of the difference between cane and beet sugars for all domestic purposes, and the superior cheapness of the more costly article, it is satisfactory to note that in England the working classes, through their own co-operative societies, insist on being supplied with the former, knowing by experimental proof its immense superiority; and one may hope that their wisdom may spread into households where the servants pull the wires, and care nothing about economy.

Looking at the ordinary map of Spain, it appears to be ridiculous to say that the greater part of the country is in want of water.  Although it is intersected by three large ranges of mountains beyond the Pyrenees, and innumerable others of smaller dimensions, thus making a great proportion of the country impossible for agriculture, it is rich in magnificent rivers and in smaller ones, all of which are allowed to run to waste in many parts of the country, while even a small portion of their waters, artificially dammed and utilised for irrigation, if only of the lands lying on each side of them, would mean wealth and prosperity and an abounding population where now the “everlasting sun” pours its rays over barren wastes.  Moreover, by the growth of the wood, which once covered the plains and has been cut down, little by little, until the whole surface of the land was changed, in process of time the climate would become less dry, and vegetation more rapid and easy.

Ever since the expulsion of the Moors from Castile and Estremadura, the land has been allowed gradually to go almost out of cultivation for want of water, the wholesale devastation of forests, in combination with the lapse of all irrigation, acting as a constantly accelerating cause for the arid and unproductive condition of the once genial soil.  Irrigation has been the crying want of Spain for generations past; but even now the Government scarcely seems to have awakened to its necessity.  Perhaps, however, the Spaniard who goes on his way, never troubling to listen to the opinion or advice of his neighbour, has not, after all, been so wanting in common sense as some of the more energetic of his critics have thought.  In spite of all the changes and disasters of successive Governments, a steady and rapid advance has been made in providing means of transport and shipping, by the construction of railways to every part of the country, the making and keeping in condition of admirable highways, and the building of breakwaters and quays in many of the seaports, so that now the output of the mines and produce of all kinds can find market within the country, or be shipped abroad freely.

[Illustration:  A WEDDING PARTY IN ESTREMADURA]