Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/489

REVIEW OF THEIR ADMINISTRATION. 4(5] trj may account for this pretty fairly during the chapter early part of it. Indeed, a neglect of agriculture, ^^^'" to the extent implied by these circumstances, is wholly irreconcilable with the general tenor of Fer- dinand and Isabella's legislation, which evidently relies on this as the main spring of national pros- perity. It is equally repugnant, moreover, to the reports of foreigners, who could best compare the state of the country with that of others at the same period. They extol the fruitfulness of a soil, which yielded the products of the most opposite climes ; the hills clothed with vineyards and plantations of fruit trees, much more abundant, it would seem, in the northern regions, than at the present day ; the valleys and delicious vegas, glowing with the ripe exuberance of southern vegetation ; extensive dis- tricts, now smitten with the curse of barrenness, where the traveller scarce discerns the vestige of a Eoad or of a human habitation, but which then teemed with all that was requisite to the suste- nance of the populous cities in their neighbour- hood. "" 85 Compare, for example, the capital ; and which is bounded on accounts of the environs of Toledo this side by the Tagus. The and Madrid, the two most consider- whole of the way to Toledo, I able cities in Castile, by ancient passed through only four inconsid- and modern travellers. One of the erable villages ; and saw two oth- most intelligent and recent of the ers at a distance. A great part of latter, in his journey between these the land is uncultivated, covered two capitals, remarks, " There is with furze and aromatic plants ; sometimes a visible track, and but here and there some corn land sometimes none; most commonly is to be seen." (Inglis, Spain in we passed over wide sands. The 1830, vol. i. p. 366.) What a country beiween Madrid and Tole- contrast does all this present to the do, I need scarcely say, is ill peo- language of the Italians, Navagiero pled and ill cultivated ; for it is all and Marineo, in whose time the a part of the same arid plain, that country around Toledo " surpassed stretches on every side around the all other districts of Spain, in the