El Grao is Valencia's Port, and is three miles distant from the city. The road which connects the two is about the busiest high road I saw in Spain. From sunrise till long after sunset two streams of vehicles pass to and fro. Strings of laden donkeys, waggonettes crammed with good-humoured laughing fisher and country folk pass along, an electric tram carries those who can afford the extra _centimos_, and the carriages of Valencia's well-to-do citizens take them to the harbour for a breath of sea air out on the breakwaters. Everything seems alive, and though there is that balmy feeling in the air which one gets in Andalusia, there is none of the indolence and seductive _dolce far niente_ of that enchanting province. No! quite the other way in Valencia. The peasants are extremely industrious. The soil of the _Huerta_ bears them three crops during the year. The system of irrigation, the old Moorish system by-the-way, is perfect, and though the product of a soil which is forced to bear more than it naturally can, is reinforced at sowing time, in the case of corn, by Russian grain, it cannot be said that Valencia depends on any outside help for her prosperity. The swamps bordering the coast grow the finest rice in the world. The wines of the province are good and cheap, held in much esteem by French merchants to fortify the lighter produce of their own country. So cheap are they in fact, that in some parts of the province it costs more to get a drink of water than a glass of wine. Yet drunkenness is unknown. If a Valencian took a drop too much, he would be promptly boycotted by his neighbours, and for ever after looked upon as a disgusting and outlandish boor, a disgrace to his village and a man to be shunned. The peasant is very illiterate and scrupulously honest--the one follows the other. Like the Andalusian, he is absolutely trustworthy in all his dealings, which are conducted by word of mouth. In buying and selling no signatures to documents pass between the contracting parties. If any paper is ever signed, it is confirmed by certain scratches or marks known to belong to so and so--the signee. His word is his bond, it is generally all he can give, but it is enough and is worth more than signatures sometimes are. Further north, where modern ways of life are more in vogue, and where all is more "advanced," there are ten lawyers to the one in Valencia and the south. [Illustration: VALENCIA. DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL] The Cathedral was originally a Gothic structure, but one fashion following another, has been at different times so altered and robbed of all architectural beauty that there remains but little of interest in the building. It was founded in 1262 and finished two hundred years later. El Miguelete, the celebrated Bell Tower, is so named because the bells were first hung on St. Michael's Day. Like the Torre de Vela of the Alhambra, a bell is here struck which regulates the irrigation of the _Huerta_.