Those who are curious in statistical details are referred to the works of Paez, Antillon, and others, who are considered by Spaniards to be authorities on vast subjects, which are fitter for a gazetteer or a handbook than for volumes destined like these for lighter reading; and assuredly the pages of the respectable Spaniards just named are duller than the high-roads of Castile, which no tiny rivulet the cheerful companion of the dusty road ever freshens, no stray flower adorns, no song of birds gladdens--“dry as the remainder of the biscuit after the voyage.”
The thirteen divisions have grand and historical names: they belong to an old and monarchical country, not to a spick and span vulgar democracy, without title-deeds. They fill the mouth when named, and conjure up a thousand recollections of the better and more glorious times of Spain’s palmy power, when there were giants in the land, not pigmies in Parisian _paletots_, whose only ambition is to ape the foreigner, and disgrace and denationalize themselves.
First and foremost _Andalucia_ presents herself, crowned with a quadruple, not a triple tiara, for the name _los cuatro reinos_, “the four kingdoms,” is her synonym. They consist of those of Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Granada. There is magic and birdlime in the very letters. Secondly advances the kingdom of _Murcia_, with its silver-mines, barilla, and palms. Then the gentle kingdom of _Valencia_ appears, all smiles, with fruits and silk. The principality of grim and truculent _Catalonia_ scowls next on its fair neighbour. Here rises the smoky factory chimney; here cotton is spun, vice and discontent bred, and revolutions concocted. The proud and stiff-necked kingdom of _Arragon_ marches to the west with this Lancashire of Spain, and to the east with the kingdom of Navarre, which crouches with its green valleys under the Pyrenees. The three _Basque Provinces_ which abut thereto, are only called _El Senorio_, “The Lordship,” for the king of all the Spains is but simple lord of this free highland home of the unconquered descendants of the aboriginal man of the Peninsula. Here there is much talk of bullocks and _fueros_, or “privileges;” for when not digging and delving, these gentlemen by the mere fact of being born here, are fighting and upholding their good rights by the sword. The empire province of the _Castiles_ furnishes two coronets to the royal brow; to wit, that of the older portion, where the young monarchy was nursed, and that of the newer portion, which was wrested afterwards from the infidel Moor. The ninth division is desolate _Estremadura_, which has no higher title than a province, and is peopled by locusts, wandering sheep, pigs, and here and there by human bipeds. _Leon_, a most time-honoured kingdom, stretches higher up, with its corn-plains and venerable cities, now silent as tombs, but in auld lang syne the scenes of mediæval chivalry and romance. The kingdom of _Gallicia_ and the principality of the _Asturias_ form the seaboard to the west, and constitute Spain’s breakwater against the Atlantic.