One of my mornings I devoted to a walk to the huerta, which lies about two miles to the east of the city. It is about three miles in diameter,--the sea forming its southern boundary, and the mountains entirely closing round it on the west, north, and east. With so favourable a situation, and irrigated from a reservoir formed in the mountains, this huerta will scarcely yield in productiveness to any of the most favoured spots in Spain. Besides a constant succession of crops of grain, barley, wheat, and maize,--of flax, and of the various esculents used at the table, this little plain is thickly strewn with every kind of fruit tree,--orange, lemon, fig, almond, pomegranate, apricot, and with innumerable mulberry and olive trees. But the greatest novelty of this plain consists in the many delightful country houses that are scattered over it; these belong to the merchants of the city; and one object of ambition for which every one in Alicant strives, is to possess a country house in the huerta. Exposed, however, as the huerta is to the southern sun, I should think the pride in such a possession must be greater than the pleasure. I was greatly amused by the history of a law-suit that was pending while I was at Alicant. A certain rich proprietor having died about six months before, left money to the church, sufficient to purchase twelve thousand masses for his soul; but after a few of these had been said, the masses were discontinued, and the process was brought by the heir to recover the sum left for the masses, the church having failed to fulfil the condition upon which the money was bequeathed. The defence set up was sufficiently singular:--Those upon whom the duty of saying these masses devolved, willing to be excused from the labour, interceded with the bishop, who interceded with his holiness the pope: the defence against the claim was the production of the pope’s letter, which declared, by his sovereign authority, that the celebration of _twelve_ masses should have the same effect, and be as beneficial to the soul of the deceased as the celebration of _twelve thousand masses_. The decision upon the case had not been given when I left Alicant; but as it involved a question touching the pope’s spiritual power, the probabilities are, that his holiness would prove an overmatch for the heir. The argument of the counsel in support of the claim was merely non-fulfilment of the stipulated duty; while the argument for the church was, that the deceased had intended to benefit his soul to a certain extent, for which he left a certain sum of money; and that since his soul was benefited to the same extent by the performance of _twelve_, as of _twelve thousand_ masses, the intention of the deceased was equally fulfilled, and the money, therefore, equally the property of those who fulfilled it. But this evidently leaves room for a rejoinder, as to the power and value of the pope’s letter.