2.4.0 Unexplored Spain 
their necks, girt at waist and round the knees with straps; the women 
merely an apron from the waist downward. 
Men and women alike are dwarfed in stature and repugnant in 
appearance, augmented by their pallor and starveling look. On the 
other hand, they are active and expert in climbing their native mountains, 
There is no outward difference in the sexes as regards their lives and 
means of subsistence. 
All their environment tends to make them untractable and savage 
(sylvaticos), shunning contact with their kind, even fleeing at sight and 
refusing to speak. They have no doctors nor surgeons, relying on certain 
herbs for medicines ; yet they live long lives. They only recognise the 
passing seasons by the state of vegetation and of the atmosphere. They 
sow and reap according to the phases of the moon, of which they preserve 
an accurate observation. Religion and schools alike are unknown. They 
glory in their freedom from all moral suasion, and rejoice in the most 
brutal immorality and crime—including parricide and polygamy. There 
are alquerias wherein no priest has set foot, nor do they possess the 
faintest sense of Christian duties. 
It seems incredible that in the midst of two provinces both wealthy 
and well reputed there should exist a plague-spot such as we have 
painted, unknown as the remotest kraals of Central Africa. 
Thus Pascual Madoz in 1845, and but little external change 
has become apparent in sixty-five subsequent years. Churches, 
it is true, have been erected, priests and schoolmasters appointed. 
Amelioration, however, by such means can only come very slowly 
—if at all. The physical and domestic status of these poor 
savages must first be raised before they are mentally capable of 
assimilating the mysteries of religion. Spain, however, owes them 
something. They are heavily taxed—beyond their power to pay 
in cash. Thus they are cast into the power of usurers. In each 
alqueria, we were told, is usually found one man more astute 
than the rest, and he, in combination with some sordid scoundrel 
outside, exploits the misery of his fellows. A species of semi- 
slavery is thus established—in some ways analogous to the 
baneful system of Caczquesmo outside. 
The Hurdanos are also subject to the conscription and furnish 
forty to fifty recruits yearly to the Spanish army. Curiously, 
time-expired men all elect to return to their wretched lot in the 
1A later Spanish work, the Décctonario enciclopedico hispano-americano (Barcelona, 
1892), regards some of Pascual Madoz’s descriptions as over-coloured and exaggerated. Our 
own observation, however, rather tended to confirm his views and to show that subsequent 
amelioration exists rather in name than in fact. 
