lived a King Katillas and his wife Calsia, who inhabited doubtlessly a Château en Espagne. Queen Calsia gave birth to nine daughters at once, and being afraid what the King would say, gave them to the nurse with orders to drown them like puppies. But the nurse took them to her home, and reared all in the Christian faith. In time of persecution the nine damsels dispersed, but were caught and offered the alternative of marriage or death. They accepted the latter. One of them, named Wilgefortis, when pestered by a princely suitor, prayed, and lo! out sprouted a thick beard and moustache. She was crucified. Quiteria’s head was struck off with a sword. But unwilling to be less of an oddity than her sister, after death she developed into three entire bodies. One became the perquisite of the Portuguese, another of the Spaniards, and the Gascons got hold of the third, and buried it at Aire. I have little doubt that, when a man reputed insane was brought to Quiteria’s well and made to drink eight tumblers full of the red water, he remonstrated, and vowed that he was well; whereupon his relations cried out, “A miracle! He has spoken sensibly. Thanks be to Quiteria.” To Tarascon comes the iron ore from the mines in the Vicdessos valley in carts and tumbrils, and is there smelted. There are here also quarries of gypsum for the manufacture of plaster of Paris. To the south of the town is the church of Notre Dame de Sabart, so-called from Sabarthès, the name of the little region formed by the Valley of Vicdessos and of the Ariège as far as Les Cabannes. The church is Romanesque, and there are remains of an abbey founded for an order of military knights, founded, it is said, by Charlemagne, as a protection of the population and the valuable iron-mines. This is a resort of pilgrims on 8 May and 15 September, when fairs are held at Tarascon, and business, pleasure, and devotion can be harmoniously combined. The Valley of Vicdessos is, and has been from time immemorial, the great seat of iron-mining in the Pyrenees. The ore is nearly pure, and lies in veins and pockets in the limestone of the mountains of Rance, and the deposits form bands alternating with the calcareous rock through a height of over 1800 feet. The working of the mines is the privilege of the inhabitants of Sem, Goulier, and Olbier, and natives of Vicdessos and other villages about can only be admitted to this privilege by marrying a girl of one of the three named. Otherwise they can be employed only as wagoners drawing the ore to Tarascon.