• waters Numantia must be of the fame country. Befides which, • it is fo very short in its course, and fo little known, that it could * not give a name to fo famous a people.

By the plain to the fouth of SEGOVIA there runs another • short stream, called by the peasants Clamores, which joins the ERESMA at the Weft point of the city, where the ALÇASSAR . ftands.

NOTWITHSTANDING the ftreams which run by the vallies of the city, the ancients defired, that there fhould be no want ' of water to the inhabitants within the walls, nevertheless that the ⚫ earth was not commodious for fountains, on account of its height ⚫ and dryness: With this view, they undertook the giant-like work, to convey a river within the city, conquering by art the impediments which nature had opposed to it, by reafon of the height * and depth of the ground: although the architect plainly fhewed, that he was master of a greater height, if it had been neceffary, fince he made the water pafs above the walls and roofs of • the houses.

6

• THE source of this aqueduct is a little river, called RIO FRIO, which rises at the skirts of the pass in the mountains, and is that ⚫ which comes to the city, taking from its stock as much water, as would fill a duct that would contain a human body: It is received in an arch of stone at the distance of 500 paces from the city and from thence it begins to run in the channel of the aqueduct, which does not require more elevation than 5 bars, that is, 17 feet. By little and little the height increases, as it comes to deeper ground, but without requiring more than one 6. range of arches, until the water has paffed over 65 arches, where the arches have a height of 39 feet, close to the convent of SAN FRANCISO. There they begin to wind from the east to the west, requiring two ranges of arches, one arch being put upon the other. That being the lowest part of the valley which is the little fquare, "now called AZOGUEJO.

IN that part the aqueduct is 102 feet high, the channel entering by the battlements of the walls, with an extreme elevation

• from.

from the ground to the top of the arch. The aqueduct goes through the middle of the city, from the eaft to the weft, with an arched duct fo large, that a man might walk in it: And from thence it goes dividing itself into the public fountains, and the 'cifterns of convents and private houses.

THIS fabric confifts of 16, arches. The materials are hewn ftones of a bluish granate, placed one upon the other, without any coherence of bitumen, lime, or mortar, which equals the joints, because the flones unite one with another, fastening themfelves in their fquare form; fo that the whole number of the • ftones of which this aqueduct confifts, might be counted, according to the art and correfpondence with which they are placed. Look at them, fays COLMENARES, and they feem to be cemented by lead, and that the key-flones of the arches were barred by iron, as they tell us of the temple of SERAPIS in ALEXANDRIA. The pillars are eight feet in front, and eleven broad. It being moft aftonishing, that this fabric fhould laft to the end of fo many ages, fuch as we fee it, without giving way to the weight of the water upon it, or to the rains, the floods, the wars: for it not only appears, that nations have revered it, but even time, • which does not use to respect other wonders of the world.

UPON the top of the three pillars of the greatest height there ' is a bafe common to the three uppermoft. And in that of the 'middlemoft there are on each fide two niches, where were the ' ftatues of HERCULES, as COLMENARES fays he found in manufcripts, which in his time were above 200 years old, that is be'fore the middle of the XVth century, in which then existed these monuments. At prefent they are the images of our Lady of SAN SEBASTIAN, because that part belongs to the district of the pa• rish of that faint, and they were placed there March 21, 1520, by the care of a citizen, an affayer of the mint, as COLMENARES tells us, in his hiftory of that year.

BESIDES this teftimony, which is the most authentic of the antiquity of the city, there is mention made of it in LUCIUS FLORUS, where he is relating the war of SERTORIUS, lib.•3• ch. 22. where •he fays, that the Herculean lieutenants of Sertorius were defeated

near Segovia, without adding any more interesting particulars. • His apud Segoviam oppreffis, &c. This was about the year 675 of the foundation of ROME, in which POMPEY came against SERTORIUS, following Gravius's chronology upon Florus, which ⚫ answers in our way of reckoning to the 79th year before Christ, taking the vulgar æra for an epoch.

PLINY, in telling us who the feveral people were, who form'ed the affembly of CLUNIA, fays, that one were the people of SEGOVIA among the Arevaci. HARDUIN, in the notes to c. iii. lib. 3. of that author, will not have it to be the SEGOVIA fituated between VALLADOLID and MADRID (of which we are now speaking) but another small town, placed by PTOLEMY in the fame fite with NUMANTIA: Non ea eft, quæ inter Vallifoletum & • Madritum nobis Segovia dicitur : fed altera ejufdem nominis urbecula, quæ fub eâdem fere cæli parte atque ipfa Numantia, eodemque fitu a • Ptolomeo collocatur. But if one denies this, it would be very • difficult for any one to prove it: for we may just as well fay, that PLINY means the city of which we are speaking, and not ⚫ that defigned by HARDOUIN, for he owns that to be an urbecula. And it is more natural, that PLINY fhould mention that which ⚫ was the most great and famous (in cafe there were two of the • fame name among the Arevaci) and not the least illustrious, totally omitting the greatest.

