Spanish Life in Town and Country | Page 9

cultivated Spain. No one dreams of asking if you speak Spanish; it is always: _Habla v Castellano?_ And it is certainly a remnant of the old Roman, which, as we know, its emperors spoke "with a difference," albeit there are many traces of Arabic about it.
Even at the present day, when Spain is rapidly becoming homogeneous, the people of the different provinces are almost as well known by their trades as by their special characteristics. A Gallego--really a native of Galicia--means, in the common parlance, a porter, a water-carrier, almost a beast of burden, and the Galicians are as well known for this purpose in Portugal as in Spain, great numbers finding ready employment in the former country, where manual labour is looked upon as impossible for a native. The men of the lowest class emigrate to more favoured provinces, since their own is too poor to support them; they work hard, and return with their savings to their native hills. Their fellow-countrymen consider them boorish in manners, uneducated, and of a low class; but they are good-natured and docile, hard-working, temperate, and honest. "In your life," wrote the Duke of Wellington, "you never saw anything so bad as the Galicians; and yet they are the finest body of men and the best movers I have ever seen." There is a greater similarity between Galicia and Portugal than between the former and any other province of Spain.
Although they lie so close together, Asturias differs widely from its sister province both in the character of its people and its scenery. The Romans took two hundred years to subdue it, and the Moors never obtained a footing there. The Asturians are a hardy, independent race, proud of giving the title to the heir-apparent of the Spanish throne. The people of this province, like their neighbours the Basques, are handsome and robust in appearance; they are always to be recognised in Madrid by their fresh appearance and excellent physique. For the most part they are to be found engaged in the fish trade, while their women, gorgeously dressed in their native costume by their employers, are the nurses of the upper classes.
[Illustration: VALENCIANOS]
The ladies of Madrid do not think it "good style" to bring up their own children, and the Asturian wet nurse is as much a part of the ordinary household as the coachman or mayordomo. They are singularly handsome, well-grown women, and become great favourites in the houses of their employers; but, like their menkind, they go back to spend their savings among their beloved hills. Many of these young women come to Madrid on the chance of finding situations, leaving their own babies behind to be fed by hand, or Heaven knows how; they bring with them a young puppy to act as substitute until the nurse-child is found, and may be seen in the registry offices waiting to be hired, with their little canine foster-children. It is said that the Asturian women never part from the puppies that they have fed from their own breasts.
The Basque Provinces are, perhaps, the best known to English travellers, since they generally enter Spain by that route, and those staying in the south of France are fond of running across to have at least a look at Spain, and to be able to say they have been there. The people pride themselves on being "the oldest race in Europe," and are, no doubt, the direct descendants of the original and unconquered inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula. In Guipuzcoa, the Basque may still be seen living in his flat-roofed stone house, of which he is sure to be proprietor, using a mattock in place of plough, and leading his oxen--for bueyes are never driven--attached to one of the heavy, solid-wheeled carts by an elaborately carved yoke, covered with a sheepskin. He clings tenaciously to his unintelligible language, and is quite certain that he is superior to the whole human race.
The fueros, or special rights, already spoken of, for which the Basques have fought so passionately for five hundred years, might possibly have been theirs for some time longer if they had not unwisely thrown in their lot with the Carlist Pretender. They practically formed a republic within the monarchy; but in 1876, when the young Alfonso XII. finally conquered the provinces, all differences between them and the other parts of the kingdom were abolished, and they had to submit to the abhorred conscription. With all the burning indignation which still makes some of them say, "I am not a Spaniard; I am a Basque," the extraordinary advance made in this part of Spain seems to show that the hereditary energy and talent of the people are on the side of national progress.
The distinctive dress of the Basques is now almost a thing of the