HORSE-BREEDING AND LIVE STOCK. 235 



Of the fine description of Spanish merino sheep, so 

 celebrated till the beginning of the eighteenth century, and 

 so rigorously guarded and protected by Spanish Govern- 

 ments, there remains to-day hardly a trace. Prance, 

 Sweden, and Saxony found means about that period to 

 obtain specimens of the Spanish breed, and with them 

 departed the glory of the privileged race. There remain 

 now in Spain but degenerate representatives. Years of 

 apathy have left to her little but the coarsest breed of 

 sheep both as to flesh and fleece. The race from which 

 nearly all the best European varieties have originated is 

 now, perhaps, the lowest on the list. 



Mutton is comparatively scarce in the southern mercados, 

 where for one sheep may be seen a dozen kids exposed 

 for sale. The latter — strange parti-coloured little beasts 

 — together with the ubiquitous pig and tough, stringy beef, 

 provide most of the meat consumed in Spain, whose scant 

 quantity and poor quality is eked out by vast supplies of 

 small birds — Larks, Buntings, Quails, and the like — which 

 are caught by means of a dark-lantern at night, as we 

 have elsewhere described ; whole festoons of small birds, 

 with Partridge, wildfowl, and Little Bustards, adorn the 

 market-stalls in the Spanish cities, flanked by Boe and 

 Bed Deer from the forests, and sometimes by a grizzly 

 boar from the sierra. 



The Spanish markets also afford a wondrous display of 

 southern fruits and vegetables — whole mountains of golden 

 melons and sandias, tons of tomatoes and pimientos (red 

 pepper), prickly pears, purple-ripe figs, loquats, apricots, 

 grapes, and other fruit according to season ; with lettuces, 

 wild asparagus and a host of other vegetables. From 

 every house in the town comes a servant to purchase the 

 day's requirements of fish, flesh, fowl, or fruit — for every- 

 thing is bought and consumed from day to day. There is 

 no " cold mutton " in a Spanish menu ! By eight o'clock, 

 but little remains unsold, so an early start is needed to see 

 the best of the show. 



To return to the muttons : it should be added that Spain 

 is now practically the only European country which still 



