Every town and village in this thickly peopled region has its historical memories. Villena recalls the famous family to which it gave the title of marquis; Jativa, a desperate struggle during the War of the Spanish Succession, in which much English blood was spilled. This latter town was the birthplace of Ribera, and, as some say, of Alexander Borgia. It is situated in a country which might be described as a veritable Mahomet's paradise. The cottages in the neighbourhood are almost suffocated by the palm and orange trees. Beneath the golden fruit we find our way to the castle, or rather castles—the new and the old—built side by side upon a hill. Part of the fabric dates from the time of the Moors. Later, the stronghold served as a state prison. Within its walls languished and died the unhappy Count of Urgel, a pretender to the throne of Aragon, and here passed a ten years' captivity (1512-22) the Duke of Calabria, the rightful heir to the throne of Naples, to leave his prison on his appointment to the viceroyalty of the fair province he surveyed from its windows!
The custodian of the castle shows the usual underground chambers, which may have been, as he alleges, dungeons, but were quite as likely (as they generally were with us) store-rooms and wine cellars.
At Alcira we cross the Jucár, after the Ebro the most important Spanish river running into the Mediterranean Sea. It rises within a few miles of the source of the Tagus, in the Montes Universales, on the borders of Aragon and New Castile, and flows south through the plains of La Mancha till it enters the province of Albacete, when it takes an easterly course. In the same province of Valencia it has excavated some magnificent gorges. It is indeed a strong, impetuous stream, bursting its banks again and again and levying a heavy tribute on the surrounding country. Each time it makes for itself a new channel, sweeping away whole villages. The village of Alcocer stood on its banks, near its confluence with the Albaida. After countless harvests had been devastated and inestimable damage to some extent repaired, the two streams swelled with fury and in one day reduced a vast extent of country to a flat stretch of mud. Then, by another shifting of its bed, the terrible Jucár laid bare the foundations of the homes it had ruined. There is no security of tenure within its valley! Where your house stands to-day, ships may ride to-morrow. Yet here as everywhere else along the prolific shore, the waters form the great source of wealth, fertilizing vast rice-fields and heavy-laden orchards. The marshy and unhealthy lagoon of the Albufera, from which one of Napoleon's marshals took his title, is being gradually filled up by the débris brought down from the mountains by the rivers, and will ultimately form a "huerta" of untold fertility. Meanwhile every effort is made to encourage the afforesting of the rugged hill-sides, in order to check the violence of the floods and the denuding of the arid, desiccated soil. As a result of these wise measures, the kingdom of Valencia will within a short period become one of the two or three richest agricultural districts in all Europe.
The history of the land is that of its capital. Valencia is first mentioned as having been granted by the consul Junius Brutus to the warriors of Viriathus upon the death of their chief, and their consequent surrender. The history of few Roman colonies, as it has reached us, is of interest. The province had the usual martyrs under the persecutions of Diocletian and Decius, and was the place of banishment of the zealot Ermengild. It remained under the Moorish yoke for over five hundred years, at one time forming part of the khalifate, at other times constituting one or more petty kingdoms.
Don Téodoro Llorente speaks of "The slave kings" of Valencia, and thus describes the rulers of uncertain and various origin who, like the Janissaries of Turkey, had begun as slaves in the palace of the khalifa and won power for themselves with their swords. One of these princes added the Balearic Isles to his realms, and unsuccessfully attempted the conquest of Sardinia.
The kingdom thus founded by military adventurers was overthrown by the most famous of that warlike brood.
The history of the events which brought about the conquest of Valencia by the Cid is extremely complex. The king or amir, Kadir, was the puppet of the rival powers which aspired to the possession of his dominions, and was alternately upheld on his tottering throne by one and the other. Weary of this dishonourable tutelage, the people arose under the leadership of Ibn Jahhaf. Kadir fled disguised as a woman, but was detected and beheaded. That strange anomaly, a Mohammedan republic, was formed. In other words, Valencia was governed by an assembly of notables called the Al Jama, of which Ibn Jahhaf was the president.