An Englishman who, from over thirty years' residence in Spain and close connection with the country, numbered among her people some of his most valued friends, thus speaks of the national characteristics:

"The Spanish and English characters are, indeed, in many points strangely alike. Spain ranks as one of the Latin nations, and the Republican orators of Spain are content to look to France for light and leading in all their political combinations; but a large mass of the nation, the bone and sinew of the country, the silent, toiling tillers of the soil, are not of this way of thinking.... There is a sturdy independence in the Spanish character, and an impatience of dictation that harmonises more nearly with the English character than with that of her Latin neighbours.... There is a gravity and reticence also in the Spaniard that is absent from his mercurial neighbour, and which is, indeed, much more akin to our cast of temper.

"True it is that our insular manners form at first a bar to our intercourse with the Spaniard, who has been brought up in a school of deliberate and stately courtesy somewhat foreign to our business turn of mind; but how superficial this difference is may be seen by the strong attachment Englishmen form to the country and her people, when once the strangeness of first acquaintance has worn off; and those of us who know the country best will tell you that they have no truer or more faithful friends than those they have amongst her people."

Speaking of her labouring classes, and as a very large employer of labour in every part of the Peninsula he had the best possible means of judging, this writer says:

"The Spanish working man is really a most sober, hard-working being, not much given to dancing, and not at all to drinking. They are exceptionally clever and sharp, and learn any new trade with great facility. They are, as a rule, exceedingly honest—perfect gentlemen in their manners, and the lowest labourer has an aplomb and ease of manner which many a person in a much higher rank in this country might envy. When in masses they are the quietest and most tractable workmen it is possible to have to deal with. The peasant and working man, the real bone and sinew of the country, are as fine a race as one might wish to meet with—not free from defects—what race is?—but possessed of excellent sterling qualities, which only require knowing to be appreciated. I cannot say as much for the Government employees and politicians. Connection with politics seems to have a corrupt and debasing effect, which, although perhaps exaggerated in Spain, is, unfortunately, not by any means confined to that country only."[3]

In Spain to-day everything is dated from "La Gloriosa," the Revolution of 1868, the "Day of Spanish Liberty," as it well deserves to be called, and there is every reason to look back with pride upon that time; because, after the battle of AlcolÉa, when the cry raised in the Puerta del Sol, Viva Prim! was answered by the troops shut up in the Government offices, and the people, swarming up the rejas and the balconies, fraternised with their brothers-in-arms, who had been intended, could they have been trusted by their commanders, to shoot them down, Madrid was for some days wholly in the hands of King Mob, and of King Mob armed. The victorious troops were still at some distance, the Queen and her camarilla had fled across the frontier, the Government had vanished, and the people were a law unto themselves. Yet not one single act of violence was committed; absolute peace and quietness, and perfect order prevailed. The ragged men in the street formed themselves into guards: just as they were, they took up their positions at the abandoned Palace, at the national buildings and institutions; the troops were drawn up outside Madrid and its people were its guardians. Committees of emergency were formed; everything went on as if nothing unusual had happened, and not a single thing was touched or destroyed in the Palace, left wholly at the mercy of the sovereign people. The excesses which took place in some of the towns, after the brutal assassination of Prim and the abdication of Amadeo, were rather the result of political intrigue and the working of interested demagogues on the passions of people misled and used as puppets.

