and beauty of its products, can be best seen in a visit to a fruit or flower market in any of the towns of the south and east. The richness of colour, the size and beauty of form, are amazing to the stranger; but the quantity and the cheapness, the way in which these fruits and exotic vegetables enter into the diet of the poor, is that which most astonishes those from less generous climes. We have not space to enumerate in detail a tithe of these productions; this must be sought in more special treatises. Almost equal in agricultural and garden wealth to that of the coast-line, and superior to it as regards the culture of the vine, is the valley of the Guadalquiver. The oranges of Seville (the civil oranges of our forefathers, the main ingredient of marmalade), sack, and sherry, are known in every English home of the middle and upper classes. It is in the valley of the Guadalquiver, from San Lucar de Barameda to above Cordova, that the finest sherries are produced. From San Lucar comes the pleasant Manzanilla, the lightest and most wholesome of all the sherries, but with a peculiar bitter taste and bouquet, like that of the wild camomile-flower. In the neighbourhood of Jerez de la Frontera the best sherries are produced, both brown and golden; the Amontillado, the nutty-flavoured wine so much sought after, comes from Montilla, to the south of Cordova. Several other kinds are manufactured, and have a great local reputation. Comparatively very little of these strong and fiery wines is consumed in Spain. Spaniards take them only as a liqueur, not as the usual accompaniment of a meal or desert. Sherry, though grown in Spain, is the foreigner's, and especially the Englishman's wine. The red Valdepenas, from the northern slope of the Sierra Morena, replaces it at the Spaniard's table. For the modes of preparation of the various sherries, we must refer our readers to special treatises; of its statistics as an article of commerce we shall speak in another chapter. The first palm-tree introduced into Spain is said to have been planted near Cordova. The olives of this district are considered the finest in Spain. Comparatively little of the oil is exported, but the home consumption is enormous. The cork forests, too, are abundant; their bark forms an important article of commerce.