The BASQUE PROVINCES (Las Provincias Vascongadas) are _Biscay_, _Guipuzcoa_, and _Alava_. The union of the three is often represented by a symbol like the heraldic bearings of the Isle of Man; and they are, with Navarre and the French Pays Basque, the home of the Basque race, but only one province, Guipuzcoa, is _wholly_ inhabited by them. _Biscay_ has for its chief town the busy mining city of Bilbao (32,000) on the Nervion, with a commerce of over 2,000,000_l._ annual value, notwithstanding an inferior harbour, exceeding that of Santander. The chief mines, iron, are in the Somorrostro district, a few miles to the east of the city, and they are worked mainly by English, French, or German companies. In 1879 the exports from Bilbao amounted to 1,160,248 tons of iron minerals, while the imports included 72,196 tons of English coke and coal, chiefly for the use of the mines. In this province is the Oak of Guernica, where the Spanish sovereigns swore to observe the constitutional privileges or _fueros_ of the Basques. The chief city of _Guipuzcoa_ is San Sebastian (21,000), a sea-port with a strong citadel. Of less commercial importance than Bilbao, it is much frequented in summer as a city of pleasure; the town has been almost wholly rebuilt since the siege of 1813. The province, though almost wholly agricultural, and famous for its cider and apple orchards, contains also some mines, and a few manufactures grouped round its old capital, Tolosa (8000). Eibar and Plasencia, two small manufacturing towns on the Deva, have preserved the art of inlaying iron with gold and silver, and are noted for their manufacture of fire-arms. _Alava_ has but one town of importance, Vitoria (25,000), a picturesque city at the foot of the Cantabrian Mountains and the head of the fertile plains of the Upper Rioja. These two districts, the Riojas, divided by the Ebro, are noted for their wines, which need only more careful preparation to become an important article of commerce; at present they are chiefly exported to Bordeaux, for mixing with inferior French wines, to be re-exported as claret to England. NAVARRE, the only other province where Basque is spoken, once formed part of a petty kingdom which stretched on both sides of the Pyrenees, and of which the Spanish portion was definitely secured to Spain by the Duke of Alva in the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic, in 1512, has Pampeluna (25,000), a fortified city of Roman origin, for its capital. The upper part of Navarre is extremely mountainous, but it contains some useful iron-mines, and a Government foundry at Orbaiceta. The southern parts, along the banks of the Arga, and in the valley of the Ebro, are extremely fertile; but at the south-eastern corner in the Bardenas Reales, we encounter a series of bare, stony hills, scored with deep ravines, and on which nothing will grow, the first of the desert tracks so common in Spain. Tudela (9000) on the opposite side of the Ebro, is united to the rest of the province