CHAPTEE XVI 



PERNALES 



A COUNTRY better adapted by nature for the success of the 

 enterprising bandit cannot be conceived. The vast despohlados 

 = uninhabited wastes, with scant villages far isolated and lonely 

 mountain-tracts where a single desperado commands the way and 

 can hold-up a score of passers-by, all lend themselves admirably 

 to this peculiar form of industry. And up to quite recent years 

 these natural advantages were exploited to the full. Riding- 

 through the sierras, one notes rude crosses and epitaphs inscribed 

 on rocks recording the death of this or that wayfarer. Now 

 travellers, as a rule, do not die natural deaths by the wayside ; 

 and an inspection of these silent memorials indicates that each 

 occupies a site eminently adapted for a quiet murder. Fortu- 

 nately, during the last year or two, the extension of the telegraph 

 and linkiug-up of remote hamlets has aided authority practically 

 to extinguish brigandage on the grander scale. Spain to-day 

 can no longer claim a single artist of the Jack Sheppard or 

 Dick Turpin type ; not one heroic murderer such as Josd Maria 

 (whose safe-conduct was more effective than that of his king), 

 Vizco el Borje, Agua-Dulce, and other ladrones en grande whose 

 life-histories will be found outlined in Wild Spain. 



The two first-named represent a type of manhood one cannot 

 but admire — admire despite oneself and despite its inconvenience to 

 civilisation. These were men ignorant of fear, who, though them- 

 selves gentle, were yet able, by sheer force of iron will, to command 

 and control cut-throat gangs which set authority at defiance, and 

 who subjected whole districts to their anarchical aims and orders. 

 The outlaw-overlords ever acted on similar lines. Respecting 

 human life as, in itself, valueless, they commandeered real 

 value by an adroit combination of liberally subsidising the 

 peasantry while yet terrorising all by the certainty of swift and 



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