The Catalan has a national pride peculiar to him: he sees nothing above himself. He looks down on other Spaniards, he even despises a part of the nation, and his hatred of the Castilian is beyond all expression. He does not love stran. gers; the French, with whom he has most occasion to communicate, he hates the most; the cause of which is very ancient; it takes its source in the old quarrels and frequent wars between the kings of France and those of Aragon; the wars of the last century increased it; Catalonia gave itself to France, and the Catalans can never forgive the French for giving it up to its old masters. The war of the succession at the beginning of the last century completed the animosity; the French sacked Catalonia, sub dued the spirit of its inhabitants and compelled them to acknow. ledge the legitimate authority of their king. The facts are impressed on the minds of these people with indelible charaeters, and they retain in their hearts an invincible aversion to the nation that brought them into subjection.

The mantle and round hat, com. mon in the other parts of Spain, are not worn in Catalonia; and the Mayo jacket is scarcely ever seen; a close coat, in the French fashion, is the usual dress in almost all con ditions. The peasants who live in the mountains wear a doublebreasted waistcoat, and over it a kind of wide great coat, which goes no lower than the knees; they call it a gambeto. There is besides these a variety of dresses, among the common people of both sexes, the details of which would be too long for insertion here..

The Catalans have a tongue peculiar to themselves; it is the ancient language of the provinces of the south of France, the inhabitants of which took Catalonia from the Moors, and, peopling it, intro. duced their laws, customs, and usages; and their patois, or dialect, called the Limousine tongue, has continued down to our days in Gascony, Languedoc, and Provence; where it has undergone alterations more or less remarkable, occasioned by the mixture of the modern French; it has remained purer in Catalonia and Roussillon, but with a mixture of Castilian in the former of these two provinces. The Catalan tongue has lost that agreeable sweetness which for. merly characterized it, and which is better preserved in the kingdom of Valencia; it has taken, in the mouth of the Catalan, hard termi. nations and a rough and disagree. able pronunciation: it has like. wise at present a great resemblance to the modern French tongue, in the construction and turn of ex. pression, in the grammar rules, and in the sameness of a great many of its words, which differ from the French only in the termination. It is spoken throughout Catalonia with considerable variation, according to the different districts; with greater purity in the moun taius, and more altered in large towns. The national prejudice of the Catalan makes him prefer his language to that of the Spaniards, the Castilian is therefore little in use in Catalonia, and when it is heard there, it is disfigured and scarcely to be known in conse quence of the mixture of Catalan. phrases and turns.

Character,

Character, Manners, Customs, and Habits of the Estramadu. rans. [From the same.]

The inhabitants of Estramadura live in a country which seems to be insulated from every other, and where opportunities of communi. cating with the different parts of the Spanish monarchy are not fre. quent. Hence this province ap. pears to be concentrated in itself, and to think only of its own exist. ence. The people of it neither know the comforts or the conveni. encies of life, nor the means of procuring them. Little habituated to the world, they dread mixing with it, and avoid society. Hence they appear taciturn, and are, per. haps, the gravest of all the Spa. niards. They fear to be accosted by strangers, shun their company, and take a pleasure in confining themselves, all their lives, to their own province. A certain distaste for employment, and the want of knowledge, keep them from work, and make them constantly idle.

They possess, in other respects, excellent qualities; they are frank, sincere, full of honour and probity, slow in planning enterprizes, but firm in their projects, and consist ent in their notions. They have always been excellent soldiers; they are strong, vigorous, and ro. bust, supporting, without murmur. ing, the fatigues and dangers of war; they have always displayed an astonishing courage; they prefer the cavalry to the infantry.

This province has produced so veral great captains, who did honour to their country by brilliant exploits. It gave birth to the famous Garcias de Paredes, and to

several of the conquerors of Ame rica, Fernando Cortez, Francisco Pizarro, the Marquis del Valle de Goanaca, and some other of their companions in arms.

The labourers or workmen of this province are likewise accused of an excessive sloth. The charge appears to be true; but they ought to be treated with indulgence, when it is known that they are ne cessarily led into the habits of idle. ness, being, in spite of themselves, without work, without resource for two thirds of the year, and without any means of industry to support their existence. Being paid for their work a very mode. rate price, living in a country where commodities are very dear, and out of their reach, without hope of ameliorating their coudi. tion or their lot, they sink into listlessness. If they are observed when they are employed, they will be found alert, indefatigable, work. ing without relaxation at noon. day, in a burning climate, and under a scorching sun.

No kind of dissipation or ple sures are known in Estramadura ; there is no variety; every thing is regular, and melancholy. Person of high birth, and those who have fortune, or are at their ease, sel dom associate, and that but acci. dentally.

It is still worse with the com mon people; they are so poor that they are constantly experiencing deprivations of every kind, and often want the necessaries of life. without looking forward to any favourable change of this pitiable condition. This excess of poverty, which spreads from family to fa pily, oppresses the soul, and eper

rates

vates the body. What a situation to seek for pleasure, and to be able to give oneself up to the gaiety which attends it!

We find in this province a singular example of what may be called a democratic constitution, which excludes all superiority of men over one another. The inha bitants of the little town of Casar de Caceres, two leagues from Ca. ceres, who are in number about 5000 persons, consider themselves, arong each other, all equal in rank, quality, and condition; they take the greatest care to pre. vent this equality ever being altered by any exterior sign of honours or distinction. In short, they have carried their vigilance in this respect so far, that, some years ago, they had an inscription, which had been placed over the grave of one of their fellow-citizens, removed, though he was generally esteemed and regretted.

Manners, Habits, Customs, Dress, und Language of the Andalu sians. [From the same.]

