The city of Evora is so ancient, that fabulous history has laid its foundation more than two thousand years before the Christian era. Certain it is, that it was a flourishing city in the days of Viriatus. Sertorius chose it for his residence; some of the buildings with which he adorned it are still remaining, and the inhabitants are still supplied with water by his aqueduct, which Joam III. repaired. Cæsar made it a municipal town, and from him it was called Liberalitas Julia. Under the Visigoths it continued to flourish, and Sisebut coined money there. It was recovered from the Moors in the reign of Affonso Henriquez, the first king, by the romantic enterprise of Giraldo the Fearless, then an outlaw. King Fernando rebuilt or repaired its walls; and Cardinal Henrique founded an university and established an Inquisition there; but the university had been suppressed. In the war of the Restoration it was besieged and taken by D. Juan de Austria, but it was soon recovered, and the Spaniards in retreating toward their own frontier suffered one of the most signal defeats which they sustained during that long contest. Its population, once amounting to 40,000, had declined to about half that number at the beginning of the eighteenth century; since which time it had varied so little, that there had neither been any apparent diminution nor increase. The city was populous enough to have defeated the force which was now marching against it, if it had been prepared for a Zaragozan defence. There is courage enough for any thing in the Portugueze character; but that individual and commanding genius was wanting by which alone the inhabitants of a large city can be made to act steadily with one will, and thereby capable of heroic valour. They prepared for a military defence in the field, which was exposing peasantry and half-disciplined troops to certain defeat. ♦ACTION BEFORE THE CITY. JULY 29.♦