Note 196 — SALAMANCA.

Segovia, a celebrated town of Old Castile, where are many remains of Moorish and Roman antiquity. Among the former is the Alcazar, once the palace of the Moorish kings, and afterwards of Ferdinand and Isabella, but which since their days has been used as a state prison. This building stands on a rock, rising some hundred feet above the river, which winds round nearly three-fourths of its base, and is cut off from the town on the remaining portion by a deep ditch and defences. The aqueduct, said to have been built by Trajan, is to be seen at different points between the town and Ildefonso, where the water is obtained; but the most remarkable feature of this structure is the portion in the suburb of the town, consisting of two rows of arches one above the other, nearly two hundred in number, the whole being formed of large blocks of stone, fitted into and supporting each other without cement, having thus withstood the ravages of time for eighteen centuries.

San Ildefonso is a village fifty miles north of Madrid. Here is situated the palace of La Granja, a favourite summer residence of the royal family. The building and gardens, with the numerous jets d’eau, were formed after the model of the palace and gardens of Versailles, by the Bourbon dynasty on their accession to the throne of Spain. The palace is situate at the bottom of the Sierra Nevada, an attached ridge of the Guaderama, in a recess on the north side of the mountain, which rises to a considerable height, covered with trees to its summit, and to the east and west; thus sheltering it at all times from the scorching heats of summer. The front of the building looks to the gardens, which rise before it, till they terminate in the craggy, pine-covered summit, adding much to the picturesque beauty of this delightful residence. The whole presents a scene, certainly, much more calculated to remind the beholder of the verdure and freshness of a more northern clime than of the burning fields and sultry sun of Spain.