The Tagus, the central river of Spain, and which divides its territory into two nearly equal portions, rises from a fountain called the Fuente Garcia, or Pie, on the south side of the Muela de San Juan, between the Sierras de Molina, Albaracin, and San Felipe, the knot of mountains which, as we have indicated above, form the great watershed of the peninsula, whence the waters flow northwards to the Ebro, east and southwards to the Mediterranean, and westwards, in the Tagus and its tributaries, to the Atlantic. Were the whole peninsula of Spain and Portugal one kingdom, the Tagus would be perhaps the most important of its rivers; but in the divided state it is of far more value to Portugal than to Spain. Its swift and turbid current, flowing between steep banks, and in a bed broken into rapids and encumbered by rocks, is scarcely navigable above Abrantes. The basin of the Tagus contains an area of nearly 30,000 square miles, and its length is estimated at about 550. The rainfall is less than that of the Douro, being only sixteen inches annually. The river, moreover, runs by no means in the centre of its basin, but far to the southwards of a central dividing line, and consequently the tributaries which it receives from the north or left bank are of much greater importance than those which come from the south or right. After flowing a few miles in a north-westerly direction, the river gradually bends, first westerly, and then in a slightly south-westerly direction, in a deep channel, through a bare rolling country, where everything takes the prevailing colour of red dusty uplands, until it arrives at Aranjuez, situated at the confluence of the Jarama and the Tagus, a royal residence whose abundance of water and of shade make it a true oasis in a desert. The Jarama, which rises in the Guadarama, brings in also the waters of the Henares, and those of the Manzanares, on which Madrid is situated. These streams have been the subjects of many projects and attempts at canalization, either for irrigation or for supplying the metropolis with water. Most of these have failed, but a canal from Porcal to Aranjuez, of seventeen miles and a half, is in working order. The canal of Cabarrus brings the waters of the Lozoya to Madrid. But the great enterprise of the canal of irrigation from the Henares, constructed by the same English company which made the canal of the Esla, and which was to have been twenty-eight miles in length, and to have irrigated 30,000 acres, is suspended by lawsuits as to the ownership of the waters. The Alberche, which rises to the north of the Sierra de Gredos, enters the Tagus near Talavera de la Reyna. The Tietjar, and the Alagon, which joins the main stream just above Alcantara, beside the frontier stream, the Heyas, are the only Spanish waters of importance from the north before the Tagus enters Portugal; and from the south the Salor and the del Monte, both of which have their rise and course in the same province of Caceres alone