improved the Andalusian steed into one of the most excellent in Europe for riding, and the strain may still be traced even in the ponies of the north. But the cultivated vegetation of the south which meets the stranger's eye is perhaps still more indebted to the Americas.[1] It needs an effort now to picture what Spanish agriculture and what Spanish life was before the time of Columbus, when maize, and the potato, and sweet potato, were unknown; when not a cigar was smoked or cigarette made, or leaf of tobacco grown in Spain; when only garlic was known, and those indispensable condiments of every dish, the tomato, and the pimentos had not yet entered a Spanish kitchen, and chocolate had not yet been sipped by Spanish ladies; when the hedges were bare of aloes, and the prickly pear gave the beggar no fruit. And besides these common gifts, there are the more luxurious ones of pine apples, grenadines (the fruit of the passion-flower), abocado pears, chirimoyas, guavas, earth-nuts, bananas, and many others, while the gardens are enriched with magnolias and passion-flowers, and a wealth of creepers of all kinds. The Australian eucalypti, also, are highly valued in Spain, both as a febrifuge and for their prophylactic qualities in prevention of malaria in marshy ground; and a decoction from their leaves has quite passed into the popular pharmacopeia. [1] For the converse of this, the plants and fruits introduced by the Spaniards into America, see Markham's "Peru," in this series, p. 120.