Note 16 — I SPANISH CHARACTER

The Gallegan, “o Gallego cauto” and “sordidos Gallegos duro bando,” in Camões, ever remains the butt of Spanish wit. The inhabitants of the Montaña are considered almost equally dense: “El montañés para defender una necedad dice tres” and again “From Burgos to the sea all is stupidity.” The Asturian, of the region between Galicia and the Montaña has, rather, the reputation of a business-like shrewdness, he is the Astur avarus of Martial and Silius Italicus; in return for his boast that he has never had any infecting contact with the Moors, a proverb says: “El asturiano, loco y vano, poco fiel y mal cristiano.”