high ground, running in a S. W. direction and nearly parallel to each other; and these enclose, on two sides, the Basins or tracts of country through which the rivers and their tributaries flow.

The main rivers that rise on the Western slope of the central ridge and fall into the Atlantic, are four in number:-1. DURIUS, the Duèro (in Spanish,) Douro (in Portuguese), the vast basin of which, bounded by the Cantabrian and Asturian Mountains on the North side, and by those of Castille on the South, includes the less considerable valley of Minius, the Minho; 2. TAGUS, famed for the gold found in its sand;1 3. ANAS, the Guadiana; and 4. BAETIS, the Guadalquivir, (pronounced Wad-al-keveer, i. e. in Arabic, "the great river.")"

The main rivers that rise on the Eastern slope of the water-shed and fall into the Mediterranean are also four, but, excepting the last, of much shorter course:-1. TADER, the Segura; 2. SUCRO, the Xucar; 3. TURIA, the Guadalaviar; and 4. IBERUS, the Ebro and the basins of these rivers are enclosed in like manner by lateral ranges of hills which start off, like spinal processes, from the side of the central range fronting the East.

In tracing the rivers just enumerated, secundo flumine, from fountain-head to the mouth or embouchure,

1 auriferi ripa beata Tagi.-Ov. AM. I. 15, 34.

2 The beauty and fertility of the Baetis and its banks are finely alluded to in Mart. XII. 99:

Bætis, olivifera crinem redimite corona,

Aurea qui nitidis vellera tingis aquis,

Quem Bromius, quem Pallas amat !— The favourite of Bacchus and of Minerva:' i. e. abounding in wine and oil.

we fall in successively with the following towns and localities:

3

1. On the DURIUS, near the source, and not far from the modern town of Soria, stood Numantia, which Florus calls Hispaniae decus. It sustained a fourteen years' siege against the Romans, and was taken at last by Scipio Africanus Minor. At the mouth stood Calle, or Portus Calensis, whence the kingdom of Portugal derives its name. Calle is now Oporto; and from this comes the word 'Port,' as applied to wine shipped from that harbour.

In the basin of the DURIUS were also, on the North side, Asturica Augusta, Astorga, and Legio VII gemina, Leon. On the South side of the basin, Salmantica, Salamanca, and Segovia, famed for an aqueduct said to have been the work of Trajan, and still, with its double tier of arches, in good preservation.

2. On the TAGUS, Tolētum, Toledo, Norba Caesarea, where was a famous bridge over the river, now Alcantara, Scalabis, Santarem, a corruption of St. Irene; Olisipo, (a word which probably suggested the fable of its having been founded by Ulysses) now LISBON, the Capital of Portugal.

In the basin of the Tagus, North side, were Complūtum, Alcala, on the Henares, where Cardinal Ximenes founded a University, and where he published in 1515 the famous Polyglot Bible commonly called Biblia Complutensis; Mantua, supposed to be the site of the modern Capital of Spain, MADRID : and not far from the river, Libora, Talavera.

* ILLE Numantina traxit ab urbe notam.-OVID, Fast. I. 596. longa ferae bella Numantiae.-HOR. Od. II. 12. 1.

3. On the ANAS, half-way down, Metellinum, founded by Caecilius Metellus, now Medellin, birthplace of Fernando Cortez; Emerita Augusta, a settlement provided by Augustus for his disbanded veterans (emeriti), once the Capital of Lusitania, now Merida; and Pax Augusta, which the Moors corrupted into Badajoz.

4. On the BAETIS, near the source, Castulo,* of which Hannibal's wife Imilce was a native, now Cazlona; the forest-land around-the saltus Castulonensis of Livy-is part of Mons Marianus, the great table-land now called the Sierra Morena, the scene of the fabulous adventures of Don Quixote. Farther down the river Corduba (Cordova) birthplace of Lucan and the two Senecas; Italica, birthplace of the Emperor Trajan, and some think, of Hadrian also and the poet Silius Italicus; Hispalis, SEVILLE, which ranks as the second city of modern Spain.

