L E T T E R X.
A tour into the kingdom o f Ja en, with fome account o f its lead mines,
more particularly that o f Linares.
f i p H E little fairy kingdom o f jaen, which now makes
X part o f Andalufia, is in a manner furrounded by
a chain of mountains, formed by the Sierra Morena, Segura,
Quefada, and Torres, feparating it from the kingdoms
o f Cordova, Toledo, Murcia and Granada, while
the river Guadalquivir divides it from the kingdom of
Seville. The face o f the country is rugged and hilly,
with no other vallies but fuch as have been formed by
torrents of water, according to the more or lefs refift-
ance o f the foil, or the hardnefs o f the rocks, for the
earth not being divided in ilrata the heights crumble
-away in proportion to their moifture, and the tops of
the hills not being connefted nor contiguous, have de-
compofed at a variety of periods, from whence thofe
lingular gaps and paifes have refulted which now form
the roads in this petty kingdom, once the domain o f a
Mooriih chieftain, and for a long courfe of years the
theatre of chivalry, honour, and love.
In
In the centre of this cragged kingdom, about three
quarters of a league from the village o f Linares, there
is a fmall plain, fituated in the higheft part of the
country, which affords an extenilve profpeft, clofed
by barren hills and fteep rocks, with a view of the city
of Jaen the capital, as well as thofe o f Anduxar, Baeza
and Ubeda. At the end of this plain the hills are
pierced like a fieve, with numberlefs fhafts and excavations
of mines undoubtedly the work of the Moors, for
furely the Romans could never have proceeded in fo
awkward a manner ; thefe Mahometan princes mull
have ftruggled hard to extraft from the bowels o f the
earth thofe revenues which its dreary furface refufed
them, and probably they fupplied the neighbouring
ftates with lilver, copper and lead ; fome of which minerals
are always found here, and occafionally all o f them
together. In ranging the hills it is extraordinary to ob-
ferve the prodigious number o f . lhafts made in direft
lines at four paces diftance from each other ; there are
above live thoufand o f them, and no doubt the violence
o f the Water gufhing through the hills firft laid open the
veins and led to the difcovery o f the mines, but when
the Moors improved upon thefe advantages with which
nature had favoured them, they did it with all the ignorance
and unikilfulnefs to be expefted from their barba-
rifm. I ihall only fpeak of two of thofe veins, one that
begins in the valley on the Weft fide of the plain, and the
other