
Further on to the weftward about two leagues from
Malaga, there is a cavern where the water forms enormous
pieces of calcareous fpar (a), which takes a beautiful
polifh, and much o f it has .been ufed in the royal palace
of Madrid; fome pieces are of a white ground, with
veins o f different colours, but in general the ground is
grey, with a pleafing dare obfcur happily ramified with
white, at other times a dark grey interfperfed with veins
of a brilliant white. This cave lies immediately under a
coniiderable bed of lime rock, in a plain about a hundred
paces from the fea, and half that diftance from a chain
o f limy hills, the decompoiition of which produces the
fpar above mentioned.
(a) Mr. Bowles’s editor, page rs i, very improperly calls tliis fparby (he name of Alabajlri
calizo, “ limy alabailer;” as there is no fuch thing in nature : it muft either be a marble, or
an alabafter, and cannot partake of the properties of :both,butfr.om the .made a f its formatioa
it appears to be a {par.
L E T T E R XII.
Defcribing the country between Malaga and Cape de Gat.
THE firit remarkable place to the eaftward o f Malaga
is the town o f Velez Malaga, near which the
captive in Don Quixote is fuppofed to have landed from
Barbary, with the beautiful Zorayda. A few leagues
further is the little port o f Herradura, where a fleet of
gallies was loft in 1562 under the command o f general
Don John de Mendoza who had failed from Malaga with
twenty-four gallies, having 3500 foldiers on board, and
finding the wind contrary, put into the Herradura,
where he came to an anchor, but it blew fo hard that
twenty-three of the gallies were driven afhore and loft,
and all the crews drowned (a). This port is not laid
down on Lopez’s map o f Spain, but may be feen on the
French chart of the Mediterranean, dedicated to the
duke of Choifeuil in 1764, byjofeph Roux at Marfeilles,
hydrographer to the king, and is an exacft copy from
(a) Vida de Felipe lid. por Luis de Cabrera. Madrid, 1619. Alfo Guerra de Granada
por Hurtado de Mendoza. Valencia, 1776. This event is hinted al in Don Quixote, where
Sincho fpeaks o f Don Alonfo Maranon, Knt. of St. Jago, who loft his life there. Vol. 3,
page 412. Madrid, 1771-