The vicissitudes of history explain the existence of numerous towns in the Castiles which can boast of having been the capital of the country at one time or other. Numantia, the most ancient of all those cities, exists no longer, and the learned are not yet agreed whether the ruins discovered near the decayed town of Soria are the remains of the walls demolished by Scipio Æmilianus. But there are several cities of great antiquity which possess some importance even at the present day. Leon is one of these. It was the head-quarters of a Roman legion (septima gemina), and its name, in reality a corruption of legio, is supposed to be symbolized by the lions placed in its coat of arms. Leon was one of the first places of importance taken from the Moors. Its old walls are in ruins now, and the beautiful cathedral has been transformed into a clumsy cube. Astorga, the “magnificent city” of Asturica Augusta, has fallen even lower than Leon, whilst Palencia (the ancient Pallantia) still enjoys a certain measure of prosperity, owing {388} to its favourable geographical position at the Pisuerga, which has caused it to be selected as one of the great railway centres of the peninsula.

Burgos, the former capital of Old Castile, points proudly to its graceful cathedral and other ancient buildings, but its streets are nearly deserted, and the crowds which congregate occasionally in the churches, hotels, or at the railway station are composed, for the most part, of beggars. In the cathedral are preserved numerous relics, and the Cid, whose legendary birthplace, Bivar, is near, lies buried in it.

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Fig. 143.—SALAMANCA AND ITS DESPOBLADOS.

Scale 1 : 200,000.

Valladolid, the Belad Walid of the Moors, at one time the capital of all Spain, enjoys a more favourable geographical position than Burgos. It lies on the Lower Pisuerga, where that river enters the broad plain of the Duero, at an elevation of less than 600 feet above the sea. There are numerous factories, conducted by Catalans, and the city boasts, like Burgos, of many curious buildings and historical reminiscences. The houses in which Columbus died and Cervantes was born are still shown, as is the beautiful monastery of San Pablo, in which resided Torquemada, the monk, who condemned 8,000 heretics to die at the stake. The castle of Simancas, where the precious archives of Spain are kept, is near this city.

Descending the Duero, we pass Toro, and then reach Zamora, the “goodly walls” of which proved such an obstacle to the Moors. Zamora, though on the direct line between Oporto and continental Europe, is an out-of-the-way place at {389} present, and the same may be said of the famous city of Salamanca, on the Tormes, to the south of it.

Fig. 144.—THE ALCÁZAR OF SEGOVIA.