VALENCIA includes the three provinces of _Castellon de la Plana_, _Valencia_, and _Alicante_, all three lying along the Mediterranean, and facing east and southwards from the mighty buttress sierras which form the eastern wall of the great central plateau. It is in these provinces that we gradually pass from the Mediterranean climate to the "_Tierra caliente_," the warm lands and African products of south-eastern Spain. Here too we meet with the finest Roman remains; and Moorish architecture begins to form a prominent feature in the characteristics of each city. The speech is still a dialect of the Provencal, and the fiery Provencal nature is still apparent in the political history of the cities of Valencia. The hill-sides, bare of trees, are covered either with the esparto grass or with strongly aromatic herbs and shrubs. The rainfall gradually lessens; the streams all assume a torrential character, nearly dry in summer, swollen with rapid floods in winter; but they are greatly utilized for irrigation. By this means are formed the "_huertas_," gardens, and "_vegas_," plains, oases of beauty and fertility lying in the bosom of the barren hills, which serve as frames to pictures as valuable for their productiveness as they are enchanting in their beauty. The chief towns in the province of _Castellon_ are Castellon de la Plana (23,000), Vinaroz (9000), Villareal (8000), both near the Mediterranean; Segorbe on the Palancia, and numerous smaller towns in the interior. Benicarlo and Vinaroz, on the coast to the north of the province, are noted for their excellent red wines, quantities of which are exported to France for mixing with inferior French vintages, whence they find their way to England as Rousillon or Bordeaux. _Valencia_, a city of 143,000 inhabitants, and with a fine artificial harbour called the "_grao_," is the third city in population in Spain; but its commerce is little more than that of Santander and Bilbao, cities only one fourth of its size. The value of British imports, chiefly of coal, cod-fish, guano, and petroleum, in 1878, was 136,450_l_., and of exports, chiefly of fruits to Britain, 524,984_l_. The "_huerta_" of Valencia, with its canals for irrigation, its "_acequias_," "_norias_," and other devices to draw the waters of the Guadalaviar, is one of the most successful examples in Spain of regulated application of water to agriculture. The quantity of water allotted to each property, the hour of opening or closing the sluices, are regulated according to laws and customs descended from Moorish times. So great is the drain upon the streams that the waters of some of the smaller rivers are entirely absorbed in the summer, and even of the Guadalaviar but little then reaches the sea. It is from the _huerta_ of Valencia that the oranges come which form the delight of the population of Paris at the new year; hence are the raisins and the almonds and candied fruits equally dear to the British housekeeper.