There is but one more element — ^the political — ^to
be noticed here ; and of that, time and space fore-
warn me to abstain from quoting a specimen at any
length. Is it not enough to say, that, as a rule,
the political pamphlet is read by very few, and
understood by still fewer, and that, generally, its
aim is to spread broadcast the seeds of dissatisfaction
with any Government — save that of the Democratic
Federal Republic ; that is, the division of the coimtry
into small cantones, each with its separate Govern-
ment ? The most popular pamphlet on this subject,
perhapsi is that caUed ^ All or Nothing/ with an in-



302 SPANISH BLACK COUNTBT. :

flammatory prologue, by Roqu6 Barcia, a pamphlet
written not without real talent and insight into
national characteristics. But to go into details would
be to impose too great a task on the already wearied
reader. Let me only now ask the reader to follow
me from sunny, semi-tropical, imeducated Spain to
two other climes.
The Spanish miner has no genius for mining — ^to
him it is simply a means of winning bread— and so
he has no distinctive literature. But turn, for one
moment, to the German miner ; he, at any rate, has
his love of mining and his esprit de coips. He has his
regular mining ballads, sung from the mine-owner to
the pitman, all of which (and they have lately been
published in a collected form in Leipzig) have a hearty,
genial, moral tone, free from superstition and ribaldry,
I believe, yet full of nature and of true religion.