With the advance of commerce and industry, and the massing of workers in the towns, has come, as in other countries, the harvest of the demagogue. Strikes and labour riots now and then break out, and the Spanish anarchist is not unknown. But the investment of their money in industrial and commercial enterprises, so largely increasing, is giving the people the best possible interest in avoiding disturbances of this, or of any other, kind: and as knowledge of more enlightened finance is penetrating to the working people themselves, the number who are likely to range themselves on the side of law and order is daily increasing. The improved railway and steamer communication with parts of the country heretofore isolated, much of it only completed since this book was begun—in fact, within the last few months—is bringing the northern and western ports into prominence. Galicia now not only has an important industry in supplying fresh fish for Madrid, but has a good increasing trade with Europe and America. Pontevedra and Vigo, as well as Villagarcia, are improving daily since the railway reached them. Fresh fruit and vegetables find a ready market, and new uses for materials are coming daily to the front. Esparto, the coarse grass which grows almost everywhere in Spain, has long been an article of commerce, as well as the algaroba bean—said to be the locust bean, on which John the Baptist might have thriven—for it is the most fattening food for horses and cattle, and produces in them a singularly glossy and beautiful coat. This bean, which is as sweet as a dried date, is given, husk and all, to the mules and horses at all the little wayside ventas, and is now used in some of the patent foods for cattle widely known abroad. The stalk of the maize is used for making smokeless powder, and the husks for two kinds of glucose, two of cotton, three of gum, and two of oil. Glucea dextrina paste is used as a substitute for india-rubber. These products of the maize, other than its grain, are employed in the preparation of preserves, syrup, beer, jams, sweets, and drugs, and in the manufacture of paper, cardboard, mucilage, oils and lubricants, paints, and many other things. The imitation india-rubber promises to be the basis of a most important industry. Mixed with equal portions of natural gum, it has all the qualities of india-rubber, and is twenty-four per cent. less in cost.

A great deal has been said about the depreciation of the value of the peseta (franc) since the outbreak of the war with America, but this unsatisfactory state of affairs is gradually mending; and the attention of the Government is thoroughly awakened to it. The law of May 17, 1898, and the Royal decree of August 9 provide that if the notes in circulation of the Bank of Spain exceed fifteen hundred millions, gold must be guaranteed to the half of the excess of circulation between fifteen hundred and two thousand, not the half of all the notes in circulation. The metal guarantee, silver and gold, must cover half of the note circulation, when the latter is between fifteen hundred and two thousand millions, and two-thirds when the circulation exceeds two thousand. But the Bank has not kept this precept, and there has, in fact, been an illegal issue of notes to the value of 6,752,813 pesetas. So states the Boletin de la CÁmara de Comercio de EspaÑa en la Gran BretÁÑa of April 15, 1901.

The Boletin, after giving an account of the English custom of using cheques against banking accounts, instead of dealing in metal or paper currency only, as in Spain, strongly advocates the establishment of the English method. It is only in quite recent years that there has been any paper currency at all in Spain; the very notes of the Bank of Spain were not current outside the walls of Madrid, and had only a limited currency within.

Barcelona has long been called the Manchester of Spain, and in the days before the "Gloriosa" it presented a great contrast to all the other towns in the Peninsula. Its flourishing factories, its shipping, its general air of a prosperous business-centre was unique in Spain. This is no longer the case. Although the capital of CataluÑa has made enormous strides, and would scarcely now be recognised by those who knew it before the Revolution, it has many rivals. Bilbao is already ahead of it in some respects, and other ports, already mentioned, are running it very close. Still, Barcelona is a beautiful city; its situation, its climate, its charming suburbs full of delightful country houses, its wealth of flowers, and its air of bustling industry, give a wholly different idea of Spain to that so often carried away by visitors to the dead and dying cities of which Spain has, unfortunately, too many.

It is becoming more common for young Spaniards to come to England to finish their education, or to acquire business habits, and the study of the English language is daily becoming more usual. In Spain, as already remarked, no one speaks of the language of the country as "Spanish"; it is always "Castellano," of which neither Valencian, Catalan, Galician, still less Basque, is a dialect—they are all more or less languages in themselves. But Castellano is spoken with a difference both by the pueblo bajo of Madrid and also in the provinces. The principal peculiarities are the omission of the d—prado becomes praÖ—in any case the pronunciation of d, except as an initial, is very soft, similar to our th in thee, but less accentuated. The final d is also omitted by illiterate speakers; Usted is pronounced Uste, and even de becomes e. B and v are interchangeable. One used to see, on the one-horsed omnibus which in old times represented the locomotion of Madrid, Serbicio de omnibus quite as often as Servicio. Over the venta of El Espirito Santo on the road to AlcalÁ—now an outskirt of Madrid—was written, Aqui se veve bino y aguaardieÑte—meaning, Aqui se bebe vino, etc. (Here may be drunk wine).

