It seems incredible that in the midst of two provinces both wealthy and well reputed there should exist a plague-spot such as we have painted, unknown as the remotest kraals of Central Africa.
Thus Pascual Madoz in 1845, and but little external change has become apparent in sixty-five subsequent years.[40] Churches, it is true, have been erected, priests and schoolmasters appointed. Amelioration, however, by such means can only come very slowly--if at all. The physical and domestic status of these poor savages must first be raised before they are mentally capable of assimilating the mysteries of religion. Spain, however, owes them something. They are heavily taxed--beyond their power to pay in cash. Thus they are cast into the power of usurers. In each _alquería_, we were told, is usually found one man more astute than the rest, and he, in combination with some sordid scoundrel outside, exploits the misery of his fellows. A species of semi-slavery is thus established--in some ways analogous to the baneful system of _Caciquismo_ outside.
The Hurdanos are also subject to the conscription and furnish forty to fifty recruits yearly to the Spanish army. Curiously, time-expired men all elect to return to their wretched lot in the mountains. On our asking one of these (he had served at Melilla), "Why?" his reply was, "for liberty."[41]
There is a villainous custom in vogue that hurls these poor wretches yet farther down the bottomless pit. This abomination rages to-day as it did a hundred years ago: we therefore again leave old Pascual Madoz to tell the tale in his own words:--
Many women make a miserable livelihood--it is indeed their only industry--by rearing foundling infants from the hospitals of Ciudad Rodrigo and Placencia. So keen are they of the money thus obtained that one woman, aided by a goat, will undertake to rear three or four babes--all necessarily so ill-tended and ill-fed as rather to resemble living spectres than human beings. Cast down on beds of filthy ferns and lacking all maternal care, the majority perish from hunger, cold, and neglect. The few that reach childhood are weaklings for life, feeble and infirm.
This repulsive "industry" continues to-day, a sum of three dollars a month being paid by the authorities of the cities named to rid themselves of each undesired infant. The effect--direct and incidental--upon morals and sexual relationship in the _alquerías_ of the Hurdes may (in degree) be deduced--it cannot be set down in words. Thus the single point of contact with civilisation serves but to accentuate the degradation.