Note 152 — Chapter XI

Las Batuecas is a valley in the south-west corner of the modern province of Salamanca, four leagues from the city of that name, eight leagues from Ciudad Rodrigo, and about six leagues from Bejar. The principal town or village in the remote valley itself was Alberca. The strange inhabitants of the valley of Batuecas are entirely legendary, as is the story of their discovery by a page of the Duke of Alva in the reign of Philip II. See Verdadera relacion de las Batuecas, by Manuel de Gonzalez (Madrid, 1693), Ponz, Viaje vii. 201; Feijoo, Teatro Critico, iv. 241, where the valley is compared with the equally mythical island of Atlantis.