SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 63 



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

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

 on the \ohy 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, t the whole- 

 sale plunder of invaders,^ and for the subsistence of adverse armies,|l) do nut 

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

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

 ijorth of Soria — or crossing the latter, spread over the Eastein Pyrenees, 

 and the mountains of Saragossa north of the Ebro. 



Anything like 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,tj or 4,807 feet highei 

 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, ft present 

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

 raked rock."|t Miaano, 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- 

 em Apalachians, but more fiequently dwarfish and meager. On laro-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 sininilar nnd 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 Hocks in Spain were contiscated hy the Government during the great antr-finllic 

 Kruggle. In the winter of ]8<>9, the Sjianish Junto confiscated the great Hocks of the infamously cclcbriitud 

 Godoy and several other nobles, nnd they were bought by foreigneVs for exiiorlation. 



J The French Marshals, not Hndinir anything in Spain to benefit xhcf nr nrta ci{ lahelle France as in Italy, 

 soiidescended, it is said, to benttit her AgrirnUnrr. by driving home some of the best flocks of Spain. The 

 Allied Armies compelled the restitution of the viarhh. and canvM. l)ut those prirch!>x fiocks cither could not 

 be re-collected, or they were not re;:iirded as of sutticient importance to be returned. 



II The Commissariat of the English, French and .Spanish armies, 



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

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

 contrabandist^, and fugitive inhabitants, of course, did the same. 



5i Malte Brun. If lb. ** Kncyclopit^dia Americana: art. Pyrenect. 



ft Montserrat (in Catalonia>. so famous for its monastic establishments, will occur to you in this connec- 

 tion — where the steepness is so great that the monks ascend from herniita;;e to hermitage by iaddcre oi 

 Btairs cut in the rocks ! Jt F.ncyclopa^dia Americana ; art. I'yrcnert. 



II II How much the associations of early life— early reading — dispose us to exaggerate even the physical 

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

 esting remembrances ! The whole chain, extending from Cape Fliiislen-e to Port Vendres. 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 ! Vet, in the western Aa// of this chain. Pelayo and his successors 

 maintained their Visi-Gothic kingiloin. overthrew the descendants of the Abassides and Ommiadcs, nnd 

 finally wrested Spain fro«n the Mnorish yoke. Who remembers, without the map under his eye, that Baa 



