The cause of all this involves questions not easily answered. In earlier days the case may have been different. Obviously the Romans thought highly of Estremadura and meant to run it for all it was worth. The Caesars were no visionaries, and such colossal works as their reservoirs and aqueducts at Merida, the massive amphitheatre and circus at the same city (a half-completed bull-ring stands alongside in pitiful contrast), besides their construction of a first-class fortress at Trujillo, all attest a matured judgment. After the Romans came the Goths, and they, too, have left evidence of appreciation (though less conspicuous) alike in city and country. Four hundred years later the Arabs overthrew the Goths on Guadalete (A.D. 711), and within two years had overrun two-thirds of Spain. But the Moor (so far as we can see) despised these barren uplands, or perhaps assessed them at a truer value--a single strong outpost (Trujillo) in an otherwise worthless region. Much or little, however, each of those successive conquerors found _some_ use for Estremadura. A totally different era opened with the fall of Moslem dominion. After the _Reconquista_ and subsequent extermination of the Moors (seventeenth century), Estremadura was utterly abandoned, by Cross and Crescent alike, till the highland shepherds of the Castiles and of León, looking down from its northern frontier, saw in these lower-lying wastes a useful winter-grazing. Then commenced seasonal nomadic incursions thereto, pastoral tribes driving down each autumn their flocks and herds, much as the Patriarchs did in Biblical days--or the Masai in East Africa till yesterday. Though the land itself was ownerless, shadowy prescriptive rights gradually evolved, and under the title of _Mestas_ continued to be recognised by the pastoral nomads till abolished by Royal Decree in the sixteenth century. From that date commenced the subdivision of Estremadura into the present large private estates--again recalling the back-veld Boers, who hate to live one within sight of another, except that here owners are non-resident. All this may explain superficially the existing desolation. The essential causes, however, are, we believe, (1) barrenness of soil; and (2) an enervating climate, fever-infected by stagnant waters, dead pools, and ubiquitous shallow swamps that poison the air and produce mosquitoes in millions. Gazing in reflective mood upon those magnificent memorials of Roman rule at Merida, one is tempted to wonder whether, after all, the silent ruins (with a stork's nest on each parapet) do not yet point the true way to Estremenian prosperity--IRRIGATION (plus energy--a quality one misses in Estremadura). TRUJILLO