The pride of Aranjuez was in its gardens; they were in the French style, but with a charm which that style derived from a Spanish climate. Long and wide avenues were overbowered with elms, which loved the soil, and which, by the stateliness of their growth, and the deep umbrage of their ample branches, repaid the care with which water from the Tagus was regularly conducted to their roots. That river also supplied numerous fountains, each in the centre of some area, square or circular, hex- or oct-angular, where, in peaceful times, at all hours of the day, some idlers or ruminators were seen on the marble benches, enjoying the shade, and the sight and the sound of the water, which was thrown up by statues of all kinds, appropriate or preposterous, beasts, harpies, sea-horses, Tritons, and heathen gods and goddesses, in jets or curvilinear shoots, intersecting each other, falling in regular forms, sparkling as they played, cooling the air around, and diffusing a sense of freshness even in the hottest noon. In some places the loftiest trees were made to bear a part in these devices of wanton power, the pipes being conveyed to their summit; in others the fountains set music in motion when they played. There was one fountain which served as a monument of one of the proudest victories that had ever been achieved by Spain, the central part being formed from a block of marble which had been taken in one of the Turkish ships at Lepanto. But this was a place where the strength of vegetation made art appear subordinate, and the magnificence which all these elaborate embellishments produced was subservient to delight and comfort. The elms, which were the largest of their kind, had attained a growth which nothing but artificial irrigation in a genial soil and hot climate could have given them. The poplar and the tamarisk flourished in like manner; the latter grew along the banks of the Tagus with peculiar luxuriance. Every approach to Aranjuez was shaded with trees, from which avenues branched off in all directions, opening into glades, and diversified with bowers. Nor was this royal expenditure directed only to the purposes of splendid enjoyment. The Spanish Kings, with an intention better than the success which attended it, endeavoured to improve the agriculture of the country, by setting their subjects an example upon the royal domains. The best fruits in the Peninsula were cultivated for sale in the royal gardens; the finest oil in Spain was produced there, and wine from vineyards of the choicest grapes was collected in cellars of unequalled extent. They had attempted also to naturalize the camel there, and at one time from two to three hundred of these animals fed in the royal pastures, and were occasionally employed for burthen. But though they bred, and appeared to thrive there, the experiment was given up; the native animals, which are reared with so much less cost and care, being better suited to the soil, and surface, and climate of Spain.