On Travel and Other Things 25 



will be left to wanderer iu the wilds — no spot where clanging 

 skeins of wild-geese serry the skies, and the swish of ten thousand 

 wigeon be heard overhead ; or that marvellous iridescence — as 

 of triple Hame — the passing of a Hight of flamingoes, be enjoyed.^ 



That national progress and development may come, for Spain's 

 sake, we earnestly pray. But does there exist inherent reason 

 why progress, in itself, should always come to ruin natural and 

 racial beauties ? Progress seems nowadays to be misunderstood 

 as a synonym for uniformity — and uniformity to a single type. 

 Disciples of the cult of insensate haste, of self-assertion and 

 advertisement, have pretty well conquered the civilised world ; 

 but in Spain they find no foothold, and we glory to think they 

 never will. Spain will never be "dragooned" into a servile 

 uniformity. There remain many, among whom we count our 

 humble selves, who bow no knee to the modern Baal, and who 

 (while conceding to the " hustling " crowd not one iota of their 

 pretensions to fuller efficiency in any shape or form) are proud to 

 find fascination in simplicity, a solace in honest purpose and in 

 old-world styles of life — right down (if you will) to its inertia. 



Yes, may progress come, yet leave unchanged the innate 

 courtesy, the dignity and independence of rural Spain — unspoilt 

 her sierras and glorious heaths aromatic of myrtle and mimosa, 

 alternating with natural woods of ilex and cork-oak — self-sown 

 and park-like, carpeted between in spring-time with wondrous 

 wealth of wild flowers. There is nothino; incongruous in such 

 aspiration. Incongruity rather comes in with misappreciation of 

 the fitness of things, as when a coal-mine is planked down in the 

 midst of sylvan beauties, to save some hypothetic penny- a-ton 

 (as per Prospectus) ; where pellucid streams are polluted with 

 chemical filth and vegetation blasted by noisome fumes ; or where 

 God's fairest landscapes are ruined by forests of hideous smoke- 

 stacks. 



If vandalisms such as these be progress then we prefer Spain 

 as she is. 



^ By tlieir peculiar style of aviation these birds, swaying up and down and swerving on 

 zigzag courses, altei-nately expose a scintillating crimson mass suddenly flashing into a cloud 

 of black and I'osy white — according as tiieir brilliant wing-plumage or their white bodies are 

 presented to the eye. " A Hame of fh-e " is the Arab signilicatiou of their imiuc Jlamenco. 



