CHAPTER XXIII 
LAS HURDES (ESTREMADURA) AND THE SAVAGE 
TRIBES THAT INHABIT THEM 
IsoLaTED amidst the congeries of mountain-ranges that converge 
upon Ledn, Castile, and Estremadura, lies a lost region that bears 
this name. The Hurdes occupy no small space; they represent 
no insignificant nook, but a fair-sized province—say fifty miles 
long by thirty broad—severed from the outer world; cut off 
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from Portugal on the one side, from Spain on the other; while 
its miserable inhabitants are ignored and despised by both its 
neighbours. 
Who and what are these wild tribes (numbering 4000 souls) 
that, in a squalor and savagery incredible in modern Europe, 
cling, in solitary tenacity, to these inhospitable fastnesses:? 
Possibly they are the remnants of Gothish fugitives who, 
1200 years ago, sought shelter in these hills from Arab scimitars ; 
other theories trace their origin back to an earlier era. But 
whether Goths or Visigoths, Vandals or other, these pale-faced 
Hurdanos are surely none of swarthy Arab or Saracenic blood ; 
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