amage the health or beauty of the women, but the contrary,
nor does it prejudice the life and health of their children. As
workers they are most conscientious and intelligent, apt to learn, and
ready to adopt improvements. From my personal observations I can bear
witness that their children are universally well cared for. What
impressed me was that these women looked happy. They are full of
energy and vigour, even to an advanced age. They are evidently happy,
and the standard of beauty among them will compare favourably with the
women of any other nation. I once witnessed an interesting episode
during a motor-ride in the country. A robust and comely Gallegan woman
was riding _a ancas_ (pillion fashion) with a young _caballero_,
probably her son. The passing of our motor-car frightened the steed,
with the result that both riders were unhorsed. Neither was hurt, but
it was the woman who pursued the runaway horse. She caught it without
assistance and with surprising skill. What happened to the man I
cannot say. When I saw him he was standing in the road brushing the
dust from his clothes. I presume the woman returned with the horse to
fetch him.

Women were the world's primitive carriers. In Galicia I have seen
women bearing immense burdens, unloading boats, acting as porters and
firemen, and removing household furniture. I saw one woman with a
chest of drawers easily poised upon her head, another woman bore a
coffin, while another, who was old, carried a small bedstead. A
beautiful woman porter in one village carried our heavy luggage,
running with it on bare feet, without sign of effort. She was the
mother of four children, and her husband was at the late Cuban war.
She was upright as a young pine, with the shapeliness that comes from
perfect bodily equipoise. I do not wish to judge from trivial
incidents, but I saw in the Gallegan women a strength and a beauty
that has become rare among women to-day. I recall a conversation with
an Englishman I met at La Coruna, of the not uncommon strongly
patriotic and censorious type. We were walking together on the quay;
he pointed to a group of the Gallegan burden-bearers, who were
unloading a vessel, remarking in his indiscriminate British gallantry,
"I can't bear to see women doing work that ought to be done by men."
"Look at the women!" was the answer I made him.

It is, of course, impossible to compare the industrial conditions of
such a country as Spain with England. We may