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CHAPTER V.
DESCRIPTION OF PROVINCES

SPAIN was formerly divided into some fourteen separate provinces or kingdoms, once ruled by distinct and independent sovereigns, and under very different political conditions. It was not until the taking of Granada, in 1492, that the whole nation became, even nominally, subject to the joint sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella; and for long afterwards Aragon and Catalonia preserved a semi-independence, while, even to our own day, the Basque Provinces and Navarre were really an independent republic united to the Spanish crown.

Since 1841, however, the whole country has been divided for administrative purposes into forty-eight provinces, including the Balearic Isles.

We shall now hastily sketch the chief features of the old kingdoms, with the modern provinces included in each. Beginning from the north-west, we have the kingdom of GALICIA, with its four provinces, Corunna, Lugo, Pontevedra, and Orense. We have before remarked on the Frith or Fiord-like character of the western coast of Galicia, a conformation which gives it by far the finest harbours of the whole Spanish coast. Thus, in the province of Corunna there are the harbour and city (33,000 inhabitants) of the same name, so well known by our forefathers under the title of "the Groyne," and the scene of many a gallant fight both by land and sea from the days of Queen Elizabeth to the fall of Sir J. Moore, but now the chief port of the cattle-trade with England. Its port is frequented by about 130,000 tons of British shipping annually; and about 20,000 bullocks are exported annually, mostly in small schooners. It has also a tobacco factory. A little to the north-east Ferrol (23,000) has a still better harbour, and is one of the principal naval establishments of Spain. It is capacious enough to almost contain the united fleets of Europe; and its only drawback, a singular one in so humid a climate, is the want of good water. But the most famous city in the province, and indeed, in all Galicia, the pilgrim-town of Santiago (St. James) de Compostella (24,000) owes its magnitude to devotion rather than to commerce. The legend of the voyage of St. James to Spain, the finding his body at Compostella, and his subsequent appearances in battle as the champion of Spain, made this the most celebrated shrine in Europe. Roads led to it from every land, and one of the popular names of the "Milky Way" was "The road to Compostella." The wealth both of the military order of Compostella and of the cathedral and chapter was immense. Even now, after all its spoiling, the cathedral is rich in precious goldsmiths' work, in architectural, and in literary treasures. Pontevedra (8000) is the capital of the thickly-populated province of the same name, whose inhabitants reap a harvest both from sea and land. Vigo (6000) has an excellent harbour and roadstead, but its commerce has greatly fallen off in comparison with that of Corunna. It was formerly the port at which the galleons disembarked their treasures for Northern Spain. The total tonnage of the harbour in 1878 was 208,000. Orense, an inland province east of Pontevedra, has a capital of the same name (11,000) on the banks of the Minho. It is the head of an agricultural and pastoral district, and in it are produced some wines which were considered in the eighteenth century the finest of all Spain. Here, too, is one of the grand bridges of Western Spain, possibly of Roman construction. Lugo, with its city (8000), faces north instead of west, and has its harbours, Vivero and Rivadeo, on the Bay of Biscay; but the near neighbourhood of Ferrol and of Corunna deprive them of all but coasting trade.

The ASTURIAS, the home of the Spanish monarchy, and the only ancient kingdom of which no part was subdued by the Moors (though they raided once to Oviedo), contains but one province, called after its chief town Oviedo (34,000), with a cathedral, university, and a most pleasant situation. In this province is Covadonga, where the Visigoth Pelayo, in 719, repulsed the Moors, and thus took the first step towards the recovery of Spain. The whole country slopes rapidly from its southern frontier, the summit of the Cantabrian Mountains, towards the Bay of Biscay. Cangas de Tineo (22,000) is the centre of a mining district. Owing to the great development of mining operations in this province within the last ten years the small towns of Siero, Tineo, Grado, and Villaviciosa have suddenly sprung into importance, and each now contains over 20,000 inhabitants. The chief port is Gijon (30,000), of which the chief trade is in hazel-nuts for England, of which over 1000 tons are annually exported, to the value of 23,000 l. Here is one of the seven government tobacco manufactories, and also important glass-works, conducted chiefly by Swiss and French artisans; but it is far outstripped in commercial importance by SANTANDER (41,000), the capital of the neighbouring province, and the great port of outlet for the agricultural riches of Leon and of the Castiles. Santander has also a great trade with Cuba and Porto Rico, and possesses almost a monopoly of the supply of cereals to those islands. A port of equal natural excellence is Santoña, which the first Napoleon would have made the Gibraltar of Northern Spain, but which is now frequented only as a bathing-place by the inhabitants of the interior. The mountain scenery of these two provinces is most picturesque, both along the sea-board and in the interior, where the snow sometimes lies on the Picos de Europa until July or August. The coal-mines of the Asturias are rapidly assuming importance. The output was, in 1878, 400,000 tons, at a cost on board ship of 13s. per ton. The extent of the bed is estimated at 667,200 acres.

