Peniscola, Beniganim, Pego, Olivo, Liria, Asuevar, Orihuela, Gandia, Elche, Castellon, and Vall de Almonacid. Riaño admits, however, that this manufacture might have prospered even more, if means had been adopted to suppress certain acts committed by the weavers, spinners, and twisters of the silk. More curious and instructive is the description of the same industry by Jean-François Bourgoing, whose observations, evidently secured at first-hand, are worth translating _in extenso_:-- "What attracted us still more than the fine-art works were the stuffs produced at the silk-factories, which constitute the principal glory of Valencia and contribute to her prosperous condition. We followed all the process of this manufacture, from the cultivation of the mulberry-tree to the weaving of the richest fabrics. I will try, therefore, to give a comprehensive account of them. "Spain, and particularly the kingdom of Valencia, could well export her silk to foreign parts, even after setting apart a quantity sufficient for her factories. Government, however, does not appear to be convinced of this, because it offers constant hindrance to such exportation, or else, when it consents to it, imposes heavy dues. These dues consist of nine _reales_ and a _quartillo_, or nearly two _livres_ seven _francs_ per each Valencian pound of silk, which only weighs twelve ounces, and is worth at least fifteen _livres_ when it is in the raw state. When the silk harvest has been scanty, as in the year 1784, it has been known to fetch eighty _reales_ or twenty _livres_. This year, too, the yield of silk has been so small that the manufacturers of Valencia petitioned Government to allow the introduction, duty-free, of two hundred thousand pounds of it from Italy and France. "In ordinary years, the pound of (raw) silk costs eight _reales_ for twisting and three _reales_ for dyeing in green, blue or other common colours; so that this material, ready to use, costs altogether about seventy-one _reales_ the pound, or seventeen to eighteen francs of our money. "Of course this price varies according to circumstances. One of the causes which exercise the greatest influence on this fluctuation is the harvest of the mulberry. These valuable trees are thickly planted over the champaign of Valencia, and all of them are of the white-leaved kind. This distinction, which would be superfluous in France, is by no means so in Spain, where, in several provinces, as, for instance, the kingdom of Granada, the leaves of the black mulberry are used to nourish the silkworms, and yield almost as handsome a silk as those of the white.[19]