in Spain. The products, besides those above mentioned, are cork, oak-bark and acorns for tanning, honey, nuts, and chestnuts.

The bare plains of the Castiles are now the great corn-producing country of Spain. But they have little or nothing of the beauty and variety of cultivated land in other countries. There is no succession of crops, no mixed husbandry, no scattered farm-houses, neither tree nor fence to break the bare monotony. The hill-sides and mountains are given up to pasture, the plains to wheat and maize. The husbandmen live in villages, and ride out on donkeys in early morn to their distant fields, and return home at night. A sense of insecurity seems still to brood over the land, as if the peasant dared not trust himself outside the walls of village or town. Only at harvest-time, in the warm summer and autumn nights, he camps out among his crops, to thresh them on the spot, and bring the produce home, a habit which often produces fever and ague. Year after year the process is repeated; no improvement is ever made; if rain falls the harvest is plentiful—so plentiful sometimes that the lazy peasant will not reap his most distant fields, or procure new skins or barrels for the over-abundant wine, though with the extension of railways this evil is fast disappearing. There is hardly a greater contrast than between the habits of the Castilian peasants and those of the peasant-proprietors in the Basque provinces and in those of north and north-west. In the Basque provinces the farms are scattered all over the country, and travellers from other districts of Spain speak of the whole district as if it were one city. The farm-house stands in the midst of its grounds, with orchard, garden, trees and fences, meadow and corn-land round it. To Englishmen this description is almost a matter of course, and one must read the narrative of travellers from Castile fully to appreciate the force of the contrast. There is, moreover, no natural impediment whatever to a similar course of life in many districts of the Castiles. Barren and dreary as they look, the plains called the "Sierras de Campos," and some others, are watered by a kind of natural capillary attraction; dry as the surface appears, water is always to be found at a few inches below the surface, and the roots of the wheat and other cereal crops penetrate to it. It is only the mixture of pride and laziness and ignorance of the Castilian peasant, his senseless disdain of all improvement, his want of ambition for anything better, that prevents progress in this part of Spain. He refused to make use of the machinery invented for him in the last century, nor will he avail himself of the means of irrigation and the still better machines provided for him now. Yet there is no agricultural country in which machinery could be introduced to greater advantage.

Perhaps no better idea can be given of the productions of Spain, and of the diversity of its climates and fruits, than by comparing those of Murcia with those of the north-west and the centre. In January the bean is in flower in Murcia, in April in Madrid; the vine and the wheat flower in April in Murcia, but not till May or June in the province of Madrid. The climate of Galicia, with its almost continual rain, and Murcia with its droughts, are perhaps the most opposite climates of Spain. The one is a land of pasture and of flax cultivation; its fruits are the apple, the pear, the peach, strawberries, currants, and nuts of all kinds; the predominant plant on the hill-sides is the furze, in Murcia it is the Esparto grass. The fruits there cultivated in the gardens are exotic, and have almost wholly replaced the indigenous flora; the "huertas," the gardens or cultivated plains, are there almost like oases in a desert.

The fauna of Spain—except in one particular, the monkeys (Macacus Innuus) which inhabit the rock of Gibraltar, and which are the only animals of their kind wild in Europe—does not greatly differ from that of the rest of Southern Europe. In the highest part of the Pyrenees, in the Sierra de Credos, and in the Sierra Nevada, the izard or chamois still exists in considerable numbers. Whether the bouquetin is really extinct, or still survives in the Spanish Pyrenees, is a disputed point. In the forests which clothe the lower spurs, roe and fallow deer, wild goats and wild boars, and in some districts red deer, are still to be found. The beasts of prey are the bear, the wolf, the lynx, the fox, wild cat, marten, ferret, weasel, &c.; and these are assisted by the no less rapacious birds of prey—the vultures, eagles, hawks, falcons, kites, harriers, pies, and jays. The game birds and animals are the pheasant, now very rare, partridges of both kinds, bustards, both large and small, sand-grouse, quails, which come in immense quantities to the vineyards and maize-fields in the summer and autumn, woodcock, snipe; wild duck, geese, all kinds of water-birds and waders, visit the marshes of the rivers and the lagoons of the coast in winter; and on the southern shores meet the flamingoes, pelicans, spoonbills, and other birds from the African coast. From the same quarter come numerous and brighter-plumaged birds of passage; orioles, bee-eaters, hoopoes, and other natives of a warmer zone, are brought over by the hot south wind so irritating to the nerves and temper of a southern Spaniard. It is then that the shores of the Mediterranean are lined with sportsmen, when the moon is near full, to take heavy toll of these winged travellers. The entomology of Spain is probably very rich. We have spoken of the locusts of Estremadura; and in the wilds where they breed—mere solitudes in summer, when the flocks are absent in their northern pastures—many a rare species of butterfly, cicada, and insect is doubtless to be found. The insects of Spain, however, are not all noxious or without value. Silk-worms are largely bred in the coast provinces of the east and south, not only for their silk, but also for the gut so precious to all trout and salmon fishermen. The cochineal insect, which feeds on the leaves of the prickly pear, is cultivated for its brilliant dye.