The BASQUE PROVINCES (Las Provincias Vascongadas) are Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and Alava. The union of the three is often represented by a symbol like the heraldic bearings of the Isle of Man; and they are, with Navarre and the French Pays Basque, the home of the Basque race, but only one province, Guipuzcoa, is wholly inhabited by them. Biscay has for its chief town the busy mining city of Bilbao (32,000) on the Nervion, with a commerce of over 2,000,000l. annual value, notwithstanding an inferior harbour, exceeding that of Santander. The chief mines, iron, are in the Somorrostro district, a few miles to the east of the city, and they are worked mainly by English, French, or German companies. In 1879 the exports from Bilbao amounted to 1,160,248 tons of iron minerals, while the imports included 72,196 tons of English coke and coal, chiefly for the use of the mines. In this province is the Oak of Guernica, where the Spanish sovereigns swore to observe the constitutional privileges or fueros of the Basques. The chief city of Guipuzcoa is San Sebastian (21,000), a sea-port with a strong citadel. Of less commercial importance than Bilbao, it is much frequented in summer as a city of pleasure; the town has been almost wholly rebuilt since the siege of 1813. The province, though almost wholly agricultural, and famous for its cider and apple orchards, contains also some mines, and a few manufactures grouped round its old capital, Tolosa (8000). Eibar and Plasencia, two small manufacturing towns on the Deva, have preserved the art of inlaying iron with gold and silver, and are noted for their manufacture of fire-arms. Alava has but one town of importance, Vitoria (25,000), a picturesque city at the foot of the Cantabrian Mountains and the head of the fertile plains of the Upper Rioja. These two districts, the Riojas, divided by the Ebro, are noted for their wines, which need only more careful preparation to become an important article of commerce; at present they are chiefly exported to Bordeaux, for mixing with inferior French wines, to be re-exported as claret to England. NAVARRE, the only other province where Basque is spoken, once formed part of a petty kingdom which stretched on both sides of the Pyrenees, and of which the Spanish portion was definitely secured to Spain by the Duke of Alva in the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic, in 1512, has Pampeluna (25,000), a fortified city of Roman origin, for its capital. The upper part of Navarre is extremely mountainous, but it contains some useful iron-mines, and a Government foundry at Orbaiceta. The southern parts, along the banks of the Arga, and in the valley of the Ebro, are extremely fertile; but at the south-eastern corner in the Bardeñas Reales, we encounter a series of bare, stony hills, scored with deep ravines, and on which nothing will grow, the first of the desert tracks so common in Spain. Tudela (9000) on the opposite side of the Ebro, is united to the rest of the province by a fine bridge; it is here the traveller first sees in operation the norias or water-wheels of the East.

The kingdom of ARAGON contains three provinces, Huesca, Saragossa, and Teruel. The kingdom is almost bisected by the Ebro, towards which it slopes on both sides, from the highest summits of the Central Pyrenees on the north, and from the Idubeda Mountains and the Molina de Aragon on the south. Aragon divides with the Asturias the honour of having been one of the cradles of the Spanish monarchy. In 795 Don Asnar defeated the Moors near Jaca, in the province of Huesca. But the progress of the reconquest was very slow; from 714 to 1118 the Moors held possession of the town and kingdom of Saragossa, and it is from this occupation of four centuries that the traveller first meets here distinct remains of Moorish architecture. A still more lasting note of their sway is found in the nomenclature of the country. The rivers Guaticalema, Alcanadre, Guadalope, the names of the sierras, Alcubiere, and of many of the lesser towns and villages, sufficiently attest the former presence of the race who gave those names.

