BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 645 
rally impromptus, which suited the time ; and a treble row of 
spectators surrounded us, and kept applauding the dancers 
with their exclamations, * Anda guapo! Anda salera!” The 
cheerfulness and delight of these poor people were perfectly 
exhilarating to me. 
Round the town were fine Orange gardens still full of fruit ; 
an important production in the south parts of the kingdom 
of Valencia and in Murcia; for the greater portion of the 
oranges sold in France as Maltese Oranges, come from hence. 
Cotton is also extensively cultivated at Altea. The land is 
fertile and irrigated by streamlets of the clearest water, in 
which lives a pretty shell, Paludina buccinoides, which Fé- 
russac first found in Andalusia, and afterwards abundantly in 
Barbary. 
The obstinately contrary wind made us almost despair of 
ever getting beyond the shores of Valencia, when on the 
evening of the second day of our halt at Altea, we saw our 
people running and calling “Levante! Levante!’ This 
much desired and favourable wind continued to blow, we 
hurried quickly to the shore, leapt into the boat, and pre- 
sently were bounding across the swelling waves. A few 
minutes more and the “ L/aud" had spread all her canvas to 
the breeze. We sat on the deck and wondered at the 
rapidity with which we cut through the water, and admired 
the smoothness of our progress as we hurried before the 
wind and left a luminous track on the billows. Daylight 
showed only a misty confused outline of those mountains we 
had quitted the preceding night, we had already reached the 
shores of Murcia, and were off the Tower of La Estancia, 
and near the low beach where those plants grow abundantly 
from which Barilla and Soda are made. We passed tbe 
Hormigas, little desert islets covered with Spartina, and Cape 
os; but no sooner had we descried the new line of coast, 
Which rises in mountains as far as Cape de Gatte, than the 
unlucky * Poniente" began to blow again. Once more we 
dropped anchor in a picturesque spot, called Porman, a cir- 
cular basin, barely a mile across, surrounded with rocks, and 
