population lives by the lawless and demoralising profession of
smuggling, where the police is bad, where roads are long and solitary
and mountains many, highwaymen must abound and travelling be unsafe.
That it is so, may be ascertained by a glance at any file of Spanish
newspapers. And the peculiar state of Spain, its liability to the petty
insurrections and desperate attempts of exiled parties and pretenders,
encourages the growth of robber bands, who cloak their villanous calling
with a political banner. These insurgents, Carlists, Progresista, or
whatsoever they may style themselves, act upon the broad principle that
those who are not with them are against them, and consequently are just
as dangerous and disagreeable to meet as mere vulgar marauders of the
"stand and deliver" sort, who fight upon their own account, without
pretending to defend the cause either of King or Kaiser, liberty or
absolutism. At the same time to believe, as many do, that of travellers
in Spain the unrobbed are the exceptions or even the minority, is a
gross absurdity, and the delusion arises from the romancing vein in
which scribbling tourists are apt to indulge. It is certain that nearly
all travellers, especially French ones, who take a run of a month or two
in the Peninsula, and subsequently print the eventful history of their
ramble, think it indispensable to introduce at least one robber
adventure, as having occurred to themselves or come within their
immediate cognisance. And if they cannot manage to get actually robbed,
positively put down with their noses in the mud, whilst their carpet
bags are rummaged, and their Chub-locks smashed by gloomy ruffians with
triple-charged blunderbusses, and knives like scythe-blades, they at
least get up a narrow escape. They encounter a troop of thorough-bred
bandits, unmistakable purse-takers, fellows with slouched hats,
truculent mustaches and rifle at saddle-bow, who lower at them from
beneath bushy brows, and are on the point of commencing hostilities,
when the well-timed appearance of a picket of dragoons, or perhaps the
bold countenance of the travellers themselves, makes them change their
purpose and ride surlily by. Mr. Ford shows how utterly groundless these
alarms usually are. Most Spaniards, when they mount their horses for a
journey, discard long-tailed coats and Paris hats, and revert in great
measure to the national costume as it is still to be found in country
places. A broad-brimmed,