VALENCIA del Cid is inseparably connected with the hero of Spanish romance, Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar, to give him his real name, "Cid" being a corruption of the Moorish Seyyid, and first appearing in historical documents of the year 1064. Rising to great power, Alfonso of Leon appointed him to the command of his army, but through jealousy banished him in 1081. From that date the Cid became a true knight-errant. Barred from the kingdom of Leon, he was ever ready to sell his services to the highest bidder; and after many wanderings found himself with a goodly following of knights, only too eager in those days, when might was right, to be in the train of so redoubtable a champion, en route to Saragossa. The Moorish ruler of that city being at logger-heads with the Count of Barcelona accepted the Cid's proffered services, and the result was a battle in which the Catalans were badly beaten.

With no prospects of further service in Aragon, the Cid turned his face south and marched on Valencia, whose Moorish King Yahya was only too pleased to request his protection in advance, instead of succumbing to his conquering arm. Thus began Rodrigo's connection with the city, which with one or two intervals ended only at his death.

It was from the top of the Miguelete Tower, which is pictured in my illustration of the Cathedral, that he showed his wife Ximena and their daughters the fair land he had conquered. This was in 1095, when after having rejoined Alfonso and left him again, he had returned and recaptured the city after a siege of twenty months. Four years later died the man whose name was a terror to the Infidel, and his widow Ximena, following the traditions of her warrior husband, held Valencia against overwhelming hordes of Moors. The story of the bitter end, how she placed his body on his favourite war-horse and drove it through the ranks of the enemy, has always been a theme for the balladmonger of Spain.

It was in 140 B.C. that Junius Brutus founded a small Roman colony on the banks of the river Turia. Pompey destroyed this settlement and rebuilt it. In 413 the Goths took possession. The Emir of Cordova captured it in 714 and Valencia remained a vassal state until the fall of the Omayeh dynasty. Like other provinces, it became merged under the single banner that floated over the greater part of the Peninsula at the union of Aragon and Castile. Being a coast town and savouring of the south, it was not until the time of the bigoted Philip III. that the industrious and unfortunate Moriscoe was finally expelled from the shelter of Valencia's walls.

VALENCIA. SAN PABLO
VALENCIA. SAN PABLO

Souchet sacked the place in the Napoleonic wars and received the title of Duke of Albufera from his master. Rather an empty honour, Albufera being the large and malarious tract of marshland along the coast a few miles to the south of El Grao, and worth but very little.

El Grao is Valencia's Port, and is three miles distant from the city. The road which connects the two is about the busiest high road I saw in Spain. From sunrise till long after sunset two streams of vehicles pass to and fro. Strings of laden donkeys, waggonettes crammed with good-humoured laughing fisher and country folk pass along, an electric tram carries those who can afford the extra centimos, and the carriages of Valencia's well-to-do citizens take them to the harbour for a breath of sea air out on the breakwaters. Everything seems alive, and though there is that balmy feeling in the air which one gets in Andalusia, there is none of the indolence and seductive dolce far niente of that enchanting province. No! quite the other way in Valencia. The peasants are extremely industrious. The soil of the Huerta bears them three crops during the year. The system of irrigation, the old Moorish system by-the-way, is perfect, and though the product of a soil which is forced to bear more than it naturally can, is reinforced at sowing time, in the case of corn, by Russian grain, it cannot be said that Valencia depends on any outside help for her prosperity. The swamps bordering the coast grow the finest rice in the world. The wines of the province are good and cheap, held in much esteem by French merchants to fortify the lighter produce of their own country. So cheap are they in fact, that in some parts of the province it costs more to get a drink of water than a glass of wine. Yet drunkenness is unknown. If a Valencian took a drop too much, he would be promptly boycotted by his neighbours, and for ever after looked upon as a disgusting and outlandish boor, a disgrace to his village and a man to be shunned.