Huesca (10,000), the capital of the province of the same name, is an episcopal and university town, the bishop's palace being on the site of an old mosque. The upper part of this province is exceedingly mountainous, and is entered from France by the Central Pyrenean road, that of Somport, originally constructed by the Romans. The only other towns are Barbastro (7000), Monzon (4000), and Jaca (3500), nearer the mountains. Saragossa (84,000), on the Ebro, formerly the Cæsar Augusta of the Romans, then for four centuries the capital of a Moorish kingdom, rivals Santiago de Compostella as a place of pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgen del Pilar. The worship has, however, much declined of late years, and her devotees are not now a tithe of those who frequent the more recent shrine of Notre Dame de Lourdes on the other side of the Pyrenees. The art treasures of the cathedral were sold in 1870, when many fine examples of jewellery and art were acquired for the Kensington Museum. Saragossa, though now fallen as a place of commerce, must again become important if the railway project is carried into effect, which will place it on the most direct line between Paris and Madrid. The Ebro, from its shallowness, is of no service for navigation; and, from neglect, the canals of Charles V. and of Tauste do not render the services they might, either for transport or for irrigation. Hence the despoblados and desiertos in the valley of the Ebro, both above and below the town. Calayatud (12,000) was one of the four comunidades of Aragon, and is in the midst of a mineral district, the wealth of which seems at present almost wholly undeveloped. Teruel (7000) is the capital of a very mountainous province which slopes towards the north-west from the Sierras de Molina and Albarracin, the mountain ranges which form the eastern boundary of the great watershed of the peninsula. Excepting the mines in these sierras, the province is almost wholly agricultural, but with no towns of importance. The historian Don Vicente de la Fuente has remarked that while the lands of the comunidades, the four free towns of Aragon, Calayatud, Teruel, Daroca, and Albarracin, have remained fertile under their more liberal government, the lands of the Seigneurs in the valley of the Ebro, where, almost alone in Spain, feudalism received its full development, have been for centuries barren and despoblados.

