At Fregenal a telephone has been established, which will shortly connect the whole district. In well-farmed lands your feet may brush the growing corn for many a mile, and, after all that you have heard of the pest of locusts, you pause in astonishment that not a single one whirs up! Suddenly, the corn is exchanged for waste land, and lo! soon as your foot brushes the wiry bent, the air, for about 2 to 3 ft. from the ground, is black with whirring, leaping, bustling locusts.

In April and early May they are in the jumping stage, and have barely left the original spot of earth where they were hatched; they are then small, brown, wingless, and barely measure a quarter of an inch. This is the time for reaping the locust, and so saving the cereal crops, and annually the Spanish Government tells off so many regiments of infantry to destroy the locusts. The scene is a busy one. Imagine 30 or 40 labourers digging out shallow trenches transversely across many a field, while 400 or 500 red-breeched Spanish infantrymen, with boughs, brooms, cloths, besoms, &c., are marching on in a steady line, to all appearance flogging mother earth most cruelly.

Slaughtering on all sides these springing insect hordes as they go, the soldiers leave them lying, a brown coating semi-dead, upon the earth, and labourers or soldiers follow, sweeping the animals into the trenches. When it is said that these animals are destroyed in such numbers as to be paid for and estimated by arrobas, i.e., weights of 25 lbs. avoirdupois, the extent of the plague will be estimated!

There are three ways of destroying the locust. (1) By sweeping them up at early dawn, when they are semi-torpid, and then burning the heap. (2) By sweeping them alive into trenches, and covering them in. (3) In the way above described, viz., flogging them to death with boughs. During the great locust plagues in 1876 to 1877, from 8000 to 12,000 soldiers were employed in Spain each spring, in April and May, in destroying the locust; each man receives 18. 8d. per diem, and a dram in the morning. The locust passes its existence in three stages; the egg, the cañuto, and the winged stage. In June they fly. The exact amount of locusts in the springing stage, gathered in the neighbourhood of Linares alone between the 2nd and 5th of May, 1877, amounted to 3374 arrobas!! It is duly entered in the local papers as follows:-" Mala cosecha.-Del 3 al 4 del corriente se recogieron en Linares tres mil trescientas setenta y cuatro arrobas de langosta." A "garden of Eden lies before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness." These insects destroy more even than they consume; sparing no herb except the red tomato. The Spaniards on their part will not eat the locust in retaliation, which the Moors do, especially the female with eggs, either pickled or boiled in salt water. This is an old Arab delicacy, and was accounted among the Jews (Levit. xi. 22) as a "clean meat," a sort of whitebait. The taste is something like bad shrimps. The pigs of Estremadura eat them.

Birds of prey of all kinds abound; and in the summer flights of turtle-doves come over from Barbary to breed, and coo about in pairs, images of connubial felicity. They are the doves of the West, who brought ambrosia to Jupiter (Ov. M. 63), and who retired to Africa to visit the temple of Venus. No man who has any poetry in his soul will make a pie of these pretty pigeons. Among other birds of rich colour may be cited the blue pie (Pica cuanea), Mohiño; the bee-eater (Meriops apiaster), Abejaruco; and the hoopoe (Upupa), Abubilla.

The entomology of Estremadura is equally endless and uninvestigated; the heavens and earth teem with the minute creation, the balmy air resounds with the buzzing hum of multitudinous insects, which career about on their business of love or food without settlements or kitchens; happy in the fine weather, the joy of their tiny souls and short-lived pleasant existence.

MADRID TO BADAJOZ, BY CIUDAD REAL, Cielo. Casa de Huéspedes, Casa de

by G. de Merlo, in 1616, and its good | are thus engaged during the winter, coro, deserve notice. The Puerta de the heat and want of ventilation renToledo is a curious semi-Moresque dering the mercurial exhalations dangateway.

In the carboniferous valley of Puer-town: hence the cracks in the parish tollano coal has been found 2 metres deep. The valleys of Belmez and Puertollano lie in the same direction.

attend.* Walk to the Glorieta, at the | 4 m. Don Benito Stat. Pop. 15,003. junction of three roads, and also to the Retamar.

13 m. Belalcazar Stat. Pop. 6314. This ancient fortified place is situated some distance to the S. of the rly. It stands in the midst of a well-watered plain. Its former magnificent palatial fortress, Bello Alcazar, built in 1445, by Gutierre Sotomayor, was one of the grandest in Spain. It has since been used as a quarry by the Moors. The Pozo del pilar is a fine work.

The Zujar is now crossed by an iron bridge.

9 m. Cabeza del Buey Stat. Pop. 7322.

8 m. El Castillo de Almorchon Stat. (Buffet.) Obs. the old Moorish ruin near the town. A little distance to the rt. is the Hermitage of Nuestra Señora de Belen, formerly belonging to the Templars.

[Railway to Belmez-change carriages-1 train daily, 8 hrs. Almorchon to Belmez, 39 m. See 'Indicador.'

11 m. Zujar Stat.

13 m. Valsequillo Stat. Pop. 1172. 10 m. Peñarroya Stat.

This charmingly situated town supplies Madrid with water-melons, and other fruit. [Logrosan with its phosphate of lime deposits (12 m.), and the convent of Guadalupe, may be visited from this point. See Rte. 80.]

The Ortega is crossed by an iron bridge.

3 m. Mengabril (Pop. 362) and Medellin Stat. Pop. 1199. This was one of the most flourishing towns in Estremadura before Victor sacked it, March 29th, 1809. Now it is wretched and decayed. The view from its ruined castle is most extensive: below flows the Guadiana, which is crossed by a bridge built in 1636. The remains of a Roman one are visible.

