applause in Spain. Nogueras, to quiet our representations, was disgraced pro forma; but the act was lauded by the press of Zaragoza, whose national guard petitioned to have the “prudent and vigorous" officer reinstated in command, which he was; in 1843 he was the favourite popular candidate for the representation of Madrid, the capital, and he would well and truly have represented the majority of his constituents: and the fond memory of this exploit continues to give such satisfaction to the Catalans, that Nogueras was elected in 1851 member for Fraga.

Leaving Tortosa the road continues along the basin of the Ebro to Mora, a town of 3500 souls, which had two singular local tribunals, called "Del Bayle," of the Baili Bailiff, and "Del Prohombre," of the Prudhomme, granted by Juan Conde de Prades in 1400.

the general panic. Mequinenza, which afterwards protected Suchet's retreat, was gained by stratagem. One Juan Van Halen deserted from the French, bringing away their cipher, whereby forged orders were made out by the Baron de Eroles; thus the governors of Lérida, Mequinenza, and Monson were deceived, and the places recovered from the enemy.

Now the road branches off, to Fraga 3 L., and to Lérida, after passing the Segre, 7, through Aitona, 3 L. from Mequinenza. For the communication between Zaragoza and Barcelona, by Fraga and Lérida, see Rte. 129.

Venta de los Ajos
Al Perelló
Hospitalet.
Cambrils
Reus
Tarragona

2

3

5

3

8 101

12

2.

14

2吋

There is some talk of a railroad from Tortosa to Barcelona. For Perelló see Rte. 42, and Reus, p. 405. The best inns at Tarragona are, Parador de las Diligencias, El Meson Nuevo, and Calle de St. Carlos. Consult 'Grandezas de Tarragona,' Luys Pons de Ycart, 12mo. Lérida, 1572-73, the Esp. Sag.,' vols. xxiv. xxv.; for the coinage, Florez, Med.' ii. 579; and for the Roman inscriptions, Cean Ber., ' Sum.' 8. For the antiquities, Tarragona monumental, J. F. Albonara, and A. Bofarull.

They acted as checks on each other, ROUTE 44.-TORTOSA TO TARRAGONA. for such is the divide et impera of Spain's distrustful misgovernors. Flix is girdled by the Ebro in a bosom of fertility. The irrigation is managed by a canal, which is supplied by a large noria, water-work. The corn of Aragon is drawn from hence down the river in boats for Catalonia, but the Presa de Flix impedes the navigation. The new and direct road from Barcelona to Madrid is to pass through Mora de Ebro. There is a good quarry of stone, which was used for the new front of the Tortosa cathedral. Mequinenza, with about 1500 souls, rises boldly over the Segre and Ebro, which it commands; here is a ferry-boat. The irregular castle, once the palace of the Marques de Aitona, crowns the steeps; inaccessible except to the west. This fine specimen, with its towers, was of great importance in the War of Succession, as forming a central point between Lérida and Tortosa. This key of the Ebro was besieged in May 1811, by General Musnier, and was defended by Manuel Carbon with 1200 men; but on the 4th and 5th of June the French got into the town, which they sacked and burnt, and the castle capitulated on the 8th. Suchet the same evening sent a detachment against Morella, which surrendered at once in

6

Tarragona, as a residence for invalids, is remarkably healthy; the air is mild, but from its great dryness, bracing and rather keen. There are no standing waters, nor is irrigation employed; the walks are excellent, looking down to the sea; while in various directions on the land side are scattered pine woods, heaths, and aromatic wastes, where the wild-lavender and sweetsmelling shrubs perfume the air even in mid winter.

centred at Barcelona, while Moorish traffic preferred Valencia.

Tarragona, in the War of Succession, was captured by the gallant Peterborough. It was invested by Suchet in May, 1813, who gained the land-key, the Monte Olivo, by means of a traitor. The lower town was taken June the 21st, and the upper on the 28th. The women and children who crowded to the English boats, the Spaniards refusing to embark them, were mitraillé by Suchet, as at Lérida. The horrors of the subsequent sack surpass anything recorded. Suchet ordered and encouraged every atrocity, for with cold-blooded premeditation he had threatened "to intimidate Spain by the destruction of an entire city," and he boasted of his horrors. See Southey, ch. 36; Schepeler, iii. 425; and particularly the article in the recent Diccionario Geografico' of Barcelona.

