Las Hurdes 241 



mountains. On our asking one of these (he had served at Melilhi), 

 " Why ? " his reply was, " for liberty." ' 



There is a villainous custom in vogue that hurls these poor 

 wretches yet farther down the bottomless pit. This abomination 

 rages to-day as it did a hundred years ago : we therefore again 

 leave old Pascual Madoz to tell the tale in his own words : — 



Many women make a miserable livelihood — it is indeed their only 

 industry — by rearing foundling infants from the hospitals of Ciudad 

 Kodrigo and Placencia. So keen are they of the money thus obtained 

 that one woman, aided by a goat, will undertake to rear three or four 

 babes — all necessarily so ill-tended and ill-fed as rather to resemble 

 living spectres than human beings. Cast down on beds of tilthy ferns 

 and lacking all maternal care, the majority perish from hunger, cold, and 

 neylect. The few that reach childhood are weaklings for life, feeble and 

 infirm. 



This repulsive " industry " (-ontiuues to-day, a sum of three 

 dollars a month being paid by the authorities of the cities named 

 to rid themselves of each undesired infant. The effect — direct 

 and incidental — upon morals and sexual relationship in the 

 alquerias of the Hurdes may (in degree) be deduced — it cannot 

 be set down in words. Thus the single point of contact with 

 civilisation serves but to accentuate the deoradation. 



o 



' The Hurdaiios, we were told, make bad soldiers. Beiug despised by their comrades, 

 they are only employed on the menial work of the barracks. IMany, from long desuetude, 

 are unable to wear boots. 



