theatre where the actors, dancers, &c. are more handsomely dressed. The same characters which are dressed in stuff at Paris, are here attired in silk. The orchestra is composed of more than forty musicians, who are tolerably good performers; and independently of these, nearly two hundred people, such as actors, chorusses and dancers, belong to this theatre: the dancing department alone consists of nine ty, including those who make the dresses, and who appear on the stage on particular occasions. Eighty tailors are employed for this spectacle. "The Abbé Vogler generally led the orchestra at the Opera-house. He has great talents, and is a very good musician, but is inore original than it is possible to express; he is, indeed, something in the style of a mountebank, as the following fact will sufficiently prove. We were present at what he called a concert, though he was the only performer on the organ in the German church: in the printed bills issued on the occasion, he announced The Love of a People for a good King, which he pretended to make us understand from the sounds he drew from the organ. The Opera-house was began in 1776, and finished in 1782. The building is square, two hundred and ten Swedish feet long, a hundred and fifty wide, and fifty-seven high. The façade or front is ornamented by Corinthian columns and pilasters; the theatre is in the centre of the building, with apartments on each side: the interior of the Operahouse is an imperfect ellipsis, tittysix feet in length, and forty-eight wide, containing four rows of boxes, twenty-one in each. The outline of the theatre is eighty-two feet deep, and the same number wide. "The sides of the theatre are composed of an apartment for the King; one for the manager, and another for the register. Two withdrawing-rooms, wardrobes, twentyfour dressing-rooms for the performers, a workshop for the painter, another for the carpenter, two coffeehouses, and a tavern. "The whole expense of this theatre amounted to a hundred and eighty thousand bank crowns (about a million of French livres, or forty-one thousand six hundred and sixty-six pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence sterling). The machinery, furniture of the King's apartments, and the decorations of the first opera, are included in that sum. "Another theatre was begun in 1792, to supply the place of the French play-house; the taking down of which opened a fine view to the square before the castle. The new theatre is to be in the old arsenal near St. James's." features, which distinguish the middle and lower classes in Andalusia. The fertile fields and productive gardens which surround Ronda, afford to its people abundant means of subsistence; besides wine, oil, and corn, which they enjoy in common with other parts of the province, they have a profusion of all the fruits and vegetables of our more northern climate: the apples and pears with which the trees are loaded, equal or excel in flavour those of our own country; and the cities of Cadiz and Seville, while they are supplied with oranges, lemons, grapes, and pomegranates, from their more immediate vicinity, are furnished from this quarter with the vegetable luxuries of northern Europe. "The plains in this district abound with cattle, and the hills with game of all kinds; the roebuck and fallow deer are found on the sides of the mountains, and the wild boar is common among the woods. Wolves are very numerous on these mountains, and are sometimes so fierce, as so attack horses or mules, while the riders are on their backs, but they are alarmed at fire-arms; and, as I have before remarked, a peasant never goes from home without carrying a gun. About a league south-east from the city is the bighest of the mountains, which is called Cresta de Gallo (the Cock's Comb), which has a very singular appearance, and is frequently the first land seen by navigators on approaching Cadiz : it consists of two ridges, parallel to each other, and joined at the bot/tom; one is quite red, and though it is rather the highest, the snow never lies on it; the other is white, and its top is always covered with snow, so that when in summer it is scarce in other parts, a never-failing supply may be obtained from it. No trees grow on the white ridge, except oak or cork, and on the red ridge none but pines. The former contains iron ore in great abundance, and the latter almost every mineral except iron. The waters which issue from the white ridge are chalybeate, or vitriolic: and those from the red, sulphureous or alkoline. "A mine of black lead (molyb dena) in these mountains was formerly worked, but within the last twenty years it has been totally neglected. Tin was also found here, but the manufactory for tinning iron plates having been so ill conducted as to make the plates cost more than those brought from England, both the mine and the manufactory have been suffered to decay. The great quantity of iron ore in these mountains, where it is found in small balls, not much larger than shot, the plenty of excellent fuel, and the red earth of the soil, which, by its resistance to fire, makes very good furnaces, have induced several attempts to establish iron