TARRAGONA, rising above the Francoli and the sea, on a limestone rock some 760 feet high, was selected by the Phoenicians as a maritime settlement, and called Tarchon, which Bochart interprets, a "citadel;" and such ever has been, and still is, the appearance and character of this "Arce potens Tarraco." Conveniently situated for communication with Rome, this strong point was made the winter residence of the Prætor. The fertile plain and "aprica littora" of Martial (i. 50, 21), and the wines of "vitifera Laletania,' the rivals of the Falernian, still remain as described by Pliny, 'N. H.' xiv. 16, and Mart. xiii. 118. The brothers, Publius and Cneius Scipio, first occupied Tarragona, which Augustus raised to be the capital, having wintered here (26 B.C.), after his Cantabrian campaign; here he issued the decree which closed the temple of Janus. The favoured town was intitulated "Colonia victrix togata turrita," togata being equivalent to imperial, since the gens togata were the lords of the world. It was made a conventus juridicus, or audiencia; had a mint, and temples to every god, goddess, and tutelar; nay, the servile citizens erected one to the emperor, "Divo Augusto," thus making him a god while yet alive. This temple was afterwards repaired by Adrian, and some fragments in the cloisters of the cathedral are said to have belonged to it. Tarragona was taken by the Goths" untoward event." Tarragona again and became their capital. The Moors under Tarif, “made of the city a heap," and the ruins remained uninhabited for 4 centuries. The metropolitan dignity, removed by the Goths to Vich, was restored in 1089, to the disgust of Toledo, who disputes the primacy. Tarkuna, or rather the site, in 1118 was granted by San Oldegar, of Barcelona, to Robert Burdet, a Norman chief, a warrior, as his Norse name Burda, to fight, explains. His wife, Sibylla, during her husband's absence, kept armed watch on the walls, and beat back the Moors, after which the city grew to be a frontier fortress, and nothing more; for Christian commerce

The loss of Tarragona was chiefly owing to Spanish misconduct; Campoverde outside and Contreras inside from jealousy had sent Sarsfield away with his relieving troops at the most critical moment. The disgrace was shared by some English, for in June Skerrett arrived with 1200 men, and, had they been landed, Suchet would not have dared even to attempt the storm; but, according to Napier (xiii. 6), the

66

surf, and the enemy's shot, and the opinion of Doyle and Codrington prevailed, and the army and navy of England remained idle spectators of the

witnessed French success and British failure; for in 1813, when the Duke was advancing a conqueror into France after Vitoria, he ordered Sir John Murray to attempt Tarragona by a “brisk attack," in order to create a diversion and prevent Suchet from marching to aid Soult. Murray, with 14,000 men and the identical artillery which had breached and won Badajoz, sailed, May 31, from Alicante, and arrived June 3 before Tarragona. The citadel was defended by Bertolletti, with only 1600 men. Time was

now everything, yet Murray pottered and paltered, and Suchet advanced to the relief; at the first idle report of

partly excavated and ascertained in | Valdivielso and Armañac; what they 1754 by an Irish gentleman named repaired, Suchet destroyed, who broke Coningham. The stupendous walls it down near the Olivo: it has since near the Plaza San Antonio, which been set to rights. overlook the sea, deserve notice. Make another excursion 1 L. to the How clearly ancient Tarragona was N.W. of Tarragona, along the seaused up as a quarry in rebuilding coast, to a Roman sepulchre, called La the modern town may be seen at Torre de los Escipiones, although the the end of the Rambla in the Al-real place of the burial of the Scipios macen de Artilleria; and the Roman is quite unknown; the picturesque inscriptions imbedded here and else- road runs amid pine-clad hillocks, where are so numerous that the walls are said to speak Latin. Observe No. | 13, Calle Escrivanias Viejas, the window and lintel made up of Roman remains, and the singular Hebrew-like inscriptions. There are others also in the courtyard of the archbishop's modern palace and in the cathedral cloister. The bossage stones in the Campanario and walls of the cathedral prove that they once belonged to former edifices.

Two ancient monuments situated at a distance from the town have therefore escaped somewhat better. About 1 L. on the road to Lérida to the r. is a superb Roman aqueduct. It spans the dip of a valley from which the loftiest arches rise 96 ft. high; double, 11 below and 26 in the upper tier; they diminish in height as they ascend the slopes; the length is 700 ft. The water runs partly underground nearly 20 m. from the "Pont d'Armentara.' This aqueduct is called el Puente de Ferreras, and by the vulgar del Diablo, giving as usual all praise to "the devil," as pontifex maximus. In this respect, however, the real devils in Spain were the clergy, as the Puentes del Obispo, Arzobispo, Cardenal, etc. best prove they were truly Aapoves, or as San Isidoro interpreted the word Aanμoves, skilful and intelligent, and to knowledge they added wealth and beneficence. The view from above is charming; the lonely rich ochry aqueduct, stretched across a ravine, with here and there a pine-tree soaring out of the palmito-clad soil, looks truly the work of those times when there were giants on the earth. Ruined by the Moors, it so remained upwards of 1000 years, until repaired by the Archbishops Joaquin de Santiyan de

which slope down to sheltered bays, where fishermen haul in their heavy nets, and where painted barks sleep on the lazy sea; on the ridges above birdcatchers spread their toils. The monument lies close to the road, amid aromatic shrubs all life and colour; two injured figures, in mournful attitudes, stand on the front; the stonework is much corroded: an alabaster inscription was taken down by Card. Ximenez; in that which remains the word perpetuo is just legible, as if in mockery of man and his perishable works. The view towards Tarragona is ravishing; the beauty of the present is heightened by the poetry of the past. The rock-built city slopes with its lines of wall down to the mole, studded with white sails, while the vapoury distant hills and the blue sea peep through vistas of the red branches of the pines, and glitter through the dark velvet of their tufted heads; and then the sentiment, the classical Claude-like feeling inspired by the grey Roman tomb!

