of the region of the Sierra Nevada, it was pitiable to see these shivering little creatures, the children no doubt of those wretched persons whose hovels I saw excavated in the bank of the river. In the posada at Puerto, I found very civil people, but nothing to eat. They made me a blazing fire of rosemary and the husks of Indian corn--another of the many uses to which this valuable plant is put--they shewed me a good mattress, and the luxury of a bedstead, and they found a peasant to accompany me to the market to buy something for supper. A fowl was procured without difficulty; and this, stewed with rice, and followed by some excellent wine, might have pleased a more fastidious taste than mine. I had also the luxury of the prickly pear; I bought three dozen for 2_d._, and found them delicious. We left Puerto half an hour before sunrise: a rapid descent was carrying us from the regions of cold, into the sunny vale of Lorca, and the transition was equally striking and agreeable. It was now the 2d day of December, but the air was like that of a June morning in England; and as the mist rose from the lower grounds, and disclosed the vale of Lorca, smiling beneath the rays of the new risen sun, the earth, as well as the air, seemed to own the dominion of summer. As we descended into the vale, the change from the high lands, both in the temperature of the air, and in the appearance of every thing around, became more striking: the fields were covered with wheat, fresh and green; olives, and other trees had regained their natural height: and aloes were again seen by the way side. The whole of the vale of Lorca is under cultivation: to the traveller who arrives by way of the snowy Sierra, it appears a paradise; and the situation of Lorca, close under the mountains that bound it on the left, and the fine old castle hanging over it, add greatly to the beauty of the picture.