o
be had too easily to be estimated at its proper value. At Cadiz it is a
marketable commodity. Even the parrots there squeak "agua." Every drop
of rain that falls is carefully gathered in cisterns, and the
conveyance of water in boatloads from Puerto across the Bay is a regular
trade. An English company had been formed to supply the parched seaport
and the ships that call there with fresh water, and its reservoirs were
situated at La Piedad. In the bowels of the flats below, where the
snipe-shooting ought to be good, our countryman told me the water was to
be sought. Galleries had been sunk in every direction in land which the
company had purchased, and pumps and engines are soon to be erected that
will raise the liquid collected there up to the reservoirs which have
been hewn out of the hills above. These reservoirs, approached by
passages excavated out of the rough sandstone, are stout and solid
specimens of the mason's craft directed by the engineer's skill. Here we
met a second gentleman superintending the labours of the men, but he was
surely a Spaniard; he spoke the language with the readiness of one born
on the soil; still, he had a matter-of-fact, resolute quickness about
him that was hardly Spanish. Doubts as to his nationality were soon
dispelled; the engineer we had surprised in the swamp presented us to
his colleague Forrest, engineer to Messrs. Barnett and Gale, of
Westminster, the contractors, as thoroughbred an Englishman as ever came
out of the busy town of Blackburn.

Mr. Forrest at once stood to cross-examination by the American, who had
all the inquisitiveness of his race.

"We employ a couple of hundred men, on an average, here," he said, "all
of whom, with but two exceptions, are Spaniards, and very fair
hard-working fellows they are; in the town below we have a small colony
of English, and if you don't take it amiss I shall be happy to present
you to our society."

I know little of the technicalities of engineering, but I saw enough of
this work to be certain that it was well and truly done, and I heard
enough of the scarcity of water in Cadiz to be convinced it will be a
great boon when finished. The reservoirs are constructed in colonnades,
supported by ashlar pillars and roofed with rubble; for the water must
be shaded from the sun in this hot climate; the pillars are buttered
over with cement, and there is over a foot of cement concrete on the
flooring, to guard against filtration. As we pa