“The men are hatless. Some wear black or dark-coloured handkerchiefs bound round their heads, but all hold their broad-brimmed hats in their hands. No one smokes or talks till the bidding recommences, and even those in the street are silent and bareheaded. It is easy to see that all are peasants. Heads are closely cropped; here are no beards or moustaches, no one wears a collar, and most carry a cloak other than the aristocratic _capa_ on the shoulders or arm. It is a curious and impressive sight enough these bronzed physiognomies, animated by one desire to obtain, as cheaply as may be, possession of the supreme good, water.” Such is the province of Murcia in the twentieth century. When vegetation depended only on the sun and very infrequent rain, the land can have been very little better than an arid wilderness. And yet its possession has from the earliest times been a matter of keen dispute. To the early inhabitants have always been ascribed those simple guileless virtues with which the eighteenth century endowed the noble savage. Like the high-souled inhabitants of More’s “Utopia,” they used the gold and silver, in which their mountains abounded, for the meanest articles of domestic use. But this admirable custom seems unfortunately to have been based on mere ignorance of the value of their treasures. More sophisticated were the Phœnicians, who scented the precious metals from afar, and here, as everywhere, established their commercial centres. Next, the Greeks swooped down and planted colonies, rivalry between the two races precipitating the fierce conflict between their respective allies, the Carthaginians and the Romans. New Carthage, or Cartagena, was founded by Hasdrubal; his son made it the starting-place of his famous march to Rome. The city made a brave resistance to Scipio, and its fall marked the downfall of the Carthaginian in Spain. As an outpost of the Roman Empire this district was one of the first abandoned to the attacks of the barbarians. Under the Visigoths it became a duchy with the name of Aurariola, which offered so determined a resistance to the Mussulman that it was enabled to retain its independence, subject merely to the Khalifa as suzerain. Here, as in so many Iberian sieges, the women played no small part. Dressed as men, they paraded the walls of the city: and by this stratagem enabled Duke Theodomir to obtain such favourable terms. Perpetuating the memory of this Duke, the province lasted under the name of Todmir some sixty-eight years as a self-governing State. But the last governors allied themselves with Charlemagne. Arab invaders poured in, who soon swamped the Christian population and Todmir was completely absorbed into the Moslem Empire.