which admit of being readily flooded; mulberry plantations abound for the silk-worm, from which a large amount of raw silk is obtained for native manufactures and exportation; and the rich pastures of the Milanese are celebrated for dairy produce. In central Italy, an extensive area of the lowlands, comprising the Tuscan Maremma and Roman Campagna, luxuriantly sustains a rank vegetation, but cannot be inhabited by man in the summer months, owing to its pestilential exhalations, mainly due to the absence of cultivation, as formerly the district was occupied with Etruscan and Volscian towns. Through nearly the whole of Italy the vine is common, but especially in the warm climate of the south of Sicily, where it appears in connection with the olive, orange, lemon, date-palm, sugar-cane, and cotton plant.-The country has long been the centre of papal influence. Memorials of the great apostasy appear in crucifixes planted along the high roads, shrines decked with the emblems of superstition, common by the wayside, as well as along the streets of the towns, and in swarms of priests and monks. The number of the clergy has been rated at 500,000, amounting to nearly one in every forty of the population, forming a class notoriously suspected of using the confessional to promote sinister and immoral purposes. Under their influence, and with a religious system which interdicts religious knowledge, and substitutes penances and indulgences for the moral virtues, the prevalence of licentious habits among the people can excite no surprise. Recent political events have worn an aspect favourable to social improvement and religious reform. In the course of an eager though ill-conducted struggle for popular liberty, the Italians have found the ecclesiastics to be its sternest foes, and their hold upon the population has in consequence very sensibly declined. Intolerance has been compelled in some quarters to relax its grasp, and allow, as in Sardinia, the free circulation of Bibles and religious books, which formerly could only be introduced into the country as contraband goods. Present appearances, indeed, indicate the re-establishment of political and religious despotism in the States of the Church and the neighbouring duchies by a foreign military, but it is scarcely probable that it will be restored without important modifications, or if otherwise, that its dominion can be lasting. The mass of the inhabitants of Italy, and its islands, are Greco-Latins, descended from the ancient races, with an admixture of Saracenic blood in Sicily, Spanish in Sardinia, and German in Upper Italy. There are a few pure foreign colonies, consisting of Albanians in Calabria, Catalans in Sardinia, Germans at the foot of the Tyrolese Alps, Jews and Gypsies scattered, and the Vaudois of French extraction. The written language of Italy, or the proper Italian, differs from the spoken, which consists of a number of dialects widely differing from each other. The educated classes speak, in general, the living dialect of the state to which they belong, Neapolitan, Tuscan, or Genoese; but speak also the proper Italian, which is learned as an ordinary branch of education. Both the written and the spoken languages are based substantially upon the Latin. The Calabrian dialect has many Greek words; the Neapolitan few; the Sicilian both Greek and Arabic. Italy imports more British and produce manufactures than any other European country except Germany. The principal exports are silk, olive-oil, rice, fruits, and the Lombard cheese, improperly called Parmasan. The universities in the order of their establishment, are Bologna, founded in 1119, the most ancient in Italy; Padua, 1221; Naples, 1224; Rome, 1248; Perugia, 1307; Pisa, 1330; Siena, 1358; Pavia, 1361; Turin, 1412; Catania, 1445; Palermo, 1447; Cagliari, 1764; Sassari, 1765; Genoa, 1812. The railways at present in operation extend from Venice, by Padua to Vicenza; from Milan to Monza; from Milan to Treviglio; from Leghorn, by Pisa to Florence; from Pisa to Lucca; from Naples to Capua; and from Naples to Pompeii and Castellamare. The wolf is found in the Apennines; the wild boar in Calabria. SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 272. The kingdoms of Spain and Portugal occupy a peninsula in the south-west of Europe, anciently called the Iberian, now the Spanish peninsula, from that country embracing a vast proportion of the area. On the north, the isthmus traversed by the Pyrenees connects it with France; on the south, the strait of Gibraltar separates it from the adjacent shores of Africa; eastward the Mediterranean constitutes the boundary; and westward, the Atlantic, from the Strait to the French territory. The peninsula forms an irregular square, and was not unhappily compared by the ancients on account of its shape to a bull's hide. Its greatest extent from east to west amounts to 630 miles, and from north to south 530 miles. The superficial area is computed at 216,000 square miles, which exceeds the area of France, and is nearly twice that of the British isles. 