As for the number of churches and convents in Orihuela, its superstition, and demoralization, I can speak only of the first; but it is highly probable, that where priests and friars so much abound, superstition and bigotry should abound also. I walked into the parish church of St. Augusta; and found a most unusual concourse of persons at prayer; there was not a saint around the church who had not found several worshippers; and I noticed that in one of the larger chapels, where mass was then performing, the devout people of Orihuela were not contented with the lowest prostration, but beat their breasts in an agony of devotion; and I have no doubt that if any one had set the example of flagellation, it would have been followed with spirit and effect. In returning from the church, I saw two boys in the habits of Augustin friars; and the population of the town appeared to possess in an uncommon degree, the character of idleness, and its attendant, poverty. No one seemed to have any thing to do, and no one had the air of being anxious to do any thing. The men had taken to themselves, their winter cloaks; and although the weather was so warm, that when walking in advance of the tartana, I sedulously sought out the shade, every one stood with his back to a sunny wall, folded up to the nose, and immoveable, unless when a friar passing by, demanded a salutation of reverence. At the Posada, at Orihuela, I succeeded in getting a little milk for the first time since leaving Seville, and made ready my chocolate in the English fashion. Nothing is so difficult to be had in Spain, as milk. Cows’ milk is a luxury not to be dreamed of, excepting in the very largest cities; and even goats’ milk is far from plentiful; milk, in fact, is an aliment of which the Spaniards make no use. From Orihuela, I skirted the Huerta, passing close under the range of hills that bound it on the north; and noticing a cross on the summit of a perpendicular rock, and another beneath it, I inquired of the muleteer, the cause of their erection,--and he in reply, told me a melancholy story, how a certain friar of Orihuela was grievously tempted by the flesh; and how he dreamt, that to escape from temptation, he must go to the brow of a certain mountain--a dream that was doubtless sent by the devil,--and how that when he arrived there, the damsel who stood between him and heaven, was waiting for him; and how he, being a holy man, and seeing no means of escape but one, commended himself to the saints, and leapt from the summit of the rock; but the saints, unwilling that he should commit suicide, even to escape from another deadly sin, bore him up, and he walked back to the convent. But every day he returned to this rock to pray; and when he died, his body was miraculously conveyed from the convent to that spot, beneath which it was buried.