Among the other things that Spain had in common with "European Europe" may be mentioned the royal Zoos: one at Madrid, where a crocodile was to be seen, also the first rhinoceros that had been brought to Europe; the other at Valladolid, containing four lions, an eagle, four seals, and canary-birds. In water-works Aranjuez could hold its own against Italy, with its brazen statue of Priapus, casting forth water from every extremity, a cave with two dragons and many birds, the birds being made to sing by the movements of the water; with satyrs and savages, and artificial cypresses and white roses which soaked the visitor who touched them. Neither were the horribles kept out of sight: at Seville some one speaks of seeing a thief shot to death with arrows, and two other criminals beheaded with swords, the bodies being laid up against a church-wall to attract alms to pay for their burial. The coupling of Ireland with Spain does not result from the mere chance of westernmost position, nor even from the political needs that they shared, or from the supposed kinship of the peoples. While other countries aroused curiosity and then gratified it, these two occasioned, successively, illusion, disillusion, mystification. Which often led to abuse, but not so often, as regards Ireland, by Englishmen, as is represented by experienced controversialists who well know the effect of sixteenth-century phrases torn from their context and set up on a background of journalese, where the flavour of the original spelling fixes their seeming harshness in the memory of those controversialists cater for. There can be no more effective counterblast to this than a study of the books of the time recording journeys from everywhere to everywhere, for from these it will be evident that what the Englishmen say of Ireland and the Irish is more favourable than what contemporary foreigners usually say of the countries and nations that they visit; and also that where the English are unfavourable they are borne out by other foreigners. All adverse comment may be included under the charge of barbarism. Now Captain Cuellar, as unprejudiced a witness as could be required, being a Spaniard wrecked there from the Armada and a man who took everything as it came, invariably speaks of each Irishman as "el selvaje," which cannot be translated as anything but "the savage."