226 BOTANY OF SPAIN. [Auf/USt, 



the south coast also), belong in all respects to the Mediterranean 

 portion of the eastern botanical region. Of soils there are all 

 varieties, from the richest alluvion to the barest granitic or 

 calcareous rock; and the proportion of waste "is probably un- 

 equalled in any European country, Greece and Turkey excepted. 

 That a country with these attractions to botanists, should have 

 been so little explored by them, is an effect, doubtless, of the 

 sarae causes which have made, until lately, the resort of travellers 

 thither, for any but commercial purposes, comparatively infre- 

 quent ; the disturbed state of the country through civil war, the 

 danger from banditti, and the absence of the facilities for travel- 

 ling afforded by roads, inns, and means of conveyance. The first 

 two of these hindrances have completely, and, it is to be hoped, 

 permanently disappeared. Civil wars are ended, and brigands are 

 now never heard of. The remaining difiiculties are in a course 

 of rapid removal. Security and freedom — for in spite of the im- 

 perfections of her institutions and of her administration, Spain is 

 a free country — are producing their natural fruits. The impulse 

 given to the national mind by political emancipation ; the free- 

 dom of speaking and printing which has been enjoyed for nearly 

 a generation ; the downfall of the Inquisition, and the decline of 

 the great enemy of modern ideas, the Catholic hierarchy (for 

 Spain, though still a Catholic, is no longer a priest-ridden coun- 

 try) have brought that fine people once more into the full cur- 

 rent of European civilization. In the material department of na- 

 tional improvement, Spain is rapidly recovering her lost ground. 

 Instead of the desolate and neglected appearance which we are 

 taught to expect, every province which I visited, except the 

 naturally arid and unfertile plain of Aragon, wore the appearance 

 of diligent and careful agriculture, and not unfrequently of active 

 and successful manufacturing industry. The soil of Spain will soon 

 be completely intersected by railroads. The lines from Madrid to 

 Valencia and Alicante, from Cadiz through Xeres and Seville to 

 Cordova, are open throughout. Of those from Madrid to the 

 French frontier, at both extremities of the Pyrenean chain, large 

 portions have been opened, as well as many shorter and branch 

 railways. The common roads are now numerous, and some of 

 them good. The diligences surprise one by their number. Their 

 rapidity was already noted at a time when the state of the roads 

 seemed hardly compatible with that quality. But what most 



