London, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington.
SPAIN
BY THE
REV. WENTWORTH WEBSTER, M.A. OXON.
WITH A CHAPTER BY AN ASSOCIATE OF THE SCHOOL OF MINES.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
London:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1882.
[All rights reserved.]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED,
ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.
[etext transcriber's note:
No attempt has been made to correct, normalize or de-anglicizethe spelling of Spanish names or words.
For example:Calayatud/Calatayud,Alfonso/Alfonzo,Cacéres/Caceres/Cáceres,Cardénas/Cárdenas,Guipúzcoa/Guipuzcoa all appear.
Click on any of the images to view them enlarged.]
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
INDEX.
PREFACE.
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THERE is a difficulty in writing a book of this character on Spain,which does not exist, we think, to the same extent with any otherEuropean country. In most European nations the official returns andgovernment reports may be accepted as trustworthy, and the compiler haslittle more to do than to copy them; but in Spain this is far from beingalways the case. In some instances, from nonchalance and habitualinexactitude, in others, and especially in all matters of finance andtaxation, from designed misstatement, all such reports have to bereceived with caution and scrupulously examined. The reader mustremember also that in Spain smuggling and contraband dealing in variousforms is carried on to such a vast extent as seriously to vitiate alltrade returns. Thus it is that Spanish statistics can be consideredonly as approximate truths.
Another difficulty arises from the very varied character of the Spanishprovinces. Hardly any statement can be made of one province which is notuntrue of another. The ordinary descriptions of Spain present only one,or at most two, types, the Castling and Andalusian, and utterly neglectall the rest. The provinces of Spain have been well described as dividedinto "five Irelands" whose habits and modes of thought, politicalaspirations, and commercial interests and aptitudes, are often utterlyopposed to those of the capital. A brief survey of the whole of Spain isattempted in the following pages.
In a work of this kind one other obvious difficulty is to know what toomit. Some well-worn topics will be found to be absent from these pages.No references are made to the great Peninsular War. This can be easilystudied in