On Travel and Other Things 25 
will be left to wanderer in the wilds—no spot where clanging 
skeins of wild-geese serry the skies, and the swish of ten thousand 
wigeon be heard overhead; or that marvellous iridescence—as 
of triple flame—the passing of a flight of flamingoes, be enjoyed.' 
That national progress and development may come, for Spain’s 
sake, we earnestly pray. But does there exist inherent reason 
why progress, in itself, should always come to ruin natural and 
racial beauties? Progress seems nowadays to be misunderstood 
as a synonym for uniformity—and uniformity to a single type. 
Disciples of the cult of insensate haste, of self-assertion and 
advertisement, have pretty well conquered the civilised world; 
but in Spain they find no foothold, and we glory to think they 
never will. Spain will never be ‘“‘dragooned” into a servile 
uniformity. There remain many, among whom we count our 
humble selves, who bow no knee to the modern Baal, and who 
(while conceding to the “hustling” crowd not one iota of their 
pretensions to fuller efficiency in any shape or form) are proud to 
find fascination in simplicity, a solace in honest purpose and in 
old-world styles of life—right down (if you will) to its inertia. 
Yes, may progréss come, yet leave unchanged the innate 
courtesy, the dignity and independence of rural Spain—unspoilt 
her sierras and glorious heaths aromatic of myrtle and mimosa, 
alternating with natural woods of ilex and cork-oak—self-sown 
and park-like, carpeted between in spring-time with wondrous 
wealth of wild flowers. There is nothing incongruous in such 
aspiration. Incongruity rather comes in with misappreciation of 
the fitness of things, as when a coal-mine is planked down in the 
midst of sylvan beauties, to save some hypothetic penny-a-ton 
(as per Prospectus); where pellucid streams are polluted with 
chemical filth and vegetation blasted by noisome fumes ; or where 
God’s fairest landscapes are ruined by forests of hideous smoke- 
stacks. 
If vandalisms such as these be progress then we prefer Spain 
as she is. 
1 By their peculiar style of aviation these birds, swaying up and down and swerving on 
zigzag courses, alternately expose a scintillating crimson mass suddenly flashing into a cloud 
of black and rosy white—according as their brilliant wing-plumage or their white bodies are 
presented to the eye. ~‘ A flame of fire” is the Arab signification of their name flamenco. 