The peasant is very illiterate and scrupulously honest—the one follows the other. Like the Andalusian, he is absolutely trustworthy in all his dealings, which are conducted by word of mouth. In buying and selling no signatures to documents pass between the contracting parties. If any paper is ever signed, it is confirmed by certain scratches or marks known to belong to so and so—the signee. His word is his bond, it is generally all he can give, but it is enough and is worth more than signatures sometimes are. Further north, where modern ways of life are more in vogue, and where all is more "advanced," there are ten lawyers to the one in Valencia and the south.

VALENCIA. DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL
VALENCIA. DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL

The Cathedral was originally a Gothic structure, but one fashion following another, has been at different times so altered and robbed of all architectural beauty that there remains but little of interest in the building. It was founded in 1262 and finished two hundred years later. El Miguelete, the celebrated Bell Tower, is so named because the bells were first hung on St. Michael's Day. Like the Torre de Vela of the Alhambra, a bell is here struck which regulates the irrigation of the Huerta.

In this connection, and as an exemplification of the peasant's trustworthiness, once a month, on a Thursday, the Tribunal de Aguas sits in the Plaza de la Seo outside the Puerto de los ApÓstoles or north door of the Cathedral. Its presiding members are chosen by their fellow peasants for their integrity and general standing in the community. They exercise absolute control over the seven different irrigation districts. The Government has once or twice interfered with this, but unsuccessfully. Plaintiffs and defendants appear before this primitive tribunal seated in a public square. The case is stated, pros and cons weighed, and judgment given fairly on its merits. Any one passing can stop and hear the arguments of both sides. As a proof of the shrewdness the peasants possess and the confidence they have in their dealings with one another, no appeal is ever made from the judgment of their elders.

This north door has good sculptured figures in the jambs and archivolt. Above is a fine rose window. These are among the remains of the first building. Another relic of the early structure is the octagonal cimborio erected about the same time as the doorway, i.e., 1350. The lancet windows over the Puerta del PalÁu, which is surmounted by a round arch with carvings in the jambs, are all of the same period. The third doorway, the Puerta del Miguelete, is florid and overdone, and dates from the eighteenth century. Its bronze doors however are extremely fine.

The best features of the much-spoilt interior are the octagon and the very beautiful Corinthian silleria del coro. The original retablo over the High Altar was set on fire by the lighted cotton attached to a pigeon let loose at a religious ceremony in 1469. The side panels alone were saved from the results of the terrified bird's erratic flight. Close by on a pillar is hung the armour of James I. of Aragon.

Over the sacristy door is a good painting by Ribalta of Christ Bearing the Cross, and in the ante-room an Adoration by Ribera, besides five good examples of Juanes' brush.

Among the treasures of the Cathedral is an extraordinary piece of goldsmith's work, a Calix, showing four different periods of this art, i.e., Roman, IX^th, XV^th and XVI^th centuries. It figures in the picture of the Last Supper by Juanes, which is now in the Prado at Madrid. An interesting trophy also belongs to the Cathedral in the shape of the chain which at one time closed the old Port of Marseilles.

The many different varieties of marble used in the decoration of the building form a very pleasing series, and go some way towards compensating the disappointment one experiences with the much-altered style of what ought to be a grand interior.

I saw a good procession one evening wending its way through the crowds which lined the narrow street near the church of Santa Catalina. The balconies were filled with occupants who showered rose leaves down as the effigy of St. John passed by. The light from the torches carried by some boys flickered upwards and caught the faces of those peering over from their vantage posts above. The crowd knelt as the saint passed, and once more the vitality of the Church, which I could not but feel wherever I went in Spain is the thing that lives, was again in evidence.

Over the door of the church of San Martin is a good equestrian group in bronze. San Domingo has some very beautiful cloisters of late Gothic date, and San Salvador possesses Valencia's miraculous image. Nicodemus is reputed to have made this, the Christ of Beyrout. The marvellous relic navigated itself from Syria across the waters of the Mediterranean and reached Valencia against the river's stream. A monument on the bank marks the spot where the wonderful voyage ended by the safe landing of the Christ. It is much visited by the devout. In the chapel attached to the Colegio del Patriarca hangs Ribalta's fine Last Supper. Every Friday morning at ten o'clock the Miserere is celebrated here. The impressive ceremony commences with the slow lowering of this picture from its place above the High Altar. The void is filled by a dark cloth, which, as the service proceeds, is gently drawn aside disclosing a second cloth, this is again repeated, followed by another, and when this, the fourth cloth, is parted asunder a fine painting of Christ Crucified is revealed. Meanwhile chants appropriate to the solemn service have been filling the church and increasing the tension of the congregation. The whole ceremony is a very good piece of stage management and certainly most thrilling and inspiring. The black mantilla for ladies is de rigeur.

