ced about the sombre
aisles, echo multiplied every syllable we uttered; the repetition of
sound is as distinct as in the whispering gallery of St. Paul's, and I
could not help remarking, "What a splendid robber's cave this would
make!"

"Too tell-tale," said the practical American; "make a better cave of
harmony."

"The only pipes that are ever likely to blow here are water-pipes,"
smilingly put in the engineer; "we intend to lay them from this to
Cadiz, some twenty-eight miles distant. Roughly speaking, we are about
ninety feet above the level of the place, so that the highest building
there can be supplied with ease."

The Romans were benefactors to many portions of this dry land of Spain;
they built up aqueducts which are still in use, but they neglected
Cadiz. The town has been dependent on these springs of La Piedad for its
water supply, except such as dropped from heaven, for three hundred
years, and attempts to obtain water from wells or borings in the
neighbourhood have invariably failed. The water which is found in this
basin, held by capillary attraction in the permeable strata through
which it soaks till the hard impermeable stratum is met--retained, in
short, in a natural reservoir--is excellent in quality, limpid and
sparkling. Puerto has been supplied from the place for time out of mind,
and Puerto has been so well supplied that it could afford to sell
panting Cadiz its surplus. With English capital and enterprise putting
new life into those old hills, and cajoling the precious beverage out of
their bosom, which unskilled engineers let go to waste, Cadiz should
shortly have reason to bless the foreign company that relieves its
thirst. Clear virgin water, such as will course down the tunnels to
bubble up in the Gaditanian fountains, is the greatest luxury of life
here; "Agua fresca, cool as snow," is the most welcome of cries in the
summer, and temperate Spain is as devoted to the colourless liquid that
the temperance lecturer Gough and his compeers call Adam's ale, as ever
London drayman was to Barclay's Entire. Success, then, to the Cadiz
Waterworks Company: we drank the toast on the hill-side of "Piety" they
were making fruitful of good, drank it in tipple of their and nature's
brewing, but had latent hopes that Forrest or his colleague would help
us to a bumper of the generous grape-juice for which the district is
famed, when we got down to the pleasant companionship of the English
colony below.