The climate of Vigo is reputed to be the finest in Spain; its soil produces almost every kind of vegetable and fruit in the greatest abundance, and much earlier than they can be grown in other parts of Galicia. The principal industry of the town is fishing, in connection with which there are numerous factories for salting and preserving fish. Other industries are paper-making, the refining of petroleum, and tanning. The building of fishing-boats also constitutes an important industry. Vigo is a port of the first rank; it has three submarine cables, and is a naval station for the British fleets. There are some forty-five young Englishmen employed at Vigo in connection with the cables laid by the British Government. I am told that a number of them have become Roman Catholics in order to be able to marry Spanish ladies. The English at Vigo publish a newspaper in their native tongue for circulation amongst themselves. At present Coruña can boast of having greater commercial importance than Vigo, but from its more favourable situation Vigo is bound in time to take the lead. At the mouth of Vigo harbour, about ten (Spanish) miles from the anchoring-ground, lie the group of islands known as the Cies, formerly called Cecas, or Siccas. Humboldt once visited them, and it was he who first suggested that they might possibly be the “fabulous” or long-lost Cassiterides.[265] The Ria de Vigo, whose waters are part of the Atlantic Ocean, forms, as we have seen, one of the finest and safest harbours in the world; many consider it the best in Europe. The depth of the Ria varies from 90 to 150 feet; it is sheltered from all winds, and so large that the fleets of many nations could anchor there at one and the same time. Several of the streets of Vigo are lined with handsome blocks of white granite buildings, after the style of those in Berlin, but handsomer, because those of Berlin are only stucco. There are no ancient churches or other sights of archæological interest to be seen at Vigo, and the chief business of the traveller--after he has looked down upon the valley where the French army capitulated on March 28, 1809--is to take the beautiful drive along the shore of the Ria to Bayona, where there is an old church, the _Colegiata de Santa Maria_, which once belonged to the Knights Templars, and an interesting old Franciscan convent dating from the eleventh century. It is thought that Vigo stands upon the ancient site of _Vicus Spacorum_, but whether this supposition be correct or not, it is an accepted fact that Bayona is a far more ancient settlement. Molina wrote that Bayona was formerly called _Voyana_, from the fact of its having the figure of an ox on its coat of arms. There is also a legend that a Roman prefect named Catilius Severus retired thither after his power had been taken from him. Pliny thought the ancient name of Bayona was _Abobrica_, and Vosius speaks of it as _Lambriaca_.