273. The country is eminently a region of high lands. The lofty Pyrenees, crowned with snows and glaciers, rise on the north-east to the height of 11,427 feet in the Pic Néthou, the eastern summit of Mount Maladetta. This chain is remarkable for having all its great valleys transverse, or in a direction opposite to that of the principal range, depressions usually marking the heads of the valleys, which constitute the natural passes from one side of the mountains to the other, commonly designated puertos, ports or gates. The Pyrenees extend from the Mediterranean along the whole of the frontier towards France, and are prolonged to the western limits of Spain at Cape Finisterre by a lower range, running parallel to the Bay of Biscay. Four other chains traverse great part of the peninsula, with a general direction from east to west. The most important are the Sierra Guadarrama, or Castilian mountains, extending through the centre from the borders of Arragon, through Portugal, to the rock of Lisbon; and the Sierra Nevada, stretching through the south, from the confines of Murcia, to the coast between Gibraltar and Cadiz. This last range contains the highest point of the whole peninsula, the Cerro de Mulhaçen, to the south-east of Granada, which reaches the elevation of 11,665 feet.-The distinguishing prefixes attached to the names of many of the Spanish mountains refer to their configuration. Sierra, a saw, denotes a serrated range; pic, a pointed height; and cerro, a hog-backed hill.-The central districts comprising Old and New Castile, consist of high table-land occupied with cities and towns at a remarkable elevation, the site of Aranjuez being 1,698 feet above the level of the sea, Madrid, 2,170, Segovia, 2,878, and Hourubia, 3,460. But the royal palace of the Escurial, apparently on a plain, has an elevation of 3,520 feet, very little lower than the crest of Snowdon; and La Granja, the summer residence of the Spanish sovereigns, is elevated 3,943 feet. This would appear a castle in the air if isolated, being sixty feet higher than the summit of Vesuvius.-The large rivers, according to their magnitude, with their lengths, are as follows:the Tagus, 600 miles; Douro, 500; Ebro, 400; Guadiana, 420; and Guadalquivir, 320, all flowing generally westward to the Atlantic, except the Ebro, which has an eastern course to the Mediterranean.-The country contains no lakes of consequence, but large circular pools are numerous in the Pyrenees, called by the mountaineers oules, pots or boilers, some of which occur at great heights, and are encumbered with ice all the year round. 274. The kingdom of Spain embraces nearly five-sixths of the peninsula, and contains a population of about 12,000,000. By royal decree dated November 30, 1833, it was divided into forty-nine provinces, but the old division into fourteen great districts is still popularly retained. Leon Biscay Cities and Towns. .Madrid, Toledo, Talavera. Burgos, Valladolid. Oviedo, Gijon. .....Leon, Salamanca, Ciudad Rodrigo. ............... Bilboa, St. Sebastian, Vittoria. Navarre................................................................................ Pampeluna, Tudela. Arragon... ......................................................................Saragossa. Catalonia .................Barcelona, Tarragona, Tortosa. Murcia.......................................Murcia, Carthagena. Estremadura ...Granada, Malaga. ....Seville, Cadiz, Cordova. ..Badajoz, Merida. 