CATALONIA.—The ancient principality of Catalonia is now separated into four provinces, named after their chief towns, Gerona, Barcelona, Tarragona, and Lerida. The first three lie along the shores of the Mediterranean—the last, inland, and stretches from the Ebro to the Pyrenees. To the north of Lerida, and buried in the mountains, is the so-called republic of Andorra, which owes its practical independence to the singular fact of a double seigneurie. Both the Counts of Foix, in France, and the Prince-Bishops of Urgel, in Spain, were supreme Lords of Andorra. On paper its constitution is by no means so free as that of several other Pyrenean communities; but by skilfully playing off the jealousies and rivalries of its two lords, and preventing either from getting absolute power, this little state of twenty-eight miles by twenty has remained unsubdued, and unattached to either nationality. The chief trade of the republic may be said to be smuggling. Lerida, except in the valley of the Segre, is extremely mountainous, and like all the hill country of Catalonia is rich in minerals, especially in salt, near Solsona. The rest of its products are chiefly agricultural. The province is but thinly peopled; its chief town contains 20,000 inhabitants. Balaguer (5000), Urgel (3000), Solsona (2500), are the most populous of the remaining. With Gerona we enter the Mediterranean or Provençal region and climate, and come in contact not only with picturesque and glowing scenery, with a gorgeous variety of natural productions, but also with traditions and remains of the great works of all the races that have dominated this inland sea. From the Pyrenees to Carthagena the names of the chief towns recall classic reminiscences, and bring before us the struggles of ancient nations, contending on her soil for a far mightier empire than that of Spain. The province of Gerona contains Cape Creuz, the extreme north-easterly point of the peninsula, not far from the old Greek cities of Rosas and Emporium (Ampurias). Of its towns, Gerona, on the Ter, and Figueras have each 8000, but are surpassed by Olot, 10,000, around which town are grouped the most recently extinct volcanoes in Spain. Coal is found in San Juan de las Abadesas. Here the Spanish gravity is mingled with the fire and dash of the Provençals, and the inhabitants both of Gerona and Barcelona, are more Provençal than Spanish, in language, political character, and in commercial and industrial aptitudes. The natural productions, and the flora too, are almost identical with those of the more sheltered parts of Provence and of the Riviera. Palm trees are seen as common ornaments in gardens and public squares, oranges and olives flourish, the mulberry is cultivated and silkworms are reared, and all announces a warmer zone than any that we have hitherto traversed. Barcelona (250,000) the first industrial and commercial city of Spain, and the second in point of population, is also the capital of the most thickly inhabited province. The greater part of the trade and navigation of the whole Spanish sea-board from Catalonia to Cadiz, or even to Seville, is in the hands of its merchants. The cotton industry of Catalonia employed in 1870 a capital of 6,000,000l., and 104,000 workmen, distributed in 700 factories. The chief of the other manufacturing towns are Gracia (33,000), and St. Martin de Provensals (24,000). The annual commercial movement of Barcelona is estimated at about 11,000,000l. sterling. The British imports, chiefly of coal and iron, amount to nearly 1,000,000l. sterling; but the exports are a mere trifle, 10,000l., most of the ships returning in ballast; while on the contrary, the exports of Tarragona, Palamos, Mataro, and Villamena, and the smaller ports amount to nearly 1,000,000l., chiefly in wine, and the imports are only half that amount. Irrigation is successfully carried on in the valley of the Llobregat. Tarragona (23,000) is rich in Roman remains, in the picturesque beauty of its site, in its Gothic architecture, in the mildness of its climate, and in the goodness of its wines; but it is surpassed both in wealth and population by the neighbouring manufacturing city of Reus (27,000), and also by Tortosa (24,000) on the Ebro, to which town all the river transport converges. The Ebro below Tortosa forms a sandy delta, and its channels are continually silting up. The canal of San Carlos, to connect Amposta with the sea by the port of Alfaques, has had but little success.

VALENCIA includes the three provinces of Castellon de la Plana, Valencia, and Alicante, all three lying along the Mediterranean, and facing east and southwards from the mighty buttress sierras which form the eastern wall of the great central plateau. It is in these provinces that we gradually pass from the Mediterranean climate to the "Tierra caliente," the warm lands and African products of south-eastern Spain. Here too we meet with the finest Roman remains; and Moorish architecture begins to form a prominent feature in the characteristics of each city. The speech is still a dialect of the Provençal, and the fiery Provençal nature is still apparent in the political history of the cities of Valencia. The hill-sides, bare of trees, are covered either with the esparto grass or with strongly aromatic herbs and shrubs. The rainfall gradually lessens; the streams all assume a torrential character, nearly dry in summer, swollen with rapid floods in winter; but they are greatly utilized for irrigation. By this means are formed the "huertas," gardens, and "vegas," plains, oases of beauty and fertility lying in the bosom of the barren hills, which serve as frames to pictures as valuable for their productiveness as they are enchanting in their beauty. The chief towns in the province of Castellon are Castellon de la Plana (23,000), Vinaroz (9000), Villareal (8000), both near the Mediterranean; Segorbe on the Palancia, and numerous smaller towns in the interior. Benicarlo and Vinaroz, on the coast to the north of the province, are noted for their excellent red wines, quantities of which are exported to France for mixing with inferior French vintages, whence they find their way to England as Rousillon or Bordeaux. Valencia, a city of 143,000 inhabitants, and with a fine artificial harbour called the "grao," is the third city in population in Spain; but its commerce is little more than that of Santander and Bilbao, cities only one fourth of its size. The value of British imports, chiefly of coal, cod-fish, guano, and petroleum, in 1878, was 136,450l., and of exports, chiefly of fruits to Britain, 524,984l. The "huerta" of Valencia, with its canals for irrigation, its "acequias," "norias," and other devices to draw the waters of the Guadalaviar, is one of the most successful examples in Spain of regulated application of water to agriculture. The quantity of water allotted to each property, the hour of opening or closing the sluices, are regulated according to laws and customs descended from Moorish times. So great is the drain upon the streams that the waters of some of the smaller rivers are entirely absorbed in the summer, and even of the Guadalaviar but little then reaches the sea. It is from the huerta of Valencia that the oranges come which form the delight of the population of Paris at the new year; hence are the raisins and the almonds and candied fruits equally dear to the British housekeeper. Rice is successfully cultivated on some of the lower grounds near the coast, and fruits and vegetables of every kind abound; but the Spaniards complain that they lack the richness and lusciousness of flavour belonging to those grown in other parts. "In Valencia," say they, "grass is like water, meat like grass, men like women, and the women worth nothing." The district was formerly noted for its silk-growing and stuffs of silk; also for the fine pottery known as Majolica ware from its carriers to the Italian ports, the sailors of Majorca and the Balearic Isles. It was also the earliest place of printing in Spain, and celebrated as a school of poetry and the arts; but nearly all this ancient fame is lost. To the south of Valencia is the large lake or lagoon of Albufera, the most extensive of the many lagoons along the Mediterranean coast, about nine miles long and twenty-seven miles round; it is full of fish, and frequented by wild fowls, and its varied inhabitants recall those of the Nile rather than those of any part of Europe. In the north of the province is Murviedro (7000), the ancient Saguntum, with its port almost entirely blocked up. Considerable remains of the older city still exist, with inscriptions in idioms yet unknown, and are a treasure to archæologists. The largest of the other cities are Alcira (13,000) on the Jucar, and Jativa (14,000). The southern coasts of Valencia and the neighbouring districts of Alicante abound in sites of picturesque beauty, and the position of many of the ruined monasteries, built generally on the hills with a distant prospect of the sea, can hardly be excelled.

