visitors to travel there. Nothing is farther from the truth; there is no
hatred of American or English, and, if there had been, they little know
the innate courtesy of the Spanish people, who fear insult that is not
due to the overbearing manners of the tourist himself.

To-day, however, everyone is going to Spain, and as the number of
travellers increases, so, perhaps, does the real ignorance of the
country and of her people become more apparent, for, after a few days,
or at most weeks, spent there, those who seem to imagine that they have
discovered Spain, as Columbus discovered America, deliver their judgment
upon her with all the audacity of ignorance, or, at best, with very
imperfect information and capacity for forming an opinion.

For many years, the foreign element in Spain was so small that all who
made their home in the country were known and easily counted, while
those who travelled were, for the most part, cultivated people--artists,
or lovers of art, or persons interested in some way in the commercial or
industrial progress of the nation. Even in those days, however, too many
tourists spent their time amongst the dead cities, remnants of Spain's
great past, and came back to add their quota to the sentimental notions
current about the romantic land sung by Byron. Wrapped in a glamour for
which their own enthusiasm was mainly responsible, they beheld all
things coloured with the rich glow of a resplendent sunset; their
descriptions of people and places raised expectations too often cruelly
dispelled by facts, as presented to those of less exuberant
imaginations.

[Illustration: PEASANTS]

[Illustration: PEASANTS]