Such was the technical skill and success of the Moors in agriculture and acclimatisation that, on the eventual conquest and final expulsion of their race from Spain, overtures were made with a view of inducing a certain proportion to remain, lest Spain might lose every expert she possessed in these essential pursuits. Six families in every hundred were promised amnesty on condition of remaining, but none accepted the offer. Deep as was their love for Spain--so deep that the departing Moors are related to have knelt and kissed its strand ere embarking, broken-hearted, for Africa--yet not a man of them but refused to remain as vassals where, for centuries, they had lived as lords. Such were the Moors--strong in war, yet equally strong in all the arts and enterprises of peace, filled with energy, an industrious and a practical race. It is safe to say that under their regime the resources of this difficult land were being developed to their utmost capacity.[2] Of the final expulsion of the Moors (and that of the Jews was analogous) 'tis not for us to write. Yet, for Spain, both events proved momentous, and, along with the antecedent practices of the Moriscos, provide side-lights on history that are worth consideration.[3] The subjoined statistics give the state of Spanish agriculture at the present day, the total acreage being taken as 50,451,688 hectares (2-1/2 acres each):-- Hectares. Cultivated 21,702,880 Uncultivated:-- Pasture, scrub, and wood 24,055,547 Unproductive 4,693,261 ___________ Total 28,748,808 __________ Grand Total 50,451,688 These figures demonstrate precisely the extent of the authors' condominium in Spain--well over one-half the country! With the area under cultivation (say 43 per cent), we have but one concern--the Great Bustard. The remaining 57 per cent pertain absolutely to our province--Wilder Spain. The term scrub or brushwood (in Spanish _monte_), though by a sort of courtesy it may be ranked as "pasture"--and parts of it do support herds of sheep and goats--implies as a rule the wildest of rough covert and jungle, rougher far than a Scottish deer-forest; and this _monte_ clothes well-nigh one-half of Spain. Such figures may appear to infer considerable apathy and lack of effort as regards agriculture. 'Twere, nevertheless, a false assumption to conclude that Spanish mountaineers are an idle race--quite the reverse, as is repeatedly demonstrated in this book. In the hills every acre of available soil is utilised, often at what appears excessive labour--maybe it is a patch so tiny as hardly to seem worth the tilling, or so terribly steep that none save a _serrano_ could keep a foothold, much less plough, sow, and reap.