SPAIN. 



629 



and manufactured goods, are the principal articles of export. The coastuig trade is very ac- 

 tive and important ; but the want of good roads, navigable rivers, and canals, is fatal to the 

 internal commerce. The anchovy, tunny, and coral fisheries are actively prosecuted. 



6. Manufactures. The system of taxation, founded upon production, and the privileges of 

 particular classes and societies, tend to discourage industry in S[)ain ; yet her manufactures are 

 by no means inconsiderable. The most important are those of wool, silk, leather, and cotton. 

 Paper, hats, soap, earthern, iron, and steel wares, brandy, &c., are also among the products 

 of Spanish industry. Tiie manufacture of barilla, from which soda is obtained, is extensively 

 carried on in the districts bordering on the Mediterranean. It is made by burning a vegetable, 

 which is sown for the purpose. When grown, the plant is pulled up, slacked, and dried. 

 Circular pits are then made in the ground and heated ; bars are laid across these, and the weed 

 piled upon them, where it melts, drops into the pit, and hardens into a mass. The land for the 

 cultivation of this plant requires much dressing. 



7. Inhabitants. The Spaniard is compounded of various races, principally of the Celtic, 

 the Roman, the Gothic, and the Arabic. In the north, the Gothic is the most pure, but in 

 the south the Moorish predominates. The distinctions between people of the difl'erent prov- 

 inces are equal to the general difference between those of separate nations. The Biscayans are 

 light and graceful, though hardy ; the Galicians, lofty in stature, and laborious ; the Castillans, 

 tall and dark ; the Murcians, lighter in complexion, and there are many points of difference in 

 the other provinces. But it is of the mass, that we have to speak ; and those are the Basques, 

 in Biscay and Navarre, descended from the ancient Cantabrians ; the descendants of the 

 Moors, chiefly in the Alpujarras ; the Gypsies, who are scattered over Spain under the name 

 of Gitanos ; and lastly, and principally, the general inhabitants or Spaniards. The Spaniards 

 are tall and generally slender ; or less thick-set than the people of the north of Europe. 

 Their complexion is an olive, their faces are somewhat long, their hair is black, and they have, 



almost universally, brilliant and 

 piercing eyes. The women, if 

 not models for beauty, are distin- 

 guished for their attractions ; but 

 these arise rather from glow of 

 sentiment, ardor of feeling, and 

 wonderful grace of motion, than 

 from regularity of feature, or the 

 training in the arts of pleasing, 

 which is a part of female education 

 in France. 



The classes are, generally, the 

 nobility and the plebeians ; and in 

 no country is the accidental differ- 

 ence of birth so strictly enforced: 

 a hidalgo, or a " son of some- 

 body," is one of the small nobil- 

 ity, without a particular title ; and 

 nine promotions in the army are made in favor of the nobility, before the tenth chance is 

 open to the brave sergeant, who has, perhaps, led the forlorn hope, and mounted the breach. 

 The titled nobility consist in dukes, marquises, counts, viscounts, and barons. These are 

 chiefly styled "illustrious," and addressed as " their eminences," and they prefix the Don to their 

 Christian names. The nobility are ambitious of having In their family several " hats "; or of 

 uniting in their own person, the right of several titles, each one of which gives the privilege of 

 wearing a hat in the presence of the king. Some have, by inheritance or marriage, the right 

 of wearing 8 or 10 hats. A nobleman " on four sides," is one whose parents, their parents, 

 and their parents' parents, were all noble ; and such only are knighted. But as the proof of 

 the lineage comes through the notaries. It Is not difficult for any rich aspirant for honors to ob- 

 tam a favorable certificate. A person of a pure lineage, without .Jewish, Moorish, or hereucal 

 blood, the law calls " an old Christian, without taint." It Is a calamity for even a peasant to 

 have had a remote ancestor a Jew, an Indian, an African, or a Moor. To such, even the 

 social religious fraternities are closed. Where the orl2;inal of a family must be so pure, 



Serenading. 



