To the River Plate and Back 



sents in his veins Gallic and Teuton rather than Roman 

 descent. Omniscience alone could disentangle from 

 the skein of life in southern Europe the thread of Latin 

 humanity which is woven into the blood of these 

 peoples. This is preeminently true in Spain and 

 Portugal. No population in Europe represents a more 

 complex synthesis of racial elements than the popula- 

 tion of the Peninsula. One of the latest writers upon 

 this subject, himself of Spanish lineage, says: 



Spain is African, even from prehistoric ages. The 

 Iberian is like the men of the Atlas ; like them he is brown 

 and dolichocephalous. The Kabyle douar and the Spanish 

 village represent remarkable analogies. An early geological 

 change separates by a narrow strait two similar countries; 

 two successive invasions spread an infusion of African blood 

 throughout the Peninsula. Phoenicians and Carthaginians 

 found colonies in maritime Spain; in 711 seven thousand 

 Berbers establish themselves in the south; and the invasion 

 of the Almohades in 1145 still further unites Iberians and 

 Africans. During the long centuries of conflict between 

 Christians and Arabs the two races intermingle under the 

 cultivated tolerance of the Khalifs. The Gothic kings seek 

 the aid of Arab chieftains in their quarrels; the Cid is a 

 condottiere who fights alternately in the Mussulman and 

 Christian armies, serving with his troop of heroes under the 

 highest bidder. The Spanish monarchs in turn intervene 

 in the quarrels of the Khalifs, and Alfonso VI. in 1 185 allies 

 himself with the Moorish king of Seville in order to conquer 

 Toledo. The Arabs study under the masters of the Spanish 

 capitals, while the Spaniards study Arabic, and are initiated 

 into Oriental science. I 



The Peninsula formed not only a bridge from which 

 Africa sought entrance into Europe, and indeed found 



F. Garcia Calderon, Latin America (New York, 1913), p. 41. 