I SAID in cafe there were two in the Arevaci; because neither PLINY, PTOLEMY, or ANTONINE mention more than one in that territory: And as there were no more than one, we ought not to fay, that PLINY and PTOLEMY mentioned the least illuftrious, and omitted the most famous mentioned by ANTONINE. It is clear that PTOLEMY places SEGUBIA in a fite that • does not square with SEGOVIA, about 42 degrees of latitude, and 13 of longitude. But it is as certain, that if you take his fite in reference to the direct distance, which there is between that ⚫ and NUMANTIA, it will be one of the many errors of his tables; ⚫ because they place SEGUBIA and NUMANTIA in 131 degrees of ◄ longitude.'

THE ALCAÇAR, or Royal Palace, is the next object here of note; it is plain by the AL in the first fyllable of this word, that it is an Arabic appellation; for it is the Arabic article, which they call Solar: And the tradition of the town fays, it was a place of refidence for fome of the Moorish princes. I know not what truth there may be in it, but I cannot help attempting an etymology, especially when the occafion feems fo fair. Thus Cæfar, Karae, Moorish CAYZAR, ALCAÇAR. The front of this building is about fifty feet long; there are two conic, or fugar loaf-turrets, at each wing; and the façade is adorned with feveral diminutive turrets in the fame tafte and ftyle: Above the skilling or span-roof of this first front there rifes another skilling roof adorned with turrets in the fame ftyle: And between the wings, in the middle rises a lofty fquare, brick tower, furrounded with small circular turrets ending in a confole. Along the front of the first building runs a neat, fmall open gallery, juft under the cornifh. The whole of the fabric appears clearly to be in the old Moorish ftyle; the governor told me the middle tower was Roman, but I fhould doubt it much; it seems to be of the fame age and building with the rest of the fabric; the windows of the fame form and tafte; and there is a trace of small beads, that girts it, just as in the front and the wings : It is certainly all Moorish, and is indeed extremely pretty, and light, and pleases me more than almost any building I ever faw. The whole, except the middle tower, is covered with a blue flate, or fhingles, I cannot fay which. You go to it from a fort of court, or place, over a small bridge; for there is a deep foss, that surrounds one part of it, and the other fides are defended by steep precipices, as it ftands upon a rock. Having paffed the bridge you enter a cloyster, where there is a court within, and a fountain. From the cloyfter you enter a large room prettily cieled, a fort of fervant's hall. After that you come into a state-room, with a rich gilt cieling, carving of ftucco upon the walls, and Dutch tiling round the room at the bottom. This brings you to a fecond apartment of much the fame taste, but a much richer cieling; then you enter a magnificent room called the Sala de los Reyes, or, The hall of their Kings; and with reason, for it really is full of Kings. The wooden or waxen images of nineteen Kings of CASTILE, fix of LEON, two

of

of ASTURIAS, and fixteen of OVIEDO, are all placed over your head, about the middle of the wall, round the room, with their Queens, and four counts, or dukes placed under them. Among them is the famous CID, or Don ROD. DIAZ de BIVAR, of whom fuch wonders have been recorded: CID, in Arabic, is commander, or general; he lived about 1055, in the reign of FERDINAND Of LEON. This room is indeed an odd fight, and if one was to be there late at night, with a fingle taper, it would afford matter for a warm imagination to be very bufy. From thence you pass into a fmall chapel, where there is a fingle painting over the altar with this infcription, BARTOLOME CARDUCCIO Florent. faciebat, 1600. Beyond this is a fmall room with odd pieces of sculpture of dogs and hares, and other animals, and pretty carving in Frefco, or Stucco. Round this room, as well as the reft, runs an inscription in very old Gothic characters; but I am fure of no moment; for in the next room, where the letters were likewife Gothic, but not quite fo old fafhioned, I could read them with no great difficulty: And they proved to be nothing elfe, but prayers, and pious fentences: Thus, LAUDAM TE ÎN SECOLA SECOLORUM. MAYERDE MEMENTO ME. ORA PRO NOBIS. UDAL AP RHYS has given a very falfe account of this place: He fays there are fixteen rooms hung with fine tapestry, and that there are many pictures, with other circumstances, which have not one word of truth in them.-PHILIP II. in 1590, caused those dates and accounts, which are affixed to the feet of each prince in the Sala de los Reyes, to be put up; it is the best chronology they have of them.

HAVING now given fome account of this fingular fabric; indulge me in a word or two about the age of it. The governor faid the rooms we faw were five hundred years old; this is nothing; it would only throw the date of this building as far back as the 13th century, or about 1260. I have feen a grant of ALPHONSO in the year 1160, which mentions this ALCAÇAR. Is it not very strange, that the writer of the Hiftory of SEGOVIA fhould take no particular notice of this remarkable ftructure: He only fays, that when in 755 the MOORS attacked SEGOVIA, and took it, the SEGOVIANS put the ALCAÇAR, the house