ROMANTIC SPAIN 



195 



skins, calked with pitch 

 which gives it a taste 

 much hke that of the 

 diUite spruce - gum into 

 "which wine degenerates 

 in Greece. 



Turning inland one is 

 soon met by the strangely 

 toothed ridge of the 

 ]\Iontserrat (about 4,000 

 feet high). This was 

 the traditional home of 

 the Holy Grail, and its 

 monastery is a famous 

 pilgrimage spot. A cog- 

 wheel railway makes the 

 trip an easy one. Cult- 

 ured Benedictine monks 

 still dwell under those 

 tremendous cliffs, but 

 their artistic treasures 

 were looted by the 

 French, who have sev- 

 eral times found Spain 

 a convenient gold and 

 silver mine. The moun- 

 tain is endlessly beauti- 

 ful, with its views over 

 to the Pyrenees and its 

 Avealth of vegetation. It^ 

 spring flowers are largel}- 

 of blue color — ■ violets, 

 hepaticas, flax, larkspurs, 

 hyachinths, and many 

 others. 



Now the train labors u]) to the bleak 

 highlands of Castile, bare and forbidding. 

 Central Spain is a high i^lateau. crossed 

 by rugged mountains, scorched in sum- 

 mer and frozen stiff in winter. The 

 Castilian farmer, too poor to purchase 

 fertilizers or drill wells for irrigation, 

 generally leaves the land fallow every 

 other year. Then it seems a barren 

 desert, and one is constantly struck with 

 the contrast of the green wheat-fields on 

 the strips under cultivation. 



Here and there shepherds accompany 

 their heavy-fleeced merinos, nibbling 

 even as they cross ploughed land. The 

 good-natured herdsmen, with their rough 

 coats and skin trousers, have not much 

 changed since Don Quixote's dav, w^hen 



THE co.Minx 



SH 



ATIOX oi" 1)ATI{ I'AI.MS AXD WHEAT FIELD 

 OWS THE VARIETY OE PRODUCTS 



the iiicsta, the sheep-owners' corporation, 

 was as despotic as any western ranchers' 

 association. Literally millions of sheep 

 used to be driven across the country in 

 the change from simimer to winter pas- 

 ture : they cropped close all vegetation — 

 Spain's lack of forests is partly their 

 fault — and the inesta was legally entitled 

 to the hundred yards each side of the 

 roadway for the sheep to graze upon. It 

 is less than a century since the corpora- 

 tion lost its monopoly and the farmer 

 got his rights. 



Seeing Leon's massive Roman walls 

 and towers, one can easily believe that 

 its name comes from the Roman legions 

 once quartered here. The high church 

 tower in the backgroimd is of Saint Isi- 



