ANDALUCIA AND HER MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS. 5 



water of the Peninsula, with the gay and careless Andaluz 

 who spurns and derides him : or the fiery temperament of 

 aristocratic Castile and Navarre with the commercial 

 instincts of Catalonia and the north-east. Probably the 

 most perfect example of natural nobility is afforded by the 

 peasant proprietor of pastoral Leon ; then there is a pelt- 

 clad, root-grubbing homo sylvestris peculiar to Estremenian 

 wilds, who awaits attention of ethnologists. There are 

 the Basques of Biscay — Tartar-sprung or Turanian, Finnic 

 or surviving aborigines, let philologists decide ; at any 

 rate, a race by themselves, distinct in dress and habit, in 



BASQUE PEASANT. 



laws and language, from all the rest. Beserved, but cour- 

 teous and reliable, the Basques are dangerously ready for 

 their much-prized fusros to plunge their country in civil 

 war.*' The differences which to-day distinguish these 

 allied races are as deep and defined as those which stand 



* The fueros of the Basques comprise certain franchises and privi- 

 leges granted or upheld by ancient charters, and are their undoubted 

 right, though sought to be ignored by Madrid statesmen. It was 

 largely through his promises to re-establish their fueros, that Don 

 Carlos enlisted the sympathy and support of the Basque provinces. 

 The subject, however, is an intricate one, and is only alluded to inci- 

 dentally. 



