ON SPANISH AGRICULTURE. 227 



The corn goes to the owner's granary, the wine to his 

 bodega, and all is soon safely housed within the city walls. 

 Nothing, beyond actual necessaries, is left in the country. 



The antipathy evinced by Spaniards towards the 

 country is a curious feature of this southern life. No 

 Spaniard, rich or poor, will remain in the country for a 

 single night, even in the green and glorious spring-time 

 when the Andalucian vegas revel in richest charm to eye 

 and ear. The labourers whose work takes them into the 

 campo do their best to get back by night : even the 

 poorest prefer a walk of several miles, morning and 

 evening, rather than remain overnight amidst rustic 

 scenes. Centuries of former insecurity may explain this : 

 but now no present cause can be assigned beyond the 

 force of habit, and perhaps the fear of being overtaken by 

 sudden illness or death beyond the reach of priest — in 

 which case the last rites of religion might not be available. 



Whatever be the cause, the country gentleman, the 

 country parson and doctor, Hodge and rural population 

 generally, are unknown in Spain. The landowner hies him 

 townwards at night to his gossip, his paseo and his favourite 

 game of tresillo at the casino — the workman to his village, 

 his wife and bairns in the humble tenement he proudly 

 calls his casa. Spain is a land of customs and accepted 

 traditions — be they good or bad. For centuries no one 

 has sought to introduce a novelty — say a taste for rural 

 life, though the conditions for its enjoyment exist here 

 as favourably, at least, as elsewhere. So far as we can 

 judge, the vesper-bell will continue for all time to gather 

 in the natives to the cities as rookeries unite their flocks 

 when every sun goes down. 



This, of course, does not apply to farmsteads remote 

 from town or village, where labourers and herdsmen per- 

 force live as in a rural fortress. It is not surprising that, 

 with the gregarious instincts of the Spanish people, the 

 lot of such men should be despised ; and that there should 

 arise in these unhappy groups, isolated for weeks from 

 kith and kin, and with the . barest means of subsistence, 

 that spirit of discontent which resulted in 1883 in the 



Q 2 



