Wheeling times and advertiser. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1839-1849, 1845-11-11
ourney on unhurt are neycr mehtionca.


Agsiu, those OF our countrymen who. on
their return, prin, and publish their personal
narratives, well know thata robbery scene IS
as much expected in a book of Spanish travel
as in one ol Mrs. RadClin's romnnces: such
books are only made by striking events; =
accordingly they string together all tin. float
ing traditional horrors which they can scrape
together on Spanish roads. Thus they feed
and keep up the notion entertained in many
counties OF England that the whole Peninsu-
Ia IL peoplcd with banditti. II such were the
case, society would not exist: the very fact
OF almost all the authors having escaped I. en-
selves almost by a miracle ought TO lead to
the inference that most other people escape
in like manner; u blot is not a blot until il is
hit.
cit suot, however. TO be denied that Spain
Is, oil all countries IN Europe, the one in which
the ancient, classical. and once universal sys-
TEN OF robbing OH the highways. exists the
most unchanged. With us these things have
been much altered; Spain is what England
was 90 years ago, with Hounslow-heath and
Finchley-common; what Italy was very lately
and may be again next year. A bad character
sticks TO a country as well as TO M individu-
al; Spain had the same reputation in the days
oil antiquity, but it was always the accusation
oil foreigners. The Romans, who had no bust
ness to invade Spain, Were harrassed by the
native guerlllas, whose uudisciplined bands of
armed men who woged the little war which
Spain always did. The Romans. worried by
these unmilitary yoltigours, called all Span
lards who resisted them 'latroncs.' lust as the
French, during the late war, for the same rea-
sons, called them brigands and assassins,-
Inc national resistance against the intrusive
foreigner has always armed the peasantry of
Spain. Again, that sort of patriotism, a moy-
en- de parvenir, which is the last and usual
resource OF ~scoundrels, is often made the pre-
test oil the ill-conditioned, To throw a speci-
Gus mantle over the congenial vocation ofliv
ing a iree-booting, idle existence by plumber
rather than by work and industry; this accounts
for the facility with which the universal Spa-
nlsh nation flies to arms. Smuggling. AGAIN.
sows the soil with dragons teeth. and produ-
''s"t q moments notice, a bountilul crop of
armed men, or guerilleros, which is almost a
convertible term with robber."
Again, page sc, he says:
travelling In Spain may indeed be slow
or than IN other countries, but the country is
travelled over day and night in every direction
by the natives, who arrive at their journeys
end safe and sound, and with quite as great a
certainty as elsewhere; knowing this, they are
never III a hurry, and, however scanty their
baggage, they are well supplied with patience
and good humor, which they oppose success.
July to those petty annoyances from which
no road is exempt, and they are too practical
phil osophers to distress themselves with the
anticipation of calamities which, after all, in
nineteen cases out of twenty, never do really
happen. Spain, like Ireland has long had a
name FAR worse than it deserves. To read the
Englishnew spapers which thrive on startling
events, both appear dens of thieves and law
breakers. whose works are battle, murder and
sudden death. All this couleur de noir be-
comes roseate on landing, and the traveller
makes his tour without hearing a word on the
subject"