over the Tagus, and Caesar, he tells us, came hither upon his tour in Spain, and in a quarrel with the praetor, Aulus, was beaten and departed "feeling a great weight on his heart, and longed for great power to come back and vanquish Aulus, and revenge himself of his wrongs." Rasis also mentions "the marvellous bridge of Toledo" at the time of the Moorish conquest, "most subtly wrought, that in truth he saw nothing to equal it in all Spain." The town he describes as "a very good city, extremely pleasant, and very strong and well fortified." Every man was well off, and the workmen were paid. The air was so sanative and dry that wheat could remain ten years in cover without rotting. Alcocer describes Toledo, the head of Spain, as a town mightily privileged by nature, placed in the centre of the land "like the heart in the human body"; a city, "high, rough, most firm and inexpugnable, founded upon a high mountain and on brave and hard rocks, round which turns the most famous Tagus, which forms a horse shoe, the town thus being nearly an island." He waxes eloquent on the theme of the land's fertility and freshness, the abundance of fruit trees, the mines of various metals, the quantities of stone, lime, wood, and every facility for building. Theodoric, the King of Italy, he tells us, came to Toledo to see for himself if report had not exaggerated its wonders, if it really were the strong and noble city rumour described it. So delighted with both town and people was this Ostrogothic sovereign that he took for second wife a wealthy lady of Toledo, Sancha, and was married in great pomp in the city. But we are less inclined to believe Alcocer when he assures us that Toledo declined from the hour of Moorish conquest, "for those barbarians knew nothing of architecture(!), and laid out narrow, little streets, and built vile little houses, no less ugly and filthy." O worthy Alcocer, if he could but know that now the very Spaniards themselves, in the interests of art and loveliness, lament the expulsion of the Moors, and humbly admit that all they learnt of civilisation came from those same adorable "barbarians!"