At Medellin Hernando Cortes was born, 1485.

Outside the town are traces of two Roman roads, the one leading W. in the direction of Merida, the other S.W. in the direction of Guareña.

Leaving Medellin, Pop. 1199, the rly. runs parallel to the Guadiana, crossing the Guadalmez on an iron bridge.

4 m. Belmez Stat. Pop. 6794.] 14 m. Castuera Stat. Pop. 6802. 12 m. Guareña Stat. Pop. 5459. This is the chief town of la Serena, 3 m. Villagonzalo Stat. Pop. 1542. one of the old districts which formed The Guadiana is now crossed by a fine part of the ancient province of Estre-bridge supported by 11 piers. madura. This district was formerly encircled with 7 fortified strongholds, placed at equidistances one from the other, in the form of a semicircle about 52 m. in extent. These strongholds were called Los siete Castillos de la Serena.

Apeadero Stat.
Campanario Stat.

17 m. Magacela Stat. Pop. 1340. This is one of the 7 strongholds mentioned above. The ruins of the fort crown the hill around which the town is built.

Apeadero de la Zarza Stat. 3m. Don Alvaro Stat. This little village (Pop. 887) nestles in the midst of its olives and vines at the bottom of a valley, through which the Guadiana winds in horseshoe shape.

8 m. Merida Stat. (Buffet). Inns: Casas de Huéspedes: Joaquin Pallero, near the Plaza de Sta. Maria; Diego Segura, Santa Olaya, 22. Pop. 6191.

Merida Emerita Augusta was founded B.C. 23, by the Legate Publius Carisius. The city became the capital of Lusitania. 36 different coins were struck here (Cean Ber. 'S.' 393; Florez,

5 m. Villanueva de la Serena Stat. Pop. 10,627. The neighbouring huerta produces excellent fruit and a dryMed.' i. 384). The common reverse port-like wine.

*For all details consult 'Minas de Almade,'

is a "turreted gate," with the words Augusta Emerita" as an inscription,

66

Casiano Prado; the Apuntes, by J. E. de which constitute the city arms.

6

Bayo; and ditto by Lucas de Alduna.

This

unique city is the Rome of Spain, in

some points rivalling the eternal city | the castle, built by the Romans, and itself; stupendous monuments of an- added to by the Moors; afterwards it tiquity meet the eye at every step. Its became the Bishop's palace, then it was splendour, as existing down to the 4th occupied by the Knights Templars— cent., is described by Prudentius (Perio whence its present name el Conventual. iii. 3, 186), in his hymn on the death At the suppression of the Templars it the patroness Eulalia-not to be con- was granted to the order of Santiago, founded with her namesake the tutelar whose Provisor resided here. There of Barcelona; the Eulalia of Merida now only remains a court of granite was born here in 292, and was one of pillars, a square tank, a descent to the earliest female martyrs of Spain. some ancient baths, and the vestiges Although put to death when quite a of a former temple, the rest of the child, she is said to have performed colossal pile having been gutted by miracles in after years worthy of a the French. grown-up saint, for San Isidoro (Chron. Era 491) relates that Theodoricus the Goth was deterred from plundering her city, from his fears that she might treat him as Ceres did the troop of Alexander at Miletus.

Merida rises on the rt. bank of the Guadiana, which is crossed by a Roman bridge of 81 arches, 2675 feet long, 26 feet broad, and 33 feet above the level of the bed of the river; of which unfortunately some arches have been destroyed during the inundations of Jan. 1877; it is indeed a bridge and worthy of its builder-Trajan, a true Pontifex Maximus. From its long and flat proportions, it presents somewhat the appearance of a causeway. It was repaired by Sala, a Gothic Duke of Toledo, in 686, at the request of Bishop Zenon. Again, in 1610, Philip III. caused it to be strengthened and partly rebuilt (see his inscription in the portico). It is constructed of granite with bossage work, almohadillado, or "pillowed." Some of its arches were destroyed, April, 1812, during the siege of Badajoz, in order to impede Marmont's advance. Here in 1808 a gallant band of 800 French kept at bay the entire Spanish forces commanded by Cuesta, for a month, although the river was fordable.

On an island in the river-bed up stream, is a Roman dyke called el tajamar: it is built of massive masonry, and was erected to protect the arches against inundations. The Roman and Moorish Alcazar towers proudly with its palm-tree over the bank, as seen from this point.

Recrossing the bridge, to the rt. is

A gateway near the river has a marble tablet with an Arabic inscription.

The Arch of Santiago, built in the town by Trajan, is now a mere shell, having been stripped of its marble casing by the invaders. It was of vast size, being 44 feet in height.

Near the arch is the half-Roman, half-Moorish palace formerly belonging to the Duque de la Roca, a diplomate of the reign of Philip IV., and the author of a poor poem, 'La Conquista de Sevilla." The house is quite a Museum, and contains remains of architecture of every kind, Romanesque, Moorish, and Gothic. entrance doorway is Gothic. the granite blocks in the tower, and the Roman portions now degraded into a stable.

The

Obs.

The house belonging to the Conde de los Corvos was constructed out of a temple dedicated to Diana: it was peripteral, with fluted granite pillars and Corinthian capitals. There is a beautiful plateresque balcony in this house. The best view is from the garden.

The Forum, the area and some shafts of which only remain, was near the convent of Descalzos; below ran the Via Lata, the broad way to Salamanca.

There are the remains of two Roman aqueducts: one is near the station called El Milagro, of the other 10 arches and 37 piers remain, some 90 feet high; they are arched in 3 tiers, and built of brick and granite.

Close by is another Roman bridge, which crosses the rivulet Albar-regas