SPAIN. 
448 
Pisuerga, whose right bank it follows till it joins that stream 
on the limits of the kingdom of Leon. 1c then runs to the 
south and south-west, crossing the river Cierza, and proceeds 
on its right bank till, passing through the Carrion, it turns to 
the west of Palencia, and terminates in the same river. The 
small canal of Campos, running more to the west, joins that 
of Castille to the north of Palencia. 
According to one of these gigantic plans with which the 
Spanish government have often amused their vanity, provid¬ 
ing, as it were, in the magnitude of the enterprise, a ready 
excuse for their inactivity, the canal of Castille was to reach 
the sea at Santander, through the river Camesa, through the 
Ebro, near Reynosa, and finally through the Besaya and the 
Pas. From its present termination near Palencia, it was, on 
the other side, to reach Valladolid, to strike off from the 
Duero, in order to join the Adaja, and then to follow the 
Eresma as far as Segovia. From thence it was to be directed 
to the canal of Arragon, and thus to unite the ocean with the 
Mediterranean, across the kingdom. Don Ramon de Pigna- 
telli, the engineer who superintended the works of the canal 
of Arragon, laid the plans of this immense work before 
Charles III. whose sanction they received. We must, how¬ 
ever, remind the reader, that the only traces which exist of 
this mighty dream, attract but faintly the notice of the tra¬ 
veller near Burgos, and in the vicinity of Madrid, where the 
head of one of the intended branches extends for four or five 
miles almost undisturbed by barge or boat. 
“ Such,” says B. White, “ are the effects of a despotic 
government, even in its kindest moods, and when it, fairly 
and honestly, means to promote the good of its subjects. 
Unwilling to consult, and unable to ascertain the real opinion 
of those immediately concerned in the result of its measures, 
it moves with ponderous haste towards the object which 
dazzles its eyes, often crushing in its way those it meant to 
relieve. Complaints are heard at length; which, joined to 
the exhaustion attending all unnatural exertions, never fail 
> to put the despot in a passion with his subjects, and make 
him repent that he ever was so good and gracious as to try 
to improve their condition.” 
Other great obstacles oppose the agricultural wealth of 
Spain. The want of rural population, and the great distance 
of the farmers’ dwellings from their farms. Independently 
of the loss of time and strength arising from a walk of four 
or six miles before the day’s work is begun, there are long 
periods in the year when the fields are scarcely visited by 
the owners, generally gentlemen farmers, and but seldom by 
the rustic, who acts as steward. Field w'ork, in fact, is not 
continued throughout the year, but hastily and slovenly per¬ 
formed, at the sowing and the reaping seasons, by large parties 
of labourers, for whose accommodation, in farms at consi¬ 
derable distance from any town, there is a building not 
unlike a large barn, which affords a promiscuous shelter to 
man and beast. Bands of ploughmen, with thirty or forty 
team of oxen, are seen at the beginning of winter, slightly 
turning up the sods in the fields which have lain fallow the 
preceding year. The sowers walk slowly behind them, scat¬ 
tering the seed by handfuls, of which, part is picked up by 
the large flocks of birds which hover over those extensive 
solitudes, and part prevented from taking root by being 
improperly lodged in the earth. 
It was once proposed to the Spanish government to dis¬ 
tribute the uncultivated land, amounting to a large proportion 
of the whole country, among such of the natives as were 
disposed to bring their lots into tillage. This measure, it 
was hoped by Jovellanos, would tend to a wider and more 
equal distribution of the Spanish population, now crowded 
in towns at great distances from each other. But it is hardly 
less difficult to alter the original and confirmed constitution 
of the body politic than of the animal frame. 
Nor is it in the power of man suddenly to convert the 
idle and degraded inhabitants of large cities into sober and 
industrious farmers. Whenever, says the excellent author 
before quoted, the Spanish government shall have opened an 
easy communication between the central provinces and the 
coast, and joined every important town in the peninsula by 
cross roads—when the means of internal traffic shall have 
opened a market for the produce of the soil—when the laws 
which fetter the industry of the Spaniards shall have been 
repealed long enough to allow them to perceive their real 
interests, and to exert themselves with the steadiness and 
confidence of habitual freedom, then, and r.ot before, will 
the productive power of their land be called into action. 
The rights of property in land, wherever the feudal system 
has existed in full vigour, are so exclusive and peremptory, 
that it must surprise an Englishman to learn, that there are 
but very few spots in Spain which the landlord can call his 
own, from the moment he has housed the harvest. The 
right of driving cattle into the stubble-fields is claimed and 
maintained with great obstinacy. 
From the mountains of Leon to the farthest limits of 
Estremadura, the members of the Mesta, an association 
composed of the wealthiest Grandees, gentlemen, and reli¬ 
gious bodies, have a right to graze their sheep on a broad 
belt of land called Canada, gradually and slowly changing 
their stations, as the mild winters of the south clothe the 
earth with grass, or the heat of summer thaws the snows 
of the Leonese mountains. The privileges of this body are 
defended and enforced by a court of judges created for that 
purpose, and in the appointment and pay of the Mesta, 
who, with a numerous host of dependants, are the terror of 
the agriculturist wherever their jurisdiction extends. Lands 
upon this pastoral road are scarcely the property of any but 
these formidable shepherds, who fix the price of pasture, 
obtain it by compulsion wherever it is found, and look upon 
farmers and their labours as the natural rivals and impedi¬ 
ments to their gains. 
Of the domestic animals of Spain, the cattle are less 
numerous than the wants of the country require, or the 
extent of pasture in the higher grounds would afford the 
means of rearing. Mules are in general use for travelling; 
and as to horses, the famed breed of Andalusia is considered 
as degenerating. 
Manufactures and Trade .—In a country abounding with 
the finest wool, and not deficient in provisions, flourishing 
manufactures of that article might be expected; but such are 
the pernicious effects of multiplied holidays and an unen¬ 
lightened government, that Spain is obliged to import part 
of her broad cloth, her flannel, and her serges, from England 
and France. In like manner, notwithstanding the productive 
iron mines of Biscay, she imports great part of her hardware ; 
so that if we except Catalonia, where both silk and cottons are 
made in large quantities, the only manufactures conducted 
with spirit in Spain are the twisting of silk, the tanning of lea¬ 
ther, and the working of Sparto or Esparto grass (Spanish 
broom) into matts, baskets, shoes, and other articles. Bad 
roads, monopolies on the part of government, the enforcement 
of restrictive laws that ought long since to have been ab¬ 
rogated, are among the principal causes of the backward 
state of the productive industry of Spain. 
In the middle ages the trade of Spain with foreign countries 
was confined to a few towns of importance, as Venice, Genoa, 
Ghent, and Bruges. The discovery of America opened a 
prospect which would have been eagerly embraced by an 
active people: in the hands the Spaniards, this trade was 
miserably cramped by the spirit of monopoly. Confined at 
first to Seville, transferred after 1720 to Cadiz, and relieved 
from part of its absurd restrictions in 1739 and 1764, it was 
at last thrown open, after 1778, to a number of the chief sea¬ 
ports of the kingdom. This measure was productive of the 
best effects, and the mercantile shipping of Spain received a 
very considerable increase; but the trade in question never 
acquired an importance to be compared to that of England 
with the United States. 
The Spaniards have long been described asactuatedin their 
transactions, both political and commercial by a high sense 
of honour; an encomium which probably resolves itself into 
little more than the characteristic simplicity of a people of 
few wants; and, in the larger towns, into the habit of straight 
forward dealing, common to the merchants of Cadiz, as to 
those of Amsterdam, London, or other cities where commerce 
is 
