The kingdom of LEON is divided into five provinces, _Salamanca_, _Valladolid_, _Zamora_, _Palencia_, _Leon_. _Salamanca_ lies along the Portuguese frontier, which is here formed by the Rivers Douro and Agueda. The city (15,000) was famous throughout the early part of the Middle Ages for its university and for its Arabic and Hebrew learning. It thus became in popular estimation the home of magic and of the black arts, and as such its name is found in the folk-lore tales of many parts of Europe; its students, poor, riotous, and witty, made it the birthplace of the peculiar, picaresque romance literature of Spain, from Lazarillo de Tormes to Gil Blas. Like all the Spanish provincial universities, it is but the shadow of its former self, nor does the city preserve any of the older features which still make Toledo a delight to the tourist. Its old bridge over the Tormes is said to date from Roman times. Bejar (8000) does a fair trade as a manufactory of cloth. Ciudad Rodrigo (5000) is one of the strongest fortresses of Spain, and guards, with Badajoz, the frontier against Portugal. The provinces of Salamanca and Zamora contain some of the most peculiar and picturesque peasantry yet remaining in Spain; even around Salamanca the festal dresses of the Charros and Charras are rich with gold and silver ornaments of Moorish type. In the valley of the Batuecas, amid the Sierra de Gata, the Hurdes, and to the west of Zamora, the Sayagos, and again, the Maragatos, to the north-west of the province, in the mountains of Leon, are all remnants of ancient races, preserving habits and tribal customs and laws, differing from their neighbours, and well worthy of the study, as survivals, of the comparative ethnologist. The contrabandistas of the province are among the boldest in Spain; they cross the Douro and its deep ravine, sometimes on rafts or on inflated skins; at others, when the river is in flood, in baskets suspended from ropes flung across the whole ravine. _Zamora_ (10,000), formerly a strong walled city on the Douro, in a rich country, notwithstanding the rail which unites it to the Medina del Campo, still remains one of the decaying towns of Spain. Toro (9000), higher up the stream, is a busier town. A great impulse will probably be given to all this district, now one of the most behindhand in Spain, by the completion of the Portuguese lines of Beira-alta, connecting Lisbon and Oporto with Paris by the North Spanish lines. Benavente (5000), on the Esla, is the only other town we have to notice.