The line from Tuy to Orense runs through scenery more beautiful than that of the Austrian Tyrol. For a long time the winding Miño is visible close beneath the train windows, as it makes its way through the verdant valley, banked by mossy boulders and clumps of pine or chestnut trees, and now and again rushing through narrow ravines. The first station we passed was that of Salvatierra, near which towered a mediæval fortress almost hidden by ivy, while, dotted about, were some little houses painted red. Terraces of vines now covered the sloping hills; every now and again we were in the thick of a pine wood. The station in the pine wood was Nerves: between it and Arbo the Miño’s bed grew very narrow and stony, and the waters foamed as they forced their way between the boulders; then they whirled round in an eddy, and the next minute we were looking at a sparkling waterfall, below which a peasant sat fishing with a very long line. At Pousa, the next station, we compared the architecture of the houses on the Portuguese side of the water with that of the Spanish houses on the opposite bank: the Portuguese houses were larger and more commodious in appearance. Steep mountains walled us in as we neared the station of Freira, and our train described a curve or loop worthy of the Canadian Rockies. After the next station, Filgueira, the river burst from its granite ravine and fled round the circular base of a conical mountain. We had now reached Ribadavia, and the country on all sides was covered with vine terraces. Ribadavia, hardly more than a large village in the district of Ribadavia, in the province of Orense, was once an important town. Garcia, king of Galicia, the son of Ferdinand the Great, had his Court at Ribadavia, and his palace stood on the spot now occupied by a Dominican convent. There are two churches at Ribadavia that are well worth a visit--the conventual Church of Santo Domingo, and the Church of Santiago. The former is a good specimen of Gallegan architecture, with its wooden roof and its whitewashed granite walls and arches; the latter has an interesting Romanesque window. Orense, it will be remembered, is one of the four provinces into which modern Galicia is divided. It is bounded on the north by the provinces of Pontevedra and Lugo, on the south by Portugal, on the east by Zamora and Leon, and on the west by Pontevedra and Portugal. Its most important rivers are the Miño, the Sil, the Limia, and the Bibey. The chief town, Orense, is situated in an extensive and luxuriant valley which lies in the midst of mountains, many of them having summits of bare rock devoid of all vegetation. Orense is a clean, bright little town, with more movement in its streets than is usual in Gallegan towns; it is in closer connection with Madrid than the others, and has not that mediæval look so characteristic of the province.