The smaller churches are interesting enough, but not striking, and the visitor will do well to prefer the almost deserted Picture Gallery. Until the name of Velasquez dwarfed that of every other Spanish artist, Valencia boasted a school of painting second to none in the country. Ribalta, Juanes, Ribera, Espinosa, and Orrente all lived and loved and painted in the old kingdom. The story of Ribalta is romantic. The son of a ploughman, he deemed himself on the high road to fortune when he entered a Valencian studio as a pupil. But alas! the black eyes and pretty figure of his master’s daughter proved more alluring than canvas virgins. Ribalta was dismissed the studio in disgrace. He wandered towards Italy, the land of promise, and studied under the brothers Carracci. Some years later he returned. His mistress was in possession of the studio, her father having gone out. A wooden and lifeless Madonna stood on an easel. Ribalta seized a brush and painted furiously until sunset, and when the artist returned a masterpiece was awaiting him. Astonishment, admiration, tears, and gratitude--no artist could forbid his daughter’s _fiançailles_ with a man of genius. Ribalta afterwards devoted his whole life to the adornment of the churches of his native kingdom. But Valencia is hardly less distinguished for its theatre than for its painting. Here at the end of the sixteenth century was founded the celebrated society of “Nocturnes” which welcomed the youth of Lope de Vega. Guillen de Castro was its head, a man of wit and honourable family, whose adventurous life ended in the gutter. He is best known as the author of _Las Mocedades del Cid_, a tedious drama with a fine heroic touch, whence Corneille drew his inspiration. Leaving Valencia we run southward as far as Alcira without a stop. Here we cross the Jucar, which strikes terror into the hearts of the townsfolk. Rising in the rainy season with terrible rapidity, with constant shiftings of its channel, it sweeps over the countryside, swallowing up whole villages in its destructive, impetuous course. When the sky grows black and the river starts to rise, the panic-stricken inhabitants run to the churches and seize the images. Then with frenzied prayers to the _Pare San Bernard_, they dip the holy forehead in the water, hoping to stay the onrush of the torrent. But the inundated country to-day will in a few years bear heavy rice crops and luxuriant orchards. The swampy unhealthy lagoon, the Albufera (which gave its name to one of Napoleon’s marshals) is becoming filled up with the _débris_ brought down from the mountains. Soon it, too, will be a fertile huerta. Meanwhile, trees are being planted on the rugged hill-side, a wise measure which it is hoped will check the violence of the floods and the denudation of the arid soil.