Never could I better appreciate the intelligent measure by which the constituent assembly abolished the ancient division of France into provinces, and substituted its division into departments, than in traversing for my triangulation the Spanish border kingdoms of Catalonia, Valencia, and Aragon.  The inhabitants of these three provinces detested each other cordially, and nothing less than the bond of a common hatred was necessary to make them act simultaneously against France.  Such was their animosity in 1807 that I could scarcely make use at the same time of Catalonians, Aragons, and Valencians, when I moved with my instruments from one station to another.  The Valencians, in particular, were treated by the Catalonians as a light, trifling, inconsistent people.  They were in the habit of saying to me, “En el reino de Valencia la carne es verdura, la verdura agua, los hombres mugeres, las mugeres nada”; which may be translated thus:  “In the kingdom of Valencia meat is a vegetable, vegetables are water, men are women, and women nothing.”

On the other hand, the Valencians, speaking of the Aragons, used to call them “schuros.”

Having asked of a herdsman of this province who had brought some goats near to one of my stations, what was the origin of this denomination, at which his compatriots showed themselves so offended: 

“I do not know,” said he, smiling cunningly at me, “whether I dare answer you.”  “Go on, go on,” I said to him, “I can hear anything without being angry.”  “Well, the word schuros means that, to our great shame, we have sometimes been governed by French kings.  The sovereign, before assuming power, was bound to promise under oath to respect our freedom and to articulate in a loud voice the solemn words lo Juro! As he did not know how to pronounce the J he said schuro.  Are you satisfied, senor?” I answered him, “Yes, yes.  I see that vanity and pride are not dead in this country.”

Since I have just spoken of a shepherd, I will say that in Spain, the class of individuals of both sexes destined to look after herds, appeared to me always less further removed than in France, from the pictures which the ancient poets have left us of the shepherds and shepherdesses in their pastoral poetry.  The songs by which they endeavour to while away the tedium of their monotonous life, are more remarkable in their form and substance than in the other European nations to which I have had access.  I never recollect without surprise, that being on a mountain situated at the junction-point of the kingdoms of Valencia, Aragon, and Catalonia, I was all at once overtaken by a violent storm, which forced me to take refuge in my tent, and to remain there squatting on the ground.  When the storm was over and I came out from my retreat, I heard, to my great astonishment, on an isolated peak which looked down upon my station, a shepherdess who was singing a song of which I only recollect these eight lines, which will give an idea of the rest:—­