CHAPTER II.
CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS

SPAIN may be roughly divided into five climates: (1) that of the north and of the Pyrenees, where rain is abundant; (2) the west or Atlantic climate, including Portugal; (3) the north-east or Mediterranean; (4) the east and south, or African climate; and (5) lastly, the climate of the great Central Plateau, or the Continental. All these are well marked, and differ greatly in their temperature, in elevation, in exposure, in rainfall, and in prevailing winds. To speak of an average temperature, or of an average rainfall in Spain, is only to mislead. The temperature of the south and south-east is higher than that of the opposite coast of Africa, while the winters in Castile recall those of Scandinavia in their bitterness. In some of the Asturian valleys there is, perhaps, the heaviest rainfall in Europe; while the lower valley of the Ebro is almost a desert, from want of rain; and in parts of Valencia and Murcia, and even in Andalusia, not a drop will fall for years; yet at times these provinces, and their driest portions, are visited—as in 1802, 1879, and 1881—by overwhelming and destructive floods. To strike an average, then, even for the same spot, through several years, is often merely deceptive.

We have remarked above on the similarity of the conformation of the western coasts of Galicia to those of Norway, Scotland, and Ireland. They partake also of the same Atlantic character in their climate and productions. Galicia and the Asturias are essentially grazing countries; and from the Galician ports, up to 1878, about 20,000 head of fatted cattle were annually sent to England. Except in the more sheltered valleys, where the productions of a warmer clime will flourish, the native flora is not unlike that of the milder parts of Ireland and of Devonshire. The average temperature of Santiago is about 55° Fahr., with a maximum of 95°, and a minimum of 28°; Oviedo is given as 54° average, maximum 80°, and minimum 24°; while the rainfall of the former is from 58 to 68 inches, and that of the latter varies from 38 to 50 in ordinary years, but in 1858 it attained 80 inches. Proceeding eastward we meet the northern or Pyrenean climate, where the rainfall is not so great, and, except in the immediate vicinity of the highest mountains, lessens gradually as we either go eastward or descend into the plains. The moisture is condensed and wrung out of the clouds brought by the watery western winds, and precipitated on the mountains of the west and north. From the Picos de Europa, in the province of Santander, which may be considered as the meeting-point of the two climates, the waters descend on the one side by the Ebro to the Mediterranean, by the Pisuerga to the Douro and the Atlantic, and by the shorter northern streams to the Bay of Biscay. In the valley of the Cabuervega (Santander) the rainfall is 57½ inches. Passing eastward we find Bilbao and San Sebastian, with an average temperature of 56° and 55°, a maximum of 93°, and minimum 23°, while the rainfall has diminished from 55 to 48 inches. At Vergara, more inland, it is 52. At Huesca, in Aragon, notwithstanding its proximity to the mountains, the rainfall is only 25 inches; at Balaguer, in Catalonia, only 15½. At Saragossa the climate becomes more extreme; the average is 60°, the maximum 96°, and the minimum 20°, while the rainfall descends to 14 inches. The equalizing influence of the neighbourhood of the sea is felt in the Mediterranean climate at Barcelona; for while the average is 63°, the maximum is only 88°, and the minimum 32°, and the rainfall ascends to 24 inches. The difference is still more marked if we compare the extreme oscillation between the maximum and minimum temperatures. At Saragossa this is from 120° to 130°; at Barcelona from 90° to 100° Fahr.

The productions of this northern zone vary greatly according to elevation and exposition. Those of the Basque Provinces still belong to the north temperate zone climate—cattle, corn, and cider, as well as wine. The olive, and the mulberry for silk, are almost unknown; but maize is largely grown. As we approach Catalonia these products give way to those of the Mediterranean region of Provence and of the Riviera—the olive, the grape, the mulberry. A powerful red wine is made on the lower southern spurs of the Pyrenees and of the Cantabrian Mountains, in the Riojas, in Navarre, and in Aragon. Much of it would be excellent if more attention were paid to the preparation, and especially to the conditions of transport. Great quantities are at present exported to France by sea from Bilbao and San Sebastian, and also by rail, for the purpose of mixing with the thinner and poorer clarets of Bordeaux, to fit them for the taste and market of England. In Catalonia the wine improves, and is less used for mixing. The chief kinds are a red wine, like Rousillon, and sweet, luscious wines, Rancio, somewhat like Muscat or Malaga. Of late the manufacture of effervescing wines like champagne has been carried on with considerable success. The wine made in Catalonia amounts to one-fifth of the whole produce of Spain. Already the orange and the palm appear.