The two letters are, in fact, almost interchangeable in sound, but the educated Spaniard never, of course, makes the illiterate mistake of transposing them in writing. The sound of b is much more liquid than in English, and to pronounce Barcelona as a Castilian pronounces it, we should spell it Varcelona; the same with CÓrdoba, which to our ears sounds as if written CÓrdova, and so, in fact, we English spell it.

Spaniards, as a rule, speak English with an excellent accent, having all the sounds that the English possess, taking the three kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland, into account.

Our th, which is unpronounceable to French, Italians, and Germans, however long they may have lived in England, comes naturally to the Spaniard, because in his own d, soft c, and z he has the sounds of our th in "thee" and "thin." His ch is identical with ours, and his j and x are the same as the Irish and Scotch pronunciation of ch and gh.

The Spanish language is not difficult to learn—at any rate to read and understand—because there are absolutely no unnecessary letters, if we except the initial h, which is, or appears to us, silent—and the pronunciation is invariable. What a mine of literary treasure is opened to the reader by a knowledge of Spanish, no one who is ignorant of that majestic and poetic language can imagine. With the single exception of Longfellow's beautiful rendering of the Coplas de Manrique, which is absolutely literal, while preserving all the grace and dignity of the original, I know of no translation from the Spanish which gives the reader any real idea of the beauty of Spanish literature in the past ages, nor even of such works of to-day as those of Juan Valera and some others.

Picturesque and poetic ideas seem common to the Spaniard to-day, as ever. Only the other day, in discussing the monument to be erected to Alfonso XII. in Madrid, one of the newspapers reported the suggestion—finally adopted, I think—that it should be an equestrian statue of the young King, "with the look on his face with which he entered Madrid after ending the Carlist war." What a picture it summons to the imagination of the boy King—for he was no more—in the pride of his conquest of the elements of disorder and of civil war, which had so long distracted his beloved country—a successful soldier and a worthy King!

Spain is a country of surprises and of contradictions; even her own people seem unable to predict what may happen on the morrow. Those who knew her best had come to despair of her emancipation at the very moment when Prim and Topete actually carried the Revolution to a successful issue. Again, after the miserable fiasco of the attempt at a republic, the world, even in Spain itself, was taken by surprise by the peaceful restoration of Alfonso XII.