Of useful and domesticated animals, the sheep of Spain have always been celebrated; the very name, "merinos," has been given to the softest kind of wool or woolly tissue. It is said that the breed attained its excellence through a present of English South Down rams by Edward I. to the father of his Castilian bride, and that the wool has improved under climatic influences. However this may be, the superiority has hardly been maintained, and careless shepherding has sadly deteriorated the breed; still the half-bred Spanish merinos are the favourite flocks throughout the north of Spain and Southern France, and they are slowly superseding the coarser native and local breeds. The Spanish cattle from Galicia are well known in the English market, but they are not the choicest of their kind. The bulls that are bred for the bull-fights are reared chiefly along the marshy banks of the Guadalquiver, which, like the delta of the Rhone, supports herds of half-wild cattle and buffaloes. Cow's milk is little known or used in many districts of Spain, and butter still less. Sheep or goat's milk supplies the place of the former, and the olive-oil, excellent were it not too often kept till rancid, that of the latter. Cheese and various kinds of curdled milk or whey are also made from the milk of sheep. Since the advent of the Arabs the Andalusian steed has been much celebrated. It is now scarcely equal to its former fame, but, like many a horse of warmer climes, its performances are better than its looks; hardy, sure-footed, swift, and docile, if not over-weighted it will do more than one of many a finer-looking but less enduring breed. The horse, however, is not the true beast of burden in Spain; he is the charger, or the luxury of the rich. The real work of the country is done by the humble mule or ass, or, in some districts, by the ox. The fine Spanish mules are now seldom bred in the country, but are procured from Poitou, or from the south of France, where great attention is paid to their production, and where the average price of a mule of six months old is higher than that of a horse of the same age. For long journeys, and for carrying produce over the mountain paths, or along the bad roads of the interior, the mule and pack-saddle is still generally used. In fact, in some districts no other mode of conveyance is possible; but the loss to commerce from want of better communications is immense. It is this mode of carriage which necessitates and continues the use of the tarred wine-skin, by which so much excellent wine is rendered unsalable and almost undrinkable. It is hard to recognize the delicious wine when tasted at the vineyard, in the pitch-flavoured, half-fermented liquor which has travelled for days in a skin exposed to the sun's heat by day, and the closeness and fetid odours of the inns by night. Besides these, the camel, buffalo, and llama, and vicunâ have been introduced successfully as an experiment for breeding, but not in sufficient numbers to affect the means of transport in the peninsula.

The fisheries in Galicia and along the north-west Atlantic coast, and also at Huelva and at Cadiz, are very valuable. Not only are they an abundant means of support to the inhabitants of the coast and of Léon and Northern Castile, but the fishermen engaged in them furnish the best sailors to the Spanish navy. The chief kinds of fish are sardines and pilchards, of which great numbers are preserved in oil, the tunny, and the sea-bream, of which enormous quantities are annually taken. The rivers, from the Minho to the Bidassoa, furnish trout and salmon. In the Mediterranean, tunny, and the anchovies which replace the sardines, are the chief fisheries, but many Spaniards are also engaged in the coral-fishing off the coasts of Catalonia, of Algiers, and of Tunis.

