SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 63 



the winter, however, they are covered with verdure. About the iirst of 

 May the sheep start for the mountains,* Formerly many of them rested 

 on the lofty paramcras and mountain sides of Old and New Castile the 

 latter bleak, sterile and craggy, compared with the sides of our own South- 

 ern mountains. But a friend recently from Spain informs me that those 

 once magnificent flocks (now, alas ! thinned by confiscation, f the whole- 

 sale plunder of invaders,! and for the subsistence of adverse armies, ||) do not 

 at present stop in any considerable numbers on the Castilian mountains, 

 but pass north to the Cantabrian, and that portion of the Iberian range 

 north of Soria or crossing the latter, spread over the Eastern Pyrenees, 

 and the mountains of Saragossa north of the Ebro. 



Anything Tike an elaborate comparison between the facilities for sheep 

 husbandry furnished by the mountains of Spain and the Apalachians of 

 the United States, south of the Potomac, would, perhaps, be out of place 

 in this connection. But a glance at them may throw useful light on the 

 question of comparative profit. If the Spaniard can grow wool at a profit, 

 where the natural and physical features of the country gives him no ad- 

 vantage over us, we can certainly do so ; for in every other respect we 

 have the advantage. 



The Eastern Pyrenees rise, to a hight of 10,000 feet, more than double 

 that of the Peaks of Otter, or that of any other portion of the Apalachian 

 range, with the exception of a few summits in North Carolina. Mount 

 Perdu, one of the Pyrenees, is 11, 283 feet in hight, fl or 4,807 feet higher 

 than the Black, the highest mountain of the United States east of the Mis- 

 sissippi. Maladetta, Vignemale and others rise considerably above 10,000 

 feet.** Glaciers exist on different parts of the whole chain. " The acclivity 

 of the Pyrenees on the side of Spain, is often extremely steep,tt present 

 ing a succession of rugged chasms, abrupt precipices, and huge masses of 

 naked rock."JJ Minano, a Spanish writer of authority, in defending his 

 countrymen from the charge of indolence, speaks particularly of the ef 

 forts of the hardy peasantry on the " almost inaccessible mountains of the 

 Asturias, Galicia and Catalonia." The vegetation on these mountains is ex- 

 tremely variable, in some places being as luxuriant as the best on our South- 

 ern Apalachians, but more frequently dwarfish and meager. On lar^e 

 portions of them it is entirely wanting. The northern acclivities are fre- 

 quently swept by cold and piercing gales from the Bay of Biscay. On the 

 whole, it will be seen that they do not compare with our southern moun- 

 tains in the advantages which they offer for sheep husbandry. || || 



* For singular and interesting particulars in relation to their march, &c., and the municipal regulations 

 pertaining thereto, see Livingston on Sheep, p. 36 et supra. 



t Some of the choicest flocks in Spain were confiscated by the Government during the great antf-dallic 

 struggle. In the winter of 1809, the Spanish Junto confiscated the great flocks of the infamously celebrated 

 Oodoy and several oiher nobles, and they were bought by foreigners for exportation. 



I The French Marshals, not finding anything in Spain to benefit ihefaie arts of la belle France, as in Italy, 

 condescended, it is said, to benefit her Agriculture, by driving home some of the best flocks of Spain. The 

 Allied Armies compelled the restitution of the marble and canvas, but those priceless flocks either could not 

 be re-collected, or they were not regarded as of sufficient importance to be returned. 



|| The Commissariat of the English, French and Spanish armies, 



" The foe, the victim, and the fond nlly," 



found the great Spanish flocks a very convenient resort, and availed themselves of it fully. The Guerilla*, 

 contrabandists, and fugitive inhabitants, of course, did the same. 



ft Malte Krun. tf Ib. ** Kncycloptedia Americana; ait. Pyrcnerc. 



ft Montserrat (in Catalonia), so famous for its monastic establishments, will occur to you in this cornice- 

 tion where the steepness is so great ihnt the monks ascend from hermitage to hermitage by ladders 01 

 etairs cut in the rocks ! {t Encyclopedia Americana.; art. i'yrr.nces. 



|1 1| How much the associations of early life early reading dispose us to exr.airerate even the physical 

 extent of the region covered by these mountains, connected as they are with so many romantic and inter- 

 esting remembrances ! The whole chain, extending from Cape Finisterre to Pott Veftdrce, does not exceed 

 250 miles in length; and the space covered by it is not, in Western parlance, a " circumstance " to that oc- 

 cupied by our Southern Apalachians ! Yet, in the western half of this chain, Pelayo and his successors 

 maintained their Visi-Gothic kingdom, overthrew the descendants of the Abassides and Omrniadcs, and 

 finally wrested Spain from the Moodsh yoke. Who remembers, without the map under his eye, that Haw 