Alicante, whose huertas and vegas with their appliances for irrigation rival those of Valencia, has but 34,000 inhabitants. Orihuela, in its rich wheat-growing district of never-failing harvest, has 21,000, and Alcoy 32,000. The smaller towns are numerous, and from the little ports in the north of the province, round Cape Nao, a good deal of coasting trade is done with the neighbouring Balearic Isles. From Denia, Tabea, and Altea, nearly 100,000 tons of raisins are shipped every year, chiefly for Great Britain. At Elche (20,000) is the celebrated forest of palms of which we have before spoken, and the leaves of which are sent to Rome for the ceremonies of Easter week. The number of the trees is gradually declining, as the produce hardly repays the great amount of labour required. In the church at Elche religious plays or mysteries are occasionally performed, with an enthusiasm and solemnity both of actors and spectators equal to that of the Passionspiel of Ober-Ammergau.

MURCIA contains the two provinces, Murcia and Albacete. The first faces the Mediterranean; the second, besides comprising the Sierras of Alcazar and Segura, climbs those boundary mountains, and advances far into the plateau of La Mancha, and thus contains within its limits the sources of the Guadiana as well as those of the Mundo and the Segura. Murcia, in its higher parts, is very thinly peopled, and in spite of the fertile plains in the lower course of the Segura and the Sangonera, and the rich mining district round Cartagena, has only two-thirds as many inhabitants to the square mile as Valencia. Murcia is perhaps the driest province of Spain, and the one in which the want of water is the most generally felt, yet it is in this province that the floods are the most pernicious and destructive. Year by year the irrigation works become less effective. Ancient dams broken down by the floods are not restored. Since 1856, however, a new source of wealth has been opened to this province by the export of the esparto grass, which grows on all the low hills, and which, in addition to its use in the country for numerous native fabrics, is now largely exported for paper-making. The export began only in 1856. In 1873 it had reached 67,000 tons for England alone; in 1875 the money value of the whole export was 400,000l., but it declined to 30,000l. in 1877, and 284,000l. in 1878, since which date it has gradually lessened. Murcia, the chief city, is an irrigated plain on the Segura, has a population of 91,000. It is one of the chief seats of silk cultivation in Spain. Lorca (52,000), on the Sangonera, offers another example of the extreme fertility that can be obtained by irrigation in a suitable climate. Cartagena (75,000), with its grand harbour and docks, is one of the three naval arsenals in Spain; but has greatly fallen from its ancient wealth and importance. Like Barcelona and Valencia it has distinguished itself by its extreme democratic and cantonalist opinions, and has revolted against the republic equally as against the monarchy. In its neighbourhood are some of the richest lead and silver mines in Spain, and which have been worked since Carthaginian and Roman times. The coal imported from England for smelting purposes amounts to 80,000 tons yearly. The tonnage of British vessels employed was over 200,000 in 1877. Along the coast are various lagoons and salt-lakes (salinas), where salt is made on a considerable scale; it is exported chiefly to the Baltic. The Barilla plant, for making soda, is also cultivated along the coast; and, of the plants in the salinas, it is computed that at least one-sixth of the species are African. Albacete (16,000), situated at the junction both of road and railway from Murcia and Valencia to Madrid, is chiefly celebrated for its trade in common cutlery. It is here that the large stabbing knives (navajas) are made, and for the use of which both Valencians and Murcians have an unenviable notoriety. On the plateau of this province (Albacete) are found (Salinas) salt-lakes formed by evaporation, the only examples of this kind in Western Europe. The only other town of any importance in the province is Almanza (9000), on the edge of the plateau before making the descent into Valencia. The numerous names compounded of "pozo," well, and "fuente," fountain, in this province, attest its arid character, where fresh water is scarce enough to make its presence a distinguishing mark to any spot.

