Graham declares that "the history of the expeditions which terminated in the conquest of Mexico and Peru displays, perhaps, more strikingly than any other portion of the records of the human race, what amazing exertions the spirit of man can prompt him to attempt, and sustain him to endure." And again—"The masses," says Ford, who has studied them well, "the least spoilt and the most national, stand like pillars amid ruins, and on them the edifice of Spain's greatness must be reconstructed." "All the force of Europe," exclaims Peterborough, "would not be sufficient to subdue the Castiles with the people against it." [Sidenote: REVERENCE FOR ANTIQUITY.] So great is their reverence for antiquity, that they appear to live almost as much in the past as in the present. Age is synonymous with wisdom; the older the habit or opinion, the more worthy of belief it is. Innovation they abhor as dangerous; the universe of knowledge stands already revealed; there is nothing more to learn. Their premises they know to be sound, their conclusions correct, their beliefs true; what necessity then for further troubling themselves? Children in everything but teachableness, with themselves and their traditions they are content. Their education is finished. This is the most hopeless form of ignorance. Their legends they carefully preserve, old-time customs they love to practise, and they dwell with devoted enthusiasm on the exploits of their ancestors. To this day, twelve centuries after the occurrence, the peasantry of Asturias are divided between the descendants of those who aided the patriot Pelayo against the Moors, and those who did not—the latter being stigmatized as _vaqueros_; while the Andalusian Morisco keeps alive the story of Granada's grandeur, and dreams of Moslem warriors, of Abencerrage knights, and the restoration of former greatness. So strong is the influence of tradition and dead ancestry. Speaking of the quality of firmness, and tenacity of purpose, says Bell, "So obstinate is the Spaniard, and in some provinces so remarkably self-willed, that the inhabitants of one part of Spain make a jest of the others on that account. Thus the obstinate Biscayan is represented as driving a nail into the wall with his head, whilst the still more obstinate Aragonian is figured in the same act and attitude, but with the point of the nail turned outward!" With the poniard at his throat, many a prostrate foe will die rather than yield, and as surely will the victor plunge in the fatal weapon if the cry for quarter be not quickly uttered. In Andalusia there was a fashion prevalent among duellists, when determined to fight their quarrel to the end, of firmly binding together, below the elbows, the left arms of the combatants; then, with knives in their right hands, they fought until one or both were dead.