Gerona (the Gerunda of the Romans, a place of such unknown antiquity that fabulous historians have ascribed its foundation to Geryon) is situated upon the side and at the foot of a hill, where the little river Onar, which divides the city from the suburbs, falls into the Ter. Two centuries ago it was second only to Barcelona in size and importance; other places in the principality, more favourably situated for commerce, and less overlaid with monks and friars, had now outgrown it, for of about 14,000 inhabitants, not less than a fourth were clergy and religioners. In the thirteenth century it was distinguished by the defence[1] which Ramon Folch of Cardona made there against Philip III. of France; a memorable siege, not only for the resolution with which Ramon held out, and for the ability with which he obtained honourable terms at last, concealing from Philip the extremity of famine to which the place was reduced, but also for the singular destruction which was brought upon the besiegers by a plague of flies[2]. Their bite is said to have been fatal to the horses, of which such numbers died, that their carcasses produced pestilence; two-thirds of the army perished, and the remainder found it necessary to retreat into their own country, carrying home in their coffins the chiefs who had led them into Spain. In the succession-war, Gerona was signalized by the desperate resistance which it made against Philip V. After it had fallen, the Catalans blockaded it during eight months; M. Berwick raised the blockade, and the French minister proposed to him to demolish the works; his plea was, that the expense of keeping a garrison there might be spared; but his intent, that the Spaniards might have one strong-hold the less upon their frontier. But Berwick required an order from Louis XIV. to warrant him in a proceeding which must necessarily offend the King of Spain; and Louis was then withheld by a sense of decency from directly ordering what he wished to have had done. The fortifications after that time had been so neglected, that when Arthur Young was there in 1787, he thought they were not strong enough to stop an army for half an hour: the old walls, however, had now been well repaired; and the city was also protected by four forts upon the high ground above it. But its principal defence was the citadel, called here, as at Barcelona, Monjuic, which commanded it from an eminence about sixty fathoms distant. This was a square fort, 240 yards in length on each side, with four bastions, and for outworks the four towers of Saints Luis, Narcis, Daniel, and Juan. ♦FORCE OF THE GARRISON.♦