The principal and opulent inhabitants of this country, in order to excite certain desires, are frequently in the habit of receiving, from their own doctors, several strong and powerful stimulants, to the infallible detriment and ultimate, destruction of their constitutions. I have been at great pains to deter them from these abominable habits, by representing to them their ill effects and fatal consequences; but as they all appear to have a great propensity for a short life and a merry one, I fear my advice has been thrown away, for I have daily the most pressing and importunate solicitations from all classes of people, both young and old, to give them the medicines I have alluded to:--but 1 must here be clearly understood, that debauchery which exists in all the principal towns of this country in a superlative degree, does not extend to the inland and mountainous parts, where the morals are pure, and the people remarkably healthy, strong, and robust, living to a very advanced age, and scarcely ever afflicted with any disease excepting cutaneous disorders, to which they are very subject. The great abuse of blood-letting on all trifling occasions, practised by the rich inhabitants, produces very bad effects. There is a well in the neighbourhood of this town, which possesses a great many medicinal virtues; and though I have not been able to ascertain its mineral qualities, I have found, by using the water, that it is extremely friendly to the stomach, that it excites appetite and digestion, and lively spirits; that it is efficacious in the cure of gravel and nephritic complaints; and in cases of foulness of the blood, I have found it superior to any mineral waters I have met with in Europe. It has completely cured my Jew servant of a most inveterate scurvy, under which he had laboured for a very considerable time. Notwithstanding the Moors possess this inestimable treasure near one of their most opulent and populous cities, yet, owing to fabulous tales, handed down by tradition from one generation to another, these superstitious people will never drink or disturb the water; to do so is reckoned sacrilege, and the offender is severely punished: for they positively affirm, that one of their great saints has been transmuted into it, and that at some distant period he will resume his natural form, to perform a great many miracles, and to render the Moors rich and happy, more so indeed than Mahomet has promised them in the other world.