The basin of the BAETIS was occupied in the dark ages by the Vandals, and was then called Vandalitia, -a name which appears now in the altered form of Andalusia.

• Castulo, urbs Hispaniae valida ac nobilis, et adeo conjuncta societate Poenis, ut uxor inde Hannibali esset.-Liv. xxiv, 41.

In the poem which Statius dedicates to the memory of his friend Lucan, (Sylv. 11. 7.) he raises him in the following lines above Homer and Virgil; a compliment which might have appeared less extravagant, had Lucan, instead of dying at 26, lived to a maturer age :

Attollat refluos in astra fontes,

Graio nobilior Melete, Baetis !

Baetin, Mantua, provocare noli.-STAT. Silv. 11. 7, 33.

• Duosque Senecas unicumque Lucanum,

Facunda loquitur Corduba.-MART. I. 62.

5. TADER, the Segura, (the farthest South of those main rivers which fall into the Mediterranean,) after passing the modern city of Murcia, flows through the Campus Spartarius, a plain so called from its abounding in spartum (esparto), a reed much used by the ancients for the cordage of ships, and various economical purposes.7

6. SUCRO, the Xucar, had at its mouth a city of the same name (modis dμóvʊμos, Strab.), where a mutiny once broke out in the Roman army which was quelled by Scipio Africanus Major, (Liv. xxviii. c. 26, &c.)

7. At the embouchure of TURIA, (Guadalaviar) was Valentia, a Roman colony, now the Capital of Valencia, a Spanish province unequalled in natural advantages. It is called by the natives La Huerta, (hortus), and wants nothing but good government and enterprise to make it the 'garden' of Europe.

8. On the IBERUS, half-way down, stood Salduba, afterwards CAESARAUGUSTA, now ZARAGOZA, made illustrious in the last war by its successful resistance to the French invaders in 1808-9. The broad basin of the EBRO, lying between the Pyrenees and the Central Ridge, is watered, from the heights of both, by numerous tributary streams, the most remarkable of which are, on the North side, the Sicoris, on which stood Ilerda (Lerida), where Cæsar defeated Pompey's generals, Afranius and Petreius, A. U. 706,

7 See Plin. Nat. Hist. B. 19, c. 2, and Livy, B. 22, c. 10. The use of it mentioned above goes as far back as the Homeric times. Και δη δούρα σεσηπε νεῶν, και σπαρτα λέλυνται.—Hom. It. B. 135.

(Lucan. iv. 16), and on the South side, Salo,8 (Xalon), on which stood Bilbilis, the native town of the poet Martial.

AFTER thus following the course of rivers, if we next take the line of coast for our guide, we shall come upon Towns, which have been indebted for their importance and notoriety, in Ancient or Modern times, to the convenience of harbourage, and their facility of access and resort to commercial and colonizing foreigners.

In this tour of the Coast, starting from C. Finisterra, the N. W. angle of the Peninsula, and going South, we find the town and harbour of Corunna (Portus Magnus), called by British traders the Groyne; where Sir John Moore fell in the moment of victory, (Jan. 1809.) 'Corunna' is thought to be a corruption of COLUMNA, from an ancient tower 92 feet high, still standing, said to have been built by Hercules. At the S. W. angle of the Peninsula, between the mouth of the Baetis and the Fretum Herculeum (Strait of Gibraltar) stood the very ancient town of Gadir, founded and so named by the Phoenicians. The Romans called it Gades, and considered it as the extreme point of the earth westward (Solisque cubilia Gades'), in like manner as the Ganges was reckoned the farthest point eastward. When Juvenal says, x. 1,-"Omnibus in terris quae sunt a Gaudibus usqe Auroram et Gangen," he means to

8 The Salo was used in the preparation of steel—hence Mart. calls it Armorum Salo temperator, and says elsewhere, Salone qui ferrum gelat.