It would occupy too much space to specify the infinite lines which are
in contemplation, which may be described when completed. Suffice it to
say, that they almost all are to be effected by the iron and gold of
England. However this _estrangerismo_, this influence of the foreigner,
may offend the sensitive pride, the _Españolismo_ of Spain, the power of
resistance offered by the national indolence and dislike to change, must
be propelled by British steam, with a dash of French revolution. Yet our
speculators might, perhaps, reflect that Spain is a land which never yet
has been able to construct or support even a sufficient number of common
roads or canals for her poor and passive commerce and circulation. The
distances are far too great, and the traffic far too small, to call yet
for the rail; while the geological formation of the country offers
difficulties which, if met with even in England, would baffle the
colossal science and extravagance of our first-rate engineers. Spain is
a land of mountains, which rise everywhere in Alpine barriers, walling
off province from province, and district from district. These mighty
cloud-capped _sierras_ are solid masses of hard stone, and any tunnels
which ever perforate their ranges will reduce that at Box to the delving
of the poor mole. You might as well cover Switzerland and the Tyrol with
a net-work of _level_ lines, as those caught in the aforesaid net will
soon discover to their cost. The outlay of this up-hill work may be in
an inverse ratio to the remuneration, for the one will be enormous, and
the other paltry. The parturient mountains may produce a most musipular
interest, and even that may be “deferred.”
[Sidenote: DIFFICULTIES OF RAILROADS.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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