During his stay in port, the principal had seen Don Francisco, and told him all he knew in regard to the fugitive. The lawyer was satisfied that Mr. Lowington had done nothing to keep the young Don out of the way of his guardian; and neither of them could suggest any means to recover possession of him. As yet no letter from Don Manuel in New York had been received.
Favored by a good wind, the squadron arrived at Valencia in thirty hours. After a night’s sleep, all hands were landed at the port of the city, which the reader knows is Grao. The professor of geography and history, while the party were waiting for the vehicles that were to convey them to the city, gave the students a description of Valencia. It is an ancient city, founded by the Phœnicians, inhabited by the Romans for five centuries, captured by the Moors and held by them about the same time, though the Cid took the town, and held it for five years. At his death, in 1099, the Moors came down upon the city; and the body of the Cid was placed on his horse, and marched out of the city. The Moslems opened for it; and the Castilians passed through their army in safety, the enemy not daring to attack them. It was not such a victory for the Spaniards as some of the chronicles describe; for the Christians had to abandon the place. It was taken from the Moors in 1238, and became a part of Aragon, to be united with the other provinces of Spain by the union of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Moriscoes—the Moors who had been allowed to remain in Spain after the capture of Granada—made a great city of it, building its palaces and bridges; but they were driven out of the peninsula by Philip II. They had cultivated its vicinity, and made a paradise of the province; and their departure was almost a death-blow to the prosperity of the city.
Though the modern kings of Spain have not spared its memorials of the past, it is still an interesting city. It has a population of nearly one hundred and fifty thousand, making it the fourth city of Spain. It is one of the most industrious cities of the peninsula; and its manufactures of silk and velvet are quite extensive. The city contains nothing very different from other Spanish towns. The students wandered over the most of it, looking into a few of the churches, nearly every one of which has a wonder-working image of the Virgin, or of St. Vincent, who is the patron saint of Valencia.
The next day the squadron sailed, and put into Alicante after a twenty-four hours’ run; the wind being so light that the steamer had to tow her consorts nearly the whole distance. The students went on shore; but the old legend, “Nothing to see,” was passed around among them. Alicante is an old Spanish town, composed of white houses, standing at the foot of a high hill crowned with an old fortress. The lines, walls, covered ways, and batteries, seem to cover one side of the elevation. Those who cared to do it climbed to the top of the hill, and were rewarded with a fine view of the sea and the country.
“When the Cid had captured Valencia,” said Dr. Winstock to his pupils, as they stood on the summit of the hill, “he conducted Ximine, his wife, to the top of a tower, and showed her the country he had conquered. It was called the Huerta, which means a large orchard. The land had been irrigated by the industrious and enterprising Moors, and bore fruit in luxurious abundance. The vega, or plain, which we see, is scarcely less fertile; and the region around us is perhaps the most productive in Spain. Twelve miles south is Elche, which is filled with palm-plantations. We see an occasional palm and fig tree here.”
Mr. Lowington did not favor excursions into the country when it could be avoided; but the doctor insisted that the students ought to visit Elche, and the point was yielded. They made the excursion in four separate parties; for comfortable carriages could not be obtained to take them all at once. The road was dry and dusty at first, and the soil poor; but the aspect of the country soon changed. Palms began to appear along the way, and soon the landscape seemed to be covered with them.
“There is something to see here, at any rate,” said Sheridan, as the party approached the town.
“I thought you would enjoy it,” replied the doctor. “This is the East transplanted in Spain.”
“These palms are fifty feet high,” added Murray, measuring them with his eye.