treatment, whenever the good men fhew a difpofition to be jealous.

Some young men of fashion, at the requeft of their fathers or their wives, are, as the governor informed me, deftined to pass their tedious hours in this castle. Yet, by the connivance of the centinels, they are frequently, in the dufk of the evening, permitted to fcale the walls; when, paffing disguised into the city, they amuse themfelves among their friends, till the company retires; after which they return by the fame fequeftered path to their destined habitations: and this precifely was the path which had attracted my attention.

In a conversation with the governor on the operation of a punishment long fince inflicted both in France and Spain, and lately adopted in our island, that of employing criminals on public works; he perfectly agreed with me, that their labour is fcarcely worth a tenth of what it cofts; and affured me, that as far as his obfervation went, this punishment rather tended to harden them in wickedness, than to produce any reformation in their manners. He particularly

particularly mentioned, that of the four thousand five hundred and feventy-nine convicts banifhed to the prefidios or garrifons of Africa, the major part, on their discharge, at the expiration of their terms, returned to the eastern coaft of the peninfula; and to this circumftance he attributed the prevalence of the most atrocious crimes in that part of Spain. He confidered therefore the prefidios as the worst school to which the youthful offender could be sent.

The country in the vicinity of Alicant is wild and broken; the mountains are lofty, rugged, bare, and little fufceptible of cultivation; the vallies are mostly small, but remarkably fertile; the foil is fandy, with beds of clay and marle. The rock in general is calcarious; the city is partly fed by a valley to the north, and by the Huerta, a rich and extenfive valley, to the eaft, at the diftance of one mile, but chiefly by the vale of Murcia. The carriers bring wheat, and load back with fish.

The Huerta is watered from a vast referdir, called el Pantano, constructed in the mountains, at the diftance of about five

leagues

leagues from Alicant. The governor had the goodness to, carry me in his coach to view this artificial lake, formed between two high mountains by a wall, the dimenfions of which reduced to English feet are as follow; one hundred and forty-feven high; two hundred and fixty-two wide at top, from mountain to mountain, and not more than twenty-four at bottom. The thickness of the wall is fixty-feven feet at top, and one hundred and twenty-one at bottom. It is very properly made elliptical, to fuftain the lateral preffure of the water; but had the thickness of the wall been only seven feet at top, instead of fixtyfeven, this would have been more than fufficient; because the area of any furface being given, the preffure of fluids on that furface is in proportion to its depth. The depth being given, it matters not whether the quantity of water be one acre, or ten thoufand acres. For the fame expence they might have constructed many such refervoirs, one below the other; but when we confider the age in which this was made (A. D. 1542) we are not surprised to find fo much labour loft..

When

When the ftream comes near the Huerta, it is feparated into four by the administrator, and each proprietor of land receives, or should receive, the quantity allotted to him, in proportion to his land, paying for this the ftipulated price. To prevent violence and fraud, A. D. 1739, the king, by his royal edict, established fixtytwo regulations for the diftribution of this water, and appointed a special court to enforce these regulations; yet notwithstanding, either through ignorance of hydrostatics in the managers, through their negligence, or through the influence of bribes, many obtain more than their juft proportion, and others are left to murmur and complain. It is to be lamented, that government does not conftruct more pantanos. The farmers in the Huerta could difpofe of five times as much as they receive at prefent; and were the whole interval between the mountains occupied with refervoirs, they might all be filled. This pantano, although vaft, has been replenished by four hours rain.

Independent of the produce in all kinds of grain and herbage, government derives a

direct revenue of near two thousand pounds a year by the diftribution of this water.

The rock is a fine limeftone, covering schist, and, as the country produces pines, juniper, and cofcoja, in abundance, fewel for burning lime is on the fpot; so that the expence of conftructing refervoirs would not be great.

After having examined the pantano, I vifited, on the fucceeding days, the Huerta, to get acquainted with the agriculture of that rich, well planted, and well watered valley.

Going eastward from the city, having afcended gradually for about a mile, you look down upon a wide expanfe of nearly thirty thousand acres, every where inclosed by lofty mountains, excepting towards the fea, and covered with oranges, lemons, figs, mulberries, almonds, cherries, apricots, peaches, nectarines, plumbs, apples, pears, pomegranates, olives, algarrobos, the more humble yet not lefs profitable vine, and the liquorice, with every fpecies of grain, of leguminous plants, and of herbage for the cattle.

This vale is faid to contain more than

twenty