founderies, but none of them have hitherto suc ceeded, and the projectors have desisted after considerable losses. One nobleman, the Count de Pilar (father to that gentleman I met on Christmas-day at Chiclana), expended on one of these founderies nearly seventy thousand pounds, and was at last forced to al andon an undertaking by which he was almost re duced to ruin. "The most abundant of all the mineral productions in these mountains is the amianthus, or asbestos, from which the fossil cloth was made by the ancients, which, as it resisted the power of fire, was used to envelope the bodies of distinguished persons, and preserve their ashes entire, Pliny describes it inventu inventu rarum textu difficillimum, and says he has seen napkins of it, which, being taken from table after a feast, were thrown into the fire, and were better scoured by burning, than those made of other substances were by washing. And it is related of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, that he had a complete service of linen made from this substance, and surprised the ladies of his court, who were unacquainted with its peculiar property, by ordering them all to be thrown into the fire by way of cleaning them. The amianthus is so very abundant, that I have been assured there are large rocks entirely composed of it in these mountains; it is, however, a matter more of curiosity than of benefit, and if the art of spinning it be now lost, it is only because it is an art not worth retaining. Several attempts to convert it into cloth were made in Italy, about an hundred years ago, and with such success, that Ciampini, in a pamphlet published in Rome in 1699, describes the process for making both cloth and paper of it. Paper of an incombustible substance is certainly a desideratum; but unless an ink could be discovered equally durable, it would prove of little service. The specimens I have met with in this place are soft and flexible, and the fibres from three to five inches in length. When it is burnt, it does not appear to diminish in bulk, but it loses part of its weight every time that it is set on fire. "Mines of lead (plumbago) were formerly worked about half a league from this city, and also a mine of silver, which is said to have been opened by the Phoenicians: these mines, however, like those of iron, tin, and black lead, are now totally peglected. "Among the various things which have attracted my attention in Spain, none have excited so much admira'tion as the singular situation of this city, the river Guadiaro which encircles it, and the bridges which connect it with its suburbs. It is placed on a rock, with cliffs, either perpendicular and abrupt towards the river, or with broken craggs, whose jutting prominences, having a little soil, have been planted with orange and fig trees. A fissure in this rock, of great depth, surrounds the city on three sides, and at the bottom of the fissure the river rushes along with impetuous rapidity. Two bridges are constructed over the fissure; the first is a single arch, resting on the rocks on the two sides, the height of which from the water is one hundred and twenty feet. The river descends from this to the second bridge, whilst the rocks on each side as rapidly increase in height; so that from this second bridge to the water, there is the astonishing height of two hundred and eighty feet. The highest tower in Spain, the Giralda in Seville, or the Monument near London Bridge, if they were placed on the water, might stand under this stupendous arch, without their tops reaching to it. "The mode of constructing this bridge is no less surprising than the situation in which it is placed, and its extraordinary elevation; it is a single arch of one hundred and ten feet in diameter; it is supported by solid pillars of masonry, built from the bottom of the river, about fifteen feet in thickness, which are fixed into the solid rock on both sides, and on which the ends of the arch rest; other pillars are built to support these principal ones, which are connected with them by other small arches. But as it is difficult to describe such an edifice, I must refer refer to the sketch I have made of it. "A bridge was built on this spot in 1735, but the key-stone not having been properly secured, it fell down in 1741, by which fifty persons were killed. The present bridge was finished in 1774, by Don Joseph. Martin Aldehuela, a celebrated architect of Malaga; and appears so well constructed, as to bid defiance almost to time itself: it seems an erection Quod non imber edax: non aquilo impotens "It is impossible to convey an adequate idea of it: from below it appears suspended in the air; and when upon the bridge, the river beneath appears no longer a mighty torrent, but resembles a rippling brook. When standing on the bridge, the optical delusion is very singular the torrent of water appears to run up a hill towards the bridge, and the same phenomenon takes place when viewed in either direction. ་་ "One of the streets of the city is built almost close to the edge of the precipice, and stairs are hewn out of the solid rock, which lead to nooks in the lower precipices, in which, though there is very