Oranges, lemons, citrons, and almonds, are much cultivated, and the more rare fruits, such as the pine-apple and chirimoya of Peru, are produced without difficulty; the banana and plantain, though not plentiful, are yet sufficiently grown to shew that every vegetable production of the West Indies may be cultivated here with success.

We left Velez at day-break, and continued our journey, for the first hour, through the richest, and most delightful country in the world: the purest streams descended from the mountains, and were conducted through beautiful gardens, with great skill and judgement. The whole road was a gradual, but not steep ascent, and we frequently crossed the river.

Our ascent became steeper after the first hour, till we reached La Veñuela, and then, for five hours, we continued climbing precipices, which only mules, or Spanish horses, such as we rode, could have surmounted. By noon we had reached the summit of the first range of mountains, whence we could discern only a still higher range, sprinkled on the top with snow. At this spot we found a lonely venta, which afforded no refreshment, except some straw for the cattle, and water from a mountain torrent. The earth was barren; and the rocks of red marble above and around were quite naked.

We saw but one human habitation after leaving Venuela; and we were informed that these mountains abounded with wolves, and were the habitations of eagles. We continued from the venta to ascend still steeper mountains, till, in about four hours more, we reached a height, which, however, was not the summit of the range, but merely an opening in the second ridge, whence we could see the Sierra nevada beyond Granada, with its top, for half a mile, covered with snow. The highest point of that mountain is about two miles and a quarter above the level of the sea, whereas that we passed was not more than a mile and a half.

The Sierra de Alhama, which we left on our right hand, must have been about half a mile higher than the ridge we were passing; and though its top was covered with snow, it was evidently such as had recently fallen, and not like that inexhaustible mass which has for ages been accumulating on the Sierra nevada. When we had gained the opening, the highest point of our ascent, and had begun to descend, the country around us resembled England in the verdure of the fields, and the abundance of the oak and cork trees.

Among these trees we saw some thousands of pigs of a race, I believe, peculiar to Spain. They are of small size, perfectly black, and the fattest animals I ever beheld. It is at this season, when they feed on the acorns from the oak and cork-trees, that they are fattest; and it is the hams of these animals that are so much admired by Spanish epicures. This tract of country, a short time ago, belonged in common to the two corporations, or cabildos, of Velez and Alhama, and they enjoyed the produce of the whole in alterpate years; but about five years ago it was divided, and I was told.

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that each of those bodies had tripled their revenues.

After passing these trees we came into an open corn country, extending to the town of Alhama and several miles beyond it, which produces the most abundant crops of wheat and barley.

We reached the town by five o'clock, and there being neither food nor liquor in the posada, while we surveyed the buildings and the situation of the place, our servants went to the shops to purchase our meal. There is nothing in the former worth remarking, except that we saw only one house with glass windows, for even the monasteries and churches are destitute of this comfort. The city is bounded on three sides by a river, which pours down with great velocity through a fissure in the solid rock, about one hundred feet deep, and turns in succession eight mills for grinding corn.

The agriculture of Alhama is totally different from that of the country near Malaga and Velez; neither vineyards, olive-grounds, figs; lemons, nor oranges, were to be seen, but in their stead extensive fields of wheat stubble. The soil is stony, and is upon a limestone rock. I should suppose it to have been formed by the decomposition of the particles from the high mountains, which are washed down by the heavy rains. The cultivators in these parts are a richer body of men than those in the fruitful valleys on the other side of the mountain. Grain here produces a more uniform crop than fruit does in the valleys; the excessive produce of which, in some years, and great failure in others, creates in the people a disposition similar to that of our West Indian proprietors, who have been said to regulate their expenditure on a scale commensurate with their most favourable

years.

At Alhama the farmers generally have good crops, and certain markets, and therefore live in a state of ease, and have become affluent. Many of the fields are so remote from the habitations of man, that, during the harvest, the proprietors and their labourers erect tents, under which they live till the corn is cut, threshed, and carried home, when they return to the town where they reside, till the seed-time, and then they once again live under tents, till the labour of sowing be finished.

The corn-farms are divided into portions not varying much from each other in size; and I remarked, that at the corner of each portion of nearly the same dimensions, threshing-floors were constructed, for the purpose of clearing the corn from the chaff and straw, by the process I described when at Seville. These threshingfloors carried back my views to that antient husbandry of Arabia which was practised by the patriarchs, and is frequently alluded to in the Old Testament. The Arabs carried it to Africa, and their successors introduced it into Andalusia, where it is now practised as in those primitive times. The corn, indeed, is now trodden out by mares instead of oxen; but the mode of doing it, the living in tents, and the storing the grain in caves, are all evidently Arabian customs, The Arabian writer on agriculture, to whom I have before referred, frequently quotes the opinion of another author of a more remote date, who, he says, lived in Chaldea, and was the best writer on husbandry.

In this place the people appear more robust than in the valleys, and some of them have complexions almost ruddy. The dreadful epidemic, which occasionally prevails in the valleys, has never crossed