T RAV

116 TRAVELS IN EUROPE.are not agreed a& to the origin of this mesta system.Perhaps thereaJtap-root of it is to be traced in the tendency of alliand proprietors tostock rather than pOpu1ilte or till their lands :-all would be shepherd..kings. The same principle prevailed in England; and hence the inclosingsystem, so little to be expected and 80 beneficial in its result, wasderived.No such good consequence has been derh'ed here, and itseffect is directJy contrary.U nfortunately Spain seems ta have a tendencyto devolve upon erroneous statistical principles. England,atthat time, had not a funded capital for thrift to dUiOW its. accretionsinto; nor had nor has Spain; nor is it the disposition of the people hereto acctll,nulate in that way. CaUle is capital (pecus et oves, pecunia etopes); its increase is the compound interest of that capital. The manwho has aIl his life, or whose predecessors, as an example to him, havedealt in live stock, prefers it to paper stock; just as much as the citi..zen prefers his compact and manageable mode of tenure. But theworld can no longer submit to therule of shepherd...kings. They are asobnoxious to national wealth in the present day,. as they were odious tothe Egyptians ofold. Feecling is now but ancillary to tillage. 1t is bythe plough, and the capital which sets it going, that nations are tothrive and prosper.A plagne, and the expatriation of the industriousand agriculturai Moors, laid Spain iuto a sheep~waJk.Thus both physicaland moral evî1 have co-operated; but stiJl the system wouJd havebeen inconc1usive, had it not been sustained by s!Jstematic bad policy.Here we enter upon the long and black catalogue of the evils of thisaffiicted nation.lt may/be alleged that these two devastations, what...ever effect they may halTe had elsewhere, couldhave effected littleinthose tra.cts consigned to the mesta;which having been solong tbetheatre of intestine warfare, were in astate hardly capable of· deterioration.Thj~ is true so far as it goes. Even the word meri1zo i5 not