Iberian Peninsula

“ And so long as this remains true, so long will there be hope of a new Renaissance in the Iberian peninsula. By a nation's salads may you judge of its degree of civilisation; thus tested, Spain is in the van, not the rear, of all European countries. ”

“ THE Iberian Peninsula, embracing the modern states of Spain and Portugal, is entirely surrounded by the waters of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, except for a strip in the north a little less than three hundred miles in length, which touches the southern border of France. Even at that point Spain is almost completely shut off from the rest of Europe, because of the high range of the Pyrenees Mountains. Portugal, although an independent state and set apart to a certain extent by a mountainous boundary, cannot be said to be geographically distinct from Spain. ”

“ With the exception of a narrow belt along the seashore, the whole of the Iberian peninsula is a vast high mesa, plateau or tableland, 1,500 to 3,000 feet above sea level, traversed by lofty mountain chains, or sierras, five or six in number, running parallel to each other, mainly in a westerly and southwesterly direction. These divide the plateau into as many plains, treeless, and for the most part, arid, exposed to cold blasts in winter, and burning up in summer. ”

“ So entirely similar, in fact, are all the peoples which have invaded or, we had better say, populated the Iberian Peninsula that we are unable to distinguish them anthropologically one from another. The Spaniards are akin to the Berbers in Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis. ”

“ The Spanish Language
The Iberian Peninsula is not a linguistic unit. Not to speak of the Basque, which still forms an island of some importance in the north-west, three Romance languages share this extensive territory: (1) Portuguese-Galician, spoken in Portugal, Galicia, and a small portion of the province of Leon; (2) Castilian, covering about two-thirds of the Peninsula in the north, centre, and south; (3) Catalan, occupying a long strip of territory to the east and south-east. ”

“ Up to the fifteenth century the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula were chiefly occupied in slowly moving back the tide of Mohammedan conquest, which had spread nearly throughout the country from 711 onwards. The last sigh of the Moor in Spain was to be uttered in 1492—an epoch-making year, both in history and in geography. But Portugal, the western side of the peninsula, had got rid of her Moors at a much earlier date—more that 200 years before—though she found it difficult to preserve her independence from the neighbouring kingdom of Castile. ”

“ Universal apathy and indifference to everything seems to pervade the whole Iberian peninsula. If not caring what you eat or what you drink is a virtue, so far the evangelical precept is obeyed. So it is in Portugal, and so it is in Spain, and so it looks likely to be world without end: to which, let the rest of Europe say amen; for were these countries to open their long-closed eyes, cast off their trammels, and rouse themselves to industry, they would soon surpass their neighbours in wealth and population. ”

“ His country is a large, squarish, mountainous land at the southwesternmost tip of Europe. To the north, over the tall wall of the Pyrenees Mountains, is France. To the west is Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean, and to the east is the Mediterranean Sea. Spain has more seacoast than any other European country and more mountains than any except Switzerland. Spain and Portugal together make up what is called the Iberian Peninsula. It is named for the Iberian people who came there from North Africa almost 5,000 years ago and settled down to become the ancestors of the Spanish people. ”

“ If the poverty-struck Irish could emigrate in such multitudes to American or Australian regions, far greater are the facilities possessed by those better conditioned labouring masses of Europe who are still heavily pressed by the competition of neighbours more fortunate than themselves.
It is a matter of surprise that the Spanish colonies should not have attracted a greater number of Spaniards to settle in them; but the national spirit of the Iberian peninsula has ceased to be ambulatory or adventurous. Spain itself is thinly peopled, and offers great resources to its satisfied peasantry. ”

“ Proximity to Africa has closely allied Spain to the southern continent in flora, fauna, and ethnic stock. The long-headed, brunette Mediterranean race occupies the Iberian Peninsula and the Berber territory of northwest Africa.241 This community of race is also reflected in the political union of the two districts for long periods, first under the Carthaginians, then the Romans, who secured Hispania by a victory on African soil, and finally by the Saracens. ”

“ The richest auriferous land in Europe was the Iberian peninsula, which for centuries yielded a golden harvest, first to the Carthaginians, then to the Romans, and at a still later period to the Visigoths and the Moors. ”

“ A different aspect is presented by the grass steppes of Murcia, La Mancha, the plateaus of Guadix and Huescar in the province of Granada, &c, all of which are covered chiefly with the valuable esparto grass (Macrochloa tenacissima) .
Fauna.—The Iberian Peninsula belongs to the Mediterranean sub-region of the Palaearctic region of the animal kingdom. The forms that betray African affinities are naturally to be found chiefly in the south. ”

“ The Vandals occupied in Spain two widely separated districts, one in the mountain region of Galicia next to the Suevi, and the other in the fertile valley of Andalusia in the south, while the northeastern part of the peninsula was occupied by intruding Visigoths.148 Add to these the original Iberian and Celtic stocks of the peninsula and the Roman strain previously introduced, and the various elements which have entered into the Spanish people become apparent.149
Cultural modification during migration. ”

“ The ancient Iberians appear to have reached Spain from Chaldea across Africa; the Phoenicians and Carthaginians had flourishing colonies in the peninsula, and, in later times, the Moors possessed a large portion of the country for a century, and ruled with great splendor, a state of things leading to a mixture of race. Thus Spanish blood has three distinct times been abundantly crossed with that of Africa. The warm climate of the peninsula must also largely contribute to render its inhabitants fit for life in the tropics. ”

“ AN ANDALUZ.
Naturally such contrasts of climate and country re-act upon the character of the denizens—be they human or feræ naturæ—of a land which includes within its boundaries nearly all the physical conditions of Europe and Northern Africa. But it is the peculiar mental cast and temperament of the Spanish race, as much as the physical causes alluded to, that have developed those clean-cut differences that to-day distinguish the various Iberian provinces. ”