275. Madrid, in lat. 40° 25′ N. and long. 3° 40′ w. in the centre of the monarchy, was declared the capital by an ordonnance of Philip II. in the year 1563, and has now upwards of 220,000 inhabitants. It occupies an uneven sterile site, on a small stream called the Manzanares, which flows into the Tagus, but is nearly dry in the summer months. There are some wide differences in national character between the maritime and inland population of Spain; and between the inhabitants of the north and south; but to a great extent, the Spaniards are proud, ignorant, indolent, treacherous, revengeful, and cruel. The last feature is mournfully conspicuous in the religious annals of the country, in the history of the colonies, and it now appears in the passionate attachment of the people to the bullfight. The islands connected with Spain are the Balearic, in the Mediterranean, consisting of Majorca, Minorca, Ivica, and others, constituting a distinct province; and the isle of Leon, off the south-west coast, forming with it the Bay of Cadiz, and containing that city.-Part of the mainland of Spain, consisting of the Rock of Gibraltar, at the entrance of the Mediterranean, belongs to Great Britain, and has been held since its capture in the year 1704. The rock has a circuit of about seven miles, and rises nearly 1,500 feet. Its summit has long been occupied by a colony of the monkey species, the only example of the animal wild in Europe.-The Spanish monarchy was formed in the year 1516, when the separate sovereignties of Arragon, Castile, and Leon, were united in the person of Don Carlos I., who was the first king of Spain, better known in history as the emperor Charles v. The form of govern ment is a limited monarchy, the national assembly or the Cortes consisting of two chambers. Reigning sovereign, Isabella 11., came to the throne a minor in 1833. Barcelona, a port of the Mediterranean, is the largest city in the kingdom after the capital.-Population, 120,000. Seville, in Lower Andalusia, on the Guadalquivir, is one of the most ancient, containing many Moorish remains. Andalusia is an Arabic softening of Vandalusia, the name given to the south of Spain upon its conquest by the Vandals.— Population, 90,000. Granada, on the Darro, is remarkable as the capital of the last Moorish kingdom in Spain, still containing the palace of the kings, called the Alhambra, the finest monument of Arabian architecture existing. The banner of Castile first floated on its towers, January 2, 1492.-Population, 80,000. Valencia, on the Guadalaviar, near its outfall in the Mediterranean, is an important maritime and manufacturing city, with a flourishing university.— Population, 66,000. Malaga, on the south coast, the chief port of the province of Granada, is celebrated for its wines and fruits, largely exported.-Population, 60,000. Cadiz, on the Isle de Leon, off the south-west coast, supposed to have been founded by the Phoenicians, is the principal commercial city and port of the kingdom. Population, 58.000. Cordova, the Roman Corduba, on the Guadalquivir, is noted for its Moorish mosque of extraordinary splendour; Segovia, at the north base of the Castilian Mountains, for the grand aqueduct of Trajan; Salamanca, on the Tormes, for its ancient and once celebrated university: Toledo, a decayed city, on the Tagus, for its vast cathedral; Saragossa, on the Ebro, for its heroic resistance to the French in 1808; Badajoz, on the Guadiana, for its dreadful storm by the British in 1812; and Tarifa, a port west of Gibraltar, for being the most southerly point of Europe. At Almaden, in the province of La Mancha, there are quicksilver mines, supposed to be the richest in Europe, which have been open since the time of the Romans. At Cardona, towards the Pyrenees, rock-salt occurs in immense masses. Spain produces more lead than any other European country, and its stores of iron are quite as great.-Oranges, lemons, dried fruits, wines, oils, cork, lead, and quicksilver, are the principal exports.-The cork-tree, a species of oak, quercus suber, of which the cork is the bark, is very abundant in the peninsula. The only railway in the country extends from Barcelona to Mataro, 173 miles. 276. The kingdom of Portugal has a very limited area, amounting to little more than one-sixth of the peninsula, with a population of 3,500,000. It is divided into six provinces: Provinces. Cities and Towns. Estremadura Alentejo ..Lisbon, Setubal, Santarem. Beira..... .................................................................Coimbra, Castelo-Branco. Lisbon, the capital, in lat. 38° 40′ N., and long. 9° w., beautifully situated upon the north bank of the estuary of the Tagus, contains upwards of 270,000 inhabitants. It was almost entirely destroyed in a few minutes by the great |