The total production of Spain has been approximately valued at

CHAPTER III.
GEOLOGY AND MINES

EVEN in geological features Spain is a land apart. Divided from the rest of Europe by the regular Palæozoic band of the Pyrenees, the rocks of the Peninsula are only susceptible of separate study. Hence no consistent geological history can be deduced from the fragmentary and superficial observations that as yet form the basis of the geological map of Spain. A few striking features and geological statistics may however be presented; and the recently-published map of Botella, as well as the mass of valuable matter already collected by the Comision del Mapa geologico de España, are an earnest that Spanish geology will soon occupy a place corresponding to its peculiar interest.

A mass of Granitic, Cambrian, and Silurian rocks forms the central plateau of Spain, extending in a south-easterly direction from Galicia to the valley of the Guadalquiver, and spreading to the north-east, as shown by the chains of the Guadarrama and the mountains of Toledo, to terminate in the Celtiberian range, running nearly parallel to the Ebro by Soria and the Moncayo. In this mass the main folds of the strata appear to run in a south-easterly, the main fractures in a north-easterly, direction; whence the gridiron arrangement of the mountain chains and river valleys, directed by these leading features of the rocky structure. Great buttresses of the Carboniferous formation occupy the corners of the central mass, to the north and south-west, and occasional patches of its upper and coal-bearing beds are scattered over the interior. The whole valley of the Ebro occupies a trough of Secondary rocks, which extend in a south-easterly direction from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean, forming a wide boundary to the older central mass, and running along the north coast towards Oviedo. The Secondary formations of the Ebro sweep over the chain of the Moncayo on to the central plateau by Burgos, Soria, and Calatayud; and their latest member—the Upper Cretaceous—advances in two long tongues on to the granite of the Guadarrama, and far to the east of Madrid, it being probable that at least this member formerly extended over the central plateau. Another wide band of Secondary rocks, running in a north-easterly direction, forms the long strip of Andalusia south of the Guadalquiver; and by Valencia and Cuenca this band is widely prolonged to the Ebro basin; otherwise, a narrow and interrupted strip along the south coast, and a bay-like expanse from the Atlantic, between Lisbon and Oporto, are the only Secondary tracts of the Peninsula. These Secondary rocks are however in great part concealed by Eocene Tertiary beds, formed in marine gulfs in the valley of the Ebro and the Guadalquiver, and overlaid by Eocene and Miocene fresh-water deposits; the latter being also represented by vast lacustrine sheets, which contemporaneously accumulated, and conceal the crystalline and palæozoic formations in the elevated river basins of the central primary plateau. Patches of Pliocene sands and clays along the Mediterranean coast, sheets of diluvial gravels below the mountains, and alluvial sands along the larger rivers represent the local and most recent effects of water and ice.

The consequences of this general structure are apparent on every hand. The population of Galicia is in many respects similar to that of the Portuguese mountaineers, who occupy the same band of naked granitic and primary rocks. The inhabitants of the varied and fertile Secondary band of Andalusia and Valencia have many traits in common. The Biscayans are a race apart, like the labyrinth of Cretaceous precipices and green rainy valleys which they inhabit. All are distinct from the Castilians, whose monotonous and isolated existence on the vast treeless steppes of crumbling Tertiary sands and marls that carpet the primary plateau 2000 feet above the sea has deeply influenced their character. Finally, the inhabitants of the Ebro basin, a region where the dry Tertiary soil of Castile is combined with many characteristics of the Secondary tracts, afford a curious mixture of Castilian with Basque or Valencian traits. The inhabitants of the greater Spanish cities are of course products of civilization, not of the soil.

Of the visible surface of Spain 37 per cent. is occupied by Crystalline and Palæozoic rocks, 34 per cent. by Tertiary, 19 per cent. by Secondary, and 10 per cent. by Quaternary deposits. The Palæozoic rocks are greatly contorted and fractured, the Secondary scarcely less so, the older Tertiary are crumpled up against the flanks of the mountain chains, and even upturned Pliocene deposits testify in some places to the late continuance of the movements that have contributed to the production of the peculiar elevated character of the Peninsula. The remains of undoubted volcanoes are confined to the insignificant groups of Olot, Cabo de Gata, and Ciudad Real, but innumerable dykes and bosses of igneous rock are scattered over the primitive plateau where unconcealed by Tertiary sheets, and are also frequent in the Secondary tracts. This abundance of igneous injections is intimately connected with the exceptionally metalliferous character of Spain, while the fractured and contorted condition of even the latest rocky formations has contributed to a general diffusion of mineral wealth.