“ One cause which tends to explain these divergences, racial and physical, is the exceptionally high mean elevation of the Peninsula above sea-level. Spain is a highland plateau; a huge table-mountain, intersected by ranges of still loftier mountains, but devoid of low-land over a large proportion of its area, save in certain river-valleys and in the comparatively narrow strips of land, or alluvial belts, that adjoin the sea-board—chiefly in its southernmost province, Andalucia. ”

“ The main water-parting of the Peninsula is everywhere near the edge of the table-land on the north, east and south, and hence describes a semicircle with the convexity to the east. There are five great rivers in the Peninsula, the Tagus (Spanish Tajo, Portuguese Tejo) , Douro (Spanish Rivers and Lakes. Duero) , Ebro, Guadiana and Guadalquivir, all of which rise in Spain. The Ebro alone flows into the Mediterranean, and the Ebro and Guadalquivir alone belong wholly to Spain; the lower courses of the Tagus and Douro are bounded by Portuguese territory ”

“ Armies of Spain—those of the North, Portugal, the Centre, the South, Aragon, and Catalonia—were to continue in existence, and the total number of men to be drawn from any one of them did not amount to a fourth of its numbers. There were still to be 200,000 men left in the Peninsula. ”

“ The farthest western borders show most strongly the type of man whom we can imagine the Iberian to have been: Western Ireland, the Hebrides, Central and South Wales, and Cornwall are still inhabited by folk of Iberian descent. ”

“ Among Europeans the habits of European life are slightly modified by the climate; but it appeared to me among the Spaniards there were more of the characteristics of old Spain than would now be found in the Peninsula itself. ”

“ And Spain, more than any other land, is now hopelessly given up to legends and doubtful chronicles, modern and antique, so that one who reads must have either the credulity of a devotee, or the indifference of folly, to read with satisfaction the ancient history of the Peninsula. ”

“ I answered that the Iberians were the ancient Britons, a dark-eyed, brown-skinned people who inhabited this country and all Southern Europe before the invasion of the blue-eyed races; that doubtless there had been an Iberian mixture in her ancestors, perhaps many centuries ago, and that these peculiar characters had come out strongly in her; she had the peculiar kind of blood in her veins and the peculiar sort of soul which goes with the blood. ”

“ In the year 1475 of the Christian era, that portion of the Spanish Peninsula bounded by the Christian provinces of Cordova and Murcia, by the Sierra Elvira and the sea, was the richest and most highly civilized region of corresponding area on the globe. Every advantage of soil, of climate, and of geographical position contributed to multiply its resources and increase its power. ”

“ The sole exception is to be found in the valley of the Ebro, where the only good cross-road of Northern Spain does follow the river-bank from Logroño and Tudela on to Saragossa and Lerida.
Just because the roads do not cling to the valleys, but strike across them at right angles, they are always crossing watersheds by means of difficult passes. And so there is hardly a route in the whole Peninsula where it is possible to find fifty miles without a good defensive position drawn across the path. ”

“ And the huntsmen deemed it best to listen to the words of their chief, for afar off they beheld the sun departing out of sight into that unknown region where the sea and the sky meet, and the Iberians worked not after the sun had set. The sun was to the Iberian the heavenly mansion where dwelt his one great God, whose presence was revealed in the golden glory that gave light and life to the sons of men. ”

“ The evidence that gives us Kelts at all in the Peninsula gives us them for three-fourths of its area; indeed, Andalusia is the only part wherein reasons of some sort or other for their presence, cannot be discovered. We find traces of them in the valleys of the Ebro, the Guadiana, the Tagus, and the Douro, and we find them also on the high central table-lands that form the water-shed. Such being the case, what must be our view of their chronological relations to the Iberi? Are they the older occupants of Spain and Portugal, or the newer? If the newer, the displacement must have been enormous. ”

“ It is not every one, who will not consider the gratifications which the inland territory of the Peninsula may offer to his curiosity too dearly purchased by the inconveniences inseparable from the journey. Add to this the superiority of the maritime provinces, with scarcely any exception, in point of climate, civilization, and attractions of every sort. Valencia, Barcelona, Malaga, and Cadiz are more agreeable places of residence, and possess more resources than even Madrid ”

“ SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY CHAPTER I LAND AND PEOPLE Only in comparatively late years has the Iberian Continent been added to the happy hunting-grounds of the ordinary British and American tourist, and somewhat of a check arose after the outbreak of the war with America. ”

“ The most agreeable and least troublesome way of visiting the best parts of Spain excludes, it is true, this route; for the provinces of the Peninsula which combine the greater number of requisites for the enjoyment of life with the most attractive specimens of the picturesque, whether natural or artificial, are those nearest to the coast, and they are approached more conveniently by sea. ”

“ The sea, the Ebro, and the Pyrenees, form the natural boundaries and bulwarks of the Spanish Basque provinces. Favoured by these defences, the three provinces were the natural and safe refuge of the Iberians, when hunted by various conquerors from the plains of southern and middle Spain. ”

“ It is the mountains which really require to be studied in detail from the military point of view. Speaking generally we may describe the Iberian system—as distinct from the Pyrenees—as consisting of one chain running roughly from north to south, so as to separate the old kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, while at right angles to this chain run a number of others, whose general courses are parallel to each other and run from east to west. There is no single name for the mountains which separate Castile and Aragon, nor do they form one continuous range. ”

“ No country in the world is more suited for manufactures and exports than Spain. She has {178}an unexampled seaboard, and many magnificent natural harbours, and now an easy approach through Portugal to the sea, even if her own ports should be insufficient. Common commercial interests are likely to bring that Iberian kingdom or commonwealth to pass which has been the dream of some of her politicians, and is still cherished in parts of both countries. ”