€ ie) 
Even when the plough is used, it is little more 
than a great knife fastened to a stick, that just 
scratches the surface. The grain is threshed by 
horses, or mules, driven over it, or by means of a 
plank studded with nails or flint stones and drawn 
across iti 1) With even this miserable culture, the 
land in Andalusia yields considerable crops; yet are 
the inhabitants too lazy or too few to gather them to- 
gether.(2) This is done by Galiegos, who are the 
laborers of Spain.” We need scarcely remark, that 
in a state of agriculture like this, the peasantry: can- 
not be either well fed or well clothed. “’The moun- 
taineers live principally upon roasted acorns and 
goat’s milk, and those of the plain {from Barcelona 
to Malaga] on bread steeped with oil and occasion- 
ally seasoned with vinegar.”(3) 
It is wide of our subject to examine the causes of 
the degradation of character, which marks the agri- 
culture of Spain. Well informed writers have ascri- 
bed it to the expulsion of the Moors and Jews, to the 
weight of taxes and imposts, to the mesta or common 
right of pasturage, to the discovery of America and 
its consequences, to the effect of climate and the ill- 
judged charity of bishops and convents, but princi- 
(1, 2, 3) Swinburne’s Travels, vol. ii A Spanish peasant, who has earned or beg- 
ged enough for the wants of the day, will refuse to earn more, even by running an 
errand. Striking as this fact is, it does not so well illustrate Spanish indolence as 
the following anecdote from the same pen. In the great sedition at Madrid, which 
ended in the defeat of the king and the disgrace of his minister (the Marquis des 
Squillas,) and-in its most fervid moments, both parties retired about dinner time to 
take their nap or meridiana, after which they returned to the combat with new vigor 
and enraged fury. If habits can thus control the passions, to what important uses 
might not a wise legislation turn them? 
