g, Roderick, is all that is really known about
them. The castle of Wamba, or at least the hill on which it stood, is
still pointed out to the visitor in Toledo, perched high above the red
torrent of the rushing Tagus; but little seems to be certainly known of
this hardy Northern race which, for some three hundred years, occupied
the country after the Romans had withdrawn their protecting legions. On
the approach of the all-conquering Moor, many of the inhabitants of
Spain took refuge in the inaccessible mountains of the north, and were
the ancestors of that invincible people known in Spain as "los
Montaneses," from whom almost all that is best in literature, as well as
in business capacity, has sprung in later years.

How much of the Celt-Iberian, or original inhabitant of the Peninsula,
and how much of Gothic or of Teuton blood runs in the veins of the
people of the mountains, it is more than difficult now to determine. It
had been impossible, despite laws and penalties, to prevent the
intermingling of the races: all that we certainly know is that the
inhabitants of Galicia, Asturias, Viscaya, Navarro, and Aragon have
always exhibited the characteristics of a hardy, fighting, pushing race,
as distinguished from the Andaluces, the Valencianos, the Murcianos, and
people of Granada, in whom the languid blood of a Southern people and
the more marked trace of Arabic heritage are apparent.

The Catalans would appear, again, to be descendants of the old
Provencals, at one time settled on both sides of the Pyrenees, though
forming, at that time, part of Spain. Their language is almost pure
Provencal, and they differ, as history shows in a hundred ways, from the
inhabitants of the rest of Spain. The Castilians, occupying the centre
of the country, are what we know as "Spaniards," and may be taken to
hold a middle place among these widely differing nationalities, modified
by their contact with all. Their language is that of cultivated Spain.
No one dreams of asking if you speak Spanish; it is always: _Habla v
Castellano?_ And it is certainly a remnant of the old Roman, which, as
we know, its emperors spoke "with a difference," albeit there are many
traces of Arabic about it.

Even at the present day, when Spain is rapidly becoming homogeneous, the
people of the different provinces are almost as well known by their
trades as by their special characteristics. A _Gallego_--really a native
of Galicia--means, in the common parlance