[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
Resident. Frequents deep furze-coverts, seldom seen (as we are constrained to represent it) in separate outline.]
We have selected these examples because we know and can speak with absolute authority. Presumption and analogy will naturally suggest that the same intelligence, the same blind improvidence will apply equally in other and far more important matters. Not one of our Spanish friends with whom we have discussed these subjects time and again but agrees to the letter with the above conclusions and most bitterly regrets them.
Travel in all the wilder regions of Spain implies the saddle. Our Spain begins, as premised, where roads end. For us railways exist merely to help us one degree nearer to the final plunge into the unknown; and not railways only, but roads and bridges soon "petter out" into trackless waste, and leave the explorer face to face with open wilds--_despoblados_, that is, uninhabited regions--with a route-map in his pocket that is quite unreliable, and a trusty local guide who is just the reverse.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
Resident: builds a deep purse-like nest supported on long grass or rushes.]
Riding light, with the "irreducible minimum" stowed in the saddle-bags, one may traverse Spain from end to end. But it is only a hasty and superficial view that is thus obtainable, and except for those who love roughing it for roughness' sake, even the freedom of the saddle presents grave drawbacks in a land where none live in the country and none travel off stated tracks. In the _campo_, nothing--neither food for man nor beast--can be obtained, and no provision exists for travellers where travellers never come. The little rural hostelry of northern lands has no place; there is instead a _venta_ or _posada_ which may too often be likened to a stable for beasts with an extra stall for their riders. It is a characteristic of pastoral countries everywhere that their rude inhabitants discriminate little between the needs of man and beast.
But even towns of quite considerable size--when far removed from the track--are totally devoid of inns in our sense. Inns are not needed. The few Spanish travellers who, greatly daring, venture so far afield, usually bespeak beforehand the hospitality of some local friend or acquaintance.