among their beloved hills. Many of these young women come to Madrid on
the chance of finding situations, leaving their own babies behind to be
fed by hand, or Heaven knows how; they bring with them a young puppy to
act as substitute until the nurse-child is found, and may be seen in the
registry offices waiting to be hired, with their little canine
foster-children. It is said that the Asturian women never part from the
puppies that they have fed from their own breasts.

The Basque Provinces are, perhaps, the best known to English travellers,
since they generally enter Spain by that route, and those staying in the
south of France are fond of running across to have at least a look at
Spain, and to be able to say they have been there. The people pride
themselves on being "the oldest race in Europe," and are, no doubt, the
direct descendants of the original and unconquered inhabitants of the
Iberian Peninsula. In Guipuzcoa, the Basque may still be seen living in
his flat-roofed stone house, of which he is sure to be proprietor, using
a mattock in place of plough, and leading his oxen--for _bueyes_ are
never driven--attached to one of the heavy, solid-wheeled carts by an
elaborately carved yoke, covered with a sheepskin. He clings tenaciously
to his unintelligible language, and is quite certain that he is superior
to the whole human race.

The _fueros_, or special rights, already spoken of, for which the
Basques have fought so passionately for five hundred years, might
possibly have been theirs for some time longer if they had not unwisely
thrown in their lot with the Carlist Pretender. They practically formed
a republic within the monarchy; but in 1876, when the young Alfonso XII.
finally conquered the provinces, all differences between them and the
other parts of the kingdom were abolished, and they had to submit to the
abhorred conscription. With all the burning indignation which still