The cathedral and the fortifications are what best deserve notice in modern Tarragona; the former partakes much of the Norman character; the approach, as is usual in Catalonia, and like that of the semi-Norman Amalfi, ascends by a flight of steps from the busy market-place de las Coles. The effect has been well calculated; as the high altar in Spain is raised by steps above the level on which the congregation kneel, so this temple rises above the town: thus everything tends to elevate the priest above the people; they look up to him and his dwelling, until the transition from a material superiority soon passes to one moral and spiritual.

According to local annalists the

original cathedral was built by Santi- | popes and emperors praying: this sinago, and in it St. Paul preached (neither gular work is attributed to Bartolomé, of whom ever were in Spain); mean- 1278. The interior of the cathedral, time the façade of the present edifice with its low massy piers, is simple and rises to a triangle, with a truncated grandiose; the pila or baptismal font point; the superb rose window was is a Roman bath, or sarcophagus, found commenced in 1131 by San Oldegar, in the palace of Augustus; the grand aided by Robert Burdet, who went Retablo was constructed of Catalonian especially into Normandy for his gar- marbles, by Pedro Juan and Guillen de rison and architects. Thus, as in Mota, in 1426-34. The Gothic pinnaSicily, where his contemporary and cles were once painted and gilt; the countryman Roger employed Norman principal subjects of the basso-relievos and Saracenic workmen, a fusion of are from the martyrdom of Santa style is produced, which is also to be Tecla, the tutelar of Tarragona; her traced here in the round low arches, grand and picturesque festival is celethe billet and zigzag ornaments in the brated on the 23rd of September, with cloisters, and the circular machicolated sky-rockets, dances, &c., on the plaza; end of the cathedral, and its style of she was converted by St. Paul, to towers. The Normans were bitter whom she consecrated her virginity; foes to the Moslems, first, because both thereupon Thamiro, to whom she was were of the same trade, invaders, and to have been married, brought an secondly, because they had clashed in action for this breach of promise; the Sicily and Spain. The northmen Spanish judges ordered her to be burnt never forgot their repulse by Abdu-r- alive, but as she came unhurt from rahman (see p. 164), and readily allied the furnace, she was then cast to lions, themselves with the Catalans, passing who only licked her feet; she was next either from Sicily in ships, or through exposed to the rage of bulls, and lastly France from Normandy. Their im- to the lust of soldiers, who resisted a pression, however, was short-lived, temptation difficult to their habits. and the unrecruited race died away, Previously to Buonaparte's invasion or was assimilated with the more po- she protected the church plate: lished people whom they had subdued. when Pedro el Ceremonioso wanted The archives of the cathedral, once to take some without leave, she among the most complete and curious, descended from heaven, and dealt were mostly burnt by Suchet: fortu- him una palmada, a box on the ear, nately, an abstract of them had been of which he died January 5, 1387 made in 1802 by the learned canon (Abarca, Ann. de Aragon, p. 11, ch. 12). Domingo Sala, which he permitted So Ceres, at Miletus, punished the us to peruse; that, doubtless, has sacrilegious soldiers of Alexander the since perished. The large deeply- Great (Val. Max. i. 2), asi el amor venga recessed pointed Gothic porch, with sus agravios, in spite of the proverb that the apostles on the sides under ladies' hands do not hurt, manos blanGothic niches, is the work of Cas- cas no ofenden. (By the way, the cales, 1375; the façade is earlier, Spanish female hand is one of the and was finished in 1280 by Archbp. ugliest and least white in Europe. It Olivella, who retired to the monastery is, as Rosalind says, a leathern hand, of Cornalbau, stinting himself of every- a stone-coloured one, a huswife's hand,' thing to save money for God's work. and it is the result of the latter. The The iron-plated doors, the strange constant habit of embroidering hardens hinges, knockers, and copper bulla the finger-points; not that their palwere added in 1456, by Archbp. Gon- mada would on that account be the zalo, as his arms denote: he lies buried less effective.) Thence Santa Tecla on one side, and to the 1. a prelate of was justly reckoned by the chapter the Medina Celi family. The doorway the first of female martyrs, and her is divided by a figure of the Virgin and aid is prayed for under all difficulChild, and above is the Saviour, with ties; but, like the Cinta of Tortosa,