4 Unexplored Spain 
amidst a universal khaki, yet this is, in truth, a kingdom of the 
sun. The great bustard maintains a foothold on these arid 
uplands, but the fauna is best exemplified by the desert-loving 
sand-grouse (Pterocles arenarius). 
Precisely the reverse of all this is Cantabria—the Basque 
provinces of the north, with Galicia and the Asturias. There, 
bordering on the Biscayan Sea, you find a region absolutely 
Scandinavian in type—pinnacled peaks, precipitous beyond all 
rivals even in Spain, with deep-rifted valleys between, rushing 
salmon-rivers and mountain-torrents abounding in trout. Here 
the fauna is alpine, if not subarctic, and includes the brown 
bear and chamois, the ptarmigan, hazel-grouse, and capercaillie. 
Cantabria is a region of rock, snow, and mist-wraith ; of birch 
and pine-forest—the very antithesis of the third region, that next 
concerns us, the smiling plains of Andalucia and Valencia nestling 
on Mediterranean shore. Here for eight months out of the 
twelve one lives in a paradise; but the summer is African in its 
burden of heat and discomfort. Every green thing outside the 
vineyard and irrigated garden is burnt up by a fiery sun, a sun 
that changes not, but, day following day, grips the land in a 
blistering embrace. Climatic conditions such as these reacting on 
a race already infused with Arab blood naturally conduce to 
Oriental modes of life. Yet even here we have examples of the 
curious contradictions that characterise this pays de [’imprévu. 
Thus within sight of one another, there flourish on the vega 
below the date-palm and sugar-cane, while the ice-defying edel- 
weiss embellishes the snows above—arctic and tropic in one. 
Such extremes of climate react, as suggested, upon the 
character of the human inhabitants of a land which includes 
within its boundaries nearly all the physical conditions of Europe 
and North Africa. From the north, as might be expected, comes 
the worker—the sturdy laborious Galician, disdained and despised 
by his Andalucian brother, regarded as lacking in dignity—the 
very name Gallego is a term of reproach. But he is a happy 
and contented hewer of wood and drawer of water, that Gallego : 
throughout Spain he carries the baskets, bears the burdens, cleans 
the floors; and finally returns, a rich man, to ‘his barren hills of 
Galicia. 
The Andalucian will condescend to tend your cattle or garden, 