The granite and other igneous rocks form rounded bosses or prominent pinnacles, according as they are more or less subject to atmospheric decomposition; the pine and the Spanish chestnut flourish on their slopes; iron, lead, copper, tin, graphite, phosphorite, kaolin, steatite, and serpentine are among the products of these crystalline masses. The gneiss and crystalline schists that in part probably represent the Laurentian formation, contain silver, bismuth, molybdenum, and tin; while metamorphic rocks of unknown age are amongst the richest in mines, affording iron, lead, silver, copper, zinc, mercury, manganese, and graphite. The Cambrian formation, a mass of lustrous fissile slate, traversed by white quartz veins, furnishes lead, silver, phosphorite, and gold. The Silurian slates and quartzites yield iron, lead, silver, copper, mercury, manganese, antimony, cobalt, nickel, anthracite, and gold. A few limited patches of Devonian sandstones, quartzites, slates, marls, and limestones, afford iron, zinc, phosphorite, cobalt, and nickel. The Carboniferous series, occupying two per cent. of the surface, includes valuable coal-fields, the immense masses of iron and copper pyrites of the Rio Tinto, Tharsis, and other mines in the province of Huelva, besides iron, zinc, mercury, manganese, antimony, cobalt, nickel, and phosphorite in other districts. The silver-bearing metamorphic rocks of Cartagena, and a portion of the slopes of the Sierra Nevada are classed in the Permian formation. The Triassic conglomerates, sandstones, and variegated marls, which form the usual base of the Secondary rocks, are rich in salt, gypsum, and iron, and afford some copper and zinc. The Jurassic limestones and marls contain asphalte and bituminous slate. The Cretaceous—mainly Neocomian in the south, the Upper Cretaceous predominating in the north—contains the immense iron deposits of Bilbao; valuable beds of lignite resembling coal; lead, zinc, and asphalte mines in the northern provinces, and gold in Granada. In the Eocene formation, which includes the Nummulitic limestone that forms some of the highest summits of the Pyrenees, the celebrated salt-mine of Cardona, in Catalonia, is usually classed. The Miocene beds contain valuable sulphur deposits along the southern coast, and great accumulations of sulphate of soda on the arid steppes of Madrid and other provinces; while gypsum, in which Spain is probably richer than the whole remainder of Europe, is abundant in this formation. Lastly, some native silver is found in the Pliocene deposits of Almeria, and in the Tertiary clays of Guadalajara, while the later gravels of Galicia afford stream tin and gold, the last similarly occurring in Leon and Caceres.

The quantity of mineral contained in the rocks of Spain is no less remarkable than the exceptional variety of its distribution; but owing to a series of adverse circumstances, the industrial production affords a most inadequate idea of the capabilities of the mines, if developed by a fair amount of capital and skill. The following figures, showing the production in 1875, are derived from the last official reports issued by the Spanish Government, and are certainly below the truth:—

These figures do not include the bar iron produced directly from ore in Spain, nor 160 tons of argentiferous copper ore, 89 tons of cobalt ore, and 440 tons of nickel ore. The silver extracted in Spain amounted to more than 16,000 lbs. troy, while four times that amount was contained in exported argentiferous lead. The coal extracted amounted to 666,000 tons, lignite above 27,000, sulphur above 3000, and phosphorite above 12,000 tons. The year 1875 was, however, peculiarly unfavourable to Spanish mining, and the working of the Bilbao mines, which now produce nearly 2,000,000 tons yearly of excellent iron ore, was then practically suspended by the Carlist war. All disadvantages cannot, however, arrest the steady increase of mineral production in Spain, although under more normal political circumstances the above figures would have been greatly exceeded.