The Andalusians are the Gascons of Spain; they have neither the reserve of the Castilians, nor the cold haughtiness of the Ara. gonese, nor the petulance of the Biscayaus, nor the roughness of the Catalonians, nor the nullity of the Valencians; they speak a great deal, and particularly of them. selves, of their merit, their wealth, or of the valuable or pleasing things which they possess. They have a natural propensity to boasting; their conversation is full of it, the turn of their phrases, their VOL. LI.

air, their gestures, their customs, carry the stamp of it.

But these qualities are not equally conspicuous in every part of Andalusia; they are carried to the highest pitch in the kingdom of Seville; and higher nearer the sea than in the interior of the country. They are stronger, though less evident, in the kingdom of Grenada, and become consider. ably weaker as we go farther into the kingdoms of Cordova and Jaen.

Their country is a country of boasters, who distinguish themselves from others by their dress; who speak in a high and menacing tone; who bully when they are feared; who fawn when they fail to inspire terror; who are always dangerous when they can strike without risk: in a word, of that kind of coxcombs,-known by the appellation of majos.

Is is likewise the country of majas, or of women, who ought not, from the name, to be confounded with those beings that have been just mentioned; and who are as engaging as the majos are repulsive. A free air, an easy turn, a noble mien, a lively, attracting, animated eye, an arch and pleasing smile, a slender shape, neatness about the feet, a light and elegant dress, various graces, an harmonious voice, a natural soft. mess, and expressive gestures, are the attributes of these women, as dangerous as they are lovely. Skilled in the art of seducing, they are acquainted with all the means of gaining their aim; they use it with address, and in general successfully; free in their expressions, and freer still in their behaviour, they allure, they attack, they in

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vite,

vite, and it is very difficult to resist them.

Andalusia was formerly the re. fuge of the Gitanos, that dangerous and perfidious race, irreligious and i irreligious and dishonest vagabonds, without either faith or law, who were the curse of Spain, the disgrace of the nation which suffered them, the terror of the roads and of the country, and whom the government of Spain have at last proscribed by severe laws. They were countenanced by the Andalusian nobility, who were in their turn protected by them; these noblemen furnished them with asylums, where they could secret themselves with their booty from the pursuit of justice; but, in turn, they spared in their incursions their estates, property, persons, servants, and farmers; they were the agents of their venafforded them as geance, and many satellites as there were Gi

tanos.

of those, the women of Málaga have the superiority.

They smoke more in Andalusia than in any country in Spain; the men have a strong passion for it, and many of the women indulge in it sometimes.

In the kingdom of Granada the men think little of their excellent wines, they prefer the mistela and the rosolis, of which they drink to excess; yet it does not appear that they ever suffer any inconve. nience from it.

In Andalusia there are three muestranzas, or associations of the nobility, the principal end of which appears to be, that of keeping up the ancient spirit of chivalry, but the true motive of which is a .combination of pride and the love of pleasure. There is one of them at Granada, one at Seville, and one at Ronda, in the kingdom of Seville.

Andalusia has no language pe. culiar to itself. The people speak Castilian, but it is altered, cor rupted, and very much disfigured by a prodigious mixture of Ara. bian words; it is still more so by a vicious pronunciation, which ren. ders the language difficult to be understood; it is more gutteral than in the other parts of Spain. It is also more full and thick; Castilian often finds it difficult to understand an Andalusian, though he speaks the same language as himself.

birth; he is not to be seen at courts or in camps, in courts of justice, universities, or commercial towns; he lives with apathy, a life of sloth and indifference. He eats, drinks, sleeps, counts his beads, and drags his cloak to a place where he sits himself down to think of nothing. He does not even suspect that there is a more agreeable life than that which he now leads; that there is a greater extent of knowledge than that which he possesses; that there are abodes happier than that which he inhabits; nay, he does not think that there exist men more useful than himself. We may conse. quently read the history of Spain from one end to the other, without fiuding any names of Murcians who have distinguished themselves in arms, or in the arts and sciences. The common people participate, this indolence; a countryman or a porter employed to carry ever so light a load, if it even weighed no more than twenty-five pounds, would lay it on an ass, and refuse to carry it himself.

Ignorance and sloth render the manners of this town disagreeable: prejudices are carried to the greatest height, and the inhabitants are extremely litigious. Each pries into the actions of his neighbour, in order to censure his conduct, whence arises a general distrust; they fear and avoid one another; every one lives by himself and to himself, away from his relations, withont friends or connections.: this detached life foments suspicion, sours the temper, and produces savage habits: dissention

makes its way into families, who seldom if ever assemble together. Through curiosity to know foreigners and travellers, the Murcian seeks them, but only to avoid them afterwards with pointed af. fectation. Thus the society here takes a complexion of that savageness with which the Murcians unaptly reproach their predeces sors the Moors.

This account is not overcharged; it is confirmed by the testimony of Cardinal Belluga, who long occupied the see of this city, and who was distinguished for his learning and virtue; he justly estimated the character of the Mureians; he said, and all Murcia knows it, El cielo y el suelo buenos, el entre suola malo; the sky and the ground are good, it is what is between them that is bad*. An ex. ception should be made in favour of the Murcian women; they are mild and affable, and would be fond of society, but their husbands allow them very little li berty, and are always ready to find fault with their conduct, how. ever innocent.

Character, Manners, Customs, &c. of the Biscayans. [From the same.]

There is an opinion pretty generally received, that the Biscayans and Irish sprang from one origin, Some historians assert that about two hundred years before the Christian era, a colony of Bis. cayans sailed to Hibernia, landed,

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took