Proceeding southwards from Catalonia, we gradually advance into the south-eastern and southern climate of Spain, a climate which is rather African than European in its character, and both whose products and dryness have more relation to the African continent than to that of the rest of Europe. It is here that the date-palm ripens—which it does not on the opposite coast of Algeria—and the camel breeds, and can be used as a beast of burden equally as in Egypt and the East. Sheltered by the mountain ranges to the east and north from the cold winds which sweep the plateau of Castile, exposed by the slope of the country to the full influence of the southern sun and its powerful evaporation, the characteristics of the climate are warmth and dryness, while the vicinity of the Mediterranean partly tempers the extreme range of heat and cold which might be found in lands more remote from the sea. Thus the average temperature of Valencia is 65°, its maximum 102°, its minimum 41°, and extreme range 100°. Alicante, still further south, has an average of 66°, a maximum of 100°, and a minimum of 35°. The average rainfall at Valencia is stated at 17, and that of Alicante at 18 inches; but, as remarked above, in this south-eastern district of Spain averages of rainfall are quite deceptive. In some years the quantity marked is only a very few inches, 3 or 6, over the whole district, and there are considerable portions where rain does not fall for years. The country is rendered fertile and productive, not by its rains, but by irrigation from the rivers, fed by the winter snows on the mountains which border the great plateau. At times, however, as in 1802 and 1879, storms of rain descend on the high lands of Murcia and the eastern sierras, and floods rush down, sweeping away dams which have stood for centuries, washing away towns and villages, and spreading destruction far and wide. To compute the rainfall of such floods into an average is only to play with figures. Murcia has an average temperature of 64°, maximum 112°, minimum 24°, and an extreme range of 120°. The rainfall averages about 12½ inches on the coast, but varies greatly; at Albacete it is said to average 13 inches. The directly southern coast, from the Cabo de Gata to Gibraltar, has a milder and more equable climate than that of the south-eastern coast; but in the inland valley of the Guadalquiver the range is more extreme, both for heat and cold. The dryness in the eastern district still continues from Cartagena to Almeria; the rainfall is said to be only 12 inches. At Malaga, while the average temperature is 66°, about the same as that at Valencia and Alicante, the maximum is said to be only 78°, and the minimum 53°. At Motril, between Malaga and Almeria, the maximum is 77°, and the minimum 52°. In Seville on the other hand, the average is 68°, with a maximum Of 118°, and a minimum of 30°. Cordova, somewhat colder, has a maximum of 93°, and a minimum of 27°. The rainfall is also more moderate at Malaga, 15½ inches, and 23 at Seville. Granada, in its upland but sheltered valley, at an elevation of 2681 feet, defended from the east and south by the snowy range of the Sierra Nevada, and by the mountains of Granada to the north, has still an average of 65°, with a maximum of 97°, and a minimum of 42°. The rainfall varies considerably in different years, and various geographers give its average as 23½ 33½, and the latest (Reclus) 48½. Cadiz has an Atlantic climate, which in temperature and greater rainfall, 37 inches, closely approximates to that of Madeira. Moving westward it decreases, at Gibraltar, 34½, San Fernando, 27; while at Huelva and Tarifa, where the moisture of the north-west gales is intercepted by the Portuguese mountains, it descends to 24½. We have now only to treat of the climate of the great central elevation, the plateau, which ranges at an average height of some 2000 feet above the sea. Thus, Madrid is 2148, Segovia 2299, Burgos 2873, Soria 3504, and the Escorial, 3683 feet above the sea-level. But even these altitudes do not wholly account for the rigour of the climate in the latitude of Naples, Rome, and Constantinople. We have seen how excellent is the climate of Granada at a nearly equal elevation, only three degrees further south. The extremes of heat and cold felt at Valladolid and Madrid are due more to the uncovered mountain ranges to the north, the treeless, waterless plains, over which the wind sweeps unchecked, than to mere elevation. The want of rain is greatly owing to the ranges of mountains parallel to the frontier and to the Atlantic in Portugal, which condense and wring all the moisture from the rain-clouds of the Atlantic, and distribute it almost wholly on the western slope. Thus at Lisbon the fall is 29, at Coimbra 35, at Oporto 63, in the mountains of Beira and Tras os Montes from 68 to 100 inches; while on the eastern slope, at Salamanca it is 9, Valladolid 12, at Badajoz 12½, Ciudad Real 14. From the bare granite range of the Guadarrama steals down the treacherous icy wind so fatal in Madrid—not sufficiently strong to extinguish a candle, but quite enough to destroy human life. It is the dislike of the Castilian peasant to trees, which would overshadow so much of his small property, the destruction of the mountain forests, and the want of good agriculture, which has embittered the climate of these plateaux. Were the hill-sides clothed with wood, the country dotted with farms, the wide and bare plains covered throughout the year with varied agricultural produce, the climate would soon be modified and become sensibly warmer, and no longer, as it at present is, an obstacle to civilization and to improvement. In spite of all neglect these plains grow some of the finest wheat in Europe, and the lower mountain ranges supply pasture in the summer for the immense flocks which return to winter in the plains of Estremadura. The average temperature of Madrid is 59°, its maximum 104° to 107°, and its minimum only 7°. That of Salamanca is said to be 57°, with a maximum of 97°, and a minimum of 12°. The average rainfall of Madrid is only from 9 to 14 inches, that of Salamanca 9, while Soria, nearer to the mountains, in some years reaches 25 inches.

