The scene changes constantly: now he threads a half-dried watercourse, thick with palmetto and gum cistus; now he makes the slow circuit of a series of little rocky bays washed by the tideless calm of the blue sea; now he breasts the steep slope, the seemingly perilous ascent of bold cliffs, along which winds the track made centuries since when the most direct was deemed the shortest way to anywhere in spite of the difficulties that intervened. Malaga as a seaport and place of settlement can claim almost fabulous antiquity. It was first founded by the Phoenicians three thousand years ago, and a continuous existence of thirty centuries fully proves the wisdom of their choice. Its name is said to be Phoenician, and is differently derived from a word meaning salt, and another which would distinguish it as "the king's town." From the earliest ages Malaga did a thriving business in salt fish; its chief product and export were the same anchovies and the small _boquerones_, not unlike an English whitebait, which are still the most highly prized delicacies of the Malaga fish market. Southern Spain was among the richest and most valued of Phoenician possessions. It was a mine of wealth to them, the Tarshish of Biblical history from which they drew such vast supplies of the precious metals that their ships carried silver anchors. Hiram, King of Tyre, was a sort of goldsmith to Solomon, furnishing the wise man's house with such stores of gold and silver utensils that silver was "accounted nothing therein," as we read in the First Book of Kings. When the star of Tyre and Sidon waned, and Carthage became the great commercial center of the Mediterranean, it controlled the mineral wealth of Spain and traded largely with Malaga. Later, when Spain passed entirely into Roman hands, this southern province of Boetica grew more and more valuable, and the wealth of the country passed through its ports eastward to the great marts of the world. Malaga however, was never the equal either in wealth or commercial importance of its more eastern and more happily placed neighbor Almeria. The latter was the once famous "Portus Magnus," or Great Port, which monopolized most of the maritime traffic with Italy and the more distant East. But Malaga rose in prosperity as Roman settlers crowded into Boetica, and Roman remains excavated in and around the town attest the size and importance of the place under the Romans. It was a municipium, had a fine ampitheater, the foundations of which were laid bare long afterwards in building a convent, while many bronzes, fragments of statuary, and Roman coins found from time to time prove the intimate relations between Malaga and the then Mistress of the World. The Goths, who came next, overran Boetica, and although their stay was short, they rechristened the province, which is still known by their name, the modern Andal-, or Vandalucia. Malaga was a place of no importance in the time of