The pastoral habits, to which large districts in Spain are still addicted, cause the people to occupy five times the extent of land, which with agricultural pursuits would be sufficient for their maintenance. The pastoral institution of the _mesta_ encourages the feeding of sheep, and the enormous migratory flocks of Estremadura and elsewhere move every year some hundreds of miles, devastating the tracts over which they pass. “By the increase of pasture,” says Sir Thomas More, “your sheep, that are naturally mild, may be said now to devour men, and unpeople, not only villages, but towns.”--_Utopia_, book i. The invaders found their account in this primitive system, and their entire subsistence was derived from ready plunder. The French in their Peninsular prowlings resembled in one other respect, as well as in their Republican and Heathen names, the Lacedæmonians, who held a grand hunt annually, in which the agricultural peasantry were pursued and destroyed like wild beasts--a fact which, though Müller questions the testimony that supports it, is as well authenticated as any other incident in the Dorian history. The argument, taken from the improbable inhumanity of the fact, is refuted by the modern practices of the French in Spain and Portugal, and in their Algerian Razzias to this hour. They differ from the Lacedæmonians, it would seem, in this, that the Spartans perpetrated the enormity only once a year, while the French perform it weekly. I have seen with my own eyes the ravages which they have left in the Peninsula, the glorious monuments of antiquity which they have disfigured and defaced, the desecration which they have brought upon shrine and tomb. And, much as I may be disposed to forget and forgive, it is not easy to suppress one’s choler amidst the mutilated glories of Burgos, Alcobaça, and Batalha. II. “The Fuéntarábian waters poured between.” When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell By Fontarabia. Milt. _Par. Lost_, i. 586. In this name, I have departed slightly from the Spanish orthography, a corruption of the Latin _Fons rapidus_, and made “_errabia_” “_arabia;_” in deference to the example of Milton, and for the sake of the excellent musical effect in connection with one of the finest names in romance. V. “When first beheld by Vimieiro’s wall.” Vimieiro is merely a village about 35 miles N.N.W. of Lisbon, where the accommodations are so miserable that it was with difficulty I could procure a _calda de gallinha_ (boiled fowl served up with its broth) the only thing in the shape of comfortable nourishment which is to be had in the country parts of Portugal. The walls referred to are therefore, as may be supposed, not turret-crowned like Berecynthian Cybele. For the allusion to the effect produced on the French by the sight of our Highlanders first met by them in this battle, see Southey, _Hist. Penins. War_, and Campbell, _Ode for the Highland Society_.