I can, perhaps, most fitly end this attempt at showing the causes of Spain's decay and portraying the present characteristics of this most interesting and romantic nation by a quotation from the pen of one of her sons. Don Antonio Ferrer del Rio, Librarian of the Ministry of Commerce, Instruction, and Public Works, and member of the Reales Academias de Buenas Letras of Seville and Barcelona, thus writes, in his preface to his Decadencia de EspaÑa, published in Madrid in 1850: "It is my intention to point out the true origin of the decadence of Spain. The imagination of the ordinary Spaniard has always been captivated by, and none of them have failed to sing the praises of, those times in which the sun never set on the dominion of its kings." While professing not to presume to dispute this former glory, SeÑor Ferrer del Rio goes on to say that he only aspires to get at the truth of his country's subsequent decay. "There was one happy epoch in which Spain reached the summit of her greatness—that of the Reyes CatÓlicos, Don Fernando V. and DoÑa Isabel I. Under their reign were united the sceptres of Castilla, Aragon, Navarra, and Granada; the feudal system disappeared—it had never extended far into the eastern limits of the kingdom—the abuses in the Church were in great measure reformed, the administration of the kingdom with the magnificent reign of justice began to be consolidated, in the Cortes the powerful voice of the people was heard; and almost at the same moment Christian Spain achieved the conquest of the Moors, against whom the different provinces had been struggling for eight centuries, and the immortal discovery of a new world. Up to this moment the prosperity of Spain was rising; from that hour her decadence began. With her liberty she lost everything, although for some time longer her military laurels covered from sight her real misfortunes." After referring to the defeat of the Comuneros, and the execution of Padilla and his companions, champions of the people's rights, he goes on to show that while the aristocracy had received a mortal blow in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in the cause of consolidating the kingdom and of internal order, they had retained sufficient power to trample on the liberties of the people, while they were not strong enough to form a barrier against the encroachments of the absolute monarchs who succeeded, or to prevent the power eventually lapsing into the hands of the Church. "Consequently, theocracy gained the ascendency, formidably aided and strengthened by the odious tribunal whose installation shadowed even the glorious epoch of Isabel and Fernando, absorbing all jurisdiction, and interfering with all government. Religious wars led naturally to European conflicts, to the Spanish people being led to wage war against heresy everywhere, and the nation—exhausted by its foreign troubles, oppressed internally under the tyranny of the Inquisition, which, usurping the name of 'Holy,' had become the right hand of the policy of Charles V., and the supreme power in the Government of his grandson, Philip II.—lost all the precious gifts of enlightenment in a blind and frantic fanaticism. The people only awoke from lethargy, and showed any animation, to rush in crowds to the Autos da fÉ in which the ministers of the altar turned Christian charity into a bleeding corpse, and reproduced the terrible scenes of the Roman amphitheatre. Where the patricians had cried 'Christians to the lions!' superstition shouted 'Heretics to the stake!' Humanity was not less outraged than in the spectacle of Golgotha. Spanish monarchs even authorised by their presence those sanguinary spectacles, while the nobles and great personages in the kingdom thought themselves honoured when they were made alguiciles, or familiars of the holy office. Theocratic power preponderated, and intellectual movement became paralysed, civilisation stagnated."

This has ever been the result of priestly rule. One can understand the feeling of the liberal-minded Spaniard of to-day that, without wishing to interfere with the charitable works inaugurated by the clergy, nor desiring in any way to show disrespect to the Church, or the religion which is dear to the hearts of the people, a serious danger lies, as the Press is daily pointing out, in the religious orders, more especially the Jesuits, obtaining a pernicious influence over the young, undermining by a system of secret inquisition the teachings of science, gaining power over the minds of the officers in the army, and establishing a press agency which shall become a danger to the constitution.

Spain's outlook seems brighter to-day than it has ever been since her Golden Age of Isabella and Ferdinand; and it is the people who have awakened, a people who have shown what power lies in them to raise their beloved country to the position which is her right among the nations of the world. But prophecy is vain in a country of which it has been said "that two and two never make four." This year, if all go well meantime, Alfonso XIII. will take the reins in his own hands—a mere boy, even younger than his father was when called to the throne; than whom, however, Spain has never had a more worthy ruler. But Alfonso XII. had been schooled by adversity—he had to some extent roughed it amongst Austrian and English boys. He came fresh from Sandhurst and from the study of countries other than his own. To a naturally clever mind he had added the invaluable lesson of a knowledge of the world as seen by one of the crowd, not from the close precincts of a court and the elevation of a throne.

For his son it may be said that he has been born and carefully educated in a country where absolutism is dead, and by a mother who, as Regent, has scrupulously observed the laws of the constitution. He will come, as King, to a country which has known the precious boon of liberty too long to part with it lightly; to a kingdom now, for the first time in history, united as one people; where commerce and mutual interests have taken the place of internecine distrust and hatred. It is only at the present moment that this happy condition of things is spreading over the country; each month, each week, giving fresh evidence of new industries arising, of fresh capital invested in the development of the country. It is in the sums so invested by the mass of the people that those who believe in a bright future for Spain place their hopes; but we may all of us wish the young monarch for whom his country is longing, "God-speed."

[3] Commercial and Industrial Spain, by George Higgin, Mem. Inst. C. E., London, 1886.