NEW CASTILE and LA MANCHA comprise the five modern provinces of _Ciudad Real_, _Toledo_, _Madrid_, _Cuenca_, and _Guadalajara_, which all take their names from their chief towns. The province of _Ciudad Real_, which lies between the Sierra de Morena and the mountains of Toledo, is traversed by the Guadiana. It is the most thinly populated of all the provinces of Spain, having only thirteen inhabitants to the square kilometre; but it is by no means the least wealthy. It contains within it the quicksilver-mines of Almaden (9000), the richest deposit in the world before the late discoveries in California. They were a source of revenue to the Spanish crown for centuries, with an annual rent of over a quarter of a million. They were however mortgaged by the Government for thirty years in order to raise a loan of 2,318,000_l._ at five per cent., to be extinguished in 1900. The average annual extract is estimated at 12,000 tons of mercury. The vineyards round Valdepenas (11,000) supply the red wine which is the favourite beverage of the Spaniards throughout the centre and the south, and the home consumption of which is far beyond that of the sherries. Almagro (14,000) is known for its lace manufacture; but Ciudad-Real, the capital (12,000), is fallen from its ancient importance. Damiel (13,000) and Manzanares (9000) are the only other towns that need mention. _Toledo_ (21,000), watered by the Tagus, was for centuries the most important city of Spain. It is here that the great councils which really regulated the civil as well as the ecclesiastical administration of Spain, from the fourth to the eighth centuries were held. Here too was one of the centres of Arabic civilization: the waterworks, clocks, and observatory of Toledo were among the wonders of the world from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, and even after its capture by the Christians, in 1085, the conqueror seemed for a while to have fallen under the same spell. The court of Alfonso X., the Wise, was a semi-Moorish court, and his tolerance excited the indignant wonder of travellers from other parts of Europe. Moorish and Christian architecture is still most strangely blended in many of its buildings, and Moorish architects were long employed to keep in repair not only the structures which their ancestors had raised, but even the Christian churches. The skill of its ironworkers and the temper of its sword-blades were renowned throughout Europe. The superiority of its steel was said to be due to some peculiar virtue of the water of the Tagus used in tempering; but the best of the iron was taken from the mines of Mondragon, in Guipuzcoa. The manufactory has greatly fallen from its ancient splendour, but some good weapons are still made, though they cannot compete in price with British or foreign goods. The insurrection of its inhabitants under the "Comuneros" in 1520, in defence of the ancient constitutional liberties of Castille probably determined the selection of the more obsequious