and in truth they have a most patriarchal appearance, and form the very type of a St. John in the Wilderness or in the National Gallery. They know every one of their sheep, although lambs, like babies, appear all alike except to a nurse’s eye, and the sheep know them: all this is very Oriental.[1]
Second only to the sheep are the swine of Estremadura, for this province is a porcine Paradise, and the Hampshire of Spain; and here again Nature lends her aid, as vast districts are covered with woods of oak and cork trees. The Jamones, hams, the bacon, Tocino (Arabicè, Tachim, fat), and the sausages of Hstremadura have always and deservedly been celebrated. They were πέρναι διαφανεῖς of classical eulogy. This is the Perna by which Horace, too, was restored (ii. S. 4, 61); but Anacreon, like a vinous Greek, preferred for inspiration the contents of the pig-skin to the pig. Lope de Vega, according to his biographer Montalvan, never could write poetry unless inspired by a rasher. “Toda es cosa vil,” said he, “adonde falta un pernil.” The Matanza or pig-slaughter takes place about the 10th and 11th of November at their particular saint’s day, el San Andrés, for á cada puerco su San Martin, and they have then been fattened with the sweet acorn, Bellota (Arabicè, Bellŏta, Bellŏt). Belot, Belotin, is the Scriptural term both for the tree and the acorns, and the latter, with water, formed the primitive dietary of the poor Iberians (Tibullus ii. 3, 71). Bread was also made out of them when dry and ground (Strabo iii. 223). When fresh they were served at dinner in the second course (Pliny, N. H. xvi. 5). Sancho Panza’s wife was therefore quite classical when she sent some to the duchess, and they furnished the text to Don Quijote’s charming discourse on the golden age, and joys of a pastoral life. Now the chief consumers are the juvenile Estremians and the pigs; the latter are turned out in legions from the villages, which more correctly may be termed coalitions of pigsties; they return from the woods at night—glande sues læti redeunt—and of their own accord, like the cattle of Juno (Livy xxiv. 3). On entering the hamlet, all set off at a full gallop, like a legion possessed by devils, in a handicap for home, into which each single pig turns, never making a mistake. These homesick droves will really sometimes in their runs carry an unwary stranger off his legs, as befell Don Quijote (ii. 68) when swept away by the piára gruñidora.
The bacon of Catholic Spain is most orthodox: abhorred alike by Jew and Infidel, it has ever been the test of a true Christian. The Spaniards, however, although tremendous consumers of the pig, whether in the salted form or from the skin, have to the full the Oriental abhorrence of the unclean animal in the abstract. Muy puerco (like the Moslem Haluf) is their last expression for all that is most dirty or disgusting, and is never forgiven, if applied to woman. It is equivalent to vacca (or cow) of the Italians, or to the canine feminine compliment bandied among our fair sex at Billingsgate, nor does the epithet imply moral purity or chastity.
The geology and botany of Estremadura are little known: insects and wild animals breed securely in the montes dehesas y jarales, where no entomologist or sportsman destroys them. The locust, langosta, and all the tuneful tribe of cicalas, enliven the solitudes with their rejoicings at the heat, insomuch, that the phrase indicative of their chirping, canta la chicharra, whose song serves but to make the silence heard, is synonymous with our expression the “dog-days.” Here the locust is indigenous. The instinct of the female is marvellous, for only in ground that the plough has never touched does she deposit her egg. Thanks to the efforts of Don Cecilio Lora, the member for Badajoz, agricultural machinery, made on purpose tu suit the hard stony soil, has lately been introduced with success in Estremadura. This gentleman has established also meteorological stations in different localities of the province.
- ↑ For the Mesta, consult ‘Libro de las Leyes del Consejo de la Mesta,’ folio, Madrid, 1639; also Bowles, ‘Sobre el Ganado Merino,’ p. 501; and the ‘Viaje’ of Ponz (let. 7).