ANDALUSIA embraces the whole of southern Spain from Murcia to the frontier of Portugal. Its seaboard includes both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. In Cabo de Gata, 2°10' W., it has the extreme south-easterly point of Spain; and in Cabo de Tarifa, 36°2' N., the extreme southerly point, not only of Spain, but of Europe. One chain of its mountains, the Sierra de Nevada, contains the highest summits of the peninsula; and its river, the Guadalquiver, from Seville to the ocean is the only stream of real service for navigation in the whole of Spain. Its wines and olives, its grapes and oranges, and fruits of all kinds, are the finest, its horses and its cattle are the best, its bulls are the fiercest, of all Spain. The sites of its cities rival in their entrancing beauty those of any other European land; while, wanting though they may be in deeper qualities, its sons and daughters yield not in wit or attractive grace or beauty to those of any other race. The Moor has left a deeper mark here than elsewhere, even as he kept his favourite realm of Granada for centuries after he had lost the rest of Spain. And when the sun of Moorish glory set, it was from Andalusia that the vision of the New World rose upon astonished Europe. The year of the conquest of Granada (1492) was also that of the discovery of America. All things take an air of unwonted beauty and of picturesque grace in this land of sun and light; even the gipsy race, avoided and abhorred in other countries of Europe, at Granada, as at Moscow, becomes one of the attractions of the tourist. The province is not entirely of one type. It unites many kinds of beauty; even in Andalusia are "despoblados" and "destierros," dispeopled and deserted wastes, under Christian hands, but once fertile and inhabited under Moorish rule. Savage wildness and barrenness reign in its lofty mountain chains as much as softer beauty does in the "huertas" and "vegas." But from the minerals the one district is equally valuable as the other. The province possesses the richest mines, as well as the richest fruits and wines, of the whole of Spain. ANDALUSIA, is divided into the provinces of Almeria, Granada, Malaga, on the Mediterranean; Cadiz, Seville, Huelva, on the Atlantic coast; and Cordova and Jaen inland, along the upper waters of the Guadalquiver.

In Almeria (40,000) the flat-roofed houses are built round a central court, the "patio," wherein is often a fountain, and palm and vine for shade; while oranges, myrtles, passion-flowers, and other gay or odoriferous shrubs or flowers, add their colour and perfume. The type and the manners of the inhabitants tell us that we are already in the land of the Moors. Almeria has declined from what it was when one of the chief ports of transit between the Moors of Africa and their brethren of south-eastern Spain; but from the growing importance of the Spanish colony in Oran, its trade is now fast reviving. The exports are lead and silver ore from the mines of the neighbourhood, fruits of all kinds, and a little wine. The tonnage of British shipping employed at Almeria was, in 1875, 117,123 tons; 1876, 85,840 tons; 1877, 89,988 tons. The chief exports in 1877 were about 10,000 tons of esparto grass, 280,000 barrels of grapes, 10,000 tons of minerals, and nearly 10,000 of calamine. The sugar-cane is also grown here. The whole province is mountainous, covered with the spurs and offshoots of the mighty Sierra Nevada, the Sierras de Gador, de Filabres, de Cabrera, de Aljamilla, all which have their terminations in headlands which run into the Mediterranean. The basins of the rivers of the region are often cleft by these smaller ranges, and thus they receive their waters from both the northern and southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The only other towns of importance are Cuevas de Vera (20,000), and Velez-Rubio (13,000), in the north of the province on the road between Murcia and Granada, where some lead-mines have been lately opened. The ports, except Almeria, are all small; Dalias, on the confines of Granada, is noted for the magnificent grapes and raisins shipped there.