The chief coal district is that of Oviedo, Palencia, Leon, and Santander. The coal-field of Oviedo, occupying an extent of 230 square miles, and including a large number of workable beds, is of excellent quality, but as yet little developed, owing to high railway tariffs, bad condition of ports, traditional prejudices, want of skill and capital, and of a local market for inferior qualities. These obstacles will probably soon be overcome, and the development of the associated iron ores afford an important field of enterprise.

The coal-field of Palencia, a continuation of that of Oviedo, is in course of development by the Northern Railway Company. Smaller coal-fields of great local importance exist in the provinces of Cordova, Seville, Gerona, Burgos, Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Ciudad Real; that of Gerona, although of small extent and very friable quality, has already occasioned the construction of a railway of considerable length. Iron is mainly obtained from Biscay, Oviedo, Murcia, and Almeria, but is abundant in other provinces. Lead is worked chiefly in Murcia, Jaen, Almeria, Badajoz, and Ciudad Real; the presence of antimony or of a predominating admixture of blende is very common, but Spain is on the whole the most important lead-producing country in Europe. Copper is obtained mainly from the Rio Tinto mines and others in Huelva; also from Seville, Palencia, Almeria, and Santander; but many other districts contain veins yielding more or less of copper ore. Zinc has been chiefly procured from superficial pockets of calamine in Santander and the neighbouring districts; but in the form of blende it is widely distributed in association with lead. Silver ores are worked in Almeria and Guadalajara. The immense impregnation of cinnabar of Almaden, in Ciudad Real, affords nearly all the mercury, but a little is obtained from other mines in the same province and in Oviedo, Granada, and Almeria. Manganese is obtained from Huelva, Oviedo, Teruel, Almeria, Murcia, and Zamora. Nickel ore is worked in Malaga; cobalt in Oviedo and Castellon. Tin occurs in a number of small veins in Galicia; and in the rocks of Salamanca, Murcia, and Almeria, as well as in diluvial gravels. The Spanish side of the Pyrenees contains numerous veins of argentiferous lead, many of copper, and some of cobalt, nickel, argentiferous copper, pyrolusite, &c., few of which are worked. The lead-mines on the border between Catalonia and Aragon supplied the Carlists with ammunition during the late civil war. The fact that more than 12,000 concessions of mines already exist in Spain, while a large number of lapsed concessions may be found, affords a better idea of the mineral wealth of the country than the enumeration of the mines actually worked.

That such enormous mineral resources should have as yet yielded no greater results is easily explained. The Roman and Moorish workings, although traditionally of fabulous yield, are of small depth, owing to insufficient machinery for pumping. Till the present century, the working of mines was forbidden by the Spanish Government, with the object of favouring the development of the American colonies. The mining laws of 1825 and 1849, suddenly placing the acquirement of mines within the reach of every substantial peasant, produced a fever of speculation, and a recklessness in the application of unskilled labour, which naturally conduced to the discouragement of mining enterprise, while the recurring civil wars excluded foreign capital and skill. Spaniards have a mania for erecting smelting-works on the mines, a practice occasionally justified by difficulties of transport, but which has caused much loss of capital through inherent difficulties and want of metallurgical skill. Endless litigation, arising from the defects of the first mining laws, and the inexperience of the surveying engineers, contributed to ruin the small capitalists who had attempted to work the mines. Foreign capital is now the chief requirement. The existing mining law, greatly improved since 1868, is the simplest in Europe; the expense of a concession is almost nominal, and the royalties on ore are extremely moderate. Large mining adventures in Spain rapidly develope industrial conditions and profoundly affect the habits of the population. Even in times of civil war a modus vivendi between the conflicting parties can be more easily secured than might be expected. The development of means of transport, already considerable before the last Carlist war, is being seriously resumed under the present Government. The Spanish peasantry, when suitably treated, will be found a fair-dealing, intelligent, and industrious class. It must, however, be remembered that in the peculiar physical, political, municipal, and fiscal conditions of Spain, no mining enterprise can safely be undertaken without thorough investigation of all the external circumstances, claims, and prospects concerned; since more mining speculations have failed from inattention to such matters than from any disappointment as regards the quality or quantity of ore.     P. W. S. M.