I once witnessed an interesting episode during a motor-ride in the country. A robust and comely Gallegan woman was riding _a ancas_ (pillion fashion) with a young _caballero_, probably her son. The passing of our motor-car frightened the steed, with the result that both riders were unhorsed. Neither was hurt, but it was the woman who pursued the runaway horse. She caught it without assistance and with surprising skill. What happened to the man I cannot say. When I saw him he was standing in the road brushing the dust from his clothes. I presume the woman returned with the horse to fetch him. Women were the world's primitive carriers. In Galicia I have seen women bearing immense burdens, unloading boats, acting as porters and firemen, and removing household furniture. I saw one woman with a chest of drawers easily poised upon her head, another woman bore a coffin, while another, who was old, carried a small bedstead. A beautiful woman porter in one village carried our heavy luggage, running with it on bare feet, without sign of effort. She was the mother of four children, and her husband was at the late Cuban war. She was upright as a young pine, with the shapeliness that comes from perfect bodily equipoise. I do not wish to judge from trivial incidents, but I saw in the Gallegan women a strength and a beauty that has become rare among women to-day. I recall a conversation with an Englishman I met at La Coruna, of the not uncommon strongly patriotic and censorious type. We were walking together on the quay; he pointed to a group of the Gallegan burden-bearers, who were unloading a vessel, remarking in his indiscriminate British gallantry, "I can't bear to see women doing work that ought to be done by men." "Look at the women!" was the answer I made him.