VALENCIA. RELIGIOUS PROCESSION
VALENCIA. RELIGIOUS PROCESSION

Valencia's walls, erected in 1356, were demolished in 1871 to give work to the unemployed, and the spacious Paseo made in their stead. The trees planted along this carriage drive have added materially to the health of the city.

Of the two remaining gates, the Torres de Serranos is much the better. Built in the second half of the fourteenth century on Roman foundations, its massive construction and great height are very grand. It is one of the best gates I know. The archway itself is rather low. The double floors above have fine Gothic vaulting and are approached by a flight of steps. The gallery is supported on heavy corbels, and the cornice has deep machicolations. The whole rises in isolated grandeur and may perhaps gain, from the painter's point of view, by the absence of flanking walls.

The Torre de Cuarto is another enormous gateway with two huge round towers on either side. It still bears the marks of Souchet's artillery—whose round shot did apparently no damage whatever. Not far from this gate lies the Mercado situated in the middle of the old quarters of the city. Valencia is quite a modern town, it is rapidly losing everything of any age, and changing its narrow insanitary streets for spacious well-built thoroughfares.

The Mercado is by far the largest and most attractive market in Spain. Fruit and vegetables, wicker goods of all sorts, baskets, chairs, toys, leather-work and harness, brightly coloured mule trappings, every description of wood and metal-work, the usual assortment of old iron, lamps antique and modern, oleographs and chromos, saints and virgins jostling the latest cheap reproduction of a famous Torrero or Bailarina, furniture, worn-out field implements and new cutlery, lace, everything, in fact, including smells, the variety of which I found unequalled anywhere. Strong garlic assaulted my nostrils—in three more steps I was in the midst of roses and carnations, half a dozen more and a horribly rank cheese made the air vibrate; and so it continued from one end to the other of this most fascinating kaleidoscopic throng, to study which I returned every day of my sojourn in Valencia.

On one side of this wonderful market-place stands the Lonja de la Seda. It dates from 1482 and occupies the site of the Moorish AlcÁzar. Perhaps of all the examples of Gothic civil architecture in Europe, the Lonja de la Seda can claim the first place. The west faÇade, facing the Mercado, has a double row of square-topped Gothic windows, above which is a traceried gallery running round the entire building with gargoyles and a frieze of heads below the embattled parapet.

In the centre is a Tower with a couple of Gothic windows. There are two separate buildings in this "Silk Exchange," one of which has a beautiful court. The whole of the other is occupied by the Exchange Hall. The rich star vaulting of the interior is borne by two rows of spiral columns without capitals; they branch out to the roof like the leaves of a palm tree and it is very evident that this beautiful treatment was suggested by the growth of the tree.

Valencia has always been celebrated for a certain style or school of painting, and in the Museum, which occupies the buildings of the old Convento del Carmen, Ribalta, Espinosa and Juanes are seen at their best. The school is noted for the peculiar deep red undertone of the shadows, which is very markedly apparent in the works hanging on these walls. There are also some beautiful examples of native faience and pottery, for Valencia is still the home of Spanish lustre ware.

The Valencians are great bird fanciers, and very keen pigeon shots. Numerous lofts built on the roofs for these birds cut the sky-line in the old quarters of the city. Sunday sees the dry bed of the Turia full of competitors in shooting matches, when toll is taken of the feathered inhabitants of these airy dwellings.

If it were not for the rather bad drinking water and the malarious marshes, the breeding-ground of a most particularly venomous mosquito, Valencia would be as pleasant and lively a spot for residence as any in Spain. The climate is good and it is near the sea. It stands on the edge of a veritable fruit garden, and its people are pleasant and friendly.