more than lighten the black canopy of cloud overhanging the country for
a time; but at last came freedom, halting somewhat, as must needs be,
but no longer to be repressed or driven back by the baneful influence
known as _palaciö_, intrigues arising in the immediate circle of the
Court.




CHAPTER II

TYPES AND TRAITS


It is the fashion to-day to minimise the influence of the Goths on the
national characteristics of the Spaniard. We are told by some modern
writers that their very existence is little more than a myth, and that
the name of their last King, 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the country after the Romans had withdrawn their protecting legions.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
Montañeses," 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,