Still continuing to pass through the rich vale, we gradually approached the ancient Saguntum; and passing a thick olive wood, where I observed two Franciscan friars tending a flock of sheep, we wound round the base of the hill upon which the fortress stands, and entered the town. One can scarcely be accused of affectation in saying that this spot, so connected with the most momentous periods in Carthagenian and Roman history, cannot be viewed with indifference; and I hastened to leave the posada and ascend the hill. The hill of Saguntum, about a mile and a half long, and less than a quarter of a mile broad, is now surmounted by a modern fortress; but mingled with its walls, and covering other parts of the summit of the hill, and strewing its sides, the ruins of the ancient Saguntum are every where visible. The most entire among these ruins, though quite a ruin, is the theatre; parts of the outer walls are still standing, and the seats hewn out of the rock, are likely to remain for ever. I ascended to the summit by a steep ascent, but by a good road, constructed from the town to the fortress, where I was admitted after a little hesitation. Even if there had been no vestige of antiquity here, the view from the summit would have well repaid the labour of the ascent; for the wide, rich, and populous plain of Valencia stretched before me, bounded, forty miles distant, by the mountains of San Felipe,--the city in its centre; the sea, almost washing the foot of the hill, spread towards the south, bounded by the horizon; while to the north and east, ruins spread over the fore-ground, backed by a range of romantic mountains; and the coast of Valencia, stretched in a long curve of green and wooded fertility, till no longer distinguishable from the waters that laved it.