From the above sketch of the climate the reader will expect to find the productions vary greatly in the different districts. The north and north-west are the lands of cattle and of pasture. In Galicia and in the Asturias the products are almost like those of the warmer parts of the south-west of England and of Ireland, save that in the more sheltered valleys the orange, citron, and pomegranate flourish; a palm is even now and then to be seen; and the wine, especially on the confines of Portugal, is excellent, and needs only more care in preparation to be a rival to the famous Port of the neighbouring country. In the eighteenth century, that of Ribadavia was considered to be the finest wine in all Spain. Maize, too, is freely grown; but on account of their extreme poverty, rye and spelt often replace both it and wheat as food for the peasantry. The upland plateaux afford excellent pasture, especially for cattle and horses; the hardy and sure-footed hacks of Galicia and the Asturias are celebrated. The mountains here are often clothed with wood; oaks of various kinds, and the edible chestnut, and the hazel-nut—of which over 1000 tons, value 23,000l., are annually exported from Gijon—grow on the lower spurs, giving food to herds of swine; beech, and pine, and fir appear as we approach the tops. In the lower woods the arbutus especially flourishes, and the young wild boars in autumn are said to become half stupefied with its narcotic berries. As we proceed eastward from Galicia to the Asturias the climate becomes sensibly colder—the valleys face the north instead of the west; the orange is less known, the mulberry will not flourish sufficiently well to pay for silk cultivation, the olive will not grow, and the cork does not pay for cultivation; the wines lose somewhat of their strength and lusciousness; and cider, made from the excellent apples of the country, rivals the juice of the grape in popularity. The mountains are covered with heath, and fern, and furze, but the aromatic plants are fewer than in Galicia. This description applies to the northern slope of the Cantabrian chain and to the rolling hills and plateaux of the Basque provinces; but the southern slopes of the chain, towards the Ebro, are again a land of vine and olive, and of maize, which is everywhere the staple. In the Basque provinces the plough is replaced by the ancient "laya," an instrument as old, at least, as Roman times. It is a heavy two-pronged steel or iron fork, with prongs one and a half to two feet long. A strong man will work two of them at once, one in each hand, driving them into the ground to their full depth, then with a backward strain turning up the deep soil. Usually, four or five men work together, and raise their arms, plunge the fork downwards, and heave, in perfect time. The cultivation thus effected is excellent, but the expenditure of labour is immense The productions do not vary greatly along the slopes of the Pyrenees from those above described until we reach Catalonia; but in the lower valley of the Ebro, where rain is rare, in the Bardeñas reales of Navarre, and in the monegros, or despoblados of Aragon, we meet with a phenomenon only too frequent in Spain—tracts of almost utter barrenness. The Bardeñas reales are low spurs of the Pyrenees, with table-lands, bluffs, and deep gorges, and these could scarcely be brought under cultivation; but the "despoblados" (dispeopled lands) of Aragon might be irrigated, either by the Ebro or by its tributaries, if the water of the canal of Charles V. were but economically applied. The sterility of some parts seems to have been the slow result of an oppressive land tenure; for as Don Vicente de la Fuente has remarked, the lands which belonged to the ancient señors (the feudal lords) lie barren, while the lands of the comunidades, the free districts, are still fertile. In treating, of the cultivation and the products of eastern and southern Spain two facts become evident at once—how many of the products are exotic, and how much of the cultivation is still Arabian. We shall see in another chapter how deep a mark the Moor or Arab has left on the population and toponymy of Spain; and the agriculture of the greater part of central and southern Spain is still Arabian. The methods of the Spanish peasant are almost all Arabian; often he uses the Arabian hoe in preference to the Roman plough. The noria, or water-wheel; the sha'doof, or swipe, the pole and bucket for lifting water; the huge dams and reservoirs, the canals and ditches (acequias), the regulations for the fair distribution of the water,—all these, and even the very superstitions as to times of sowing, the rotation of crops, the treatment of his animals—for all these the Spanish peasant of the South is indebted to the Moors. The treatise of Abu Zaccaria, with its traditions of Nabathean agriculture, is still one of the manuals of agriculture in Spain. It is the Moors, too, who first made the winter gardens in the sands near San Lucarde Barameda, at the mouth of the Guadalquiver, and which supply Cadiz and Seville with the earliest and latest vegetables. The Roman, with his lofty aqueducts, brought water to the towns; but it was the Moor who gave that blessing to the thirsty soil of the country districts of Spain. And not only the methods of agriculture, but many of its fruits and products were introduced by the Arab from the East, and some of these are now the very staple of Spanish produce. It is they who brought into Spain the cotton plant, rice, and the sugar-cane; mulberries, both for fruit and for silk culture; sesame, the caper, the locust bean, the castor-oil plant, alfalfa (lucerne), the pomegranate, almond, the walnut and filbert, the chestnut and the ever-green oak, the wild olive, the jujube, the pistacchio nut, the palm, several kinds of roses, the wall-flower, with many another garden herb or flower. It was they who improved the Andalusian steed into one of the most excellent in Europe for riding, and the strain may still be traced even in the ponies of the north. But the cultivated vegetation of the south which meets the stranger's eye is perhaps still more indebted to the Americas.¹