little soil, gardens have been formed, where fig and orange trees grow with considerable luxuriance, and greatly contribute to the beauty of the scenery. From the situation of Ronda on the top of a rock, water is scarce, and stairs are constructed down to the river, by which means the inhabitants are supplied. We descended by one flight of three hundred and fifty steps, and at the bottom found a fine spring, in a large cave, which, after turning a mill at its source, contributes to increase the waters of the Guadiaro. From this spot, our view of the lofty bridge was most striking and impressive, and the houses and churches of the city, impending over our heads on both banks, had a most sublime effect. Beyond the bridge, the river takes a turn to the right, and passes under the Alameyda, from which the precipice of five hundred feet is very bold and abrupt, though interspersed with jutting prominences, covered with shrubs. and trees. The Alameyda of this city is by far the most beautiful public walk I have seen in Spain: the paths are paved with marble; the parterres are filled with ever-greens; and over the paths, vines are trained on trelisses, which, in the warmest weather, afford a grateful shade. "Soon after the Guadiaro quits the rocks of Ronda, it receives the tributary streams of the Guadalevi, the Colubras, and the Alcobacen, and passes over the plain with this increase of water, till, at one league distant, it is precipitated over some lofty rocks, making a cascade of striking beauty, and is at length received into a cavern, where it is lost to the sight. The entrance to the cavern, which is called Cueva del Gato, is very lofty; and I was informed by those who had explored it, that, after advancing about a mile, it extends itself into a large lake, ou the banks of which are ruins of an ancient edifice: that beyond the lake, which is of unfathomable depth, the passage made by the water is too small to admit of farther discovery; and that, sometimes, the difficulty of discharging all the water by this aperture causes the lake to rise almost to the roof. The termination of this cave is about four miles from its commencement, where the Guadiaro again becomes visible, and continues its course by Algaucin, till it enters the Mediterranean sea. "One "One of the curiosities of Ronda is a singular repository for water under the Dominican convent: it consists of a large cavern, nearly on a level with the river, which was supplied with water by means of an aqueduct, which formerly passed over the old bridge. When this city was besieged by the Christians, and no access could be had to the river, it is said that the Moors employed. their Christian captives in bringing the water in skins from this reservoir, to supply the wants of the inhabitants: it is descended by means of about three hundred and fifty steps; and on the walls are shewn marks of the cross, which the pious captives are said to have worn with their fingers in passing up and down during their laborious occupation. The cavern is hollowed into spacious saloons, the roofs of which are formed into domes of prodigious height, and formerly the whole was filled with water; but there having been no necessity of late years to have recourse to this method of supplying that necessary article, the caverns are neglected, and are going so fast to decay, that in a few years they will be filled with the rubbish which falls from the roofs." SPANISH PEASANTRY, [From the same.] "HE inhabitants of Ronda have peculiarities common to themselves and the other people in the mountainous districts, and obviously differ from the people on the plains. The dress both of the males and females varies as well in the contour and shape of the garments, as in the materials of which they are composed, aud is peculiarly calculated for cold weather. Their countenances, as I have before noticed, are very expressive, and, iu my judgment, superior to those of any race of peeple I have seen. The men are remarkably well formed, robust, and active, with a flexibility of well-turned limbs, which, doubtless, contributes to that agility for which they are celebrated: but the females in general are of short stature; and the cumbersome dress which they wear so conceals the figure, that it is difficult to determine whether they are well or ill formed; but there is an expression of sensibility in their countenances, and a peculiar grace in all their movements, which is extremely fas cinating. In walking the streets the women wear veils to cover their heads, as a substitute for caps and hats, neither of which are worn. These veils are frequently made of a pink or pale blue flannel, and, with a petticoat of black stuff, form their principal dress. The men wear no hats; but, instead of them, what are called montero caps, made of black velvet or silk, abundantly adorned with tassels and fringe; and a short jacket, with gold or silver buttons, and sometimes ornamented with embroidery, is worn just sufficiently open to display a highly finished waistcoat: they wear leather or velvet breeches, with gaiters; so that the whole of the figure, which is generally extremely good, is distinctly seen. "Having |