the Sugar-Cane in Spain. 261 
invasion ; but in 1814 I found sugar still a considerable article 
of agricultural industry in the eastern parts of Andalusia, espe- 
cially in the neighbourhood of Marbella, a town thirty-five 
miles south of Malaga; and also at Velez-Malaga, a small 
town in a fertile valley, twelve miles to the eastward of that 
city. This cultivation, indeed, extends along the whole coast 
of the eastern projection of Andalusia to Torrox, Motril, and 
Adra, where, until the French invasion of 1808, it was also 
very flourishing. 
The whole sugar district of Andalusia may be considered 
as a narrow tract between a chain of rugged mountains and 
the Mediterranean, above 130 miles in length, with a medium 
breadth of four or five miles. It is not meant to assert that 
all this tract is under sugar, or even capable of furnishing it ; 
but merely that this cultivation may be traced throughout the 
district now mentioned. Its southern part is screened by the 
moderate elevations of the Sierra Bermeja and mountains of 
Malaga ; its north-eastern portion is overhung by the rocky 
crests of the mighty Alpujarras ; a stupendous group termi- 
nating in the perennial snows of the Sierra Nevada, which 
among European mountains yields in altitude to the Alps 
alone. 
Notwithstanding that snowy peaks may be seen in some 
parts of the sugar district, yet it possesses many characters of 
an intertropical climate. The heaths of the north are sup- 
planted by the dwarf palm, Chamerops humilis ; the fields are 
divided by hedges of the aloe, Agave Americana, and of the 
prickly pear, Cactus opuntia; while the tall form of the date 
palm, Phenix dactylifera, another remnant of Moorish times, 
is still occasionally seen to rear its graceful head against the 
deep azure of a cloudless sky. 
My meteorological observations, though necessarily imper- 
fect from frequent change of place, may serve to give some 
idea of the climate. During my rambles in that neighbour- 
hood, in the latter half of May, the average temperature 
At 9 a.m. = 69°.5 F. 
At 9 p.m. = 62°.5 
I found the average range of Delue’s whalebone hygrometer 
during the same period = 36°.5. 