Granada (76,000) is one of the most celebrated spots of Europe, a city of enchantment and of romance. It is one of the few places of renown, the sight of which does not disappoint the traveller. The natural advantages of its position would be sufficient to mark it as a city of unusual beauty, were there no masterpieces of art and of architecture, or storied memories, connected with it. It is situated in an upland valley, at an elevation of 2200 feet above the sea level—sufficiently high in that climate to prevent the summer's heat from being oppressively exhausting, and not too high to hinder the choicest semi-tropical fruits and flowers from growing in the open air—surrounded, yet not too closely, by mountain ranges, of which those to the east are the very highest in Spain—Mulhacen (11,700), Alcazaba (11,600), and Veleta (11,400). The ice and snow on their summits not only cool the hot winds which blow over them from Africa, but provide the means of making the iced water which is the Spaniard's greatest luxury. Its climate is second in its equable range only to that of its coast towns, Motril and Malaga. It is watered by the united streams of the Darro and the Jenil, which meet within the city, both hurrying from their mountain home to join the Guadalquiver between Cordova and Seville; and with their fertilizing waters dispersed in irrigation they make the "Vega," or plain, of Granada one of the noted gardens of the world. Granada is worth all the praise that has been sung or written of it. On an isolated hill to the east, cut off from the town and from the Generalife by the ravine through which the Darro flows, and enclosed with a wall flanked by twelve towers, stands the celebrated group of buildings known by the name of the Alhambra, perhaps the fairest palace and fortress at once ever inhabited by a Moslem monarch. Almost unrivalled in the beauty of its site, it outstrips all rivals in the beauty of its Arab architecture. The mosque of Cordova is grander, and the tombs of the Caliphs at Cairo may be in a purer style, but they lack the variety and richness of these diverse buildings. The Alhambra hill is to Arabic what the Acropolis of Athens was to Hellenic art; only to the attractions of the plastic arts were added in the case of the Alhambra the triumphs of the gardener's skill. Shrubs and flowers delighted the eyes with colour, or gratified the sense of smell with sweetest odours, while water, skilfully conducted from the neighbouring hills, purled among the beds, or leaped in fountains, or filled the baths with purest streams. Thus every sense and taste was gratified, and Granada was indeed an earthly paradise to the Moor. Even in its decay, and seen in fragments only, it is one of the world's wonders, a treasure and delight to pilgrims of art from every land. But we must not waste our space in detailing the beauties of Granada; its trade, sadly diminished from what it was formerly, is chiefly in fruits and silk and leather stuffs. Next to Granada, the chief city in the province is Loja (15,000), near the Jenil, and the little port of Motril (13,500), sheltered under the highest summits of the Sierra Nevada, is said to possess the most equable climate of the Spanish Mediterranean ports. It is here, in the extensive alluvial plain stretching from Motril to the sea, that the sugar-cane is most extensively cultivated, producing in 1877, 113,636 tons of cane. Far inland, and separated from Motril by the mountain mass, is Baza (13,500). The mineral riches of the Sierra Nevada have never been adequately explored; from specimens used in the construction of Granada, it must possess marbles of rare beauty; metals, too, abound, but few of its mines are worked. In picturesque beauty, when seen near at hand, these mountains are not nearly equal to the Pyrenees and to many minor chains; with rounded summits, they are bare and denuded of wood, and are entirely without the glacier forms, and the lakes and rushing streams, which delight us in the Alps.